Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
At age 12, in 1960, Dully received a transorbital or ice pick lobotomy from Dr. Walter Freeman, who invented the procedure, making Dully an unfortunate statistic in medical history—the youngest of the more than 10,000 patients who Freeman lobotomized to cure their supposed mental illness. In this brutally honest memoir, Dully, writing with Fleming (The Ivory Coast), describes how he set out 40 years later to find out why he was lobotomized, since he did not exhibit any signs of mental instability at the time, and why, postoperation, he was bounced between various institutions and then slowly fell into a life of drug and alcohol abuse. His journey—first described in a National Public Radio feature in 2005—finds Dully discovering how deeply he was the victim of an unstable stepmother who systematically abused him and who then convinced his distant father that a lobotomy was the answer to Dully's acting out against her psychic torture. He also investigates the strange career of Freeman—who wasn't a licensed psychiatrist—including early acclaim by the New York Times and cross-country trips hawking the operation from his Lobotomobile. But what is truly stunning is Dully's description of how he gained strength and a sense of self-worth by understanding how both Freeman and his stepmother were victims of their own family tragedies, and how he managed to somehow forgive them for the wreckage they caused in his life. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"The lobotomy, although terrible, was not the greatest injury done to him. His greatest misfortune, as his own testimony makes clear, was being raised by parents who could not give him love. The lobotomy, he writes, made him feel like a Frankenstein monster. But that's not quite right. By the age of 12 he already felt that way. It's this that makes My Lobotomy one of the saddest stories you'll ever read."
—William Grimes, The New York Times

"Dully's tale is a heartbreakingly sad story of a life seriously, tragically interrupted. All Howard Dully wanted was to be normal. His entire life has been a search for normality. He did what he had to do to survive. This book is his legacy, and it is a powerful one."
—San Francisco Chronicle

"In My Lobotomy Howard Dully tells more of the story that so many found gripping in a National Public Radio broadcast: how his stepmother joined with a doctor willing to slice into his brain with “ice picks” when he was all of 12 years old."
—New York Daily News

"[Dully's] memoir is vital and almost too disturbing to bear-a piece of recent history that reads like science fiction… Dully, the only patient to ever request his file, speaks eloquently. It’s a voice to crash a server, and to break your heart.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer

"The value of the book is in the indomitable spirit Dully displays throughout his grueling saga…By coming to grips with his past and shining a light into the dark corners of his medical records, Dully shows that regardless of what happened to his brain, his heart and soul are ferociously strong.”
—Chicago-Sun Times

"Plain-spoken, heart wrenching memoir ..."
—San Jose Mercury News

"Gut-wrenching memoir by a man who was lobotomized at the age of 12.

Assisted by journalist/novelist Fleming (After Havana, 2003, etc.), Dully recounts a family
tragedy whose Sophoclean proportions he could only sketch in his powerful 2005 broadcast on NPR’s
All Things Considered.

“In 1960,” he writes, “I was given a transorbital, or ‘ice pick’ lobotomy. My stepmother arranged it. My father agreed to it. Dr. Walter Freeman, the father of the American lobotomy, told me he was going to do some ‘tests.’ It took ten minutes and cost two hundred dollars.” Fellow doctors called Freeman’s technique barbaric: an ice pick—like instrument was inserted about three inches into each eye socket and twirled to sever connections from the frontal lobe to the rest of the brain. The procedure was intended to help curb a variety of psychoses by muting emotional responses, but sometimes it irreversibly reduced patients to a childlike state or (in 15% of the operations Freeman performed) killed them outright. Dully’s ten-minute “test” did neither, but in some ways it had a far crueler result, since it didn’t end the unruly behavior that had set his stepmother against him to begin with.

“I spent the next forty years in and out of insane asylums, jails, and halfway houses,” he tells us. “I was homeless, alcoholic, and drug-addicted. I was lost.” From all accounts, there was no excuse for the lobotomy. Dully had never been “crazy,” and his (not very) bad behavior sounds like the typical acting-up of a child in desperate need of affection. His stepmother responded with unrelenting abuse and neglect, his father allowed her to demonize his son and never admitted his complicity in the lobotomy; Freeman capitalized on their monumental dysfunction. It’s a tale of epic horror, and while Dully’s courage in telling it inspires awe, readers are left to speculate about what drove supposedly responsible adults to such unconscionable acts.

