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Author(s): Alain de Botton
Any Baedeker will tell us where we ought to travel, but only Alain de Botton will tell us how and why. With the same intelligence and insouciant charm he brought to How Proust Can Save Your Life, de Botton considers the pleasures of anticipation; the allure of the exotic, and the value of noticing everything from a seascape in Barbados to the takeoffs at Heathrow.
Even as de Botton takes the reader along on his own peregrinations, he also cites such distinguished fellow-travelers as Baudelaire, Wordsworth, Van Gogh, the biologist Alexander von Humboldt, and the 18th-century eccentric Xavier de Maistre, who catalogued the wonders of his bedroom. The Art of Travel is a wise and utterly original book. Don't leave home without it.
Alain de Botton was born in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1969. He is the author of Essays in Love, The Romantic Movement, Kiss and Tell, How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Consolations of Philosophy, The Art of Travel, Status Anxiety, The Architecture of Happiness, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, A Week at the Airport, Religion for Atheists, How to Think More About Sex, Art as Therapy, and The News: A User's Manual. Alain is a bestselling author in 30 countries. He lives in London, where he runs The School of Life and Living Architecture. Alain de Botton's first novel in nearly two decades, The Course of Love, will be published in April 2016.
Imprint : Penguin Books, Limited
Availability date : June 2014
Author : Alain de Botton
Dewey classification : 910/.01
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John Russo
Dec 7, 2017 | Guests
With twenty books published internationally and nineteen feature movies in worldwide distribution, John Russo has been called a “living legend.” He began by co-authoring (with George Romero) the screenplay for NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, which has been recognized as a horror classic. He has had a long, rewarding career, also penning films such as RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, MIDNIGHT, THE MAJORETTES, THE AWAKENING, and HEARTSTOPPER.
His books on the art and craft of movie making, such as HOW TO MAKE EXCITING MONEY MAKING MOVIES, have become bibles of independent production. Quentin Tarantino and many other noted filmmakers have stated that Russo’s books helped them launch their careers.
Recently, his screenplay for ESCAPE OF THE LIVING DEAD was made into a five-part comic book released by Avatar Press to great acclaim. Russo’s latest novel DEALEY PLAZA was published by Burning Bulb Publishing, which has also published Russo’s novels THE ACADEMY, THE AWAKENING, THE BOOBY HATCH, LIMB TO LIMB, LIVING THINGS, and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. His short story “Channel 666” appears in THE BIG BOOK OF BIZARRO, and John was a contributing editor on the Burning Bulb hit anthology RISE OF THE DEAD.
He is also slated to direct two movies: a remake of his cult hit, MIDNIGHT, and a brand new take on the “zombie phenomenon” entitled SPAWN OF THE DEAD.
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Walsh and Jackson face off in Boston mayoral election
Filed under 2017-2018, Issue 4, News
By Julia Taliesin
City Councillor Tito Jackson (L) and Mayor Martin J. Walsh (R) are on the ballot for the 2017 Boston mayoral election. Boston voters will elect their next mayor on Nov. 7. Source: Angela Rowlings/Boston Herald
On Sept. 26, a preliminary vote decided that Boston voters will head to the polls on Tuesday, Nov. 7, to choose between current Mayor Martin J. Walsh and City Councillor Tito Jackson for mayor.
Voter turnout for the preliminaries was dismally low, with only about 14 percent of Boston voters casting a vote, according to “The Boston Globe.”
Out of the four mayoral candidates on the ballot, incumbent candidate Walsh captured 63 percent of the votes and City Councilor Jackson captured 29 percent.
The other two candidates — Robert Cappucci, a former Boston police officer and a one-time Boston School Committee member, and Joseph A. Wiley, a former customer service representative for Mass Health — got 7 percent and 1 percent respectively.
Jackson and Walsh worked together on Walsh’s first campaign for mayor, as well as for former Governor Deval Patrick’s campaign.
Both candidates have a demonstrated commitment to focusing on issues such as affordable housing, homelessness, and safe communities.
Jackson and Walsh debated on Tuesday, Oct. 10 at 10:30 a.m. on WBZ News Radio, and will debate next on Tuesday, Oct. 24 on WGBH TV and Radio.
They are also anticipating other opportunities to debate their “vision for Boston,” according to “The Boston Globe.”
Jackson is the first black man to make it to the final stages of the Boston mayoral race, and if elected would be the first black mayor of Boston.
He was elected as the District 7 Boston City Councilor in 2011, representing Roxbury as well as parts of the South End, Dorchester, and Fenway areas.
Jackson serves on the committees for Education, the Status of Black and Latino Men and Boys, and Healthy Women, Families, and Communities.
From a family of community activists, Jackson is focusing, among other things, on the effects of gentrification on some Boston neighborhoods.
“I want people to be able to still live in this neighborhood, not get pushed out of the community that they built up and made safe,” Jackson said about Roxbury in an interview with WBUR.
Walsh, running for a second term, told voters, “Judge me on my record, and . . . [the] good things we’ve done.”
Jackson, a former political supporter of Walsh, said that while he believes Walsh has done a good job, it is time for a change.
Communities of color widely supported Walsh in his last campaign, and Walsh continues to stress that he’s “trying to make sure that the base that elected me as mayor stays with me. . . .I’m working to keep that base.”
Media outlets anticipate that Jackson will have to work hard to mobilize voters in the coming weeks if he is going to triumph over Walsh.
Tune in to the debate on Oct. 24 to hear Jackson and Walsh discuss current issues facing the people of Boston, and make sure to vote in the Boston mayoral election on Nov. 7.
Tags: boston, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, boston mayor, gentrification, issues, Julia Taliesin, marty walsh, policy, political science, politics, race, Tito Jackson, vote
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The English used in this article may not be easy for everybody to understand. You can help Wikipedia by reading Wikipedia:How to write Simple English pages, then simplifying the article. (May 2012)
Natron is a natural mixture of sodium carbonate decahydrate (Na2CO3·10H2O, a kind of soda ash) and about 17% sodium bicarbonate (also called nahcolite[1] or baking soda, NaHCO3) along with small amounts of household salt (halite, sodium chloride) and sodium sulfate. Natron is white or without color when it is pure. It can be gray or yellow with impurities. Natron deposits are sometimes found in saline (salty) lake beds which arose in arid environments. Throughout history natron has had many practical uses which are still used in the wide range of modern uses of its constituent mineral components.
In modern mineralogy the word natron has come to mean only the sodium carbonate decahydrate (hydrated soda ash) which makes up most of the historical salt.
2 Use
2.1 Decrease in usage
3 Chemistry of hydrated sodium carbonate
3.1 As a source of soda ash
Etymology[change | change source]
The English word natron is a French cognate that came from the Spanish natrón through Greek νιτρων nitron, which came from the Ancient Egyptian word netjeri, meaning natron. The modern chemical symbol for sodium, Na, is an abbreviation of that element's New Latin name natrium, which came from natron.
Use[change | change source]
Historical natron was harvested as a salt mixture from dry lake beds in Ancient Egypt and has been used for thousands of years as cleaning. Together with oil, it was an early form of soap. It softens water and removes oil and grease at the same time. Natron was also a cleanser for the teeth and an early mouthwash. The mineral was mixed into early antiseptics for wounds and minor cuts. Natron can be used to dry and preserve fish and meat. It was also an ancient household insecticide, was used for making leather and as a bleach for clothing.
The mineral was used in Egyptian mummification because it absorbs water and was a drying agent. Also, when exposed to moisture the carbonate in natron increases pH, which makes a good environment for bacteria. In some cultures, natron was thought to keep both the living and the dead spiritually safe. Natron was added to castor oil to make a smokeless fuel, which allowed Egyptian artisans to paint artworks inside ancient tombs without staining them with soot.
Natron is an ingredient for making a color called Egyptian blue. It was used with sand and lime in ceramic and glass-making by the Romans and others at least until 640 CE. The mineral was also used as a flux to solder precious metals together.
Decrease in usage[change | change source]
Most of natron's uses both in the home and by industry were replaced in time with closely related sodium compounds and minerals. Natron's detergent properties are now commercially supplied by soda ash, the mixture's chief compound ingredient, along with other chemicals. Soda ash also replaced natron in glass-making. Some of its ancient household roles are also now filled by ordinary baking soda, natron's other meaningful ingredient.
Chemistry of hydrated sodium carbonate[change | change source]
Natron is also the mineralogical name for the compound sodium carbonate decahydrate (Na2CO3·10H2O), which is the main component in historical natron.[2] Sodium carbonate decahydrate has a specific gravity of 1.42 to 1.47 and a Mohs hardness of 1. It crystallizes in the monoclinic-domatic crystal system, typically forming efflorescences and encrustations.
The term hydrated sodium carbonate is commonly used to encompass the monohydrate (Na2CO3·H2O), the decahydrate and the heptahydrate (Na2CO3·7H2O), but is often used in industry to refer to the decahydrate only. Both the hepta- and the decahydrate effloresce (lose water) in dry air and are partially transformed into the monohydrate thermonatrite Na2CO3·H2O.
As a source of soda ash[change | change source]
Sodium carbonate decahydrate stays the same at room temperature, but it changes into the crystal material Na2CO3·7H2O, then above 37–38 °C (99–100 °F) to sodium carbonate monohydrate, Na2CO3·H2O, if the temperature becomes 32 °C (90 °F). This releases a mostly clear, colorless salty kind of water with a little solid thermonatrite. The mineral natron is often found in association with other minerals such as gypsum and calcite. Most human-made sodium carbonate is soda ash, sodium carbonate anhydrate Na2CO3, which is obtained by calcination (dry heating at temperatures of 150 to 200°C) of sodium bicarbonate, sodium carbonate monohydrate, or trona.
↑ webmineral.com, "Nahcolite", retrieved 5 July 2008
↑ webmineral.com, "Natron", retrieved 5 July 2008
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Natron.
Etymology of "natron"
Retrieved from "https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Natron&oldid=4624618"
Pages needing to be simplified from May 2012
All pages that need simplifying
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Hannah Laycock: Artist in Residence
Published on August 6, 2015 September 30, 2015 by Six Foot Gallery
“’How do you feel?’ ‘How do I feel?’ He repeated, and scratched his head. ‘I cannot say I feel ill. But I cannot say I feel well. I cannot say I feel anything at all.’” *
Photographer Hannah Laycock spent ten years living in London and Brighton. Since returning to Scotland, she has taken up Six Foot Gallery’s Artist in Residence Program, in association with Menzies Hotel. Her exhibition will start this month, and feature an experimental new series of photographic works – with which she intends to begin her working life in Glasgow.
Hannah describes her relationship with the photographic medium as such:
“For me, photography is painting with light. I was never really skilled at painting in the traditional sense, nor was I skilled at other creative mediums. Photography has enabled me to skilfully explore my creativity.”
Consequently, Hannah’s refined and intuitive photography skills have allowed her to capture and present her subjects in a way that is both truthful and loving. From ‘Railing at the Enthrallment to the Failing of the Light’ (Parts I – II, 2009-) a touching, multi-media based documentation of her parents’ lives as her father’s health begins to decline; to ‘Fragility’ (also 2009), in which the image of the human body is treated with a rare, uncompromising sensitivity.
Following her diagnosis with Multiple Sclerosis, the artist has focused on relaying the associated feelings of “uncertainty, fear, loss and liberation” through her work. We ought to view ‘awakenings’ as an attempt towards: “Dealing with notions of identity and the play on this in relation to [the artist’s] diagnosis”; as well as recognise its intention to raise awareness of MS. Furthermore, the artist aims to convey her personal journey in such a way that it reaches its viewers on a universal level, regardless of their own experiences.
Six Foot Gallery will be exhibiting ‘awakenings’ by Hannah Laycock between 28th August – 14th September (Preview: 27th August).
hannahlaycock.com
Our Artist in Residence program is kindly supported by The Menzies Hotel and Street Level Photoworks.
*Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat – also referenced by Hannah Laycock in accompanying text to ‘Perceiving Identity’, 2015.
Categories Artist in Residence•Tags 2015, AiR, Art in Glasgow, art openings, artistresidencies, artists from brighton, artists from london, artistswithms, awakenings, Fine art, forthcoming exhibitions, galleries in glasgow, glasgow artists, glasgow galleries, hannah laycock, menzies hotel, menzieshotel, ms, mswarrior, notwothesame, photography, portraiture, railing at the enthrallment to the failing of the light, residencies, scottishartists, shiftms, womenartists
Previous Best of Degree Show: Melanie Wiksell
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Terms & Policy Archives
Effective: January 31, 2018
These Customer Terms of Service (the “Customer Terms”) describe your rights and responsibilities when using our online workplace productivity tools and platform (the “Services”). Please read them carefully. If you are a Customer (defined below), these Customer Terms govern your access and use of our Services. If you are being invited to a workspace set up by a Customer, the User Terms of Service (the “User Terms”) govern your access and use of the Services. We are grateful you’re here.
These “Customer Terms” Form a Part of a Binding “Contract”
These Customer Terms (or, if applicable, your written agreement with us) and any Order Form(s) (defined below) together form a binding “Contract” between Customer and us. If any terms in the Customer-Specific Supplement apply to Customer (e.g., if Customer is a U.S. government entity), those terms are also incorporated herein by reference and form part of the Contract. “We,” “our” and “us” refers to the applicable Slack entity in the section entitled “Which Slack Entity is Customer Contracting With?” below.
Your Agreement On Behalf of “Customer”
If you purchase subscription(s), create a workspace (i.e., a digital space where a group of users may access the Services, as further described in our Help Center pages), invite users to that workspace, or use or allow use of that workspace after being notified of a change to these Customer Terms, you acknowledge your understanding of the then-current Contract and agree to the Contract on behalf of Customer. Please make sure you have the necessary authority to enter into the Contract on behalf of Customer before proceeding.
Customer Choices and Instructions
Who is “Customer”? (Hint: There can be only one)
“Customer” is the organization that you represent in agreeing to the Contract. If your workspace is being set up by someone who is not formally affiliated with an organization, Customer is the individual creating the workspace. For example, if you signed up using a personal email address and invited a couple of friends to work on a new startup idea but haven't formed a company yet, you are the Customer.
Signing Up Using a Corporate Email Domain
If you signed up for a plan using your corporate email domain, your organization is Customer, and Customer can modify and re-assign roles on your workspace (including your role) and otherwise exercise its rights under the Contract. If Customer elects to replace you as the representative with ultimate authority for the workspace, we will provide you with notice following such election and you agree to take any actions reasonably requested by us or Customer to facilitate the transfer of authority to a new representative of Customer.
What This Means for Customer—and for Us
Individuals authorized by Customer to access the Services (an “Authorized User”) may submit content or information to the Services, such as messages or files (“Customer Data”), and Customer may exclusively provide us with instructions on what to do with it. For example, Customer may provision or deprovision access to the Services, enable or disable third party integrations, manage permissions, retention and export settings, transfer or assign workspaces, share channels, or consolidate workspaces or channels with other workspaces or channels. Since these choices and instructions may result in the access, use, disclosure, modification or deletion of certain or all Customer Data, please review the Help Center pages for more information about these choices and instructions.
Customer will (a) inform Authorized Users of all Customer policies and practices that are relevant to their use of the Services and of any settings that may impact the processing of Customer Data; and (b) ensure the transfer and processing of Customer Data under the Contract is lawful.
Ordering Subscriptions
A subscription allows an Authorized User to access the Services. No matter the role, a subscription is required for each Authorized User. A subscription may be procured through the Services interface, or in some cases, via an order form entered into between Customer and us (each, an “Order Form”). Please see the Help Center for more information on procuring subscriptions and inviting new Authorized Users. Each Authorized User must agree to the User Terms to activate their subscription. Subscriptions commence when we make them available to Customer and continue for the term specified in the Services “check-out” interface or in the Order Form, as applicable. Each subscription is for a single Authorized User for a specified term and is personal to that Authorized User. We sometimes enter into other kinds of ordering arrangements, but that would need to be spelled out and agreed to in an Order Form. During an active subscription term, adding more subscriptions is fairly easy. Unless the Order Form says otherwise, Customer may purchase more subscriptions at the same price stated in the Order Form and all will terminate on the same date. Check out our Help Center pages for additional information on setting up a workspace and assigning roles.
Purchasing Decisions
We may share information about our future product plans because we like transparency. Our public statements about those product plans are an expression of intent, but do not rely on them when making a purchase. If Customer decides to buy our Services, that decision should be based on the functionality or features we have made available today and not on the delivery of any future functionality or features.
Choosing to be a Beta Tester
Occasionally, we look for beta testers to help us test our new features. These features will be identified as “beta” or “pre-release,” or words or phrases with similar meanings (each, a “Beta Product”). Beta Products may not be ready for prime time so they are made available “as is,” and any warranties or contractual commitments we make for other Services do not apply. Should Customer encounter any faults with our Beta Products, we would love to hear about them; our primary reason for running any beta programs is to iron out issues before making a new feature widely available.
The more suggestions our customers make, the better the Services become. If Customer sends us any feedback or suggestions regarding the Services, there is a chance we will use it, so Customer grants us (for itself and all of its Authorized Users and other Customer personnel) an unlimited, irrevocable, perpetual, sublicensable, transferable, royalty-free license to use any such feedback or suggestions for any purpose without any obligation or compensation to Customer, any Authorized User or other Customer personnel. If we choose not to implement the suggestion, please don’t take it personally. We appreciate it nonetheless.
Non-Slack Products
Our Services include a platform that third parties may use to develop applications and software that complement Customer’s use of the Services (each, a “Non-Slack Product”). We also maintain a directory called the Slack App Directory where some Non-Slack Products are available for installation. THESE ARE NOT OUR SERVICES, SO WE DO NOT WARRANT OR SUPPORT NON-SLACK PRODUCTS, AND, ULTIMATELY, CUSTOMER (AND NOT US) WILL DECIDE WHETHER OR NOT TO ENABLE THEM. ANY USE OF A NON-SLACK PRODUCT IS SOLELY BETWEEN CUSTOMER AND THE APPLICABLE THIRD PARTY PROVIDER.
If a Non-Slack Product is enabled for Customer’s workspace, please be mindful of any Customer Data that will be shared with the third party provider and the purposes for which the provider requires access. We will not be responsible for any use, disclosure, modification or deletion of Customer Data that is transmitted to, or accessed by, a Non-Slack Product. Check out our Help Center pages for more information.
Please review our Privacy Policy for more information on how we collect and use data relating to the use and performance of our websites and products.
Customer and Authorized Users
Use of the Services
Customer must comply with the Contract and ensure that its Authorized Users comply with the Contract and the User Terms. We may review conduct for compliance purposes, but we have no obligation to do so. We aren't responsible for the content of any Customer Data or the way Customer or its Authorized Users choose to use the Services to store or process any Customer Data. The Services are not intended for and should not be used by anyone under the age of 16. Customer must ensure that all Authorized Users are over 16 years old. Customer is solely responsible for providing high speed internet service for itself and its Authorized Users to access and use the Services.
Our Removal Rights
If we believe that there is a violation of the Contract that can simply be remedied by Customer’s removal of certain Customer Data or Customer’s disabling of a Non-Slack Product, we will, in most cases, ask Customer to take direct action rather than intervene. However, we may directly step in and take what we determine to be appropriate action, if Customer does not take appropriate action, or if we believe there is a credible risk of harm to us, the Services, Authorized Users, or any third parties.
Payment Obligations
For Customers that purchase our Services, fees are specified at the Services interface “check-out” and in the Order Form(s) — and must be paid in advance. Payment obligations are non-cancelable and, except as expressly stated in the Contract, fees paid are non-refundable. For clarity, in the event Customer downgrades any subscriptions from a paid plan to a free plan, Customer will remain responsible for any unpaid fees under the paid plan, and Services under the paid plan will be deemed fully performed and delivered upon expiration of the initial paid plan subscription term. Check out our Help Center pages for more information about payment options. If we agree to invoice Customer by email, full payment must be received within thirty (30) days from the invoice date. Fees are stated exclusive of any taxes, levies, duties, or similar governmental assessments of any nature, including, for example, value-added, sales, use or withholding taxes, assessable by any jurisdiction (collectively, “Taxes”). Customer will be responsible for paying all Taxes associated with its purchases, except for those taxes based on our net income. Should any payment for the Services be subject to withholding tax by any government, Customer will reimburse us for such withholding tax.
Fair Billing Policy
We believe customers should only pay for subscriptions that are actually used, so we offer a Fair Billing Policy. Certain exceptions and conditions may apply, as noted in the Services interface “check-out” or in an Order Form.
Any credits that may accrue to Customer’s account (for example, from a promotion or application of the Fair Billing Policy), will expire following expiration or termination of the applicable Contract, will have no currency or exchange value, and will not be transferable or refundable. Credits accrued to a workspace on a free subscription plan will expire if the workspace’s plan is not upgraded to a paid plan within ninety (90) days of accrual, unless otherwise specified. For more information on credits, please see the Help Center.
Downgrade for Non-Payment
If any fees owed to us by Customer (excluding amounts disputed reasonably and in good faith) are thirty (30) days or more overdue, we may, without limiting our other rights and remedies, downgrade any fee-based Services to free plans until those amounts are paid in full, so long as we have given Customer ten (10) or more days’ prior notice that its account is overdue. Notwithstanding the second paragraph of the “Providing the Services” section below, Customer acknowledges and agrees that a downgrade will result in a decrease in certain features and functionality and potential loss of access to Customer Data, as illustrated by comparing the plans in the Pricing Guide.
Providing the Services
Customer isn’t the only one with responsibilities; we have some, too. We will (a) make the Services available to Customer and its Authorized Users as described in the Contract; and (b) not use or process Customer Data for any purpose without Customer’s prior written instructions; provided, however, that “prior written instructions” will be deemed to include use of the Services by Authorized Users and any processing related to such use or otherwise necessary for the performance of the Contract.
Be assured that (a) the Services will perform materially in accordance with our then-current Help Center pages; and (b) subject to the “Non-Slack Products” and “Downgrade for Non-Payment” sections, we will not materially decrease the functionality of a Service during a subscription term. For any breach of a warranty in this section, Customer’s exclusive remedies are those described in the sections titled “Termination for Cause” and “Effect of Termination”.
Keeping the Services Available
As further described in our Help Center pages, for some of our Services, we also offer specific uptime commitments paired with credits, if we fall short. In those cases, the credits will serve as what the lawyers call liquidated damages and will be Customer’s sole remedy for the downtime and related inconvenience. For all Service plans, we will use commercially reasonable efforts to make the Services available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, excluding planned downtime. We expect planned downtime to be infrequent but will endeavor to provide Customer with advance notice (e.g., through the Services), if we think it may exceed five (5) continuous minutes.
Protecting Customer Data
The protection of Customer Data is a top priority for us so we will maintain administrative, physical, and technical safeguards at a level not materially less protective than as described in our Security Practices page. Those safeguards will include measures for preventing unauthorized access, use, modification, deletion and disclosure of Customer Data by our personnel. Before sharing Customer Data with any of our third party service providers, we will ensure that the third party maintains, at a minimum, reasonable data practices for maintaining the confidentiality and security of Customer Data and preventing unauthorized access. Customer (not us) bears sole responsibility for adequate security, protection and backup of Customer Data when in Customer’s or its representatives’ or agents’ possession or control. We are not responsible for what Customer’s Authorized Users or Non-Slack Products do with Customer Data. That is Customer’s responsibility.
The Slack Extended Family
We may leverage our employees, those of our corporate affiliates and third party contractors (the “Slack Extended Family”) in exercising our rights and performing our obligations under the Contract. We will be responsible for the Slack Extended Family’s compliance with our obligations under the Contract.
Ownership and Proprietary Rights
What’s Yours is Yours…
As between us on the one hand, and Customer and any Authorized Users on the other, Customer will own all Customer Data. Subject to the terms and conditions of the Contract, Customer (for itself and all of its Authorized Users) grants us and the Slack Extended Family a worldwide, non-exclusive, limited term license to access, use, process, copy, distribute, perform, export and display Customer Data, and any Non-Slack Products created by or for Customer, only as reasonably necessary (a) to provide, maintain and update the Services; (b) to prevent or address service, security, support or technical issues; (c) as required by law or as permitted by the Data Request Policy; and (d) as expressly permitted in writing by Customer. Customer represents and warrants that it has secured all rights in and to Customer Data from its Authorized Users as may be necessary to grant this license.
And What’s Ours is Ours
We own and will continue to own our Services, including all related intellectual property rights. We may make software components available, via app stores or other channels, as part of the Services. We grant to Customer a non-sublicensable, non-transferable, non-exclusive, limited license for Customer and its Authorized Users to use the object code version of these components, but solely as necessary to use the Services and in accordance with the Contract and the User Terms. All of our rights not expressly granted by this license are hereby retained.
As further described below, a free subscription continues until terminated, while a paid subscription has a term that may expire or be terminated. The Contract remains effective until all subscriptions ordered under the Contract have expired or been terminated or the Contract itself terminates. Termination of the Contract will terminate all subscriptions and all Order Forms.
Unless an Order Form says something different, (a) all subscriptions automatically renew (without the need to go through the Services-interface “check-out” or execute a renewal Order Form) for additional periods equal to one (1) year or the preceding term, whichever is shorter; and (b) the per-unit pricing during any automatic renewal term will remain the same as it was during the immediately prior term. Either party can give the other notice of non-renewal at least thirty (30) days before the end of a subscription term to stop the subscriptions from automatically renewing.
We or Customer may terminate the Contract on notice to the other party if the other party materially breaches the Contract and such breach is not cured within thirty (30) days after the non-breaching party provides notice of the breach. Customer is responsible for its Authorized Users, including for any breaches of this Contract caused by its Authorized Users. We may terminate the Contract immediately on notice to Customer if we reasonably believe that the Services are being used by Customer or its Authorized Users in violation of applicable law.
Termination Without Cause
Customer may terminate its free subscriptions immediately without cause. We may also terminate Customer’s free subscriptions without cause, but we will provide Customer with thirty (30) days prior written notice.
Effect of Termination
Upon any termination for cause by Customer, we will refund Customer any prepaid fees covering the remainder of the term of all subscriptions after the effective date of termination. Upon any termination for cause by us, Customer will pay any unpaid fees covering the remainder of the term of those subscriptions after the effective date of termination. In no event will any termination relieve Customer of the obligation to pay any fees payable to us for the period prior to the effective date of termination.
Data Portability and Deletion
We are custodians of Customer Data. During the term of a workspace’s subscriptions, Customer will be permitted to export or share certain Customer Data from the Services; provided, however, that because we have different products with varying features and Customer has different retention options, Customer acknowledges and agrees that the ability to export or share Customer Data may be limited or unavailable depending on the type of Services plan in effect and the data retention, sharing or invite settings enabled. Following termination or expiration of a workspace’s subscriptions, we will have no obligation to maintain or provide any Customer Data and may thereafter, unless legally prohibited, delete all Customer Data in our systems or otherwise in our possession or under our control. Please review our Security Practices page for more information on how Customer itself can initiate deletion.
Representations Disclaimer of Warranties
Customer represents and warrants that it has validly entered into the Contract and has the legal power to do so. Customer further represents and warrants that it is responsible for the conduct of its Authorized Users and their compliance with the terms of this Contract and the User Terms.
EXCEPT AS EXPRESSLY PROVIDED FOR HEREIN, THE SERVICES AND ALL RELATED COMPONENTS AND INFORMATION ARE PROVIDED ON AN “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, AND WE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, TITLE, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. CUSTOMER ACKNOWLEDGES THAT WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICES WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE.
OTHER THAN IN CONNECTION WITH A PARTY’S INDEMNIFICATION OBLIGATIONS HEREUNDER, IN NO EVENT WILL EITHER CUSTOMER’S OR THE SLACK EXTENDED FAMILY’S AGGREGATE LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THE CONTRACT OR THE USER TERMS (WHETHER IN CONTRACT OR TORT OR UNDER ANY OTHER THEORY OF LIABILITY) EXCEED THE TOTAL AMOUNT PAID BY CUSTOMER HEREUNDER IN THE TWELVE (12) MONTHS PRECEDING THE LAST EVENT GIVING RISE TO LIABILITY. THE FOREGOING WILL NOT LIMIT CUSTOMER’S PAYMENT OBLIGATIONS UNDER THE “PAYMENT TERMS” SECTION ABOVE.
IN NO EVENT WILL EITHER CUSTOMER OR ANY MEMBER OF THE SLACK EXTENDED FAMILY HAVE ANY LIABILITY TO THE OTHER PARTY OR TO ANY THIRD PARTY FOR ANY LOST PROFITS OR REVENUES OR FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, COVER OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES HOWEVER CAUSED, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT OR UNDER ANY OTHER THEORY OF LIABILITY, AND WHETHER OR NOT THE PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. THE FOREGOING DISCLAIMER WILL NOT APPLY TO THE EXTENT PROHIBITED BY APPLICABLE LAW.
The Services support logins using two-factor authentication (“2FA”), which is known to reduce the risk of unauthorized use of or access to the Services. We therefore will not be responsible for any damages, losses or liability to Customer, Authorized Users, or anyone else if any event leading to such damages, losses or liability would have been prevented by the use of 2FA. Additionally, Customer is responsible for all login credentials, including usernames and passwords, for administrator accounts as well the accounts of your Authorized Users. We will not be responsible for any damages, losses or liability to Customer, Authorized Users, or anyone else, if such information is not kept confidential by Customer or its Authorized Users, or if such information is correctly provided by an unauthorized third party logging into and accessing the Services.
The limitations under this “Limitation of Liability” section apply with respect to all legal theories, whether in contract, tort or otherwise, and to the extent permitted by law. The provisions of this “Limitation of Liability” section allocate the risks under this Contract between the parties, and the parties have relied on these limitations in determining whether to enter into this Contract and the pricing for the Services.
Our Indemnification of Customer
We will defend Customer from and against any and all third party claims, actions, suits, proceedings, and demands alleging that the use of the Services as permitted under the Contract infringes or misappropriates a third party’s intellectual property rights (a “Claim Against Customer”), and will indemnify Customer for all reasonable attorney’s fees incurred and damages and other costs finally awarded against Customer in connection with or as a result of, and for amounts paid by Customer under a settlement we approve of in connection with, a Claim Against Customer; provided, however, that we will have no liability if a Claim Against Customer arises from (a) Customer Data or Non-Slack Products; and (b) any modification, combination or development of the Services that is not performed by us, including in the use of any application programming interface (API). Customer must provide us with prompt written notice of any Claim Against Customer and allow us the right to assume the exclusive defense and control, and cooperate with any reasonable requests assisting our defense and settlement of such matter. This section states our sole liability with respect to, and Customer’s exclusive remedy against us and the Slack Extended Family for, any Claim Against Customer.
Customer's Indemnification of Us
Customer will defend Slack and the members of the Slack Extended Family (collectively, the “Slack Indemnified Parties”) from and against any and all third party claims, actions, suits, proceedings, and demands arising from or related to Customer’s or any of its Authorized Users’ violation of the Contract or the User Terms (a “Claim Against Us”), and will indemnify the Slack Indemnified Parties for all reasonable attorney’s fees incurred and damages and other costs finally awarded against a Slack Indemnified Party in connection with or as a result of, and for amounts paid by a Slack Indemnified Party under a settlement Customer approves of in connection with, a Claim Against Us. We must provide Customer with prompt written notice of any Claim Against Us and allow Customer the right to assume the exclusive defense and control, and cooperate with any reasonable requests assisting Customer’s defense and settlement of such matter. This section states your sole liability with respect to, and the Slack Indemnified Parties’ exclusive remedy against Customer for, any Claim Against Us.
Limitations on Indemnifications
Notwithstanding anything contained in the two preceding sections, (a) an indemnified party will always be free to choose its own counsel if it pays for the cost of such counsel; and (b) no settlement may be entered into by an indemnifying party, without the express written consent of the indemnified parties (such consent not to be unreasonably withheld), if (i) the third party asserting the claim is a government agency, (ii) the settlement arguably involves the making of admissions by the indemnified parties, (iii) the settlement does not include a full release of liability for the indemnified parties, or (iv) the settlement includes terms other than a full release of liability for the indemnified parties and the payment of money.
Each party (“Disclosing Party”) may disclose “Confidential Information” to the other party (“Receiving Party”) in connection with the Contract, which is anything that reasonably should be understood to be confidential given the nature of the information and the circumstances of disclosure including all Order Forms, as well as non-public business, product, technology and marketing information.Confidential Information of Customer includes Customer Data. If something is labeled “Confidential,” that’s a clear indicator to the Receiving Party that the material is confidential. Notwithstanding the above, Confidential Information does not include information that (a) is or becomes generally available to the public without breach of any obligation owed to the Disclosing Party; (b) was known to the Receiving Party prior to its disclosure by the Disclosing Party without breach of any obligation owed to the Disclosing Party; (c) is received from a third party without breach of any obligation owed to the Disclosing Party; or (d) was independently developed by the Receiving Party.
Protection and Use of Confidential Information
The Receiving Party will (a) take at least reasonable measures to prevent the unauthorized disclosure or use of Confidential Information, and limit access to those employees, affiliates and contractors who need to know such information in connection with the Contract; and (b) not use or disclose any Confidential Information of the Disclosing Party for any purpose outside the scope of this Contract. Nothing above will prevent either party from sharing Confidential Information with financial and legal advisors; provided, however, that the advisors are bound to confidentiality obligations at least as restrictive as those in the Contract.
Compelled Access or Disclosure
The Receiving Party may access or disclose Confidential Information of the Disclosing Party if it is required by law; provided, however, that the Receiving Party gives the Disclosing Party prior notice of the compelled access or disclosure (to the extent legally permitted) and reasonable assistance, at the Disclosing Party's cost, if the Disclosing Party wishes to contest the access or disclosure. Without limiting the foregoing, please review the Data Request Policy for details on how requests may be made for the disclosure of Customer Data and how we will handle those requests. If the Receiving Party is compelled by law to access or disclose the Disclosing Party’s Confidential Information, the Disclosing Party will reimburse the Receiving Party for its reasonable cost of compiling and providing access to such Confidential Information as well as the reasonable cost for any support provided in connection with the Disclosing Party seeking a protective order or confidential treatment for the Confidential Information to be produced.
The sections titled “Feedback is Welcome,” “Non-Slack Products,” “Our Removal Rights,” “A Condition of Use,” “Payment Terms,” “Credits,” “The Slack Extended Family,” “What’s Yours is Yours…,” “And What’s Ours is Ours,” “Effect of Termination,” “Data Portability and Deletion,” “Representations; Disclaimer of Warranties,” “Limitation of Liability,” “Our Indemnification of Customer,” “Customer’s Indemnification of Us,” “Limitations on Indemnifications,” “Confidentiality” and “Survival,” as well as all of the provisions under the general heading “General Provisions,” will survive any termination or expiration of the Contract.
Customer grants us the right to use Customer’s company name and logo as a reference for marketing or promotional purposes on our website and in other public or private communications with our existing or potential customers, subject to Customer’s standard trademark usage guidelines as provided to us from time-to-time. We don’t want to list customers who don’t want to be listed, so Customer may send us an email to feedback@slack.com stating that it does not wish to be used as a reference.
Neither us nor Customer will be liable by reason of any failure or delay in the performance of its obligations on account of events beyond the reasonable control of a party, which may include denial-of-service attacks, a failure by a third party hosting provider or utility provider, strikes, shortages, riots, fires, acts of God, war, terrorism, and governmental action.
Relationship of the Parties; No Third Party Beneficiaries
The parties are independent contractors. The Contract does not create a partnership, franchise, joint venture, agency, fiduciary or employment relationship between the parties. There are no third party beneficiaries to the Contract.
Email and Slack Messages
Except as otherwise set forth herein, all notices under the Contract will be by email, although we may instead choose to provide notice to Customer through the Services (e.g., a slackbot notification). Notices to Slack will be sent to feedback@slack.com, except for legal notices, such as notices of termination or an indemnifiable claim, which must be sent to legal@slack.com. Notices will be deemed to have been duly given (a) the day after it is sent, in the case of notices through email; and (b) the same day, in the case of notices through the Services.
As our business evolves, we may change these Customer Terms and the other components of the Contract (except any Order Forms). If we make a material change to the Contract, we will provide Customer with reasonable notice prior to the change taking effect, either by emailing the email address associated with Customer’s account or by messaging Customer through the Services. Customer can review the most current version of the Customer Terms at any time by visiting this page and by visiting the most current versions of the other pages that are referenced in the Contract. The materially revised Contract will become effective on the date set forth in our notice, and all other changes will become effective upon posting of the change. If Customer (or any Authorized User) accesses or uses the Services after the effective date, that use will constitute Customer’s acceptance of any revised terms and conditions.
No failure or delay by either party in exercising any right under the Contract will constitute a waiver of that right. No waiver under the Contract will be effective unless made in writing and signed by an authorized representative of the party being deemed to have granted the waiver.
The Contract will be enforced to the fullest extent permitted under applicable law. If any provision of the Contract is held by a court of competent jurisdiction to be contrary to law, the provision will be modified by the court and interpreted so as best to accomplish the objectives of the original provision to the fullest extent permitted by law, and the remaining provisions of the Contract will remain in effect.
Except with respect to the Slack Extended Family, neither party may assign or delegate any of its rights or obligations hereunder, whether by operation of law or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the other party (not to be unreasonably withheld). Notwithstanding the foregoing, either party may assign the Contract in its entirety (including all Order Forms), without consent of the other party, to a corporate affiliate or in connection with a merger, acquisition, corporate reorganization, or sale of all or substantially all of its assets. Customer will keep its billing and contact information current at all times by notifying Slack of any changes. Any purported assignment in violation of this section is void. A party’s sole remedy for any purported assignment by the other party in breach of this section will be, at the non-assigning party’s election, termination of the Contract upon written notice to the assigning party. In the event of such a termination by Customer, we will refund Customer any prepaid fees covering the remainder of the term of all subscriptions after the effective date of termination. Subject to the foregoing, the Contract will bind and inure to the benefit of the parties, their respective successors and permitted assigns.
Which Slack Entity is Customer Contracting With?
All references to ‘Slack,’ ‘we,’ or ‘us’ under the Contract, what law will apply in any dispute or lawsuit arising out of or in connection with the Contract, and which courts have jurisdiction over any such dispute or lawsuit, depend on where Customer is domiciled.
Slack Contracting Entity
Slack Technologies, Inc.
San Francisco County, California
Slack Technologies Limited
The Contract, and any disputes arising out of or related hereto, will be governed exclusively by the applicable governing law above, without regard to conflicts of laws rules or the United Nations Convention on the International Sale of Goods. The courts located in the applicable venue above will have exclusive jurisdiction to adjudicate any dispute arising out of or relating to the Contract or its formation, interpretation or enforcement. Each party hereby consents and submits to the exclusive jurisdiction of such courts. In any action or proceeding to enforce rights under the Contract, the prevailing party will be entitled to recover its reasonable costs and attorney’s fees.
The Contract, including these Customer Terms and all referenced pages and Order Forms, if applicable, constitutes the entire agreement between the parties and supersedes all prior and contemporaneous agreements, proposals or representations, written or oral, concerning its subject matter. Without limiting the foregoing, the Contract supersedes the terms of any online agreement electronically accepted by Customer or any Authorized Users. However, to the extent of any conflict or inconsistency between the provisions in these Customer Terms and any other documents or pages referenced in these Customer Terms, the following order of precedence will apply: (1) the terms of any Order Form (if any), (2) the portions of the Customer-Specific Supplement that apply to Customer (if any), (3) the Customer Terms and (4) finally any other documents or pages referenced in the Terms. Notwithstanding any language to the contrary therein, no terms or conditions stated in a Customer purchase order, vendor onboarding process or web portal, or any other Customer order documentation (excluding Order Forms) will be incorporated into or form any part of the Contract, and all such terms or conditions will be null and void.
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Home / News / R Dub! Presents Art Laboe with Lifetime Achievement Award
R Dub! Presents Art Laboe with Lifetime Achievement Award
R Dub! February 10, 2019 News Leave a comment 975 Views
The older I get, the more I’m fascinated by Art. Not just his career in radio, but the man behind the music.
(l-r) Greg Mack, Rick Nuhn, Xavier “The X-Man,” R Dub!, Art Laboe, Jagger & Kristi, Sheryl Love, Hurricane Andrew, Jammin’ Jay Michaels, Kelly Cole and Billy Blast. Photo credit: Alan Hess.
R Dub Presents Art Laboe with Lifetime Achievement Award
Alexander Bofill, staff writer
(February 9, 2019) San Diego, CA – Sunday Night Slow Jams host and Director of Programming for Magic 92.5, R Dub!, presented his radio station’s first ever “Magic 92.5 Lifetime Achievement Award,” to radio veteran Art Laboe last night at Pechanga Arena, San Diego.
The award, presented in front of an audience of over 6,000, celebrates 75 continuous years of staying active in radio broadcasting for Laboe, and recognizes the many achievements over his career.
Laboe was one of the first DJs to play Rock N Roll on the West Coast and one of the first to do dedications on the radio, coining and trademarking the phrase “Oldies but Goodies.” Laboe still broadcasts on Magic 92.5 weekly, as well as on over a dozen other radio stations throughout California and the West Coast. The entire Magic 92.5 on-air staff joined Laboe on stage, surprising him in-between acts at the stations Valentine’s Super Love Jam concert.
R Dub! and Art Laboe backstage at the 2019 Valentines Super Love Jam.
Art Laboe said, “What an honor to receive the first ever Magic 92.5 Lifetime Achievement Award. Great to have the entire Magic 92.5 team in the house! Thank you all, especially my good friend R Dub!”
R Dub! said, “Art Laboe is nothing short of a living legend. Art is adored and revered by both his listeners and the radio community and has certainly been an inspiration for me and Sunday Night Slow Jams.”
Art Laboe and R Dub!, on stage in 2018.
Shaky Start
R Dub! and Laboe have a long and detailed history, dating back to 1996, when Laboe purchased the radio station that R Dub! was working for as a teenager, in Tucson, Arizona. The two actually didn’t start off on the right foot.
“I think Art hated me. I don’t blame him. I was a 19-year-old know-it-all smart ass kid. I would’ve hated me too,” admits R Dub! “I ended up going across the street to start up a new radio station to go after Art and I remember our stations had some all-out battles, on the airwaves and in the streets. It was good old fashioned radio wars at their best. But yeah, Art didn’t like me at all.”
But not long after, the two became good friends and have continued to cultivate what has been over a two-decade long friendship.
“I ended up returning to Art’s radio station in Arizona, years later, after the company I was working for bought the station from Art. They made me the new Program Director and put me on Sunday nights; and I’ll never forget the surprise phone call from Art, congratulating me. I considered that gracious phone call to be our ‘truce’ and everything else in the past was now water under the bridge.”
R Dub! and Art Laboe at Art’s Sunset studios, 2007.
I think we’re friends again.
Reunited and it Feels so Good
In 2007, R Dub! began working in Los Angeles, as Program Director of Hot 92 Jamz, Art Laboe’s flagship station. It was then when R Dub! and Laboe spent more time together.
“I remember our lunches in Hollywood at Art’s favorite place: Chateau Marmont. We’d sit outside, under the California sun, talking about music, radio and life. I hung on every one of Art’s words; such amazing stories.”
Art Laboe making “Memories of El Monte;” El Monte Legion Stadium concert in the 1950s.
Today, R Dub! is Director of Programming for Magic 92.5, another one of Art Laboe’s radio affiliates.
“I enjoy and appreciate the time I spend with Art more and more each year. The older I get, the more I’m fascinated by Art. Not just his career in radio, but the man behind the music. He has truly seen it all and I love all of his stories.”
R Dub! listens to the story of Art’s first radio job in 1943, backstage, at the 2019 Valentine’s Super Love Jam.
Dedication Inspiration
Though R Dub!’s Sunday Night Slow Jams is a different format than Laboe’s Oldies-centric program, there are definitely striking similarities.
“I’ve taken little bits from some of my favorite Quiet Storm hosts from around the country who I grew up listening to. From Kevin “Slow Jammin'” James of 92.3 The Beat fame in Los Angeles, to Mike Hudson at WGCI in Chicago and Robert Morgan at 102 Jamz in Orlando; they’ve all inspired me and I’ve borrowed little things from each of them,” said R Dub! “Art Laboe was, and still is, definitely a major influence on my show. Art’s city-to-city and station-to-station dedications were the brainchild of the way I do my Oral Expressions on Sunday Night Slow Jams. There’s nothing quite as special as someone who’s listening in Anchorage, Alaska, calling in to send a message to their love listening to that very same show in Ft. Myers, Florida. They both may be so away in distance, but the show keeps them connected, together. I got that from Art.”
R Dub! and Art Laboe, 2016.
The Envelope Please
R Dub! and his team at Magic 92.5 have been working on Laboe’s award presentation since last year. A two-minute video recapping Art’s life and accomplishments played over the arena’s big screens, with images of Art Laboe from the 40s til today, alongside greats like Jerry Lee Lewis, Dick Clark and Little Richard. The crowd’s eyes were fixated on the black and white images of Art from the past, as the audience looked on with astonishment and admiration. When the video ended, spotlights lit up a stage lined with the entire Magic 92.5 staff: air personalities from every day part–from the drive times to weekends and overnights–station mixers and even the hosts of every syndicated program that airs on the station, including Greg Mack from The Greg Mack Show and Rick Nuhn from Top Ten Now and Then.
All eyes on Art Laboe.
“It was important that everyone be there,” said R Dub! “I knew this would be a special and historic moment, for both Art and his listeners, and us, the staff. I didn’t want anybody to miss it.”
“It takes a special person who, for 75 years, can connect on such a personal level with his listeners,” said Kristi from Magic 92.5’s Jagger and Kristi morning show. “Art Laboe is the gold standard of what a radio personality should be, both on and off the air.”
Laboe’s other awards include a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, induction into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2012, and Art Laboe Day, declared by the City of Los Angeles twice, in 1981 and again in 2015.
“You’re an Oldie but a Goodie, Art.”
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Next It’s Official: The 90s Slow Jams Sound is Back
R Dub! Visits The City of Crosses: Las Cruces, NM
In early May, Sunday Night Slow Jams host R Dub visited affiliate radio station Hot 103 for an afternoon of selfies, great food and amazing company! Check out the photos and more!
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July 2013 – From now on, all football related posts are in a separate blog at http://www.spen666.blogspot.co.uk entitled “The Beautiful Game?”
Why not subscribe to that blog to receive email updates whenever I post a new blog on football related matters
As it plays such a big part in my life, I thought I’d explain my interests in football. As a child growing up in County Durham, I used to go to watch Bishop Auckland play as my parents would go shopping in Bishop Auckland each saturday and at around 7 years old I would be going to their games whilst my parents went to the shops.
SPENNYMOOR UNITED
As I got older, probably around 8 or 9, I started going to watch Spennymoor United play with a friend from the cub scouts. I remember at the age of 9 going with my friend to see Spennymoor beat Southport then in Division 4 (now League 2). Despite going a goal down in the first ten minutes, Spennymoor fought back to win 4-1. A major giant killing act.
Would parents these days allow 2 nine-year olds to travel 2 miles to watch an FA Cup first round tie against a league club? There would be a crowd of around 2000 at the game. I got the bus down to the town and back after the game. RRemember this was in the days before mobile phones etc so my parents had no way of checking where I was.
That era was a great one for Spennymoor. In 1977/8 they again got to the FA Cup first round and beat Goole at home before losing at Rotherham in the 2nd round. However, that season brought a great run in the FA Trophy ( the major non league competition). Spennymoor reached the semi final, losing the first leg 2-0 @ Leatherhead. In the second leg the Moors stormed into a 2-0 lead and were dominating the game. Wembley was surely inevitable. However, disaster struck late on in the game when Leatherhead got a corner and the goalkeeper collide with a defender allowing Leatherhead to score and 3-2 on aggregate. That defeat was the worst moment I have experienced as a football fan. Watching my team get relegated was not as bad as this. Losing FA Cup Finals are not as painful.
Spennymoor’s Brewery Field circa 2010
The Main Stand at the Brewery Field circa 2010
I have strted getting into watching Spennymoor once again. They are now Spennymoor Town instead of Spennymoor United as the old club went bankrupt and a new club was fornmed. The new club has won the Northern League for the last 3 seasons. This is the 2nd oldest league in the world. This season, I am even sponsoring the kit for one of the players. Why you maty ask? Well seeing the work and effort put into running the club, I feel proud to assist the club in its efforts.
Ground Improvements 2012
Ground 2012
From about the age of 16, I started going to Newcastle United matches regularly. Below this age, I was only really able to go when my father took me, as we lived some 25 miles and at least 2 buses from Newcastle. Following Newcastle, soon became an obsession, following them to win promotion in 1983/1984 under Kevin Keegan’s captaincy.
Relegation followed in 1988 and things gradually declined until in 1991/2 Newcastle went to Leicester on the last day of the season needing the right combination of results to avoid dropping to the 3rd tier of English football, and almost certain bankruptcy. That was a day those of us who were there will never forget. Newcastle won 2-1, but the game never finished because of crowd trouble. It was the first time that police in riot gear had been employed in an English football ground. Seeing the riot police appear was a sobering moment, even though I was not one of those on the pitch.
The next 8 years were a roller coaster as Newcastle won promotion, finished runners-up in the Premiership twice and played in the Champions League. It all came to an end as the team declined in the mid 2000s. I also moved to London in 2000 so only attended infrequent games from then on at Newcastle and started watching Leyton Orient my local club instead.
Watching Newcastle over the years has brought many adventures and trips across Britain as well as Europe. Two cup final defeats, two FA Cup semi final defeats and getting into the last 16 in the Champions League being highlights of the 1992-2002 era. Low spots, Keegan resigning twice, Graham Souness, JFK, Sam Allardyce, losing at home to the Mackems in the rain when Gullitt chose to drop Shearer and Drunken Duncan Ferguson.
St James’ Park From the Air
Watching Leyton Orient is done more for comedy value, and because it is so cheap. Season tickets for Tom and I cost around 1/2 the cost of one season ticket at Newcastle. Orient are currently in the third tier of English football, so the standard is not that high. However, it is a very friendly club, and I go with numerous friends to the games, so it’s a nice diversion from real life.
I have no longer got a season ticket at Leyton Orient although I do still go regularly. I have an arrangement with a couple of friends that allows me to get a ticket for the game for the cost of a meal in the local greasy soon cafe! Its a mutually beneficial arrangement for us all. I like to see Orient do well, but if they lose I am over it by the time I get back to my car or to the tube station. Its a win win situation for me.
I have managed over the years to visit all 92 Premiership & Football League Grounds. I have seen some teams play at several “home grounds”. for example I have seen Charlton play home games at The Valley, at Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park and at West Ham’s Upton Park. Many other clubs have moved grounds, eg Arsenal from Highbury to The Emirates, so I have visited both grounds. Travelling to so many football grounds have given me a good understanding of the geography of England and Wales.
If I am in London on a weekend and Mchelle is not down visiting, then I can often be found visiting a non league game, just to visit a new ground- “ground hopping” in colloquial language. I know its a very sad thing. Its the football equivalent of train spotting I was told recently by a work colleague. I was going to argue the point with her, but realised she was actually right.
4 Responses to Football
Tuesday 21 December, 2010 at 10:02
The ultimate low point of Newcastle between 1992-2002. Losing to Blackburn in April 96
spen666 says:
Graham Bl**dy Fenton
I remember it well – sadly. It certainly was a low point
Friday 21 January, 2011 at 07:26
Hello. I live in Russia and very much want the topic of football fans, including how they are different in Russia and England, though a little insight into their psychology. if you can help me, here is my email address: efan.schusch@yandex.ru write if you agree to continue talking.
john thompson says:
Thursday 7 May, 2015 at 12:20
spennymoor is nearer sunderland, you should be a mackem or are you a “big” club follower?
Haway Sun’l’nd
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Last names beginning with G
Gray, Hector Edwards
Kōrero: Gray, Hector Edwards
Whārangi 1: Biography
Jockey, horse trainer
I tuhia tēnei haurongo e John Costello,, ā, i tāngia tuatahitia ki Ngā Tāngata Taumata Rau Ko te wāhanga , 1996.
Hector Edwards Gray, the greatest New Zealand jockey of his era, was born in Albert Town, Otago, on 18 November 1885. He was the son of Joseph Gray, a contractor, and his wife, Margaret Hoad (née Edwards). The family moved to Normanby, Taranaki, where as a schoolboy Gray showed considerable promise in athletics. He was selected to represent New Zealand (presumably in age-group events) in a team to visit England, but his father refused permission for the trip.
Joseph Gray, although himself a noted horse-breaker and trainer of young horses, also frowned on his son's ambition to become a jockey. The youthful Hector played truant from home to ride trackwork for Thomas Paget at Stratford. He began racing at a Wanganui meeting on 2 October 1902 and had ridden three winners at a Patea meeting before his parents learned of his fledgeling career. Joseph Gray then relented and allowed Hector to join the stable of Taranaki trainer Jervis George. Gray came out of his apprenticeship with a steadily growing reputation, and moved to Auckland.
Hector Gray's racing career was marked by outstanding success as a rider and a series of suspensions for dubious practices. He was the subject of rumours that he deliberately lost races and intimidated other jockeys. His defenders claimed he was victimised by officials jealous of his success.
In 1908–9 Gray received a two-year suspension for allegedly preventing a pony named Mighty Atom from doing its best in a race. He worked on a farm during the suspension, then came back, three months into the 1909–10 season, to be the country's leading jockey with 64 wins. He won another premiership the following season, with 79 wins, and had two more successful seasons before moving to Australia in 1914. Gray won the Essendon Stakes and Australian Cup in Melbourne on a horse named Wallolo, but was suspended for two years for alleged 'inconsistent running' when Wallolo finished third in a lead-up to the Sydney Cup. It was effectively a life disqualification as his licence to race in Australia was never renewed.
Back in New Zealand, when his term of disqualification expired, Gray was immediately successful and won premierships in 1917–18, 1918–19 and 1920–21. In 1921 he left for England to race there. He rode more than 100 winners during a two-year stint in England, France and Belgium.
In 1925, less than two years after his successful return to New Zealand, Gray was suspended for life for an alleged corrupt practice. The sentence was remitted after five years. Gray, now in his mid-40s, was at an age when most jockeys are retired or past their best. He resumed riding when the 1929–30 season was three months old, yet he finished the season with 75 wins and his sixth premiership. The following season he won his seventh premiership riding 116 winners. It was the first time a New Zealand jockey had bettered 100 wins in a season. The following season the veteran horseman was third in the premiership with 64. But he again lost his licence, for alleged race-fixing at a Dargaville meeting, and this time it was not renewed. Gray then turned to training, first at New Plymouth, then at Takanini.
Gray's individual records – 919 New Zealand wins, 116 wins in a season and seven jockey's premierships – were inevitably eclipsed as the number of race meetings steadily increased. Nevertheless, he had achieved remarkable success, particularly considering the enforced breaks in his career.
Fitness, strength and good judgement of pace were listed by contemporaries as reasons for Gray's mastery. Careful study of the opposition also played a part, but this could hardly account for Gray's remarkable record of winning at his first ride in each country that he rode in. Nor does it explain the fact that, although he rode almost entirely flat races, he won over hurdles and also won the only two trotting races in which he competed.
Gray had married Ellen Mary Pitt at Auckland on 20 January 1908. They were divorced in 1929, and on 19 March 1930 he married Ruby Maud Paterson at Wellington. She had divorced her first husband, James Hay, in 1928. Hector and Ruby Gray had no children. Hector died at Auckland on 8 March 1957, survived by his son, Joseph.
Hector Gray won a reputation for being an especially crooked rider even at a time when the racing industry was neither clean nor well-policed. Yet he is best remembered as by far the most successful of contemporary jockeys.
Whai muri:Hononga, rauemi nō waho
John Costello. 'Gray, Hector Edwards', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1996. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/mi/biographies/3g21/gray-hector-edwards (accessed 16 July 2019)
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People watch a broadcast of Chinese President Xi Jinping delivering his speech during the opening of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, at a shopping mall in Beijing, China Oct 18, 2017. Source: Reuters.
How China is looking to become a ‘country of innovators’
By A. Azim Idris | 19 October, 2017
IN recent years, China has expanded its reputation as an emerging global science and technology powerhouse and now president Xi Jinping is looking to bolster its image as a “country of innovators”, amid complaints of global trade imbalances and intellectual property theft.
During a speech at the opening of the Communist Party Congress on Wednesday, the leader outlined the nation’s technological ambitions of turning China into a “strong country” with more use of advanced technologies including Internet, big data, and artificial intelligence.
According to ABC News (via the Associated Press), the president urged party leaders to drive up development of the country’s tech industries in aerospace, cyberspace, and clean energy, among others, pledging to promote cooperation among universities, government research institutes, state companies and small enterprises.
HUAWEI CROWNED AS CHINA’S MOST AUTHENTIC BRAND
“We will strengthen basic research in applied sciences, launch major national science and technology projects and prioritize innovation in key technologies,” he said.
But as Chinese companies emerge as global competition for their US and European counterparts in areas like smartphones and solar power, the country’s tech policies have been criticised over the limited market access.
The Chinese government has also been repeatedly accused of encouraging the theft of foreign know-how, as intelligence analysts said government operates a network of research centres and business parks to turn the stolen intellectual property into commercial products.
In May, Xi vowed to increase government support for technology companies in an attempt to raise the country’s competitiveness as concerns over protectionism grow.
With the Internet Plus and Made in China 2025 strategies, Xi looked to make Chinese firms world technology leaders, calling for progressive increases in domestic components in priority industries such as robotics and aerospace equipment, a Reuters report said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks during the opening of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China Oct 18, 2017. Source: Reuters
Foreign business groups, however, voiced concerns that such policies could limit foreign firms’ opportunities in China and ultimately starve innovation.
The foreign business community has also expressed frustration over China’s slow progress on promised market-opening reforms.
“Our biggest advantage is that we, as a socialist country, can pool resources in a major mission,” Xi said in May.
IS CHINA BECOMING THE WORLD’S FINTECH CAPITAL?
Heidi Vella | 5 October, 2017
China also has a long-standing effort to ensure a firm grip on its sensitive tech infrastructure, especially where growing security threats such as terrorism was concerned.
The country’s technological prowess in defence was also touched during Xi’s address on Wednesday.
The Register quoted the president as saying that by the year 2020, military mechanization will be basically achieved, with big improvements in IT application and strategic capabilities.
Xi said by 2035, the country’s national defence and armed forces would be “modernised”, while the people’s armed forces will be transformed into a world-class military by the mid-21st century.
By A. Azim Idris
@AzimIdrisHybrid
A. Azim Idris | @AzimIdrisHybrid
A. Azim Idris is a journalist and writer with a keen interest in collecting vinyl records. Following his Mass Communications (Technology & Policy) undergraduate degree studies in Murdoch University, Perth, he joined the New Straits Times in 2010 as a cub reporter before being posted to the bureaus in Kuala Terengganu and Putrajaya. He has also previously worked for The Rakyat Post as a senior reporter.
How China’s tech companies went from followers to trendsetters
Why JD.com is banking on AI to revive China’s e-commerce growth
Cainiao CTO talks about digitizing China’s logistics sector
AI brings big opportunities for healthcare businesses in China
Should telcos or customers worry about being late to the 5G party?
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Tata Group
Cyrus Mistry
25YearsofReform
25 years of reforms: Liberalisation taught India Inc the need to innovate, says Cyrus Mistry
"It took tremendous courage of conviction for Indian corporates like the Tatas to decide that protection would be inappropriate."ET Bureau | July 21, 2016, 09:27 IST
Cyrus Mistry.
By Cyrus P Mistry
I had just returned to India having completed my undergraduate degree in Britain when the Indian government announced major economic reforms in July 1991. A series of momentous changes would soon lead to the dismantling of the licence permit-quota raj. Indian corporates could now chart their own destiny with fewer curbs on their ambition.
Within a few years of the reforms having been initiated, India morphed from a scarcity economy into a market where, from automobiles to electronic goods and lifestyle products, a rich menu of options became available to the Indian consumer.
Not all Indian corporates welcomed the new environment of competition and openness.
They were already up against entrenched domestic companies, and would soon encounter international entities who had recognised the potential of the Indian market and were bringing their full complement of products and services to address the needs of a growing Indian middle class. In the face of such disruption, it took tremendous courage of conviction for Indian corporates like the Tatas to decide that protection would be inappropriate.
