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Several other studies have led to a similar and tragic conclusion: After death reminders, people are more antagonistic toward those with different beliefs and values. In addition, political beliefs shift to support militaristic policies, charismatic nationalists and increased domestic surveillance. Another study showed... |
Naturally, one would assume that this effect would similarly benefit Trump, who regularly calls the country’s current leaders weak and promises toughness, strength and greater punishment if he is elected (“If they could expand the laws, I would do a lot more than waterboarding”). And sure enough, earlier this year, Pys... |
But, of course, these are just laboratory studies. It’s not like we have death reminders coming at us every day, right? |
Inherent in the ways the news is both reported and received are a number of biases that guarantee people are not informed, but rather misinformed. The first problem with the news is that it must be new. Generally, events that are both aberrations from the norm and spectacular enough to attract attention are reported, s... |
But far more prolific, and thus even less news-worthy, are the 117 suicides in the U.S. each day (in comparison with 43 murders), the 129 deaths from accidental drug overdoses, and the 96 people dying a day in automobile accidents (27 of whom aren’t wearing seat belts, not to mention the unspecified amount driving dist... |
It would make logical sense, then, that if Americans were really choosing politicians based on their own safety, they would vote for a candidate who stresses seat-belt campaigns, programs for psychological health to decrease suicide, and ways to reduce smoking, obesity, prescription-pill abuse, alcoholism, flu contagio... |
But our fears are not logical. |
In 2002, a law professor and former White House adviser named Cass Sunstein coined the term “probability neglect.” It suggests that when people are emotionally stirred by something, especially something they can vividly imagine, they will fear its outcome even if it is highly unlikely to happen. So, the fear of domesti... |
One of the dangers of probability neglect is that, in the face of a highly visceral event or fear, Americans are more likely to accept invasions of privacy and restrictions of freedom that they otherwise wouldn’t accept, such as the passing of the Patriot Act weeks after 9/11. |
These are the wages of a 24-hour news cycle, regurgitating constant powerful visuals and reminders of our own vulnerability to dangerous forces beyond our control. Add to this what psychologists call “loss aversion,” which is the idea that people are more fearful about losing something than they are excited about acqui... |
It doesn’t help much that in the past few years, we have entered an even more extreme cycle of news omnipresence, which values shareability over accuracy. Instead of having to turn on the TV or radio to see what’s going on, the news comes to us. Between our phones and browsers, most of us are plugged into a nonstop fee... |
Add to this media landscape channels like Investigation Discovery, with its 24/7 stream of true-crime shows, and the spate of CSI and Law & Order-type police procedural dramas, and it’s easy to understand why, after voting, the next most prevalent ways Americans respond to fear, according to the Chapman study, are gett... |
Here’s another recent revolution in news consumption: In an era in which so many news programs, radio shows and websites look like news and sound like news but are actually just theater sets for partisan advocacy groups and commentators, anyone can create a digital ring of fire around his or her belief system that does... |
There are two particular ways, among many, in which living with these anxieties month after month can change your brain. |
In the process, attributes such as conscious decision-making, risk-taking, exploratory activity and logical thinking are adversely affected. |
The second way: Anxiety can turn to fear. Part of threat detection is learning, and the brain can create a false correlation when a stimulus that’s not actually a threat activates the body’s threat-response system. |
Let’s say you are at a concert and you’re anxious about Islamic terrorist attacks. You spot a Middle Eastern man with a duffel bag and, suddenly, he unzips the bag and pulls out an umbrella. But it happens so quickly that you think it’s a gun and freak out. Not only is that fear, but you may have just changed your brai... |
So what you get is a completely manufactured anxiety turning into a full-blown fight-freeze-or-flight fear response. Any guesses where else we’re seeing this occur in society? |