A profoundly disturbing survivor’s tale."
—Kirkus

See all Editorial Reviews

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Product Details Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Crown (September 4, 2007) Language: English ISBN-10: 0307381269 ISBN-13: 978-0307381262 Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies) Average Customer Review: 7 Reviews 5 star: (6) 4 star: (1) 3 star: (0) 2 star: (0) 1 star: (0) See all 7 customer reviews... (7 customer reviews) Amazon.com Sales Rank: #15,877 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books) Popular in this category: (What's this?) #23 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Specific Groups > Special Needs (Publishers and authors: Improve Your Sales) In-Print Editions: Kindle Edition (Kindle Book) | All Editions Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? (We'll ask you to sign in so we can get back to you)

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My Lobotomy book tells tale of medical survivor

By EDWARD GUTHMAN
Advocate news services

Oct 02 2007

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Until he was 5, Howard Dully was a happy child. That was the year his mother, June, died of cancer. June was “loving and indulgent,” Dully writes, so devoted that his father once said, “I could’ve dropped dead and it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference. She had you.”

After his mother’s death, neighbours started sewing and cooking, doing laundry for the Dullys. One of them, Lucille “Lou” Cox, became his stepmother two years later. Rigid and punitive, Lou hated Howard. When he was 12, she arranged for the boy to have a transorbital lobotomy.

The surgeon, Dr. Walter Freeman, did the procedure at Doctors General Hospital in San Jose, Calif. After sedating Howard with four jolts of electroshock, Freeman inserted two skewer-like steel knives into his skull, entering through the inside of the right and left eye sockets.

“(He) swirled them around,” Dully writes, “until he felt he had scrambled things up enough.” The lobotomy took 10 minutes to perform. The charge was $200.

This is the story that Dully, a 58-year-old San Jose bus driver, tells in his memoir, My Lobotomy. It’s a gruesome but compulsively readable tale, ultimately redemptive. Unlike most lobotomy patients — some became vegetables, 15 per cent died — Dully was relatively unscathed.

“The biggest impact it made on me was my self-esteem,” Dully says during a conversation in Jimmy’s, a San Jose coffee shop with early-’60s decor.

“You know, they changed me. They rearranged me. ‘Am I me any more? Am I really crazy and don’t know it?’ These things all go through your mind.”

Dully is hardly the picture of victimhood.

Six-foot-seven, 330 pounds, he’s a bear of a man with enormous hands, a voice like a cello and the visage of a grizzled biker. Until last year, he wore his mustache super-long and droopy, like Yosemite Sam, and then decided “I was hiding behind it.”

He’s on a leave of absence from San Jose Charter Bus while he promotes his book.

My Lobotomy began as a radio documentary on NPR’s All Things Considered in November 2005.

Producers Dave Isay and Piya Kochhar intended a profile on Freeman but when they found Dully, who had recently started researching lobotomy on the Internet, they fell in love with his story. They decided to focus on him instead, and urged him to narrate the piece in his gentle, resonant baritone.

The NPR piece captures a conversation with Dully and his father, Rodney, a former schoolteacher who was later divorced from Lou. “I was manipulated, pure and simple,” his dad says in regard to the lobotomy.

But when Howard breaks down and professes his love to his dad, his father answers, “Whatever made you think I didn’t know that? You shaped up pretty good!” He doesn’t say “I love you” back.

“Ever since my lobotomy I’ve felt like a freak,” Dully says at the end of the broadcast. (But) I know my lobotomy didn’t touch my soul. For the first time, I feel no shame. I am, at last, at peace.”

The response to the broadcast was huge. So many e-mails flooded in that NPR’s Internet server collapsed. Today, Dully says, there’s interest from Hollywood producers to make a TV movie or feature film from his book. “I’d love it, provided it’s done with truth. I don’t want any fictional account making someone out worse than they were or better than they were.”

There’s also a playwright in New York who, inspired by the NPR documentary, has written a play about Dully called The Memory of Damage.

Dully, who looks like a Buddha as he sits in his favorite coffee shop, seems to regard the celebrity as a cosmic joke. For someone who spent his life plagued by self-doubts, who says he’s still intimidated by his father, it’s difficult to accept this attention.