True to the Tata legacy of pioneering, Ratan Tata, elected Chairman of Tata Sons the same year that economic reforms were launched, made visionary strategic choices. His fundamental premise was that the Tatas should welcome open markets. Based on that premise, he encouraged Tata companies to benchmark their operations with their global peers, invest in innovation for the future, and compete with the best of breed across international markets.
The Tata group adopted the Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM), based on the quality improvement framework developed for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards (first launched in the US as a means of responding to the quality challenge presented by Japan Inc in the 1980s).
This created capabilities within Tata companies to compete successfully in the Indian market, and thereafter grow in international markets with the confidence of being able to hold their own against their global peers. Thus, the first winner of the JRD Quality Values Award for performance within the TBEM framework, Tata Steel in 2000, went on to win the Deming Prize in 2008, and then the coveted Grand Deming Prize in 2012.
FOCUS ON STANDARDS
The group also adopted a Code of Conduct, crafted to nurture and protect its reputation for observing the highest standards of corporate governance and ethical conduct. And in line with the group’s global mindset, a key clause in the Code required all Tata companies “to support the development and operation of competitive open markets and the liberalisation of trade and investment in each country and market in which we operate”.
The adherence of Tata companies to both the TBEM process and the Tata Code of Conduct was permanently enshrined in the Brand Equity and Business Promotion Agreement. Each Tata company subscribes to this agreement in order to secure the right to use the Tata brand. This has played an immense role in presenting to the world Tata products and services that stand for performance and trust. Alongside key initiatives in governance, brand promotion and business excellence, the Tata group quickly developed an understanding of the critical importance of innovation in order to successfully compete in the global economy.
This eventually led to the formation of the Tata Group Innovation Forum in 2007, and the celebration of the group’s pioneering instincts through annual Tata Innovista Awards.
The group’s recent disclosure of having crossed a milestone of 7,000 patent applications, a number that has doubled in just the last two years, reflects the rapid progress that we are making.
A decade’s solid performance in India after the launch of economic reforms set the Tatas on a path of carefully calibrated geographical expansion. Embracing the possibilities presented by inorganic growth, the group undertook several small acquisitions and then progressively larger acquisitions across multiple businesses, building the confidence to eventually undertake very large acquisitions like those of Corus and Jaguar Land Rover. To each of these, the group has brought a unique Tata approach of long-term value creation, balancing the needs of various stakeholders.
International acceptance of Tata products and services and the development of world-class capabilities and competencies also inspired the Tata group’s entry into several new sunrise industries, including defence and aerospace. A company like Tata Advanced Systems Ltd (TASL) has, thus, emerged as a leader in the aero-structures business, capable of being a partner to global aerospace majors like Lockheed Martin, Pilatus and RUAG Aviation.
And TASL’s joint venture with Sikorsky was able to establish a greenfield facility in Hyderabad in record time, which is today the single global source for assembly of the fuselage for the S-92 helicopters used for VIP transportation around the world.
It is also a matter of satisfaction for the Tata Group that the reforms process has eventually yielded amendments to regulations in the aviation sector that have allowed the Tatas to re-enter a space they pioneered in India. Conceptualised and led by Ratan Tata, the group was able, in 2013, to craft its reentry strategy in aviation with reputed partners, namely Air Asia in the low-cost carrier segment, and Singapore Airlines in the full-service carrier segment.
With the expansion of the domestic aviation sector, and the recent amendments in norms for international flights, the growth opportunities in this space appear very promising.
Key learnings that the Tatas have assimilated over the past 25 years include the understanding that innovation is a key differentiator in gaining market leadership; the critical importance of brands in establishing an emotional connect with customers; the necessity of having a long-term vision with the courage to back one’s instincts and take prudent risks in order to deliver substantial growth; and finally, the conviction that Indian companies can hold their own in competitive and open international markets.
From a turnover of about $6 billion in 1991-92, the Tata Group turnover crossed the threshold of $100 billion in 2012. Across diverse industries, from steel to soda ash, trucks to tea, IT to engineering services, and air conditioners to eye wear, Tata companies today enjoy leadership positions in India and the world.
With a powerful platform now in place, the Tata group is optimistic about the future. By 2030, our home market, India, will be the most populous country in the world and will likely have the highest growth rate among large economies, with the fastest pace of urbanisation. To address the rising aspirations of Indians, we will ride the wave of certain mega trends that will increasingly shape consumers’ lives across India and other global markets. These include consumer preferences for premiumisation and more benefit-laden products and services, growing ecological consciousness and a focus on health and wellbeing, and the all pervasive influence of the digital economy. Through initiatives like the focus on renewable energy at Tata Power, the development of nutraceuticals by Tata Chemicals, the launch of our new omni-channel ecommerce initiative, Tata Cliq, and the development by Tata Consultancy Services of Ignio, the world’s first neural automation system for enterprise IT, we are already responding to these new trends. And to enhance the quality of our responses, we are partnering some of the world’s most reputed academic and research institutions.
As over 12 million young Indians come into the workplace each year, it is imperative for us to harness this force appropriately to reap the benefits of our demographic dividend. For India to remain a vibrant democracy with a market based economy, we need to ensure all our youth, irrespective of their socioeconomic background, are provided with the opportunity to perform to their true potential.
It is noteworthy that countries that have benefited from the demographic dividend have a large percentage of women in the workforce, which significantly increases the disposable income at the family unit level. This is as high as 60% in South-East Asia, whereas in India we are still at around the 25% mark.
India's success will be predicated on our ability to provide access to quality education for all, appropriate channeling of risk capital to create millions of entrepreneurs, significant improvement in our productivity in the agricultural sector, and an enabling regulatory, legal and institutional framework to encourage investment into the infrastructure sector as we urbanise in a way that minimises our environmental footprint.
It is with these objectives in mind that one of the Tata group's flagship corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes, Tata STRIVE, is focused on skills development for Indian youth with an emphasis on employability, as well as a thrust towards entrepreneurship and community enterprise. And through our gender diversity programme, Tata LEAD, and our affirmative action programme, TAAP, we are committed to enhancing diversity in our workplaces.
The benefits of economic reforms have been many in the past 25 years. Hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty in India. However, the open and liberal architecture of the global economy is coming under increasing stress because of the challenges governments and businesses around the world face in balancing employment generation, technology adoption, and consumer benefit. Governments, in particular, need to resist the temptation to restrict free trade of goods, services and movement of people.
As a major beneficiary of liberal and open markets, and having witnessed the positive impact this has had on poverty alleviation and creation of more opportunities for India’s talented youth, the Tatas will always advocate continued reform towards more open and liberal regimes.
Isaac Newton had said, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Today, as we celebrate 25 years of economic reform, we in the Tatas salute the vision of Ratan Tata, who recognised the need to embrace open markets and prepared us well to face the challenges and address the opportunities which the next 25 years will present.
(The author is Chairman of Tata Sons)
Tags : Industry, Tata Group, Cyrus Mistry, 25YearsofReform
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Mon 27 Feb, 2017, 8:00 PM (EST)
Minnesota Wild vs. Los Angeles Kings - 2/27/17 NHL Pick, Odds, and Prediction
Los Angeles Kings (30-27-4) at Minnesota Wild (39-14-6)
Monday February 27, 2017, 8:00 PM (EST)
The Line: Minnesota Wild -150 / Los Angeles Kings +136 --- Over/Under: 5
The Minnesota Wild look to continue their dominant run on home ice as they welcome the Los Angeles Kings to the Xcel Energy Center on Monday.
The Los Angeles Kings head into Minnesota looking to make a statement against one of the league’s best teams as they inch towards a wild card spot in the Western Conference, and a victory on Monday night would be a huge step forward. The Kings got the trade season rolling as they acquired former Lightning goaltender Ben Bishop as he will replace Petr Budaj as the interim in the LA crease until Jonathan Quick returns from an injury that has kept him out all season, but the move is receiving a ton of criticism as LA needs some help offensively and they gave up Budaj who has better numbers this season than the new incumbent. The Kings look to snap out of an ugly skid playing on Monday’s as they are 1-6 in their last seven games to start the week and will be in tough on the road against a very good Minnesota team who also made a move over the weekend.
The Wild made a splash by going out and acquiring one of the top forwards on the trade block in Martin Hanzal and they didn’t have to rid of any of their budding young prospects to do so and have to be happy with where they are heading into the beginning of March. The Wild have a very deep team and have been among the league’s best since the first whistle back in October, and as such they aren’t getting a ton of value anymore as the odds makers are slotting them into the league’s elite and they are considered the odds on favourite in the Western Conference. Minnesota is 20-6 in their last 26 matchups against the Western Conference and with Devan Dubnyk getting the call here and likely facing off against a well traveled, and tired Ben Bishop who gets thrown into action right away.
The Kings are 9-4 in their last 13 against the West and 4-0 in their last four games against the Central division while the Wild are 16-6 in their last 22 home games and 17-5 in their last 22 against a team with a losing record. Los Angeles is in tough on the road here as Minny matches up well with them and with some moving parts on the Kings roster and Minnesota being a lethal home side I think they get the win here.
Minnesota Wild -150
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Photos From LA Weekly Photographer
Ted Soqui, photographer for the LA Weekly took these pre- and post-hung jury photos at the Spector trial. Dig down through the pages for more trial photos. There's more than what's up on the first page.
Labels: Crime, LA Weekly, Lana Clarkson, Phil Spector, Trial Coverage
Mick Brown & The Telegraph Interviewed me
Here's a little bit of exciting news. I just finished a "pod cast" phone interview with Mick Brown and his producer for the Telegraph, and it should be up on their web site in a few hours where you can listen to it.
Here's the link to the Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Click on the link on the right that says: Spector Juror speaks out.
Per your request, here is the link to contact the Los Angeles County's District Attorney:
http://da.co.la.ca.us/feedback.htm#email
Labels: Crime, Lana Clarkson, Phil Spector, Telegraph, Trial Coverage
A Second Conversation with Juror #9
I stayed up past midnight talking to Juror #9 for a second time, but I am way too tired to write out all that we talked about. He was virtually a lone voice of reason in that jury room, against all that garbage that stuck to some of the jurors. It wasn't always 10-2, and some of the other jurors for a time, bought the Antarctica "beach front" property that the defense was trying to sell everybody. Juror #10 was totally unreasonable from the get go. Juror #10 did NOT want to take a vote on the first day to see where they stood. He wanted to go over all the evidence first. And, in discussing DeSouza's testimony, he kept misstating the evidence regarding what DeSouza said. (Imho, he must have been bogartin' the crack pipe, to continually get it wrong.)
One of the Jurors thought that Lana was bitter and depressed because of a failed relationship. One Juror, actually bought Pie's stories about the things Lana said. Several Jurors, did not change their vote until the very last vote taken.
Juror #9 has been wanting to talk about this and what happened in the jury room and talking is very much a catharsis, and I can totally understand that. He is relieved to hear that there are people out there, who think like he thinks, and came to the conclusions he came to. I've pointed him in the direction of the Court TV message board, Court TV Extra, as well as Kim and Michelle's blogs.
Funny thing, Juror #9 felt the same way as many of you who posted on the "Fashion" threads. LKB's hair and wardrobe were terrible! He couldn't believe she wore clothes that didn't fit! Ya gotta love this guy everybody! Really!
This is such a sad day for Lana's family. I can't help but think, if only something could have been done....
P.S. I had my highest numbers to date on Wednesday. 4,946 page loads in a single day. 3,206 unique visitors. And another: 100,343 page loads to date.
Labels: Crime, Lana Clarkson, Phil Spector, Trial Coverage
I'm Speaking to Juror #9!
Updated 2!
He emailed me at my blog.
The Not Guilty votes were #1 & #10!
More later! He is so funny and he has a lot to say!
Updated 9:01 pm.
Scoop! First interview with juror #9 happened here people!
Juror #9 found out about my blog from a friend of his who emailed the url to him, and told him that he needed to look at this blog. Juror #9 emailed me at my blog telling me that I got it wrong. Juror #3 was NOT the not guilty vote; it was Juror #1. He also included his phone number and told me to call him.
I called him immediately. He will be doing an interview with Beth Karas tomorrow, and I think he's going to be on "The Early Show," tomorrow too; not positive about the specific show. He has a lot to say and he's going to let it all out. He will verify on those shows that what I am now writing is true.
All the arguments that the Court TV posters went through on the board, this jury went through those same arguments in the jury room.
The jurors did not believe that Lana was still alive/breathing after she was shot. They were not impressed with ANY of the defense experts.
Juror #10 felt that Dr. Pena could not put the gun in Lana's hand, and that was a big hurdle for him. He also felt that it was perfectly reasonable to think that Lana, who had never been to Spector's house before, would open a drawer, find the gun, pull it out and shoot herself. He had friends who commited suicide without any warning or any diagnosis. Juror #10 thought that scenario was perfectly reasonable because his mother-in-law does the same thing at his house. Comes over, opens drawers and pulls things out. I kid you not. Juror #10 thought that since Desouza was an illegal alien, nothing he said could be trusted.
Juror #1 tried to demean Lana, and Juror's #9 and #6 were determined to not let that happen. It appears there was some type of judgment on Lana making the decision to go home with Phil Spector for a drink at 2:30 am. Sad.
Some of the discussion centered around the DNA that was on Spector's scrotum. Some jurors actually thought that Lana had given Spector oral sex. Yep. Just from that miniscule DNA that was found, not on his penis, but on his scrotum! Unbelieveable! Juror #9 was not one of those jurors. He clearly indicated that he believed there was no evidence of this.
Some of the arguments for Lana committing suicide were: She had just had oral sex with Spector, and realizing that she had just had sex with this creepy old shriveled up man, got so despondent she decided to kill herself. (I just told that to Mr. Sprocket and he rolled his eyes and laughed!) Yes. That was one of the arguments for Not Guilty.
Another argument/excuse for Spector not calling 911 was the perception that Spector thought of himself as a "King," so of course he wouldn't call 911; someone else would do that. After informing the DeSouza that someone was dead, Spector expected DeSouza to call. To some of these jurors, that was a perfectly reasonable scenario.
It was amazing to get to talk to Juror #9. He's very friendly and funny. He's passionate about his position and feels that Lana's family deserves justice. It appeared to me that he was frustrated that he spent five months on this trial, and this was the end result. Oh, and all that time we thought Juror #9 and #8 were friends? Not so.
Juror #9 cleared up what many believe was a huge misunderstanding by DeSouza's testimony, and Juror #6 (I think I got that right), agreed. People who are not native speakers, when they hear a foreign language, they parrot it. Repeat what they hear verbatim. That's how they learn the language to begin with. The Juror's who were Guilty, felt that when DeSouza was talking about his English not being good, they felt he meant that DeSouza was not being understood by the officers or the 911 operators. Not that DeSouza didn't understand, because Juror #9 said it was clear DeSouza didn't have any problem understanding English, or understanding what he heard. It was that DeSouza was frustrated that "he" was not getting his message across clearly; that the officers were not understanding HIM.
I wish I had taken notes while we talked, but I was just so excited to be talking to him, the opportunity to hear what he had to say, that I paced the house the entire time. You are really going to enjoy hearing from him. He's a down to earth person, and very grounded in logic and reason. I got a good feeling talking to him. I can't wait to see his interviews tomorrow.
Almost forgot this. Beth Karas was his touchstone. He always looked for her in the afternoon. Since many did not know her name, their nickname for her was "two scoops," like ice cream, because she always wore pastel colors. He thought that since I was always watching the jury, he thought that I was a jury consultant!
Update: 11:00 pm.
Juror #9 said the yelling anyone heard would have been him.
10:2 In Favor of Conviction
Update 3!
NBC live streaming just reported that the vote was 10:2 in favor of conviction.
Update: 2:24 pm.
From the L.A. Times...
""We will try Phil Spector again," said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley. Gibbons said her office was disappointed."
Court TV's Harriet Ryan's latest reporting is here.
Update 2:40 pm.
Via the NBC News-chopper 4, Spector and Trial Bride did a "bit of a dance" for the overhead cameras, waving. Rachelle, leaning up to her husbands side and her arms around him, gyrates her groin area into his hip. They are smiling and waving to the cameras, Spector waving the two finger "peace" sign.
Regarding the "humping" of her husband for the camera. The purchased Trial Bride never disappoints in continuing to behave in a most despicable manner. Cheap, white trash.
KNBC full after trial report
Court TV Harriet Ryan's blog update.
Labels: Court TV Blog, Crime, Lana Clarkson, Phil Spector, Trial Coverage
Another Deadlock?
It certainly looks like it's a repeat of last week. Manila folder to the Judge, and then the clerk, Wendy's announcement that "We will be having a session at 1:30 pm."
Could it just be that the jurors have a question? This is unlikely since jury instructions specifically state that they are to continue deliberations while the court makes arrangements to answer their question.
If it's deadlocked (again) , will the Judge speak to the juror's individually to find out what the problem is, will he charge them to continue their deliberations, or will he accept a hung jury at this point? Meanwhile, we all wait for 1:30 pm, PT.
Posted by Sprocket at 11:57 AM 2 comments
Latest Jury Request: Three Blank Notebooks
As soon as the jurors entered the jury room, they buzzed twice and asked for three blank notebooks. Once obtaining the notebooks they buzzed a single time, indicating they had started deliberating.
Maybe with the TV and VCR in the room, they are going to take more notes while watching the video. Looks like they are dug in for the long haul.
Rachelle Short's Denial
The thing I find interesting about Rachelle Short's denial (through her husband's legal counsel) that she was the one who posted the threat towards a sitting Superior Court Judge, is, who made all the many posts with that "Chelle" MySpace account before the threat? A recent post that comes to mind is the one that the anonymous (cough, cough) "Chelle" put up on September 1st, at 1:43pm stating "HAPPY ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY TO US!!!!!!
It does beg the question, IF (and that's a huge if in my book) Child Bride is telling the truth and she did not make the post, then,
a) how come she let someone impersonate her for so long, or
b) when was it specifically that the account got hacked?
Inquiring minds want to know, lol! Personally, I think she would look stunning if Spector and Child Bride were given matching sets of silver bracelets, courtesy of the LA County Sheriffs. Now that would be a high fashion statement worth reporting!
Update: September 26th, 8:25 am.
Thanks to Court TV poster and "top sleuth" in my book, steffaroob4, here are some more "Chelle" comments on another MySpace page. I keep telling you everyone, Google cache is your friend!
Labels: Crime, Phil Spector, Rachelle Short, Trial Coverage
Court Takes Threats on Judges Seriously
Latest report from Harriet Ryan on the Court TV Blog, indicates the court takes any threat on a Judge seriously, even those that are supposedly anonymous comments on Team Spector's MySpace page. Thanks steffaroob4!
"According to the defense, Rachelle Spector says she was not the author of the post and doesn't know who was. It has since been removed from her site.
She denies it, said defense attorney Christopher Plourd, adding that he was aware of the investigation."
Yeah. Right, lol! Who of you out there believes that? I mean, come on, lol! Rachelle has also said that Spector's wigs are "his own hair," and that she met Spector "at a restaurant." She fails to mention that it was Jerry's Deli, where she was working as a waitress.
I bet this defense team just "loves" the child bride, since she's been such a great source of help in crafting their defense.
Update: 11:40 am.
Here is the California penal code for threatening a civil servant, including a Judge. A big thanks to my Court TV friend Sherbie for finding and posting this.
Court TV's Harriet Ryan has expanded her reporting on the Team Spector MySpace page comment.
Labels: Court TV Blog, Crime, Lana Clarkson, Phil Spector, Rachelle Short, Trial Coverage
Which Video Tape Did The Jurors Watch?
According to this article on MsNBC, there is another video (besides Adriano DeSouza's police interview) that the jurors could be watching. This is a video of Adriano in the back of the castle near the fountain, pointing out various things to detectives.
Because there were several days in June that I missed, I don't remember when this video was entered into evidence (if it ever was), or through which witness. I just don't recall this video at all being presented at trial.
If this video is in evidence and the jurors are watching it, then everyone needs to read this entry at mControl Blogs, and judge for yourself if the fountain at the castle only has one flow setting or not.
Personally, I would put more factual weight into Harriet Ryan's reporting on the Court TV blog, than I would a report out of the Associated Press with no byline.
Update: 9:10 am.
I stand corrected. Thank you Lynn Gweeny, for finding verification that this video was entered into evidence, and it was described in a Harriet Ryan blog article as a "sheriff's department video tape filmed at Spector's estate."
Labels: Court TV Blog, Crime, Lana Clarkson, mControl Blogs, MsNBC, Phil Spector, Trial Coverage
Dig Makes Me Laugh
I just adore Court TV poster Dig (and his cloned at band camp twin, Dave). Dig has a sense of humor that I totally "get," so here are a few things Dig has written that make me laugh.
Memories are made of BS
Rosen: So, Mr. Deesowza, when Mr. Spector came outside to talk to you, what did you say was in his right hand?
De Souza: A gun.
Rosen: Could it have been a cuddly little puppy?
De Souza: It was a gun.
Rosen: Did anyone ever explain to you that here in America, we often have puppies that are the same size as a gun?
De Souza: I know what I saw. It was a gun.
Rosen: Could it have been a kitten?
De Souza: No. Gun.
Rosen: And when you saw this object, that was the size of a puppy or a kitten, did you offer it anything to eat?
De Souza: Gun.
Rosen: Little birdie?
Cell phone conversation not entered into evidence
Mrs. Plourd: Honey, on your way home, would you please pick up a quart of milk?
Mr. Plourd: When you say milk, are you referring to a white liquid?
Mrs. Plourd: (Sighing audibly) Yes, that is correct.
Mr. Plourd: So if I brought home a quart of a liquid that was not white, would it be milk?
Mrs. Plourd: No, it wouldn't.
Mr. Plourd: If someone showed you a liquid that was not white, and claimed that it was milk, would they be right or wrong? (If you know.)
Mrs. Plourd: They would be wrong.
Mr. Plourd: So milk is white. Is that correct?
Mrs. Plourd: Yes.
Mr. Plourd: Are you an expert on milk?
Mrs. Plourd: No.
Mr. Plourd: Do you read any of the technical journals that are about milk?
Mr. Plourd: Have you had any articles published about milk?
Mr. Plourd: I would like to move on now, if I may, to the unit of measurement known as a quart. Do you consider yourself to be an expert...
Mrs. Plourd: Bring me some double-A batteries, too.
Mr. Plourd: When you refer to "double-A", is that a particular size of battery that is familiar to you?
Mrs. Plourd: If you only knew.
Mr. Plourd: If we could, let's clarify the term "battery".
Mrs. Plourd:
Labels: Funnies, Phil Spector, Trial Coverage
The Need For Bodyguards: Book Excerpt
This is a second excerpt from Mick Brown's book, Tearing Down the Wall of Sound, that I think gives some interesting insight into Spector's need for bodyguards. I swear, Mick is not paying me to promote his book, lol! As I'm getting deeper into it, I just want to share some of the history that is Spector. There are so many excerpts that I want to put up, it is difficult to choose which one to share with everybody.
The bodyguards that were in court every day have often been a topic on the blogs and the Court TV Phil Spector forum. I thought this excerpt would give everyone an interesting perspective on why Spector has bodyguards, and how far back into his past he's been employing them.
Excerpt from Chapter 11, "The Wall of Sound, It Kinda Sounds Tired," pages 159-160.
(Timeline, January, 1964. "Gold Star" was a recording studio Spector used almost exclusively.)
On his journey to London, Spector had been shadowed by a powerful and imposing presence that went by the name of Red--or "Big Red," as Spector called him. Red would be the first in a succession of bodyguards that Spector would hire over the years, partly for protection, but mostly it seemed as a demonstration of his rising status and power. "Phil wanted to be Elvis and Frank Sinatra combined," one friend remembers. "Those were his heroes. And he wanted that kind of persona, and cool, aloof thing, the entourage--all that protected crap."
Spector's flamboyant appearance--the hair, the elevator shoes, the ruffled shirts--had always drawn stares, and sometimes insults, but now with bodyguards at his side, he seemed almost to relish the prospect of confrontation, safe in the knowledge that if anybody caused trouble he had muscle on hand to deal with it.
"In 1965, you walk into a Hollywood restaurant looking like Phil Spector, there would be silence," Denny Bruce says. "Like, what the hell is that?! Which is why he'd have bodyguards. He would stand there with shades on, a P. J. Proby billowing shirt, a vest, two guys behind him. 'What's so funny?' He antagonized people. And he enjoyed that attention."
"Phil thrived on being different," Nedra Talle says. "He didn't want to just be a little Jewish boy. So he developed a look, but with that look he got a lot of harassment. People would be calling him faggot and all kinds of things, and he'd just have to swallow it. But when he had his bodyguards with him, it got to be that he would pick fights. We'd be in a restaurant and he'd walk out first, and it would be just like a magnet where people would be drawn to say something to him. Then Phil would say something back to them, and just when it was getting ugly he would step back and his two guys would step out from behind and handle the situation. It was like a trap."
Like LaLa Brooks, Nedra sensed that Spector's braggadocio was actually compensation for a much deeper underlying insecurity. Spector, she thought, was "a tortured soul." He had told the Ronettes the story of how when touring with the Teddy Bears he had been set upon in a lavatory and pissed on.
"When he told us that, something inside of me went out to him. I loved that song, 'To Know Him,' and the thought of this little guy who was too small to defend himself getting pissed on for just trying to do his thing, it broke my heart. So I always thought that, with the bodyguards, Phil was just getting his own back."
But to others, it seemed that Spector never quite knew when to stop. On one occasion, he even instructed his bodyguards to beat up Larry Levine, after an argument at Gold Star. "I walked out of the studio," Levine remembers, "and he sent these guys out to hit me--a couple of young gorillas. They didn't know what to do; they obviously weren't going to hit me. It was just another way of exhibiting power."
Labels: Books, Crime, Lana Clarkson, Phil Spector, Trial Coverage
Jurors rewatch DeSouza's taped interview with LE
It's interesting that this late in the deliberations game, the jurors have now asked for a VCR to watch (all? a portion of?) Adriano Desouza's taped interview with police. Since this is the only evidence that was recorded on a VHS tape, this is what most of the mainstream media feel the jury wants to rewatch.
During cross examination of DeSouza, Brunon really went after DeSouza's command and understanding of the English language. Because of that blunder, the Judge ruled the prosecution could introduce on redirect, DeSouza's interview with Alhambra Police officers, just hours after the early morning shooting death of Lana Clarkson.
The video was played in court over two days. I saw the second half of the playing of the video to the jurors. Although DeSouza's accent was hard for me to understand, it was crystal clear that DeSouza could understand the questions the officers put to him, and a translator was never needed.
So that begs the question, what part of his testimony do people think the jury wanted to listen to? Using logic people, IF Lana killed herself, why would that gun ever be in Spector's hands when he exits the back door? DeSouza said he clearly saw him holding a gun on the witness stand, and even demonstrated how he saw Spector holding the gun. He also stated that he saw blood on Spector's finger. It's one of the reasons he wanted to leave the property as quickly as possible. To me, this is one piece of testimony that sinks him completely, and there was nothing presented that ever contradicted that. There wasn't one defense witness that said he was imagining what he saw.
Cocobaby had a great comment on the Court TV forum:
Check out Pat Dixon's closing argument again (at least the first 20 minutes). He begins by saying "The defense is based on the theory that Spector never had the gun in his hand" then he goes, "Really, I thought I heard Adriano DeSouza tell us on the witness stand that he saw PS with a gun in his hand, indeed I did, I heard him say that and so did you," and goes on and on about AD seeing the gun in PS's hand.
If the jury believes that AD saw PS with a gun in his hand-it's over. Fingers crossed that the jury are logical bunch. It really shouldn't take this long imo, I can't imagine what they are hung over!!!!
If Spector is innocent, why did he pick the gun up and walk outside with it and make a declarative statement? These are not hard questions for the jurors. They are ones that should come back with logical answers to these questions.
I think Bill Maher on his show summed it up best, and if you haven't seen the video clip of his comments, you should. (To see Bill Maher's clip on Spector, there's a link in my blog entry on YouTube at the very end.) It's hysterical.
Out of the mouth of babes...or child brides.
Have you read recently what some of Spector's supporters are saying over on the TEAM SPECTOR MySpace page?
Child Bride is standing by the money, lol!
Updated: September 24th, 12:20 pm.
Well, well, well. Appears like Team Spector just removed Child Bride's comment from their MySpace page.
Here it is for everyone that missed it.
Kim of The Darwin Exception: Take a Bow! & The Origins of Reasonable Doubt
Kim of The Darwin Exception has put up a "ten best" moments of the trial. It's exceptionally witty and thought provoking. Don't miss it.
Thanks to Lynn Gweeny, here is a link to a great article on The Origins of Reasonable Doubt, by James Q. Whitman. It's a PDF document that will download to your computer. Here is an excerpt from the document.
The “reasonable doubt” rule is notoriously difficult to define, and many judges and scholars have deplored the confusion it creates in the minds of jurors. Yet ”reasonable doubt” is regarded as a fundamental part of our law. How can a rule of such fundamental importance be so difficult to define and understand?
The answer, this paper tries to show, lies in history. The ”reasonable doubt” rule was not originally designed to serve the purpose it is asked to serve today: It was not originally designed to protect the accused. Instead, it was designed to protect the souls of the jurors against damnation. Convicting an innocent defendant was regarded, in the older Christian tradition, as a potential mortal sin. The purpose of the ”reasonable doubt” instruction was to address this frightening possibility, reassuring jurors that they could convict the defendant without risking their own salvation, as long as their doubts about guilt were not ”reasonable.” In its original form, the rule thus had nothing to do with maintaining the rule of law in the sense that we use the phrase, and nothing like the relationship we imagine to the values of liberty. This helps explain why our law is in a state of such disquieting confusion today. We are asking the ”reasonable doubt” standard to serve a function that it was not originally designed to serve, and it does its work predictably badly.
Labels: Lana Clarkson, Phil Spector, The Darwin Exception, Trial Coverage
External Image is Everything
I've mentioned several times that Mick Brown's book is an excellent resource to understanding who is Phil Spector, and the complexities of his character. So, I've copied a page of text from his book, to give you an idea of how well researched the book is, and the wealth of information contained within. The intended purpose to post the excerpt is to educate and promote Mr. Brown's book.
Excerpt is from Chapter 8: "He Wanted to Be Thought Of as Interesting," pages 123-124
Note: "Bono" is Sonny Bono, of Sunny & Cher. "Nitzsche" is Jack Nitzsche.
In his autobiography Bono writes that Spector "wanted to be thought of as interesting." He was obsessed by his appearance and how other people would see him. Spector, Bono and Nitzsche would sometimes take photos of each other, practicing the coolest way of sitting in a car or striking a pose--sunglasses on, sunglasses off . . . "He would put one arm on the window, try steering with one finger, all sorts of different poses," remembered Bono. "Then he would have me stand outside the car and ask how he looked."
For a while, Spector harbored an infatuation with the singer Jackie DeShannon. One day he asked Bono, "If she saw me driving, do you think she'd like me better with my glasses on or off?"
Bono replied that he had no idea.
With a handful of surreptitious phone calls, Bono was able to find out DeShannon's schedule and calculate that she would be driving down Sunset Strip at a certain time. Spector and Bono stationed themselves on the street and, when DeShannon drove past, set off in pursuit. At length they pulled alongside her car. "Phil positioned himself so that he was sitting almost completely sideways," Bono remembered. "Most of his back was toward the window. He was, he thought, looking as cool as possible. From Jackie's point of view though, he was barely visible."
For a mile Spector drove parallel to DeShannon, holding the pose, until at last DeShannon turned off the Strip, apparently oblivious to the fact that it was Spector in the car beside hers. Spector, Bono remembered, was "crestfallen. 'Damn,' he said, 'the sunglasses probably scared her.'"
Spector's fastidiousness about his wardrobe and appearance could be comical, but it seemed to hint less at vanity than at some more troubling, underlying insecurity. Preparing for a recording session or a meeting, he would spend hours posturing in front of the mirror, matching different shirts and jackets, testing colognes and experimenting with different ways of combing his fast-thinning hair, which only Annette Merar was allowed to cut.
"And every single strand would have to be perfect . . . 'Okay, so fix it at the back to make it compensate for the bit at the font that's long.' But to me he was adorable, and a very sexy guy. I remember one occasion when we were living on Fifty-eighth Street, and he was going off to work dressed in a Beau Brummel kind of velvet vest and a jacket; his hair was perfect; he was just mesmerizing, and I just loved him so hard, but I never said anything. He walked out and closed the door and it was . . . 'Oh my God.' He was my type of guy."
Spector's obsession with his appearance would never leave him. For years afterward, whenever he was in company he would leave the room at frequent intervals to preen and primp in front of a mirror. "It wasn't arrogance or egotism," Annette says. "It was like the opposite that drove him to be perfect."
__________________________End of excerpt
It's clear that Annette Merar loved Spector and even after all these years spoke of him in a very affectionate and warm tone. But wow! The obsessiveness about his appearance speaks volumes about his deep set insecurities regarding his looks. (We can understand a bit more now, that huge mirror behind the chair where Lana Clarkson was murdered.) Spector's wardrobe obsession has been clearly evident at his murder trial. I can't help but mention that the child bride has had a similar problem with her wardrobe selections, too.
Labels: Books, Crime, Lana Clarkson, Phil Spector, Rachelle Short, Trial Coverage
Spector Jury Gets New Instructions
Just a few minutes ago, the Spector jury were read new instructions, and are sent back into the jury room to begin deliberation again.
Here is an unofficial transcript of the new instructions given to the jurors. Special thanks to Court TV poster Blogger who offered their transcription of the modified instruction CalCrim 520, on murder.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm now going to attempt to answer the questions that you had the other day. I'm going to be reading some additional instructions to you, repeating an instruction and hopefully, that will be able to cover all the areas that you had concerns of, concerns with.
The question of whether the instruction should be, one instruction; I think it was actually you were concerned with, special number three. And I'm going to instruct you on special number three in a second. But I just want to just, and I think this will also apply to another question that you had. I'm going to reread to you just from the very first instruction that I gave you, CalCrim 200.
Pay careful attention to all of these instructions, and consider them, together. Okay? That's the first thing that I will instruct you which would answer question number one. Your second question, concerns, special instruction three and I'm going to get to that, in just a moment. Your third question was whether in determining the weight of the evidence, the totality of the evidence should be considered, or the weight of one specific instruction. And again, I will instruct you from CalCrim 200, that you are to pay careful attention to all of the instructions, and consider them, together. Okay? I think that will answer your fourth question which had to do with totality.
Question number five, on whether you can view the clothing articles on a mannequin, the answer to that is no for two reasons. Number one, the clothing is no longer in the condition that it was, when the relevant matters took place. And number two, the clothing is not in evidence, and you may not view items that are not in evidence. The pictures are in evidence, there have been explanations given and you are bound by that. So you will not be given the clothing that was not introduced into evidence to view.
Question number six. The jurors are having problems with the concept of reasonable doubt, and I will simply, I'm going to reread to you the reasonable doubt instruction. They moved the, when we changed instructions from what was then known as CalJur to CalCrim they moved the reasonable doubt instruction. I used to know right were to look for it.
The fact that a criminal charge has been filed against the defendant is not evidence that the charge is true. You must not be biased against the defendant just because he has been arrested, charged with a crime, or brought to trial. A defendant in a criminal case is presumed to be innocent. This presumption, requires that the people prove a defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Whenever I tell you the people must prove something, I mean they must prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, unless I specifically tell you otherwise. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is proof that leaves you, with an abiding conviction that the charge is true. The evidence need not eliminate all possible doubt, because everything in life is open to some possible or imaginary doubt. In deciding whether the people have proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt, you must impartially compare and consider all the evidence that was received throughout the entire trial. Unless the evidence proves the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, he is entitled to an acquittal, and you must find him not guilty.
You asked, the next question you asked, was whether it is appropriate for one juror to believe a fact is reasonable, while another believes the fact to be unreasonable, in such a case, with that situation, make the juror unreasonable, the answer is no. If one juror finds the evidence, and concludes there is a reasonable doubt based on that evidence, it does not mean that juror is being unreasonable because others disagree with he or she, him or her, pardon me. Each juror decides for themselves whether there is a reasonable doubt, on any element, or any other aspect with that as what you are applying. It applies to each juror individually. Course you talk to each other and you come to, you know, you discuss matters, and you may decide, whether or not a doubt is reasonable or possible or whatever. But the fact that one juror differs from the other, that does not make that juror unreasonable. Okay?
The next question dealt with instruction number three. I'm about to give you a special instruction on that. And that is, as far as this is now special instruction number six. During our discussion yesterday, one or more of you sought clarification of an elaboration on the meaning of special instruction number three. Upon reflection, I have decided that the other instructions I have given you adequately state the principles of law you are to apply in deciding this case. Rather than attempt to further explain special instruction number three, I am withdrawing it. You therefore are to rely on the remaining instructions in your deliberations from this point forward. In withdrawing special instruction number three from your consideration, I do not intend to comment in any way on the correctness of the individual or collective opinions expressed by you in your deliberations to this point, nor do I intend to suggest anything about what opinions each of you should express or positions you should take in any further deliberations. In your deliberations from this point forward, do not consider, the now withdrawn special instruction number three. Treat it as though, you had never heard of it.
I'm also now going to read you, uh, we're going to modify, and have modified, CalCrim 520, which is the instruction on murder. I'll ask that you listen to it because the language is now different. And at some point we will get you at least one corrected copy of the instructions; I don't know that I'm going to make individual ones available to you, but we will get these corrected copies of the instructions I am now reading to you in to you, but you certainly, when I'm done. And I will have one further instruction to read after this. You may go ahead and begin your deliberations.
The defendant is charged in count one with murder. To prove that the defendant is guilty of this crime, the people must prove that: 1) the defendant committed an act with a firearm that caused the death of Lana Clarkson. Such as, placing the gun in her mouth or forcing her to place the gun in her mouth at which time it discharged. Pointing the gun at or against her head at which time it entered her mouth and discharged. Pointing the gun at her to prevent her from leaving the house, causing a struggle which resulted in the gun entering her mouth and discharging.
By using these examples I am not suggesting that any of these acts took place. These are inferences you may draw from the evidence but are not required to do so. You may reject them. These are only possibilities that you may consider.
The act committed by the defendant must be more than drawing or exhibiting a firearm in the presence of Lana Clarkson in a rude, angry, or threatening manner.
And 2.) When the defendant acted he had a state of mind called a malice of forethought. There are two kinds of malice of forethought, express malice and implied malice. Proof of either is sufficient to establish the state of mind required for murder. The defendant acted with express malice if he unlawfully intended to kill. The defendant acted with implied malice if
1) he intentionally committed an act; 2) the natural consequences of the act were danger to human life; 3) at the time he acted he knew his act was dangerous to human life; and 4) he deliberately acted with conscience disregard for human life.
Malice of forethought does not require hatred or ill-will toward the victim. It is a mental state that must be formed before the act that causes death is committed. It does not require deliberation, or the passage of any particular period of time. If you find the defendant guilty of murder as a matter of law it is murder of the second degree.
Finally, I am going to give you special instruction number four, and this has to do with how you should now consider your, um, deliberations. What I'm now going to do right now ladies and gentlemen, is have further instructions on directions to give you as to count one.
To assist you in your further deliberations, I am going to further instruct you as follows. Your goal as jurors should be to reach a fair and impartial verdict, if you are able to do so, based solely on the evidence presented, and without regard for the consequences of your verdict. It is your duty as jurors, to carefully consider, weigh, and evaluate all of the evidence presented in the trial, to discuss your views regarding the evidence and listen to and consider the views of your fellow jurors. In the course of your further deliberations, you should not hesitate to reexamine your own views or to request your fellow jurors to reexamine theirs. You should not hesitate to change a view you once held, if you are convinced it is wrong, or to suggest other jurors change their views, if you are convinced they are wrong.
Full and effective jury deliberations require a frank and forthright exchange of views. As I previously instructed you, each of you must decide the case for yourself, and should do so only after a full and complete consideration of all the evidence with your fellow jurors. It is your duty as jurors to deliberate with the goal of arriving at a verdict on the charge, if you can do so with out balance (?) to your individual judgement. Both the people, and the defendant, are entitled to the individual judgement of each juror. As I previously instructed you, you have absolute discretion to conduct your deliberations in any way you deem appropriate.
You may wish to consider changing the methods you have been following at least temporarily, and try new methods. For example, you may wish to consider having different jurors lead the discussions for a period of time, or you may wish to experiment with reverse role playing, by having those on one side of an issue present and argue the other sides position and vice versa. This might enable you to better understand the others' position. By suggesting you should consider changes in your methods of deliberations, I want to stress I am not dictating or instructing you how to conduct your deliberations. I merely (?) find you may find it productive to do whatever is necessary to ensure each juror has a full and fair opportunity to express his or her views and consider and understand the views of the other jurors.
I also suggest you reread CalCrim instructions 200, and CalCrim instruction 35-50. The integrity of a trial requires the jurors at all times during the deliberations conduct themselves as required by the instructions. CalCrim instruction 200 defines the duties of a juror. The decision the jury renders must be based on the facts, and the law. You must determine what facts have been proved from the evidence received in the trial, and not from any other source. A fact is something proved by the evidence, or by stipulation. Second, you must apply the law I state to you to the facts as you determine them, and in this way arrive at your verdict. You must accept and follow the law as I state it to you regardless of whether you agree with the law. If anything concerning the law said by the attorneys in their arguments, or at any other time during the trial conflicts with my instructions on the law, you must follow my instructions.
CalCrim 35-50 defines the jury's duty to deliberate. The decisions you make in this case must be based on the evidence received in the trial and the instructions given by the court. These are the matters... These are matters this instruction requires you to discuss for the purpose of reaching a verdict. CalCrim 35-50, is also an instruction which recommends how jurors should approach their task. You should keep in mind the recommendations this instruction suggests, when considering additional instructions, comments and suggestions I have made in the instructions now presented to you. I hope my comments and suggestions, may have some assistance to you. You're ordered to continue your deliberations at this time. If you have other questions, concerns, requests, or any communications you desire to report to me, please put those in writing on the form that my bailiff has provided you with. Have them signed and dated by your foreperson, and then please notify the bailiff. You may resume your deliberations at this time and we will take the alternates back to their waiting area.
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Guest Entry: Sedonia Sunset's take on the trial
Court TV poster Sedonia Sunset originally posted a fabulous synopsis on the trial on the Court TV Phil Spector Forum. Sedonia Sunset generously agreed to have me put her writings up on the blog. Thank you Sedonia Sunset!
This Trial Has Everything!
Many of us are "obsessed" with this trial, but I think it's the overall drama of the story that sucks us in like a real-life soap opera -- the fact that we have a community of people to discuss it with is a big part, in my opinion, of how and why we get sooooo entrenched with the trial. It also strikes a chord in all of us or we wouldn't be here. Many thanks go to KTLA.com who, unlike Court TV (yet, ironically, via the Court TV feed) provided on-line gavel-to-gavel coverage. Thank goodness for KTLA.com, KNBC.com and high-speed Internet access!
The Prosecution said Lana Clarkson was a plucky go-getter who was still striving to overcome obstacles and become a Hollywood STAR. Yes she had suffered hard times after a debilitating injury, but she was well on the mend, back to work in a place where she could make very high-level Hollywood connections. Even if the $9 an hour pay was downright pitiful -- it was the networking that mattered, and her prospects were looking up. She was scheduled to film a commercial less than a week after the shooting. She had stopped Phil Spector from coming into the exclusive Foundation Room at the House of Blues because he wasn't wearing the required wristband. She had made what was probably a fatal mistake earlier in the evening -- she referred to Phil as "MRS". Spector, mistaking him for a woman. Well, he was wearing a longish, curly wig, high heels, and a long, white lady's dinner jacket. She had no idea who he was. Someone set her straight and told her to treat him "golden" like Dan Akroyd, one of the famous owners of the House of Blues.
The Prosecution said that Phil Spector reverted to his decades-long pattern of getting drunk and pulling a gun on a woman trying to leave. This time though, a gun ended up in a woman's mouth! Lana was sitting by the back door with a purse on her shoulder, which clearly indicated that she was about to leave. Her life was brutally ended in a split-second when a bullet transected her spine and completely severed her spinal cord. The Defense, on the other hand, said she was a severely depressed, disabled, poverty-stricken, washed-up 40-yr-old has-been party girl who was habitually drunk and drugged, and impulsively shot herself when she saw a gun and an opportunity.
Phil Spector didn't act like an innocent man. He initially went outside, gun in bloody hand, somewhat dazed, and told the limo driver: "I think I killed somebody." The driver, Adriano DeSouza, saw the gun, the blood and Lana's outstretched legs. DeSouza high-tailed it out of there lest he ALSO be shot, and immediately called for help. Not knowing the exact situation inside the house, the police took 40 minutes to secure the premises before rushing the suspect to subdue him. They had to subdue him -- he did not follow their commands. They even attempted to taser him, but one of the tasers prongs did not connect correctly and the other one missed him. Much later, Phil claimed that they tasered him with 100,000 volts of electricity. They finally had to tackle him using a riot-shield because he would NOT stand still and keep his hands up.
Once tackled, Phil ranted and raved and threatened their jobs. He also said, "I can explain" and "It was an accident -- I didn't mean to shoot her!" Unfortunately, those statements didn't come into the trial, but they are in legal documents. Before the police stormed the castle, it was clear that Phil attempted to clean things up and stage the scene. He never called 911, despite having 14 working phones in the house. He wiped down the gun and placed it under her left shoe (possibly mistaking his right for her right). He washed his hands and took off his jacket. Did he switch wigs? Maybe. It wasn't brought up. He used a diaper wetted with toilet water where he presumably washed his hands and flushed away the excess blood. I still wonder if the fountain outside was ever tested. He probably tried to flush the diaper, but it didn't work.
Many of us have known men like Phil Spector. Well, maybe not the rich and powerful part, but certainly the abusive, neurotic, woman-hating part. We've all known women like the trashy, attention-seeking opportunist with the ridiculous name of "Punkin Pie," the desperately trendy, youth-obsessed and spiteful Jennifer Hayes-Reidl, and the staunch and loving long-term TRUE best friend, Nili Hudson. We also recognize gold-digging, spoiled, bratty, self-entitled, mouthy piranhas like Rachelle Spector. We can empathize with Lana's ambitions and her ups and downs.
The prosecution lawyers were also intriguing, from AJ, the charming, boyish, eager, whip-sharp, up-and-coming prosecutor to Pat Dixon, his more-experienced and calmer mentor. For some reason I tend to visualize them as Chance and Shadow from the movie Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey -- the eager, headstrong young bulldog and the older, wiser and more patient golden retriever. Of course, AJ is much smarter and more cautious than Chance, but overall personalities seem to fit. AJ is so engaging, however, that I can't help letting a little cynicism in by remembering a scene from Ally McBeal. A new lawyer in the firm practices his various kinds of instant smiles ~boyish, happy-go-lucky, wry, sensitive, brilliant, aw-shucks, seductive, etc.,~ to the tune of "Another One Bites The Dust." He explained that it was a skill that needed to be practiced and exercised, just like any other skill. Does AJ practice his smiles? Maybe, maybe not. I suspect Roger Rosen practices his scowls without even trying. Perhaps they are both just naturally gifted and go with their strong points.
Then there are the defense lawyers, Bruce Cutler, the theatrical real life mob lawyer who looks like a cross between Tor Johnson, WC Fields, and Don Rickles. Roger Rosen is the intense, angry, tie-flipping guy nobody likes who is so tightly wound that you'd need a tractor to pull the needle out of his butt. Looks-wise, he reminds me of Mitch Pileggi, who played Assistant Director Walter Skinner in the X-Files. In a hilarious aside, a Google search on "Roger Rosen" resulted in the following title: "Now You've Got Your Period - Google Books Result" LOL! Chris Plourd is the guy who bores everyone into a stupor and gamely takes the fall for the rest of the team.
Bradley Brunon was so smarmy many people felt the need to take a long, HOT, disinfecting shower after listening to him. LKB was Phil's token female-lawyer, mother and shrewd-operator with the loud, grating, headache-inducing voice and her own soap opera that includes her husband (who bears a striking resemblance to Captain Kangaroo) being a major witness. LKB considerately became deathly ill for two-plus weeks, during which time her husband testified out of her presence. No conflict of interest there, no siree! Out of sight, out of mind! At least until AJ cross-examines him into the dust over it.
There were the defense's expert witnesses. Dr. Henry Lee, the "rock star of forensics" who was officially declared by Judge Fidler to have concealed evidence, fled to China to avoid testifying in front of the jury and being eviscerated by the prosecution on live TV.
Dr. Vincent DiMaio, the exceptionally arrogant, pompous blowhard repeatedly waved off (literally) questions he considered annoying by condescendingly saying "Oh, never mind," clearly indicating that it wasn't worth bothering to even deign to speak to anyone who wasn't also a world famous scientist/ninja pathologist, who testified he has easily disarmed gun-wielding assassins (yes, pural!). He insisted that Lana ~and any other person with an IQ above that of a potato~ would have done the same if Phil Spector had really held a gun on her. It's just common sense, after all.
Dr. Werner Spitz, the elderly pathologist with the heavy German accent and lisp, testified that, yes, legs do bend mid-thigh, blood spatter can skip over half of a long, tall body, jump over the carpet, make a right-hand turn, and land on someone wearing a white jacket! And dead people with severed spines and shattered backbones can breathe, cough and blow raspberries.
That brings us back to Dr. Michael Baden ~the aforementioned Captain Kangaroo doppelganger~ (a description courtesy of Steven Mikulan of the LA Weekly), who has no idea what the term "conflict of interest" means. Baden doesn't see the slightest connection between that term and his testifying for the man that his wife is currently representing in a murder trial. He does concede that there are big bucks coming into both their bank accounts courtesy of Phil Spector. With no tipping of their hand to the prosecution, the defense, in a clear discovery violation, sprung Dr. Baden's "A-HA" moment on them. Dr. Baden said that her spine must not have been completely severed, so she could expirate blood onto Phil's jacket while Spector was tenderly and considerately washing her bloody face with a toilet-water-soaked diaper. Lana's spine must have been severed during the clumsy transport to the coroner's office, not by the exploding bullet that was positioned about two inches from her spine when the trigger was pulled. Yeah, that's the ticket!
Our own CTV poster, Intrepid, referred to the four big-name defense expert witnesses as the "quadrafecta of piffle." LOL! So many of us were disillusioned after watching this quadrafecta of piffle that we will forevermore be highly suspicious of any expert-for-hire witness. That's probably a good thing, so maybe we should thank them for that nugget of wisdom they managed to impart.
Dr. Lynne Herold became an idol to many of us with her calm, patient and logical explanations of her findings. She does not look or talk like a celebrity, and she makes no attempt to be one. She does her job and reports her findings, period. LKB tried, in vain, to trip her up, but Dr. Herold refused to take the bait, pointing out that the laws of physics cannot be changed; it is what it is. If she didn't know an answer, she said so and would not go outside her area of expertise no matter how many times LKB tried to goad her into doing so. If something could have happened in more than one way, she said so. She also placed Phil Spector within about 2 feet of the "blood-letting event." She left us with two renewed catchphrases: "It is what it is," and "Your point is?" She easily outsmarted LKB without even chipping a nail and LKB did NOT forget it. While lashing out at Dr. Herold in her closing argument, wherein she pointedly refused to refer to her as "Dr." Herold, LKB's spite and a seething, childish grudge against a clearly superior opponent shone through for all to see.
Then there was the sleaze factor, from the illustrated paramedic (aka Tattoo Boy) to the sorriest and most tasteless display of sagging, untethered "cleavage" since the Granny character in Playboy cartoons, to the siliconed, spray-tanned, razor-taloned, cock-eyed-due-to-bad-facelift-and/or-Botox mom whining about keeping her kids out of rehab while she partied 4 nights a week, and eagerly trashing her "best friend" at every turn. And let's not forget the Hollywood Madam, Jody "Baby Doll" Gibson who is trying to peddle her upcoming book. She had an obviously doctored trick book and claimed that Lana was a hooker in her stable who was turned on by "sex play" with guns. She dramatically marched into court with her lawyer ~who looked like a cross between Col. Sanders and the Travelocity gnome~ only to be told to take her obviously doctored trick book and stuff it where the sun don't shine (which is hard to do considering her profession and the barely-there skirt-- there aren't too many places on her that the sun doesn't shine), at least until after the verdict.
Oh, and Raul Julia-Levy. He claims to be the illegitimate son of deceased actor Raul Julia. He does look like him. Unfortunately he has baggage several inches thick, including all kinds of aliases, falsified records and convictions. He was going to claim Lana liked to do cocaine with him and loved to play with guns during sex. He was kept out of the trial, but gamely tramped all over the Internet using his own name ~and various sock-puppets~ trying to convince people he was who he said he was. The last I heard, he was trying to sue the prosecutor's office or judge or somebody for defamation of character, or something like that. Whatever.
Then there were the five, 1101B, prior bad act witnesses (PBA). That's only five out of approximately nineteen witnesses, women and men, on whom Phil Spector allegedly pulled guns. The judge only allowed five of them and he picked which ones they would be. The Defense pulled yet another dirty trick and told the jury during closing arguments that the prosecution hand-picked only five women to tell fabricated stories, saying there were no other incidents, blithely ignoring Phil's actual previous conviction for gun-related charges.
Face it, Phil is just a gun-wielding kind of guy -- that's his idea of romance. Many a guy will flatter, wheedle, cajole, bribe, clown, pet, nibble, and even cry, if necessary, to persuade the object of his lust to give in to his carnal desires. Some of them simply proposition every woman they see, theorizing that one out of every ten women will say yes, no matter how obnoxious, repulsive and unknown the guy might be. Phil, on the other hand, shrieks at the top of his lungs at the objects of his lust, calling them "f-----g c---s" while spit flies in his uncontrollable rage. He puts a fine point on it by holding guns on them and threatening to blow their f-----g brains out if they don't do what he says. There's a giant mirror behind the chair in the foyer. Does he maneuver his "dates" into that chair so he can watch himself being "masterful"? He's a producer; every scenario must play out according to his direction and no one else's. Every man has his own repertoire of seduction techniques; it's all a matter of going with what has works, I guess. Stick with the classics and all that. He even brings guns into the picture with platonic dates, just to impress them, because what woman wouldn't be favorably impressed by a man carrying a gun that's longer than he is and reminding them of Elmer Fudd? What a manly, macho man!
Where was I? Oh yes, the PBA witnesses, all of whom simply were trying to leave:
1) There was the practical Dorothy Melvin who did not want her boss at the time, Joan Rivers, to have her name brought into the matter. She called the police and had them retrieve her purse.
2) There was the professional photographer, Stephanie Jennings, who called 911, but Phil convinced them that she was a hooker. She wouldn't go to his room and simply wanted to go to sleep or, after his hissy fit, leave.
3) There was the emotional, girlish former Hollywood music planner, Diane Ogden, with her gripping memory of attempted rape at gunpoint ~thwarted only by Phil's inability to perform~ despite the fact that she would have had sex with him if he'd only been "nice about it." She did not consider rape at gunpoint to be "romantic". She foolishly allowed herself to be alone with him again some months later and he chased her down the driveway with an Uzi.
4) There was the angry, and rightly so, Southern Belle, Melissa Grosvenor, with a somewhat shady past and a drug-addicted sister (who, along with another sister) aired their dirty laundry in court for all the world to see. Can you imagine Thanksgiving at Mom's house this year?
5) And then there was Devra Robataille, an extremely petite British musician, who went all "Mumsy" on Phil and sternly lectured her way out of having him blow her brains out not once, but twice!
There was the former detective, Vince Tanazzo, who did security work for Joan Rivers's Christmas parties. He had to "escort" Phil out of her parties two years in a row because Phil was threatening to blow even more women's brains out. I believe he had a gun on at least one of the occasions, but I could be wrong about that -- he certainly alluded to the fact the he did. One of the women he allegedly threatened was Walter Cronkite's daughter, but that was not revealed in testimony.
And let's not forget Phil's "little woman", Rachelle Short Spector, 26 (he's 67). Did she marry the ugly, gun-toting, egomaniacal, misogynistic, platform-shoe-wearing, frockcoat-adorned, bizarre-wig-bedecked senior citizen for love or money? He married her only after his assistant, Michelle Blaine turned down his proposal. It's pretty obvious that the marriage was for show so that the jury and public will see that there is a women who isn't afraid he'll blow her brains out if she gets up and "leaves" him to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. And there are three hefty bodyguards and lots of meds that make sure of it.
Rachelle showed up for court every day, often with her Mommy in tow, imperiously having a bodyguard carry her totebag and blankie. On several occasions she has spoken to the press, leaving an indelible impression of an air-headed bimbo EACH time. She makes inane accusations and declarations of love on her websites, past and present, and displayed her vast legal knowledge by referring to a "statue of limitations."
The judge clamped down on her testifying-by-proxy through the media by placing a gag order on her and Phil Spector and anyone else who might be acting as his mouthpiece. Most people would be cowed or at least SHUT THEIR MOUTH while THE JUDGE is talking directly to them and ORDERING them to do or NOT do something, but not Rachelle! No, she sassed back at him over and over and argued and carried on until he threatened her with contempt. Chris Plourd, ever the fall-guy, rushed over to her to try to get her to put a sock in it, but she ignored him, other than to protest that the judge was talking TO her, WHILE the judge was talking TO her. Interestingly, Roger Rosen and LKB COMPLETELY ignored the ENTIRE exchange. COMPLETELY. Was it planned in yet another attempt at a mistrial? How could they NOT be surprised and taken aback by such an outrageous outburst and conduct by the defendants OWN WIFE?
And speaking of the judge, there is the stern, but fair, and sometimes humorous Judge Fidler, who is a dead ringer for Bruce Willis! He's savvy to most of the tricks either side attempts to play on each other and swiftly puts the kibosh on them whenever possible, or attempts to remedy the situation without causing a mistrial. And make no mistake, from the moment the Prosecution's side rested, the Defense tried over and over again to get a mistrial because they can see their case going down in flames. The judge keeps a tight rein on his courtroom and is ever cognizant of not letting the trial turn into an OJ-like circus while trying to avoid things like eating well-meaning (but inadvertently poisoned) cookies brought by the ever-classy Beth Karas.
And then there were the monumental defense blunders. The Henry Lee fiasco, the Kenny/Baden conflict of interest, the major smack down of Bruce Cutler by the judge for dramatically yelling and pointing at Diane Ogden and slamming the table/podium, even the AIR (not to mention leaving mid-trial to film a TV show for several weeks and then finally resigning), the posing of Phil to be pointing a gun (using his fingers as a mock-gun), and showing Lana's "showcase" reel.
The Defense meant to show the reel to say that Lana was a bad actress with no prospects. Instead, they brought her to life -- she talked, she laughed, she BREATHED. She wasn't particularly funny, and the audio was awful, but that's what writers and technicians are for. It wasn't supposed to be for the viewing public. It was a portfolio of sorts, to be shown only to people in the industry to show her range of talent. She looked FABULOUS! Most importantly, it showed her alive. She was certainly nicer to look at in that than in the gruesome photos of her slumped in a chair in Phil's foyer, with her black eye, messed-up hair and blood pooling from her nose and mouth. Dr. Spitz had said she looked "peaceful". An incredulous AJ thundered back what so many of us were thinking: "SHE'S ***DEAD***, DOCTOR!!!"
Everywhere we turned there was Hollywood razzle-dazzle and the nuts and bolts of Hollywood. This included testimony by a famous director, Michael Bay and testimony by a failed playwright/producer/director that had to take a bus 3000 miles across the country to testify because he was afraid to fly. We heard about making Mercedes commercials, making blockbuster movies, making low-budget Roger Corman movies, and renting costumes from a little San Fernando Valley shop called Valentino's. Even the buildings are famous places! There's even a "CASTLE", FGS, with 88 steps to the front entrance and a HUGE satellite dish above the back door. Talk about the lives of the rich and/or famous! What more could you ask for? It's no wonder we're hooked on this trial! It has EVERYTHING: sex, drugs and rock and roll!