For one study, University of Colorado social psychologist Joshua Correll brought in police officers to play a video game in which they were asked to shoot armed assailants. Half the targets were white; the other half were black. Some were carrying guns, others phones or wallets. The results were tragically unsurprising... |
Clearly, these and other fear illusions affect our behavior, from voting decisions to supporting policies that are against our own interests to prejudices, divisive rhetoric, murder and crimes against whole groups of people. In the wrong hands, this is a playbook that can be used for mass manipulation and personal powe... |
Researchers in LeDoux’s lab cite a phenomenon related to uncertainty: agency – your capacity to exert your own power on your environment. “The world is how you assess it,” Moscarello summarizes. “It’s your belief about your agency that ultimately determines your emotional outcomes.” Believing you don’t have control ove... |
All this doesn’t mean that we should completely unplug, live in ignorance and accept terrorism, murder, racism, sexism, poverty, human rights violations and all the other problems in our world. One instance of any of these is too much. It also doesn’t negate the fact that technology has made it possible for one rogue p... |
The goal, however, is to separate real threats from manufactured ones. And to find a balance where we are not so scared that we’re making bad decisions that hurt us and our freedom, but not so oblivious that we aren’t taking steps to protect ourselves. |
If we are to address the very real and numerous problems facing the country and the world today, we must do so without fear and anxiety, but with our heads clear and a sense of compassion for everyone, not just the people who look like or agree with us. |
The fact is: Anything can happen in the future. For some people, that’s exciting. For others, that’s scary. And even if both kinds of people are working toward a better world tomorrow, only one of them gets to be happy today. |
If someone shoved their discarded chewing gum in your mailbox, you wouldn’t pick it up and start chewing would you? No, of course you wouldn’t. So if you happened to open your mailbox one day to find a USB flash drive had mysteriously appeared inside you wouldn’t scamper off to your computer and plug it in immediately ... |
Anyone who cares even a little about security and privacy certainly wouldn’t. But there’s someone in Australia who knows that the average user is more than willing to let curiosity overrule common sense. That someone has been sticking flash drives in mailboxes, and guess what? They’re loaded with malicious code. |
Based on the results of a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign experiment, we know that there’s a damn good chance that these drives are getting plugged in. When they scattered similar USB sticks around the University campus, almost every single one got picked up — and half of them got plugged in to a computer by th... |
This isn’t a new tactic for infecting computers, but historically it’s more the type of thing that’s done when targeting machines that can’t be infected by, say, a phishing campaign or drive-by download. Still, when you know that half of the people who find a drive are going to plug it in, why not pass out a thousand o... |
Hopefully Australians are heeding the warning that the Victoria Police posted on their website. Don’t plug random flash drives in, people. Destroy them and recycle or dispose of them. |
WATCH: The term “full worm moon” is typically given to the first full moon in March, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac. |
Spring officially arrives on Wednesday with a rare lunar phenomenon known as a “full worm super moon,” the third and final full super moon of 2019. |
Weather permitting, the moon will appear slightly larger in the sky on Wednesday night, according to NASA. The full worm super moon should be visible a few hours after the official start to spring. |
Spring will start at 5:58 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday with the vernal equinox, when the sun’s light shines evenly over the Earth’s equator. Day and night are divided into roughly equal 12-hour cycles on the day of the equinox, which ends with the sun moving to shine more on the Northern Hemisphere. Daylight hours in... |
The term “worm moon” is typically given to the first full moon in March, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac. The name signals the spring thaw that releases earthworms frozen in the ground. The first full moon is also sometimes called the “sap moon,” because it heralds the start of the maple syrup season. |
“Historically, Native American and other traditional names for full moons were used to track the seasons,” the Almanac says on its website. |