“I tease my wife and other people, and say I have a swollen ego,” he chuckles. “But I don’t have any news people camping outside my door. I don’t live in any mansion.

“My idea for writing the book was first to get a little closure — which I find a little selfish, but that’s OK. The other reason was to help people to think about how we treat each other daily. Not just loved ones but everybody.

“Something you start here or say here may affect somebody’s whole day, maybe their whole life. Ten minutes of what Freeman did to me has affected me for 47 years.”

Edward Guthmann writes for the San Francisco Chronicle.

MY LOBOTOMY A MemoirBy Howard Dully and Charles Fleming Crown. 272 pp. $24.95

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Howard Dully's early life was a catalogue of horrors. His mother died when he was 5, and his father married Lou, a woman with sons of her own. What followed is reminiscent of those gruesome newspaper articles in which one child is singled out to endure all of a family's abuse. Dully didn't die of the neglect he suffered or the beatings he received, but he lost all sense of himself as a worthwhile being. When he was 12, with little protest from his father, Lou arranged to have him lobotomized by the notorious Dr. Walter Freeman, who pierced the back of his eye sockets with an instrument like an ice pick, and then twisted it into his brain.

Mercifully, Dully wasn't entirely incapacitated, but he drifted through adolescence, spent time in institutions and on the streets, and was for decades unable to find a permanent job. When he finally found a loving wife and work as a bus driver, he began researching his own story. He gained access to Freeman's notes, talked to his brothers and attempted to question his father (Lou had died by then). In 2005, he was the subject of a National Public Radio program on lobotomy.

Dully's prose is clear, and his story compelling. You can't help admiring his ability to achieve a measure of peace and understanding, and even more the generosity of spirit that allowed him to forgive not only the father who betrayed him but also the unspeakable Lou. ¿

Juliet Wittman teaches writing at the University of Colorado and is the theater critic for Westword, a Denver weekly.

From Barnes & Noble

In 1960, Howard Dully became a part of medical history. At the tender age of 12, he was lobotomized, making him the youngest of Dr. Walter Freeman's 10,000 patients on the receiving end of the transorbital operation. Freeman's procedure was not only barbaric (he inserted an ice pick three inches into each eye socket), it was perilous: Fifteen percent of his patients died. Forty years after Freeman effectively derailed his life, Dully set out to discover how he became a guinea pig for one of American medicine's worst crimes. An astonishing memoir of self-recovery.

From the Publisher

At twelve, Howard Dully was guilty of the same crimes as other boys his age: he was moody and messy, rambunctious with his brothers, contrary just to prove a point, and perpetually at odds with his parents. Yet somehow, this normal boy became one of the youngest people on whom Dr. Walter Freeman performed his barbaric transorbital—or ice pick—lobotomy.

Abandoned by his family within a year of the surgery, Howard spent his teen years in mental institutions, his twenties in jail, and his thirties in a bottle. It wasn’t until he was in his forties that Howard began to pull his life together. But even as he began to live the “normal” life he had been denied, Howard struggled with one question: Why?

“October 8, 1960. I gather that Mrs. Dully is perpetually talking, admonishing, correcting, and getting worked up into a spasm, whereas her husband is impatient, explosive, rather brutal, won’t let the boy speak for himself, and calls him numbskull, dimwit, and other uncomplimentary names.”

There were only three people who would know the truth: Freeman, the man who performed the procedure; Lou, his cold and demanding stepmother who brought Howard to the doctor’s attention; and his father, Rodney. Of the three, only Rodney, the man who hadn’t intervened on his son’s behalf, was still living. Time was running out. Stable and happy for the first time in decades, Howard began to search for answers.

“December 3, 1960. Mr. and Mrs. Dully have apparently decided to have Howard operated on. I suggested [they] not tell Howard anything about it.”

Through his research, Howard metother lobotomy patients and their families, talked with one of Freeman’s sons about his father’s controversial life’s work, and confronted Rodney about his complicity. And, in the archive where the doctor’s files are stored, he finally came face to face with the truth.