There were a multitude of "talking heads" on news and legal shows. Some knew what they were talking about and some didn't. The most egregious one was Anita Talbert, a friend of Phil Spector who appeared on Court TV shows several times, spouting complete and utter nonsense. She made outrageous claims such as Lana having taken TWELVE Vicadin that night. Testimony by Dr. Pena, however, revealed she had a LESS than a therapeutic dose in her system. Just about everything she spouted came directly from Phil Spector, who publicly lied at every turn between the night of the murder and the beginning of the trial. A story of her dancing around with the gun and singing Da Doo Run Run seems to be a particular favorite. He also said she was standing up when she shot herself (wrong), and he couldn't have done it since she was so much taller and stronger than he was. He ranted and raved at the police station, referring to her as a piece of shit mere hours after he shot her in the mouth. He said she brought the gun, yet on the stand even defense experts were compelled to testify that it belonged to Spector.
Will Phil run? Hard to say -- he's stuck it out this long, after all. Still, we already know he wears wigs. He COULD wear a disguise and possibly slip out of the country. What would he look like in a disguise? When TV shows invoke Phil's name, they almost ALWAYS play a snippet of "Be My Baby" or "To Know Him Is To Love Him" and other songs he produced. They really should pick a better song, not produced by him, but sung by the Beatles, with whom he also had connections: The Fool On The Hill.
Labels: Crime, Guest Entries, LA Weekly, Lana Clarkson, mControl Blogs, Phil Spector, Rachelle Short, Trial Coverage
While we wait for the jurors to get new instructions, I've been back to one of my favorite stomping grounds, Dr. Peter J. D'Adamo's web site. He has a new blog entry up today, that I consider recommended reading for anyone interested in improving their health.
If you have been totally engrossed in this trial, I believe the best source of information about Phil Spector is Mick Brown's book, Tearing Down the Wall of Sound. Brown interviewed more than one hundred people, and has an extensive compilation of bibliography (books, periodicals, newspapers, broadcasts, websites) listed in the back. It's a well researched account, and a compelling read, of Spector's life.
Until the trial comes back on live today, browse around some the links I've provided in my "Places to go" list.
P.S. I almost forgot! When I went down to the courthouse on Tuesday, a woman approached me and handed me a written note. It said, "Are you Sprocket?" It was Court TV poster and Guest Blogger Cocobaby! She said she saw my handbag and could tell it was handmade. Not only is she a very nice and witty person, she's quite pretty, too.
Labels: Blood Type Diet, Books, Crime, Misc., Phil Spector, Trial Coverage
Special Instruction #3 gets tossed & New Hope for a Verdict
There is a glimmer of hope that even with such a wide split, this jury will reach a just verdict.
Fidler asked the attorneys to argue for a lesser included charge, and they did as he complied. After that, the Judge changed his mind and decided at this late date he could not add the lesser charge. It would be as if he was sending a message to the jurors that if they can't convict on this charge, try this one. It's all in the timing. So Fidler rules that it would not be proper to give them a new option now because that would be as if he was trying to coerce the jury. So that option is off the table, and those of us who strongly feel that Spector is guilty of second degree all heave a big sigh of relief.
After questioning the jury and getting some feedback, Judge Larry Fidler rules that special instruction #3 was in conflict with the law and will be tossed, and there will be no new arguments presented to the juror to explain the loss of instruction #3.
This is one of the instructions the defense wanted so badly, and this is why the defense hired Dennis Riordan in the first place and pays him the big bucks. He's there to come in a muck things up as much as possible. I'm sure he was the one who crafted this instruction, and the people were opposed to this instruction from the very beginning. It wasn't because they couldn't understand murder two, it was because it pigeonholed the prosecution into proving a very narrow window of facts, and that's against the law.
Although one of the jurors, #12, asked to see some of the clothing, Fidler ruled that they would not be able to provide the articles of clothing for their review because 1) the were never entered into evidence and 2) they are no longer in their original condition.
The Judge says that he is going to include in the jury instructions a modified "Moore" instruction (after the attorney's argued the specific points they wanted tossed) as well as read back the reasonable doubt instruction.
All in all, I think this is good news. It makes more sense now, why there was such a wide split among the jurors when the rest of the thinking world ~who's brains had not yet turned to melted cheese~ this was a clear case of second degree murder. It was the mucked up special jury instruction the defense got in. Even at the bitter end, the defense has tried to throw a wrench into the workings of this trial.
I know I read it somewheres, that after the jury declared they were at an impasse, Rachelle Short was crying. I wasn't at the courthouse today so I didn't see if she had tears in her eyes or not. But if this was true, Poor Baby. If there really is a hung jury, I'm sure Phil will force your foot stomping hiney to honor your contract and continue pretending to be a "loving" wife for the next couple of years. Ah, true love lives at the Spector castle.
And that comment about being the "next Beyonce." Honey, you will never be the next Beyonce. More like the next sorry assed Anna Nicole Smith. Beyonce at least has the looks (she didn't have to pay the surgeon or get her teeth replaced), the talent (you're going to be a big hit as a trombone player), and a devoted man in a decent age range~ one not on trial for murder I might add. All you got are new tata's an over sized rock and a grille.
I'm giving a shout out to a another blogger commenting on the Spector trial. There are not a lot of entries at Just My Opinion, but that doesn't matter. I like it when I see someone who thinks like I do.
Labels: Crime, Lana Clarkson, Phil Spector, Rachelle Short, Trial Coverage
Team Spector supporters quoting the Bible?
The following statement appeared on the Team Spector MySpace page as a comment by a Phil lover named Day Stick."Sep 16 2007 7:37P
Let him have all your worries and cares for he is always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you. 1st Peter 5:7
It will be alright, have faith. "
Here is the King James Version for The First Epistle of Peter, Chapter 5, verse 7:7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
Is it coincidence that a Team Spector lover chose this verse, and made sure to include the "5:7" in the posting?? You decide.
It is interesting in light of the fact that Mick Brown wrote in, Tearing Down the Wall of Sound, on page 96:"Spector was proud of his Jewish ancestry, and would observe Jewish holidays, but he had no religious belief, and as he grew odler he would beome an avowed athiest."
Labels: Lana Clarkson, Phil Spector, Trial Coverage
Hung up on "Reasonable Doubt"
I went down to the courthouse this afternoon, but I didn't get in. (I will expand on this entry later tonight, to flesh out my story.) Alan Parachini let in virtually any media that showed up, even when they showed up late, and even if it didn't appear that they were on the court's media list. That left a SINGLE SEAT for the public. One of his staff, Meredith, let in an single trial watcher who had been there in the morning on jury watch. The accredited press will always get preferential treatment over the public, and this was clearly the case this afternoon. In my opinion, that stinks.
After the proceedings, I talked to several reporters. One in the know reporter (who asked not to be quoted) said that there were seven jurors grouped together that they thought were possibly in a "guilty" group. That was their guess. I don't know when this reporter observed this, but they did. #2, #4, #7, #8, #9, #10 (Unfortunately, I can't remember the number the reporter told me of the 7th juror in the group.)
This reporter said that even though #9, did say (when questioned by the Judge) that a clarification of doubt verses reasonable doubt might help, the reporter felt the verbal pausing when responding as well as their body language indicated that it wasn't juror #9 who needed that information specifically, but likely other jurors did and this was their opinion as to what might help.
What follows is my opinion on several issues. Sadly, again, Californians have shown the world that when they enter a jury box to determine guilt or innocence, their brains turn into melted cheese. California is known for its' cheese, and now it's confirmed that our brains are made of it too. This washed up former music producer is so guilty, I could tell it from opening statement. Sadly, though, we have melted cheese in that jury box, and melted cheese is what it is, not much use for anything other than ham sandwiches.
I believe that members of the jury had a hard time understanding second degree murder and implied malice, in addition to being totally confused about the difference between reasonable doubt and "all doubt." Crap. Everybody has doubts. This jury though had melted cheese for brains and couldn't tell the difference.
To me, it is very suspicious what appeared on the Team Spector MySpace page late in the evening of September 17th. Very suspicious. Spector has several investigators who are in his deep pockets. What goes through my mind, is, did any of these investigators, during this trial, follow jurors home just like that white haired guy followed CCA all the way to his stop on the Metro Red Line, and question him? Here is the link for you to reread the entry on that event and then ask yourself, Is it possible?
Some Court TV posters appear to be upset with my "generalizations" of Californians, indicating that it's only celebrity trials that have this problem and citing other trials where a just verdict was reached. OF COURSE I'm talking about celebrity justice! Did I really need to clarify that? I attended about 90% of the Blake trial. Blake was guilty, but that jury found him not guilty. Afterwards, we found out their brains were made of melted cheese when they were interviewed on the John and Ken Show on KFI640. Mark my words. When the Spector jury is interviewed, we will discover the same thing.
But back to the anger and pain and shock that most are feeling. All I can really think of at this moment is Mrs. Clarkson and her daughter Fawn. An absolute hell they must be going through right now. It makes me so sad to think that 4.5 years later, they still don't have justice for their daughter. I urge everyone to keep them in your thoughts and prayers. They need us now to be strong for them.
Labels: Lana Clarkson, Phil Spector, Robert Blake, Trial Coverage
Check it out! Two new "Places To Go"
I'd like to point out two web sites for you to consider dropping by. Orbiter Dictum is written by Suzi who has a great eye for visual expression and describes her blog as "served on the rocks with a twist of wit." I agree; great description Suzi.
Last but not least, here is a real treat of a blog that you ABSOLUTELY must read. Although relatively new, it's packed with lots of behind the scenes insider information. The blog is called mCONTROL BLOGS and once you read, you will NOT be disappointed!
And, I'm reposting this so nobody misses it. bchand's latest laughs starring the forensic experts.
Labels: Funnies, mControl Blogs, Misc., Phil Spector, Rachelle Short, Trial Coverage
O.J. Gets To "Stay" In Vegas
Updated2
OJ has been arrested. Here's the news story off of CNN just a half hour ago!
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) -- Las Vegas police arrested O.J. Simpson on Sunday amid an investigation into an alleged armed robbery at a hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, a source close to the investigation said.
O.J. Simpson was arrested Sunday amid an investigation into an alleged robbery at a Las Vegas hotel.
The charges he faces are unclear.
Simpson was arrested at his room in the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, the source said.
On Saturday, Las Vegas police arrested Walter Alexander and seized two guns in connection with the alleged armed robbery, the source said.
"I don't know why they arrested him," Simpson said Sunday. "I've stayed in contact with the police and the truth will come out."
Simpson had already been questioned during the investigation into several items of sports memorabilia that were taken from collectors at a room in the Palace Station Hotel and Casino. Simpson has said the items belonged to him.
Alexander was arrested Saturday night and charged with two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, one count of conspiracy to commit robbery with a deadly weapon, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of burglary with a deadly weapon, the source said.
The Arizona resident was arrested on his way to McCarran International Airport, the source said.
During searches Saturday, police recovered two guns they believe were used in the alleged robbery, the source said.
Simpson, 60, acknowledged that he entered the man's room with a group of friends, one of whom was posing as a potential buyer, after being tipped off that some of his personal items were for sale there.
Among the items were things he hadn't seen in years or that had been stolen, he said. They included photographs of his family and himself as a child, and photographs and negatives taken by his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson. Simpson said friends helped him carry the items from the room, but no guns were involved and the incident was not a robbery.
On Saturday, Simpson said that he and one of the alleged victims, Alfred Beardsley, spoke by telephone and agreed the incident had been blown out of proportion.
Beardsley confirmed the conversation to celebrity Web site TMZ.com, saying Simpson apologized to him and told him he regretted the incident.
The other alleged victim, Bruce Fromong, a sports memorabilia collector, said that two of the men accompanying Simpson pointed guns at the other occupants of the room in what he described as "a home invasion-type robbery."
Fromong testified for Simpson's defense in the 1997 wrongful death trial stemming from a civil lawsuit filed by the family of Ron Goldman, who was killed in 1994 alongside Simpson's ex-wife.
Simpson was acquitted of the murders in 1995, but the jury in a 1997 civil trial found him liable and awarded the Goldmans $33.5 million for their son's wrongful death.
Fromong testified that prices for Simpson memorabilia had dropped substantially since the 1995 verdict. His testimony was part of the defense's contention that Simpson could not afford to pay the Goldmans.
Also on Friday, Thomas Riccio, a former business associate of Simpson, told KVVU television in Las Vegas that he told Simpson about the sale.
Riccio said someone told him last month that he wanted to auction some of Simpson's possessions by placing them on consignment. Riccio added that when he called Simpson to tell him about the planned sale, the former athlete told him the items had been stolen.
Riccio said that as he was being shown the items in the hotel room, Simpson entered the room and seized the items. He said there was no break-in and no gun was used.
Simpson's ex-wife and Goldman -- a waiter who had gone to her Los Angeles, California, home to return a pair of glasses -- were fatally stabbed outside her townhouse June 12, 1994. A jury found Simpson not guilty of the crimes.
Simpson recently wrote a book originally titled "If I Did It" and planned to publish it himself, but a public outcry led to the cancellation of his book deal.
A bankruptcy judge subsequently awarded the Goldmans the rights to the book in light of their inability to collect the wrongful death award. They retitled the book "If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer," which is in bookstores.
Don't miss bchand's latest laughs starring the forensic experts.
Is OJ whistling "If I Only Had A Brain" from The Wizard of Oz in this video?
At the last minuite I'm adding a bit of very dry wit from Court TV poster Dunlurken, commenting on O.J. Simpson's arrest today in Vegas:
Dunlurken: He has an alibi. He was out cutting someone's throat.
With this recent turn of events, there is hope that Simpson finally takes up permanent residence inside a jail cell. I'm just surprised it took this long.
Labels: CNN, Crime, Funnies, OJ Simpson
Waiting for a Verdict: Day Five
Since I'm always looking for the latest news by the mainstream media on Rachelle Short, here is an article in the TimesOnline UK edition.
Even though I really need to get cracking on some sewing orders, I had thought that I would go visit 106 today, to drop off some printed materials for Mr. Dunne but I kept getting delayed at home. It was either one more kitty hair ball mess to clean up off the floor, or some other chore that couldn't wait until I got home. I did finally get out the door in the early afternoon and arrived on the 9th floor a little after 2:00pm.
I went directly up to the 9th floor and peeked in but I didn't see Dominick. So I trekked all the way down to the Court TV filming area to ask Beth Karas if she had seen him since I didn't see him in the courtroom. She indicated that if he wasn't in the courtroom, he might be on the 18th floor media room. Then it finally dawned on me that I could just call him, lol! When I got him on the phone, he said he was back in the courtroom so I headed back into the building, past the first floor security and past the 9th floor security once again.
The courtroom is virtually empty, with reporters and a few public people I recognized sitting here and there. It's so quiet even the slightest noise reverberates throughout the room. As I sit down beside Dominick I notice that he looks very tired, and he tells me that he's completely exhausted. It's just a little after 2:00pm, and he's already given about ten on air interviews so far. Not only that, he has agreed to do a few more before the day is over.
Peter Y. Hong of the LA Times is in the back row on his laptop, as well as John Spano, but Spano is getting ready to leave and takes off. There are a few whispers and one could hear a pin drop. I see an older gentleman who I originally met at the Robert Blake trial that I named at that time "Mr. Cane." He is in deep conversation with Mick Brown. Mick catches my eye, smiles, and I wave back. Mr. Cane has been at this trial quite a bit, sitting in the back row against the wall in the plastic chairs near the door. The Court TV camera operators are here and sitting next to them in Beth Karas's regular seat is Gary Spector. He looks exactly like he did in the interviews on TV. He has a great smile. Michael Christian is in the back row, working away on his laptop. There are a handful of reporters that I don't recognize. I do see Harriet Ryan and our regular bailiff in her Plexiglas box but thats about it.
I leave the courtroom to go to the 13th floor snack room and get a Vitamin Water. In the hallway I run into Sandi Gibbons who smiles and gives me a hello.
It's 3:10 pm now, and the ticking of the clock is the noisiest thing in the room. Dominick steps outside to make some calls and Alan Parachini has been in and out with one his his staff several times. I finally turn around and introduce myself as "Sprocket" to Gary. He tells me that he goes home today. He can't stay any longer it appears. He tells me that every time the jury comes out he gets nervous, and that maybe it's a good thing that he's going home. I wonder if he ever got to even see his father. How sad, if he didn't. He said that he brought flowers for Rachelle and Mrs. Clarkson when he arrived at the courthouse on Monday afternoon, but I tell him that they had already left the courthouse by the time he arrived. I ask him if he's been able to spend some time with Louis and his companion and he indicated that they've been together every day.
I can hear someone in the back row whispering. The interviews that Dominick has done have all been on the recent events in Las Vegas. It's totally ironic that O.J. Simpson is being investigated for robbery on the very same day that the book he wrote, If I Did It, is being released. Dominick says, the OJ debacle has overshadowed this trial. That's all anyone wants to talk about. We talk about his appearance on Star Jones's show on Court TV, and I tell him that I thought he did very well on that interview. I also tell him that all the Court TV posters thought he did a great job too, and the members were very pleased that he corrected Jones for calling him "Nick," and also stating very clearly that she was on "the opposite side" of the O.J. case than him. Apparently, the ratings for her show are not good. I'm sure that will be good news for the Court TV posters.
It's 3:17 pm, and the Laloya law professor Stan Goldman comes in to sit beside someone I don't know over on the far right of the courtroom. I had seen him in the hallway, earlier. Alan Parachini is in the back row talking to the camera operators and a reporter sitting in the far left corner. I start and stop and start and stop reading Mick Brown's book, Tearing Down the Wall of Sound. That's so I can take some notes as to what is going on around me.
A large, bald sheriff with a big white mustache exited a bit earlier and now comes back in. He sits in a chair right beside the regular bailiff. His chair is directly in front of the little door to the waiting cell area where Spector will be quickly whisked if he is convicted. That will be a very frightening time for Spector, who has difficulty being alone.
3:25 pm. Even I can hear a few words of the bailiff as she makes a phone call, all the way on the other side of the room.
3:27 pm. Another female sheriff enters and stops off to chat for a moment with the regular bailiff. Another officer enters and stops to chat with his fellow officers, too. Then the new female bailiff heads towards the back past Wendy's desk, and I'm under the impression she heads into Judge Filder's chambers (I find out later how wrong I am about that).
3:29 pm. The male deputy who just entered now leaves. I finally see Wendy. She's been in the courtroom all this time. Her short frame was hidden behind the wall surrounding her desk area. I could barely see her. The phone on the half wall shelf, strategically hid her face. Another young, pretty Indian looking woman reporter enters and sits in the front row with two other young looking female reporters. Many people are reading books, or talking softly. But even in this mostly empty room, the sound echoes loudly. Mr. Cane leaves and comes back in again.
3:35 pm. The bald sheriff with the mustache exits the room again, and returns about four minutes later. Rachelle is discussed a bit, and where it actually was that she was working when she met Spector.
3:45 pm. Harriet Ryan reenters the courtroom. Reporters start to file back in to watch the jurors exit the jury room. Dominick is still outside on a phone call. Another male deputy enters to chat with the two already in the room. Just like I remember during the trial, I can hear Wendy on her computer and the clacking of the keyboard. The court reporter emerges from the rooms behind Wendy's desk, and stands to talk with her and the sheriff who just entered the room.
3:48 pm. Peter Hong reenters the courtroom, also waiting for any glimmer of expression or manner in the jurors when they emerge from deliberations. It's pretty quiet, and we can hear laughter in the hallway outside the courtroom.
3:55 pm. Miriam Hernandez comes in to also wait for the jury to appear, and Mr. Cane also comes back in. Verdict watch is pretty boring and these cold hard benches don't make it any easier. It's no different than how bad they were during the trial.
3:58 pm. We hear a single buzzer from the jury room. A silver haired man and a blondish middle aged woman in a black dress enter the courtroom. Alan Parachini immediately gets up when they enter to go talk to the woman.
The jury starts to exit, but the clerk tells them to wait. Juror #5 is out the door, then back in and then across the room very quickly to the area behind Wendy's desk. I have to tell you that this is the first time that I am observing the jury exit the jury room during deliberations. At the time I'm observing this, I was unaware that the procedures for them leaving the building are different than when the trial was ongoing. During the trial, the jurors exited through the gallery into the hallway. So, from what I'm seeing, I think that Juror #5 has gone into the Judge's chambers. (That wasn't the case, but it was what I immediately thought.) Another group of jurors exits the jury room but not all of them, and they head on back to the area behind Wendy's desk. I write in my notebook, The Judge's chambers! But not all the jurors have exited the jury room. From when the door opened, I can still see Juror #9 inside. There are more jurors still inside the jury room.
4:02 pm. Now Wendy gets up from her desk and goes over to enter the jury room. Four more jurors finally exit. Juror's #7, #12, #6, #9. They all head back over to the area behind Wendy's desk. As I look over my shoulder towards the back of the courtroom, there are several more reporters, including Beth Karas and Ciaran McEvoy who had entered and observed the exit. As I see Beth, she mouth's the words to me, "What do you think?" Erroneously thinking that the jurors are all in the Judge's chambers, I mouth back, "Hung jury." Beth shakes her head no, and mouths the words, "Too early." Right afterwards, the bailiffs make everyone exit the courtroom.
Out in the hallway, I ask Beth why we were asked to exit, because I think the jurors are all in with the Judge. It's why I thought there was a hung jury. Beth gives me a smile and explains to me that the exiting of the jurors has changed to this hallway (that I didn't know about) that is behind where Wendy's desk is, but is before where the Judge's chambers are. It's how the Judge enters and exits the courtroom. Having been enlightened, I now realize that Beth is right. It is way to early for a hung jury. I say goodbye to Dominick and head back to the budget parking lot.
There has been quite a bit of discussion on the court TV message boards about juror #5 exiting the room rather quickly, and the expression on her face. It's also been coupled with Mick Brown's latest piece in the London Daily Telegraph. There is a lot of worry that juror #5 could be a long holdeout for a not guilty vote. Here is a brief excerpt from the Telegraph article:
There is a belief among the press that the defence - who of course have their own jury consultants even more highly trained, and paid, than the journalists - targeted number five as being most sympathetic to their case. It was she - or so it is speculated - that was in the back of their minds when they pressed for the introduction into evidence of Miss Clarkson's show reel, Lana Unleashed, one segment of which featured her in excruciating black face essaying a Little Richard impersonation.
Watching it, juror five's demeanor froze in fury. Was it merely coincidence that shortly afterwards when the defense's key forensic expert Michael Barden took the stand, he spent an inordinate length of time pointing out that his credentials included investigating the murders of Martin Luther King and the civil rights worker Medgar Evers, and name dropping OJ Simpson's black attorney Johnnie Cocharane and Oprah Winfrey? Clearly, here was a man who had been primed.
Yesterday juror five was the first to leave the jury room, a minute or so before the others. Some in the audience thought she looked unhappy. Evidence of some dissent behind the wooden door? Or perhaps she was simply running late for a hairdressing appointment.
I did not notice a "clenched jaw" (as one trial watcher posted on the Court TV forums) or an unhappy expression on juror #5's face. That's because I was startled when she exited the jury room so quickly, and really didn't get a good look at her face when she bolted across the room. I will also say, that when Spector's defense team chose to play Lana Unleashed, I could not take my eyes off of Lana's sister, Fawn's face. She was sobbing throughout the entire playing of the video, and I started to cry, too watching her. So, I can not verify if what Mick Brown reported about juror #5's demeanor during the Little Richard impersonation is accurate or not. I will say that he is a professional, and if he's reporting it, most likely a reporter did observe her expression and interpreted it in that manner.
Meanwhile, over on the Court TV message board, there were a few posts that just had me laughing, and these specific entries stood out.
flea_bailey:
new book coming out !
a collabaration by o j simpson and phil spector.
i did it, he did it .........we both did it
MyrnaTurner:
Book by Dr. Michael Baden on OJ alleged (roflmao) incident:
"Now That's What I Call A Vegas Nerve!"
Thank you flea_bailey and MyrnaTurner for making me laugh.
Labels: Lana Clarkson, Phil Spector, Rachelle Short, Robert Blake
Kim of The Darwin Exception: Take a Bow! & The Ori...
Special Instruction #3 gets tossed & New Hope for ...
The Short Family Drama Continues
More Rachelle Short Family Drama? It just gets be...
Did Rachelle Short's brother-in-law send me an ema...
DATELINE SHOW September 12th, 2007
Rachelle's Brother-in-Law Posting on Court Tv Four...
The Lighter Side: Part III
Rachelle Short opens her mouth and removes all dou...
The Caption Contest
Guest Entry: "Cocobaby" attends Closing Arguments
Rachelle Short update & Linda Kenny Baden's closin...
A Quick Return Visit to 106
Lana's Final Resting Place
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40,000 Israelis Gather in Tel Aviv to Support Right-Wing Netanyahu's Party
© REUTERS / Amir Cohen
Israeli General Election 2015 (52)
Over 40,000 gathered in Tel Aviv on Sunday to support the right-wing ruling Likud Party headed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu two days before the country's general election.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Speaking in front of the crowd, Netanyahu said that there is a real danger that the left-wing Zionist Union will rise to power.
© REUTERS / Baz Ratner
West Bank Authorities Finance Massive Pro-Netanyahu Rally
"If we don't close the gap, there is a danger that a left-wing government will come into power, despite the fact that most of the public wants me as prime minister," Netanyahu said as quoted by The Jerusalem Post.
The Sunday rally was organized by former mayor of Kedumim Daniela Weiss. She told Sputnik that the demonstration, titled "United for the Land of Israel," was being held in response to last Saturday's left-wing demonstration that called for the replacement of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the upcoming elections.
"We are very happy with the outcome, this rally turned out to be more than we hoped for," Weiss told Sputnik summing up the event.
Three latest opinion polls, including the one conducted by Israeli Channel 10 on Friday, indicated that the ruling party was four seats behind the opposition, with the Zionist Union polling 25 seats in the Knesset against 20 for the Likud.
US Senate Probes Obama Administration's Link With Anti-Netanyahu Campaign
National Right-Wing Rally in Israel Expected to Gather 50,000 Supporters
Netanyahu Expected to Speak at Major Rightists’ Rally Sunday – Organizers
Israeli Expert Warns Against Spread of 'Neo-Nazi International'
rally, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel, Tel Aviv
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Posts Tagged ‘Freedom of Information Act’
Why Hillary Clinton’s Email Scandal Makes Her Unfit To Even Be CONSIDERED For President
Update, 9:35 pm Pacific Standard Time: So the FBI is reporting the following:
(Bloomberg) — The FBI has recovered personal and work- related e-mails from the private computer server used by Hillary Clinton during her time as secretary of state, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
Further down the article I read:
Once the e-mails have been extracted, a group of agents has been separating personal correspondence and passing along work- related messages to agents leading the investigation, the person said.
Well, here’s the thing about that: this yet again proves that Hillary Clinton was LYING. She claimed she turned over ALL of her work-related emails. She claimed that the ONLY emails she deleted were PERSONAL. But here we are finding work-related emails that she didn’t turn over and went to the lengths of deleting. She lied because she’s a liar and that’s what she does.
The Fox News version of this article – because Fox News is the only news program that is still worth watching any more – points that fact out:
Ed Henry reported on “The Kelly File” that if the FBI has indeed recovered work-related emails, it would be a “game-changer.”
He explained that Clinton has long claimed that she only deleted 30,000 personal emails from the server, so if the FBI recovers work-related emails, that would suggest that Clinton was not telling the truth.
Frankly, anybody who believes that Hillary Clinton is even CAPABLE of telling the truth is an idiot. [End update].
The bottom line comes down to this, Democrat voter: aside from the FACT that Hillary Clinton treated the national security of the United States like toilet paper by REPEATEDLY sending and receiving classified emails on an open system that most security experts say HAD to have been penetrated by foreign governments, my question is simply whether or not you would be all right with every single Republican politician and appointee having his or her own private server that he or she could wipe without anyone knowing what had been on it the way Hillary Clinton tried to do.
If your answer is, “I absolutely wouldn’t mind the people I most viscerally disagree with having the ability to wipe the records of their criminality,” then you’ve got terrible judgment, but at least you aren’t an abject moral hypocrite the way the rest of the 99.999999% of your party is.
But ever since this story first came out, it has been an amazing act of pure political chutzpah.
Hillary Clinton intentionally and deliberately from the very outset of her tenure as Secretary of State made herself completely unaccountable to transparency laws like Freedom of Information Act requests:
What can Hillary Clinton have been thinking? On January 13, 2009, she — or, more likely, someone on her staff — registered a new domain: clintonemail.com. And for her entire term as secretary of state, she would use private e-mail instead of government accounts for all her electronic correspondence. She never even got a government e-mail address, which must have taken some doing, because in most organizations, those e-mail accounts are created before the new employee even arrives.
As Politico points out, keeping Clinton’s e-mails off government servers means that they were invisible to Freedom of Information Act requests about her communications with anyone outside the State Department. Her staff has turned over e-mails from the private account, but this is not the sort of job that should be performed by someone personally employed by Hillary Clinton. Decisions about what to turn over and what to keep private should be made by career government lawyers whose job comes from the agency, not Hillary Clinton.
It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that this was an attempt to avoid transparency and accountability for whatever it is she wrote. Such manipulations should severely hurt her presidential aspirations. Odds are, however, that Democrats will rally around her, because what choice do they have?
A spokesman for Clinton says that her actions comply with the “letter and spirit of the rules.” To put it kindly, this seems to be complete nonsense. Federal officials are not supposed to have private e-mail silos that are their sole means of official digital communication and are reviewed only by their personal staff. And that should apply doubly to the holder of one of the most important cabinet roles. Moreover, the fact that she never even got a State Department address certainly gives the impression that this was a deliberate attempt to avoid the public eye. She didn’t just sloppily default to her own personal e-mail address, as many people do; she also made sure that it was not possible to accidentally send her an e-mail on a work account that government oversight groups could access.
Even more troubling is the fact that a large number of people in the White House and the State Department must have known that she was using a private address that wouldn’t leave copies on government servers. Why didn’t any of them gently suggest that this was not OK?
For the official record, the SAME people who allowed her to bypass the government accounts “that are automatically created before the new employee even arrives” and the SAME people who HAD to have known that Hillary Clinton had created a system that would NOT leave copies on government servers are the ones “investigating” her now. The only hope for justice being done to Hillary Clinton by the Obama “Justice” Department is if top FBI officials have sworn they will resign en masse if the West Wing interferes in any way, any shape or any form from the obvious criminal indictment that ought to have already fallen like a ton of bricks on top of Hillary Clinton’s head.
But I digress. Let me continue on the point I had been making about transparency and how the Democrat Party is as “transparent” as fecal matter: Hillary Clinton likely violated THREE transparency laws with her paranoid fascism:
First, she may have violated the Federal Records Act. Even in 2009, this law required Clinton to “ensure that Federal records sent or received” on her private email “are preserved in the appropriate agency record keeping system.” Clinton claims to have fulfilled this law by turning over 55,000 pages of emails to the Department of State, but the full truth cannot be known until and unless investigators are able to access her private email server. The penalties for violating the Federal Records Act include fines, jail time or disqualification from holding any office under the United States.
The second law Clinton may have violated is Section 1924 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, which forbids federal employees from retaining classified information in an unauthorized manner — such as in a personal email. A 2009 Executive Order by President Barack Obama has a similar ban on such activity. Clinton has sought to address this problem by claiming that her emails never dealt with classified information, yet this is highly unlikely given her role as Secretary of State.
And finally, Clinton may have violated the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). By utilizing a private email server beyond the control of the State Department, her email records will never be subject to FOIA requests — the most basic tool in keeping Washington transparent. In fact, Clinton may have used a private email server precisely to evade FOIA.
Given Clinton’s intransigence and unwillingness to give investigators access to her private email server, we cannot yet know with full certainty whether she broke these three laws.
And yes, Hillary Clinton is THE quintessential moral hypocrite par excellence. When she became Secretary of State, she sent out a memo to all of her State Department employees on FOIA that read, “”Preserving the record of our deliberations, decisions, and actions will be at the foundation of our efforts to promote openness.” And then she proceeded to disregard everything she said and document for all time and for all history that she is a hypocrite without shame, honor, integrity, virtue, honesty or decency.
The USA Today article that points out Hillary’s above-mentioned FOIA communique points out:
So much for that. Today, we know that Clinton took extraordinary steps to prevent any record of her “deliberations, decisions, and actions.” During her entire tenure as Secretary of State, she exclusively utilized a private email account run through servers located at her home in Chappaqua, New York. This arrangement prevented the federal government from maintaining any record of her email communications — a slap in the face to anyone who cares about government transparency and an obvious example of hypocrisy given the memo Clinton sent to her staff in 2009.
Clinton has since attempted to address this crisis of transparency by selectively releasing the emails which she claims pertained to her work as Secretary of State. Of the 62,320 emails she has admitted to sending between 2009 and 2013, she has handed over 30,490 — in the form of 55,000 printed pages which may have been edited — to the Department of State. The remaining emails — nearly 32,000 — were apparently destroyed.
Hillary Clinton and her henchmen have gone out and repeatedly claimed that Hillary did nothing wrong, broke no laws, violated no policies. Bullcrap. A State Department official testified that Hillary Clinton’s practices were NOT acceptable and employees were warned against what she did. As Politico reports:
A senior State Department official testifying at the first congressional hearing focusing on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account for official business called such an arrangement “not acceptable” and said other employees have been warned against it.
“I think that the action we’ve taken in the course of recovering these emails have made it very clear what people’s responsibilities are with respect to recordkeeping,” Assistant Secretary of State for Administration Joyce Barr told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I think the message is loud and clear that that is not acceptable.”
A federal judge went even further when he blatantly stated that Hillary Clinton had violated government policy:
A federal judge has added fresh fuel to the incendiary controversy over Hillary Clinton’s email, asserting during a hearing Thursday that she violated government policy by storing official messages on a private server when she worked as secretary of state.
“We wouldn’t be here today if this employee had followed government policy,” said U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, apparently referring to Clinton, during a hearing on one of the many Freedom of Information Act lawsuits seeking access to her records as secretary of state.
If you vote for Hillary Clinton, Democrat, you are a criminal, a fascist, and a soon-to-be occupant of hell. That’s the bottom line. There is simply no excuse for what she did other than she had to hide her crimes because she is a criminal exploiting her high-level government position to enrich herself and her husband via secret deals made through their foundation.
And either Hillary should go to prison or government officials should be completely above the law for all time until America collapses under the weight of its corruption.
One of the funny things is how the Clinton team loves to point out that other officials – you know, Republican ones – have had private email accounts. Without ever bothering to mention the vast gulf of difference between having a private email account as most Americans do and HAVING YOUR OWN PRIVATE SERVER THAT ENABLES YOU TO PURGE AND DELETE ALL RECORDS THAT WOULD OTHERWISE EXIST. That said, I laughed at this NBC article because it never mentioned the PRIVATE SERVER, but it still demonstrates that NO, Hillary, NOBODY ELSE HAS EVER USED PRIVATE EMAILS THE WAY YOU DID:
Mar 3 2015, 7:36 pm ET
Hillary Clinton’s Personal Email Use Differed From Other Top Officials
by Perry Bacon Jr.
Hillary Clinton’s exclusive use of a non-government email account to send messages to her staff during her time as Secretary of State is a break from what other top officials have done, raising concerns from both Democrats and Republicans about the propriety of the practice.
Aides to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former President George W. Bush said neither official routinely sent e-mails to staffers while they held those posts. Rice “did not use her personal e-mail for official communication as Secretary” and instead exclusively used her State Department account, according to a top aide who did not want to be quoted publicly.
Again, what Hillary Clinton did was UNPRECEDENTED for a government employee:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The computer server that transmitted and received Hillary Clinton’s emails — on a private account she used exclusively for official business when she was secretary of state — traced back to an Internet service registered to her family’s home in Chappaqua, New York, according to Internet records reviewed by The Associated Press.
The highly unusual practice of a Cabinet-level official physically running her own email would have given Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, impressive control over limiting access to her message archives. It also would distinguish Clinton’s secretive email practices as far more sophisticated than some politicians, including Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin, who were caught conducting official business using free email services operated by Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc.
Most Internet users rely on professional outside companies, such as Google Inc. or their own employers, for the behind-the-scenes complexities of managing their email communications. Government employees generally use servers run by federal agencies where they work.
Hypocrite? We can go back to June 20, 2007 and see where Hillary Clinton demonized the Bush Administration with this and under HER OWN STANDARDS PROVE SHE IS THE WORST HYPOCRITE WHO EVER LIVED:
“We know our Constitution is being shredded. We know about the secret wiretaps. We know about the secret military tribunals, the secret White House email accounts. It is a stunning record of secrecy and corruption, of cronyism run-amok. It is everything our founders were afraid of, everything our Constitution was designed to prevent.”
I remind you, I have already PROVEN for the factual record that Hillary Clinton has far and away surpassed ANYTHING that ANY Bush official did when it came to emails. And she set out to do it IMMEDIATELY the MOMENT she came into her Secretary of State job.
At this point I have conclusively proven and documented and established that Hillary Clinton is a paranoid fascist. She is “paranoid” because of her UNPRECEDENTED secrecy and sheer rabid determination to place herself beyond any transparency. And she is a “fascist” because of her equally rabid determination to place herself above the laws that she herself imposed on the people under her who were not in her fascist inner circle.
What Hillary Clinton did and intentionally set out to do reveals her character, and her character is that of a paranoid fascist, period. Just based on the above, no one who supports or votes for Hillary Clinton is a true “democrat” because you simply cannot support or vote for Hillary Clinton and give one rat’s hairy backside about “democracy.” Not when your candidate went to such obvious lengths to sidestep and thwart “democracy.”
Just acknowledge what you truly are, Democrat Party: you are FASCISTS.
But now we get to the real criminality and incredible disregard for the national security of the United States of America. Now we get to the FACTS that 1) Hillary Clinton now without any question sent and received emails that were clearly classified in violation of the law; and 2) that foreign hostile governments almost without any question have intercepted those emails and now know far better than the American people what Hillary Clinton actually thought about the world and the secrets she stupidly shared to the world’s worst governments.
Before I do that, let me first address Hillary Clinton’s constantly “evolving” email excuses (otherwise known as “lies”):
Back at the start, she claimed there was “no classified material” on the thousands of messages sent to and from her private server. Now the State Department has flagged more than 300 e-mails as containing classified information.
Her next explanation: “I did not send classified material, and I did not receive any material that was marked or designated classified.”
But even that excuse — the material was only classified later — doesn’t hold water.
Reuters reports that its careful examination of the “classified” stamps shows the e-mails are filled with information that, by State Department rules, automatically count as classified — whether or not they’re so marked.
At least 30 e-mail threads hold confidential information from foreign officials — material the former director of the Information Security Oversight Office says is “born classified.”
Sorry: As head of the State Department, Hillary should have known this. Indeed, she’s stressed that she was “certainly well aware” of classification requirements. Yet that “ridiculous rules” tweet still went out.
You see why The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward said this week that the whole mess “reminds me of the Nixon tapes.”
McClatchy reported in late July that classified information from five US intelligence agencies were found on Hillary Clinton’s unsecure email server, contradicting her claim that “there is no classified material” on the server. Team Clinton adapted their talking points to say that the server didn’t contain anything that was classified at the time, allowing that retroactive classifications had occurred. Two independent Inspectors General said otherwise from the beginning, then Reuters debunked the updated spin conclusively last week, concluding: “[Emails on the server] are filled with a type of information the U.S. government and the department’s own regulations automatically deems classified from the get-go.”
And so, yeah, when it comes to Hillary Clinton or her cronies trying to claim that she didn’t do anything wrong, when it comes to her constantly shifting stories, well, it just depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is, the way Bill Clinton made his integrity a joke while denying he’d had any kind of “sexual relations with that woman” until his sperm somehow happened to end up on his intern’s blue dress. It’s who Democrats are. They’re bad people. They are liars who support people who lie.
So Hillary Clinton is claiming that she didn’t send any classified material specifically MARKED classified at the time. After she was first proven to be a liar when she claimed that she hadn’t sent classified material when in fact oh, yes, she HAD, and then she was proven to be a liar again when she said that none of the emails were classified at the time she sent or received them when, oh, yes, they WERE. Then she pivoted to this esoteric and arcane argument (that legally is irrelevant, say the experts because it’s not classified because it’s MARKED classified; it’s marked classified because it is CLASSIFIED. It’s classified because it is sensitive information that should remain highly restricted. Which means it is CLASSIFIED whether it is marked classified or not.) that she never sent or received anything that was actually marked “classified” at the time it was sent. But understand how that state of affairs was the case in those emails. From the Los Angeles Times:
The Department of Justice said it is weighing whether to launch its own investigation after the inspector general for intelligence agencies notified the agency that classified information that went through the account appeared to have been mishandled. Administration officials and investigators declined to share details about the emails. But in a separate memo to lawmakers, the inspector general said that a review of just 40 of the 30,000 emails from the Clinton server found that four had information that should have been marked and handled as classified.
Clinton has made many assurances in recent months that she did not send or receive classified information on her personal server. Her campaign says the material in question had not been specifically marked as classified and, thus, Clinton broke no rules. The inspector general disputed that characterization in a statement late Friday, saying that the information in the emails was classified at the time, even if it wasn’t marked as such, and shouldn’t have been transmitted on a personal email system.
Even so, the revelation was an uncomfortable one for the candidate. And national security experts said the disclosure that that material that should have been marked classified made its way to Clinton’s personal email account at the very least fuels legitimate speculation about how the server was used.
“It tells us why this was such a bad idea,” said Stewart A. Baker, a former general counsel to the National Security Agency now in private practice. “It raises questions.”
Among them, Baker said, was whether staffers deliberately avoided marking sensitive emails to Clinton as classified so they could sidestep the bureaucrats who handle transmission of such material.
“She skipped the government circles and nobody was overseeing this and nobody was saying, ‘This info should not be on this system,’” Baker said. “If anything, there was an incentive for people to cross the line without making clear they were doing so.”
What happened? Somebody in Hillary’s inner circle of witches and warlocks stripped the classification markers from the emails so Hillary Clinton could have just such a “plausible deniability.” No matter how implausible it truly is:
The latest revelations about top secret information traversing Hillary Clinton’s private email server have triggered accusations that someone in her “inner circle” likely stripped the classification markings, illegally.
The claims come after the Clinton campaign stuck to the argument that the Democratic presidential candidate, while secretary of state, never dealt with emails that were “marked” classified at the time.
“Hillary only used her personal account for unclassified email. No information in her emails was marked classified at the time she sent or received them,” campaign Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri said in a statement to supporters Wednesday.
But a State Department official told Fox News that the intelligence community inspector general, who raised the most recent concerns about Clinton’s emails, made clear that at least one of those messages contained information that only could have come from the intelligence community.
“If so, they would have had to come in with all the appropriate classification markings,” the official said.
The official questioned whether someone, then, tampered with that message. “[S]omewhere between the point they came into the building and the time they reached HRC’s server, someone would have had to strip the classification markings from that information before it was transmitted to HRC’s personal email.”
This top secret, classified information came from the CIA, it came from the NSA, it came from the FBI, etcetera, and it was classified and it was MARKED as such. But somehow by the time it got to Hillary Clinton’s private email server that was NOT legally allowed to have such sensitive, classified information, those classification markers were somehow gone.
This amounts to the orphan who brutally murdered his parents pleading for mercy because after all, he IS an orphan.
Now you need to understand the sheer, blasphemous magnitude as to just how incredibly cavalier Hillary Clinton and her team were regarding your national security and the lives of your children.
Hillary Clinton selected a private firm to maintain her private server. She made the choice out of political ideology, not competence or qualification. The company she chose was NOT legally authorized to possess or in any way, shape or form handle or deal with classified intelligence information. The company was so indifferent to security that they kept Hillary’s server in a BATHROOM CLOSET:
The IT company Hilary Clinton chose to maintain her private email account was run from a loft apartment and its servers were housed in the bathroom closet, Daily Mail Online can reveal.
Daily Mail Online tracked down ex-employees of Platte River Networks in Denver, Colorado, who revealed the outfit’s strong links to the Democratic Party but expressed shock that the 2016 presidential candidate chose the small private company for such a sensitive job.
One, Tera Dadiotis, called it ‘a mom and pop shop’ which was an excellent place to work, but hardly seemed likely to be used to secure state secrets. And Tom Welch, who helped found the company, confirmed the servers were in a bathroom closet.
It can also be disclosed that the small number of employees who were aware of the Clinton contract were told to keep it secret.
The way in which Clinton came to contract a company described as a ‘mom and pop’ operation remains unclear.
However Daily Mail Online has established a series of connections between the firm and the Democratic Party.
Well, this sounds safe to Democrats, I’m sure. These ARE demon-possessed people who are incapable of reason or decency, after all.
But not in actual factual reality, After pointing out the protections her emails WOULD have had if she had used the government account she shunned because she is a paranoid fascist who wanted to be above transparency, we learn:
Clinton’s email wouldn’t have the benefit of any of that expensive government security. If she had hosted her email with Google or even Yahoo! or Microsoft, there might be an argument that those private companies’ security teams are just as competent as the those of the feds. But instead, according to the Associated Press, Clinton ran her server from her own home. Any protection it had there—aside from the physical protection of the Secret Service—would have been limited to the Clintons’ own personal resources.
A more specific threat to Clinton’s private email relates to its domain name. Unlike the State Department’s State.gov domain, Clinton’s Clintonemail.com is currently registered with a private domain registrar, Network Solutions, as a simple Whois search reveals. The domain Clintonemail.com (and thus its registrar) was certainly known to at least one hacker: The notorious celebrity hacker Guccifer first revealed it in 2013 when he spilled the emails of Clinton associate Sydney Blumenthal.
Anyone who hacked Network Solutions would be able to quietly hijack the Clintonemail.com domain, intercepting, redirecting, and even spoofing email from Clinton’s account. And Network Solutions is far from the Internet’s hardest target: Hundreds of its domains were hacked in 2010, a year into Clinton’s tenure at the head of the State Department.
Even if Clinton used the account only for personal messages rather than those of international importance (say, something along the lines of: “Let’s go ahead and drop those bombs, Bibi”) the notion that they could be both intercepted and spoofed through a common hacking vector is particularly troubling. “Even the most mundane of communications can be interesting to an intelligence service,” says the ACLU’s Soghoian. The NSA, he points out, thought it was worthwhile to monitor German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s personal cell phone, for instance.1
Looking at it this way, a “homebrew” server was the worst possible choice. Even using a webmail system like Gmail, Outlook or Yahoo would have been better because those companies have the expertise and capability to meet at least some of the threat this class of information would face.
This is the most important point. You can liken this to the CFO of Chase taking billions of dollars in cash home and storing it in the mattress. It’s so inadequate to meeting the risks that it would be laughable if it weren’t so serious.
Unless we learn that this server was being protected by the government using the same levels of protection that official servers are, we have no choice but to assume that this server has been compromised by foreign intelligence agents. And let’s be clear, this isn’t just hostile governments: if the Snowden disclosures have shown us anything (reminded us, really) it’s that everyone spies on everyone, friend and foe alike. To put this in the starkest terms: we have to assume the Russians, the Chinese, the Israelis have had access to the Secretary of State’s official email.
And in point of fact we’ve learned it WASN’T. In fact, there was a significant period of time where Hillary’s secret server wasn’t protected AT ALL.
It had absolutely NO encryption for the first three months whatsoever:
Venafi, a Salt Lake City computer security firm, has conducted an analysis of clintonemail.com and determined that “for the first three months of Secretary Clinton’s term, access to the server was not encrypted or authenticated with a digital certificate.” In other words: For three months, Clinton’s server lay vulnerable to snooping, hacking, and spoofing.
And when Hillary finally got around to bothering to install any security whatsoever, she screwed the pooch and ended up with a “misconfigured encryption system.” I mean, it was kind of like her criminal incompetence with Benghazi, only with her own damn server that she installed so she could delete the evidence of her crimes and make her Orwellian disappearances of the factual record permanent. And just like Orwell’s Oceania, Hillary couldn’t have cared less what the rival global power Eurasia and Eastasia that Oceania was at constant war with knew: her cover up was only against her OWN people.
Just like with the Iran Nuclear Deal and the secret side-agreements, Democrats have made it so that all of our enemies know everything; it’s the American people who are the mushrooms in all of this. As in “KITDAFOHS”: an acronym that stands for being “Kept In The Dark And Fed On Horse Shit.” Manure and fascism is all you’re ever going to get from now on by voting Democrat.
What Hillary did was tantamount to having your firewall and your anti-virus software turned off while you browsed the Internet. Only she put us ALL at risk with her stupidity and selfish fascist paranoia.
In other words, it was completely open to foreign intelligence services and was undoubtedly penetrated. Bob Gourley, former chief technology officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency, states that “I have no doubt in my mind that this thing was penetrated by multiple foreign powers, to assume otherwise is to put blinders on.”
Former Deputy CIA Director Michael Morell said that he believes some foreign intelligence agencies possess the contents of Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
“I think that foreign intelligence services, the good ones, have everything on any unclassified network that the government uses,” Morell said Friday in an interview on the Hugh Hewitt Show.
Hillary Clinton’s mushrooming email scandal will not end well no matter what conclusions are reached, Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA and NSA, tells Newsmax TV.
“I would simply say that the sin in all of this is the original sin,” Hayden said Wednesday to J.D. Hayworth, host of “Newsmax Prime.”
“Frankly, there is no way to make this come out happy if you comingle your government and your private emails and then put all of them on a private server as opposed to a government server.
“You’re just setting in motion a whole series of things and it doesn’t require anyone to be stupid or malevolent. If you set it up that way, it’s going to end up in a bad place and that’s the bad place we’re in now.” […]
Does Hayden believe Clinton’s emails had a high probability of ending up in the hands of foreign intelligence services?
“I won’t give you a number, but a foreign intelligence service of some merit, if they were interested in those emails, I would give them a high probability of success that they would be able to penetrate that system,” he said.
The unfolding national security scandal involving former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic candidate for president, is expected to produce evidence of foreign intelligence service involvement in the compromise of U.S. secrets placed on an unsecure email server.
That’s the conclusion of a senior State Department official who told me at least three foreign intelligence services – the Chinese, Russians and Israelis – almost certainly were able to hack into the private email server used by Clinton from 2009 to 2013.
The day Hillary Clinton is sworn into office as President of the United States of America is the day that Russia, China, North Korea, and most of the rest of our worst global enemies, will notify her that they will expose her and she will go to prison for life if she doesn’t turn traitor. We’ve had high-level traitors before, but this would be the first time a sitting president did so. That’s what Democrats are itching to vote for. These are people who literally cannot wait to take the mark of the beast on their right hands or on their foreheads. They want to get the Antichrist ball rolling down the slope now.
Why did Hillary do all this? It’s actually very simple:
Hillary designed her server with privacy and the ability to purge evidence of her criminality rather than security:
A week before becoming secretary of state, Hillary Clinton set up a private e-mail system that gave her a high level of control over communications, including the ability to erase messages completely, according to security experts who have examined Internet records.
“You erase it and everything’s gone,” Matt Devost, a security expert who has had his own private e-mail for years. Commercial services like those from Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. retain copies even after users erase them from their in-box.
There are so many damn shady deals involving Bill and Hillary Clinton, their half-million-dollar speeches and their corrupt Clinton Foundation. Hillary Clinton sold access and corrupt, crony-capitalist-fascist “deals” to the highest bidder in situation after situation. There were the “donations” made AFTER Hillary resolved a Swiss bank’s tax issues to their liking; there was the sale of a fifth of America’s uranium to Russia that Clinton was neck-deep in.
Hillary Clinton doesn’t belong in the White House; she belongs in the Big House. She belongs in PRISON for her CRIMES against the national security of the United States of America. General David Petraeus, a war hero who saved countless American servicemen’s lives with his heroic and skilled leadership in Iraq and Afghanistan, was CONVICTED of a crime for mishandling ONE classified record; Hillary Clinton mishandled classified material on HUNDREDS of occasions.
On August 17, 2015, we had a count of 305 classified emails that somehow found their way onto Hillary Clinton’s secret private server. On September 1, 2015, still another 150 were added to that list of classified emails. So with a long way to go sorting through her emails, she’s already more than four-hundred times more guilty than Petraeus was. And that’s not even counting the more than 30,000 emails that she decided she didn’t want us to see and purged as she tried to wipe her server.
In the case of Richard Nixon, 18-and-a-half minutes of tape “somehow” got erased. Out of more than 2,800 hours. Hillary Clinton purged 32,000 of her emails, refused to turn over her server, wiped it AFTER having been served a lawful subpoena for it. She claimed she had not been subpoenaed, but she lied. And she only turned over the 55,000 emails after she and her staff screened them. She falsely claimed that she had turned over ALL of her government emails and that she only deleted personal emails. That is another proven lie: she got caught red-handed having NOT turned over relevant emails related to Libya. We may never know how many official emails she purged. Richard Nixon is the most moral man who ever lived standing next to Hillary Clinton.
That’s why Hillary Clinton installed a secret server in such reckless violation of national security. Because she’s a horrible human being who cynically exploited her position in the most corrupt way imaginable.
We have multiple stories of military servicemen who went to PRISON for doing a tiny fraction of what Hillary Clinton did just for their petty violations of national security that don’t come CLOSE to what Hillary Clinton did. And NONE of them had the corrupt, cynical, selfish and frankly fascist motives that Hillary Clinton had when she was doing far worse than what sent these men to prison.
Look, I’m not trying to reason with Democrats. Democrats are horrible people who will all soon be burning in hell after they worship the beast and take his mark. Democrats are not people who are capable of any degree of virtue or honesty or integrity or decency. Any roach crawling around on your kitchen floor is a more moral being than a Democrat these days. I am trying to reason with anybody who has so much as a shred of decency or honesty, who can look at the facts and realize that voting for Hillary Clinton is EVIL and ONLY an evil person would even consider doing so.
Tags:bathroom closet, classified at the time, classified information, emails, FBI, federal records act, FOIA, foreign governments, Freedom of Information Act, hackers, Hillary Clinton, hypocrite, Jason Brezler, national security, penetrated, personal emails, Petraeus, private server, recovering emails, Section 1924, Title 18, work-related
Posted in China, Conservative Issues, defense, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Politics | Leave a Comment »
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actress | humanitarian | spokesperson
Innovative Artists
c/o Melissa Hirschenson
LINK Entertainment
c/o Adam Griffin
11872 La Grange Ave,
Film | Television
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AnnaLynne McCord Biography
AnnaLynne McCord - Actress, Director and President of Together1Heart
- AnnaLynne McCord is an American actress, writer, director and producer. Known for playing the vixen, vamp and roles of a darker nature, McCord first gained prominence in 2007 as the scheming Eden Lord on the FX television series Nip/Tuck. Followed by credits on CW's 90210, TNT's Dallas, Stalker on CBS, FOX's Jerry Bruckheimer produced pilot, Lucifer and, currently, ABC's Secret's and Lies. Her turn as a disturbed and delusional teenager in the 2012 film, Excision, was widely acclaimed. For her role in Excision, McCord won "Best Actress" at the Malaga International Week of Fantastic Cinema in 2012. McCord's recent film, 68 Kill won the Audience Award at SXSW and her performance has been hailed strong, fierce and powerful. McCord is currently lead actress in the POPTV Comedy “Let’s Get Physical” alongside Jane Seymour and “Breaking Bad’s” Matt Jones.
- During her free time, McCord has contributed to various charities, stating that "working with charitable organizations and giving back has been (her) saving grace as it has taught (her) how to rescue (herself)." She is the President of "Together1Heart" which empowers women and children victimized by human-trafficking and sexualized violence. In 2009, McCord was awarded a U.S. Congressional Honor by Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa De Lauro for her anti-trafficking work.
- In 2014, McCord revealed that she was sexually assaulted when she was 18 by a male friend. In March of 2015, while speaking at the United Nations in support of UNWFPA McCord announced her alignment with the NFL-supported anti-sexual assault and anti-domestic abuse project, the NO MORE Campaign. Recently, after speaking at the Oxford Union in England McCord connected with NO MORE UK and has extended her ambassadorship overseas. As a TEDx speaker, advocate and activist, McCord continues to engage audiences at colleges, events and private parties with her candid outlook on sex, anti- sexualized violence, anti-domestic abuse and the slavery which "touches 7 billion people": mental slavery.
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Timothy and the Dragon's Gate
Kress, Adrienne
"Eleven-year-old Timothy Freshwater has been expelled from every school in his city. With nowhere else to go, he joins his father at the Tall and Imposing Tower of Doom and lands himself an (unpaid) internship with Evans Bore, a hopelessly awkward CEO who hasn't been invited to single fancy party in his entire life. When his father is called away on business, his real education begins. Left in the care of an eccentric neighbour named Mr. Bazalgette, Timothy learns some curious facts about Mr. Bore and his unusually loyal mail clerk, Mr. Shen, facts that lead to unbelievable revelations: about dragons, servants, and the laws that bind them. With time running out, Timothy takes it upon himself to change one dragon's fate, and begins an adventure that will not end until he is relentlessly pursued by a pack of blood-thirsty black cabs, a crazed ninja and the most feared pirate in the South China Sea!" --From the publisher.
Publisher: Toronto : Scholastic Canada, 2009.
Read more reviews of Timothy and the Dragon's Gate at iDreamBooks.com
haywardfamily Jan 14, 2012
Good. Not as good as Alex and the Ironic Gentleman though. Some of the characters from Alex and the Ironic Gentleman are in this book.
Anna Katrina Caparas Quijano Jul 06, 2011
This book is not as spectacular as Alex and the Ironic Gentleman. Though it still delivers what you would expect from Kress; fun witty characters and adventure at every turn, it lacks that certain kick that I recieved from The Ironic Gentleman. It was a tad dissapointing.
This book is not as spectacular as Alex and the Ironic Gentleman. Though it still delivers what you would expect from Kress; fun witty characters and adventure at evry turn, it lacks that certain kick that I recieved from The Ironic Gentleman. It was a tad dissapointing.
dascott Feb 18, 2011
I don't have any children. I've never really felt any desire to be a parent.
Every once in a while, though, I read a children's book and wish I had children I could read it to. "Timothy and the Dragon's Gate" is one of those books.
Young Timothy is a boy who is too smart for his own good. (Timothy, of course, disagrees with this assessment because, well, he's too smart for his own good.) He has managed to get himself expelled from every school in the city, leaving his father uncertain with to do with the lad. So, he takes his son to work one day. And there Timothy meets an elderly Chinese man named Mr. Shen, who is not what he seems to be... and Timothy is caught up in a number of whirlwind adventures.
This is an excellent follow-up to Kress' earlier children's novel, "Alex and the Ironic Gentleman". (It's not strictly necessary to have read "Alex" before reading "Timothy", but doing so greatly increases the enjoyment of the second story.) "Timothy" is funny, exciting and has a moral as our young hero learns a few life lessons (although the reader is not bashed over the head with this moral; it develops slowly, subtly and realistically).
If you've got those children that I never had, do them a favour and read this book to them. And "Alex and the Ironic Gentleman" while you're at it.
Heck, even if you don't have kids of your own, read them anyway. You won't be disappointed
Dragons — Juvenile Fiction.
Pirates — Juvenile Fiction.
Adventure Stories.
Magic — Juvenile Fiction.
Heroes — Juvenile Fiction.
Home Chinook Arch Borrow from other libraries
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Arizona Eagletarian
WE Persist!
About Cathi Herrod's side of the SB1062 story
So, a few days ago the Center for Arizona Policy got a group of law professors together to get them to sign a letter saying the people opposing SB1062 were "misleading" everyone.
On letterhead for Douglas Laycock, a professor of law and of religious studies at the University of Virginia, 10 professors in addition to Laycock signed on. The thrust of the letter is that SB1062 is not discriminatory because it's not the bill that was proposed in Kansas.
SB1062, which amends Arizona’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, is on your desk for signature. The bill has been egregiously misrepresented by many of its critics. We write because we believe that you should make your decision on the basis of accurate information.
Some of us are Republicans; some of us are Democrats. Some of us are religious; some of us are not. Some of us oppose same-sex marriage; some of us support it. Nine of the eleven signers of this letter believe that you should sign the bill; two are unsure. But all of us believe that many criticisms of the Arizona bill are deeply misleading.
These are smart people who know, or certainly should know how to make sound, valid arguments. However, in the opening paragraphs of their 4-page missive, they set forth 1) why they believe they are authorities on the subject; and 2) a vague, generalized declaration that criticism of SB1062 is "deeply misleading."
