Organ Moaner

I just read this article in the New York Post and I thought I would share it because it was just so outrageous and sickening. Yesterday, while flipping the channels, I had head a bit about it, but I thought the anchorman had to be joking but he wasn't. It's like a bad episode of Law & Order. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if ended up on one of the Law & Order shows.

"She stole his heart, but it's his kidney that he wants back.

A Long Island surgeon who dumped his wife after she allegedly had a steamy affair wants her to give back the kidney he lovingly gave her, or fork over the $1.5 million he claims the organ is worth.

"I saved her life and then, to be betrayed like this, is unfathomable. It's incomprehensible," said Dr. Richard Batista, 49.

"I feel humbled and betrayed and disregarded. This divorce is killing me."

Batista, a vascular surgeon at Nassau University Medical Center, claimed his wife left him after getting physical with her physical therapist.

He said the couple married on Aug. 31, 1990, in "a very nice, lavish wedding," but two years later, the relationship began a "slow downward trend."

Since he filed for divorce in 2005, he said, she has made it increasingly difficult for him see their three children.

"The main reason the doctor is doing this is because of how he's been treated in this case," said Dominic Barbara, Batista's lawyer.

They are asking for the $1.5 million as part of the distribution of assets based on a medical expert's estimated value of the kidney.

"In theory, we are asking for the return of the kidney," Barbara said. "Of course, he wouldn't really ask for that, but the value of it."

Dawnell Batista, a physician's assistant at Winthrop Hospital in Garden City, had her first kidney transplant as a baby, with her father as the donor, and a second one years later, from her brother. Her body rejected both kidneys.

Her husband then donated one of his healthy organs to her in June 2001.

"There's no greater feeling on the planet" than to save a life, said the surgeon, who lives in Ronkonkoma.

But Dawnell's new lease on life left her with a wandering eye, he claimed.

Within two years of the lifesaving transplant, he said, she suffered a knee injury during a karate class - then hopped into bed with her physical therapist.

Even worse, she flaunted her romance - once leaving her lover's clothes in the family laundry, he claimed.

The physical therapist, David Cazalet, vehemently denied the accusation.

"We're friends - we've never had an affair," he insisted, calling Batista a "big monster."

"I feel bad for her because he's a wackadoo," he said.

Dawnell Batista's lawyer refused to comment.

"She's a wonderful person," said her mother, Cynthia Carroll.

A brother, who asked that his name not be used, said, "You expect the worst from a bad person."

Movie Review Salo

Last night I went to the Philoctetes Center to see a movie by the late Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini called Salo. I had been warned that this movie was hard to take, and that I might not be able to sit through the whole thing. But you know it is, sometimes you have to see something for yourself. I did however make sure that I didn't eat dinner before the movie! This is how the movie is described by the distributor, Criterion Collection:

"Pier Paolo Pasolini's notorious final film, Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom, has been called nauseating, shocking, depraved, pornographic . . . it's also a masterpiece. The controversial poet, novelist, and filmmaker's transposition of the Marquis de Sade's 18th-century opus of torture and degradation to 1944 Fascist Italy remains one of the most passionately debated films of all time, a thought-provoking inquiry into the political, social, and sexual dynamics that define the world we live in." -Criterion Collection.

Well, I think that pretty much sums up this movie. I don't think I have seen a more disturbing film, in depicting how human beings can gleefully torture and degrade others for their own sadistic pleasure or amusement. It wasn't so much the nudity or the sex scenes, it was the look in the predators eyes as they survey the teenage boys and girls that have been rounded up by three middle-aged procuresses and taken to a bucolic villa in the countryside. For the most part, it is the four governors in this small town, who are of course male, that perpetrate the horrific scenes of violence and sexual perversity, while the middle-aged women for the most part remain passive. The close-ups on the faces of certain of the girls and boys, and the tear stains on their faces says more than graphic violence could ever say. And there is certainly plenty of that. There was one whole section of the movie that I couldn't even watch because I was afraid that I was just going to embarrass myself by retching in the aisles.

The movie ends with no hope that these adolescents are going to be saved. No Allied troops march in, and round up the men, setting them free. The last scene in the movie is of two young soldiers dancing to music in a room, while those girls and boys who have committed offenses are tortured and killed.

Sounds like a fun evening huh? After the movie was over, I was devastated. I couldn't stop shaking. It was at this moment that I really missed my friends, and I regret that I didn't invite them to join me. At least we could have been appalled together! What I needed at that moment after the film was over, was a big hug, some human contact to show me that not all humans are as venal as the ones in the film. I've never felt so alone in my life as I did after seeing this movie. Instead, what I got, was some elderly man on seeing how upset I was, announcing that "it was only a movie!"

Oh my effing God, are you effing kidding me? Duh, I know that it's a movie. But isn't the point of art to provoke a response in the viewer? To move them, enrage them, make them think? Seriously, are all heterosexual men missing a sensitivity chip? Instead of the milk of human kindness, I ended up dumped at the bus stop, like a small child who's parents had forgotten to pick him up at school. Just left there to deal with the emotional bruising that I just suffered. I thought about stopping off to have a drink, but that the last thing I wanted was to drink by myself. Sitting at the bar, crying silently, while my tears turn my reisling salty.

I went home, which was a good thing, because I barely made it through the front door before the bile that I had been attempting to keep down, made its way back up again. I tried to erase images of the film from my mind by watching The Real Housewives of Atlanta, thinking that conspicuous consumption, fake boobs, and even faker friendships would cheer me up. But instead I just lay in my bed after it was over for hours, thinking about how grateful I am that tonight I am going to see my posse and spend time with them. And how happy I am that I live in 21st century New York.

Even if men can be detached, and insensitive jackasses.

Thieves in the Daylight

So yesterday I was feeling a little emotionally fragile after I had my delusions/ilusions cruelly shattered at the book party at the Museum of Sex for Francis Levy's book Erotomania: A Romance (a great party by the way. The Museum of Sex was the perfect venue although I now know more than I ever wanted to know about the sex life of animals!). Media Bistro called it the "Sexiest Book Party Ever!

We had lunch catered because of all the banking disasters the past few days, so I went in search of comfort food. I loaded up a dessert plate with two little brownies which I had planned on enjoying as sort of afternoon snack (I like to savor my food instead of scarfing it down). Well guess what? After I returned to my desk from the ladies room, I discovered some motherchucker had violated the sanctity of my desk and stolen my effing brownie!

Seriously! That's like stealing food from an injured animal. You just don't do that.

The alleged culprit, who sits behind me, actually had the nerve to tell me that what did I expect leaving a brownie on my desk?

Hello! It's MY desk!

Never take food away from an emotionally fragile woman or there will be hell to pay!

Men are like Cowardly Lions

I wrote a whole earlier post but I deleted. It was all ranty Mcrant a lot and way too personal for this blog. Suffice to say I'm clearly in no shape to blog right now, so head on over to Scandalous Women and read about Eleanor of Aquitaine and Miriam Leslie.

Thanks a lot for reading,

EKM