Revealing what happened to a child no one—not his father, not the medical community, not the state—was willing to protect, My Lobotomy exposes a shameful chapter in the history of the treatment of mental illness. Yet, ultimately, this is a powerful and moving chronicle of the life of one man. Without reticence, Howard Dully shares the story of a painfully dysfunctional childhood, a misspent youth, his struggle to claim the life that was taken from him, and his redemption.

The New York Times - William Grimes

Mr. Dully eventually finds a woman who loves him, a love he returns to her, her son and the son they have together. Therein lies the answer to the biggest question of Mr. Dully's life. The lobotomy, although terrible, was not the greatest injury done to him. His greatest misfortune, as his own testimony makes clear, was being raised by parents who could not give him love. The lobotomy, he writes, made him feel like a Frankenstein monster. But that's not quite right. By the age of 12 he already felt that way. It's this that makes My Lobotomy one of the saddest stories you'll ever read.

Publishers Weekly

At age 12, in 1960, Dully received a transorbital or "ice pick" lobotomy from Dr. Walter Freeman, who invented the procedure, making Dully an unfortunate statistic in medical history-the youngest of the more than 10,000 patients who Freeman lobotomized to cure their supposed mental illness. In this brutally honest memoir, Dully, writing with Fleming (The Ivory Coast), describes how he set out 40 years later to find out why he was lobotomized, since he did not exhibit any signs of mental instability at the time, and why, postoperation, he was bounced between various institutions and then slowly fell into a life of drug and alcohol abuse. His journey-first described in a National Public Radio feature in 2005-finds Dully discovering how deeply he was the victim of an unstable stepmother who systematically abused him and who then convinced his distant father that a lobotomy was the answer to Dully's acting out against her psychic torture. He also investigates the strange career of Freeman-who wasn't a licensed psychiatrist-including early acclaim by the New York Timesand cross-country trips hawking the operation from his "Lobotomobile." But what is truly stunning is Dully's description of how he gained strength and a sense of self-worth by understanding how both Freeman and his stepmother were victims of their own family tragedies, and how he managed to somehow forgive them for the wreckage they caused in his life. (Sept.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Kirkus Reviews

Gut-wrenching memoir by a man who was lobotomized at the age of 12. Assisted by journalist/novelist Fleming (After Havana, 2003, etc.), Dully recounts a family tragedy whose Sophoclean proportions he could only sketch in his powerful 2005 broadcast on NPR's All Things Considered. "In 1960," he writes, "I was given a transorbital, or ‘ice pick' lobotomy. My stepmother arranged it. My father agreed to it. Dr. Walter Freeman, the father of the American lobotomy, told me he was going to do some ‘tests.' It took ten minutes and cost two hundred dollars." Fellow doctors called Freeman's technique barbaric: an ice pick-like instrument was inserted about three inches into each eye socket and twirled to sever connections from the frontal lobe to the rest of the brain. The procedure was intended to help curb a variety of psychoses by muting emotional responses, but sometimes it irreversibly reduced patients to a childlike state or (in 15% of the operations Freeman performed) killed them outright. Dully's ten-minute "test" did neither, but in some ways it had a far crueler result, since it didn't end the unruly behavior that had set his stepmother against him to begin with. "I spent the next forty years in and out of insane asylums, jails, and halfway houses," he tells us. "I was homeless, alcoholic, and drug-addicted. I was lost." From all accounts, there was no excuse for the lobotomy. Dully had never been "crazy," and his (not very) bad behavior sounds like the typical acting-up of a child in desperate need of affection. His stepmother responded with unrelenting abuse and neglect, his father allowed her to demonize his son and never admitted his complicity in the lobotomy; Freeman capitalized ontheir monumental dysfunction. It's a tale of epic horror, and while Dully's courage in telling it inspires awe, readers are left to speculate about what drove supposedly responsible adults to such unconscionable acts. A profoundly disturbing survivor's tale. Agent: Gary Morris/David Black Literary Agency

ROBIN WILLIAMS FOR PRESIDENT

---

The Plan!


Robin Williams, wearing a shirt that says "I love New York " in Arabic.

You gotta love Robin Williams!
Even if he's nuts! Leave it to Robin
Williams to come up with the perfect
plan. What we need now is for our
UN Ambassador to stand up and
repeat this message.

Robin Williams' plan...(Hard to
argue with this logic!)