What they do NOT do is say ANYTHING specific about just what criticism(s), published or broadcast where or by whom, are misleading. That should be a HUGE red flag.
They then proceed to set forth brief history of RFRAs (Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, in federal and state law). They talk about the standards set forth in RFRAs and why -- compared to the proposed legislation in KANSAS -- Arizona's bill was a good thing because of what courts would have had to do in order to determine who wins a given lawsuit.
But I don't know that ANYONE published ANYTHING comparing SB1062 with the Kansas legislation in order to criticize or justify it the Arizona bill. Which appears to make their attempted argument NOT germane to the discussion we've had over the last week here in Arizona.
The other thing that these uppity law professors gloss over is that in order for courts to be put in position to make any ruling, someone must face what they consider to be discrimination. Somebody is going to suffer harm to some degree before a court will be able to decide if that harm was justified or not.
So, bravo for Ms. Herrod for getting someone to put something in writing that attempts to justify SB1062.
The arguments set forth in the letter may or may not matter to a judge in a courtroom, but in the political realm of Arizona legislation, they do not hold water, and appear only mildly less disingenuous than Herrod has up to now on this matter.
Posted by Steve Muratore aka Arizona Eagletarian at 11:13 PM No comments: Links to this post
Cathi Herrod tells the BIG LIE -- about her SB1062 defeat UPDATED 7:30pm MST 2-27-14
On February 23, I posted an analysis of SB1062. I did so because Cathi Herrod told the world to "read the bill, just read the bill."
However, it was abundantly clear from the day the bill was introduced, January 13, 2014, that it was an outrageous attack on humanity under the guise of religious freedom. A few days later, I asked by what objective measure the bill could possibly have been considered about defending religious freedom.
Last week, after the bill was approved by the Arizona House and made ready for the governor's consideration, I started a petition on CREDO MOBILIZE calling for Brewer to veto the bill. More than 33,700 people signed the petition.
Supporters of HUMAN RIGHTS freedoms protested at the state capital several times thereafter. The National Football League sent signals indicating it was considering moving the location of the 2015 Super Bowl (currently scheduled for Glendale, AZ, at the University of Phoenix Stadium) if the governor signed the bill. Numerous other business related indicators, including convention cancellations and loss of job growth opportunities from businesses considering moves to Arizona took place in the meantime.
Several Republican politicians, including three state senators who voted for the bill and both of our state's U.S. Senators, McCain and Flake called for Brewer to veto.
In other words, the PEOPLE of Arizona and the United States spoke loud and clear as a result of understanding the genuine ramifications of this misguided legislation.
By the way, in my analysis of the bill, I invited Herrod, and/or our friend John Kavanagh -- both of whom had advocated on national broadcast media for signing the bill -- to refute or issue a rebuttal to the analysis I published.
So, after Brewer announced her veto decision, the Center for Arizona (HATE) Policy issued the following statement:
26-Feb-2014PHOENIX - “Today’s veto of SB 1062 marks a sad day for Arizonans who cherish and understand religious liberty.
SB 1062 passed the legislature for one reason only: to guarantee that all Arizonans would be free to live and work according to their faith.
Opponents were desperate to distort this bill rather than debate the merits. Essentially, they succeeded in getting a veto of a bill that does not even exist. (emphasis mine)
When the force of government compels one to speak or act contrary to their conscience, the government injures not only the dignity of the afflicted, but the dignity of our society as a whole.
SB 1062 made certain that governmental laws cannot force people to violate their faith unless it has a compelling governmental interest–a balancing of interests that has been in federal law since 1993.
The religious beliefs of all Arizonans must be respected and this bill did nothing more than affirm that. It is truly a disappointing day in our state and nation when lies and personal attacks can over shadow the truth.”
Whose religion rationalizes that it is acceptable to issue bald-faced lies to manipulate your readers into believing what is clearly not true? Cathi Herrod presents as nothing more than whited sepulchre.
If she were even halfway sincere, Herrod might consider some self-reflection and examination along the lines of a 10-question quiz devised by Rev. Emily C. Heath pastor of a United Church of Christ in Vermont. (I can't really tell whether, on the inside, Ms. Herrod is sincere. But I can tell quite a bit, even if not her sincerity, by what she says and does publicly).
1. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to go to a religious service of my own choosing.
B) Others are allowed to go to religious services of their own choosing.
A) Being a member of my faith means that I can be bullied without legal recourse.
B) I am no longer allowed to use my faith to bully gay kids with impunity.
The results might be surprising.
By the way, a source told me earlier this evening (Wednesday) that the AZ House may vote (Third Read) on 60 bills today (Thursday). Among the pieces of garbage potentially facing approval are HB2481 (the minister/gay marriage preemptive strike against a Supreme Court ruling or ballot measure) and HB2526 (consumer lender loans).
The kicker with HB2526 is that several Democratic members of the House signed on as sponsors. One of whom, when I asked about this bill, became very defensive. Another simply ignored my questions. It's still a Republican bill, but I'm puzzled that any Democrat would support it. By the way, the one Democrat who answered some of my questions told me that Rep. Debbie McCune Davis, who has fought the Payday Loan industry valiantly, supported HB2526. Based on a comment McCune Davis posted to a Facebook discussion thread, I learned that claim was not true.
It is my hope that Democrats stay unified on important legislation. Empowering predatory lenders to add to financial stress of lower income families is important and should be emphatically opposed.
The House voted (Third Read) on HB2526 this afternoon, passing it by a vote of 38-18 with 4 not voting.
Democratic leader Chad Campbell was out of town, and assistant Democratic leader Ruben Gallego apparently also was not present for the vote.
Democrats voting in favor of this legislation to enhance the ability of predatory lenders to heap financial stress on lower income families included Lydia Hernández (LD29/West Phoenix), Catherine Miranda (LD27/South Phoenix), Democratic whip Bruce Wheeler (LD10/Tucson), and Lupe Chavira Contreras (LD19/Cashion).
It is a DISGRACE for those four members to have voted in favor of this bill.
Lest anyone think Republicans Ethan Orr, Heather Carter and Kate Brophy McGee are suddenly "moderates," all three voted in favor of the predatory lenders, and NOT Arizona families in this case.
Posted by Steve Muratore aka Arizona Eagletarian at 12:20 AM No comments: Links to this post
REDISTRICTING -- AZ Lege files appeal with Scotus to last week's loss in federal district court
As expected following last week's federal court decision, yesterday the Arizona Legislature filed an appeal with the Supreme Court of the United States.
Of course, this action was upstaged by both the controversy regarding and Gov Brewer's veto of SB1062.
There's no telling how long it will take for the Supreme Court to decide whether to affirm or overturn the decision, but rest assured that I will keep you posted.
Posted by Steve Muratore aka Arizona Eagletarian at 6:33 PM 1 comment: Links to this post
SB1062 VETOED!
In a press conference just a few minutes ago, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer announced that she had vetoed SB1062.
Here is a transcript of her remarks.
Read her veto letter here.
Posted by Steve Muratore aka Arizona Eagletarian at 6:17 PM No comments: Links to this post
The Culture War will continue, even though Herrod knows a veto looms
So, despite the Center for Arizona (HATE) Policy having adopted a victim mentality and appearing close to accepting that the only course of action Gov. Brewer can possibly take is to veto Herrod's bill, SB1062, it is very unlikely Herrod will accept defeat in what she views as a war for the soul of America and Arizona.
The Arizona Republic quoted Herrod this afternoon:
Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, which promoted SB1062, said the outcry makes it “almost impossible” for Brewer to sign the bill.
“But if the bill is vetoed, it will be because of the perception of the bill, not the merits,” she said.
From Herrod's latest statement on the subject:
“The attacks on SB 1062 show politics at its absolute worse. They represent precisely why so many people are sick of the modern political debate. Instead of having an honest discussion about the true meaning of religious liberty, opponents of the bill have hijacked this discussion through lies, personal attacks, and irresponsible reporting.
It's as if nobody, including Constitutional Law scholars, are able to understand what Herrod's bill actually does. That's tragic and indicates these culture warriors are not interested in giving up on their cause anytime soon.
Instead of refuting analyses such as presented in the Arizona Eagletarian, she and her sycophants have adopted a strategy of continuing to tell the big lie, as loud and as often as they can. Given what wingnut blogs like SeeingRedAz yesterday posted, it appears to be working on the low information Tea Party types.
It’s no surprise that the Arizona Republic has embraced its usual technique of bold headlines, multi-page contrivances posing as news reports, and zealously oversized photos on the issue of SB 1062 — employing the irresponsible tactics the liberal newspaper blatantly uses to promote its myopic dual agenda. Columnists and editorialists have donned their jackboots to facilitate marching in lockstep with the attack strategy — irrespective of the facts.
More than 32,000 people have signed our petition on CREDO MOBILIZE. If you haven't done so yet, I invite you to sign it now.
Even if Brewer vetoes SB1062, the fight is not over. HB2481 to hit the fan today?
HB2481, which "may be cited as 'Arizona's First Freedom Act'" is apparently going to be the very next piece of vexatious legislation to hit the fan in Arizona.
A source told the Arizona Eagletarian on Monday evening that the bill, which would add language to A.R.S. § 41-1493 to provide that
GOVERNMENT MAY NOT REQUIRE A MINISTER TO SOLEMNIZE A MARRIAGE THAT IS INCONSISTENT WITH THE MINISTER'S SINCERELY HELD RELIGIOUS BELIEFS.
will be heard in the House caucuses today and likely also subject to floor debate (Committee of the Whole) and Third Read all this afternoon.
But you say that government ALREADY may not demand a minister to do anything inconsistent with the minister's "sincerely held religious beliefs." Well, WHO is a minister? To that same section of statute (41-1493) language is added defining a minister thus,
"MINISTER" MEANS AN INDIVIDUAL WHO IS AUTHORIZED TO SOLEMNIZE A MARRIAGE PURSUANT TO SECTION 25‑124.
So, who now becomes a minister for purposes of this new provision?
A. The following are authorized to solemnize marriages between persons who are authorized to marry:
1. Duly licensed or ordained clergymen.
2. Judges of courts of record.
3. Municipal court judges.
4. Justices of the peace.
5. Justices of the United States supreme court.
6. Judges of courts of appeals, district courts and courts that are created by an act of Congress if the judges are entitled to hold office during good behavior.
7. Bankruptcy court and tax court judges.
8. United States magistrate judges.
9. Judges of the Arizona court of military appeals.
This could parallel prior year legislation authorizing pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for the Morning After Pill.
What else does HB2481 do? It adds language to A.R.S. § 41-1442 regarding where discrimination is prohibited, and exceptions thereof.
F. THIS SECTION DOES NOT REQUIRE A CHURCH TO ECUMENICALLY RECOGNIZE, FACILITATE OR SOLEMNIZE A MARRIAGE THAT IS INCONSISTENT WITH THE SINCERELY HELD RELIGIOUS BELIEF, DOCTRINE OR TENET OF THE CHURCH.
G. FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS SECTION, "CHURCH" MEANS A RELIGIOUS ASSEMBLY OR INSTITUTION AND DOES NOT INCLUDE A HOSPITAL, HOTEL, RESTAURANT, RETAIL OR SERVICE BUSINESS OR ANY OTHER TRADITIONAL PLACE OF ACCOMMODATION.
In other words, in the statute specifying that discrimination may not take place in places of public accommodation, "because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin or ancestry" and noting EXCEPTIONS to that rule, our legislature wants to again sneak in language that DOES allow discrimination on the basis of "sincerely held religious belief, doctrine or tenet" of any given church.
So, take a guess as to whom OTHER THAN on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin or ancestry, they are targeting. Okay, so "sex" might include "sexual preference" or "same-sex marriages." But we'd have to check the case law to know for sure, since they didn't include language to disambiguate (I learned that word by reading Wikipedia) that particular term.
Now, what makes anyone (including Cathi Herrod) think any government is going to try to compel any church to do anything contrary to the doctrines and tenets of that church? I can't answer that.
However, isn't it nice of Ms. Herrod to specify that they don't mean to discriminate against same sex couples in hospitals, hotels, restaurants, retail or service businesses or any other traditional place of accommodation?
But really, could this be anything other than a preemptive strike against a citizen initiative to amend the Arizona Constitution to allow same-sex marriages? It might, but that's the first thing that comes to my mind.
The vociferous protestations she and her ilk (and the most vocal state lawmakers taking up her cause, like Al Melvin and John Kavanagh) that SB1062 was ONLY about protecting the religious beliefs of certain people have rung hollow for the last several days.
But in this case, it ALMOST makes sense.
We have the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article 2, Section 12 of the Arizona Constitution. From Wikipedia (on the Free Exercise Clause),
In 1878, the Supreme Court was first called to interpret the extent of the Free Exercise Clause in Reynolds v. United States, as related to the prosecution of polygamy under federal law. The Supreme Court upheld Reynolds' conviction for bigamy, deciding that to do otherwise would provide constitutional protection for a gamut of religious beliefs, including those as extreme as human sacrifice. The Court said (at page 162): "Congress cannot pass a law for the government of the Territory which shall prohibit the free exercise of religion. The first amendment to the Constitution expressly forbids such legislation." Of federal territorial laws, the Court said: "Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious beliefs and opinions, they may with practices."
And from the Arizona Constitution,
The liberty of conscience secured by the provisions of this constitution shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness, or justify practices inconsistent with the peace and safety of the state...
Here's where the, "I'm not a lawyer" thing comes in again. There appears to be plenty of ambiguity such that if a ballot measure were to be approved by Arizona voters (or a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, for that matter) authorizing same-sex marriages, then hypothetically, I could see how Herrod and her ilk might fear for their eternal lives because they might be compelled to marry two guys.
Well, maybe that's just a little bit tongue-in-cheek. But in this case, I see how their imaginations can conjure up a plausible scenario where they might feel a need to have their religious beliefs (practices) protected.
Ultimately, this is still about Cathi Herrod's Culture War. How far it might be appropriate to let her get with it is something I'm not prepared to offer an opinion at this time. But it is coming up right on the heels of the firestorm of controversy over SB1062.
Posted by Steve Muratore aka Arizona Eagletarian at 1:24 AM 1 comment: Links to this post
Print Newspapers' Smear of Kavanagh Reeks of Desperation
Guest post, originally published on Blog for Arizona, by Bob Lord
Let's hope this is one of the last gasps of a dying snake.
The pathetic print newspaper industry, in a desperate attempt to preserve a statutorily-mandated revenue stream that lost its justification decades ago, maliciously attacked Arizona House Rep. John Kavanagh in some of the most despicably self-serving and deceptive editorial pieces I've ever read.
Unfortunately, few members of the public likely understand what really is going on.
Let's be clear: Kavanagh and I are not exactly political chums, although I have nothing personal against him and do admire his willingness to comment here under his real name. But he's a right-wing conservative and I identify as Green. So I have no motive to shill for Rep. Kavanagh.
But I'm willing to give credit where credit is due, and John has introduced a piece of legislation, HB 2554, which is outstanding and long overdue. HB 2554 eliminates the requirement that newly formed corporations and limited liability companies publish their formation information in a print newspaper of general circulation.
The Arizona print newspaper industry collects millions in fees from business start-ups each year for printing these statutorily mandated notices. The notices appear in separate sections of numerous local newspapers. Nobody reads them. They go straight to the recycling bin or, worse yet, the landfill.
And it's been that way for decades.
It's what's referred to as a private tax, but technically is a fee.
A long time ago, when local print newspapers were the best way to disseminate this information and far, far fewer corporations were formed, most states had publication requirements.
No longer. All but four states (AZ, Nebraska, New York and Pennsylvania) have eliminated the publication requirement because it no longer serves any purpose. From the way the Arizona print newspaper lobby is squealing like a stuck pig, you would never guess this to be the case, but it is.
In the past weeks, a spate of wildly deceptive editorial pieces have appeared in Arizona newspapers, led of course by our Arizona Republic in What's this? John Kavanagh wants larger government?
At the heart of the deception is the conflation of (a) the legitimate and necessary practice of providing online access to information about corporations and limited liability companies to the public; and (b) the completely wasteful and valueless practice of publishing information about new corporate and limited liability company formations in print. Those two practices are not naturally connected. The newspaper lobby, however, justifies the continuation of the giant revenue stream it derives from wasteful print publication on the basis of the public's need for online access.
Practically each line from the Republic either is misleading or is an outright lie, starting out with the glaring omission of the fact that the list of states retaining the publication requirement is down to four, and shrinking.
First, some background. HB 2554 would eliminate the requirement that newly formed businesses publish their formation information in a print newspaper, thus saving each new corporation about $100 and each new limited liability company about $40. In 2013, there were 6,345 new corporations and 53,991 new limited liability companies formed in Arizona. Do the math. When you add in publications for name changes, mergers and other matters, we're talking $3 Million in publication fees annually.
HB 2554 also would allocate $65,000 to improve the online database of business entity information. The Corporation Commission already maintains a website where this information is available. It's actually very good. Those stats I cited about new business formations in 2013? Right off the ACC website. Time needed to retrieve that data? About a minute.
After the initial $65,000 expenditure, there likely would be ongoing maintenance costs, although the website maintenance costs already incurred by the ACC may not increase materially.
Bottom line: Businesses save $3 Million PER YEAR, in exchange for a one-time $65,000 website development expense.
On to the Republic's hit piece. First, the Republic insinuates that Kavanagh is a hypocrite because he's promoting "big government":
So it’s amazing to see him sponsoring a bill that would take a role performed by Arizona businesses and give it to state government.
No, this is actually a role already performed by state government. It's a quintessentially governmental function. When a business forms a new limited liability or corporation, it files "articles" with the Corporation Commission containing vital information such as it's name, place of business, owners' names and so forth. The Corporation Commission already organizes this information in a database.
It's after this occurs that big government swings into action under current law, requiring each business to must publish some, but not all, of its vital information in a newspaper of general circulation. There are at least 20 such newspapers in Maricopa County. The newspaper then voluntary transmits that information to a website the newspaper trade association maintains, even though the trade association could systematically pull the same information from the ACC website. The trade association then places the information in a searchable database, along with information from other types of public notices. The effect is to duplicate the data available from the ACC database.
But the newspaper database is not as reliable (or comprehensive) as the ACC database. After all, it's entirely voluntary on the part of the newspapers to submit publication information to the database. And, by the way, a newspaper of general circulation is not required to join the trade association.
Rep. Kavanagh's bill seeks to eliminate the big government aspect of current law. The bill would not preclude the newspapers from maintaining their website. And all the information used by the newspapers would still be available to them, from the ACC. The only thing that wouldn't be available would be the unnecessary print publication of information for fees.
So, Kavanagh is not taking a role performed by business. He's eliminating an unnecessary regulatory requirement -- the print publication of information -- and saving businesses millions of dollars annually.
Next, this whopper:
Kavanagh wants the Arizona Corporation Commission to spend $65,000 in taxpayer money to create a website where minimal information about corporate and limited-liability company filings would be posted for 90 days. He says this would be a boon to the public and business.
Neither is true. [emphasis mine]
Actually, it would be a boon to business, in the form of a $3 Million annual cost savings. Or is it more? If a business engages a law firm or document preparation service to handle its formation, the effort of the law firm or document preparation service ultimately increases the cost to the business.
But that's not the whopper. The whopper is the "$65,000 in taxpayer money" part. The money would come from filing fees already paid by new corporations and limited liability companies. Are those filing fees taxes? Possibly, in the self-serving delusional minds of the Republic's editorial board. Could those fees increase marginally to fund the $65,000 website development? Kavanagh claims they would not, at least as a result of this change.
Then, the Republic distorts the purpose of the affidavit newspapers supply for businesses that publish with them:
Newspapers provide affidavits as legal proof of notice, something the Corporation Commission would not do.
The sole purpose of the affidavit is to allow a new corporation or limited liability company to prove it satisfied the publication requirement. Eliminate the publication requirement and the affidavits have no purpose. So, the choice for the business owner is "you either get an affidavit to prove you paid your private tax to the newspaper industry, or we eliminate the private tax and you don't get an affidavit." If you're a new business owner, which would you prefer?
Then there's this:
Business isn’t clamoring for a change.
Of course not, but what a crock. Each new business is getting hit for $40 or $100 in costs, perhaps a bit more if it operates through multiple entities. Do they want to pay this private tax to the print newspaper industry? No. Are they "clamoring" for change? No, there's not enough money involved. This is precisely how bad legislation gets passed and good legislation gets crushed. Each business getting ripped off for a few bucks doesn't have enough at stake here to "clamor" for change. But the corrupt, pathetic print newspaper industry has a huge amount at stake, namely, its place at the trough. So it's doing plenty of clamoring. When the interest of the public is dispersed, as it is here, and the special interest is concentrated, guess who almost always wins.
The Republic of course claims not to be acting in its self-interest:
Politicians don’t like a news media that pokes into their business. But this change would have no effect on The Arizona Republic, which doesn’t publish these filings. It would hurt niche and small-town newspapers, like the one that serves Kavanagh’s Fountain Hills.
Make that no DIRECT effect. There are other ripoffs in the form of public (governmental) notices that must be published in print under obsolete statutes from yesteryearcentury. The Republic is making bank on those notices. And its editorial board knows those notices too will get a closer look if Kavanagh's bill passes. Also, those little newspapers it purports to care about use a portion of their public notice revenue to help subsidize the same website that the Republic uses for its public notices. So, indirectly, our friends at the Republic have much at stake.
But it wasn't only the Republic. This was an organized effort. Here's the Payson Roundup in Government Takeover a Political Cheapshot:
So why would [Kavanagh] introduce HB2554, which would use $65,000 in taxpayer money to set up an obscure Website to post legal notices currently published in local newspapers and their Web sites throughout the state?
Could be he’s just mad at newspapers — especially small-town newspapers like the Roundup, his hometown Fountain Hills newspaper or maybe the well respected Capitol Times, a legislative watchdog weekly.
Excuse me, but what the hell is an "obscure" website? We have these things called search engines. They lead us to websites. What the tricksters at the Payson Roundup don't tell their readers is that no one newspaper is guaranteed to handle any one publication for a new business entity. If you wanted comprehensive information on this front, you'd have to gather all the newspapers in the relevant county, or visit all their websites. Or, you could just go to the Corporation Commission website.
Please note: Kavanagh has proposed a new fee — read that tax — to set up and operate the Web site. Now, maybe you believe his peculiar claim that you can set up a state Web site that will handle a flood of constantly changing legal notices for just $65,000. We’re skeptical ourselves, seeing as how the last time the Arizona Corporation Commission tried to update its much less comprehensive Web site Starpas, the cost ballooned to $250,000 although it never actually worked.
No, it's not new, it is a fee, not a tax, and the folks paying it would save a ton of money under Kavanagh's bill. And the "constantly changing legal notices" actually don't change. The information regarding Arizona business entities changes constantly, but you know who the keeper of that information is? The Corporation Commission. That website, Starpas, which the experts at the Roundup malign, is incredibly reliable. And it's absolutely positively not "less comprehensive" than the website contemplated in Kavanagh's legislation. It's far more comprehensive. In fact, Starpas provides not only the information, but copies of the actual filed documents. It provides annual reports of corporations. It provides statistics on filings.
Are the editorial board members of the Roundup completely clueless? Possibly, but the other possibility is that they intentionally distorted facts for profit. Bottom line, however, is that they likened Kavanagh to a Democrat, when his bill does something that's very Republican: Eliminating an unnecessary regulation. So, was it Kavanagh or the Payson Roundup who took the cheap shot? You make the call.
The public, unfortunately, is fairly clueless on this matter. I happened upon a letter to the editor of a local Fountain Hills paper, from a lady named Eunice, which gave this justification for continuing the publication requirement:
The Arizona Corporation Commission would only be required to post them online. The Times’ editorial stated that the Arizona Newspapers Association posts these things on their website in addition to setting them in print. So there is nothing of value to this HB2554.
No, Eunice, nothing of value other than $3 Million in cost savings annually to new businesses.
How many times a week do you browse online for corporate filings or even for ridiculous legislation that may not appear in print? Public notices in print represent revenue for newspapers and a better source of information for all citizens who enjoy their newspaper with a cup of coffee in the morning.
Sorry, Eunice, besides you, there are fewer than five people statewide who "browse the corporate filings" in print. After all, it would be no more interesting than reading the phonebook. Indeed, when I read Eunice's letter, I thought of the scene in Rainman, when Dustin Hoffman recalled a waitress' phone number because he'd read it in the phonebook.
Even if reading the print notices of business formations was a logical way to obtain information, it has no value under our current system, because you'd have to purchase and read over 20 newspapers in Maricopa County to obtain comprehensive information regarding the 150+ business entities formed daily here. And unless there's something specific you need to know, it's useless information. If there is something specific you need to know, you're only going to find it online, unless you like searching for needles in haystacks.
So, Eunice, is it really worth $3 Million per year so you and perhaps five other underemployed or over-aged dimwits can read absolutely useless information in print as you sip your morning coffee?
In closing, I'll relate my personal experience with this. I was one of six attorneys who drafted Arizona's limited liability company statute in 1992. We intentionally omitted a publication requirement, because, even back then, the requirement no longer served any legitimate purpose.
A year or so after the legislation was enacted, the newspaper lobby threw a fit. I testified. The newspapers of course won (they were far more powerful back then), but we did extract a compromise limiting the amount of information that had to be published. That concession has saved Arizona businesses millions over the past two decades. I'm proud of that.
Several legislators confided in me back then that they knew the publication requirement was a ripoff, but they couldn't get on the wrong side of the newspapers. That actually was understandable at the time, but no longer. Print newspapers no longer have the power to extract this tribute from the public, and legislators should have the courage to tell them so.
Yesterday, the Prescott Daily Courier ran an editorial about HB2554 that is even more convoluted. That paper confused the issue of PUBLIC (governmental/municipal) notices with corporate notices. In some states, the two categories might be handled in the same statutory provisions, but in Arizona, they are separate. In the 2013 legislative session, HB2483 tried to address both, seeking to allow online publication of governmental and corporate notices but due to pressure from the newspaper lobby, died.
If that doesn't add to the cognitive dissonance about the role of newspaper publication, that's even more troubling. This goes to what Lord meant when he said that likely few people would understand the issue. Based on what the Payson and Prescott papers had to say about the bill, it seems likely THEY don't even understand the issue.
Add to this the firestorm of controversy that has arisen as a result of SB1062. Kavanagh's bold but misguided defense of the religious discrimination law detracts from the clarity with which he acted and advocated for eliminating the statutory requirement to publish corporate notices in print newspapers. At this time, HB2554 passed in the Technology and Infrastructure committee and has yet to be scheduled by Speaker Andy Tobin for floor debate.
Let's examine SB1062, shall we?
Arizona's self-appointed Bible enforcer Cathi Herrod says all we need to do is read the bill and we will see that no discrimination is intended.
Let's test that theory.
The first change SB1062 makes to Arizona statute is, in § 41-1493 (Definitions related to the Free Exercise of Religion), to expand the definition of "exercise of religion."
2. "Exercise of religion" means the PRACTICE OR OBSERVANCE OF RELIGION, INCLUDING THE ability to act or refusal to act in a manner substantially motivated by a religious belief, whether or not the exercise is compulsory or central to a larger system of religious belief.
On the surface, this might appear to be an insignificant change. But what does "practice or observance of religion" mean? This bill does not define the language added. THEREFORE, by definition (of how statutes get defined and clarified when the legislature introduces ambiguous language) it can ONLY be defined by a court.
Have you ever heard the expression, "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission?" In this case, whoever this statute applies to will interpret the language the way he or she wants to and it will be up to a person who believes her or himself to have been wronged to take that person to court to have a judge decide who's right and who is wrong.
The next change SB1062 makes to statute is to expand the definition of "person,"
5. "Person" includes a religious assembly or institution ANY INDIVIDUAL, PARTNERSHIP, CORPORATION, CHURCH, RELIGIOUS ASSEMBLY OR INSTITUTION OR OTHER BUSINESS ORGANIZATION.
Do you recall recent controversies over campaign finance and freedom of speech? In its Citizens United ruling the U.S. Supreme Court held that corporations have the same rights as living, breathing humans. SB1062 seeks to enshrine that legal principle into Arizona civil rights statutes to say that businesses have the same religious rights as living, breathing humans.
B. Except as provided in subsection C, government OF THIS SECTION, STATE ACTION shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.
C. Government STATE ACTION may substantially burden a person's exercise of religion only if it THE GOVERNMENT OR NONGOVERNMENTAL PERSON SEEKING THE ENFORCEMENT OF STATE ACTION demonstrates that application of the burden to the person PERSON'S EXERCISE OF RELIGION IN THIS PARTICULAR INSTANCE is both:
1. In furtherance of a compelling governmental interest.
2. The least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.
Instead of this statute limiting the authority of a government agency or body in Arizona from burdening a person's exercise of religion, it will now limit the right of a NONGOVERNMENTAL person to seek enforcement of a "state action." Again, the ONLY place a person can go to demand a business comply with the law (like a law granting civil rights to LGBT persons) is TO COURT.
In other words, a business (if this becomes law) cannot be compelled to honor the civil or other rights of some people (whoever it wants to discriminate against) EVEN IN COURT.
Additionally,
D. A person whose religious exercise is burdened in violation of this section may assert that violation as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding, and obtain appropriate relief against a government REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THE GOVERNMENT IS A PARTY TO THE PROCEEDING.
E. A person that asserts a violation of this section must establish all of the following:
1. That the person's action or refusal to act is motivated by a religious belief.
2. That the person's religious belief is sincerely held.
3. That the state action substantially burdens the exercise of the person's religious beliefs.
F. The person asserting a claim or defense under subsection D of this section may obtain injunctive and declaratory relief. A party who prevails in any action to enforce this article against a government shall recover attorney fees and costs.
First, the business that wants to get away with discriminating is now (if this becomes law) authorized to assert that his religious freedom was violated, based on any number of hypothetical situations.
Second, in order to be "protected" against the risk of losing that lawsuit, the person must establish that the discrimination was based on a sincerely held religious belief that has been "substantially burdened." The person seeking to be shielded is eligible for injunctive and declaratory relief -- FROM a judge, in a court. In other words, that's the end of the story... almost. The party who prevails SHALL recover attorney fees and costs.
That's the fail safe to minimize the risk of going to court in the first place. Whoever loses the lawsuit has to pay the other side's attorneys.
In other words, as I wrote yesterday,
Boston also said, "What legislation like this does is take a noble cause and turns it into a tool of oppression."
Anyone who doubts this (and that appears to include our friend John Kavanagh) needs to take a good hard look at the research in the Stanford Prison Study.
What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph?
The evidence is stark. The proponents of discrimination, misguided at best. Giving Herrod, Kavanagh and other proponents of lawful religious discrimination the benefit of the doubt, they are willfully ignorant of the inevitable unintended consequences.
Ultimately, regardless of whose perspective you examine the inevitable scenarios from, SB1062 sets up unavoidable conflict that will either be tolerated by those suffering violations of civil rights or provided relief from courts.
All of which, despite John Kavanagh's protestations, affirms what I have been saying from the day SB1062 was first introduced as proposed legislation -- this is about enforcement of Cathi Herrod's interpretation of the Bible, at the expense of the civil rights of anyone and everyone else.
And since Kavanagh so forcefully believes SB1062 is NOT discriminatory, and went on CNN the other day to try to make that case, I invite him to refute the argument that I made here and in my previous blog post.
Before he does, however, I must point out that the argument he made in the video explaining his vote -- that SB1062 is not discriminatory because the Arizona Republic supposedly distorted the implications of SB1070 four years ago, thereby causing a national controversy -- is all sorts of invalid. But I'm confident that Kavanagh is better equipped than I to tell us which logical fallacies he employed in his defense of SB1062.
Kavanagh says Brewer will sign SB1062, but does she DARE even consider it?
In the span of less than 48 72 hours, our CREDO MOBILIZE petition has accrued more than 10,000 25,000 signatures calling for Gov. Brewer to #VetoSB1062.
Last month, I cited SB1062 showing how the bill is a license to discriminate, using "sincerely held religious belief" as a shield against lawsuits.
The bill's author (Cathi Herrod, not Steve Yarbrough) doggedly holds to the position that she is a victim in this situation, rather than admitting what this bill is really about. In an interview on CNN, Herrod refused to answer questions directed at whether SB1062 would allow a business owner to discriminate against gays. Robert Boston, communication director for Americans United for Separation of Church and State answered for her, after she repeatedly refused. He indicated that YES, SB1062 would allow that discrimination.
So, Kavanagh says (at the 7:50 mark in this video clip) that Brewer WILL sign the bill.
To demonstrate just how willfully ignorant he is, in the CNN interview, which included NYU law professor Kenji Yoshino, Kavanagh responds to the very first question posed to him -- about whether SB1062 would enable a hypothetically Catholic loan officer to refuse to do business (give a loan to) a gay couple or an unwed mother -- by saying "absolutely not." But he later (at 2:20) acknowledges that the question has been posed to courts for decades and will again have to go before courts to decide.
Kavanagh then launches into a rationalized explanation of whether this law changes anything. He says it does not. Yoshino, a constitutional law professor, however, says it does make material changes.
This illustrates what we have seen time and time again from Arizona's legislature, that it decides what it wants to do based NOT on legitimate dialogue with stakeholders representing opposing views. Instead, they take the bully approach. We're going to do this because WE CAN and you can't stop us.
In 2010, that gave Arizona SB1070. Immediately upon passage of that bill, citizen opposition mounted a ferocious fury. But Gov. Brewer seized on the political opportunity and a rising Tea Party movement and signed the bill anyway.
Arizona suffered economic losses immediately. But Brewer easily won her primary election and despite a meltdown (16-second lapse into confused silence on Horizon, and other incidents demonstrating questionable qualification and judgment), won re-election.
In 2013, voting rights advocates effectively pushed back from January until the last day of the legislative session, holding off voter suppression legislation. On the last day, with lobbying help from John Boehner, the GOP succeeded in passing HB2305, the Voter Suppression Act. They anticipated protest, but they did not fully appreciate the hornets' nest they had swatted at and hit squarely.
Far more than the minimum required number of signatures -- many of which were from Republican voters -- enabled the referendum to successfully put the measure to voters.
Thus far in 2014, they figured they could pull a fast one, repeal HB2305 and take the wind out of their opponents' sails. That repeal, HB2196, is now ready for Brewer's signature and may land on her desk on the same day as SB1062.
The legislature appears to not have learned the lessons of recent history.
Will Brewer have learned?
Will Brewer, despite John Kavanagh's assurance that she will sign SB1062, even dare to consider doing so?
Dare she hasten the inevitable political transformation of Arizona into a solid BLUE state?
Redistricting -- AZ Legislature's lawsuit goes down in flames
On Friday afternoon, the three-judge panel that had heard oral arguments in January for dismissing the legislature's challenge to the Congressional district maps drawn in 2012 issued a 2-1 decision and 14-page order dismissing the legislature's challenge. Judge Murray Snow wrote the opinion with Judge Mary Schroeder concurring.
Judge Paul Rosenblatt concurred in part and dissented in part.
The Associated Press summed it up thus,
The three-judge panel's majority ruling rejects lawmakers' arguments that the U.S. Constitution gives only the Legislature the authority to draw maps for the federal districts. U.S. District Judge Paul Rosenblatt dissented. [...]
The majority on the panel ruled that Arizona voters' creation of the commission to draw districts was not unconstitutional and that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld similar efforts by states to remove the drawing of district maps from partisan lawmakers.
"The Arizona Constitution allows multiple avenues for lawmaking, and one of those avenues is the ballot initiative, as employed here through Proposition 106," U.S. District Judge Murray Snow wrote. "Plaintiffs ... cannot dispute that the initiative power is legislative."
Rosenblatt, however, strongly broke with Snow and Circuit Judge Mary Schroeder. He noted that the way the commission is chosen by the Legislature, from a list drawn up by the state's commission on appellate appointments, and that fact that the commission can reject the Legislature's suggested map changes, undermine the Legislature's constitutional power to oversee elections.
From the court decision:
To the extent, however, that the Legislature makes arguments that the IRC cannot be the repository of legislative authority because it is not a representative body, such arguments arise under the republican guarantee clause of the Constitution and, as such, are not justiciable.
In other words, we don't buy what the legislature is trying to sell us, as any argument the legislature may make that the IRC is not a representative body are not subject to judicial interpretation. So, that's one strike against the legislature. More from the court decision:
What the parties dispute is the meaning of the Elections Clause of the United States Constitution. That clause states that “[t]he Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.” U.S. Const, art. I, § 4, cl.1. Plaintiff asserts that because the word “legislature” means “the representative body which makes the laws of the people,” (Doc. 12 at ¶ 37), and the Clause allows the legislature to prescribe the time, place and manner of holding elections for congresspersons, the Clause specifically grants the power to realign congressional districts to the legislature. The Supreme Court, however, has at least twice rejected the notion that when it comes to congressional redistricting the Elections Clause vests only in the legislature responsibilities relating to redistricting. Both cases found that states were not prohibited from designing their own lawmaking processes and using those processes for the congressional redistricting authorized by the Clause. In subsequent cases, the Supreme Court has reaffirmed that a state can place the redistricting function in state bodies other than the legislature. [...]
In doing so the Court declined to hold that the Clause granted redistricting authority uniquely to the state legislature as opposed to any other entity, including the people, which the state may have endowed with “legislative power.” Thus the Court observed that the argument that Congress had violated the Elections Clause by authorizing re-districting to be accomplished “in the manner provided by the laws [of the state]” including referendum as it had been used in Ohio to reject the legislature’s redistricting map, “must rest upon the assumption that to include the referendum in the scope of the legislative power is to introduce a virus which destroys that power, which in effect annihilates representative government.” [...] (emphasis mine)
Had the Court interpreted the Elections Clause as requiring that redistricting authority was vested uniquely in the legislature as opposed to giving the states discretion of where to place such authority within the scope of the “state’s legislative power,” there would have been no need for the Court to hold that the question of granting the people of Ohio the right to participate in congressional redistricting through the referendum power was not justiciable. Thus, in affirming the State Supreme Court’s denial of the writ of mandamus in favor of the validity of the referendum, the Court necessarily held that to the extent that the Elections Clause vested some constitutional authority in a state to redistrict national congressional districts, that authority was vested in the operation of a state’s legislative power; not necessarily in the state legislature. [...] (emphasis mine)
It noted that the function to be performed under the Elections Clause is to prescribe the time, place and manner of holding elections. “As the authority is conferred for the purpose of making laws for the state, it follows, in the absence of an indication of a contrary intent, that the exercise of the authority must be in accordance with the method which the state has prescribed for legislative enactments.” Id. at 367. The Court found “no suggestion in the federal constitutional provision of an attempt to endow the Legislature of the state with power to enact laws in any manner other than that in which the Constitution of the state has provided that laws shall be enacted.” [...]
Hildebrant and Smiley thus demonstrate that the word “Legislature” in the Elections Clause refers to the legislative process used in that state, determined by that state’s own constitution and laws. Other Courts have arrived at the same conclusion. “The Supreme Court has plainly instructed . . . that this phrase [‘the Legislature’] encompasses the entire lawmaking function of the state.” Brown v. Sec’y of State of Fla., 668 F.3d 1271, 1278-79 (11th Cir. 2012). [...]
Plaintiff notes that the ballot initiative is not one of the four constitutionally-defined processes by which the Legislature itself may enact laws (Doc. 17 at 11), but it cannot dispute that the Arizona Constitution specifies that the initiative power is legislative. Ariz. Const. art. IV, pt. 1, § 1, ¶ 1 (“The legislative authority of the state shall be vested in the legislature, consisting of a senate and a house of representatives, but the people reserve the power to propose laws and amendments to the constitution and to enact or reject such laws and amendments at the polls, independently of the legislature.”). (emphasis mine)
Clearly, the majority members of the panel recognized that the U.S. Constitution is about representation of the PEOPLE rather than the rights of a partisan body which more often than not thumbs its collective nose(s) at the will of the people of Arizona.
But then there was Judge Rosenblatt's dissent. House Speaker Andy Tobin was pleased with that part of today's findings. But Tobin also had a note of resignation in his voice when he spoke with the AP.
House Speaker Andy Tobin [sic] the result was not unexpected but was pleased to see the strong dissent from Rosenblatt. He said the Legislature expected all along that the case would head to the U.S. Supreme Court and he expects that effort to begin soon. That appeal bypasses lower courts.
"If they think its frivolous we want to know that too, and then the argument will be over," Tobin said.
Again from the court decision:
There is no dispute that the IRC was created through the legislative power reserved in the people through the initiative with the specific purpose of conducting the redistricting within the state, and that in exercising its functions the IRC exercises the state’s legislative power. [...]
Plaintiff apparently recognizes, in light of Hildebrant and Smiley, that the Elections Clause does not give unique authority to state legislatures to conduct redistricting.
Hence, we see why Tobin tacitly acknowledges his lawsuit was frivolous. But I don't hear anyone clamoring for Tobin or Senate President Andy Biggs(hot) to justify the money THEY frittered away with this lawsuit. More from the court decision:
As the Supreme Court stated in Smiley, the Elections Clause includes no “attempt to endow the Legislature of the state with power to enact laws in any manner other than that in which the Constitution of the state has provided that laws shall be enacted.”...
...the Supreme Court’s decisions in Hildebrant and Smiley “provided a clear and unambiguous answer . . . twice explaining that the term ‘Legislature’ in the Elections Clause refers not just to a state’s legislative body but more broadly to the entire lawmaking process of the state.” 668 F.3d at 1276.4 In Arizona the lawmaking power plainly includes the power to enact laws through initiative, and thus the Elections Clause permits the establishment and use of the IRC.
IT IS ORDERED THAT Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss for Failure to State a Claim (Doc. 16) is granted. (emphasis in original)
Rosenblatt's dissent follows and can be read at the link provided above. As the AP notes, Rosenblatt "strongly" dissented. But the strength of his dissent is only in the emphatic choice of words he used to describe his displeasure. The strength is definitely NOT in a strong argument.
It cannot be disputed that the Elections Clause's reference to "the Legislature," as that term has been interpreted by the Supreme Court, refers to the totality of a state's lawmaking function as defined by state law, and that in Arizona a citizen initiative, such as that used to enact Proposition 106 to amend the state constitution, is an integral part of the state's legislative process. But the fact that Arizona has appropriately used its initiative process to establish the IRC cannot be the end of the inquiry under the Elections Clause, as found by the majority, because it also cannot be disputed that any law passed by a state, whether through an initiative or referendum or directly by the legislature, must abide by the United States Constitution.
He just didn't make a case for how the establishment of the AIRC fails to abide by the U.S. Constitution. The sole point he makes, and he states only that he finds it "instructive," is that in the three cases cited showing where and when Congressional redistricting was conducted other than by a state legislature, "all involved situations in which the state legislature participated in the redistricting decision-making process in some very significant and meaningful capacity."
In one, a governor vetoed a legislatively drawn map, in another the voters vetoed a map by referendum and in the other, the legislature drew the map based on strict rules imposed by a citizen initiative.
This is where I invoke the "I'm not a lawyer, but..." scenario. Rosenblatt's argument revolves around the notion of the "rights" of the legislature, rather than the rights and responsibilities of the PEOPLE. To me, that argument seems incredibly weak. He closed his dissent with this,
What Plaintiff does not have under Proposition 106 is the ability to have any outcome-defining effect on the congressional redistricting process. I believe that Proposition 106's evisceration of that ability is repugnant to the Elections Clause's grant of legislative authority.
Well, La-dee frickin' DAH! Who, other than enemies of genuine representative government in Arizona, cares what you believe, Judge Rosenblatt? I believe you didn't make a valid argument.
We will see just how weak or strong when, ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court either overrules or affirms the majority decision. That's not likely to come before the 2014 election.
Posted by Steve Muratore aka Arizona Eagletarian at 12:14 AM 1 comment: Links to this post
Are you going to let Cathi Herrod get away with this?
Today is a sad day in Arizona.
SB1062, the pro-discrimination bill introduced by Steve Yarbrough on the first day of the legislative session, passed in the Senate yesterday on a straight party line vote (17-13) and in the House today with all Democratic members and three Republicans (Orr, Brophy McGee, and Carter) voting against passage.
Every war, including this culture war has setbacks. This is a dramatic setback for civil rights.
But it is not the final word.
The next step in advocating for human and civil rights is to contact the office of Gov. Brewer to tell her to veto the bill.
And PLEASE sign this CREDO MOBILIZE petition calling for Brewer to Veto SB1062.
Why is Jan Brewer greasing the skids for the Rosemont Copper project?
Our "friend" Steve Yarbrough introduced SB1413, a sales tax giveaway to manufacturing and smelting businesses in Arizona. The language in the bill exempts the following from TPT, the transaction privilege tax, in our state.
Gross proceeds of sales or gross income derived from sales of electricity for use in manufacturing or smelting operations. For the purposes of this paragraph, "manufacturing" and "smelting" refer to and include those operations commonly understood within their ordinary meaning.
When Republicans are inclined to resist a proposal for government spending, they do so with demands that the "fiscal impact" be disclosed.
In THIS case, Gov. Brewer's lobbyist, Michael Hunter, slithered away from the only related question any member of the Senate Finance Committee posed to him about the bill. Sen. Steve Farley (D-LD9/Tucson) asked about the financial impact, an obvious question since this bill directly reduces general fund revenue.
Hunter said, "the worst thing I can do is to develop numbers that are mistaken or wrong." Pretty slimy, er... slippery, wouldn't you say?
When it's the GOP that wants to resist, they don't put up with that kind of a response.
Put to him again, Hunter said essentially that they have the numbers but are just not at the place where they're ready to tell the legislature what they are.
Again, this is a DIRECT assault on general fund revenues. And Governor Brewer is pushing for it.
Glenn Hamer, head of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry appeared to have read a prepared statement, which pervasively OOZED with vague rhetoric appearing to have been designed to hypnotize the committee members into a state of willing compliance. He opened with, "On behalf of this state's job creators, I strongly support..." removal of the TPT from electric bills for manufacturers.
Hamer's rah rah rah speech included platitudes like "we all win when we get these jobs" and "Arizona has done a lot over the last few years to improve its competitive position."
In other words, Glenn Hamer and Michael Hunter were apparently highly effective in baffling ALL of the committee members with BULLSHIT. But neither cited ANY evidence of correlation between the "improved competitive position" and jobs of any kind in Arizona, let alone high paying jobs.
Farley at least tried, by offering two amendments, to address the fact that this bill is a direct, even if stealthy, assault on the ways and means to operate state AND local government. He was rebuffed. Politely, but rebuffed in no uncertain terms nevertheless.
Really, the ONLY voice of reason in the entire discussion of SB1413 was the executive director of the Arizona League of Cities and Towns, Ken Strobeck. But because he's a lobbyist and not an activist, he was constrained to be polite in how and what he said to Yarbrough (committee chair and prime sponsor of SB1413).
Strobeck suggested taking municipalities out of the equation for this tax giveaway and mentioned that in other states where this type of legislation has been enacted, it has had performance standards, such as job creation requirements written into the law with it.
The bottom line is that SB1413 further shifts the burden for operation of state and local government -- because Brewer's snake slithered out of answering the questions -- to an undetermined but likely substantially large degree, onto the already overburdened shoulders of working class Arizonans.
Over the course of the last two decades, Arizona has grown increasingly reliant on TPT (sales taxes). Those taxes are dramatically regressive.
That regressiveness exacerbates the workaday stress on everyday Arizona families... families trying to raise children. Families who, when stress reaches a breaking point, have children that are then put at risk.
How soon we forget the ramifications of the public policy decisions our elected officials make. How long ago was it that Brewer called for a complete overhaul of Child Protective Services? Less than 40 days.
As I've recently written, everywhere I go, people are telling me their stories of how impossible it is to even tread water financially, even though they have full-time jobs.
So, the ultimate question has to be WHY are the Republican governor and legislature poised to put even more stress on working class Arizona?
The simple answer is -- because THEY CAN.
Which leads naturally to the question of why they can get away with it.
The answer to that question might be the same as the answer to why last week in Tennessee, auto workers voted against certifying union representation, the only mechanism they had to protect their own interests.
From where I sit, the answer is corporate media driven propaganda.
Even though legislative testimony completely ignored the impact of SB1413 on the potential Rosemont Copper Mining project, that may have been the elephant in the room. "Smelting" was intentionally included in the bill but received ZERO attention during the Finance Committee debate.
Rosemont is a highly controversial project subject to federal and state regulatory permitting processes. The GOP wants to claim that it has "job creation" potential. But that argument completely ignores the fact that the adverse environmental impacts will decimate Southern Arizona's tourism industry and have untold adverse health ramifications on residents for miles around the mine.
The economic potential of the Rosemont project is highly speculative. The company behind the project has a dubious history that should make responsible government officials gravely skeptical. But in this case, the governor, the legislature and industry associations are falling all over themselves trying to get this project approved.
For more information about those who have developed the hype which has Rosemont proponents salivating, I recommend viewing investigative journalist John Dougherty's film, Cyanide Beach on YouTube.
Dear Superintendent Huppenthal, Do you REALLY believe your job is to recruit for private schools?
In a comment to another news story about Huppenthal and his private school marketing scheme, Diana Murray, a Paradise Valley School District parent, says that just this evening, she received the robocall from the Arizona Superintendent of PUBLIC Schools directing her to the Goldwater Institute's website for more information about taxpayer funding for private schools.
Additionally, the legislature is currently poised to expand the availability of taxpayer funds for private schools, with SB1236 and HB2291. In his video interview with Brahm Resnik last week (at the 7 minute mark of the 13 minute interview), Huppenthal acknowledged that if those bills are enacted, 50 to 65 percent of Arizona students would be eligible for taxpayer money to send them to private (NOT charter, but PRIVATE) schools.
Therefore, if you think this is the right thing to do, I have this message for you, John.
As you have recently reminded us, your record is that of a "true believer" in "school choice," we know that.
Since you believe so deeply that what you've done is appropriate and in the best interests of your constituents, should you not then have the courage of your convictions and continue the calls?
Why not record MORE calls for families to send their children to taxpayer funded -- unaccountable to the taxpayers -- private schools?
Dude, don’t hide from it. Wear it boldly EMBLAZONED on your chest.
And make sure to Do.It.All.The.Way.Up.To.Election.Day.
Pretty Please. With sugar on top!
Steve Muratore
Redistricting, UNFair Trust and Sean Noble -- more revelations -- UPDATED 2-18-14 9:30pm MST
In the Yellow Sheet Report dated today (February 17, 2014), we receive a bit more background on Sean Noble and other contributors to the UNFair Trust.
TRAINING THE SPOTLIGHT ON FAIR TRUST
After Friday’s revelation by ProPublica that consultant Sean Noble’s Center to Protect Patient Rights gave $150,000 to the GOP redistricting group FAIR Trust in 2012, a source familiar with the organization’s activities shed some light on its financing and spending. The source was unaware of Noble or his network of nonprofits having any involvement with FAIR Trust in 2011, but had a good idea who was writing the checks that launched the group.
According to the source, Tucson auto dealer Jim Click and then-Shamrock Foods CEO Norm McClelland each poured in about $100,000 to provide the group with its initial funding. A Sept. 7, 2011, email from fundraising consultant Michelle Marini listed 37 “confirmed guests” for a FAIR Trust fundraiser scheduled a few days later at the home of Dan and Marilyn Quayle, roughly 20 of whom were potential contributors.
In a separate email sent in early August 2011, fundraising consultant Corinne Lovas wrote that the list of invitees to the September event included about 10 people who had already given FAIR Trust at least $10,000, as well as “prospects” who could contribute at least $25,000. Among the confirmed attendees were AREAD Corporation CEO Nariman Afkhami; Apollo Group executive Mark Brenner; Dr. Jeff Mueller of the Mayo Clinic; then-GoDaddy general counsel Christine Jones; then-Arizona Assn of Realtors CEO Tom Farley; CAP President Cathi Herrod; and former IRC commissioner Jim Huntwork.
(Every GOP member of the congressional delegation except Flake was also listed as confirmed, as were Tobin and then-Senate-President Russell Pearce.) The source said a small number of the attendees did not contribute to FAIR Trust. The money from the September fundraiser was badly needed because, by August, FAIR Trust had already spent the roughly $350,000 it had raised initially, the source said. For the entire year, the source said FAIR Trust raised at least $500,000, and possibly as much as $600,000, from about 25 contributors, the source said.
According to two budget estimates prepared by FAIR Trust attorney David Cantelme in July 2011 and provided to our reporter, FAIR Trust expected to spend about $347,000 on “IRC Administrative Proceedings” and another $86,000 on “DOJ proceedings.” “They would have blown through that budget,” the source said, adding the group was hampered “because they kept having to go back to the well.” After the September fundraiser, McClelland held a fundraiser for FAIR Trust, as well, the source said. (emphasis mine)
SEAN NOBLE: FAIR TRUST ONLY GOT $150K FROM CPPR
Noble told our reporter today that the Center to Protect Patient Rights only gave FAIR Trust the $150,000 listed on its 2012 tax filings, and the redistricting effort did not receive money from any of the other nonprofits he was involved in. Though CPPR’s IRS filing showed the group giving money to “Fair AZ Independent Redistrict,” it listed a federal employer identification number for another Noble-run non-profit called Free Enterprise America, which ceased operations in May 2012. Noble said the mistake was due to a bookkeeping error – CPPR had previously given money to Free Enterprise America, and the group’s name was next to FAIR Trust on a spreadsheet – and that there is no connection between Free Enterprise America and FAIR Trust. Any allegation that the duplicate EIN is evidence that Noble is trying to hide something is “absurd,” he said. CPPR gave the $150,000 grant to FAIR Trust, Noble said, because “there was a need for additional legal action, and it fit the kind of mission that CPPR has been involved in.”
If you're at all like me on this one, you're not at all pleased with the extent to which plutocrats and would-be plutocrats have worked to subvert the will of the people of Arizona, in this case as it relates to independent redistricting.
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE
The crybabies at the Arizona Capitol Times, who with impunity have stolen my work -- without granting even so much as credit for where they got the information -- have a problem with the FAIR USE doctrine. They demanded I take down this blog post. Sure, that's likely. NOT.
Fair Use cases have rested on balancing four measures.
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include— (emphasis mine)
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
I obviously do not charge for a subscription to the Arizona Eagletarian. Since I do not resell the credited content, it is obviously NONCOMMERCIAL and is for educational purposes, as there is (also obviously) an urgent need and compelling public interest in widespread disclosure of the nature of the influence that sinister actors such as David Cantelme and Sean Noble -- as TOOLS for the Kochtopus -- have had in what voters intended to be INDEPENDENT redistricting, free from special interests.
The nature of the items that the Cap Times squawked about? Again, obviously items of a compelling public interest demanding widespread disclosure.
The quoted material comprised substantially less than FIVE percent of the material they sent out to their high dollar subscribers yesterday (February 17).
The effect of my disclosure on their potential market? Seriously? Do they REALLY believe that Arizona's state capital lobbyists are going to abandon them -- an entire newsroom that reports in detail on what takes place in the legislature -- because my one-person blog discloses something of such a compelling public interest?
No, I don't think so either. If the Cap Times' market is going to be adversely impacted by anything going on these days at the Capitol, it would be the passage of bills like HB2554. The Cap Times uses corporate notices as a crutch, because for more than a century newspapers have been the beneficiary of a mandate that they served well back in the day.
But requiring those incorporating new businesses to publish in newspapers no longer serves the public interest because those who want the information can find it in a simple database that doesn't require an archaic process. There is much more to be written on that subject, but for now, I digress.
The Capitol Times wants criticism? I have not been shy in criticizing their publication in the entire life of this blog and I certainly will not be shy today.
The fact of the matter is that much of what they reported in the blurb I republished is speculation. It might be educated guessing, but guessing nevertheless. From the first paragraph (above):
The source was unaware of Noble or his network of nonprofits having any involvement with FAIR Trust in 2011, but had a good idea who was writing the checks that launched the group.
An undisclosed source. That means that neither the Capitol Times nor anyone else verified any of the claims. "Had a good idea..." a hallmark of speculation.
By the way, back to the issue of FAIR USE, the Capitol Times, in its daily Legislative Report and Yellow Sheet Report did the exact same thing, but far more extensively, than they accuse me of having done. A high price subscription service reproduced copyrighted works from local newspapers, in total, without comment on the pieces.
They republished stories and columns written by EJ Montini of the Arizona Republic, Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services, the Arizona Republic's editorial attacking John Kavanagh because Kavanagh sponsored HB2554 and an Arizona Republic Q and A with House Minority Leader Chad Campbell.
And they have the audacity to try to intimidate ME for republishing two brief blurbs.
It seems to smack of desperation, don't you think?
Here's why Huppenthal's Republican vision for Arizona Public Schools is faulty.
Infographic courtesy Linda Thomas, Public Schools Advocate. Linda's website is www.RestoreReason.com
Dragging newspapers kicking and screaming into the 21rst Century? UPDATED 2:00am MST 2-16-14
On Thursday, the House Technology and Infrastructure Committee heard HB2554, which, unless it's derailed by special interests -- newspapers threatening lawmakers -- will make a significant step toward bringing Arizona law and state government into the 21rst Century.
In the hearing, a video of which is available here, an attorney representing the Arizona Newspaper Association, one representing the Arizona Capitol Times and a couple of other lobbyists mentioned several dog-whistle code words, without making any coherent argument.
Those lobbyists FAILED to make any claim -- that the generally at least $100.00 in fees businesses must pay to newspapers -- provides ANY value added to either the business required to publish OR to the public.
Chew on that one for a few minutes. It is the crux of the entire concept of enhancing technological efficacy of Arizona government.
Here's what John Moody, lobbyist for the Arizona Newspapers Association brought up in his testimony before the TI committee:
This bill looks for a solution to a problem that does not exist
There IS an existing database that is handled by the private sector (ANA)
There is no reason to take it away from the private sector and eliminate private jobs
When you look at how the system works now, you'll see this bill is not necessary
Moody said it's been done this way (requiring corporate notices to be published in newspapers) since before statehood (which was 102 years ago)
Jobs will be lost and smaller newspapers may go out of business because of this
"We are of the opinion that everything done by the private sector is done more cost effectively and done more efficiently than if done by government."
The claim that "it's been done this way" for more than a century should -- at this stage in telecommunications technology development -- be a RED FLAG on its own to say it's time to reevaluate the current systems and procedures.
Claims and arguments that bills like this look for a solution to a problem that does not exist is the classic psychological defense mechanism known as denial. Because the newspapers do not know how to cope with the disruptive innovation known as the INTERNET, they both refuse to acknowledge the challenges they face AND try to convince others that the problems don't exist. On its face, such claims are overwhelmingly absurd.
Claims that there is an existing database administered by private sector Arizona Newspapers Association go directly to the question of WHO OWNS the public data. If that database "goes down" or becomes inoperative for any period of time, who do we call to demand the service be restored?
As if the ANA were an Italian mother laying a guilt trip on the legislature, you don't want to eliminate JOBS do you? The problem with that is that nixing this bill STIFLES job CREATION (innovation). Harvard Business School Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter has written that invoking history (it's been done this way for more than a century) is a surefire way to stifle innovation.
"Jobs will be lost." Well, we've been over the subject of Disruptive Innovation extensively. I simply refer you back to posts from last fall on this subject.
"We are of the opinion that everything done by the private sector is done more cost effectively and done more efficiently than if done by government." Of course, "we are of the opinion" kinda sorta takes that claim out of the realm of being an argument. The ANA is certainly entitled to its opinion. But it's not entitled to its own facts.
Discussion during Moody's testimony made it clear that the fact is for businesses required to publish notices of incorporation (or related changes), NO CHARGE is a LOT more cost effective than the alternative. Which is that currently, those business start ups are forced to subsidize a dying newspaper industry business that provides ZERO added value to the public or to the business required to pay the fee, usually about $100 (for three consecutive publication dates).
One member of the Technology and Infrastructure committee raised a number of questions and cast the lone dissenting vote. That member expressed concern for the people who are only served by newspapers in rural Arizona and do not know how to use a computer.
To that member, I would strongly suggest that the people she claims to have given voice to in this debate are very likely NOT at all interested in corporate notices. Instead, the overarching issue and the underlying concern (for those who read between the lines) may be that perhaps this member was concerned more with how rural newspapers that serve the district she represents would portray her to their readers.