Month-specific names for the full moon often capture additional attention when they coincide with other lunar events. In January, for instance, there was a super blood wolf moon, and in February, there was a super snow moon. |
“Wolf” and “snow” are the names for the first full moons of January and February, respectively. Other names include “strawberry” for June, “sturgeon” for August and “cold” for December. |
The second full moon in any month is always referred to as a blue moon. |
The moon’s size appears to fluctuate slightly in the night sky because it orbits the Earth on an elliptical loop. It looks slightly larger when it’s at the closest point, or perigee, of its orbit, according to NASA. Astronomers use the terms “super moon” or “perigean moon” when the moon is full and at the closest point... |
NASA says a super moon appears 14 per cent larger and 30 per cent brighter than a regular full moon, although the difference is hard to see with the naked eye. |
Wednesday will be the third and final full super moon of 2019. However, it won’t be a blood moon like the two that occurred earlier this year, because it will not coincide with a lunar eclipse. |
What colour will the super moon be? |
The moon’s colour will be unaffected by any solar or lunar phenomena, so it should look normal. |
The moon last appeared to change colour in January, when a lunar eclipse created a red “blood moon” effect on the full super moon in the Western Hemisphere. The colour-change is affected by sunlight interacting with dust particles and clouds in Earth’s atmosphere, according to NASA. |
Pollution can also affect the apparent colour of the moon in some parts of the world. |
Astronomers are expecting three new super moons later this year, on Aug. 1, Aug. 30 and Sept. 28. The moon will be at its closest point to the Earth on these days, but it will not be visible because it won’t be reflecting sunlight. |
The next full super moon will be in March 2020. |
What I like about living in Harbor Gateway is that you are close to the beach and freeway. I do my shopping and spend my leisure time in nearby Torrance, Redondo, and PV, but have a more affordable home in the Gateway. The South Bay in general is great because you are centrally located between LA and Orange County. |
July 13, 2012 at 12:46 a.m. |
I bought my house here a couple years ago and now regret it. I am in that narrow Harbor Gateway strip where your legal address is Torrance but according to Torrance government, you are not a part of the city. You are a part of LA and therefore must deal with LAPD, LAUSD, etc. I am just realizing this today after trying... |
July 5, 2012 at 4:25 p.m. |
been living here since '96. i grew up here and yes there's alot of gang crime the city pays no attention to the neighborhood, and you've got working class people. the gangs and lack of education among the residents gives this place a bad rep, which is bad for those of us who live here and are actually good, productive ... |
October 24, 2011 at 10:35 p.m. |
August 13, 2011 at 9:45 a.m. |
Harbor Gateway is an average place to live but the biggest problem is apathy. In the south part of Harbor Gateway there is a neighborhood council and there is a meeting every second Thursday of the month at Halldale Elementary School. I like my fellow Harbor Gateway neighbors would like to see a better quality of life.... |
February 10, 2011 at 6:03 p.m. |
December 15, 2010 at 2:18 p.m. |
Lived in the gateway from 1963-1990. Back then we called it the "County Strip". It was a mix of rural and small family owned businesses. Horsemen like my Dad were leaders in 4-H. The 90502 zip is the ugly stepchild of Los Angeles. The city puts no money into it and as a result, crime has escalated. Building codes go un... |
June 4, 2010 at 4:47 p.m. |
I lived in the Torrance area of the Harbor Gateway from 1977 to 1982. I always felt safe but there were a lot of drugs and gangs in the area. |
May 21, 2010 at 10:04 p.m. |
April 27, 2010 at 9:09 p.m. |
I grew up in this area. Too much graffiti and crime. Moved away when my children became teenagers. Took them to the country in Nevada. I saved their lives. |
March 13, 2010 at 6:29 p.m. |
I love the Harbor Gateway. Although the area where I grew up was for the most part poor, I never thought of it as a bad area. It is still shocking to note that almost nobody I know of has heard of the Harbor Gateway, with pretty much everyone thinking they live in Gardena or Torrance. |
March 10, 2010 at 12:31 a.m. |
It is centrally located in the Los Angeles Basin, and is no more than 20 mins Downtown,San pedro, LAX, Manhatten Beach, Cerritos, Long Beach, folks have to realize how fortunate that is! |
January 19, 2010 at 4:34 a.m. |