"I see a lot of people yelling for peace
but I have not heard of a plan for
peace. So, here's one plan."

1) "The US will apologize to the world for our "interference" in their affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic, Hussein, and the rest of those "good ole boys", we will never "interfere" again.

2) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with Germany , South Korea , the Middle East, and the Philippines . They don't want us there. We would station troops at our borders. No one allowed sneaking through holes in the fence.

!

3) All illegal aliens have 30 days to get their affairs together and leave. We'll give them a free trip home. After 30 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of whom or where they are. They're illegal!!! France will welcome them.

4) All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days unless given a special permit!!!! No one from a terrorist nation will be allowed in. If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here. Asylum would never be available
to anyone. We don't need any more

cab drivers or 7-11 cashiers.

5) No foreign "students" over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes, they get a "D" and it's back home baby.

6) The US will make a strong effort
to become self-sufficient energy wise. This will include developing nonpolluting sources of energy but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for a while

7) Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their oil. If they don't like it, we go someplace else. They can go somewhere else to sell their productio! n. ;(About a week of the wells filling up the storage sites would be enough.)

8) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe

in the world, we will not "interfere." They can

pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides most of what we give them is stolen or given to the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything.

9) Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island someplace. We don't need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, the building would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.

10) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us "Ugly Americans" any longer. The Language we speak is ENGLISH...learn it...or LEAVE...Now, isn't that a winner of a plan?

"The Statue of Liberty is no longer
saying "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses." She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling, 'you want a piece of me?' "

Tell Me About YourSelf Quiz!*
Have You?
Kissed a member of the same sex?	No
Ranaway?	nope
Skipped school?	yeh
Told someone you loved them?	yeh
Cried when someone died?	yeh
Wanted someone you knew you couldnt have?	always
Broken a bone?	no
Done something embarrassing?	always
Done a drug?	a few
Cried in school?	no
Seen a scary movie?	yeppers
Which Is Better?
Coke or Pepsi?	Pepsi
Sprite or 7-Up	Sprite
Girls or Boys?	Girls
Flowers or Candy?	Candy
Blondes or Brunettes?	Blondes
Rock or Rap?	Rock
Short or Tall?	Tall
Pants or Shorts?	Pants
Night or Day?	Night
Body or Face?	Body
Smart or Funny?	Smart
Sweet or Attractive?
Randoms!*
Romantic memory?	none that I can share
Goal for the year?	get my book out
Favorite song?	hundreds of them
In Your Room?	electronics up thr wahzoo
Color?	blue
Movie?	anything by stephen king
Artists?	Otis Redding, Clarence Carter etc
Ice cream?	peppermint
Season?	Summer
Breakfast food?	Bacon, Eggs, Toast, and coffee
Who?
Makes you laugh the most?	John Cleese
Makes you smile?	Barbara
Can make you feel better know matter what?	Linda
Who has it easier girls or guys?	guys of course
Have You Ever?
Sang in the shower?	all the time
Saved an AIM conversation?	many
Saved an E-mail?	duh
Had a triple kiss?	yep
Gone skyp-diving?	nope
Got in serious trouble?	yep
Went scuba diving?	yep
Cuddled with someone?	always
Go .. for more then 8 hours at a time?	nix
Fallen for your best friend?	yep
Kissed two people in the same day?	see triple kiss silly
Had sex with two different people in the same day?	Male
Been rejected?	of course
Been in love?	probably
Been kissed?	whats with the kissing?
Done something you regret?	many times
Last Person?
You touched?
You talked to?	Barbara
You hugged?	Barbara
You IMed?
You yelled at?	Barbara
Who broke your heart?	Cathie
Who told you they loved you?	Barbara
Do You?
Color your hair?	nope
Have tattoos?	yep
Have piercings?	nope
Have a boyfriend/girlfriend?	and a wife :)
Own a thong?	my thong thing
Want to get married?	never again
Want to have kids?	no more
Complete!*
Name?	Howard Dully
Age?	58
Gender?	Male
Hair?	brn/gry
Eyes?	blue
Sport?	football
Book?	My Lobotomy
Music?	Oldies
CREATE YOUR OWN! - or - GET PAID TO TAKE SURVEYS!