IF that's the case, her position would be more or less parallel to that of Arizona Public Service and how that investor owned utility dug its heels in to resist the inevitable disruptive innovation it faces. Newspapers are dying because they struggle to adapt their business model to technological innovation. It is very much contrary to the public interest to use government to protect entrenched special interests that refuse to adapt.
Have you ever heard the expression, "government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers?" Protecting the forced subsidy of an industry that resists adapting to disruptive innovation would be to try to keep losers from the inevitable... which is only inevitable if they don't find a way to adapt.
This state representative's obligation (and that of every other Democratic and Republican state lawmaker) is NOT to capitulate to the newspaper industry, but to sell THEM on the concept of adapting to disruptive innovation.
The bottom line in this entire debate goes directly back to the question raised at the beginning of my prior blog post on this subject,
To whom does the information and data compiled by Arizona government agencies belong?
Does this information belong to the Arizona Newspaper Association and the Arizona Capitol Times, or does it belong to the people of Arizona? What do the people of Arizona owe to ANA or the Capitol Times if those for profit organizations can no longer add value to the public regarding corporate notices?
Though I posted a link to my previous (related) blog post that explains more about what HB2554 does, here's language from a House fact sheet/summary of the bill,
Requires the Commission to establish and maintain a database for documents filed pursuant to statute.
· Directs the Commission to post the database on its website to allow the public to search for business information, including an entity’s name, approval date and county of the known place of business.
· Stipulates that the information must be maintained in the database for least 90 days.
· Allows the Commission, in order to maintain the database, to determine the amount and charge a nonrefundable fee to the entity whose information is entered into the database.
· Requires all monies received to be deposited in the Fund.
· Removes the requirement for the business entity to publish a copy of required filings and to provide with Commission with an optional affidavit evidencing the publication.
Ø Strikes the 60 day deadline for the business entity to publish these documents upon approval.
· Directs the Commission to input information into the database regarding the approval of required filings by corporations and LLCs within five business days of approval.
Ø For corporations, the following documents will in input into the database in lieu of publication: articles of incorporation, articles of domestication, articles of amendment, articles of restatement, articles of merger or share exchange, articles of dissolution, application for authority to transact business, application for withdrawal, application for certificate of authority and articles of merger or membership exchange.
Ø For LLCs, the following documents will be input into the database in lieu of publication: articles of amendment, articles of organization, restated articles of organization and articles of merger or consolidation.
Loyola Law School -- All about Redistricting
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Facebook page for AZ Competitive Districts Coalition
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Egalitarianism -- A belief in human equality especially with respect to social, political and economic affairs.
The bald eagle was chosen June 20, 1782 as the emblem of the United States of America, because of its long life, great strength and majestic looks.
The inability of the liberal class to address our reality leaves the disenfranchised open to manipulation by demagogues. -Chris Hedges
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Ghandi
The KEYBOARD is mightier than the sword.
All posts (c) Arizona Eagletarian and Steve Muratore
arizonaeagletarian (at) gmail.com
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Everybody Else Is Doing It So Why Can’t We? [25th Anniversary Edition]
Release Date 19 October 2018
UMC-Island
25th anniversary reissue of The Cranberries’ debut album that has sold over 5,000,000 in the US and over 600,000 in the UK. They were one of the biggest bands of the nineties and this album includes their global hits “Linger” and “Dreams”. The album has been remastered at Abbey Road (under the supervision of the band’s Noel Hogan).
1 I Still Do
2 Dreams
3 Sunday
4 Pretty
5 Waltzing Back
6 Not Sorry
7 Linger
9 Still Can’t . . .
10 I Will Always
11 How
12 Put Me Down
More products from The Cranberries
Everybody Else Is Doing It So Why Can’t We? [25th Anniversary Edition] - Limited Edition Clear Vinyl
Quadruple CD Album
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You just graduated from CSUN: Now what?
Shushan Kapaktchian, 22, walks off the stage at graduation. (Photo courtesy of Shushan Kapaktchian)
Diane Roxas
Graduation is fast approaching but there is one question that is on every graduating student’s mind: “What’s next?”
There are three paths that college graduates usually take after getting their diplomas: employment, unemployment or continuing education.
Shushan Kapaktchian, 22, graduated last year with a major in Accounting and Finance.
“When I first started at CSUN I wanted to get into the Big Four just like most of the other students in the Accounting program,” she said, “but once I started seeing other opportunities that existed in the field, I went in another direction.”
She worked for Associated Students during her years at CSUN and was working part-time as an accountant for a production company even before she graduated.
“Your circle and the internet are your best friends for finding a job after college,” she said. “Do as much research as you can to see what jobs are out there. There can be positions you didn’t even know existed.”
Kapaktchian emphasized on the importance of building connections in landing your dream job. In one of the workshops she attended she remembered that, “Networking is one letter away from Not Working.”
She is currently working as an accountant for “The Ellen Degeneres Show”. One of the friends she met at Associated Students referred her to her current boss, who is also a CSUN alumnus. She landed this job a week before her graduation.
“Do an internship or try to get a part-time job in the field you are trying to get into,” Kapaktchian said. “Besides academics, networking and experience is key.”
Kapaktchian is one of the students who were fortunate enough to get a good-paying job in her field.
But a study done by the New York Federal Reserve Bank shows that despite the decreasing unemployment rate, the quality of jobs available are also declining.
College graduates are increasingly settling for non-college jobs, low wage jobs or even part-time jobs.
About one-third of recent college graduates work in jobs that doesn’t require a college degree while a fifth choose to settle for low wage jobs which pays $25,000 a year. Part-time work also increased to 23 percent.
The lack of good, high-paying jobs is one of the reasons why more and more college graduates choose to continue their education despite the increasing cost of education.
In Fall 2016, there are more than two million applications for graduate programs in the country.
One of them is Tiago Barreiro, 30, who is working for a master’s degree in Mass Communication. He graduated in 2016 with a major in Film Production.
He is an international student from Brazil and had only one year to stay in the U.S. after graduation if he manages to land a job in a field related to his major.
“It’s really hard [to get a job] if you don’t know anyone who can recommend you,” Barreiro said. “Luckily, a fellow classmate recommended me to his father who was making a film and needed a first assistant director. I stayed on afterwards by working in editing and PR for the film and company.”
Coming back to school was a necessity for him to stay in the country and continue to explore his options. But like any other graduating student, choosing what to do after graduation was a difficult decision.
“My last semester was full of uncertainty and stress,” he said. “But as long as you commit to your academic goals and don’t let distractions take your focus away, all stress is rewarded.”
Barreiro currently works as an associate producer at Classics in Miniature, a movie production company that produces marionette films based on classic literature.
Tags: CSUN, graduate, graduation
Diane Roxas, Author
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San Francisco rally led by Sunrise Movement. Photo Peg Hunter | Flickr | cc 2.0
Democratic Socialists of America activist Nick French argues for making the Green New Deal a major new organizing priority for DSA activists and the U.S. Left. This article was originally published by The Call, an online publication of the Bread and Roses Caucus of DSA.
For democratic socialists, the climate crisis is of the utmost concern, calling into question not only the feasibility of building a more just world without poverty and misery but even the continued existence of humanity itself. As the already apparent effects of climate change — rising sea levels, more wildfires, droughts, and extreme weather events — worsen, working people across the globe will bear the brunt of the crisis, and the chances for building a more just and secure world for all will narrow considerably.
The recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows that the world must change course sharply if it is to avert the worst effects of human-made climate change. For too long, in the United States we’ve lacked bold solutions that respond to this pressing situation. But in the last few months the introduction of the Green New Deal as a new program for ecological salvation has changed everything. The Green New Deal calls for a rapid social transformation through extensive government regulation and massive public investment to transition to a clean energy economy.
The Green New Deal is our best hope yet not only for averting climate disaster but pivoting towards a better future. Much as Medicare for All serves as a radical and popular solution for the healthcare crisis and lays the groundwork for a transformation of our economy, the fight for a Green New Deal can help set the stage for a rupture with capitalism.
But it is up to socialists to push the fight in a radical direction, so that it will build the power and militancy of the working class. The Democratic Socialists of America, as the largest and fastest-growing socialist organization in the United States, is poised to play a leading role in the fight for a Green New Deal, by articulating and mobilizing around a version of the demand that advances class struggle. As DSA’s biennial convention approaches, DSA activists must make the Green New Deal a major new organizing priority.
What is the Green New Deal?
Shortly before taking office, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez captured public attention by calling for the creation of a select committee in the House of Representatives to design a Green New Deal. Although House leadership rebuffed her plan, at least 40 members of Congress have declared their support for the program, and a recent poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans support the policy.
The initial resolution cosponsored by AOC and Senator Edward Markey envisions a program with five main goals. These goals include:
1. Achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a just and equitable transition — one that protects the interests of those on the frontlines of climate change and workers whose jobs might be swept away by economic changes.
2. Creating enough good, high-paying jobs to ensure economic security for all people living in the United States.
3. Sustainably revamping US infrastructure and industry.
4. Securing clean air and water, climate and community resiliency, healthy food, access to nature, and a sustainable environment for all.
5. Ending the oppression of indigenous peoples, people of color, migrants, and other marginalized and vulnerable communities.
To achieve these goals, the resolution’s central proposals include converting to 100 percent renewable and zero-emission energy sources through expanding and upgrading renewable power sources. It also calls for giving the public an ownership stake in Green New Deal investments, guaranteeing well-paid jobs with good benefits, ensuring workers’ rights to organize, and providing high-quality healthcare and housing to all.
GND and Socialist Strategy
Although some liberal pundits have been critical, many have extolled the virtues of the Green New Deal as both policy and political strategy. But a Green New Deal can help us radically transform society in three ways that mainstream commentators seem to be unaware of.
First, the boldest version of the program would involve bringing under democratic, public control those companies engaged in fossil fuel extraction and consumption. This includes fossil fuel companies as well as private energy utilities and companies involved in transportation (e.g., airlines and auto manufacturers). Bringing these companies under public control would represent a massive socialization of the economy. And given the scale and rapidity of the changes needed to prevent the worst effects of climate change, we cannot afford to do anything less.
Even in less-ambitious forms of the plan, by including a major jobs program, the Green New Deal is at least partially insulated from future right-wing governments, because program cuts would be tied to massive job losses.
Second, the Green New Deal has the potential to empower working people at the expense of their employers. A public jobs program aimed at full employment would be a boon to working-class power. It’s a widely accepted fact, as Polish economist Michal Kalecki famously argued, that full employment economies create the most favorable conditions for worker organizing. Workers — less afraid of getting fired because new jobs are plentiful — can afford to take risks to organize and fight for ever bolder demands, including demands that go beyond bread-and-butter issues and address wider social needs.
The recent wave of teachers’ strikes — which began in red states like West Virginia and Arizona and has spread to blue states like California and Colorado — provide examples of these sort of demands. By striking against austerity and for fully-funded public education, teachers are making demands on behalf of the working class as a whole. Especially in a full employment economy where good jobs were widely available, many more workers would be empowered to fight for such class-wide demands. While we can’t simply conjure up working-class militancy, a jobs guarantee gives workers much more potential power as well as more confidence because of greater job security.
Finally, the battle for a Green New Deal can produce a more class-conscious, organized, and militant working class. Capitalists will not accept such a program of expropriation and redistribution without a fight. Winning that fight will require a mass working-class mobilization (involving electoral challenges, civil disobedience, and labor action). The experiences in these kinds of struggles can help all working people develop a greater awareness of their class interests, as well as the skills, organization, and confidence needed to effectively challenge capital.
Together, these three openings created by the Green New Deal make the program a prime example of a “structural reform” — a type of reform that when fought for and won can begin to move society out of capitalism and towards democratic socialism. And it’s through this lens that we can better understand the role the Green New Deal plays in a broader socialist strategy.
The use of structural reforms to empower the working class is discussed by the British Marxist theorist Ralph Miliband (though Miliband unhelpfully labels these structural reforms “revolutionary reforms”). Miliband argued that fighting for and winning structural reforms was the method for advancing class struggle best suited for advanced capitalist democracies. Socialists, Miliband argued, must fight for reforms that shift the balance of forces away from capitalists and in favor of an increasingly militant and organized working-class opposition — the ultimate goal of such a strategy being to build working-class power and militancy to a point where we can finally force a break with the capitalist system.
Class Struggle, Not New Deal
Realizing the possibilities for socialist advances opened up by the Green New Deal will require going far beyond its namesake and the politics that made that period possible. The old New Deal did not achieve full employment and failed to end the Depression. Moreover, one of its main effects was to co-opt working-class radicalism that threatened the capitalist order into safer channels. A Green New Deal must involve winning a much higher level of public investment and real expropriation of capital, and be designed specifically with the aim of empowering workers to engage in heightened struggle.
The actual resolution proposed by AOC and Markey achieves these aims only to a limited extent. Its statement of the goals of a Green New Deal is admirable, and it includes calls for a robust job guarantee, extensive rights for workers to unionize and collectively bargain, and public ownership stakes in major investments. However, the resolution leaves too much room for interpretation and capitalist co-optation.
For example, although the preamble notes the need to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, the resolution itself does not impose a timeline for achieving this goal. It does not call for complete public ownership of major energy systems and resources, or specify how much of a stake the public should get in new investments. Nor does it say whether new jobs will be created by direct federal spending or by subsidies to private industry, or impose a timeline for reaching full employment. Finally, it does not specify how a Green New Deal mobilization would be paid for — missing an opportunity to demand income and wealth redistribution through massive taxes on the rich.
All of these shortcomings reflect the authors’ attempts to build a broad political coalition as well as a conciliatory attitude toward fossil fuel companies. But these flaws also mean that the proposal doesn’t do enough to empower workers, democratize resources, or draw clear battle lines between capitalists and the working class.
Winning a Green New Deal will mean confronting a powerful and intransigent capitalist class. Victory will require mass working-class mobilization on multiple fronts. We need to elect more socialist and socialist-friendly representatives, and scare established leaders into accepting a Green New Deal through electoral challenges and large demonstrations. But winning seats in Congress won’t be enough, and neither will tame, controlled mass demonstrations of the type that have become the norm in our political culture. We will also need widespread labor action to disrupt corporate profits and force capitalists to make concessions. This is, after all, how even the relatively modest gains of the old New Deal were won: through a huge wave of working-class militancy that frightened sections of the capitalist class, represented in government by Franklin Roosevelt, into accepting reforms to stave off the threat of revolution.
And if the movement for a Green New Deal is to truly succeed, it must be driven by workers rather than liberal politicians. Liberal politicians will likely try to co-opt the movement and water down the Green New Deal into something favorable to capital. Due to their subservience to corporate interests, liberals are likely to try to make the poor and working class bear a disproportionate share of the costs of a clean energy transition — by forcing workers to pay higher energy costs without compensatory downward redistribution of wealth, or by failing to expand employment enough to replace lost dirty energy jobs. These policy choices would be bad in their own right. But they would also be disastrous politically, likely ruining our chances at preventing the worst effects of climate change. The perception that a Green New Deal means losing your job or paying higher energy costs would kill popular enthusiasm and likely turn working people against it.
To avoid this catastrophic outcome, workers must organize themselves to pressure elites into accepting a radical Green New Deal. That will involve mobilizing to hold elected officials accountable, as mentioned above, and it will require genuinely sympathetic politicians like Bernie Sanders and AOC using their platforms to give a boost to public protests and labor actions. But it will also mean massive civil disobedience and disruption.
Tasks for Democratic Socialists
What can democratic socialists do to advance the struggle for a Green New Deal?
First, it’s of the utmost importance that DSA approve a clear call for Green New Deal at its next convention, with the aim of articulating a bold, anticapitalist version of the program and initiating a campaign to advance that vision. DSA’s work on Medicare for All can serve as a template here. A plan for a DSA-led Green New Deal campaign can serve to orient us properly toward AOC and Markey’s proposal, identifying points where we agree and points where we need to re-frame the conversation. DSA must call for going beyond the current legislation, by demanding a clear deadline for reaching net-zero emissions, a job guarantee fulfilled through expansion of the public sector (with a timeline for reaching full employment), public ownership of major energy systems and resources, and massive taxes on the rich. A recent document put out by DSA’s Ecosocialist Working Group is an excellent first step towards making this a reality, and deserves the support of every DSA member.
Second — to the end of pushing for more radical demands — chapters can begin agitating for public ownership of major energy resources and productive enterprises, framing these struggles in the context of the fight for a Green New Deal. For example, Detroit DSA, as part of the Detroit Coalition for a Green New Deal, has called for the public seizure of General Motors plants in the area in the event that GM proceeds with planned factory closures. Remarkably, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has come out in support of these demands. Calls for public control and revitalization of automotive plants and other productive enterprises are likely to be extremely popular in the deindustrialized Rust Belt, and ought to be central to a Green New Deal.
In a somewhat similar vein, northern California DSA chapters are making use of the public resentment inspired by Pacific Gas & Electric’s record of environmental damage and economic failure to argue for socialization of that company. In the wake of deadly wildfires that the utility giant is responsible for, seven chapters in the region have agreed to a joint campaign involving coordinated protests and a forthcoming website to advocate for bringing PG&E under public control, and all as part of a campaign for a Green New Deal.
Third, DSA can incorporate its Green New Deal campaign into other work. Our campaign for Bernie Sanders, a supporter of the policy and the only likely presidential candidate who consistently frames climate change as a class issue, presents an obvious opportunity to advance the cause of a Green New Deal.
Fourth, we should strive to build coalitions with other organizations that are working for a Green New Deal (like the Sunrise Movement). In some contexts, it may make sense for DSA chapters to follow the lead of groups like Sunrise — while pushing a strong, clear class struggle line in all our organizing and messaging.
The political and economic status quo spells disaster for our planet. The right is doubling down on climate change denial, and liberals are unwilling or unable to take the steps necessary to prevent impending doom.
The sudden popularity of a Green New Deal, however, is cause for hope. It represents a historic opportunity for socialists to shift the country’s political direction, and in so doing to help rebuild a strong, radical working-class movement. DSA can and must take the lead in the fight for a Green New Deal. It’s our best shot at building a more just economy and a livable planet — and it can pave the way for an even brighter future.
Nick French is an activist in East Bay DSA and a member of DSA’s Bread and Roses caucus. Featured Photo is by Peg Hunter | Flickr CC 2.0.
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Why A Third Party Alternative Won’t Save the GOP From Trump
By Tierney Sneed
As Donald Trump lurches toward a delegate count that would win him the GOP nomination, frightened Republicans have floated yet another alternative plan in the case that he tops the GOP’s 2016 ticket: a third party or independent bid by a respectable conservative who would give voters frustrated by the choice between Trump and Hillary Clinton another option.
It’s an idea that has been touted by #NeverTrump-ers like neocon Bill Kristol and Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) who want to stymie the damage they see Trump doing to their party but can’t bring themselves to vote for Clinton. A group of conservative activists and GOP operatives met in Washington last week to discuss the path forward if Republicans were to pursue that alternative. Trump, meanwhile, is warning such a scenario would “destroy the country.”
Experts in ballot access and independent presidential campaigns told TPM that, in a purely logistical sense, a third party or independent presidential bid is still feasible. But whether anti-Trump Republicans literally still have time to get a conservative alternative on the ballot almost misses the point. The effort, which will be costly and still needs big-bucks donors, comes with its own set of political risks that call into question the entire undertaking, including the very real possibility that it will make Hillary Clinton the next president.
“If you have the money, you can get just about anything or anyone on the ballot. And there’s plenty of time to do it now,” Dan Tokaji, a professor specializing in election law at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, told TPM. “It really is a question of whether this is something they want to do, because if Republicans put an alternative candidate that’s likely to ensure that Hillary Clinton is the next president, which is maybe a likely outcome anyway, but you virtually guarantee that if you had, say, a Mitt Romney, running as an independent candidate.”
According to Richard Winger, publisher of Ballot Access News, state laws vary considerably in terms of deadlines to get on the ballot and what’s required. There are often different deadlines when it comes to an independent candidate versus reserving a ballot spot for a third party, but nonetheless, he said, there’s time to make it happen.
“If you chose to the later deadline for each method,” Winger said, “they’re all in July, August and September, except there’s four states in June and then there’s Texas in May.
As for getting the petition signatures required by some states’ laws, Winger estimates that task would cost Trump foes $6 million total.
Which brings us to the next challenge: donors.
“A lot of it is going to depend on whether rich people are willing to bankroll the effort,” said John Pitney, a politics professor at Claremont McKenna College who has also served as research director at the Republican National Committee. “The question is, what’s the pay off? What’s the likelihood this person could actually get elected? Because if the idea is to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president, there’s a much simpler way of doing that. And that’s voting for Hillary Clinton.“
To convince donors the campaign is worth their contribution, you’ll need a strong candidate, Pitney said, which presents a “chicken and egg problem.”
“The effort is not going to be able to attract a good candidate unless they have the resources, but they’re not going to be able to get the resources without a good candidate,” Pitney said.
If the proponents of a third party effort are willing to admit that the candidate — whomever he or she is — has no chance of winning the White House, then it’s a matter of convincing donors that the ancillary benefits are worth betting on.
“It cuts to the question that, is it really worth a very, very large sum of money to make conservative voters feel better?” Pitney said.
But there’s also a down-the-ballot argument for fielding an alternative conservative candidate.
“Maybe that’s the strategy,” Tokaji said. “We put another candidate on the ballot realizing that it will hand the White House to Hillary in the hopes that it would at least get Republicans out to vote and save some people like, say, [Sen.] Rob Portman (R-OH), who is going to be in a competitive election.”
But there are still some potential downsides to contend with, particularly with future of the Republican Party so in flux.
“People who go outside of [the GOP] for this third party thing would be hoping to show they’re an important bloc that has to be respected and incorporated into the future party,” Phil Wallach, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, told TPM. “There’s a danger, of course, that they would go outside and show themselves to be not such an important bloc, in which case their path to influence in the party might be unclear.”
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Full Steam Ahead! Why Trump’s Census Cave Isn’t A Cave At All
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50-Plus Famous Men In Media, Sports, Politics Accused In Recent Weeks
Richard Drew/AP
NEW YORK (AP) — Since The New York Times published allegations of sexual harassment and assault against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein in October, multiple men in entertainment, media and politics in the U.S. and beyond have faced allegations ranging from inappropriate behavior to forced sexual misconduct to rape. This week, allegations against “Today” show host Matt Lauer and humorist Garrison Keillor led to their prompt dismissals, while music mogul Russell Simmons stepped down from the companies he founded after a second allegation of sexual misconduct.
To be sure, prominent men have faced sexual misconduct claims before. But the accusations against Weinstein have opened a floodgate, sparked an international conversation and put new pressure on companies, industries, and political leaders to respond. President Donald Trump has condemned some of the accused, been more muted about others, and found himself again being asked about sexual harassment and misconduct allegations leveled against him during last year’s presidential campaign. The Republican says they’re fake.
The #Metoo moment is also prompting re-examination of past sexual misconduct claims against powerful men, including Democratic former President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. He was impeached and then acquitted of perjury and obstruction of lawmakers’ investigation into his sexual encounters with a White House intern, and he settled a sexual harassment lawsuit stemming from his time as Arkansas governor.
A look at some of the men accused since the Weinstein accusations emerged:
— Celebrity chef John Besh — Accused by 25 women of sexual harassment. He has stepped down from the company he founded.
— Singer Nick Carter — Accused by pop singer Melissa Schuman of raping her approximately 15 years ago. Carter has denied her allegations.
— Comedian Louis C.K. — Accused by five women of sexual misconduct. Planned release of film “I Love You, Daddy” halted. Netflix special canceled. He says the allegations are true and has apologized.
— Cinefamily executives Hadrian Belove and Shadie Elnashai — Accused of sexual misconduct. Movie theater shut down in the wake of allegations due to crippling debt.
— Actor Richard Dreyfuss — One woman alleges sexual harassment. He denies the allegation.
— Film producer Adam Fields — Accused of offering a promotion to a woman at his former employer, Relativity Media, in exchange for sex. He has denied the allegations.
— Director-producer Gary Goddard — Accused by one man of sexually molesting him when the man was 12. He denies the allegation.
— Casting employee Andy Henry — Admitted to urging women to take off their clothes during coaching sessions in 2008 while working on the “CSI” series. He was fired by his current employer.
— Actor Dustin Hoffman — Accused by woman of sexual harassing when she was 17. He has apologized for his behavior.
— Playwright Israel Horovitz — Accused by nine women of sexual misconduct, including forcible kissing and rape. He tells The New York Times his recollection of the events is different from the women’s accounts and apologized “with all my heart to any woman who has ever felt compromised by my actions.”
— Actor Robert Knepper — Accused by one woman of sexual assault. He denies the allegations.
— Showrunner Andrew Kreisberg — Accused by 19 women of sexual harassment and inappropriate touching. The “Supergirl” and “Arrow” showrunner has been fired by Warner Bros. Television Group. He told Variety he has made comments on women’s appearances and clothes “but they were not sexualized.”
— Pixar and Disney Animation chief John Lasseter — Accused by several women of unwanted touching and has announced he is taking a six-month leave of absence. He has acknowledged some “missteps” with employees and apologized for any behavior that made workers uncomfortable.
— Actor Jeremy Piven — Accused by several women of sexual misconduct. He denies all allegations.
— Filmmaker Brett Ratner — Accused by at least six women of sexual harassment. Playboy shelved projects with Ratner and Ratner stepped away from Warner Bros. related activities. He denies the allegations.
— Comedy festival organizer Gilbert Rozon — Accused by at least nine women of sexually harassing or sexually assaulting them. Rozon stepped down as president of Montreal’s renowned “Just for Laughs” festival and apologized “to all those I have offended during my life.”
— Producer Chris Savino — Accused of harassing up to 12 women. Fired from Nickelodeon. He has apologized for his behavior.
— Actor Steven Seagal — Accused by two women of rape. He denies the allegations.
— Def Jam Records founder Russell Simmons — Accused by model Keri Claussen Khalighi of coercing her to perform a sex act and later penetrating her without her consent in his New York apartment in 1991. Also accused by Sidney Lumet’s daughter of taking her to his New York apartment in 1991 against her will and having sex with her. In response to Jenny Lumet’s allegations, Simmons has stepped away from his companies. Simmons has also disputed Claussen Khalighi’s account, saying the relationship was consensual.
— Actor Tom Sizemore — Accused of groping an 11-year-old actress in 2003. Utah prosecutors declined to file charges, citing witness and evidence problems. He denies the allegation.
— Actor Kevin Spacey — Accused by at least 24 men of sexual misconduct or assault. London police reportedly investigating two sexual assaults. Fired from “House of Cards” and replaced in Ridley Scott’s completed film “All the Money in the World.” Massachusetts prosecutors are investigating one allegation. His former publicist has said he is seeking unspecified treatment.
— Actor Jeffrey Tambor — Two women — an actress on his show “Transparent” and his assistant — allege sexual misconduct. He denies the allegation, saying in a statement that he has “never been a predator — ever.” Tambor said this week he doesn’t see how he can return to the Amazon series.
— Actor George Takei — One man alleges sexual assault. He denies the allegation.
— Writer-director James Toback — Accused by hundreds of women of sexual harassment. Beverly Hills police investigating complaints. He has denied the allegations to the Los Angeles Times.
— “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner — Accused by one woman of sexual harassment. He denies the allegation.
— Producer Harvey Weinstein — Accused by dozens of women of sexual harassment or sexual assaults, including rape. Fired by The Weinstein Co. and expelled from various professional guilds. Under investigation by police departments in New York, London, Beverly Hills and Los Angeles. Weinstein denies all allegations of non-consensual sex, but he has apologized for causing “a lot of pain” with “the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past.”
— Actor Ed Westwick — Accused by two women of sexual assault. The BBC pulled an Agatha Christie adaptation from its television schedule and halted production on a second sitcom starring the former “Gossip Girl’ actor. Los Angeles police are investigating. He denies the allegations.
Media, publishing and business:
— Billboard magazine executive Stephen Blackwell — Accused of sexual harassment by one woman. He has resigned from the magazine.
— Penguin Random House art director Giuseppe Castellano — Accused by one woman of sexual harassment. Penguin Random House is investigating. Castellano has not commented.
— New Republic publisher Hamilton Fish— Multiple sexual harassment allegations. He has resigned from the magazine.
— Journalist Mark Halperin — Accused of harassing about 12 women while at ABC News. Book contract terminated. Fired from job at NBC News. He has denied some of the allegations.
— Former “A Prairie Home Companion” host Garrison Keillor — Accused by one woman of inappropriate behavior. He was fired by Minnesota Public Radio. He has told The Associated Press he was fired over “a story that I think is more interesting and more complicated than the version MPR heard,” and told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he put his hand on a woman’s bare back in an attempt to console her.
— Artforum publisher Knight Landesman — Accused by multiple women of sexual harassment and sued by one woman. He has resigned from the magazine.
— “Today” host Matt Lauer — Accused by at least three women of sexual misconduct, including inappropriate sexual behavior that NBC News says started at the 2014 Sochi Olympics and continued after that. Lauer has been fired from NBC News. He has expressed sorrow and regret about the pain he has caused and says some of the accusations about him are untrue or have been mischaracterized.
— NPR news chief Michael Oreskes — Accused of inappropriate behavior or sexual harassment by at least four women while at The New York Times, NPR and The Associated Press. He has been ousted from NPR.
— Amazon executive Roy Price — Accused by one woman of sexual harassment. He resigned from Amazon.
— Journalist Geraldo Rivera — Accused by Bette Midler of groping her in the early 1970s when Rivera was sent to interview her. He has not yet responded to Midler’s renewal of the allegation, which she made in a 1991 interview with Barbara Walters.
— PBS and CBS host Charlie Rose — Accused by several women of unwanted sexual advances, groping and grabbing women, walking naked in front of them or making lewd phone calls. He has apologized for his behavior, but has questioned the accuracy of some of the accounts.
— New York Times White House reporter Glenn Thrush — Accused of making drunken, unwanted advances on women. He disputes some of the accusations but has said he had had a drinking problem and apologized for “any situation where I behaved inappropriately.”
— Webster Public Relations CEO Kirt Webster — Accused of sexual assault by one man. Firm renamed and Webster is “taking time away.”
— Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner — Accused by one man of sexual harassment. He says he did not intend to make the accuser uncomfortable.
— New Republic editor Leon Wieseltier — Accused of sexually harassing numerous women. Removed from the masthead of The Atlantic magazine. He has apologized for his behavior.
— NBC News booker Matt Zimmerman — Accused of inappropriate conduct by multiple women at the network. He was fired from NBC.
— California state Rep. Raul Bocanegra — Accused by multiple women of groping them or kissing them against their will. He has resigned his seat, and says he hopes to clear his name and has said, “While I am not guilty of any such crimes, I am admittedly not perfect.”
— Florida Democratic Party Chairman Stephen Bittel — Accused of sexually inappropriate comments and behavior toward a number of women, Bittel resigned. Meanwhile, Democratic state Sen. Jeff Clemens resigned after a report that he had an extramarital affair with a lobbyist, and Republican state Sen. Jack Latvala is being investigated by the Senate over allegations of harassment and groping. Latvala has denied the allegations.
— Former President George H.W. Bush — Accused of patting seven women below the waist while posing for photos with them in recent years, well after he left office. The 93-year-old Republican has issued repeated apologies through a spokesman “to anyone he has offended,” with the spokesman noting that the former president uses a wheelchair and that his arm sinks below people’s waists when they take photos with him.
— U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) — Accused of sexual harassment toward staffers in his office, and has settled one claim of harassment. He has denied the allegations, even the one he settled. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is calling for his resignation.
— Two Minnesota state lawmakers — Democratic Sen. Dan Schoen and Republican Rep. Tony Cornish — said they would resign after they were accused of misdeeds that ranged from groping colleagues to persistent unwanted sexual advances and sexting.
— British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon — Accused of inappropriate advances on two women, the Conservative resigned. Sexual harassment and assault allegations have also emerged against a number of other U.K. political figures. Labour Party legislator Carl Sargeant is believed to have taken his own life after harassment allegations cost him his post as the Welsh government’s Cabinet secretary for communities and children. He had asked for an independent inquiry to clear his name. Also, Labour Party member Ivan Lewis has been suspended over an allegation of sexual misconduct; Lewis disputed the account but apologized if his behavior had been “unwelcome or inappropriate.”
— U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) — Accused of forcibly kissing Los Angeles radio anchor Leeann Tweeden while rehearsing for a 2006 USO tour; Franken also was photographed with his hands over her breasts as she slept. He also has been accused by three other women of touched their buttocks, and another woman told CNN that Franken had cupped her right breast when she stood next to him for a photo in December 2003. Franken has apologized, though hasn’t admitted to groping or other inappropriate touching. He has acknowledged that some women felt that he had done something offensive during their encounters. He faces a Senate ethics investigation for improper conduct.
— Kentucky House Speaker Jeff Hoover — Stepped down as speaker this month after news surfaced that the Republican had settled a sexual harassment claim from a GOP caucus staffer. Hoover denied the harassment allegation but said he sent consensual yet inappropriate text messages. He remains in the Legislature.
— U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore (R.-Ala.) — Accused of sexually assaulting two women decades ago when they were teenagers; about a half-dozen other women have accused Moore of inappropriate conduct. The former state Supreme Court chief justice denies the allegations. He has rebuffed pressure from national Republican leaders to step aside; the state GOP is standing by him.
— Johnny Anderson, a staffer for Democratic Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards — The deputy chief of staff for programs and planning resigned to avoid becoming a “distraction” to the governor. Accused of sexual harassment, he denies any wrongdoing.
— International Olympic Committee member Alex Gilady — Accused by two women of rape and by two others of inappropriate conduct. Gilady denied the rape accusations, said he didn’t recall one of the other allegations, but acknowledged a claim he’d propositioned a woman during a job interview 25 years ago was “mainly correct.” He stepped down as president of an Israeli broadcasting company he founded. The IOC has said it is looking into the allegations.
— Former South African soccer association president Danny Jordaan — Accused by former member of parliament Jennifer Ferguson of raping her in 1993. Jordaan denies the accusation.
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After the Election of Bolsonaro, Brazil Faces the “Tropical Trump’s” Nationalism
November 6, 2018 Americas
Far-right congressman Jair Bolsonaro won the Brazilian presidential election last Sunday in yet another victory for the populist movement upending the liberal international order.
Bolsonaro, a member of the Social Liberty Party, earned fifty-five percent of the popular vote and defeated the Workers’ Party’s Fernando Haddad, the heir apparent to imprisoned ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
In a victory video posted on his official Facebook account following the results, Bolsonaro announced, “We have everything we need to become a great nation. Together we will change the destiny of Brazil.”
Bolsonaro’s victory amounts to a dramatic shift to the right for Brazilian politics, which has been dominated by centrists and left-leaning parties since the creation of the New Republic in 1985. Bolsonaro has promised to restore the military to power in his cabinet and has openly advocated for a return to the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil between 1964 and 1985. He’s stated he would give the police carte blanche to use lethal force, cancel all funds to NGOs, and strip away workers’ rights. He has made dozens of misogynistic and homophobic comments, including wishing his son would die in an accident if he turned out to be gay and telling a reporter she didn’t deserve to be raped by him.
Bolsonaro rises to power in a nation engulfed in chaos. Operation Car Wash, a criminal investigation into Petrobras and their bribes allegedly paid to top politicians in exchange for lucrative contracts, has tarnished the reputation of nearly every major Brazilian party and top politicians, including Lula, who was sentenced to twelve years in prison for corruption as a result of the investigation. Brazil is now in the fourth year of a deep economic recession, with growth stagnant and unemployment above twelve percent. If that weren’t enough, 63,880 Brazilians were murdered in 2017, by far the highest number in the nation’s history. Only seventeen percent of Brazilians have faith in the national government, down from fifty-one percent in 2007, and Bolsonaro’s victory signifies the citizenry may be willing to embrace conservative populism to solve its downward spiral.
Bolsonaro ran a whirlwind campaign, branding himself as an untarnished political outsider ready to crack down on crime by militarizing the police and easing firearm restrictions. Reactions to his candidacy were polarized- hundreds of thousands of Brazilians rallied against him in the #EleNao movement, marching in several major cities in protest of his hateful rhetoric. Bolsonaro was stabbed last month at a campaign event by Adelio Bispo de Oliveira, who claimed to have been sent by God to assassinate him.
International reactions have been mixed. President Trump tweeted a message of support shortly following the result, saying the two leaders have agreed to work together economically and militarily. Many have compared the two leaders, Bolsonaro himself expressing his affinity for the American leader and reveling in the nickname, “Tropical Trump”. Media organizations, IGOs, and NGOs have lambasted the president, decrying his victory as a stepping stone to the return of Brazilian fascism. Harvard professor Scott Mainwaring said of Bolsonaro, “I can’t think of a more extremist leader in the history of democratic elections in Latin America who has been elected.”
Time will tell whether Brazilians chose wisely. Until then, the international community watches with dread and hopes the better angels of democracy prevail.
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Hardly Any Women Regret Having an Abortion, a New Study Finds
By Nash Jenkins
Ninety-five percent of women who have had abortions do not regret the decision to terminate their pregnancies, according to a study published last week in the multidisciplinary academic journal PLOS ONE.
The study was carried out by researchers from the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at UC San Francisco’s School of Medicine, and from the university’s division of biostatistics.
Its conclusions come after a three-year research period in which nearly 670 women were regularly surveyed on the subject of their abortions. The sample group was diverse with regard to standard social metrics (race, education, and employment) and on the matter of what the study calls pregnancy and abortion circumstances. Financial considerations were given as the reasons for an abortion by 40 percent of women; 36 percent had decided it was “not the right time;” 26 percent of women found the decision very or somewhat easy; 53 percent found it very or somewhat difficult.
The authors of the study concluded that the “overwhelming majority” of the women participating in the study felt that abortion had been the right decision “both in the short-term and over three years.”
These results offer a statistical retort to the claim that women who have abortions suffer emotionally as a result, as anti-abortion campaigners claim. Previous studies cited in support of this claim, researchers said, “suffer from shortcomings, leaving the question of women’s post-abortion emotions unresolved.”
The new study is careful to avoid generalities. It discerns between having lingering emotions after an abortion and regretting the abortion altogether — two distinct responses that pro-lifers tend to conflate — and concludes that post-abortion emotional reactions are normal, but almost inevitably taper over time, and that ultimately, very few women altogether regret terminating their pregnancies.
“Certainly, experiencing feelings of guilt or regret in the short-term after an abortion is not a mental health problem; in fact, such emotions are a normal part of making a life decision that many women in this study found to be difficult,” the study reads. “Our results of declining emotional intensity… [find] steady or improving levels of self-esteem, life satisfaction, stress, social support, stress, substance use, and symptoms of depression and anxiety over time post-abortion.”
Here's What 20 Famous Women Think About Feminism
"People have sorely messed up the definition of feminism. It isn’t saying this is wrong and this is right," said Chrissy Teigen during a Variety event in 2014, adding that husband John Legend also identifies: "He’s a bigger feminist than I am! He actually teaches me a lot about the way women should be perceived."
D Dipasupil—Getty Images for Extra
The Twilight actress reacted to women rejecting feminism during a Daily Beast interview in October: "That’s such a strange thing to say, isn’t it? Like, what do you mean? Do you not believe in equality for men and women? I think it’s a response to overly-aggressive types."
Loic Venance—AFP/Getty Images
"I decided I was a feminist and this seemed uncomplicated to me," said Emma Watson at a UN Women speech in September. "Men-- I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender Equality is your issue, too."
Anthony Harvey—Getty Images
“I would say on some levels I am [a feminist]. Angela Davis is one of my heroes,” Halle Berry told Ebony in April. “And Gloria Steinem—these are people who, as I was growing, I was moved by and impacted by and thought very deeply about.”
Joe Scarnici—Getty Images
"I don’t think of myself as being a feminist,” Sinead O'Connor told The Guardian in July. “I wouldn’t label myself anything, certainly not something with an ‘ism’ or an ‘ist’ at the end of it. I’m not interested in anything that is in any way excluding of men.”
Jason Kempin—Getty Images
"I wouldn’t say [I'm a] feminist, that’s too strong. I think when people hear feminist it’s just like, ‘Get out of my way I don’t need anyone,’” Kelly Clarkson told TIME last year. “I love that I’m being taken care of, and I have a man that’s an actual leader. I’m not a feminist in that sense … but I’ve worked really hard since I was 19."
Christopher Polk—Getty Images
Leighton Meester told OOTD magazine in February about her biggest role model. "American writer Betty Friedan — she fought for gender equality and wrote the great book The Feminine Mystique which sparked the beginning of a second-wave feminism,” Meester said. “I believe in equal rights for men and women.”
D Dipasupil—FilmMagic
“I don’t know why people are so reluctant to say they’re feminists," Ellen Page told The Guardian in 2013. "Maybe some women just don’t care. But how could it be any more obvious that we still live in a patriarchal world when feminism is a bad word?”
Dave Kotinsky—Getty Images
"For me, the issue of feminism is just not an interesting concept,” Lana Del Rey told Fader magazine in their summer 2014 issue. “I’m more interested in, you know, SpaceX and Tesla, what’s going to happen with our intergalactic possibilities."
(Tabatha Fireman—Redferns/Getty Images)
“I would [call myself a feminist], yes.” Rashida Jones said in 2013. “I believe in the unadulterated advancement of women. And we have so far to go still.”
Christopher Polk—NBC/Getty Images
“Am I a feminist? F–k yeah, I’m a feminist,” Jenny Slate told MTV News in June. “I think that unfortunately people who are maybe threatened by feminism think that it’s about setting your bra on fire and being aggressive, and I think that’s really wrong and really dangerous.”
"A feminist? Um, yeah, actually,” Katy Perry told an Australian radio host in March. “I used to not really understand what that word meant, and now that I do, it just means that I love myself as a female and I also love men.”
Mandel Ngan—AFP/Getty Images
Amy Poehler says she's confused by how many women deny that they're feminists, “but then they go on to explain what they support and live by — it’s feminism exactly,” she told Elle magazine in January. "That’s like someone being like, ‘I don’t really believe in cars, but I drive one every day and I love that it gets me places and makes life so much easier and faster and I don’t know what I would do without it.’”
Jason Kempin—NBC/Getty Images
"We need to stop buying into the myth about gender equality. It isn’t a reality yet," Beyonce wrote in an essay titled "Gender Equality is a Myth" in January. She also famously included an excerpt from Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TEDx talk in her song, "Flawless."
Myrna Suarez—WireImage
“I feel like I’m one of the biggest feminists in the world because I tell women to not be scared of anything,” Miley Cyrus told the BBC last November.
Julio Cesar Aguilar—AFP/Getty Images
"I wish when I was 12-years-old I had been able to watch a video of my favorite actress explaining in such an intellectual, beautiful, poignant way the definition of feminism."Taylor Swift said in reaction to Emma Watson's speech at the UN in September. "Because I would have understood it. And then earlier on in my life I would have proudly claimed I was a feminist because I would have understood what the word means."
Isaac Brekken—Getty Images
“Women saying ‘I’m not a feminist’ is my greatest pet peeve,” Lena Dunham told Metro in 2013. “Do you believe that women should be paid the same for doing the same jobs? Do you believe that women should be allowed to leave the house? Do you think that women and men both deserve equal rights? Great, then you’re a feminist.”
Michael Buckner—Getty Images
"No, because I love men," was Shailene Woodley's response when TIME asked her whether she considered herself a feminist in May. "I think the idea of ‘raise women to power, take the men away from the power’ is never going to work out because you need balance…My biggest thing is really sisterhood more than feminism.”
Dave J Hogan—Getty Images
“I’m getting the sense that you’re a little bit of a feminist, like I am, which is good,” Lady Gaga told the LA Times in 2009. “I find that men get away with saying a lot in this business, and that women get away with saying very little . . . In my opinion, women need and want someone to look up to that they feel have the full sense of who they are, and says, ‘I’m great.’ “
Kevin Mazur—WireImage
“[Feminism] means being proud of being a woman, and [having] love, respect and admiration and the belief in our strong capacities,” Salma Hayek told Stylist in 2012. “I don’t think we are the same, women and men. We’re different. But I don’t think we are less than men. There are more women than men in the world – ask any single woman! So it is shocking that men are in more positions of power.”
Traverso—L'Oreal/Getty Images
Children yell to players after a game between the New York Mets and Houston Astros at Citi Field on September 28, 2014 in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City.
Alex Goodlett—Getty Images
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Want to Stop Climate Change? Then It's Time to Fall Back in Love With Nuclear Energy
A satellite view of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant after a massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami caused a nuclear meltdown on March 14, 2011 in Futaba, Japan.
DigitalGlobe—2011 DigitalGlobe
By Hans Blix
Blix was the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1981 to 1997, and was the head of U.N. inspectors in Iraq from 2000 to 2003.
Exactly eight years ago, an earthquake off the east coast of Japan set a massive tsunami on a collision course with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The wall of water overwhelmed the reactors’ cooling mechanisms and over the next four days the plant suffered three nuclear meltdowns. It became the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. In response, Germany, Switzerland and some others around the world accelerated their plans to ditch nuclear power as an energy source.
Nuclear power is virtually free of emissions. By contrast, we burn coal and gas at industrial scale to make electricity, pumping carbon dioxide and other noxious chemicals into our atmosphere. As a result, our oceans are warming and extreme climate events are becoming more common. Our children are more aware of these changes than we adults are: later this week, on March 15, young people will walk out of their schools in more than 30 countries to protest the scars we are carving into their futures.
There are paths out of this mess. But on March 11, 2011, the world’s course was diverted away from one of the most important. I am talking about nuclear energy.
Traditionally, green opposition to nuclear power has been rooted, above all, in fears of radiation let loose in a reactor accident or from waste leaking out of disposal sites. To use nuclear power and generate radioactive waste, environmentalists argued, was like taking off in an airplane without knowing where to land. However, today several countries are building deep underground disposal sites where they can safely land high level radioactive waste. What are we now to fear most: a gram of plutonium escaping from a deep underground waste disposal site, perhaps in ten thousand years, or billions of tons of carbon-dioxide released from burnt fossil fuels in our time?
Frankly, it is not the waste from existing or expanded use of nuclear power that threatens our planet. One might even say that the nuclear waste is one of the greatest assets of nuclear power, as it is so small in volume that it can be — and is — safely taken care of in its entirety. On the other hand, the waste of fossil fuels, especially carbon dioxide, is so huge that (despite much experimenting) we do not know how to handle it.
Can we responsibly continue to rely on nuclear power after the big accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima? Those were three grave accidents, yes, but accidents in any industry, whether nuclear, aviation or others, lead also to new, safer designs and dedication to safety culture. Plane crashes have not stopped us from flying, because most people know it is an effective means of traveling. They know that risks are rarely zero but also that safety is very high. We must arrive at a similar acceptance of nuclear power.
There was a time, in the early atomic age, when nuclear-generated electricity was expected to be “too cheap to meter” — that it would be more effective, in other words, to provide it for free than to charge. In the end, it did not exactly turn out that way. Nuclear power has never been cheap and today it struggles to be competitive on purely economic grounds with electricity generated by burning natural gas — especially from fracking in the United States. However, the story is very different if we see emissions of greenhouse gases as a cost in themselves. According to a 2011 study, taken on average over the lifetime of an energy plant, the burning of coal results in 979 tons of carbon-dioxide (per gigawatt hour) entering the atmosphere. Gas gives off 550 tons. The figure for nuclear power is just 32 tons.
Some people claim we can manage the world’s great and increasing hunger for energy by using wind and solar power. The call for “renewable energy sources” excludes fossil fuels, but it also excludes nuclear power, which is based on non-renewable uranium resources. It has been a smart but facile message, and we should be grateful that the world’s two most populous countries — China and India — are fast expanding their use of nuclear power as well as of renewables. Solar and wind power are great in many places and have gone down in cost. However, getting rid of technically sound carbon dioxide-free nuclear power plants, to replace them with carbon dioxide-free wind and solar plants, does not make environmental sense. And to reject nuclear power because uranium is not renewable is silly. With modern technology the global resources of uranium and thorium could fuel thousands of years of expanded use of nuclear power. Is it not enough that they are sustainable?
We accept radiation in nuclear medicine, to combat cancer for instance. We accept the radiation of spices to kill pathogens. We lie in the sunshine hoping that the solar radiation will make us healthier. Radiation is a force that can be destructive and dangerous if not used prudently, but it can also be tamed and used to our benefit.
To satisfy the energy needs of a world demanding vastly more electricity for industry, cars and trains, desalination and digitalization, increased efficiency in the use of energy is valuable but not enough. We need innovation: better batteries for storage of electricity, superconductors saving energy and fusion. But before we succeed in these and other exciting projects we need to be rational and practical and make full use of nuclear power, before the world becomes uninhabitable for our children.
TIME Ideas hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society, and culture. We welcome outside contributions. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.
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hecksinductionhour in regime, regions, zeitgeist April 27, 2019 April 27, 2019 604 Words
Torturing Jehovah’s Witnesses as a Career Booster
Vladimir Yermolayev, head of the Russian Investigative Committee in Surgut
Russian Investigative Committee Investigators Accused of Torturing Jehovah’s Witnesses Recognized as Outstanding in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region
Vladimir Yermolayev, head of the Russian Investigative Committee office in Surgut and Investigator Sergei Bogoderov, whom followers of the religious organization Jehovah’s Witnesses, banned in Russia as “extremist,” accused of torturing them, have been recognized by their superiors as among the most outstanding employees in the committee’s regional directorate.
The recognition for their outstanding work was reported on website of the Russian Investigative Committee’s Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region Directorate, to which the Surgut office reports. According to the directorate, Yermolayev was among the top three heads of local offices in 2018 in terms of professional outcomes, ranking second overall. He yielded first place to Dmitry Kuznechekov from Pyt-Yak while outpacing Alexander Zakharov from Kogalym.
Bogoderov was also awarded second place by his superiors in the category “Best Investigator.” First and third places were awarded to Investigator Ruslan Mukharyamov, from Yugorsk, and Stanislav Tomak, from Nizhnevartovsk.
“The staff of the investigative directorate congratulates the winners and wishes them further success in their professional careers,” reads the press release issued by the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region’s Investigative Directorate.
On February 15, 2018, raids were carried out on the homes of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Surgut. Criminal charges were filed against two dozen adherents of the religious doctrine. They were charged with establishing an “extremist” community and involvement in an “extremist” community. Three of the believers were remanded in custody. Three weeks later, one of the men was released. After they spent two months in a remand prison, the other two men were released on their own recognizance by a court, which denied Yermolayev and Bogoderov’s motion to extend their time in police custody. All three men still face criminal charges, however.
A few days after the February 15, 2018, dragnet, several of the Jehovah’s Witnesses who had been detained claimed that, while they were in custody at the Russian Investigative Committee’s Surgut Investigative Branch, they had been strangled with plastic bags, doused with water, tasered, injected with a life-threatening unknown substance, and threatened with sexual violence.
In late March, lawyers representing the Surgut Jehovah’s Witnesses held a press conference in Moscow at which they presented reporters with the findings of an investigation of the torture, undertaken by independent experts. The lawyers and the accused also identified the investigators who, according to them, were involved in torturing them in Surgut.
The lawyers noted Yermolayev’s particular role in humiliating the detainees and forcing them to testify. They claimed it was Yermolayev who ordered Investigative Committee investigators and field officers to torture the detainees until they supplied them with the testimony needed to file criminal charges for establishing an “extremist” community.
The Surgut Investigative Office and the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region Investigative Directorate have consistently denied accusations they employed torture. They explained the injuries on the bodies of the suspects, as documented by experts, were caused by “vigorous resistance.”
Last week, it transpired that the Yugra District Court found the searches carried out by the Investigative Committee in the homes of two suspected Jehovah’s Witnesses, Yevgeny Kayryak and Vyacheslav Boronos, had been illegal. According to the defense lawyers, this underscores the “professionalism” of investigators.
Kayryak and Boronos have also claimed they were tortured on the day they were detained.
Artyom Kim, arrested by Investigator Bogoderov on February 15, 2019, on suspicion of “extremism,” recounted how he was tortured by law enforcement officers at the Surgut Investigative Office in a video posted on Russia human rights activist Lev Ponoromaryov’s YouTube channel on April 3, 2019.
Artyom Kim
Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region
Lev Ponomaryov
Russian Investigative Committee
Sergei Bogoderov
Vladimir Yermolayev
Vyacheslav Boronos
Yevgeny Kayryak
“Lie Still, Bitch!”
The Syrian Breakthrough
One thought on “Torturing Jehovah’s Witnesses as a Career Booster”
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Tag Archives: Revell Publishing Group
The Sky Above Us by Sarah Sundin – Memorable…A Real Gem!
Posted in Book Review, Christian Fiction, NetGalley, Revell Publishing Group, Sarah Sundin, The Sky Above Us, WWII by Susan Wachtel
When I find an author whose books I like, I want to read all of them. That’s why I was excited to find author Sarah Sundin’s newest book The Sky Above Us, which is the second book in her Sunrise at Normandy Series.
The story of the Paxton family continues in The Sky Above Us as we are introduced to the middle brother, Lt. Alder Paxton. He is making his way to England where he will be stationed with American Air Force in 1943, as they join the battle to prepare for D-Day. Though he is trying to leave his past behind him, it has a way of catching up. What are the chances that 5,000 miles from home Alder will see his estranged brothers Wyatt and Clay? Onboard ship, Alder will meet the lovely Violet Lindstrom who is with the American Red Cross. She has her sights set on serving as a missionary one day, in a faraway land. Little did she know that the Lord would open her eyes to a different mission field that would resonate with her heart’s longing and desires.
I absolutely loved, loved, loved this book. Not only did I like the setting, WWII in England as D-Day approached, but also the characters and how they fit into a pivotal time in our history. Sarah must have done a lot of research to make the dogfights and battles seem so realistic and easy to visualize. In reading The Sky Above Us, I got a taste of what the people who lived through that era may have experienced.
Prior to reading this book, I didn’t know much about the history of the American Red Cross and their roll in helping servicemen as they served abroad. Those women who served were hardworking and brave and they too put their lives on the line.
As much as I was intrigued and fascinated with the setting and characters, I loved and learned from some of the themes in the book. Forgiveness was looked at from many different angles. Compassion, mercy, humility, obedience, friendship, self-righteousness, repentance and God’s calling were some of the other themes.
I very much liked Adler and Violet, but my favorite character was Nick Westin. He was a wonderful friend, mentor, brother in Christ, father and husband. I’d love to see a book about this character. He was memorable and very dear.
Not only did I love The Sky Above Us by Sarah Sundin, but I learned from it. It gave me a deeper appreciation for the greatest generation and what they did to save our Country and the Western world from Nazism. This is a book I will read again and would definitely give it as a gift. I took my time reading this book and I didn’t want it to end. It was so enjoyable to read it at the end of each day. Though it’s part of a series, it works well as a stand-alone book.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Revell Publishing Group for the opportunity to read The Sky Above Us by Sarah Sundin in exchange for an honest review. I was under no obligation to give a favorable review.
Book Review, Christian Fiction, NetGalley, Revell Publishing Group, Sarah Sundin, The Sky Above Us, WWII 1 Comment
The Sea Before Us by Sarah Sundin – A Real Treasure – Fascinating Historical Fiction
Posted in Book Review, D-Day, Faith, Historical Fiction, NetGalley, Sarah Sundin, The Sea Before Us, WWII by Susan Wachtel
I absolutely love finding a good book and I found a real treasure in The Sea Before Us by Sarah Sundin. Not only did I find a really good book, but an author whose novels I want to read.
I selected The Sea Before Us based on the subject matter, World War II and D-Day. My parents and grandfather were in the military and fought in World War II. They were part of the greatest generation who fought with great courage to defeat Hitler.
The Sea Before Us starts out in 1941 with a young man in Texas, Wyatt Paxton, who’s in middle of circumstances that will change the trajectory of not only own his life, but his family’s as well. Fast forward three years to London, England where readers are introduced to Dorothy Fairfax a Second Officer with the Women’s Royal Naval Service. Wyatt and Dorothy are just two of the British and Allied forces who are working diligently to prepare maps and intelligence for the troops and their upcoming invasion of France to beat back and crush Hitler, the German forces and all those who’ve perpetrated such great evil.
The setting of the novel during World War II and the preparation for the upcoming Allied invasion was fascinating. The author’s research and attention to detail comes through. The characters were well written and I appreciated how their faith and personal growth was developed during the course of the story.
I highly recommend The Sea Before Us by Sarah Sundin, it’s an interesting book with likeable realistic characters you will want to get to know. This author knows how to write historical fiction that will grab you and keep your attention. I look forward to reading Sarah’s earlier work and future novels.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Revell Publishing Group for the opportunity to read The Sea Before Us in exchange for an honest review. I was under no obligation to give a favorable review.
Book Review, D-Day, Faith, Historical Fiction, Revell Publishing Group, Sarah Sundin, The Sea Before Us, WWII Leave a comment
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50 Prominent Republicans Denounce Trump:’He Would Be A Dangerous President’
By Whitney Marquise Acoff August 9, 2016 404 views
50 republican foreign security experts have signed a document to denounce Donald Trump from his presidential candidacy. These same republicans are vowing to not vote for him as well in this upcoming election.
Many of the GOP’s against Trump are former foreign security experts. These are men that have served the Nixon and George W. Bush administration. That’s a pretty big deal.
These were the same dudes running things during the 9/11 attacks. They were also there at the start of the Iraq war. If foreign security experts are telling us that we shouldn’t let someone run our country, shouldn’t we listen?
Especially if these experts were around at the beginning of this war. The GOP is literally telling us that Donald Trump can’t handle being under pressure during times of crisis.
Here’s a quote from the letter
” From a foreign policy perspective, Donald Trump is not qualified to be President and Commander-in-Chief. Indeed we are convinced that he would be a dangerous President and would put at risk our Country’s national security and well-being”
Michael Hayden, the former director of the CIA added his signature to the letter. Michael Chertoff and Tom Ridge, former homeland security officers signed their names as well due to Trumps behavior. A lot of these foreign security experts wanted to stay loyal to their party.
The GOP tried to give Mr. Trump a chance to prove his worth. Unfortunately for the them he did not come through. You need more than speaking your mind and winning popularity contest to be the President.
Foreign security experts such as John Negroponte, former Director of National Intelligence and Deputy Secretary of State signed the letter as well. So did Eric Edelman, who was the national security adviser to former Vice President Dick Cheney. These are just a few out of the 50 that have signed and agreed.
Whitney Marquise Acoff
Whitney Marquise Acoff (WIT-nee MAR-kee AK-oaf) is a professional journalist and political blogger. Getting her start in fashion writing she's been a friend of Mercedes Benz Fashion Week for many years. Whitney has also interviewed celebrities such as Wendy Williams and managed celebrity social media accounts for Mike Epps, DL Hughley, Ricky Smiley, and more. Today Whitney is the Editor in Chief of her own publication The Inside Report. She also still contributes to many publications while growing her brand.
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Meet radio show: America's Work Force
In Cleveland, Host Ed “Flash” Ferenc promotes union issues daily in a strong AM radio market
by Kris LaGrange on
Right now utility union leaders from across the nation are embarking on Cleveland, Ohio for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Utility Conference to share best practices, conduct leadership training and craft agendas. I’m writing this piece to let our IBEW friends know of a labor radio show that they can tune into while in town. By the way, the Indians are in town playing the Astro’s and the Mariners.
It’s called America’s Work Force with host Ed “Flash” Ferenc and it airs daily from 4 to 5 pm on WERE 1490 AM. Past shows are posted on their website awfradio.com and this is how they describe themselves: Since 1993, America’s Work Force supply’s listeners with useful, relevant input into their daily lives through fact-finding features, in-depth interviews, informative news segments and practical consumer reports. At the heart of America’s Work Force is its provocative guest list – through the support and participation of the labor community, dozens of regional, national and international labor leaders and advocates have been guests on the show, along with politicians, civic leaders, industry professionals, experts and more.
I got Ed on the phone after he contacted us. I will be a guest on the Tuesday, May 16th show to talk up how UCOMM got censored by Google. He’s popular, commonly referred to as Flash. He has a voice that can make a tiger purr, and you can tell right away he knows his tradecraft. His show is produced by BMA Media Group, an organization that performs similar work that we do here at UCOMM. Flash’s background is that he was on the air in the morning for 21 years with WMMS, which was the regions #1 morning show 12 years in a row. As radio station often do, they change ownership and formats, and this opened up opportunities for Flash to work in talk radio and eventually this lead to him hosting America’s Work Force. As a 43 year member of SAG-AFTRA, Flash told me the show is a labor of love, it’s popular and most of the show’s successes come from re-broadcasting and shares on social networks. UCOMM experiences similar successes the same exact way. Thanks Zuckerberg.