I think I will move here. Sounds very nice! |
December 31, 2009 at 8:22 p.m. |
The Harbor Gateway is a great place to live the crime rate is very low.The people are friendly. |
September 10, 2009 at 8:51 p.m. |
We have lived in Harbor Gateway now for almost 3 years. Our patch of it isn't too bad, the population is quite diverse. There are ghettos a mile north and a mile south of us. It is hard to define as there is quite a bit of variety in this skinny neighborhood. |
September 4, 2009 at 1:30 a.m. |
August 28, 2009 at 9:46 a.m. |
I understand the police coverage in this area is unsatisfactory. Often the law enforcement jurisdictions are confused among the locals. |
August 19, 2009 at 11:57 a.m. |
It only exists to provide continuity to the harbor. |
August 15, 2009 at 9:17 a.m. |
This section of the city is very unique. I lived here for the first 15 years of my life. For years my mother and grandparents thought they lived in Gardena (despite paying the DWP and having the LAPD and LA City Fire respond to emergencies). Most people in this area are either clumped to the Gardena or Torrance zip cod... |
June 9, 2009 at 2:44 p.m. |
This neighborhood includes Unincorporated Harbor Gateway in its area and statistics. |
The neighboring communities are Athens, Broadway-Manchester, Carson, Gardena, Harbor City, Torrance, Vermont Vista, West Carson, West Compton and Willowbrook. |
Harbor Gateway is one of the 272 neighborhoods in Mapping L.A., The Times’ resource for crime, neighborhoods, demographics and schools. |
Memphis Tigers basketball coach Penny Hardaway made his first visit to St. Jude since becoming coach and said there would be more visits to come. |
The father pushing his son in a wheelchair turned the corner and didn’t miss a beat when he saw University of Memphis men’s basketball coach Penny Hardaway standing there. |
The excitement surrounding Hardaway’s hiring at Memphis could be felt in the hallways at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital on Thursday. He received a tour of the facility and visited with patients for the first time since becoming the Tigers’ coach in March. |
He shook hands with security guards and janitors, and posed for photos with young children and adults alike. One employee approached Hardaway and said he spent the entire night trying to figure out what shoes Hardaway would be wearing during the visit. |
For the record, Hardaway had on gray suede Air Jordans but promised to don a pair of his Air Penny shoes the next time he comes to St. Jude. |
Hardaway complimented the walls filled with colorful pictures drawn by former patients and marveled at how much the hospital had changed over the years. He also heard about the history of St. Jude from two former patients who served as tour guides and met with ALSAC CEO Richard Shadyac Jr. |
Hardaway explained that he was supposed to come to St. Jude in March with his former players from East High School, but those plans were cancelled once he got hired by Memphis due to potential NCAA violations. |
Most of all, though, Hardaway just listened on Thursday. He repeatedly said, “Wow,” upon learning a new fact about the hospital's evolution and its mission to treat and defeat pediatric cancer. |
At one point, Hardaway took a picture on his cell phone of a colorful mural celebrating Kappa Alpha Psi’s Sunday of Hope program at St. Jude because he was a member of the fraternity as a student at Memphis 25 years ago. |
Hardaway noted that he first came to St. Jude in 1992 as a player when former Memphis coach Larry Finch took the entire team there. He plans to bring the current Tiger players to visit in the near future. |
Hardaway's visit ended with a brief conversation with 13-year-old sickle cell patient Elechi and her mother, Pamela Madu. Hardaway asked about Elechi's background and discussed how much inspiration he derives from using his celebrity to give back to others. |
Before long, though, Madu had a question about Memphis basketball and what it's been like for Hardaway since becoming the head coach at his alma mater more than six weeks ago. |
Like those he passed in the hallways of St. Jude on Thursday, the hometown hero couldn't hide his anticipation about what might be next for the program. |
"I'm so excited the city's excited," Hardaway said. "I'm happy to be part of the city being happy again. We're back to the glory days now." |
Youngest son of Texas wildcatter H.L. Hunt (d. 1974), who was said to be the inspiration for J.R. Ewing character on TV's Dallas. Relatives sold their Hunt Petroleum to XTO for $4.4 billion this year; none of Ray Lee's assets involved. Friend of President Bush drew fire this year when he landed an oil concession in Ira... |
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