Artist: Carman
Song: The Courtroom

If tonight you stood in heaven's court;
to seek eternal favour...
Would you face Jesus Christ as Judge;
or face Him as your Saviour?
There are many who don't quite know for sure;
what that verdict would be...Ever...

So lets imagine for a moment
you are standing dead center...
In the Courtroom of Forever...

(instrumental)

Sitting before you is a structure;
massive and intense.
It's here where your fate will be determined;
before this Judge's bench...
Then a voice booms:
"This Court's now in session."
And your adrenaline starts to rush.
Peering down with eyes;
that see through your soul..
Is God the Father, your Judge.

Then off to your left;
across the room...
Is the virtual sillouette of sin.
Stepping out of the shadows of condemnation;
your worst nightmare walks in.
On his face is the smirk of evil incarnate;
his mind fixed on your destruction in Hell.
You've just been introduced to you prosecuting attorney;
none other than Satan himself.

The Bible says he's the accuser of the brethren;
so guess what he's gonna do.
He's gonna accuse you of your sins;
and he knows them all...Both the old ones and the new.
He's prepared his case for years;
now the golden moment is his.
So in arrogance he presents his case to the Judge;
and it comes out sounding something like this...

"God, you see this worthless piece of trash over here!
This one is a sinner to the core! This one's commited adultery,
cursed his neighbors, stolen money, been into drugs, alchohol
and even more! This hopeless wretch has even slammed his friends!
And by the guilty face, this courtroom can tell. That through immoral
incertainty beyond any reasonable doubt, this one deserves eternal
judgement in Hell!"

The words of accusation still echoed;
your every sin thrown up in your face...
Then God opens the book;
with every deed that you courted...
And reviews your records of disgrace.
God says "The book says you did this, this, and this and everything
you were accused of today. Now before I sentence you to Hell forever;
are there any last words you have to say?"

...Now if it's true you were standing there;
in the Courtroom of Eternity.
With God to your front, and Satan-the prosecuter-to your left.
There's one remaining eternal truth;
one that's crucial to remember...
One you should never, ever, ever forget...

Then, on the other side of the Courtroom...
(doom music)
I said, on the other side of the Courtroom...
(doom music)
You ain't hearing me tonight;
I said, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COURTROOM!
(doom music)

...Is the one and only Son of God;
revealed in time and space.
And he's your defense attorney;
who has never lost a case!
It's not Buddha, Muhammad, or Christana(wrong);
or any others who succumb to death!
Ladies and gentlemen;
on the other side of The Courtroom,
is Jesus Christ of Nazereth!

Then Jesus jumps up, says:
"Now what a minute God! I got something to say! May I remind you
that on a cross 2000 years ago, I washed his sins away! I was
crucified, I died, they put me in a tomb--but long about the midnight
hour--the power of God hit me and I walked out of that grave, alive
and well with ressurection power!"

Then the devil says:
"It's in the book! It's written in the book! Check the book!"

God said:
"Okay."
Then He takes the book out, lays it open and says:
"Now we'll see what this book has to say."

He turns to the first page...
The second page...
The third...
By the fourth, the devil seemed shook...

God closes it, says:
"The blood of Jesus must of worked...Because there's absolutely
nothing in this book."

The devil says:
"Now what a minute, check that book again! All his sins are written
down, they're all right there!

God says:
"Devil, maybe you're mistaken all together. Maybe it's this other book
down here..."

Devil cries:
"NO!! Not that book! Not that one!"

God said:
"Devil, why you so uptight?"

God sets the book down...
The dust flies...
And on the cover it says: The Lamb's Book of Life!

(singing)

Is your name in that book?
Is your name in that book?
Is your name in that book for sure?

If you've been forgiven...
And your name is written...
Then raise your hands-praise the Lord.

Yes, my name's in that book...
My name is in that book...
My name is in that book tonight...

I've been forgiven...
And I know my name is written...
In the Lamb's Book of Life...

(three blows of the mallet)

This court is ajourned...

My Lobotomy (Hardcover)
by Howard Dully (Author), Charles Fleming (Author)

---

List Price: $24.95 Price: $16.47 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details You Save: $8.48 (34%) Pre-Order Price Guarantee! Order now and if the Amazon.com price decreases between your order time and release date, you'll receive the lowest price. See Details

Availability: This title will be released on September 4, 2007. Pre-order now! Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

http://www.randomhouse.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=75652

guess who's a author.....