America’s Work Force pays the bills from sponsorships from the Laborers, Steelworkers, Machinist, Painters, Teamsters and the Communications Workers of America. Labor leaders are frequent guests. For example Terry O’Sullivan, International President of the Laborers Union was recently on the show to talk about the Keystone Pipeline. Leo Gerard of Steelworkers was on to discuss the dumping of illegal steel and the CWA addressed outsourcing at T-Mobile.
So IBEW, while in town take in the sites, build connections with your fellow unionist but make sure you take time to tune into America’s Work Force with host Ed “Flash” Ferenc from 4 to 5 pm on WERE 1490 AM. You’ll be glad you did.
ed ferenc
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Recommended Reading: Faculty Share Their Favorite Books for Summer Vacation
Looking for a plane book, a beach book or to learn something new? UD faculty share some of their current reads and old favorites:
"The Conjurer's Bird: A Novel" by Martin Davies
Recommended by Eileen Gregory, professor of English
Weaving together two plotlinesone following an 18th century naturalist, the other a contemporary one, "The Conjurer's Bird" follows the struggle to identify an unusual bird discovered during Captain James Cook's second expedition to the South Seas.
"I like it because it has a two-tier plotone set in the present, the other in the pastand it is a kind of mystery story," said Gregory.
"This Machine Kills Secrets: How WikiLeakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World's Information" by Andy Greenberg
Recommended by Brett Landry, associate dean and associate professor of cybersecurity in the Satish & Yasmin Gupta College of Business
Forbes journalist Andy Greenberg tracks the history of hacker and activist movements from the 1970s to contemporary organizations like WikiLeaks and Anonymous, with special emphasis on the evolution of whistleblowing.
"Struggle for Empire: Kingship and Conflict under Louis the German, 817-876" by Eric J. Goldberg
Recommended by Kelly Gibson, assistant professor of history
This biography of Charlemagne's grandson, Louis the German, brings to light many aspects of ninth-century life as it traces King Louis' wars against his brothers and neighboring peoples and attempts to maintain power.
"It is thoroughly researched, based on all the available sources for this period, but very readable and excitinga great way to learn about a period of time usually seen as the decline of the Carolingian empire after the time of Charlemagne," said Gibson.
"The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods" by A.G. Sertillanges
Recommended by Gerard Wegemer, professor of English
A French Dominican philosopher exiled from six countries during World War I and II, Sertillanges offers practical suggestions for fostering the vocation to the intellectual life.
"As a Dominican, Sertillanges brings to bear 700 years of reflection and experience in the tradition of Thomas Aquinas' 'Principles of Study,'" said Wegemer.
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Blog - Meghan McCourt: WE WALK!
Donate to support stories like these
According to Meghan McCourt, a Professional Practice Leader at Kingston Health Science’s Centre’s (KHSC) Kingston General Hospital (KGH) site, “Social Workers must wear many hats” in order to help patients and their families.
“There are times when our intervention starts as a friendly conversation,” says McCourt, “but usually these are more difficult situations. We don’t see people when things are going well. Not in an acute hospital environment.”
For the KGH site social workers at KHSC, having access to a source of flexible, emergency funds means increased options for patients and their families during times of distress. “Sometimes it’s a medical issue,” says McCourt, “Helping patients to be well, to pay for prescription when there is a gap in funding or for over-the-counter medication while a longer term plan for accessing these medications is established.
Sometimes there are expenses associated with just being at the hospital building which create financial strain,” says McCourt, of the challenges that family members face when a loved one is admitted to hospital. “The expense of driving back and forth or paying for parking—and food is huge. Maybe you’ve arrived here in the middle of the night, possibly without a wallet, and haven’t eaten for a while.”
When they see people struggling, care team members often refer family members to social workers who assess and connect patients and families to resources to address challenges and barriers that they experience as a result of their treatment or medical issue. When there are gaps and there aren’t other options, Social Workers are able to use the University Hospitals Kingston Foundation’s (UHKF) Comfort and Care Fund as a last resort option to try to address some of the need.
Social Workers administer the University Hospitals Kingston Foundation’s (UHKF) Comfort and Care Funds across all of the healthcare sites. “One of the reasons the UHKF wanted to work with us is because our assessment provides us with a view to the whole picture. We’re careful because we recognize we could help a couple of people a lot or a lot of people a little bit.”
Whether it’s a $7 sandwich, socks for a patient with nothing to wear on their feet, a parking voucher, or a gas card to help a low-income senior from a rural community supporting a loved one in hospital, McCourt stresses that for Social Workers, having access to this type of funding means that there are options available to address challenges experienced by patients and families which impact their coping during an already difficult period.
The UHKF’s Comfort and Care Funds enhance similar historic and ongoing support from the KGH Auxiliary. “With funds being raised from two sources it allows us to do so much more.”
Indeed that “much more” will be on McCourt’s mind as she and her team of Mad Hatters—a playful double-entendre on the many hats that social workers wear—participate in this year’s WE WALK! for Patient Comfort and Care on September 29, UHKF’s annual 5 km family-friendly walk at Lake Ontario Park.
“Last year there were goofy hats and meaningful hats,” says McCourt, “as a social work team we’re highly motivated to do what we can to support the fundraising” as the funding levels are variable while the needs are never-ending.
“At the end of the day I feel privileged by what this fund allows us to do. And I want to do what I can to spread the word about this fundraising event.”
UHKF’s Comfort and Care Fund provides emergency funding for patients and their families who are experiencing financial hardship arising from non-medical costs of care. For more information or to make a donation to WE WALK! for your comfort and care email info@uhkf.ca.
Nancy's Story
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Home Britain Press release: PM’s roundtable with the tech industry: 13 June 2018
Press release: PM’s roundtable with the tech industry: 13 June 2018
A Downing Street spokesperson said:
The Prime Minister began by thanking the guests for their tremendous contribution to the tech community in the UK, creating jobs, supporting the economy, and driving growth.
She added that Venture Capital investment in the UK was $7.8bn in 2017, and that the opportunities offered here are demonstrated by the fact that the UK contributes 13 of the 34 start-up companies valued at over $1 billion in Europe.
She then invited views from around the table on how the UK can build on its position as a world-leading destination for tech investment.
Guests welcomed the announcement of the £2.5 billion Patient Capital Fund, as a means of ensuring that promising UK start-ups can access the capital they need to expand and become world-beating.
There was discussion of the strength and depth of the UKs tech industry, and the advantages associated provided by access to and partnerships with the UKs top universities.
Guests then discussed methods of addressing the skills gap and agreed on the importance of ensuring that nobody is left behind by advancements in technology and digital skills.
There was also agreement on the importance of mentoring, whereby entrepreneurs who have been through the whole cycle share their knowledge and expertise with fresh talent.
The Prime Minister concluded by reiterating the importance of the tech sector, saying that she wanted to see a continued pipeline of tech entrepreneurs coming forward and growing their businesses in the UK.
gov uk
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Fears mount Russia is rebuilding spy network in UK following Salisbury attack
Paedophile filled suitcase with Cadbury Creme Eggs to lure in his victims
The England captains who led their teams to global glory
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The Event Library
A miscellany from the byways of Doctor Who
Blog and author
The Event Library is an occasional blog of reviews and commentary on oddities, principally televisual or in print, from the worlds of Doctor Who. It is written by Matthew Kilburn, a writer, editor and researcher based near Oxford, UK. He has written for several publications in the series The Essential Doctor Who, including The TARDIS, ed. Marcus Hearn (Panini Publishing, 2014). Other credits include Doctor Who: 50 Years – The Companions, ed. Marcus Hearn (Panini Publishing, 2013), Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour, ed. Andrew O’Day (I.B. Tauris, 2013), Outside In, ed. Robert Smith? and Graeme Burk (ATB Publishing, 2012), Time Unincorporated, vol. 2, ed. Robert Smith? and Graeme Burk (Mad Norwegian Press, 2010) and Time And Relative Dissertations In Space: Critical Perspectives in Doctor Who, ed. David Butler (Manchester University Press, 2007), as well as contributing reviews to The Doctor Who News Page and articles to several fan publications. He is available for commissions, though if you just want to buy him a coffee there should be a link by which you can do so to the right or if not, below.
Away from Doctor Who, he was from January 2014 to November 2015 a member of the research staff of The History of Parliament: The House of Lords, 1660-1832. He has contributed chapters and otherwise assisted in the preparation of The History of Oxford University Press, and from 1999 to 2006 was research editor in the eighteenth century at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, where he remains an external consultant as an associate research editor and is the contributor of over seventy biographical entries.
mefinx says:
Surprisingly, I sensed a lot of echoes with S1 of Nu-Who – the declined offer of companionship, reconsidered (but this time by the Doctor), the joyful last shot of Bill running into the TARDIS. And in the 3-way interplay between The Doctor, Nardole and Bill I even felt a little of the Nine/Rose/Jack dynamic set up in TDD all those years ago – with Nardole as bridge, more experienced in the ways of the universe than the companion, but more emotionally intelligent than the Doctor.
Or am I just an elderly fan seeing parallels everywhere….even in the serving of chips?
Matthew Kilburn says:
Yes, I agree with you! I’d not thought of the Nine/Rose/Jack parallels but they are certainly there. The serving of chips was surely in part a homage.
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Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Travis W. Grogan
Died November 27, 2004 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom
31, of Virginia Beach, Va.; assigned to 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division (Light), Schofield Barracks, Hawaii; killed Nov. 27 when the contract aircraft in which he was riding crashed in Bamian, Afghanistan. Also killed in the crash were Lt. Col. Michael J. McMahon and Spc. Harley D.R. Miller.
Moore man among those killed in Afghan plane crash
OKLAHOMA CITY — The last time Wilma North talked to her grandson, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Travis W. Grogan, he was in good spirits but wished the Thanksgiving meal he had eaten included some of her salad.
The 31-year-old died the next day when the airplane he was in crashed into mountainous terrain near Bamian, Afghanistan. Two other soldiers and three civilians also died.
Grogan wasn’t supposed to be in the aircraft, but took the trip when a logistics meeting was canceled, North said.
“We’re Christians, and we believe our days are numbered before we were born and if that was his day to die, it didn’t matter where he was,” she said. “He could be sitting on the sofa watching TV, so it didn’t matter.”
The Pentagon on Wednesday confirmed that the remains of Grogan; Lt. Col. Michael J. McMahon, 41, of Connecticut; Spc. Harley D. Miller, 21, of Spokane, Wash., and those of three civilian crew members had been found aboard the plane.
The fixed-wing CASA 212 plane went down Saturday, but search efforts were complicated by bad weather and difficult terrain, said military spokesman Maj. Mark McCann.
Grogan, McMahon and Miller were assigned to Schofield Barracks in Hawaii.
Lawton military personnel notified Grogan’s relatives on Saturday that Grogan was missing. The military spotted the downed plane on Monday, and the family was optimistic after learning the aircraft looked intact.
“Those things we considered good news,” North said. “... Then the men came out again yesterday (Tuesday) and told us that no, they were all dead. They were strapped in their seats and they were all dead.”
Grogan, who leaves behind a wife, a 6-year-old daughter, a 2-year-old son, comes from a long line of military men.
North said Grogan’s great-great-great grandfather lost an eye during the Civil War.
Oklahoma soldier killed in Afghanistan laid to rest
OKLAHOMA CITY — A soldier who lost his life in Afghanistan was remembered Thursday as a father, son and husband who will be greatly missed.
Friends and family of Chief Warrant Officer Travis Grogan listened as Dr. Kevin Clarkson read a poem by Larry Adams about Grogan’s sacrifice.
“I was your son. I was your husband. I was your daddy, and I loved you very much,” the poem read. “But, I was a soldier. And I died on a battlefield far away so that you could be safe and free, because I love you.”
“That says very well what we honor today,” Clarkson, who officiated at Grogan’s funeral at the First Baptist Church in Moore, said.
Grogan, a 31-year-old Army helicopter pilot, died Nov. 27 when the airplane he was in crashed near Bamian, Afghanistan.
During Grogan’s service, a photo presentation was shown of him playing with his two children, Ashley, 6, and Austin, 2. The slideshow also included pictures of Grogan’s wedding to his wife, Tracy.
His love of swimming led to a position in the Navy as a search-and-rescue swimmer. Later, he became interested in flying and transferred to the Army to become a pilot.
Grogan, the third Oklahoman killed while serving in Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, was buried at Fort Sill National Cemetery.
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Louisiana Leads The Nation In Business Tax Increases By A Wide Margin
February 20th, 2019 MacAoidh
Here’s a bit of an inconvenient data dump for Gov. John Bel Edwards on the eve of his laughable “business summit” – which as the Louisiana GOP has been screaming all week is really nothing more than a taxpayer-funded re-election campaign stunt starring the governor’s cronies. From a press release the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry put out a few moments ago…
More than two dozen new laws permanently affect the taxes paid by small and large companies conducting business in Louisiana, ultimately leading to an additional $3 billion in state taxes over just three years. That startling statistic is one of many outlined in a summary (CLICK HERE) released today by the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI), reviewing business taxes enacted in Louisiana since 2015.
National research recently made similar findings about Louisiana’s business tax burden. A report by Ernst & Young, in conjunction with the Council On State Taxation and the State Tax Research Institute, ranked Louisiana as the top state for growth in state and local business taxes from Fiscal Year 2016 to Fiscal Year 2017 at an alarming rate of 12.5 percent. The national average was just two percent. Louisiana business taxes are now estimated at $10.1 billion annually for state and local government. The next highest Southern state was Florida at #8 with a business tax increase of 4.9 percent. Ernst & Young’s report can be downloaded from their website at www.ey.com
“Louisiana’s complex tax structure has faced continuous change in recent years,” noted LABI’s report author, Camille Conaway, Senior Vice President. “Income taxes, franchise taxes, sales taxes, and property taxes – no element of the Louisiana business tax code has been left untouched since 2015 in an effort to boost collections. And still, the tax code is arguably the most complicated it has ever been.”
More than two dozen permanent changes were made to increase tax collections, and another half-dozen temporary changes have come and gone. One tax proposal requiring a constitutional amendment was defeated at the ballot, and another law has been declared unconstitutional by the Louisiana Supreme Court.
In addition to the detailed list of tax changes, LABI released an updated version of its annual overview of the Louisiana business tax code: “Business is Paying More than Its ‘Fair Share’ in Louisiana.” (CLICK HERE) The report highlights the fact that Louisiana businesses pay a higher share of state and local taxes (49%) than the national average (44%).
“Louisiana’s unemployment rate, economy and workforce participation levels, unfortunately, lag the rest of the nation, and the additional $3 billion in state taxes over three years has definitely been a contributing factor,” concluded LABI president and CEO Stephen Waguespack. “Instead of continuing this trend of targeting the business community to fix government’s challenges, it is time for the rhetoric and policies coming out of the state capitol to change. Our elected leaders should stop relying on increased government taxes, spending, mandates and lawsuits as the best way to provide improved economic opportunities for our people. The data clearly shows that approach is not working. Success for Louisiana businesses and families comes with more jobs, more private sector growth and more opportunities for our young people to stay here at home. LABI believes sustainable growth begins with a stable, competitive business tax climate, a fair legal environment, and an innovative education system, which we will be working toward in 2019 and 2020.”
Today’s report comes on the heels of another released by LABI, focusing solely on the Industrial Tax Exemption Program (CLICK HERE), which can be downloaded at www.labi.org/research.
It’s worth pointing out that Louisiana has lost a net of 66,000 people – that’s the net figure of outmigration – over the same three years since those taxes were passed. And on top of the 66,000 more folks who have left the state than have moved in, there is this depressing news from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics…
While the unemployment rate in Louisiana went down from 2013 to 2018, it’s still well above the national average by two alternative measures, according to a recent report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In 2018, Louisiana’s official unemployment rate—which includes all jobless people who are available to take a job and have actively sought work in the past four weeks—came out at 4.9%, or 103,900 people, higher than the national rate of 3.9%.
The report also tallied the state’s unemployment rate using the broadest measure of unemployment, which includes the officially unemployed as well as workers employed part-time for economic reasons and those marginally attached to the labor force. By that metric, Louisiana’s unemployment rate spikes to 9.4%, significantly above the U.S. rate of 7.7%.
Included in that measure are involuntary part-time workers, who make up the largest share of underutilized workers in the state. Some 66,300 Louisiana residents are employed part-time because of slack work, business conditions or an inability to find a full-time job.
Also included in that measure—and comprising the smallest group of underutilized workers—are “discouraged workers,” or people who aren’t looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. In 2018, there were 11,200 discouraged workers in Louisiana.
That U-6 number, the one which counts the underemployed, looks a whole lot worse when you consider the net outmigration over those three years.
But none of this ought to be a surprise. The business community has been begging, pleading and screaming for three years that Edwards’ tax-happy policies were going to poison the state’s economy and drive away its jobs and capital, and it’s getting a lot harder for Edwards and his people to deny there’s a problem. His fraudulent “business summit,” which is going to consist of a bunch of his campaign contributors and people with government contracts who function essentially as hostages to his public-relations effort, can’t hide the fact.
And the worst is yet to come. The buzz continues to build about the future of the state’s largest domestically-headquartered company CenturyLink, which has been rumored for some time to be picking up stakes and leaving Monroe; the latest we’ve heard is that company’s executives have been notified the move out of Louisiana is now inevitable, though it might not be publicly announced until 2020 because of an economic development contract CenturyLink has with the state. When CenturyLink goes, it will leave Louisiana with only one Fortune 500 company headquarters – that being Entergy, which is under siege by the leftists on the New Orleans city council over having hired paid demonstrators to counter paid demonstrators protesting the construction of a power plant in New Orleans East.
For a state of Louisiana’s size to have only one Fortune 500 company headquarters is a pure disgrace. Oregon, with a smaller population, has three – and seven in the Fortune 100. Kentucky has five.
Interested in more news from Louisiana? We've got you covered! See More Louisiana News
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Mar 28, 2012 · 11:46 am
Fear of flying for cult comedian Charlie Chuck?… Only ducks and pianos fly…
Charlie Chuck was feeling under the feather...
“Your mission, should you accept it” I said, “is to think up something for my blog tomorrow. I’m off out to get milk, eggs and baked beans.”
It was around midnight and Charlie Chuck was staying at my eternally-un-named friend’s flat behind Up The Creek comedy club in Greenwich, which was founded by comedy godfather Malcolm Hardee.
The club, not Greenwich.
So I left Charlie Chuck and my eternally-un-named friend with my hand-held tape recorder, embarrassingly like the one occasionally used in I’m Alan Partridge.
When I got back from the Sainsbury all-night supermarket, I listened to what was on the tape recorder:
“Malcolm Hardee,” Charlie Chuck was saying, “used to book me to go over to play the Laughter Lounge in Dublin. I used to go over in the ferry with him. He used to come back by plane; I used to catch a boat. I wouldn’t get on a plane.”
“Have you never flown?” my eternally-un-named friend asked, slightly surprised.
“Once,” said Charlie Chuck. “In 2007. Canada. I went to see Notre Dame in Canada. It’s a replica of the one in Paris. When we went to Notre Dame in Paris, I were disappointed because it wasn’t as beautiful as the one in Canada.”
“You only went over to Canada to see Notre Dame Cathedral?” asked my eternally-un-named friend.
“No, to perform in a stage show,” he replied.
“Ah,” she said.
“If it hadn’t been for John,” said Charlie Chuck, “I wouldn’t have gone. He went to the airport with me. It were a big thing for me to fly. There were quite a bit of money involved – around £20,000 – and, if I hadn’t gone, they would’ve sued me. They wanted me out there for six months, but I were only there for three weeks.
“They offered to pay me to go to Canada on the QE2 liner; it would’ve cost ‘em £3,500. It would’ve taken about three weeks, but I looked up about the QE2 and it were in a hurricane once with 90 foot high waves and I thought I don’t want three weeks of this. So I flew out but I were terrified.
“On the plane going out there, people recognised me and they were saying Tell us a joke, but I were nearly crappin’ meself.
“I were out there to play the part of Jean Lapointe, a Canadian senator, eighty years old, who had done the Ed Sullivan Show and about 30 films. The routine I did were his routine when he were a younger man.
“The tour people told me that, on the show, I’d be on wires and I ‘d probably be 10 or 20 feet above the stage. But it ended up I was playin’ this piano that were lifted 30 feet high in the air and upside down. I were strapped to it. I were playin’ Moonlight Sonata and In The Mood and talking to the piano. It were a routine I did. I climbed across the piano but kept the arpeggio going. I sneezed and the sheet music went three-quarters of the way across the piano. It were a bit like an Andrew Lloyd Webber production.
“It were for Franco Dragone. He’s big. He does Cirque du Soleil and Las Vegas and makes elephants disappear like David Copperfield. He books acts from all over the world. It were a big thing.
“So, after I sneeze and the sheet music flies away, I start playing again and the piano turns over and the moon comes out. And the piano goes up and tips over upside down and back again and the big band kicks in. It were on hydraulics but you couldn’t see them; you only saw me and the piano.
“It were going to be filmed and be on national television in Canada. But, when the piano were upside down, there were technical problems,. It banged into me leg and nearly broke me ankle. It bruised all me leg and they had to take it away to sort it out and they called the whole routine off. I’d rehearsed for a week but they didn’t do it. It were too risky.
“Because they knew I played drums, they brought in a brand new £2,000 drum kit for me to wreck, because that’s what I do in me show. I talk to me drums and wreck the kit and bite me hands and all that. I used to do a forward somersault off me drums when I were younger.
“They’d have to get me a lot of money to get me on a plane again.”
“Why?” my un-named friend asked.
“I just think of Jim Reeves,” said Charlie Chuck. “He died in a plane crash. Otis Redding. Buddy Holly. They all went down in plane crashes.
“But I’m not bothered about going anywhere either. I’m not bothered… I’m just not bothered. Where’s John?”
“He’s gone to buy some milk,” my eternally-un-named friend said.
“Milk?” asked Charlie Chuck, “It’s past midnight.”
Filed under Canada, Comedy, Theatre
Tagged as aeroplane, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Canada, Charlie Chuck, Cirque du Soleil, comedian, comedy, crash, death, Dublin, ducks, Ed Sullivan, fear, flying, Franco Dragone, Ireland, Jean Lapointe, Laughter Lounge, Malcolm hardee, Notre Dame, piano, plane, QE2, theatre
Jan 28, 2012 · 10:20 am
Reasons for celebration in the British comedy industry
Yesterday and today have been days of me hearing about travel but not actually going anywhere myself except travelling for tea in Soho via a train in which the stranger opposite me kept farting… and driving from Greenwich to Borehamwood and finding the M25 turn-off I needed was closed.
This is neither glamorous nor very interesting.
But I had tea yesterday with someone who shall be nameless who was celebrating the fact that football manager Harry Redknapp, currently on trial for tax evasion, had opened a bank account in Monaco in the name of his dog.
“It’s comedy gold,” this nameless person enthused. “Writers and comedians all over the country must be celebrating. They say it’s all Rover? It is now.”
The reason this person cannot be named is that he told me a relation of his is an alcoholic who lives in Finland.
“Why does he live in Finland?” I asked.
“Because he is an alcoholic,” came the reply. “So, in Finland, he seems perfectly normal or even sober.”
This rings true. As I have previously blogged, I do not think I have ever met a sober Finn. Very nice people. But mostly drunk most of the time.
You cannot beat a good xenophobic generalisation, I find.
Take the cliché of the drunken Englishman abroad…
From Australia yesterday, I got two e-mails from English comedian Bob Slayer, a would-be Foreign Correspondent for this very So It Goes blog which you are reading.
The first e-mail read:
“I did warn you that the combination of alcohol and an iPad could make some of my reports incomprehensible. I am currently full of drink in a Burger King (they call them Hungry Jack’s out here) where they have free interweb. I will get a bus to the airport and fly to Perth. Where it is hot. I have no more energy to type anything of note. Goodbye Melbourne, you beautiful backward en-trend land of ladies in summery dresses and cowboy boots – I will miss you.”
The second, later, e-mail read:
“I have arrived in Perth and one wheel has fallen off my suitcase (I had already lost a handle in Melbourne). This is somewhat impeding my progress.”
Bob Slayer has always told me that his decision to enter the world of comedy as a stand-up (after ten years behind-the-scenes in the music business) was made after reading godfather-of-British-alternative-comedy Malcolm Hardee’s autobiography I Stole Freddie Mercury’s Birthday Cake.
I have always had a suspicion that Bob mis-read Malcolm’s character in the book and got the idea that he was a very loud, constantly-drunk, OTT extrovert anarchist. In fact, like many great characters, Malcolm was a rather shy, occasionally drunk, occasionally OTT introverted extrovert with anarchic tendencies.
Now I fear Bob may be modelling himself on Hunter S. Thompson’s book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. This can only lead to drug-fuelled paranoia, guns and a surprisingly bad film by Johnny Depp and Terry Gilliam.
However, it might well also result in some good blogs. So I shall, in a subtle spirit of amoral comradeship, encourage Bob on his downward spiral of self-destructive excess.
Filed under Australia, Comedy, Drink, Drugs, Finland
Tagged as alcohol, anarchy, birthday cake, Bob Slayer, comedy, fear, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Finland, Freddie Mercury, Harry Redknapp, humor, humour, Hunter S Thompson, Johnny Depp, Malcolm hardee, racism, Terry Gilliam, xenophobia
Oct 20, 2011 · 1:04 pm
Repeat. Mantras and madness. Post traumatic stress. Repeat. Tap. Tap. Tap.
(This blog was also published in the Huffington Post)
Last Thursday, I wrote a blog about attending a Symposium at Lincoln University.
This Monday, I wrote a blog about being in a mental asylum when I was 18 after attempting suicide.
I only realised today that there is a link between the two, though tenuous.
One of the participants at the Symposium – a retired senior fire officer – said that, at one point in his life, he kept having a recurring image (spot the tautology) popping into his mind of a young girl with a hideously burnt face and body sitting in the back seat of his car when he looked into his rear view mirror
Eventually, he was able to find someone who could get the frightening image out of his mind. All that someone did was to tap their finger rhythmically on the senior fire officer’s hand.
It took three sessions, but it worked.
No idea why it worked.
Perhaps it was something to do with the rhythm of the distraction bringing the brain back to reality.
But, afterwards, he no longer saw in his mind the image of a young girl with a hideously burnt face and body in his rear view mirror.
The image he saw in his mind was eventually identified as the view he had had of a girl through the windscreen of the car she had been sitting in when it collided with another car, trapping her feet. The car burst into flames and she burnt to death, while fully conscious. The senior fire officer had been in charge of the team that recovered her body, which involved him putting his face next to hers.
The repeated tapping on his hand somehow removed the repeated Post Traumatic Stress Disorder image from his brain.
I asked if the speed of the rhythm of the taps altered or if they were always at the same speed, because I thought maybe there was some connection with the fact that people can have epileptic fits when they see tsunamis of flash photography. I read once about people having epileptic fits when driving along a particular road in France.
It was one of those long, straight, flat roads with tall trees planted on each side at regular intervals. When there was bright sunlight shining through the trees at one side and a car drove at a particular speed, the trees caused the human eye to see flashes of sunlight at a rhythm which, I think, coincided with the brain waves of drivers prone to epilepsy and they had a fit. The solution was to replant the trees at irregular intervals.
I wondered if tapping at a particular speed was somehow replicating the speed of some brain waves.
I showed a rough version of the blog you are now reading to the retired senior fire officer this morning. He warned me:
“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is somewhat different to the epileptic fit process you describe and it does not help those who suffer to confuse the two.
“In my case, I blame thirty plus years of emergency service work in both the Police and Fire Services. Whilst a single traumatic (traumatic in the eye of the beholder, but not necessarily in the eye of someone else) event can have long lasting impact, the impact of multiple traumatic events over a period of years, (say daily or more frequently for thirty years) is more likely to cause problems for that viewer, unless they are emotionless.
“The impact of long term exposure to horror or stress has been described to me as being like placing books of problems on a shelf. At some point there will be too many books on the shelf for the screws holding it up, they will loosen and the shelf collapses. The shelf and books have to be re-hung and re-ordered. That’s what the tapping does. It re-tightens the screws and re-orders the books in the right place.
“My burnt girl vision came about some years after the event when my then employers sought to train me and five other officers in how to deal with traumatised fire fighters. To do this, they used a number of actors to play the roles of the said fire fighters and explain to us their feelings after a particular set of scenarios including a person being burnt alive. We had to recognise and treat their suffering. Four or five of the six of us receiving this training then experienced our own Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms, which had to be treated. The training method was then abandoned.”
It would be interesting to know why the repeated tapping cured his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder visions of the young girl with a hideously burnt face.
I have never tried chanting mantras morning and night – as someone I met the other week does. My sense of the ridiculous holds me back. But I think I read somewhere that it does not matter what you chant – you could chant over and over again Om mani padme hum – or Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare – or Scrambled eggs, see me eating, thirty scrambled eggs to the tune of The Beatles’ Yesterday – and the effect would be the same.
I remember lying in a bed in King George’s Hospital in Ilford after I had tried to commit suicide and I realised, without consciously having started to do it, that my forefinger was tapping rhythmically on the mattress under the pillow loud enough for me to hear it through the pillow though not loud enough for anyone else to hear it. For some reason, this helped clear my mind of thoughts, perhaps like some sort of repeated mantra.
It is the repetition not the content which is important.
The human brain must be an interesting thing.
I wish I knew something about it.
Perhaps those episodes of Doctor Who which had The Master going on and on and on about hearing a tap-tap-tapping in his head had some reflection in reality.
I must watch the repeats.
Filed under Mental health, Psychology, Religion
Tagged as brain, Doctor Who, emergency services, epileptic fit, fear, fireman, horror, Madness, mantra, Master, mind, nightmare, police, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, repetition, rhythm, stress, suicide, tapping, terror, thought, vision, wave
Jul 6, 2011 · 11:58 am
The roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd… and the terrified comedian
The stage. The spotlights. And the fear.
Three major things performers get off on.
And, when comedians are inexperienced, the third is so strong, they often forget the first two.
You can spot inexperienced comedians because they step forward, out of the stage lights, so they can see the audience’s faces and the audience becomes more human, less of a faceless beast in the dark.
But the result is that the performer’s face becomes dimmer and less distinct.
So you have a dimly-lit performer standing in front of a well-lit background and the human eye is overwhelmed by the bright background, which makes the performer’s face even dimmer.
The audience can’t see the performer’s eyes and facial expressions clearly. The effect and impact of what the performer says is lessened.
What the performer has done through fear in an attempt to have more impact has had the opposite effect.
Even worse – and I saw it happen twice recently – some performers without careful pre-planning and with their head filled with professionally suicidal fog actually come down off the stage to directly interact with the audience. They think it’s ‘bonding’. In fact, it’s wanking.
You can get away with it after a lot of careful thought, detailed pre-planning and a lot of live performance experience. But not “cos I feel like it”.
It makes the performer feel better – real live interaction with real live people – but it means, off the stage and in semi-darkness, most of the audience can see fuck all of what the performer is doing. The audience might as well be listening to a radio programme in the dark. If the performer has actual genuine eye contact with one punter, it means all other members of the audience are being excluded.
Eyes, Facial expressions. Brightly lit. Details seen clearly. That’s why audiences go to live shows. To see the performer clearly. That’s what communication is about.
Rule One of stand-up comedy… even in a small room…
If you can see the audience’s eyes in the middle of the room, you are standing in the wrong place. Get back into the light.
Rule Two of stand-up comedy… even in a small room…
If you cannot feel the warmth of the light(s) on the front and sides of your face, you are standing in the wrong place. Get back into the light.
Rule Three of stand-up comedy… even in a small room…
If there is a stage and you have come off it to ‘bond’ with the audience, get your mind off your insecurities and think about the audience’s viewpoint not your own. Get back on the fucking stage. Get back into the light.
Don’t think of the audience as a faceless beast in the dark, about to rip your soul asunder at any moment.
Think of your light as a warm womb protecting you. The faceless beast out there in the dark is just a bad dream and you will be backstage drinking lukewarm tea in less than an hour – perhaps less than ten minutes…
Stay in the light.
It’s why you wanted to perform in the first place. To communicate with people. Clearly.
(This blog was also published by the comedy industry website Chortle.)
Filed under Comedy, Psychology, Theatre
Tagged as actor, audience, bond, bonding, comedian, comic, communication, crowd, edinburgh fringe, experience, fear, greasepaint, heckling, inexperienced, lights, new, performance, performer, spotlight, stage, stage craft, stand uo
Jun 3, 2011 · 10:53 am
The very worst visual horrors of life – from Jaffa Cakes to nipples
Last night, I went to a very belated birthday party thrown for Scots comedian Janey Godley by a central London private members’ club whose name, much like Lord Voldemort, cannot be spoken out loud. By “very belated” I mean that Janey’s birthday was actually in January.
There are always interesting conversations to be had at the ‘Voldemort Club’.
Last night, it started with Jaffa Cakes.
Janey’s new agent Triona Adams, a former nun, told me that actor Ian Richardson’s father had created the Jaffa Cake when he was working for McVitie’s in the 1920s.
There was then talk of people laying Jaffa Cakes on graves because artificial flowers turned white, which I did not quite follow.
And I mentioned I used to work with someone at a Soho facilities house who claimed she was terrified of Jaffa Cakes, which I took to be a joke or a mild eccentricity until, many months later, someone actually brought a plate of Jaffa Cakes into the room and she had to leave in quite considerable emotional distress.
She told me afterwards, still upset: “It’s the texture. They’re dark and it’s the way the light reflects off the dark curves of the chocolate.”
Comedian Meryl O’Rourke – who annoyingly told me she has the ability to eat loads yet stay thin – something I miserably fail to do – was able to top this story last night with the tale of an ex-boyfriend who was frightened of buttons.
Not Cadbury’s Chocolate Buttons but the ones on clothing.
Quite how he managed to function in everyday life I cannot imagine.
Apparently he developed the idea as a child that babies came out of the belly-button and I can only imagine as an adult he had visions of a straining button on a shirt suddenly exploding into a new-born baby, much like the chest-buster scene in Alien.
It got worse because he found the visual appearance of women’s nipples reminded him of buttons and, the first time Meryl took her clothes off in front of him, he vomited.
Surprisingly, the relationship carried on for a while and Meryl has now been happily married for twelve years (obviously not to that boyfriend), though her upcoming Edinburgh Fringe show is titled Bad Mother.
The show is about Meryl’s relationship to her daughter and to her own mother. Apparently her mother, whose first memory was being beaten by a Nazi officer (she was a German Jew), used to stalk minor British showbiz celebrities with young Meryl in tow. I heard some of the stories last night. The show itself should be a cracker.
Perhaps appropriately, Bad Mother is going to be in the Underbelly.
You certainly meet interesting people at the ‘Voldemort Club’.
Filed under Comedy, History, Psychology, Strange phenomena, Theatre
Tagged as Alien, artificial flowers, Bad Mother, birth, buttons, Cadbury, celebrity, chest-buster, chocolate, club, comedy, edinburgh fringe, fear, German, graves, Ian Richardson, irrational, Jaffa Cakes, janey godley, Jew, london, McVitie, members, Meryl O’Rourke, myth, nazi, neurosis, nipples, nun, private, showbiz, showbusiness, Soho, Triona Adams, Underbelly, Voldemort
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Lazy Poets
"Till experience teaches them to catch, and to cage the fairies and elves."
Lazy Poets Webcomic #1
October 18, 2016 / pk1yen / Leave a comment
The Half-Way-Through-Review. No.9: The Hand That First Held Mine
September 6, 2016 / jonraycook / Leave a comment
The Hand That First Held Mine. Maggie O’Farrell. 1943. (Headline, 2011)
If the middle-age, middle-class woman has a natural habitat it is surely the book club. Their hegemony over the organised reading of things is well-known, (and statistically corroborated) but the extent of this pre-eminence was not truly made clear to me until I took the trouble to actually join one. I’ve never really been that concerned to formally share my thoughts on literature with others beyond the medium of this blog, whereby I can shout nonsense into the ether, relatively cosy in the knowledge that little by way of belligerence will be forthcoming. What swayed me from my usual reticence on this occasion was the embarrassingly mundane carrot of a miniscule slot on a provincial UK radio station. And so, I find myself 2 weeks from broadcast D-Day reading a novel I would never have chosen, with the mounting suspicion that I’ve crossed an unspoken social divide, for which a suitable comeuppance is being prepared forthwith. Whilst it’s undoubtedly refreshing on a personal level that my worldview is now that much greater thanks to this largely useless insight into how the other half lives, I wouldn’t be wholeheartedly against the genie being returned to its bottle.
The nature of my group’s democratically nominated choice of book for our debut session did not initially leave me feeling less exposed, in a manner that is honestly pretty unusual as an educated white male. With florid purple cover, and endorsements from Elle, Marie Claire, and Woman and Home, Maggie O’Farrell’s The Hand that First Held Mine stakes its claim to a particularly gendered audience pretty severely. At the halfway point I’m still not too sure why this should be the case. Sure, the book deals with relationships, with love, and with loss, and it does so in a manner less masculine cerebral and more maternally contemplative, but there is simply nothing here in the substance of the plot, the characters, or the narrative tone that need render it chick-lit, unless we accept that the notion of a character with post-natal depression is too alien a concept for the male psyche to comprehend. Maybe the publishers simply worry that female protagonists will not strike a chord with male readers, though in the age of Katniss, Hermione, and Arya that theory’s pretty hard to uphold. Whilst nowhere near as iconic (and somewhat older), the women of O’Farrell’s tale would fit well into such company, given that brooding, dislocated, Elena and combative, whirlwind Lexi are complex and layered individuals, rather than the one-dimensional caricatures of the female which would legitimately discourage readers of either sex. And given that we spend half our time with their male counterparts in any case, who are granted as much impetus and agency as their opposite numbers, worries over our developing a testosterone deficiency are plainly unfounded. It’s genuinely baffling that such regressive marketing exists well into the second decade of the 21st century.
Of course, the book has flaws, but again they’re refreshingly unisex shortcomings, bog-standard literary imperfections not solely borne, as far as I can subjectively tell, from any macho prejudices on my part. It would not be fair to say that any of the main group, Lexi, Elena, Ted or even Innes were totally one-dimensional. As referenced above, their depictions are nuanced and each individual marries a human unpredictability with their own personal variety of innate compassion. Innes is inescapably predatory, and I sense that the character works much better on the page than he might on a TV screen, (or indeed were he chasing real-life girls through real-life London) but even he maintains a certain naiveté and vulnerability that keep us on his side. But if the characters win our affection early on, it’s a shame they can’t build anything from this. There is no development of note in any of our four main players. This is most pronounced with Elena and Ted, whose mutual weary detachment, mental checkouts, and unconscious recriminations have all the variety of a Belgian landscape. In the case of Lexi on the other hand, her marooning from her past leaves her attached to Innes for both emotional and actual direction which, whilst central to the story O’Farrell presumably wants to develop for her heroine, leaves both our paramours in a form of dead-end limbo for the first 200 pages. Innes’ death ostensibly frees Lexi to grow and flourish away from the small world they inhabited together, but little that the author or character have done so far suggests such a radical alteration of course.
This lack of methodical progression seems to stem from the trait of O’Farrell’s which is both her strength and her weakness: her ability to write the realistic. Episodes such as Ted’s occasional miasmas of confusion or Elena’s cold terror at the surreal monotony of her world post-child are rendered so vividly that our inhabiting of their world need be nothing but effortless. When Lexi finds herself in a dingy London bar, her surroundings and its attendant denizens are presented with such clarity that it instantly gains the familiarity of one’s favoured local, even if there exists no resemblance whatsoever. Much as this authenticity helps us transcend the boundary between our own reality and that of the author’s fiction, it also leaves the journey feeling less like a holiday and more like a business trip. By focusing overlong on the humdrum, commonplace, and everyday aspects of existence, in both the 1950s and contemporary versions of our backdrop, the appeal of dipping in to either is greatly reduced. Again, Elena and Ted take this to a level beyond Lexi and Innes, as their dialogue in every interaction basically boils down to some mumbled, fumbled attempts at empathy and a collective shrug, this then repeated ad perpetuum. Every conversation is eminently believable, and exactly how I imagine a couple in their situation would communicate, but it’s not sustainable to the level attempted here without some form of modulation. As with The Glass Bead Game, this conscious choice of tone is central to the novel’s makeup. In Hesse’s work, Joseph Knecht’s academic aloofness remained to the very end. Conversely The Hand that First Held Mine seems to be rendering a tipping point unavoidable at the halfway marker.
The success of the novel really hinges on how successfully any change of pace is brought about. There is the seed of a really good novel here, for readers of either sex, if the meandering rootlessness and simmering resentment of the first half is a building block for something more, rather than an end in itself. The early results of the Half-Way-Through Review suggest we rarely change our feelings about a story drastically from those we hold at the end of the first half. Maggie O’Farrell’s slow-burner is the most obvious candidate to upset this apple-cart. Maybe the secret lies in those maligned marketing choices. I was so sure I’d hate the flowery, girly nonsense that surely lay within, that I’m progressively more ecstatic to find something completely different.
1/2 Way Rating: 6/10 Final Rating: 8/10
The Half-Way-Through-Review. No.8: The Glass Bead Game
August 4, 2016 September 6, 2016 / jonraycook / Leave a comment
The Glass Bead Game. Herman Hesse. 1943. (Vintage Classics, 2000)
Writing in any form should always be challenging (though perhaps less so than this blog would make seem), but maintaining the concentration to produce a novel during a World War is presumably a wholly different kettle of fish. The fact that Hermann Hesse, ensconced in the relative tranquillity of neutral Switzerland for the duration of the second global conflict of the 20th century, might have dreamt of utopian futures is completely understandable given the destruction of not only human life, but also the artistic and cultural inheritance of central Europe taking place in the countries around his adopted homeland. That he used the Glass Bead Game to dissemble a flawed paradise rather than posit an unblemished plan for a better tomorrow shows however that Hesse’s literary and critical skills maintained the ability to rise about his immediate historical context and see a different and bigger picture, rather than a narrow band coloured by Nazism and warfare. Counterintuitively there is a lovely optimism in Hesse’s refusal to take us to an idealised future but instead to continue his investigation of the human quest for knowledge begun elsewhere in his canon in works such as Siddhartha. It’s simply impossible to read Hesse’s last work and maintain a negative view of the human race. Those peopling the Glass Bead Game are never perfect but are almost uniformly well-meaning and where humanity falls short of its abilities the culprit is always a lesser sin such as ignorance or over-confidence rather than any genuine manifestation of malice. Whilst ideas of good and evil are not central to the novel, the author’s unspoken yet tangible stance makes for a subtly and refreshingly uplifting read.
On the other hand, the nature of the world we find ourselves in also self-consciously lays bare the potential downside to Hesse’s positivity, and to my mind prevents this intriguing tale from soaring to the heights of a true classic. The world of The Glass Bead Game is painfully dull. The fact that this is a deliberate conceit on the author’s part doesn’t prevent it impacting on our enjoyment of the story. The debate about what gives meaning to an individual’s life, and whether the quest for cultural and intellectual pursuits can by itself bring definition to anywhere near the same degree as genuine suffering, is of course stimulating and Hesse presents both sides with precision, tact and wit. However, the fact that the landscapes presented to us are so one-dimensional is deeply problematic. The narrative exists in a sexless, airless vacuum devoid of tension or excitement, which on the one hand proves that any ahistorical, apolitical utopian society would be untenably mundane, but conversely is stifling within minutes of entering into it. In a novella this might perhaps be sustainable; in a full-blown novel it’s a genuine obstacle to enjoyment.
By the same token, whilst marooned in an environment of sterile placidity, we remain permanently welded to a likeable yet undeniably bland main character. Joseph Knecht is too perfect to inspire any sort of lasting place in the memory, regardless of his supposed multiple crises of faith throughout his life span. As a parody of multiple genres, amongst them overtly flattering biography and the bildungsroman of the prodigy, the manipulation of Knecht’s life story is an expert display of craftsmanship. Again though, this isn’t enough for us to span the ocean that divides us from a real empathy with our hero. It’s not merely that he has none of the regular drivers of a normal human being, be they sexual, financial, professional or otherwise. Nor is the banality of the few personal relationships he manages to maintain the real issue, though the thoroughly wet Tegularius and the would-be anti-Knecht Designori allow little room for interaction of the non-didactic variety. Really it’s the ease with which all this is accepted. The philosophical questions which Knecht wrestles with and which tempt him to stray from the accepted path, are meant to be accepted as manifestations of a deep and long-running battle for his soul but thanks to his cool detachment these chasms register as nothing more than a slight existential ennui. There is of course still half a novel for these conflicts to bear fruit, but the otherworldly, saintly nature of our protagonist suggests they will be resolved without involved philosophical or narrative satisfaction for anyone but Knecht himself.
That might seem damning but more than a few shafts of light persist. From the outset, as suggested above, the Glass Bead Game is steeped in the spiritual, well-meaning humanism of the author. Hesse imparts a wonderful love of learning, especially music throughout, yet never strays into the proximity of preachiness. It’s nothing less than a pleasant and wholesome read throughout. Moreover, the construction of the work, being two parts narrative of Knecht life, and one part Knecht’s own writings, leaves a lot of room for a change of pace, style and characterisation as we move into the latter pages. Indeed, it’s probable that these less straightforward structures might produce the bigger shift in HWTR grades, but it’s early in the experiment, and time will tell. In the meantime, we can only join our favourite Castalian in wondering how far we can subsist on wholesomeness alone.
The Limerick Digest. No.1: LimEUricks
June 22, 2016 June 24, 2016 / jonraycook / Leave a comment
The news, for those who haven’t the time, as communicated by the ghost of Edward Lear.
This week: Britain covers itself in glory, as direct democracy avoids the pitfalls of fact or reasoned debate. And millions around the globe wait to see if the inhabitants of the UK will get their country back, whilst asking what exactly it looks like, and where did they last have it?
No.1: The Owl and the Autocrat
There once was a man called Farage,
Who sailed down the Thames on a barge,
He declaimed: ‘But it’s true,
If it weren’t for the EU,
I’d have had a boat two times as large’.
No.2: Farage Redux
That mad former banker Farage,
Routinely the facts did massage,
He howled: ‘EU sods,
Stop us fishing our cods,
Though this clearly was nought but mirage
No.3: The UKIP strikes back
There was an old chap from UKIP,
Who sailed nary to sea in a ship,
Cried out he: ‘Why dwell so,
On news from 2 weeks ago?’
In this post’s case an apposite quip.
No.4: Unfair generalisations of the most toxic kind
An Isle in the midst of the sea,
Decided it’s need to be free,
From the EU’s red tape,
So it made it’s escape,
On the back of a racist or three.
No.5: Appease is a dirty word
The Honorable Member for Witney
Had a hard time campaigning though didn’t he?,
A bloke raised a hue,
Said he thought he could view,
Some resemblance to old Neville’s ministry.
No.6: No-score draw
That foolhardy bunch called Remain,
Couldn’t help but from facts go a-straying,
They said ‘Brussels goes halves,
On your tabs at the bars
And your mortgage they’re already paying’.
The-Half-Way-Through-Review. No. 7: The Luminaries
June 17, 2016 August 4, 2016 / jonraycook / Leave a comment
The Luminaries. Eleanor Catton. 2013. (Granta Publications, 2014)
Perhaps unsurprisingly for an 800+ page Booker Prize winning novel, The Luminaries is a tome with decided pretentions. One of the aspects of modern literature which this blog has occasionally considered in the past is the question of just how books are marketed to the public, and whilst today’s subject is not exactly in disguise, there is a certain considered coyness around elements of its constitution. Simply put, Luminaries is a crime novel, a complex historical whodunit, yet this potentially populist label is deliberately avoided. Coupled with the zodiacal seam running through its pages, (at some distance from the narrative itself), the end product is a book with an unusual but palpable aura. That we begin with a character chart, which divides our players into Stellar, Planetary and Terra Firma groups, does nothing to dispel the air of mysterious erudition, and yet the story itself could easily survive without such peripheral paraphernalia. I can’t think of too many novels whose stage is set so meticulously before the tale is begun when an absolute concrete need does not exist. Our author clearly wants us to enjoy the story against a very specific mental backdrop, which is a bold and interesting move.
I suspect that the temptation for most when reviewing such a confident book, steeped in international recognition and success, and with clear affectations from the onset, might be to find the inevitable flaws and go to town knocking the magnum opus off its lofty perch. On the other hand, maybe that’s only true for those, such as myself, with deeply uncharitable natures. In any case, whatever one’s natural predilection to build up or do down, the craftwork of The Luminaries is so strikingly apparent that to ignore it would be a callous dereliction. I am under no illusions about my own skills as a writer (exhibits A-Z for the prosecution can be found among this blog’s output) but oftentimes when I read I like to fancifully consider whether I could reasonably have fashioned even a single sentence which has gone into a work’s creation. Most of the time the answer is, obviously, an undiluted ‘no’, but even so the manner in which the cognitive wheels have turned in an author’s head to get to their end product is usually to some degree discernible, even if you can’t reproduce it yourself. With The Luminaries I found even this step outright impossible. The prose simply flows and ripples in such a unique manner as to render such analysis futile. This isn’t just because of the erudition which has gone into constructing a richly believable historical reality and its attendant denizens. Moreover, it’s testament to the fact that the author has really written a new type of novel, a page-turner which is as densely and unashamedly verbose as any classic of the Victorian era.
Nor have I come across too many books which offer such cutting insights into the fundaments of human nature. Yet it would be a huge disservice to call it aphoristic, given that these observations are interwoven so naturalistically. The effect is a ready mine of epiphanies for readers who are so inclined to accept the philosophy on offer. My personal favourite is one character’s observation that given how much of our life is given over to the contemplation of death, the afterlife itself might be a strikingly boring and empty affair. It is simply astounding how many profoundly substantial musings spring from the author’s pen, and the reader will drop their attention, even for a second, at only their own expense.
Given that this isn’t a cover blurb we should make some attempt to temper our praise for The Luminaries to some extent, and for all its craftsmanship there are some obvious flaws therein. Some of these indeed derive from its own readability. Because it’s easy to see a few hours pass in the company of this novel, and consume a hundred or so pages in the process, a repetitive reliance on some limited formulations becomes more pronounced and noticeable. We have about 15 main players in the plot, which should in theory give rise to a whole host of possible constructions of interaction. Yet we see practically the same conversation repeat itself over-and-over. Two (usually male) characters will converse. We will receive fairly lengthy declamations on their characters, temperaments and predilections (not unusual practice but, given the number of male leads, difficult to remember in their finer detail), and once or twice per scene a protagonist will learn some new information which visibly shocks them. The book is almost Socratic in its devotion to the dialogue, perhaps unsurprising for a work which reads on occasion like a philosophical tract. Amazingly though, these dialogues without fail prove to be well constructed, they move the plot along at a perfect pace, and the characters retain their own unique identities despite any shortcomings in the system. The amount of reoccurrence is jarring and uncomfortable to our sensibilities, but if the pace and enjoyability of the narrative remains intact, does this matter?
We could ask a similar question about the crime (or at this stage a presumed misdemeanour) at the very heart of the story, in terms of whether or not it is of importance to us, and to what extent we can be invested in its solution. At the moment it seems that the primary antagonist is likely to be one of the individuals who has existed on the circumference of the main action heretofore. That shouldn’t matter of course, it all depends on the execution of the reveal. The interwoven connections between each character, including with those in whose direct company we spend precious little time, have been meticulously constructed, and are immensely complicated. It would be impossible to keep track of developments, were it not for the author’s good natured and subtly reminders dotted throughout. The intricate web of our players and the depth of their back stories, coupled with prose of such quality, promises a deeply satisfying pay off. Having set our sights so high, anything less would be a disappointment. And as always, for each 100 pages you add to a text, the contract between author and reader becomes that little less forgiving.
The Half-Way-Through-Review. No. 6: Invisible Man
May 30, 2016 May 30, 2016 / jonraycook / Leave a comment
Invisible Man. Ralph Ellison. 1952. (Penguin Essentials, 2014)
Ideally, in the following scenario, I’d like to cast myself as the victim of circumstance and context. I had perused one copy of Invisible Man in my lifetime. This was a dusty volume tucked away in the bowels of an uninviting academic library, whose sombre black binding allied with a misleadingly severe synopsis inside the front cover led me to the callow conclusion that here was a worthy book, but probably not an enjoyable one. I scented exhortation and instruction and I balked. It was not until some years later that I came across Ralph Ellison’s magnum opus again, this time in the sunlit basement of a cosy, local bookstore. Gone was the dour binding, with the fresh, modern paperback instead carrying an arty, designer affect. More importantly, the misleading blurb had vanished. In its place one telling snippet of review purporting that the contents were nothing less than ‘savagely funny’.
Whatever part the contextual played, to have deprived myself of so fine a book for so long seems like just desserts for an approach to book selection so ill-advised as to be axiomatic. Ellison simply blurs so many of the boundaries inherent in most strands of literature that every new page is at once a surprise and a reward. Take our main character. On some level he is an everyman, an exemplar of the postwar black Americans who sought the decent life they were promised, and the path of his life, from an unfulfilling education through a jungle of inhospitable employment to the unavoidable heart of the city, is one which many millions must have undertaken in the same era. Yet throughout he remains a unique quantity, his actions not predictable to any template, but consistent to that singular consciousness discernible in both past and present iterations of our protagonist in spite of the vast oceans of experience which separate them.
By the same token the manner in which Ellison refuses to name our titular invisible man allows him to have his cake and eat it too. On the one hand we are forced to acknowledge the system which denies him name and personhood. On the other Ellison is explicit in repeatedly forcing us to flirt on the brink of a final knowledge of this name. These are light, playful, genuinely comedic moments, so palatable that we almost miss the nugget of truth inside, namely that identity involves much more than mere possession of forename plus surname. Yet they are instants that should make us profoundly uncomfortable also. We’re forced to confront the fact that, though we are familiar with, and comfortable in the presence of, our protagonist there is so much about him we do not know, and a chasm of experience which a reader such as myself, at such a remove of time and distance, can never truly cross.
This dichotomy gives the book a unique flavour but it one of a number which keep the book in a state of flux, and draw us away from assuming the Invisible Man’s life is one grey traverse. In a similar vein, the state of reality we experience in the book is rarely static. At one moment we are traipsing across the pristine lawns of the southern college anchored by the presence of the proud academic buildings surrounding, at the next we are thrust in to a surreal vortex of character and noise at the Golden Day. No sooner have we passed the time by literally watching paint dry, with all the attendant mundanities of trying to eke out gainful employment in the face of an obliviously ignorant employer, than this sombre semblance of routine is shattered by the industrial accident which lands our hero in hospital, via a jumble of senses and sounds which leaves us just as shell-shocked as its recipient, and renders the resultant interlude of semi-conscious drifting a welcome refreshment.
Ultimately it is this ebb and flow which gives life to the tale. Despite the narrator’s vantage point from the end of the tale, the trajectory of his immediate future seems as much to take him by surprise as it does ourselves. The action often accelerates out of nothing, and ceases motion just as fast, but when we restart it is always at a new pace, at a total remove from anything encountered before. The evolution of our hero is so bewildering and incomprehensible to him precisely because of this. He exists, through no design or desire of his own, outside of the normal experience even of time. His invisibility manifests itself again.
The Half-Way-Through-Review. No. 5: Jack Duckworth and Me
May 27, 2016 May 27, 2016 / pk1yen / Leave a comment
Jack Duckworth and Me. Bill Tarmey (& Alan Hart). (Simon & Schuster, 2010)
On the world stage, you might think that Bill Tarmey is a relatively unimportant figure. You’d be pretty much right on that count. (I had to check how to spell his surname just now, despite having read half of his autobiography literally minutes before writing this, and typing it out in the title of this post only seconds ago.)
He is more widely known in soapy circles as Jack Duckworth from Coronation Street. And this is the (first half of the) story of his life.
Coronation Street, for those out of the cultural loop, is the longest-running soap opera in the world, set in Manchester, England, and centred on the area surrounding the ‘Rovers Return’ pub. It’s popular to dismiss soap operas as a shallow and throwaway popular art-form, but for all its faults, Corrie remains genuinely well-written and well-performed, especially considering there are now five half-hour episodes every single week, and that it has been on-air continually for over 50 years. Bill played the character of Jack Duckworth between 1979-2010, described by Mark Lawson of the Guardian as: “A pigeon-fancying, flat-cap-wearing, wise-cracking, philandering, Sinatra-loving Lancashire lad, Jack epitomised the vivid character comedy in which the serial specialises.”.
DON’T TOUCH ME!
Now to the task at hand. It’s almost too easy to be dismissive and haughty about the autobiographies of B-to-Z-list celebrities. You could make a career of tracking down books by the lowliest and seemingly least-worthy personalities, and tearing them to (metaphorical) shreds. (You could make a less lucrative career tearing them to literal shreds, entering into the already-overcrowded book-pulping industry – ha ha.)
I’m not clutching my pearls here and saying that we should all live in a Medal-of-Participation world free of criticism – but it also seems too easy a lot of the time. It can sometimes feel cynical and bleak to seek out bad things on purpose, just to point out how they’re not good. And particularly with autobiographies, this approach can come across as a bit nasty (assuming the book is more than a lazy A-list cash-grab or marketing exercise).
It feels to me as though taking glee in tearing books like this apart is slightly too close to the bullying tactic of pretending to engage someone only to mock them for believing someone might be interested:
“Tell me the story of your life, it seems really interesting.”
“Really? Okay, well, I grew up in—“
“Ha! Not really you loser! Hey everyone, this guy thinks we’d be interested in his life story!”
(In a similar real-life example, I remember once at school a boy a few years above me was on crutches, and asked for help crossing a road. While it was a little suspicious, it’s not really something you can decline, so I offered an arm – whereupon he shouted “Don’t touch me!” and hobbled away with friends, laughing at his jape.)
In the end, I’m aware that nobody forced me to buy this book, it wasn’t necessarily written for me, it was very cheap, and Bill was asked to write it by the publishers rather than arrogantly foisting his life onto a world that wasn’t willing. So I think taking the effort to write a blog post tearing it apart and mocking it would say more about me than it would about Bill and his book.
But even this approach to the book still feels rather too patronising. As if we should react like parents do while watching a nervous child perform badly in a school play or do a terrible magic show at a family gathering – “Good effort, well done you for trying so hard!”.
Let’s not pretend we’re astute literary masters looking down our noses (negatively or positively) at something that we’re going to “give a chance despite its obvious deficiencies”, and let’s not be hipster-YouTube-knobheads reading it only to make jokes at the book’s expense and over-reacting for comedic effect as if the book is the worst thing in the universe.
I’m going to approach this how I try to approach most things – as if the people I’m talking about were listening in. (Incidentally, Bill died in 2012 – so there’s little chance of him wreaking mad revenge, but still.)
THE SUBJECTIVITY OF BILL
We notice pretty early on, that Bill has a tendency to focus a little too much on minor facts and figures. He lists names of family members, precisely where they lived, their relation to one another and roles in his extended family – as well as listing the top ranking characters every chapter by the number of episodes of Coronation Street that they were in each year. It’s fairly clear that no reader will possibly remember any of this information, have any use for it, or even be truly interested in it. Nothing is really done with this pile of information – it’s just there.
Throughout the book, it feels as if Bill is using this opportunity to create a solid historical record of his and his family’s life – stacking up facts that will be entered into the British Library forever upon its publication. He carefully lures us in with the promise of Coronation Street on-set gossip … and then sneaks in as many useless facts about his family and life as the ghost-writer will allow (more on him later).
And this goes on throughout. The book is full of not-quite-anecdotes which end up just being floating minutiae because they lack a real sense of significance. On p. 80, he describes how three members of his family were on television on the same day (his son as a ball-boy for Manchester City, his daughter Sara in a school choir on Tiswas, and Bill in a television play about black puddings). This is a fact that you might bring out in a slightly tongue-in-cheek way if the topic came up in conversation – but you’d expect a muted reaction even from close family members.
In his strict adherence to facts, there is very little gossip at all in the book, and it feels as though Bill is restrained at times by just how much he likes the cast (and knows that they will probably be reading). All the stories about people are positive and a little banal (barring an odd aside where he rather harshly criticises Bill Waddington’s ukulele playing in the green room), and there are few details that stick out as truly memorable or that couldn’t be found elsewhere. In an industry fuelled by incessant gossip, maddening plot spoilers and unrelenting rumours, you can’t help but feel like a lot of the fans will have been left a little unsatisfied by how nice it all is, despite the fact that Bill is simply being as professional and reasonable as he can when talking about his friends and their careers.
Bill, basically, seems like a nice bloke. And more importantly, he seems aware of how hard it is to write a life story that does not contain many of the dramatic elements people have come to expect. As Eve Claxton says: “It seems that the more a famous person has struggled and suffered, and transcended his or her difficult beginnings, the more likely their story is to feel relevant to readers”. And Bill didn’t really struggle. Not any more than most. And so the story lacks the paradoxical natural-feeling artifice of a character arc. There was no abusive childhood, no list of failures and determination before a big well-deserved success – and so the story is both more realistic and less immediately believable than most.
He is self-depreciating throughout about how foolish he has been at times, and tries to find his own way through the fundamental problem of autobiographies, that: “it is a hard and nice subject for a man to write himself; it grates his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and the reader’s ears to hear anything of praise from him” (Abraham Cowley, 1667).
At times, Bill does touch on more interesting topics, but still tries to avoid any deeper engagement. In doing so, he hides his true personality, but crucially, also allows the reader to inject their own opinions with a swift dramatic side-step. On p. 63, while talking about the working men’s club comedy circuit, he just says: “All the stand-up comics, including the black ones […] told racist jokes in those days”. And that’s it. It’s hard to tell what opinions he’s implying and what opinions we’re inferring.
Along with Bill’s own story, he also summarises the various plots and events that were happening on-screen on Coronation Street at the time. While describing his own family’s life, he describes Jack’s as well. And after a while, this juxtaposition does interesting things. In a way, he encapsulates here the essence of soap opera – it’s all plot, and there is no room for indulgent opinions, symbolism, or in-depth analyses of topics and ideas. It’s story and character, and anything not visible on-screen cannot be communicated to the audience.
Even major storylines in his career, like Jack “burning down the Rovers” show an almost-too-stringent adherence to the visible plot. Despite claiming that “Perhaps I’ll be best known as the idiot who burned down the Rovers Return” (p. xi), introducing it as an important lynchpin in his life story and character, he spends half the chapter called “Jack Burns down the Rovers” (which is a mere 6 pages long) talking about a charity football match and burgeoning heart trouble, and mentions the fire simply by describing the storyline.
The structure of the book is essentially Bill’s life told as though it were the synopsis of a soap opera character. And through this, it seems like Bill has inadvertently written a book that encourages us to ask fundamental questions of the autobiographical genre.
At its heart, the book succeeds in that it forces us to ask ourselves why we are reading it.
I’m not saying this to be trite or dismissive, or to disguise mockery behind a veneer of pretentiousness – but in telling his life story, Bill makes us think about why we are interested enough to have paid good money to read it. It makes us aware of our own approach to the book. We can see right from the title (“Jack Duckworth and Me”), the cover of him essentially in-character as Jack, and the subtitle (“My Life on the Street and other adventures”) that Bill is very aware that the vast, vast majority of people have picked up the book looking for behind-the-scenes Corrie gossip. But he also wants to tell his life story beyond this – what he sees as important events and facts, regardless of their dramatic potential – and what results is an odd tension between these approaches.
He tells his life story, and in doing so makes us aware that a life story is more than just a story – it’s more than a plot synopsis punctuated by anecdotes.
IS THIS YOUR LIFE?
I confess, when I saw the book, I did buy it with the hope that it would be awful and I could perhaps quote choice passages and make jokes at its expense in this TWTBR – but as mentioned above, the book made me reconsider this approach pretty quickly, and got me thinking about why I was looking for a terrible book in the first place. Similarly, I imagine those who bought it for gossip or slander not only found themselves a little disappointed – but also found themselves asking why they were looking for these in the first place, and why they expected to find them at all.
And this leads to deeper ideas, as the book continues – and you really do find yourself asking why people seek out and read autobiographies at all, and why they are almost exclusively written by famous entertainers or media personalities. Bill actually talks about this exact issue while mentioning his time on This Is Your Life.
This is Your Life was a long-running show where a ‘special guest’ was taken by surprise by the host, whisked away to the studio, and then told the story of their life from a big red book, accompanied by people from their past. As Bill says, the original series of This is Your Life was not solely focused on the lives of celebrities, as it was later, but also on “worthy” members of the public (a firefighter who saved dozens of people from a burning building, for example). But this soon stopped when “viewers were switching channels if the star of the show was unknown” (p. 176).
There are obviously exceptions to this when it comes to autobiographies, but it seems there is something special and specific about fame that makes us want to read someone’s life story. It can’t just be that we’re aware of the celebrity and feel like we know them – because could you honestly say you’d be interested in reading the life story of any of your friends? (You’d feign enthusiasm, but I doubt you’d fork out £12.99 – and you’d probably spend more time being indignant about their audacity behind their back than actually reading the book.) And it can’t just be that an exciting life makes for a popular book (there are millions of people whose life stories are dramatic and exciting, but find themselves without book deals).
And while he never approaches it directly, Bill’s book raises this exact question. What’s the purpose of an autobiography, and what was Bill trying to achieve?
Is it to entertain an audience, or to accurately tell the story of a life? Many writers have huge trouble trying to write the story of a real life, because lives are not structured in a way that makes them easy or satisfying to tell. This is why the juxtaposition of Bill and Jack’s life is so enlightening, as Jacks life is – simply put – more interesting than Bill’s on the whole. In the same way as in badly-written historical dramas, the banal but crucial facts of real life often weigh down the story, and the narrative is overtaken by research and adherence to one version of the truth.
A Beautiful Mind, the movie purporting to be a biography of the mathematician John Nash is almost entirely fictionalised, taking the basic foundations from the book, but editing and changing details which do not fit a strict narrative structure. Whole events are removed, affairs which complicate the marriage-arc of the movie are simplified, and a complex and deeply-rooted schizophrenia which manifested aurally is simplified to a fight-Club-style visual twist. And this isn’t a bad thing – it makes for a good movie. But it’s not John Nash’s life story. And do we even want to know John Nash’s life story, when the movie alternative is not only better-structured, but also has the potential to tell us more about the character of John Nash than an adherence to the facts could tell us about the real John Nash? Hamlet tells us more about the human condition than a biography of Shakespeare.
Bill’s adherence to the facts, then, when contrasted with Jack’s fictional life shows just how far from a “life story” a standard autobiography is. Lives are not made up of hilarious and interesting anecdotes. They are made up of small, intimate facts and events that mean different things to different people, and mean everything to the person doing the writing. And sometimes it’s hard to know what to make of the facts of someone else’s life. Because they don’t matter to those who didn’t live them. They can mean the world to you, as part of your rich unconscious cross-stitch, but to an outsider they are quickly forgotten.
And this is where we have to finally confront the idea of a ghost writer (in this case, Alan Hart).
THE GHOST IN THE SOAP MACHINE
A ghost writer’s job is seemingly to arrange the “real author’s” reminiscences and facts and recollections into a serviceable book. But this approach has wider-reaching effects than simply acting as a catalytic converter (metaphor) for the writer’s content (stories) – filtering out impurities (boring bits) from the writer’s exhaust pipe (mouth) through the clever use of platinum (money).
Ideally, a ghost writer’s influence would be minimal, teasing out stories from the writer that they might ordinarily have forgotten, and providing a structural and narrative framework to best tell the story (helping to get around the problem of real lives being narratively unsound in terms of structure). But a ghost can get in the way, and it feels here as though Alan’s voice and style tends to mute Bill’s at times.
It arguable that any ghost-written autobiography is merely an authorised biography – a true connection to the writer being censored (however inadvertently) by the ghost. It’s impossible to know the real influence of a ghost writer, but it really seems like Bill’s voice struggles to come through properly here. You can tell a lot by a writer’s use of sentence structure, how they organise their thoughts, and how they tell their stories on the page – and it feels as if a lot of this has been intentionally flattened, which distances us from a true connection.
But this doesn’t necessarily negate the above points – the core of the book is still Bill. It’s his life and his story – and while the ghost seems to hinder Bill’s true voice a little, it does not detract from the questions the book raises. In fact, it adds to them. Why are we seeking out autobiographies, particularly those not ‘really’ written by the people they claim to be written by? What are we looking for?
In the end, the book succeeds in that it confronts us with an almost absurdist approach to the genre. It doesn’t ask us what our motivations were for reading it – it makes us ask ourselves.
The people seeking gossip and malicious rumours are left asking themselves why they expected a nice bloke like Bill to risk his career and friendships to satisfy this rather nasty impulse. The people seeking a terrible book to mock are left asking themselves why they were so desperate to take glee in someone’s perceived failure. Are we looking for inspiration? Advice? A strong narrative? A closer look into the mind of someone we recognise? Anecdotes and factoids to relay to others at parties?
In the end – it’s a nice and unremarkable book. But there are depths there (as there are everywhere) if you’re willing to look for them.
It’s a book that certainly deserves to have been written (if not necessarily read).
POST-SCRIPT: FOUR GOOD MOMENTS FROM THE FIRST HALF
We could of course continue along these lines, and dissect the autobiographical genre in much more depth – but to do so would stray too far from our aim of reviewing the first half of this book.
So to put aside the navel-gazing on the analysis of the form – here are four moments which stood out most strongly in the first half of Bill’s book, all of which feel like something tender and interesting slipped through the attempts to be truly objective.
The first, is the genuinely touching detail (which is never mentioned outright), that Bill and his wife Ali met at school, and remained together until his death in 2010. But what stands out is the way this is approached – there is no melodramatic declaration of love at first sight, no descent into cliché or pride in the length and scope of the relationship – it’s as if it was almost a given, and not even worth mentioning. It feels like it was obvious to Bill that they were a perfect match, and so to draw attention to or dramatise it was unnecessary. (I actually had to go back and check the names, because I was surprised by the lack of fanfare at their remarkable relationship.)
The second point is where Bill talks about fans’ odd tendency to talk to him as if he really was Jack Duckworth: “I didn’t understand how rational people could chat as if I were a character in a soap opera. Surely they knew it was only pretend. […] It’s often nervousness on their part. They want to say something but they don’t know what. So they talk to me as if I’m Jack” (p. 89). This comes across as a casual but genuinely incisive point about human nature and our relation to fictional characters (and celebrity), showing an enviable amount of empathy and joy in his many interactions with fans.
The third is the feeling of incongruity on p. 154: the descriptions of queues of fans turning up wearing Jack’s signature broken glasses from Corrie, and of huge advertising billboards in the centre of Tokyo featuring his face, that seem so at odds with the intimacy of the rest of the book. You tend to forget that Coronation Street is as big and popular as it is, because there’s none of the international fanfare and advertisement of the ‘bigger’ television series. You’d never have clips of Corrie going viral on Reddit, and despite its massive viewing figures it always seems to come across as a fairly modest working-class kitchen-sink drama. And yet, Jack Duckworth was a big enough character to have queues of people in Canada and Japan literally cosplaying as him.
The fourth is Bill’s description of how he used to be able to tell his dad’s intentions by how and whether he was wearing his flat cap: “If he came in and kept his cap on, it meant he was going straight out again. If he sat down and put his cap by the side of him while he ate a meal, he was going out again later. If he put it on the hook, he was staying for the rest of the night. If he put it on the tallboy, he hadn’t decided what he was going to do with the rest of the night and he was keeping his options open” (p. 124). While this is basically as small and inconsequential a factoid as describing how three members of his family were on television at the same time, it manages to convey a deep essence of character that is missing from a lot of the other recollections. This is what separates good writing (especially in soaps) from the bad. It’s not necessarily about what happens in the plot, but rather the subtlety and depth of the characters actions, and what it tells you about them.
1/2 Way Rating: 5/10
Final Rating: ?/10
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The Half-Way-Through-Review
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Students Urged to Apply for Pioneering Cyber Schools Programme
by Lewis | Aug 15, 2017 | News, Tech News | 0 comments
Teenagers are being encouraged to register their interest in taking part in a cyber security schools programme being rolled out as part of plans to help the nation address the risk of a future skills shortage.
Today a new website has been launched where students, teachers and industry can register their interest.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)’s Cyber Schools Programme will see thousands of the best and brightest young minds given the opportunity to learn cutting-edge cyber security skills alongside their secondary school studies through a nationwide network of extracurricular clubs, activities and a new online game.
It aims to support and encourage schoolchildren to develop some of the key skills they would need to work in the growing cyber security sector and help defend the nation’s businesses against online threats.
SANS, BT, FutureLearn and Cyber Security Challenge UK have today been confirmed as partners to deliver the programme and prospective students, teachers, industry members and volunteers can now register their interest in advance of the scheme.
Minister of State for Digital Matt Hancock said:
“Our Cyber Schools Programme aims to inspire the talent of tomorrow and give thousands of the brightest young minds the chance to learn cutting-edge cyber security skills alongside their secondary school studies.
I encourage all those with the aptitude, enthusiasm and passion for a cyber security career to register for what will be a challenging and rewarding scheme.”
Up to £20m has been made available to deliver the programme which will see students take a comprehensive cyber curriculum mixing expert, instructor-led classroom and online teaching with real-world challenges, online games and hands-on work experience.
Students will be selected for the programme via a pre-entry assessment, and the scheme will provide them with clear pathways into the cyber security industry via direct contact with industry experts. Cyber security firms and industry volunteers are also encouraged to register their interest to be involved.
Applications are open to students aged 14 to 18, with hundreds of hours of extra curricular content designed to fill a four-year programme. It will be delivered in modules and students up 18 years old can join at any time providing they meet the right criteria. Older students, for example, may work through the content and challenges at a faster pace.
The target is for at least 5,700 teenagers to be trained by 2021. The pilot programme year will be launched in the autumn.
The news comes as DCMS also confirms £500k funding to continue a pilot to help adults who want to retrain for a job in cyber security by taking a GCHQ-accredited master’s degree.
Up to £500k will be distributed between participating universities to help those who want to use their skills and work experience to move into a cyber security career.
Those interested in applying must first be accepted onto participating courses and apply for the bursary through the university.
These initiatives are all part of the Government’s National Cyber Security Programme to find, finesse and fast-track tomorrow’s online security experts. This also includes:
The Government’s Cyber Security Apprenticeships for Critical Sectors Scheme which is supporting leading employers in critical sectors including telecoms, broadcasting, energy and transport to develop the next generation of cyber security professionals through higher apprenticeships. It is currently open for applications for its second phase here.
The CyberFirst bursary funding scheme offers grants of up to £4,000 for up to 1,000 students by 2020 to study a relevant degree, do a placement or attend a summer school, and, depending on meeting requirements, the chance to work in national security on graduation.
There are also 1,250 free places on CyberFirst in 2017 and an additional CyberFirst Girls Competition, where teams of 12-to-14-year-old young women can pit their wits against one another to crack a series of online puzzles.
To learn more, visit the gov.uk website here.
Photo by Caspar Rubin on Unsplash
Hemingway Design to join Market Hall team
Kier to transform Plymouth’s iconic Market Hall into immersive cinema – the first of its kind in Europe
Planning permission granted for Market Hall development
Market Hall plans to be submitted
The Market Hall on RIBA Stage 2 is completed!
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Movies starring Kami Cotler
The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (1971)
100 mins Drama, Family, TV Movie
Movie Review - The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (1971) it's Christmas Eve and Olivia Walton (Patricia Neal) becomes concerned when she hears of a bus accident and sends out John-Boy (Richard Thomas) to look for his Pa, John ...
The Waltons: The Easter Story (1973)
101 mins Drama, TV Movie
The Waltons: The Easter Story (1973) (aka: A Walton Crisis) - when Olivia is struck down with Polio John-Boy seeks out help to prevent her from being paralysed...
Mother's Day on Waltons Mountain (1982)
96 mins Drama, TV Movie
In total there have been 7 movies featuring "The Waltons"; the original "The Homecoming: A Christmas Story" which preceded the TV series, 3 TV specials which followed the end of the series in the 80s and then another 3 reunio...
A Day for Thanks on Walton's Mountain (1982)
97 mins Drama, Family, TV Movie
So "A Day for Thanks on Walton's Mountain" was the third of the made for TV movies which were made in the 80s immediately after the long running TV series had finished. And for me this third TV movie was on par with the previ...
A Wedding on Walton's Mountain (1982)
A Wedding on Walton's Mountain (1982) Erin Walton finds herself torn between Paul and her first love Ashley, whilst Ben has taken on a big contract, maybe too big for him to handle...
A Walton Thanksgiving Reunion (1993)
I should admit that I was a huge fan of The Walton's growing up but as it seems like many I kind of stopped watching them once Richard Thomas left the series. I should also admit that when it comes to the movie spin-offs I ha...
A Walton Wedding (1995)
Nostalgic warmth, that sense of being transported back to your younger days when you come across an old favourite. It is something which I feel when ever I catch a rerun of "The Waltons" and something I also felt when I sat d...
A Walton Easter (1997)
I've mentioned it before but I grew up watching "The Waltons" and I still catch an occasional episode when ever re-runs are being shown on the True Entertainment channel but what I didn't realise is how much detail I had take...
* This is purely a list of reviews on The Movie Scene featuring the name Kami Cotler as one of the principle cast members.
Simple list of Kami Cotler movies
The Breakfast Club (1985)
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Las Cruces Economic Development
Las Cruces has a strong standing nationally as a place to retire and conduct business, which will no doubt contribute to the attraction of green industry and to the community’s economic growth. The Mesilla Valley Economic Development Alliance is your best source of information for economic facts and indicators, labor and employment statistics, and census information.
Las Cruces Economic Indicators
The Mesilla Valley Economic Development Alliance provides information on a number of important economic indicators including labor and employment, wage and salary information, construction, and gross receipts.
Las Cruces Area Labor & Employment
The largest employers in the area are Las Cruces Public Schools, New Mexico State University and White Sands Missile Range. Other large employers include the City of Las Cruces and the medical centers. Read More….
Las Cruces Area Economic Sectors
The local economy remains stronger than in many areas of the U.S., although there have been definite downturns. Housing construction appears stable and manufacturing and trades show signs of improvement. Read More…
Las Cruces Census Information
The total population of Las Cruces as of the 2010 census is 97,618. Dona Ana County’s population is 209,233. Other census information available includes social, economic and housing characteristics.
MVEDA – Las Cruces Economic Development
MVEDA is a public/private sector economic development partnership for Dona Ana County. MVEDA is the central point of contact for industries considering relocating and expanding into the area, providing the facts and assistance needed for evaluation. Read More…
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New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum featuring Peter Hurd exhibit New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum 4100 Dripping Springs Road
16nov8:00 am16sep7:00 pmNew Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum featuring Peter Hurd exhibit
A new exhibition at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum in Las Cruces captures the essence of one of the state’s great artists — Peter Hurd.“Drawn to the
A new exhibition at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum in Las Cruces captures the essence of one of the state’s great artists — Peter Hurd.
“Drawn to the Land: Peter Hurd’s New Mexico” features 24 paintings and some of the artist’s belongings, including one of his palettes with brushes, a pair of chaps, boots, sombrero, guitar, and polo helmet and mallet. The show, which includes loans from the Hurd La Rinconada Gallery in San Patricio, N.M., and the El Paso Museum of Art, also features a video about Hurd (1904-1984).
The exhibit opened in the Museum’s Traditions Gallery on Nov. 16 and will be on display through Sept. 13, 2019.
“We’re so pleased to present the work of Peter Hurd at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum,” said Chief Curator Lisa Pugh. “Through his portraits and paintings, Hurd celebrated a uniquely New Mexican way of life and depicted the inexplicable beauty of the southern high plains in a way no other artist could.”
Hurd, who was born and raised in the Roswell area, settled in the Hondo Valley after attending West Point, serving as a war artist correspondent during World War II, and living in Pennsylvania, where he met his wife, Henriette Wyeth. The artist is celebrated for his realistic portraits and luminous Southwestern landscapes that feature the vegetation, rolling hills, windmills, water tanks and ever-changing skies of the area in Lincoln and Chaves counties.
Unlike many artists who are proficient in a few mediums, Hurd was skilled in a variety of media including oil, lithography, watercolor, egg tempera, and charcoal. Light was critically important in Hurd’s work and he strove to render it accurately. Hurd felt that the medium of egg tempera allowed him to truly capture the shifting light and arid landscape of New Mexico.
“If a work of art represents a particular artist’s view of the world, Peter Hurd’s work conveys how inspired he was by nature and his surroundings,” said Holly Radke, the museum’s collections manager, who curated the exhibit. “He is best known as a regionalist painter who captured the hardworking people and landscapes of southeastern New Mexico.”
By the time of his death in 1984, Hurd had become synonymous with New Mexico. His obituary in the New York Times was headlined, “Peter Hurd, Painter of Southwest.”
Regular hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $5 adults, $4 senior citizens, $3 children ages 4 to 17 and $2 for active U.S. military members and veterans. Children 3 and younge and members of the Museum Friends receive free admission.
For more, call 522-4100 or visit nmfarmandranchmuseum.org.
November 16 (Friday) 8:00 am - September 16 (Monday) 7:00 pm
New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum
4100 Dripping Springs Road
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The 2018 Partial Government Shutdown, Detailed
December 28, 2018 December 28, 2018 Ohio Star Staff
by Joe Carter
Last Friday the federal government entered a partial shutdown after the Senate failed to pass a spending bill that includes border wall funding. President Trump refuses to sign any additional funding that does not include $5.1 billion in additional money to pay for an extension of the border wall, allowing him to fulfill his primary campaign promise.
What is a partial government shutdown?
A government shutdown occurs either when Congress fails to pass funding bills or when the president refuses to sign a funding bill before the current appropriations expire.
A partial government shutdown occurs when many or most government agencies have already been funded by other legislation but there remains some areas that still need funding.
What parts of the federal government are affected by the shutdown?
Several government agencies were already funded for fiscal year 2019. But another funding bill was needed to cover several agencies for about seven weeks. Nine out of 15 federal departments, dozens of agencies, and several programs will be closed or reduce operations:
– Department of Commerce
– Department of Homeland Security
– Department of Housing and Urban Development
– Department of Interior
– Department of Justice
– Department of State
– Department of Transportation
– Environment Protection Agency (EPA)
– Federal Drug Administration (FDA)
– United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
– Programs related to science, financial services, and other agencies
– The National Flood Insurance Program
– The Violence Against Women Act
– The Pesticide Registration Improvement Act
– Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
– Immigration extensions (EB-5, E-Verify, Conrad 30 program for international medical school graduates, Special Immigrant Religious Workers program, and H2B returning worker authority for DHS)
– The Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards Act
– Two expiring provisions of the Pandemic All-Hazards Preparedness Act
– Medicaid Money-Follows-the-Person and Spousal Impoverishment, through March 31
Will federal law enforcement be affected?
According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, more than 41,000 federal law enforcement and correctional officers will be affected, including:
– 2,614 ATF agents
– 16,742 Bureau of Prisons correctional officers
– 13,709 FBI agents
– 3,600 deputy U.S. Marshals
– 4,399 DEA agents
– 54,000 Customs and Border Protection agents and customs officers
– 42,000 Coast Guard employee
Why don’t government agencies just ignore the shutdown?
Under a federal law known as the Anti-Deficiency Act, it can be a felony to spend taxpayer money without an appropriation from Congress.
Why does Congress have to vote to keep funding the government?
The U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power to allocate all funds collected through taxes (“No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”). Most government spending is mandatory spending, which means Congress has passed a law requiring monies to be used for specific purposes. Examples of mandatory spending are Medicare and Medicaid, Social security, and unemployment benefits.
Approximately 35 percent of government spending, though, is non-discretionary spending. This type of spending includes spending on such things as defense, homeland security, and education. For the federal agencies to receive this funding Congress has to authorize this spending. In December Congress passed the Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, 2018 (H.R. 1370) which provides non-discretionary funding through January 19, 2018.
The entire government doesn’t actually shut down during a government shutdown, does it?
No. Even in a full, rather than partial, shutdown, programs deemed “essential”—which includes, among other agencies and services, the military, air traffic control, food inspections, etc.—would continue as normal. “Non-essential” programs and services such as national parks and federal museums would be closed. Federal workers deemed non-essential are also furloughed.
Are government benefit checks affected by a shutdown?
Not directly. Benefits like Social Security, Medicare, and retirement for veterans are mandatory spending so they are unaffected. However, if the workers who mail the checks are considered “non-essential” it may result in delays in the checks being sent out.
How do lawmakers work if the Capitol is shut down and their workers are furloughed?
Congress is exempted from the furloughs and the Capitol building will stay open, so lawmakers aren’t really affected. Several types of executive branch officials and employees are also not subject to furlough. These include the president, presidential appointees, and federal employees deemed excepted by the Office of Public Management.
Will I still get mail during the shutdown?
Yes. The United States Postal Service is exempt from the federal government shutdown because it does not receive it’s budget from annual appropriations from Congress.
Will government workers still get paid?
Federal workers placed on furlough will not get paid during a shutdown. However, after past shutdowns, Congress has always voted to pay furloughed workers retroactively.
Will the shutdown save the government money?
Not if past shutdowns are any indication. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget reports that estimates vary widely, but “evidence suggests that shutdowns tend to cost, not save, money.” A recent shutdown cost the government $1.4 billion, according to an estimate by the Office of Management and Budget.
So we’ve had such shutdowns before?
Since 1976, there have been almost two dozen shutdowns—including three under President Trump. However, before the 1980s the government continued operating at reduced levels without furloughing workers. The two shutdowns in 2018 lasted mere days while the shutdown in 2013 lasted 16 days.
Prior to that was the longest shutdown of modern history—a 21 day shutdown in December 1995 that came soon after a five-day shutdown that lasted from November 13-19. Those shutdowns were sparked by a disagreement over tax cuts between then-President Bill Clinton and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Since the Republicans have a majority in the House and Senate, why can’t they just pass the spending bill?
Because the spending bill requires a filibuster proof majority to pass in the Senate, Republicans need several Democrats to support the funding proposal that includes border wall funding.
Who gets blamed for government shutdowns?
On December 11, President Trump told two Democratic leaders of Congress, “I am proud to shut down the government for border security . . . I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you for it.”
The President has backtracked, though, and attempted to avoid blame. On Friday he tweeted, “The Democrats now own the shutdown!”
However long the shutdown lasts, the GOP will likely be considered at fault. Since the 1990s, polls show that Republicans are the party most blamed for government shutdowns.
Joe Carter is a Senior Editor at the Acton Institute. Joe also serves as an editor at The Gospel Coalition, a communications specialist for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and as an adjunct professor of journalism at Patrick Henry College. He is the editor of the NIV Lifehacks Bible and co-author of How to Argue like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History’s Greatest Communicator (Crossway).
Photo “Capital Building at Night” by Kyle Rush. CC BY 2.0.
Commentary, News, UncategorizedCongress, government shutdown
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Death With Dignity: Doctor Assisted Death Bill Making Strides with Lawmakers
by Andy Castillo | May 8, 2019
Last year, Northampton City Councilor Marianne LaBarge cared for a dear friend as she died from esophageal cancer. Near the end, LaBarge says she couldn’t breathe well, even on oxygen, and was in tremendous pain, even on pain medications.
“She was begging to breathe,” LaBarge recalled painfully. “It was just terrible to see her fade away.”
Northampton Ward 6 City Councilor Marianne LaBarge, center, with supporters. LaBarge has been a vocal advocate for death with dignity legislation.
Watching loved ones die in pain — including her father, who told her at the end of his life, “I can’t fight this anymore, it’s too strong” — has made LaBarge into a vocal advocate for The End of Life Options Act, a bill that’s being reintroduced by Rep. Louis Kafka, D-Stoughton, in the Massachusetts House of Representatives this legislative session. A similar measure is being introduced in the state Senate (it must pass both, before moving to the Governor’s desk). If enacted, the bill would allow terminally ill patients who are of a sound mind to end their lives themselves or with assistance from a health care provider, who “may choose whether to voluntarily participate.”
“I feel strongly that it’s our personal, individual choice — our civil rights — to choose how we want to die with respect and dignity if our lives are ending with a disease that only gives you six months to live. No more pain or suffering,” said LaBarge.
‘Hope in long remission’
Alberto “Tito” Gambarini, 96, of Easthampton, says the bill offers “hope in long remission” — hope that people do not need to suffer in pain indefinitely. Like LaBarge, Gambarini says he has watched loved ones suffer tremendously at the end. And that’s not the death he wants for himself.
Alberto “Tito” Gambarini
Gambarini, who is originally from Argentina, worked as a cardiac surgeon at Hartford Hospital for 35 years before reinventing himself as an art teacher at Rhode Island School of Design. Since the 1970s, he has been diagnosed with cancer four times — stomach cancer at 71 years old, prostate cancer at 73, bladder cancer at 75, and most recently spinal cancer at age 90. “I know I have failures — bowel failure, urinary failure, vision failure.… I am very old. You don’t live forever.” He is in remission now, but if his spinal cancer were to cause his vertebrae to collapse, “that’s the most painful thing you can imagine,” Gambarini said. “I don’t want to suffer at the end.”
Gambarini is a strong supporter of the End of Life Options Act. But while he’s an advocate, he stresses the importance of medical control and oversight.
Speaking from his experience as a surgeon, Gambarini says that pain management is unique to each patient. Dr. Paul Jodka, a palliative care physician at Cooley Dickinson Hospital, notes there is no single drug that’s “effective or indicated for all conceivable situations.” Gambarini says he has seen death happen many times firsthand, both painfully and peacefully and says this bill emphasizes the importance of quality of life over quantity of years.
Alberto “Tito” Gambarini in his apartment at Eastworks Wednesday, March 13, 2019.
He sits in an armchair with a cane resting at his feet. Hanging on the wall above him are a dozen or so of his abstract paintings that were displayed at one point in the United States Supreme Court building. On a nearby shelf is a petition inscribed with dozens of signatures from people who also support the bill, which Gambarini has personally collected. Besides collecting signatures, Gambarini gives presentations about the issue at local places like Cancer Connection in Northampton and has written numerous letters previously published in newspapers.
While advanced in years, Gambarini is still full of life. He keeps himself physically active and mentally stimulated. Hundreds of his own paintings line the walls of his apartment. A few depict Charlie Chaplin movies he watched with his late wife Elsa — who died at age 73 in 2011 with ovarian cancer after experiencing a great deal of pain. He awakens at 5 a.m. every morning and exercises at Strength for Life gym at Eastworks. He visits with friends or family and periodically gives presentations at the Cancer Connection, drawing from his experience as a cardiac surgeon. He also leads art classes at the senior center.
At night, he can often be found making art into the wee hours of the morning while listening to tango music and drinking red wine. Gambarini says he’s happy and still finds humor in adversity. But if and when his health declines, he’d like to peacefully reunite with his wife.
The End of Life Options Act
Since being introduced in 1995, versions of The End of Life Options Act haven’t ever made it out of the Joint Public Health Committee. In order for the bill to be taken up by the full House of Representatives and the Senate, it must first be approved by a simple majority in this committee, which is comprised of members of both the state’s House and Senate. During the most recent legislative session, the committee sent the bill to be studied last summer, ending its chances of passing in 2018.
In 2012, a statewide ballot initiative similar to the End of Life Options Act failed to pass by the bare margin of 51.9 percent to 48.1 percent of voters in the 2012 election, even though most polls showed a majority of voters supported it. This followed a vigorous ad campaign against the measure in the days leading up to the vote, which outspent supporters by $5 million to $1 million.
Years later, however, the Northampton City Council and Amherst Town Meeting in 2017 each endorsed the End of Life Options Act, urging the state Legislature to approve it.
In Northampton, “After much public testimony and debate during two meetings, we voted nine-to-zero to pass it,” said LaBarge, who has been a city councilor since 1997 and sponsored the measure.
Chris Palames of Northampton speaks with Northampton state Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa in 2018.
Chris Palames of Northampton, executive director of Independent Living Resources, an advocacy group for those living with disabilities, and chairman of the city’s Disability Commission who has lived with a spinal cord injury for 50 years, says he was one of the only local people who spoke out in opposition in 2017.
To date, the bill hasn’t gained a significant amount of support from lawmakers. This year, however, the outcome could be different. The makeup of the 17-member joint House and Senate committee has changed almost completely. Of the committee’s Senate members, only Sen. Julian Cyr is returning, according to Senator Joanne Comerford, D-Northampton, who serves as the committee’s co-chairwoman. The House has four returning members.
“Last year, no Senate committee members were co-sponsors of the bill and only two house members were. This year, three Senate members are co-sponsors of the Senate bill, myself included, and five House members are co-sponsors of the House bill,” Comerford said. “Last year the House bill had 45 co-sponsors, this year it has over 55. Difficult issues like this deserve careful consideration, but it seems that each year this idea is proposed people have a greater understanding of it.”
The bill is structured with safeguards intended to ensure that not just anyone can obtain life-ending medication. First, the patient must request the medication twice, once orally and a second time in writing. Two doctors, consulted at least two weeks apart, would then have to affirm the patient is expected to die within six months. Additionally, two lay-persons — including a non-relative who doesn’t work for a medical facility and doesn’t have a financial interest in the patient’s death — would have to witness the written request and affirm the patient isn’t under coercion, among other things.
Finally, the patient would have to visit a mental health professional such as a psychologist or social worker to attest “you are of sound mind and cognitively able, you’re not impaired, and you’re not under duress,” before a physician could prescribe medication, said John Berkowitz, volunteer director of the advocacy organization Western Mass. Death With Dignity.
Opposition to the measure
But many people fear those safeguards won’t be enough to protect patients from coercion, abuse, the danger of misdiagnosis, insurer profits, mental health issues, among other concerns, according to Second Thoughts Mass., an advocacy group that opposes the measure.
If an assisted suicide bill were to be enacted, Palames says he’s worried the state’s estate recovery law, which allows state healthcare agencies to claim losses after a patient has died, “will be used (by elders) late in life to protect their family from estate recovery and poverty. … We’re concerned that some people would, for the sake of their family, for passing on resources to their children or grandchildren, would make a decision to end their lives early.”
According to Medicaid’s website, state-run health care programs, “for individuals age 55 or older … are required to seek recovery of payments from the individual’s estate for nursing facility services, home and community-based services, and related hospital and prescription drug services.” An exception to that law is for enrollees who are survived by a spouse, have a disabled child or any child under 21.
Historically, disability advocates have come out in strong opposition to the measure. Palames says this is because those with disability understand the complexities of health care systems, and fear what might happen if doctors are able to prescribe life-ending medication. Personally, Palames says he once saw the state come after the estate of an acquaintance after his death, who was disabled, for $450,000.
“The concerns are that there are unintended consequences,” said Palames. “We have grave, grave reservations.”
Alberto “Tito” Gambarini, 97, holds a photograph of his late wife.
The Massachusetts measure is one of many hundreds of similar bills that have been introduced in nearly 40 states since 1991. Oregon, which passed The Oregon Death With Dignity Act in 1997, was the first jurisdiction in the world to legalize medically assisted dying. Since then, medically assisted suicide prescriptions have been written for a total of 2,217 people, according to a Feb. 15 summary from Oregon’s Public Health Division. Of those, 1,459 people have died from ingesting the medications. Last year in Oregon, 249 people received prescriptions and 168 people died.
Since 1997, Vermont, California, Colorado, Montana, Hawaii, and Washington D.C., followed Oregon’s lead by passing medically assisted death laws. Most recently — on April 12 — New Jersey became the seventh state to enact a law allowing terminally ill patients with the option of ending their lives. More states are actively considering similar measures. Besides Massachusetts, states including Maryland, New York, Maine, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Illinois, and Arizona have assisted suicide bills up for debate this year.
Gambarini has already talked to a doctor and his children about his wishes, and he’s hoping the End of Life Options Act will pass soon in Massachsuetts, he says.
“Over there, I have her ashes. My children promised me they’ll put our ashes together,” Gambarini said of his late wife. “I want to go to nature with her ashes. And maybe, you will hear us laughing together out there.”
Andy Castillo can be reached at acastillo@gazettenet.com.
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Thunderpussy: Rock and roll all up on you
by McKenna Cardwell & Halee Hastad
Every once in a while a band comes along that puts intention into every aspect of what they do. Costumes, lyrics, even the band name play a meaningful role for the group as a whole, and it all comes together seamlessly. This is Thunderpussy.
This month the Seattle-based band returns to Bellingham for a show at The Wild Buffalo on Saturday, May 11. Bellingham ex-pats, The Wednesdays, will also be joining them for one rocking night full of kick-ass women.
Last year the band celebrated its debut full-length album. Self-titled, Thunderpussy, the body of music expertly features the artistic prowess of the quartet—Molly Sides (vocals), Whitney Petty (guitar), Leah Julius (bass), and Ruby Dunphy (drums).
Impossibly energetic and dripping with coolness, the women of Thunderpussy radiate an influential quality reminiscent of powerful 80s female stars like Joan Jett and Heart. Their music brings you back to size when the world makes you feel small and insignificant. It empowers you to get back on your feet and stand tall. Basically, when I was a little girl strumming my toy guitar with my hair streaked with blue hairspray, I wanted to be in a band just like Thunderpussy.
In a realm of music that historically maintains male dominance, Thunderpussy is shattering the stereotypes of what you need to be a stellar rock ‘n’ roll band. All-female groups like Thunderpussy are paving the way for a powerful new music to follow.
When starting the process of creating a cohesive album, the band agreed wholeheartedly that everything, from the instrumentals to the lyrics, revolved around the craft of making music. The songs in the album and the album as whole required a lot of thought, a lot of working – and reworking. Thunderpussy dedicated their time and brain space to this album, writing lyrics at all hours of the day. Molly even wrote lyrics on an 11-hour road trip with her dad.
This dedication to the craft comes from a respect of making music, as well as a deeply intimate attachment to the songs. Thunderpussy says a lot of the songs within the album convey emotional reactions to real-life relationships they’ve experienced, making the entire album incredibly personal for the band.
There’s intention behind every word and every note, and the songs absolutely rock because of it. The time spent on this album was repaid tenfold, with professionally crafted tracks and music that will move the listener.
My personal favorite song comes early in the album, “Badlands.” Steady and strong, the track starts out fairly quietly and gradually builds to a classic rock instrumental breakout. The robust guitar and rhythmic drums then give way to Molly’s soaring vocals. The vocals and the instrumentals take turns, increasing with intensity as the song progresses, eventually adding in an electric guitar solo at the top of the melody. In essence, the song is incredibly well designed and obviously thought out to perfection.
Deeply serious about the music-making process, the band isn’t afraid to let loose and enjoy their craft. Performing live in particular is an outlet for the band to express their creative emotions.
“It’s me up there, but it’s a heightened sense of who I am where I get to act, sing and dance on stage,” Molly said. “I can’t really separate the two.”
A strong, empowered, female band – yes, but be careful about smacking a feminist, female rock band label onto Thunderpussy.
“It bothers us that people have to label others. When we started it wasn’t ladies who wanted to rock, but it was ladies with a fierce appetite to make music and perform,” Thunderpussy explained. “Labeling people will only hurt them because if you put them in a box, that’s where they will stay.”
Earlier this year, Ruby left the band to work on individual projects. The band is currently experimenting with a few different musicians and will definitely continue making music once the next member is discovered. In the meantime, Thunderpussy is looking forward to bringing their music to Bellingham before heading out on the road.
See Thunderpussy at the Wild Buffalo on Saturday, May 11. The Wednesdays will also perform. For updates about the band, follow their Facebook page.
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Former Amarillo Woman Indicted On Attempted Murder Charges
Credit: Youtube Katie Muthaf***** Layne
Accused of shooting a homeless man in 2017, former Amarillo resident Katie Quackenbush has been indicted on felony charges. Those charges include attempted first-degree murder. She was also previously indicted on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Katie Quackenbush is accused of shooting Gerald Melton around 3 am on August 26th, 2017. Allegedly, Quackenbush and Melton were involved in some form of altercation after Melton, who was sleeping on the sidewalk, asked her to move her vehicle after being disturbed by loud music and the exhaust fumes
Quackenbush at some point, according to reports, brandished a gun and fired two rounds. One of these rounds struck Melton in the abdomen. The shots, according to Quackenbush, were meant to be warning shots. She and her lawyer maintain that she acted in self-defense.
With this grand jury indictment, the case will move forward to the Nashville criminal court system. We will be updating with more information as it is made available.
Filed Under: homeless, murder, nashville
Categories: Amarillo News, News
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LGBT NOH8 Campaign Celebrates Five Years
In this exclusive audio interview Emmy Winner Charlotte Robinson host of OUTTAKE VOICES™ talks with Jeff Parshley and his partner celebrity photographer Adam Bouska creators of the NOH8 Campaign. On Sunday December 15th the NOH8 Campaign will celebrate its 5th anniversary at Avalon in Hollywood. The NOH8 Campaign is the photographic silent protest created by Bouska and Parshley in direct response to the passage of Proposition 8 back in 2008. The iconic photos feature subjects with duct tape over their mouths, symbolizing their voices being silenced by Prop 8 with "NOH8" painted on one cheek in protest. Through social media and with a new app this movement has exceeded over 33,000 faces and continues to grow at an exponential rate worldwide. The campaign started with portraits of everyday Californians from all walks of life and soon embraced politicians, military personnel, newlyweds, law enforcement, artists, celebrities, and many more. We talked to Jeff and Adam about how their grassroots organization has expanded to advance global LGBT equality and give us their spin on our LGBT issues.
When asked what their personal commitment is to LGBT civil rights Bouska stated, “For me when I got involved and Jeff got involved, we weren’t really looking to be activists, we weren’t really looking to start a campaign. We had an opportunity to share our story. Growing up in a small town in central Illinois, I didn’t have much media representation and much to look up to. In the media these days we have the power to control what others see and with social media we have the power to control what to put out there. So being a photographer and having that ability we want to raise awareness to put a face in sight and wanted to increase the awareness surrounding these issues by involving as many people as we can.” Parshley added, “We weren’t activists, we weren’t looking to be activists it just kind of happened, it was you know an accident. People started interpreting the message and sharing the message and speaking out. I think that today our commitment is to sharing stories of LGBT and allies just to kind of make a connection within everybody. You’d be surprised how many people said ‘Well Prop 8 doesn’t really affect me in California so either way it goes is fine because it really doesn’t matter.’ But when they know that someone that they love is affected its like 6 degrees of separation. We have to connect everybody to show that we’re all in this together and we’re all really affected by stuff even though not directly.”
The NOH8 Campaign, an approved 501(c)(3) Non-Profit Organization, has received overwhelming support from around the world. The images are widely used on various social networking sites to spread the message of LGBT equality. The next NOH8 photo shoot will take place on World Aids Day on December 1st at the new NOH8 headquarters at 2601 N San Fernando Blvd in Burbank, CA. from 2P to 5P. The 5TH Annual NOH8 Anniversary Celebration on December 15th at AVALON located at 1735 Vine Street in Los Angeles CA is a free event co-sponsored by Wen Hair & Body Care by Chaz Dean.
For More Info: noh8campaign.com
Posted by Charlotte Robinson at November 25, 2013 No comments:
Ann Hampton Callaway Her Music & LGBT Equality
In this exclusive audio interview Emmy Winner Charlotte Robinson host of OUTTAKE VOICES™ talks with singer/songwriter Ann Hampton Callaway about her upcoming concerts. Ann will be appearing at 54 Below in NYC with her show "Songs I Wish I'd Written" with The Ted Rosenthal Trio on November 24th, 25th, 27th, 29th and 30th. Ann has also been commissioned by The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus to write a song called "I Love You More" which is a tribute to Tyler Clementi, the youth who took his life after being bullied for being gay. Stephen Schwartz chose several composers for this project to create this suite to honor his life. Callaway will perform its premiere March 25th and 26th. We talked to Ann about her upcoming shows and her spin on our LGBT issues.
When asked what her personal commitment is to LGBT civil rights Callaway stated, “It’s very interesting through the years, one of the most important things to me that I’ve noticed in terms of the quality of living is how essential it is to be yourself and each person has to define that for themselves. I think being a lesbian or bisexual to be more specific in this lifetime has been a fascinating adventure because in my early years I felt so alone and so uncertain how safe it was to be me and how to define how to share that especially pursuing a life in the public eye. So my own adventure and journey, sharing my real self, has really evolved through the years. I’ve tried to write many songs that address these issues. I’ve sung with numerous gay choruses through the years and I’ve politically in a private way been very supportive of organizations that have helped equality and helped educate people who don’t understand gay people…Now we’re in a very exciting time where marriage equality is really kind of shocking how much progress is being made. But at the same time, any time there’s progress there’s also a lot of very strong resistance and how do you address that resistance? It’s an interesting challenge for all of us to think about. I’m so grateful for the incredible political progress that so many have worked hard to make and I’ve tried to commit myself to speaking out and raising money at various concerts. I’ve been invited to be part of and I’ve been on about 30 gay cruises where part of being an entertainer is talking to people and telling stories and sharing stories, trying to heal wounds by listening and loving and sharing the ups and downs of being who you are. So I feel very strongly now after finally coming out more publicly that the rest of my life I’m going to do everything that I can to help people be their true selves. Whether they’re gay, straight, bi, confused, sexuality is a very complicated thing and it took me a while to fully understand my own because I was complicated. So I celebrate that beautiful part of ourselves and looking forward to marrying my beloved partner Kari Strand in the very near future.”
Ann Hampton Callaway is a champion of the great American Songbook whose gifts as a singer, pianist, composer, lyricist, arranger, actress, educator, TV host and producer have given her one of the most unique careers in music today. Callaway won the Theater World Award and received a Tony nomination for her starring role in the Broadway musical "Swing!" Known for writing and singing the theme of the hit TV series 'The Nanny", she’s written over 250 songs including the Platinum Award winning hits for Barbra Streisand "At the Same Time," "I've Dreamed of You" and "Christmas Lullaby" which has just been re-released on Barbra's latest holiday collection, "The Classic Christmas Album." Ann’s recorded 12 solo CD's and will be releasing "The Sarah Vaughan Project: Live at Dizzy's" early next year. Her critically acclaimed shows "Sibling Revelry" and "Boom!", with her sister Broadway star Liz Callaway, has been recorded live on CD and Ann's three time award-winning show “The Streisand Songbook” has taken the symphony world by storm.
For More Info: annhamptoncallaway.com
Elyse Cherry LGBT Financial Leader Speaks OUT
In this exclusive audio interview Emmy Winner Charlotte Robinson host of OUTTAKE VOICES™ talks with Elyse Cherry CEO of Boston Community Capital who has earned national recognition for her groundbreaking work attacking the foreclosure crisis through an innovative combination of private and public dollars. Elyse is also an important voice in the LGBT community serving as the former Chair of MassEquality during the organization’s successful campaign for marriage equality in Massachusetts. We talked to Cherry about being one of the few women running a major financial institution and her spin on our LGBT issues.
When asked what her personal commitment is to LGBT civil rights Cherry stated, “Well that goes back a long way. I served on the GLAD board for many years, the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders and chaired MassEquality actually when we got through the legislation in Massachusetts on civil marriage issues. For many years now it really focused on organizing the GLBT community on political matters ensuring that people who were running for office either federal or state are consistent with our views.” When asked for her reaction to the US Supreme Court Prop 8 & DOMA Rulings Elyse added, “I was absolutely delighted. That was such a long struggle and of course we were working here on among other things, on a business brief that is trying to get businesses to sign on this issue of how difficult it is to really run two different human resource undertakings. You have people who are not treated the same. That is you have people who can either marry and have the benefits of federal rights or not. I have to say on a more personal note I was so proud of Mary Bonauto who of course has been at GLAD forever and Maura Healey from Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley's office and the wonderful job they did. I went down and listened to them give their arguments to the First Circuit Court of Appeals and I couldn’t be more proud about the strength and the intellect and the character that resides in our community.”
Elyse Cherry as CEO of Boston Community Capital (BCC), has overseen the investment of over $900 million into low-income communities. Boston Community Capital is a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) an organization dedicated specifically to using financial tools to make an impact in its community. With Elyse at the helm, BCC has increased assets by 3,500% and invested heavily in low-income communities programs that support housing, childcare and job creation in sustainable industries. Currently Elyse is also very active in LPAC (Lesbian Political Action Committee) that backs candidates that support our LGBT issues.
For More Info: bostoncommunitycapital.org
Posted by Charlotte Robinson at November 12, 2013 1 comment:
Gay Activist Sarah Schmidt Speaks OUT
In this exclusive audio interview Emmy Winner Charlotte Robinson host of OUTTAKE VOICES™ talks with Sarah Schmidt, Chair of LPAC (Lesbian Political Action Committee), about the group founded in July of 2012 by committed activists and donors to positively influence the current political and social landscape in this country. LPAC’s agenda is to give lesbians a real and meaningful seat at the political table. During the 2012 election LPAC raised over $700,000 to support candidates that supported our LGBT issues. We talked to Sarah about how LPAC is making a true impact for lesbians in politics and give us her spin on our LGBT civil rights.
When asked what her personal commitment is to LGBT civil rights Schmidt stated, “I grew up in a really awesome supportive family. When I came out to them in my early twenties there were very few ruffled feathers. I enjoyed an enormous amount of support from everyone from my parents to my siblings, to my great uncles and my grandma. I realized early on that this was a unique situation; I mean this was the 1990’s and Ellen Degeneres had just come out on her show and Melissa Etheridge was just on 20/20. I realized my life was pretty easy and things were pretty smooth for me compared to a lot of people that I knew and a lot of stories I was reading. I felt I really needed to do something from the very beginning; I felt like I kind of had to use that support. If I had all these people who had my back I felt an obligation to do something more significant with my time and energy and resources to advocate for people who didn’t have the same experience. It was really Kate Kendell who helped me engage more significantly politically and talked to me about how my political work could impact my overall goals and she helped me get involved with the Gill Action Fund. I’ve gotten very involved with the Illinois Unites for Marriage Coalition, our whole marriage equality push here where I live in Chicago; I’ve devoted a lot of my time and resources to that. But I would say that LPAC is really the first thing that I’ve done that has required as much time from me on the equality spectrum and certainly the most visible thing I’ve done to date.”
Sarah Schmidt is the Founder and Principal of Sarah Schmidt Consulting LLC and is also actively involved in her family’s third generation business, U.S. Venture, Inc., where she serves on the Board of Directors. LPAC supports candidates who champion a range of issues that impact lesbians and their families which include: ending discriminatory treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals and their families; supporting sexual and reproductive freedom and women’s access to quality healthcare and furthering social, racial and economic justice for all Americans. Its supporters include Billie Jean King, Jane Lynch, Laura Ricketts, Alix Ritchie and was conceptualized by Urvashi Vaid.
For More Info: teamlpac.com
View Our Historic Short Film on Gay Marriage
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6 Binge-Worthy TV Shows To Satisfy Your Inner Tech Geek
Melissa Chan
Whether on sweltering hot days which demand drawn curtains and air conditioning, or cold rainy days that beg for cuddle-time with your blanket, there’s one common activity that comes to mind – binge-watching TV shows.
The problem about TV shows is not the lack of variety, but the fact that there are too many of them! From fantasy-based series with dungeons, dragons and demons alike, to those firmly grounded in realism – there is something for everyone, regardless of taste.
TV shows usually get a bad rep for spurring on unproductive time-wasting and inertia; and there is no doubt that some do result in such tendencies, but there are also those which educate and inspire its viewers.
Here are 6 guilt-free picks for the weekend that have both entertainment and educational value:
Bloody Monday (2008 – 2010)
Adapted from a manga series of the same name, Bloody Monday follows protagonist Takagi Fujimaru, a regular high school student who moonlights as a talented hacker. In the first season, Japan’s public safety special unit THIRD-i approaches Fujimaru (who uses “Falcon” as his hacking alias) for help after believing that biological terrorists plan to unleash a deadly virus, Bloody X, which killed off a Russian town, onto Tokyo.
Fujimaru’s initial duty was simply to decode the chip which contained a video file documenting the viral outbreak, but as with all dramas, the plot soon thickens when his father (a high-ranking official in THIRD-i) is framed for the murder of his superior. This successfully throws the boy into a web of danger and deception as he attempts to uncover the truth behind the terrorist group and the deadly and impending “Bloody Monday”.
If you’re looking for a no-nonsense, jargon-heavy show, you might want to look somewhere else. Bloody Monday is first and foremost a Japanese drama, so do expect to see scenes of friendship, romance and family interjected with main storyline. Still, it makes for an entertaining watch, and with the good looking cast brightening up the screen – we’re not complaining.
Mr Robot (2015)
Another series on hacking, the show features Elliot Alderson, a cybersecurity engineer by day and hacker by night, who is recruited to be a “hacktivist” (a combination of the words “hack” and “activist”) by an anarchist known as “Mr Robot” who aims to erase all debt records.
Alderson suffers from clinical depression and social anxiety, and watching him fumble through his interactions further fuels the sense of a cold, dark alienation which works very well for the dark, complex content. As compared to the niche business of hacking, the series takes a good, hard look at issues present among all of us – capitalism, income inequality, and ruthless, powerful leaders.
Mr Robot is a rather heavy watch, but with its widespread critical acclaim, it’s safe to say the rough ride is well worth it.
Interesting fact: The episode titles are faux file names, such as “eps1.0_hellofriend.mov”, “eps1.4_3xpl0its.wmv” and “eps1.9_zer0-day.avi”, and make the show even more immersive than it already is.
Halt and Catch Fire (2014 – present)
Image Credit: AMC
Set in the 1980s at Silicon Prairie (a take on the better-known Silicon Valley) in Texas, do not expect to see smartphone-toting executives with Starbucks cups in one hand in this one. Halt and Catch Fire is a dramatisation of the personal computing boom in the 80s, which was also the heyday of technological revolution.
The series follows a visionary, an engineer and a prodigy, who work fearlessly against corporate giants of that time like IBM to realise their vision of building a revolutionary computer. The show covers not only the pitfalls that come with success – such as greed and ego, but also the changing culture that is brought about by technological advancements. It is also an interesting way for those presently in the tech industry to get a history lesson on their predecessors.
Despite generally dismal ratings, the show received generally positive reviews from critics and a third season has been confirmed for summer this year (though no date has been given up till now), giving us yet another to binge-watch the first two as soon as possible!
Silicon Valley (2014 – present)
Image Credit: indiewire.com
Silicon Valley is a funny, light-hearted look into the lives of 6 young men trying to make it in, you guessed it, Silicon Valley, with their startup.
The main protagonist is Richard Hendricks, who, at the start of the show, is your stereotypical introverted and socially awkward computer programmer working at a large company. His real passion lies in his creation, a music app called Pied Piper, which he works on in a live-in startup business incubator. Though off to a rocky start, the assistant of venture capitalist Peter Gregory soon realises that the app contains a revolutionary data compression algorithm.
Eventually, after going through the pains many aspiring entrepreneurs undergo such as backstabbing, dire living conditions, a lack of a social life and funding problems, Hendricks and his motley crew manage to impress investors – the definition of a true fairy tale ending for the startup community.
The show is perfect for everyone who wants an insight into the startup community, and also a reminder to aspiring entrepreneurs about the hard work that goes into each and every step of the journey.
CSI Cyber (2015 – 2016)
From the franchise that brought us 10,000 (I exaggerate) episodes of dead bodies, evidence-filled ziplock bags, and flashbacks comes CSI Cyber, which focuses on cyber crime. Its inception, if you think of it, is pretty inevitable, given the reach of technology in our daily lives and thus the number of potential crimes that can be conducted.
Instead of the usual detective-forensic scientist tag team in the original CSI series, this version follows an elite team of FBI Special Agents based out of Washington which specialise in solving crimes such as Internet-related murders, cyber theft, hacking, sexual offences and blackmail. The team is led by Dr. Avery Ryan, who was a renowned psychologist, and she works tirelessly with both federal agents and former cyber criminals – a rather interesting, yet potentially effective combination.
Unfortunately, the series was cancelled after two seasons, but it is definitely still worth checking out if you’re a fan of the original franchise.
Black Mirror (2011 – present)
Image Credit: MPC Advertising
Black Mirror is a British anthology series from journalist and presenter Charlie Brooker, who takes a break from his usual satire-infused productions to create this dark, critically acclaimed series which examines modern society and the unanticipated, usually negative, consequences of technology.
When asked about the rational behind the title, he states, “If technology is a drug – and it does feel like a drug – then what, precisely, are the side effects? This area – between delight and discomfort – is where Black Mirror, my new drama series, is set. The ‘black mirror’ of the title is the one you’ll find on every wall, on every desk, in the palm of every hand: the cold, shiny screen of a TV, a monitor, a smartphone.”
If that’s not enough of a reason to intrigue you, I don’t know what is.
The seemingly disconnected format of the show, which features “a different cast, a different setting, even a different reality” in each episode is actually intentional, and serves as a warning to remind us how increasingly connected we are, and how “we might be living in 10 minutes’ time if we’re clumsy”.
The show has received both international attention and special interest from master of horror Stephen King, and with such a strong backing, I’m pretty sure that Black Mirror would not disappoint.
So there you have it, some addictive shows that you can check out over the weekend – don’t say we didn’t warn you.
Feature Image Credit: remezcla.com
I Finally Got Around To Watching The New Top Gear… And Hated It
Tags: black mirrorbloody mondaycsi cyberhalt and catch firemr robotsilicon valleytv series
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Our hunt to find the best breakfast burrito led us to the The Waffle where we were left with a great experience. It really met all our main criteria for a solid breakfast burrito. It's big, has plenty of sausage, a lot of eggs, enough cheese where you can taste it, thick cut potatoes and served with ketchup as well as sour cream and pico de gallo. Why every breakfast burrito isn't served with a side of sour cream and salsa we have no idea. It really adds that little extra flavor and texture to complete the whole burrito. And with ketchup and hot sauce you can really manipulate the flavors so every bite is different. We love variety so this was a big plus and helped create that great eating experience. We would have loved to see the tortilla grilled to add a little crunchy exterior so that was a bummer. For $10.50 it's a little on the pricey side for a breakfast burrito but given the size and everything you get with it, we think it's worth it
This is ideal for making waffle pops – if you haven’t heard of those before, this is a waffle maker you’re going to want to check out. It cooks mini heart-shaped waffles individually and has a space provided for putting in Popsicle sticks or cake-pop sticks to make sure your waffle pop process goes smoothly. But don’t worry – it will make your standard, no-stick waffles just as well as any other waffle maker, too.
The Swedish tradition dates at least to the 15th century, and there is even a particular day for the purpose, Våffeldagen (waffle day), which sounds like Vårfrudagen ("Our Lady's Day"), and is therefore used for the purpose. This is March 25 (nine months before Christmas), the Christian holiday of Annunciation.[83] They are usually topped with strawberry jam, bilberry jam, cloudberry jam, raspberry jam, bilberry and raspberry jam, sugar and butter, vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. Other, savory, toppings include salmon roe, cold-smoked salmon and cream fraiche.
By the mid-16th century, there were signs of waffles' mounting French popularity. Francois I, king from 1494–1547, of whom it was said les aimait beacoup (loved them a lot), had a set of waffle irons cast in pure silver.[26][27] His successor, Charles IX enacted the first waffle legislation in 1560, in response to a series of quarrels and fights that had been breaking out between the oublieurs. They were required "d'être au moins à la distance de deux toises l'un de l'autre. " (to be no less than 4 yards from one to the other).[15]
Overall, the Krups was as easy to use as any machine we tested—though no machine is particularly tricky to figure out, as long as you read the instructions. Still, the GQ502D’s intuitive, set-it-and-forget-it system made the process particularly simple. Like all waffle makers, it does get hot in places: The steam vent at the back heated up quickly for us, and the top of the machine was too hot to touch after a couple of rounds of waffles. But the heatproof handle stayed cool, even after multiple uses, something that couldn’t be said of competitors like the Black+Decker Removable Plate Waffle Maker (WM700R), where built-up steam around the handle made the machine uncomfortable and risky to use.