My Lobotomy is now available for preorders from Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/My-Lobotomy-Howard-Dully/dp/0307381269/sr=1-14/qid=1169585979/ref=sr_1_14/103-1482606-0534239?ie=UTF8&s=books

I would love to see comments on some of the articles posted here or is everyone apathetic? I am sure something I have said has had to have rubbed someone the wrong way or at least have partial agreement. It makes you wonder if anyone reads blogs or just looks for pictures.


Legalize Prostitution

In many communities throughout the U.S., the police focus attention on arresting persons involved in prostitution. A careful examination of this practice shows that it reduces the quality of life in society.

By forcing prostitution out of places where it would more naturally be found, such as in brothels or near motels, the police drive that activity into the streets of neighborhoods where it otherwise would not exist. As a result, residents of the neighborhoods are exposed to the activity against their will.

Also because of prostitution being forced into the streets, the dangers to many prostitutes greatly increase. Prostitutes whose jobs involve working at night and getting into cars with complete strangers can be, and often have been, easy pickings for serial killers and other sociopaths. James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University, says prostitutes are the most frequent targets for serial killers.

A sensible solution to these problems would be to follow the example of some European cities, where prostitution is allowed in certain designated areas. People who are interested in the activity go to places where it's permitted, and they leave alone the neighborhoods that don't wish to be associated with it. And the prostitutes can work in environments where they are much safer.

Another problem with prostitution arrests is that they cause long-term increases in crime and drug abuse in society. Margo St. James, a former social worker and a leading advocate of legalizing prostitution, writes: "When a woman is charged for a sex crime, it's a stigma that lasts her lifetime, and it makes her unemployable."

St. James identifies this stigma as a major reason why a large percentage of women who are in jail were first arrested for prostitution. The arrest record forecloses normal employment possibilities, keeps the women working as prostitutes longer than they otherwise would, and sets them up for a lifetime of involvement with drugs and serious crime.

Keeping prostitution illegal also contributes to crime because many criminals view prostitutes and their customers as attractive targets for robbery, fraud, rape, or other criminal acts. The criminals realize that such people are unlikely to report the crimes to police, because the victims would have to admit they were involved in the illegal activity of prostitution when the attacks took place.

If prostitution were legal, these victims would be less reluctant to report to police any criminal acts that occurred while they were involved in it. This would significantly improve the probability of catching the criminals and preventing them from victimizing others. In many cases, it could deter them from committing the crimes in the first place.

That view is consistent with the experience of the European countries where prostitution is legal. They have far lower crime rates than the U.S. And a similar situation applies in the Nevada counties where prostitution is legal. According to Barb Brents and Kate Hausbeck, two professors of sociology at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas who have extensively studied the Nevada brothel industry, those counties are quite peaceable and have very low crime rates.

No wonder that in November 2004 in Churchill County, Nevada, a ballot proposal to outlaw prostitution was rejected by a 2-to-1 margin. Although the county is mostly Republican and supported George W. Bush for president, the same voters saw no reason to stop brothels from operating there.

Additionally, laws against prostitution violate Americans' fundamental rights of individual liberty and personal privacy. Thomas Jefferson and other founders of the U.S. envisioned a society where people can live without interference from government, provided they don't harm others.

As Jefferson said in his First Inaugural Address: "A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement." Or as Arthur Hoppe wrote about consensual acts in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1992: "The function of government is to protect me from others. It's up to me, thank you, to protect me from me."

Similar to issues such as birth control, this issue involves people's fundamental rights to control their own bodies and decide the best way to conduct their lives. Alan Soble noted, "The freedom to choose one's reasons for engaging in sex is an important part of sexual freedom."

In a free society, it makes no sense for the government to be telling persons - particularly the poor - they cannot charge a fee for harmless services they otherwise are at liberty to give away. To paraphrase George Carlin: Selling is legal, and sex is legal, so why isn't selling sex legal?

In fact, many people work in the sex industry because they see it as their only means of alleviating serious financial problems. Other sex workers aren't poor but simply enjoy that type of work and receive both income and personal satisfaction from it.

As one sex worker wrote in an article for a national newspaper: "All in all prostitution has been good to me and I have been good to it. . . . I don't really have to work anymore, but I love the business, so I still see my regular clients."

Likewise for the customers, there's no reason their freedom should not include the right to purchase the companionship and affection they may want but, for whatever reason, don't find in other aspects of their lives.

For example, one disabled man told researchers he was lonely and visited prostitutes because "I'm ugly, no women will go out with me. . . . It's because of my disability. So prostitutes are a sexual outlet for me." Another man reported that he did the same for a number of years due to being "anorexic and very reclusive. There was no chance of forming a relationship." A physically unattractive man added, "I pay for sex because that is the only way I can get sex."

Another person said his experiences with prostitutes and other sex workers helped him overcome an extreme aversion to physical intimacy, which had resulted from years of physical and emotional abuse while growing up. He explained: "I very likely would have died a virgin if I hadn't somehow gotten comfortable with physical intimacy, and sex workers enabled me to do that. At least for me, it's been a healing experience."

Dr. John Money, a leading sexologist and a professor at Johns Hopkins University, similarly notes that sex workers, with proper training, can assist clients in overcoming "erotic phobia" and various other sexual dysfunctions. He says that for the clients, "the relationship with a paid professional may be the equivalent of therapy."

Can anyone, other than the ignorant or cruel, argue that sex workers should not be permitted to help such persons?

Further, numerous legal commentators point out that using law enforcement resources against prostitution reduces substantially the resources available to fight serious crimes committed against persons or property. This nation desperately needs more efforts applied to solving those crimes, because arrests are being made in connection with only about 20% of them.

And according to the Multinational Monitor, massive amounts of white-collar crime are not being prosecuted. The magazine also says the damage inflicted on society by corporate crime and violence far exceeds the harm caused by all the street crime combined. The victims of the Enron and WorldCom scandals - many of whom lost their life savings - would probably support that claim.

As Ralph Nader stated in 2000: "Law enforcement, which is supposed to protect the incomes of consumers from corporate crime, fraud and abuse is a farce, devoid of resources and the will to apply necessary law and order. Hundreds of billions of dollars are being looted from consumers yearly."

Some researchers say a reason for the inordinate amount of police attention to prostitution is that certain officers prefer duties enabling them to be with attractive women in hotel rooms or massage parlors. The duties are more pleasant, far less dangerous, and less complex than assignments requiring them to be among violent criminals who may be carrying weapons.

For instance, in 1999 at least one of the vice-squad officers in Columbus, Ohio, was regularly having sexual intercourse with prostitutes before arresting them. After receiving negative publicity about that practice, the police division issued new guidelines limiting officers to getting completely naked with prostitutes; touching their thigh, genitals, buttock, pubic region, breast, or other regions to the extent needed "to obtain the necessary elements of the offense"; being masturbated briefly; and "momentarily" having sexual intercourse if it's "in spite of all reasonable efforts of the officer to stop." (In practice, though, the officers apparently find it necessary to use those tactics only in arresting female - not male - prostitutes.)

Despite the revised guidelines, in 2003 the Columbus Dispatch quoted one court clerk as describing the officers' arrest reports as sometimes being so steamy she "should have a cigarette after reading it." The head of the vice squad acknowledged to the newspaper that "it appears officers are engaging in sexual contact."

His officers give new meaning to being "in hot pursuit." Unfortunately for the public, this nonsense goes on at the same time that Columbus has over 400 unsolved murders since 1990, including several prostitutes brutally murdered by a possible serial killer. When a frightened group of senior citizens and disabled persons asked in 2004 for more protection from violent crime, the Columbus police chief turned them down, saying, "Seventy-eight times a day we are unable to fill a cruiser because of lack of personnel."

As for white-collar crime, the police undoubtedly know that their jobs and careers are safer by making prostitution arrests than by investigating criminals who cause serious harm but either wield political power or have strong connections to those who do. And when the corruption involves others in the police force, the notorious "Blue Wall of Silence" leads all too many officers to ignore and protect the wrongdoing of badge-wearing criminals, too.

Our society would be better served if the police directed their efforts away from the activities of consenting adults and toward preventing and solving real crimes involving clear victims and injustices.