The Wonderffle Stuffed Waffle Iron is a patent-pending stovetop waffle maker that let's you cook Belgian-style waffles with your favorite foods inside of them. It has a unique form and function that allows you to remove the cooked waffle without ever having to touch the waffle itself. Since the "toppings" can be fully-enclosed inside the waffle, you can take your favorite meals with you on the go with no mess. So, do you like chicken and waffles? Now you can enjoy a chicken stuffed waffle!
In 1971, Oregon track coach and Nike Co-founder Bill Bowerman used his wife's waffle iron to experiment with the idea of using waffle-ironed rubber to create a new sole for footwear that would grip but be lightweight; hence making easier for individual's to be able to increase their speed. Oregon's Hayward Field, where he worked, was transitioning to an artificial surface and "Bill wanted a sole without spikes that could grip equally well on grass or bark dust." He was talking to his wife about this puzzle over breakfast, when the waffle iron idea came into play. [9] Bowerman's design inspiration led to the introduction of the so-called "Moon Shoe" in 1972, so named because the waffle tread was said to resemble the footprints left by astronauts on the moon. Further refinement resulted in the "Waffle Trainer" in 1974, which helped fuel the explosive growth of Blue Ribbon Sports/Nike.[10][11]
The Black & Decker G48TD 3-in-1 Waffle Maker and Grill is a waffle maker, a griddle, and a grill. All you have to do to switch from making waffles to frying up eggs and bacon is to change the nonstick reversible cooking plates. A unique 180-degree hinge also doubles the available cooking area, so you'll end up with two eight-inch-square griddles for pancakes, eggs, and bacon. Then you can switch it up again to grill a sandwich for lunch.
The mold that is used to cook waffles is a heavy, heat-retaining device with a top and bottom compartment. The mold is gridded in a rectangular fashion such that protrusions on the top portion are complemented by depressions in the bottom (and vice versa). Because waffle molds were historically made out of cast iron, the device has come to be known as a "Waffle Iron". Today, aluminum and steel are the principal metals used to manufacture waffle "irons".
In 1926, Mr. Charles M. Cole of Oakland, California came up with a novel idea for cooking two waffles at once. He devised a three-part mold with each segment heated by electric current. This device allowed couples to have their waffle at the same time (contributing to happy and harmonious breakfasts) and also was fairly economical in use of electric current. (In the 1920s, electricity was VERY expensive, perhaps 25 cents/Kwh in 1926 dollars. This would be about $7.50/kwh in today's dollars compared with an actual cost of about 7 cents/Kwh.)
There’s a lot to love about the Cuisinart Round Classic Waffle Maker. It heats up and bakes faster than any other in our test. And it was one of the few that gave a very distinct range of shades from light to dark—although it’s beyond me why anyone would want their waffles pale and flabby. Not only is the appliance itself small and thin, it stands up for storage and the cord can be wrapped in the bottom. While there’s a light to indicate that it’s ready for batter and that waffles are fully baked, there’s no sound so you have to keep an eye on it. We think that’s a small drawback for a waffle maker this good and this inexpensive.
We went on a Sunday morning and the place was crowded but we we're seated down pretty quickly. We were offered the option to seat inside or outside, we decided to sit inside since it was a bit chilly. The seating arrangement we're kind of too close to each other but doesn't seem to bother anybody. The menu were pretty straight forward. They had three specials which they offer including a Khalua flavored hot chocolate with vodka (Just what I need on a Sunday morning ;) Overall, a great place to start your morning.
Waffles are preceded, in the early Middle Ages, around the period of the 9th–10th centuries, with the simultaneous emergence of fer à hosties / hostieijzers (communion wafer irons) and moule à oublies (wafer irons).[8][9] While the communion wafer irons typically depicted imagery of Jesus and his crucifixion, the moule à oublies featured more trivial Biblical scenes or simple, emblematic designs.[8] The format of the iron itself was almost always round and considerably larger than those used for communion.[10][11]
There's no easy way to say this: the real revelation of this test was just how mediocre most waffle irons are. But at least they were consistent in the ways in which they were mediocre! Far and away, the most common problem was one of uneven cooking, or what I like to call the "two-face" effect: waffles that emerged from the iron evenly browned on one side but pale and doughy on the other. It is not a good look.
No, this waffle maker cannot compete with the All-Clad, but at about a quarter of the price, the Krups sure gives it a respectable run for its money. The build isn't as solid—there's some plastic, no 18/10 stainless here—but like the All-Clad, it is generously proportioned to yield four tall, deeply grooved Belgian-style waffles per batch and, with an adjustable dial for cook control and an audible chime that signals doneness, it doesn't skimp on extra features. It does best the All-Clad in one regard: its non-stick plates not only release cooked waffles easily, they pop out for easy cleaning and are dishwasher safe. That's a game changer right there.
A stovetop waffle maker is essentially a hinged pair of cooking plates that fasten together. To cook waffles, you put the batter inside the waffle maker and put it on the stove, flipping it over to cook both sides. This was how people cooked waffles before electric waffle makers existed, and some people who grew up making them this way may prefer a stovetop model.
This brushed stainless steel appliance has five browning setting and dual indicator lights that tell you when it's time to bake the waffle and when it is ready to eat. The round nonstick cook plate, with four quarters, produces one large, round, traditional-style waffle. Rubber feet keep the unit from sliding around and the lid is weighted so it doesn't pop open.
Beyond that, we liked the very compact size (perfect for tiny apartment dwellers!) and modest price of the Hamilton Beach 2-Slice Belgian Waffle Maker. As usual, we were won over by the solid body and smartly designed drip-catching "moat" on the Breville No-Mess Waffle Maker, but at $128 we felt the imperfect performance couldn't justify the considerable price. The Chef's Choice Waffle Maker Pro looked very promising, with a generous size, sturdy build, and dials that allow you to adjust doneness and set waffle preference ("crisp and moist" or "uniform texture"), but the execution didn't live up to the promises. Finally, the top-loading design of the Cuisinart Vertical Waffle Maker seemed like a cool innovation, but in practice the results were underwhelming. And no matter what the setting, the waffles from the Cuisinart Classic Round Waffle Maker were the floppiest of the bunch.
While this Cuisinart is undoubtedly a top performer at a great price point, it does only cook one waffle at a time, and the Wirecutter editors point out that it's not as sturdily built as some of the competition -- a point echoed by many users. That may make this waffle iron best for either small groups or occasional waffle-making. That said, Cuisinart offers a three-year warranty -- right up there with some pro-level appliances that cost six times as much. The Cuisinart WMR-CA is also versatile, with users saying it's even great for making foods like hash browns, bacon and potato cakes.
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Category: The Right Wing
Dec. 22nd, General Sherman entered Savannah and established his headquarters at the Pulaski House. While working out the details here, an English merchant, Charles Green, offered the General his home as his Headquarters. General Sherman accepted and the Headquarters was moved to the Green House. It was here that Sherman penned his famous telegram to President Lincoln. It read as follows:
“I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah, with one hundred fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton.”
General Sherman established his headquarters here at the Greene Mansion and stayed in residence here until the moved the Union Army into South Carolina in February of 1865.
The Juliette Gordon Low House. The family here had relatives on both sides of the and they were a well know family in Savannah. General Sherman and General O.O. Howard both visited the family. Juliette was a small child and local legend says that she was sitting on the knee of General Howard as he explained that he had lost his arm in battle. Juliette replied in a very innocent way, “Oh, I bet that was may Papa, he has shot lots of Yankee’s”.
Factor’s Walk. This area was full of warehouse areas and stores that catered to the shipping industry of Savannah’s port. This area is between the level of River Street and Bay Street. Many people believe that some of the “vaults” built into the bluff were used to house slaves prior to sale, but there have been no primary source documents to prove that belief.
Much of the River Street and Factor’s Walk area is paved with cobble stones that came to the port in the form of ballast stones as empty ships came to Savannah to ship out cotton and other items.
Author Clint BrownleePosted on December 22, 2016 December 20, 2016 Categories Civil War Battlefields, Civil War Georgia, Civil War Savannah, Clint Brownlee Photography, General Howard, General Sherman, March to the Sea, Sherman in Georgia, Sherman's Left Wing, Sherman's Right Wing, Siege of Savannah, The Left Wing, The Right Wing, War Was HereTags Civil War, Factor's Walk, General Howard, General Sherman, Greeen House, Juliette Gordon Low, March to the Sea, Savannah Georgia, The Left Wing, The Right WingLeave a comment on December 22nd, 1864
Dec. 12th, Kilpatrick is dispatched with his cavalry to locate an assault route to Fort McAllister. Fort McAllister protects the mouth of the Ogeechee River and must be taken in order for Sherman to begin supplying his army. After locating a route and informing Sherman, Kilpatrick rides to Midway and makes his headquarters at the Midway Church and then sends forces to Sunbury in an attempt to contact the Federal Fleet.
Looking west across the Ogeechee River from Fort McAllister. Sherman need to capture this fort in order to open the river for the Union Navy to bring in supplies. Kilpatrick’s Cavalry found a route to the fort by land, which they reported to General Sherman. Kilpatrick then moved southwest to Midway.
Midway Church, constructed in 1792 as a replacement for a previous meeting house that was burned in 1779. Kilpatrick’s Cavalry camped here at the church and Kilpatrick used it as a headquarters while he operated in the area.
Across the road on the far side of the church is a walled cemetery where many notable people from Georgia’s history are buried. After raiding and looting the surrounding plantations, the Federal Cavalry soldiers used the cemetery as a coral for the livestock they liberated from near by citizens.
Author Clint BrownleePosted on December 12, 2016 December 12, 2016 Categories Civil War, Civil War Battlefields, Civil War Georgia, Civil War Savannah, Clint Brownlee Photography, General Kilpatrick, General Sherman, Georgia Battlefields, Georgia History, March to the Sea, Midway Church, Ogeechee River, Sherman in Georgia, Sherman's Left Wing, Sherman's Right Wing, The Left Wing, The Right Wing, War Was HereTags Bummers, Civil War, Federal Cavalry, General Kilpatrick, General Sherman, March to the Sea, Midway Church, Ogeechee River, The Left Wing, The March to the Sea, The Right WingLeave a comment on December 12th, 1864
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After The Bell: Stocks Plunge After China Announces New Tariffs
(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Stocks closed sharply lower Monday, after China raised tariffs on some U.S. goods, as the ongoing trade war between the world's two largest economies intensified.
The S&P 500 lost 69, the NASDAQ shed nearly 270 and the Dow Jones industrial average closed down 617 points, settling to 25,325.
"The NASDAQ has really been at the center of the trade issue at this point. Part of the reason why the NASDAQ and technology stocks, as a whole, have done much worse than the Dow or the S&P -- because they have been very reliant of China, both from a supply prospective as well as a market that they sell into," Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago, said. "They are a lot more sensitive to the rumblings of trade and trade tariffs and trade wars than a lot of the other parts of the U.S. economy.”
He adds that his firm has pared back some technology exposure and is taking a wait-and-see approach for the short term.
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Wiki of Thrones
Lana Headey reveals that she took nothing from the Game of Thrones set
Rahul Jadhav
As Game of Throne comes to an end and the entire cast behind the show return their costumes to their appropriate places, it is only natural to have a sense of attachment to the show where they worked for so long. As a result, a lot of the members in the cast have taken a souvenir of sorts from the set as a keepsake of their time at the filming of the epic show.
However, the case is simply not the same for the actress behind Cersei Lannister as Headey reveals that she took nothing but simple memories from the Game of Thrones set. She must either be really fond of it or perhaps she does not need a keepsake to remember all the times which she spent there. However, she did reveal in an interview about how she liked the moments with the rest of the characters that she had filmed.
“I liked the stuff I did with Charles Dance, who played my dad,” says Headey. “It’s all been glorious. The main thing was all the stairs all over King’s Landing are really slippery, so the outtakes are just full of all of us going ‘uughhyh’!”
In fact, she even mentioned that she was happiest about not having to take one particular thing around with her. As most fans of Lena might be able to guess, it was Cersei’s wig which she had to wear every morning before her scenes were shot. She was apparently so angry about having to wear the wig, that it helped her channel herself into the character of Cersei.
“I didn’t take anything…I just couldn’t wait to get the wig off,” says Headey about the wig. “I was like, ‘Yeeeesss!’ I never have to wear it again!”
She touched and covered a fair few other topics in the interview as well including who’s most likely to spill the beans about the new season, which is probably why Kit Harrington isn’t appearing on quite as many interviews these days. She also revealed how the last day of her shooting was not the last day of shooting for the show, but also reminded viewers that they don’t shoot in any specific order.
“To play the bad guy is just such good fun,” says Headey about Cersei. “I can do all the things I can’t really do in my life.”
In the end, she also revealed how she thought that Game of Thrones would never be a success when she initially started acting based solely off the pilot script. However, the show caught on rather virally and made sure she could never be more wrong again in her life. Right now, she enjoys the direction which the show took and remains rather excited about the very final season of the show. However, she did not reveal anything about the show herself till the end and avoided all questions rather cunningly. This means that everyone has to now wait for the final season of the show to be released.
Peter Dinklage and Meryl Streep to star in a new Audible comedy project
[SPOILERS] New ‘Game of Throne’ fan theory goes viral
Founder at Wiki of Thrones and a full-time Game of Thrones fan who does other work when he has finished reading and writing about Game of Thrones and also dreams about playing a role in the show.
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau thinks fan criticism for Game of Thrones showrunners is “kinda silly”
Palash Volvoikar
Game of Thrones Season 8 wasn’t the greatest hit. Of course, it pulled more views than before, and it was a hell of a spectacle, an achievement in itself, but the overall reception for the show was mostly negative. The more passionate fans ended up criticizing showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss, quite a lot. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who played Jaime Lannister, the latest star to comment on this criticism, said that it was “kinda silly”. Read on!
This happened at a panel at Con of Thrones that had Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Jerome Flynn (Bronn), Hannah Murray (Gilly) and Miltos Yerolemou (Syrio Forel), reports Winter is Coming. The full panel is available to be watched, here:
Nikolaj commented on the criticism that Season 8 has been receiving:
“We’re so lucky to be part of a show where people…care so much about it that you also get upset when it doesn’t go the way you want it to. And that’s fantastic, and I love it, and I love [laughs] that there was an online petition to have it rewritten.”
Nikolaj continued:
“The only thing I’ll say is that for anyone to imagine or to think that the two creators of this show are not the most passionate, the greatest, the most invested of all, and to for a second think that they didn’t spend the last 10 years thinking about how they were gonna end it, is kinda silly. And also know that they too read the comments, and even though you sit on your own and go, ‘Fucking stupid writers! Assholes!’…they really, like everyone on Game of Thrones…and there are thousands, we worked our asses off to make the best show we could for the ending.”
He also commented on the positive reception from the fans present at Con of Thrones:
“I just wish that Dan and David could be here to hear this, to understand that people really love the show. That suddenly they’re not the most hated people in the world, because that’s how they might…I know how they feel.”
Well, you gotta agree with the man. What do you guys think? Talk to us in the comments, down below!
Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker gives his take on Game of Thrones Season 8
Game of Thrones Season 8 wasn’t very liked, and that’s not a secret at this point. We have seen the fans hate on the final season to a great extent, a hatred that is still going on. In the midst of that, the latest commentary on Game of Thrones came from the creator of Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker. Read on!
The fifth season of Black Mirror premiered recently, and the fans haven’t loved it as much as the previous ones. In a recent interview with NME, Brooker said:
“I will say. There was a thread I saw that summed up the difference between a seat-of-the-pants writer and a plotter, and George RR Martin is a seat-of-the-pants writer, creating complicated characters and scenarios and it’s hard to bring those stories to a resolution, hence why the books are slowing down in frequency. The producers of the show have this story created by a seat-of-the-pants writer but they decide they have to bring it to a conclusion, which presents a problem, because characters in plotter stories tend to be a bit thinner.”
It seems like Brooker was referencing George’s comparison between two kinds of writers, the gardeners and the architects:
“It felt to me like there were romances, for instance, that were built in because they had to happen for the purposes of the story. Having said that, I think there was a scene right near the end with the rearranging of the chairs stuff, that really reminded me of early episodes and was really enjoyable to watch. So overall, with the situation they were in, they did a good job.”
Brooker also admitted to rating the show a 68% on Rotten Tomatoes, where Season 8 has a rating of 58%, so it’s safe to say Brooker liked it better than the average fan. What do you guys think? Talk to us in the comments, down below!
George R. R. Martin reveals five new facts about the Game of Thrones prequel, Bloodmoon
Game of Thrones has ended, and it’s time for the prequels to shine. As we had reported, a prequel to the show, set roughly 5000 years prior, has entered the pilot production stage. Titled Bloodmoon for now, the only things we knew about the show were leaked bits and pieces, until now. George R. R. Martin, the author on whose books these shows are based, recently revealed five new facts about this prequel, to Entertainment Weekly. Let’s get into it!
First off, GRRM revealed that the time in which this prequel is set, there aren’t seven kingdoms, but roughly a hundred kingdoms! He said:
“We talk about the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros; there were Seven Kingdoms at the time of Aegon’s Conquest. But if you go back further then there are nine kingdoms, and 12 kingdoms, and eventually you get back to where there are a hundred kingdoms — petty kingdoms — and that’s the era we’re talking about here.”
Secondly, he revealed that everybody’s favourite house, the Starks, will be present in this prequel, as well as their signature pets, the direwolves, among other mythical beasts. Martin explained:
“The Starks will definitely be there. Obviously the White Walkers are here — or as they’re called in my books, The Others — and that will be an aspect of it. There are things like direwolves and mammoths.”
While the Starks will be there, Martin also confirmed that the other big house, the Lannisters, do not exist at the beginning of this series. We will still see their home, Casterly Rock, but it will be held by the Casterlys.
George also said that this show will be an ensemble story, instead of having a “lead”, just like Game of Thrones:
“I hesitate to use the word ‘lead.’ As you know for Game of Thrones, we never even nominated anybody for lead actress or lead actor [during awards season] until recently; it was always for supporting [categories] because the show is such an ensemble. I think that will be true for this show too. We don’t have leads so much as a large ensemble cast.”
Last of all, Martin put a shadow of doubt over the name we have all been using for the show. Apparently, the working title, Bloodmoon, might not be the final name, as Martin revealed that officially, the show is still untitled. He also said that “The Longest Night” is a name he wouldn’t mind.
Well, that’s all for now. What do you guys think? Talk to us in the comments, down below!
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The Worcester Refugee Archive at Clark University
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The Kasperson Research Library offers one of the most extensive collections in North America on environmental risk and hazards, environment and development and the human dimensions of global environmental change. In addition, the library’s collection includes holdings in international development, water resources, technology, energy policy and sustainability. Over 35,000 books, technical reports and government documents make up the current collection. The library also receives journals and newsletters related to its areas of specialization as well as a number of other resources to aid in your research. Special collections include refugees in Worcester and radioactive waste management.
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Peonies And Economics
Our peonies, one of my favourite spring flowers, have just opened up. The peonies in our garden are a connection to one of my grandmothers, my father’s mother. She had a border of peonies at the front of her lawn that bloomed in a riot of crimson every spring. When she passed on, and the house was sold, my aunt saved some of the bushes for her own garden. Years later, my father planted a root from those same peonies in his garden, and even more years later shared the stock with us.
My grandma was a hard-working prairie farm wife whose family benefited from the large vegetable garden she tended right up until the last year of her life. My dad inherited her green thumb, but I did not (although luckily I married someone who had the gardening gene passed down from his grandfather and his mother). Now that I am turning my attention to preserving much of the food our family eats, and more actively supporting my husband as he grows that food, I feel a connection to those women down through the ages who, out of necessity, have grown and preserved food so that their families will be fed throughout the year. Although I don’t have access my grandmother’s skill and wisdom, and didn’t appreciate it when she was still around, I feel sure she would be pleased.
While I’m on the topic of “women’s” work, which has been, and continues to be, undervalued in our economy, I want to share my discovery of Marilyn Waring, author of “If Women Counted: New Feminist Economics”. Waring, a former MP in the New Zealand Parliament, wrote the book in 1988. So my discovery of her is a few decades late, but her work is just as relevant now as it was then as, sadly, our global economic system hasn’t changed. “Who’s Counting: Marilyn Waring on Sex Lies and Global Economics”, is available for viewing on Netflix. The NFB website says:
“With irony and intelligence Marilyn Waring demystifies the language of economics by defining it as a value system in which all goods and activities are related only to their monetary value and monetary exchange with the result that unpaid work, usually done by women, is unrecognized and activities that may be environmentally and socially hazardous are regarded as productive. She maps out an alternative economic vision based on the idea of time as the one thing we all have to exchange. Shot in Canada, New Zealand, New York City, the Persian Gulf and the Philippines this film is an entertaining primer for anyone who suffers from what Waring calls “economics anxiety.”
Here’s Professor Waring more recently, speaking about the differences between formal and informal work, subsistence and care work and why the majority of women’s labor is invisible to the market economy:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ACr-6zcHyQ]
Categories climate change, Economy/ClimateTags gardening, market economy, value, women's workLeave a comment
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How Old Is Lead Singer Of Simple Minds
Old Time radio never would have had the following it enjoyed if not for the music venues that were offered from coast to coast. Americans loved to tune-in and catch the hits and wonders of the day in various musical genre.
Jun 1, 1991. Simple Minds emerged in the 1980's as Scotland's answer to U2. Like the Irish band, it has a lead singer, Jim Kerr, who is a high-minded,
Genesis were an English rock band formed at Charterhouse School, Godalming, Surrey, in 1967.The most successful and longest-lasting line-up consisted of keyboardist Tony Banks, bassist/guitarist Mike Rutherford and drummer/singer Phil Collins.Significant former members were original lead singer Peter Gabriel and guitarist Steve Hackett.The band moved from folk music to progressive rock in the.
He was best known as the lead singer for the 1980s rock band The Call. Bono of U2 and Jim Kerr of Simple Minds. Been and his bandmates made a couple of bad decisions — they decided to turn down an.
Available to order now, #SimpleMinds Rejuvenation 2001-2014 – 7CD+DVD box set is released on the 29th March. Includes the albums Neon Lights (2001),
James Kerr (born 9 July 1959) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and the lead singer of the rock band Simple Minds. He continues to record and tour with Simple Minds, who released their latest album Walk Between Worlds in spring 2018.
Oral History Slow Change May Pull Us Apart: The Oral History of Simple Minds’ ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ The fascinating and turbulent story behind the ‘Breakfast Club’ anthem, which.
Best known in the U.S. for their 1985 number one hit "Don't You (Forget About Me )" from the film The Breakfast Club, Scotland's Simple Minds evolved from a.
Oct 15, 2013. Me)" singer tells THR as the group prepares to embark on a greatest hits tour. The evolution to Simple Minds saw the band gravitate toward their. of the people in the States and North America who like the band and.
The triumphant ending of the movie "The Breakfast Club," when rebel loner Bender raises his fist in the air, would not have been the same without this Simple Minds classic playing. in the band have.
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History Of Simple Minds – An abridged timeline of the main events in the history. You (Forget About Me), that prompted frontman Jim Kerr and guitarist Charlie.
Apr 23, 2018. Don't you forget about '80s Scottish synth-pop act Simple Minds.Arcade Fire certainly didn't.The Montreal group recently welcomed lead singer.
The problem is that, sometimes, a manager wishes to achieve all this at once, which can lead to frustration. Here are some simple ways you can improve your social life: • Reconnect with old friends.
Origin. New Gold Dream originated in Simple Minds’ unexpected popular and commercial success during an Australian tour with Icehouse, following the release of Sons and Fascination.The band was prompted by this experience to write "Promised You a Miracle" upon their return to Europe.In a 2012 interview, singer Jim Kerr recalled the production of the album as a wonderful time during the late.
String Orchestra Pieces With Bass Solo Immediate Music Person Of Interest Mp3 Turn on safe browse to hide content that has been flagged by the community as not safe for work. Turn off safe browse to show content that has been flagged by the community as not safe for work. 364 Person of interest music playlists. Welcome to 8tracks radio: free
Jan 30, 2018. But Simple Minds singer Jim Kerr and The Pretenders' frontwoman Chrissie Hynde are hitting the road again 30 years after their divorce.
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Patoski’s book covers a lot of dusty ground — too much for a simple excerpt. Instead. came out of the tech world. Lead singer, guitarist, and main composer Britt Daniel had been a sound designer.
Find Simple Minds biography and history on AllMusic – Best known in the U.S. the Self-Abusers, which featured guitarist Charlie Burchill and lead singer Jim Kerr. After a global tour, Simple Minds returned with Big Music in 2014, an album.
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May 10, 1984. “Everything is possible,” Kerr sings in “Promised You a Miracle,” a British hit. As is the case with U2 and Big Country, a Simple Minds show.
Killers guitarist Dave Keuning wrote this about lead singer Brandon Flowers’ ex-girlfriend who cheated on him. Flowers recalled to Q magazine March 2009 how he discovered her with another man at the Crown and Anchor pub in his hometown of Las Vegas: "I was asleep and I knew something was wrong. I have these instincts.
Jan 25, 2018. Their 2014 album Big Music earned the band some of their best reviews in. Simple Minds lead singer Jim Kerr was in France, and yet still.
Feb 5, 2016. SIMPLE MINDS frontman Jim Kerr has travelled the world and owns a hotel. But the singer has revealed he loves nothing better than to wind.
During 1985, Simple Minds were in the studio. former Chic singer Robin Clark, who performed.
Oct 1, 2018. So Simple Minds entered the consciousness of my generation and we. vocals and solo turn in a great version of the classic Dirty Old Town.
Singer, Kelsy Karter has had Harry Styles’s face tattooed on her CHEEK after previously saying she is desperate to record a song on his next album. The inking was done by Los Angeles-based tattoo.
Based off a nonfiction book of the same name, “Lords of Chaos” is a horrific look into the minds of The Black. Original lead singer, Dead (Jack Kilmer), was an odd character who hated.
As the former lead singer of Runrig. He tells me that, musically, he is attracted to singer-songwriters like Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and Paul Simon. Somewhat predictably, he cites U2, Big Country.
1. Introduction. In environments with many rapidly changing elements, brains provide an evolutionary advantage for survival by allowing organisms to extract patterns of information that aid predictions (Adolphs, 2001).Humans, like many other social animals, live in groups.
Simple Minds are a Scottish rock band. They formed in Glasgow in 1977 and became the most commercially successful Scottish band of the 1980s. They achieved five UK Albums chart number one albums during their career and have sold an estimated 70 million albums. Despite various personnel changes, they continue to record and tour.
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it starts on a happy note where the 16-year old Zara Webb is having a shikara ride in Kashmir, enjoying songs and clicking selfies. She later meets Shivam Rana (the other lead protagonist of the film).
Oct 15, 2018. In the midst of a rare U.S. tour, Simple Minds frontman Jim Kerr talks about the association of his band and music with the films of John Hughes,
"Citizen-led" efforts, as Calandra put it, take the form of simple actions like encouraging. innovation and the ability to lead with hearts and minds as some examples of these 21st century.
Wisdom for Wanderers and Counsel to Guests. 1. At every door-way, ere one enters, one should spy round, one should pry round for uncertain is the witting
Oct 2, 2018. Jim Kerr, kneeling, and his Simple Minds. co-founder Charlie Burchill, doing this thing we love,'' said Kerr, who is the band's lead singer.
Walk Between Worlds was produced by Simple Minds with Andy Wright and Gavin Goldberg, both of whom worked on the band’s previous album Big Music. It’s an album of two distinct sides, very much the old.
Free Singer Actress Biography Template Barbra Streisand is held up by many as not just a very talented singer and decent actress, but a full-blown icon. Yet it is a superior biography, partly for the clips of Streisand’s very early. Whitney Houston was born on August 9, 1963, in what was then a middle-income neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey. She
Tricky spelling quiz will put the brightest minds to the test. so do YOU have what it takes to score full marks? This tricky 20-question spelling test will challenge even the brightest minds
Media Articles 2019. 13 January 2019 The Straits Times published an article on how members of the public can declutter their house through proper disposal, recycle or even donating pre-loved items. MINDS is being mentioned as one of the organisations who runs four thrift stores carrying pre-loved items that are as good as new.
The reanimated ancient couple dote on Fry and resurface old resentments in the Professor. “Breakfast Club” standard “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds becomes a peculiarly moving music.
Over the course of the last 20 years, Simple Minds' story has been a study of the. Through it all have been singer Jim Kerr and guitarist Charlie Burchill. Simple Minds recorded Life in a Day without Barnwell, who had been booted from the.
(CBS/AP) Singer Scott McKenzie. minds of people all over the world," he wrote on his website in 2002. "Though many of these people were alive when the record was first released, an increasing.
The 42-year-old from Hamilton, New Zealand has performed. ‘Alex is definitely the lead singer,’ said Rob. ‘My job is to sit back and support him and help him to focus.
Shriver began his speech by telling the audience that the Special Olympics movement may be 50 years old but "we’re only just getting. ‘The Greatest Showman’ soundtrack, Ryan Tedder, lead singer of.
For the best up-and-coming musician award, one of the most prestigious in the music category, we’ve made things a little more simple introducing. Buoyed in lead singer and guitarist Demi.
Connecting minds and sharing emotions through mimicry: A neurocognitive model of emotional contagion
If your brain is feeling sluggish after the festive season then take this tricky spelling test to get it back in gear for the new year. The 20-question quiz promises to leave even the brightest.
Housemartins singer Paul Heaton, who later formed the Beautiful South. In 1987, all the big Scottish bands – Simple Minds, Big Country, Hipsway – were adopting a mid-Atlantic singing style that was.
Her dad, a car salesman, was a people person who never forgot a face, the kind of person who bumps into old customers in the supermarket. and went on long rants about Robert Smith, the lead singer.
Category: Love Music.
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Who Is The Girl Singing Louie Road Pt 1
Feb 13, 2014. The quality of songs on this list does not translate into a 'hippie' era that was nice. When George. I Love The Flower Girl -The Cowsills 32. Crimson and. Not the Hog Farming nasty unwashed doin' it in the road part. Reply. Where's the song “Louie, Louie” and “House of the Rising Sun” on this list?
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Soon there are singing. girls throwing up a camo tent on a patch of dirt in the shadow of the Santa Monica Mountains. Rather pleased with ourselves, we ask a neighbor to snap a photo of us striking.
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With Louis C.K., Devin Ratray, Edward Gelbinovich, Laurel Griggs. Louie goes on the road and is stuck in Cincinnati in a bad hotel with talkative driver. He then loses his carry-on bag at the Atlanta. Episode credited cast: Louis C.K. Louie.
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|Funerals of 2002| |Funerals of 2003| |Funerals of 2004| |2005|| 2006 || 2007 || 2008 || 2009 || 2010 || || 2011 || 2012 || 2013 || 2014 || 2015 ll 2016 ll 2017 ll.
Jun 3, 2014. “Pamela Part 1” starts promisingly, with Louie once again turning to Dr. Bigelow. Even the singer's most ardent critics can't help but bow at the altar of this. of monks, as she sang a Gregorian-inspired rendition of the pop classic. old- fashioned but seamlessly mounted road movie-cum-buddy pic that.
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Disc 1: Get Ready – Motown, Philly, Funk and the Roots of Disco Love’s Theme – The Love Unlimited Orchestra Backstabbers – The O’Jays Law Of The Land – The Temptations Soul Makossa – Manu Dibango Black Skinned Blue Eyed Boys – The Equals
Types of licensing contracts can include: 1) a flat fee for a defined period of usage. Or “G-L-O-R-I-A” and “Every Day Is A Winding Road.” For many you can hear the melody in your head as you cite.
Aug 4, 2013. "Honky Tonk Woman" Cuts the Part About a Bisexual Orgy. sing of hopping from woman to woman, trying to get over one lover in particular. It's basically Mick Jagger singing about the sexual escapades of a man who still had way less. didn't picture a threesome between the singer, Louie, and Louie.
A slick nightclub owner (King Kong veteran Robert Armstrong) discovers the giant ape frolicking in Africa as the beloved pet of a young girl (Terry Moore).
Cogsworth is a featured article, which means it has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Disney Wiki community. If you see a way this page can be updated or improved without compromising previous work, please feel free to contribute.
The nearly three-minute clip was filmed in Switzerland and the track has Baker begging a girl not to leave him. He played the song live for over 1.1 million people while on the road with Shania.
3 days ago. Focus on the Family offers one-time complimentary consultation from a Christian perspective. Defeating the Darkness of Abortion (Part 1 of 2).
Blues Brothers Quote Half A Tank Of Gas Electric Light Orchestra Come Back Tour Judas Priest. There are few heavy metal bands that have managed to scale the heights that Judas Priest have during their nearly 50-year career. Their presence and influence remains at an all-time high as evidenced by 2018’s ‘Firepower’ being the highest charting album of their career, a 2010 Grammy
Carpenter spent the better part of the past two years working on the album, and finding a sound that felt right for her. “There were times when I was 15 or 16 and I’d be in the recording studio.
2003, “Bounce”: A full production in Chicago and Washington WHAT’S NEW: The title, Harold Prince, and a girl. Prince and. out there exposed.” “Road Show” was packaged with “Gypsy” (on the big main.
Dec 29, 2013. One mobster shot another over a song. Louis “Louie Lump Lump” Barone, a 67- year-old “associate” who. Grosso had a bit part in the film, and also in “The Godfather,” playing an assassin. The soprano sang for Bill Clinton and Billy Joel. She said the tiny space at 114th Street and Pleasant Avenue,
Prospectors Bar New Jersey Line Dancing Online shopping from a great selection at Grocery & Gourmet Food Store. In it, he is line dancing at a well known local country music club. materialize there" Wireless carrier says service has been restored after disruption in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania It. The Borderline Bar and Grill was hosting line-dancing lessons for
Cruising down a Memphis highway late at night, Catherine sings along. with “American Girl,” the infectious Petty-penned classic that didn’t even chart upon its initial release in the United States.
or even Dec. 1, Christmas has been in full-swing in the Mahinmi household for going on a month. The Mahinmis usually put their Christmas tree up on Thanksgiving night and their outdoor lights the next.
There’s a popular urban legend that suggests that the harmonica part in. official road trip music of two main characters, Marshall and Ted. "There She Goes" is a controversial song, as there’s some.
May 21, 2015. "The Road Part 1" (Part 2 will air next week as the Season 5 finale) focused on the pains and peculiarities Louie now faces as an aging.
o Appearances by Fredbird and Louie. North America's Best Festivals, Part 1. Fair Saint Louis Adds Michael Ray to 2018 Entertainment Lineup ST. LOUIS.
Thursday, December 29, 2005 Happy New Year to everyone. May 2006 be a very good year for all of us. Hello and hallelujah to Puppet DiTullio.Let’s not let any old bugs get you down, Pup!
The band pleaded with the police to play “just one more song,” which lasted. It's time for Part 5 of the “LOUIE on TV” posts, which by an unplanned. Back in 1989, LOUIE documentary producers E.P. and J.B. did an extended road trip to. Kingsmen recording with Jack Ely vocals was used in that particular episode.
Get crafty with. Browse our books; A-Z (All titles) Activity; Adventure; All About Canada; Fantasy; Favourite Series; Fiction; Graphic Novels; History; Hockey; Humour
Mar 3, 2018. The 42-year-old actress, a Broadway veteran and Tony nominee with roles in. It was a part that popped with Settle's powerhouse performance of the song. 1 spot on the Billboard charts and earned songwriters Benj Pasek and. “The way Keala pours so much of her own life story into every note and.
(Click here for bottom) M m M. Latin, Marcus.A praenomen, typically abbreviated when writing the full tria nomina. M’. Latin, Manius.A praenomen, typically abbreviated when writing the full tria nomina. M, m, µ
The first-grader loved Disney films, dancing and singing. Little Naomi was one of at least 360 people who died in the magnitude 7.1 earthquake. of the girl. Her mother held the child’s favorite.
Louie 5.8 “The Road: Part 2 takes Louie (Louis CK) to Oklahoma City for a week in TV land (less than a 1/2 hour in our land). Just the small moment of his girl driver texting while driving, and.
1970s Funk Song With Very Long Bass Tab In April of 1970, Mahalia Jackson, one of America’s greatest. just steps away from the hustle and bustle of the French Quarter, serves up jazz, blues, funk, klezmer, and more. It’s a very small. More than 360 free transcriptions for bass and other instruments on. in standard notation and tabs, including the full Beach Boys
May 6, 2015. For five years, from 1959 to 1963, Ely sang with the Kingsmen, a group he. The Kingsmen's most famous recording is “Louie Louie,” a song written by. One of them, the father of a teen-age girl, wrote to Robert Kennedy, who was. motivation on the part of the singers. in making the recorded lyrics so.
Fans know what to expect from Cole Swindell, and with “Let Me See Ya Girl. You can get the whole wide country side hoppin’,” Swindell sings before the final chorus: “Girl you’re tearin’ that dance.
It wasn’t until 1:38 p.m. that one of the posts indicated. Taylor had been in charge of such camps for 17 years. For part of August and all of September, Taylor took his inmate team on the road,
“Opera is mostly singing, I think,” said Bertie. Everyone he saw at that moment was part of couple – a man and his wife,
May 21, 2015. Sometimes Louie gets bleak by following a monologue off to some inescapable fact of life. “The Road Pt. 1” is bleak from its name through to its.
The members of the Band first came together as rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins’s Toronto, Ontario-based backing group, the Hawks, which they joined one by one between 1958 and 1963. In 1964, they separated from Hawkins, after which they toured and released a few singles as Levon and the Hawks and the Canadian Squires.
Great topic Sara! I would like to add a category of songs with the word Shout in the title. Both “Shout to the Lord” and “Shout to the North” would probably make my top 5 list on the worst worship songs ever.
But Atlanta label So So Def’s mid-’90s group Ghost Town DJ’s (singer Virgo. “This is every girl’s favorite song.” So we wanted to show in the video all the girls singing the song. Even though Virgo.
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Friends and family hold vigil for Berrien County car accident victims
By: Sara Rivest
Posted: Feb 15, 2016 3:03 AM EST
Family and friends gathered Sunday night to mourn the loss of Steven Rough and Autumn Mehl.
Mehl, 29, and Rough, 26, were found dead in a car accident in a creek on Bond Street Sunday morning after they had been missing for over 24 hours.
The candlelight vigil was held outside of the Niles-Buchanan YMCA where Mehl worked.
Mehl was a mother of three, and Rough was a father of one.
Rough’s cousin Mary Gruver remembered him as a great father and son.
“He loved his parents, he loved his family, he was a man that was moving in the right direction in life for himself. We’re close as a family and a lot of the family is here tonight and it’s beautiful what they did,” said Gruver.
At least one hundred people attended the vigil.
“We were talking about love, and community and family, and going home and telling those that you know that you love them and telling people that you don’t know that you love them,” said Gruver.
Police are awaiting autopsy results and toxicology reports to determine whether or not alcohol was a factor in the crash, but a bartender at Jay's Lounge who served Mehl and Rough Friday night said the two left the bar in good condition to drive.
A GoFundMe account has been set up to help the family with Mehl’s funeral expenses.
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ACL’s pick of today’s news – Monday 9 May 2011
Proposal for junk food ad ban takes shape
JUNK food advertising would be banned during popular shows for children such as Junior MasterChef, advertisers would be stopped from using free toys to promote fast food and school chocolate fund-raising drives would be phased out under a proposal to combat obesity. Advertisers' self-regulatory codes aimed at reducing children's junk-food marketing are not working, health groups claim. They argue that the federal government should adopt tougher measures restricting unhealthy food advertising, which campaigners believe is a major factor in rising childhood obesity rates.
Gates calls for more foreign aid
BILLIONAIRE philanthropist and Microsoft founder Bill Gates has weighed in to Australia's budget debate, urging the Gillard government to hold firm on its plan to double Australia's foreign aid in the next five years. Speaking from Seattle, Mr Gates said Australia had been exemplary in its approach to aid, but "we're in a period where a lot of the richest countries are tightening up their budgets".
MP outrages gay constituent with child molester analogy
ONE of Premier Ted Baillieu's newly elected MPs, Geoff Shaw, has deeply offended a young gay man by suggesting that his desire to love who he wanted was as illegitimate as a dangerous driver wanting to speed or a child molester wanting to molest. Mr Shaw, the member for Frankston, is active in his pentecostal church, Peninsula City. In his maiden speech to Parliament, Mr Shaw acknowledged ''the original owner of the land on which we stand - God, the Creator, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of the Bible''.
General Pants 'I love sex' campaign backfires
GENERAL Pants has been flooded with complaints after young staff at its retail stores were asked to wear ''I love Sex" badges as part of a new campaign to lure teen shoppers. The campaign - to launch the company's new clothing range - has already sparked a huge backlash from shoppers and has been partly censored, with more than 40 complaints, mostly from parents, received by the company's head office during the campaign's launch week starting on April 28.
Breaking up: it's not me, it is you
COUPLES feuding over the custody of their children after separation often have reached the lowest point in their lives. For some, the legal system seems to block access to their offspring and becomes a natural target for their pain. Fathers groups have a political target as well this year because the agonising process of resolution could be made longer and more hazardous, especially for men. The Gillard government is introducing sweeping changes to the Family Law Act after three inquiries found the act does not give sufficient protection to victims of family violence. Providing it could mean longer proceedings.
The Korean Dads’ 12-Step Program
A soft-spoken electrical engineer named Edmond Rhim sat in a packed gymnasium with his wife, Hanna, gripping her tiny hand in his. It was the last of four five-hour-long sessions of Father School, and by the end of the night, 70 men — all of them Korean, and almost all of them Christian — would be declared more emotionally adjusted dads. They would even get a certificate, a group photo and a polo shirt to prove it.
Israel: Celebrating 63 years of independence
On 10 May, that little slither of land, Israel, about one third the size of Tasmania but burdened with decades of unremitting attacks on its very legitimacy and existence, celebrates her 63rd year of independence. There are good reasons why many Australians should celebrate that. We could talk about the historical bond between our two nations dating back to the ANZACS. A bond that is underpinned by our shared commitment to freedom and democracy, and respect for women’s rights, gays, minorities and the rule of law. We could celebrate that we are both thriving multicultural states that have successfully absorbed and integrated millions of refugees and immigrants from around the world.
Religion, heritage and the culture wars
On Line Opinion
Over the past nine years as a parent and now as school council president I’ve observed the problems schools and families face with our system of Special Religious Instruction. Rob Ward, Australian Christian Lobby’s (ACL) Victorian Executive Director, makes the accusation that three politically correct families are unhappy therefore attempting to deny others what he claims is their heritage. I refuse to submit to the culture war bullying that defines ACL’s politics. My first hand knowledge of the inequity of the current Special Religious Instruction (SRI) system, has motivated me to Chair the Fairness in Religions in School (FIRIS) campaign. Among our stated aims are the reform of our outdated system and the adoption of an objective, fair and balanced comparative syllabus for education about religions and beliefs.
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Whats' New?
Event Past Event
Al Jalila Children’s and Harvard Medical School Releases ‘Systems of Care for ASD’
Al Jalila Children’s launches ‘PaedsX’ Programme to Encourage Thought Leadership and Innovation in Paediatric Medicine
Tennis World Number 9 Aryna Sabalenka Visits Al Jalila Children’s
Minister of Community Development inaugurates Al Jalila Children’s Inpatient Mental Health Ward
World Doctors Orchestra pre concert
Launch of Sleep Centre at Al Jalila Children’s
NewsMay 05, 2019
The first of its kind document aims to guide local and regional societies on the best approach to embrace individuals affected by ASD within the community The document offers comprehensive…
NewsMar 12, 2019
Al Jalila Children's, the only children’s hospital in the UAE, has launched its very own thought-leadership platform with the aim of providing education and training to encourage and promote knowledge…
NewsFeb 17, 2019
Tennis star Aryna Sabalenka, ranked ninth worldwide, spent some free time visiting Al Jalila Children’s recently during her visit to Dubai as part of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships. Aryna played…
NewsJan 26, 2019
Her Excellency Hessa bint Essa Buhumaid, UAE Minister of Community Development, inaugurated on Monday 21st January, the first child and adolescent mental health ward in the GCC at Al Jalila…
Al Jalila Children’s to Offer Breakthrough Paediatric Genomic Testing and Counselling By 2019
UAE ranks 3rd in the Arab World in diseases related to genetic disorders 50% of global child deaths are genetic related Al Jalila Children’s has announced its plans to provide…
NewsDec 24, 2018
Al Jalila Children’s Performs Its Second Paediatric Renal Transplant with Overwhelming Success
Al Jalila Children’s, the first and only children’s hospital in the UAE, announced that it recently performed another successful paediatric kidney transplant in collaboration with the Mohammed Bin Rashid University…
Al Jalila Children’s Adopts a New Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Paediatric Medicine
Al Jalila Children’s has launched four new multi-disciplinary clinics as part of its continuous efforts to elevate the standards of paediatric healthcare in UAE and the region. The main objective…
60,000 Young Patients Visited Al Jalila Children’s in 2 Years of operations
Al Jalila Children’s Specialty Hospital, the first and only children’s hospital in UAE, received around 60,000 patients in its first 2 years of operations. Inaugurated on the 1st of November…
NewsNov 05, 2018
9 Year Old Girl Becomes the First Child to get a Kidney Transplant in Dubai
Nine-year-old Bana Nizar Hassan from Sudan has become the first child to receive a kidney transplant in Dubai. The surgery was performed at Al Jalila Children’s Speciality Hospital by a…
Al Jalila Children’s Launches UAE’s First Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship Programme
Al Jalila Children’s has announced the launch of its very own child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship programme – a two-year training programme for psychiatrists , run in academic partnership with…
MoU signed between Emirates Down Syndrome Association and Al Jalila Children’s
Emirates Down Syndrome Association and Al Jalila Children’s Specialty Hospital, the first and only paediatric hospital in the UAE, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed to enhance the…
NewsOct 16, 2018
Al Jalila Children’s and Moorfields Eye Hospital Dubai enter second phase of clinical collaborations
Moorfields Eye Hospital Dubai (Moorfields Dubai) the first overseas branch of the world renowned 200-year-old Moorfields (London eye hospital) and Al Jalila Children’s Speciality Hospital in Dubai, the first and…
First International Scientific Meeting on ZC4H2 Deficiency
Al Jalila Children’s recently hosted the First International Scientific Meeting on ZC4H2 Deficiency. The step comes in line with Al Jalila Children’s core strategy of positioning itself as a regional…
NewsSep 18, 2018
Al Jalila Children’s Specialty Hospital and Al Jalila Foundation launches a new Fund
Al Jalila Children’s Specialty Hospital, UAE’s only specialised children’s hospital, and Al Jalila Foundation, a global philanthropic healthcare organisation, have launched the Al Jalila Children’s Fund. The partnership aims to…
Dr Abdulla Al Khayat Appointed as CEO of Al Jalila Children’s Specialty Hospital
Chairperson of Dubai Healthcare City Authority HRH Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, wife of HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE, and Ruler…
NewsJul 17, 2018
Red Carpet rolled out for UAE’s first movie experience in a hospital
Al Jalila Children’s and Roxy Cinemas collaborate to bring hit movie Hotel Transylvania 3 to the hospital Al Jalila Children’s, UAE’s only children’s hospital, and Roxy Cinemas, operated by Dubai-based holding…
Al Jalila Children’s Launches the Only Fit-to-Fly Medical Test in the Region
Al Jalila Children’s Speciality Hospital announced that its Pulmonology Centre will offer a new service that will allow parents of children with respiratory related issues to ensure that it would…
Al Jalila Children’s to Lead on a pioneering global Pediatric Patient Safety Initiative
Dubai, UAE – January [●] 2018. Al Jalila Children’s Hospital, the only children’s hospital in the United Arab Emirates, today announced that it is convening a global Pediatric Patient Safety…
Al Jalila Children’s and Nickelodeon team up to raise awareness among children on World Asthma Day
Dubai, May 2, 2018: Al Jalila Children’s, the first dedicated children’s hospital in the United Arab Emirates, teamed up with Nickelodeon, the number-one kids’ network, to raise awareness among children…
Two-day old baby’s life saved with complex heart surgery
A two-day old Emirati baby girl from Fujairah with a congenital heart defect that would have required a heart transplant, underwent a complicated procedure in Al Jalila Children’s hospital where…
UAE’s only children’s hospital launches its residency programme for aspiring physicians
The Al Jalila Children’s Paediatric Residency Programme is run in academic partnership with MBRU The only paediatric residency programme in the UAE accredited by the Saudi Board Dubai, May 12,…
Al Jalila Children’s to highlight paediatric healthcare at Arab Health
UAE’s only children’s hospital to highlight scope of paediatric healthcare available to community First of its kind Sleep Centre and Orthopaedic Clinic and related services to be showcased Dubai, January…
Dubai Wins Bid To Host 2022 Global Mental Health Conference
IACAPAP congress takes place every two years and attracts thousands of mental health professionals from around the world Dubai will be the first Arab city to host IACAPAP world congress…
Al Jalila Children’s and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Align on Collaborative Clinical Care
Arrangement with world-renowned paediatric hospital will explore advanced care for epilepsy and neurology disorders in children 31st Jan, 2018: Al Jalila Children’s, UAE’s only children’s hospital, has entered into a…
Al Jalila Children’s and Children’s National sign agreement on health information technology
Partnership will enable UAE’s first children’s hospital to effectively use health information technology for the benefit of patients February 1, 2018: Al Jalila Children’s, UAE’s only children’s hospital has entered…
Al Jalila Children’s gets its own ‘Miracle Garden’
UAE Minister of Climate Change and Environment launches unique project in UAE’s only children’s hospital Dubai Miracle Garden to transform 50,000 square metres of green space at Al Jalila Children’s…
Sir Peter Cosgrove, Governor-General of Australia, visits IHC and Al Jalila Children’s
The Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, His Excellency General the Honourable Sir Peter Cosgrove and his wife, Lady Cosgrove, visited the International Humanitarian City (IHC) and Al Jalila Children’s…
NewsAug 17, 2017
Al Jalila Children’s Hospital launches inspirational volunteering programme
Al Jalila Children’s, the first dedicated children’s hospital in the UAE, launched its own volunteering programme Abtaal Al Jalila (Al Jalila Heroes) on Aug.17, with Her Excellency Ohood Bint Khalfan…
Al Jalila Children’s Specialty Hospital partners with Alder Hey Children’s
Al Jalila Children’s Speciality Hospital has partnered with the Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust in Liverpool to create a healthier future for children and young people worldwide. Officials from…
Discuss Best Systems of Care for Autism
Organized by Al Jalila Children’s Specialty Hospital and Harvard Medical School Center for Global Health Delivery – Dubai, between 30th March to 1st April Dubai, 20 March 2017: Al Jalila…
Dubai to Discuss Best Systems of Care for Autism Spectrum
Organized by Al Jalila Children’s Specialty Hospital and Harvard Medical School Center for Global Health Delivery –Dubai , between 30th March to 1st April Dubai, 20 March 2017: Al Jalila…
Mental Health Summer Program
MENTAL HEALTH SUMMER PROGRAM The Mental Health Summer Program is designed to promote the health and wellbeing of children and adolescents. This is accomplished by empowering the development of skills…
Al Jalila Children’s Acyanotic Heart Disease Seminar
A one-day seminar organised by the Heart Centre of Excellence at Al Jalila Children's focused on Acyanotic Heart Disease with left to right shunts. This seminar is intended for health professionals…
Magic Phil Show
Magic Phil Show Magic Phil is a professional children's magician from the North East of England. His hilarious and magical character is popular throughout the Middle East. Venue: Al Jalila…
Al Jalila Children’s Paediatric Epilepsy Masterclass
A one day educational activity aimed at general paediatricians and other health professionals who care for children with a suspected or a confirmed diagnosis of epilepsy. The main objective of this…
Dates and
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UAE National Day Celebrations
World Radiology Day at Al Jalila Children’s
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National Institutes of Health Funds Study of Zika Virus Exposure in Olympic Athletes
The National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) is funding a research initiative to monitor potential Zika virus exposure in at least 1,000 athletes, coaches, and other U.S. Olympic Committee staff who are attending the 2016 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which is currently at the center of the Zika virus outbreak.
Carrie L. Byington, MD, from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, leads the study, which seeks to improve the understanding of how the virus persists in the body and to identify potential factors that influence the course of infection.
With this study, Dr. Byington and colleagues hope to:
determine the incidence of Zika virus infection
identify potential risk factors for infection
detect where the virus persists in the body (blood, semen, vaginal secretions, or saliva)
evaluate how long the virus remains in these fluids
study the reproductive outcomes of Zika-infected participants for up to one year
Participants will complete health surveys and provide samples of bodily fluids for the detection of Zika and similar flaviviruses. Zika virus testing kits and training will be provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Monitoring the health and reproductive outcomes of members of the U.S. Olympic team offers a unique opportunity to answer important questions and help address an ongoing public health emergency,” said Catherine Y. Spong, MD, acting director of NICHD.
Source: National Institutes of Health press release, July 5, 2016.
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Six Reasons Why The Rifleman Was a Trailblazer on TV
Posted by Ashley Shaw
If you asked most people to name a classic western, you’d probably get titles like Shane, High Noon, Red River and The Searchers. But The Rifleman — though a TV series and not a movie — qualifies as well. Raising a skeptical eyebrow under your ten-gallon hat? Consider these six firsts that the landmark series can claim as a leader in the genre.
1. It Was Sam Peckinpah’s First Western
Legendary director Sam Peckinpah is known for helming many classic Westerns, including the groundbreaking The Wild Bunch (1969). But in 1958, the young director re-worked a script that was rejected by Gunsmoke for being too violent and too eccentric, and then sold it to Zane Grey Theater. The show, entitled The Sharpshooter, proved so popular it ended up becoming The Rifleman pilot. Peckinpah went on to develop the series himself, writing and directing some episodes in the first season. (Sadly, creative conflicts led him to leave the show before Season 2.)
2. It Was the First Primetime Series With a Single Parent As the Main Character
Lucas McCain’s promise to his dying wife to care for their son was a departure for the Western, which traditionally favors solitary leading men over fathers with child-rearing responsibilities. Yet the gently loving relationship between Lucas McCain (Chuck Connors) and son Mark (Johnny Crawford) is a through-line for all five seasons — even if the father’s desire to teach his son to avoid violence whenever possible is hard to do in North Fork.
3. It Was the First TV Series to Have a Black Guest Star, Without a Comment on Race
Producer Arnold Laven became a fan of showman Sammy Davis Jr. after catching his famous song and dance act at the Apollo Theater. In one number, Davis appeared dressed as a cowboy explaining that one day he hoped to act in a serious western but he had to practice his fast draw. (Next, he dropped the gun. Cue groans.) Thanks to Laven’s casting, Davis went on to become quite adept at gun slinging, a skill which is featured in both The Rifleman episodes he guest-starred in: “The Most Amazing Man” and “Two Ounces of Tin.”
4. It Was the First Primetime Western to Use Noir Lighting Techniques
Joseph H. Lewis was the director of the noir classic Gun Crazy, a movie that features a famously dazzling ten-minute shot where the audience becomes a passenger in a get-away car. The director brought his distinct, B-movie sensibility to The Rifleman in over 50 episodes. He enhanced the black-and-white series with moody shadows and interesting camera angles to create an atmosphere that feels almost mythic. Known for his low-budget westerns, thrillers and action pics, Lewis had a 30-year career in the business. In the last years of his life, before retiring in 1966, he worked mostly in television, directing episodes of Bonanza, The Big Valley, and Gunsmoke, as well as The Rifleman.
5. It Was the First TV Western to Feature a Rifle That Doesn’t Go Off Every Episode
Lucas McCain’s legendary rifle was a Winchester Model 1892 even though the show is said to take place in the 1880s but that is no matter when you’re watching the rapid-fire action montage in the opening credits. That McCain does not fire his rifle in every episode fits well with the show’s theme of a father teaching his son to avoid violence. Not your typical Western message!
6. It Was One of the First American Series to Be Shown in Russia
When Brezhnev made his historic visit to the United States in the early ’70s, the White House asked their very complex guest if he would like to meet any American celebrities. The only celebrity the Soviet leader was interested in meeting was Chuck Connors. It is not surprising that being Brezhnev’s favorite TV show, The Rifleman was one of the first American series to be aired on Soviet television, and after their meeting in the U.S., Brezhnev and Connors became friends — the actor was invited several times to visit the U.S.S.R.
Tune in to The Rifleman Saturday mornings at AMC starting at 6/5c.
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The Islamic Threat Can Be Countered
By Jack Wisdom
Those of us who lived through the attack on the World Trade Center (WTC) can never see the Islamic threat as anything but real. Would it have made sense to have invited the immigration of Japanese after the attack on Pearl Harbor? Would it have made sense to invite more Germans to our shores after the German unlimited submarine warfare was begun in earnest in 1916? Should we have engaged in a love feast regarding Mexicans after raids by Pancho Villa during the Woodrow Wilson years? Our posture should be firm and guarded – defensive, but with a resolve that is truly God-centered and undaunted.
Concern about our safety is not merely some kind of paranoia by Americans who fail to appreciate the sentiments expressed in the sonnet "The New Colossus" written by Emma Lazarus and engraved on a plaque on the Statue of Liberty. Her poem invites the dispossessed and weary of the world to our shores. Her words invite those who come seeking a haven, not for those seeking a new battleground in which to impose alien and/or violent values.
Instead, the WTC attacks were a wakeup call to the threat posed by jihadists who are constantly warring both within the Islamic world and without for greater control. Ramzi Yousef planned the 1992 bombing attack on the WTC. He was born in Kuwait of Pakistani parents. He is believed to be the nephew of Khalid Sheik Mohammed who was the mastermind of the 9/11 attack. Mohammed was born in Pakistan, but 16 out of the 19 hijackers of the planes used in the WTC attack, the Pentagon attack, and the plane that went down in Pennsylvania were from Saudi Arabia, led by Mohammed Atta who was born and raised in Egypt. This was not a clique from a small locality, but represented a gathering of violent interests from throughout the Muslim world. They were the advance guard, the militant wing, perpetuating the Islamic quest for world domination that has been going on for 1400 years.
In 2017, Pew Research did an extensive survey of world attitudes towards Muslims, and Muslim attitudes towards non-Muslims. Of interest to this writer was the following statement: "More generally, Muslims mostly say that suicide bombings and other forms of violence against civilians in the name of Islam are rarely or never justified, including 92% in Indonesia and 91% in Iraq. In the United States, a 2011 survey found that 86% of Muslims say such tactics are rarely or never justified. An additional 7% say suicide bombings are sometimes justified and 1% say they are often justified."
Pew tells us that there are 2,150,000 adult Muslims in the U.S. If one percent says suicide bombings are often justified, that means that there are 21,500 Muslims in our country who would justify these types of actions that purportedly advance the cause of Islam. Another seven percent say suicide bombings are sometimes justified. That amounts to another 150,500 who actively support these actions. Even ignoring the likelihood that many of the 86% who say these actions are "never justified" are hiding their true feelings because of fear, we see that there are 172,000 Muslims in the USA who openly endorse extreme violent action by their confreres in order to advance the cause(s) of Islam.
Throughout the world there are 1.8 billion Muslims. Assuming that an even higher percentage than in the U.S., say 10%, would endorse violent action on behalf of Islam, we see the worldwide astronomical figure of 180,000,000 pro-violent jihadists. How many World Trade Center attacks (there were two), San Bernardino massacres, Boston Marathon bombings, Chattanooga, TN and Garland, TX shootings must we experience before we acknowledge that this population represents a security threat here and worldwide?
Where do we see the greatest internecine strife in the world? Clearly, it is in the countries with large Islamic populations: Yemen, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the Chechnya region of Russia. Additionally, Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism as listed by our State Department (it was so listed long before the Trump Administration) fomenting jihad throughout the world. Also, Islamic terrorism through the arm of Abu Sayyef and Al-Qaeda is rife in the Mindanao area of the Philippines.
It is a complete non sequitur to say that Muslims are a peaceful people. Even if the overwhelming majority is "peaceful," accepting the figures stated above would seem to delegitimize unfettered Muslim immigration. National security concerns are paramount for government.
These many violent jihadists not only wish to advance worship of Allah, but see that "worship" as intimately involved with Sharia law. There is a desire to replace non-Sharia governmental institutions, whether they be democratic and constitutional or dictatorial, in both majority Islamic countries and majority non-Islamic countries. There is an inseparability between the legal and political organization of society and their professed faith in their prophet and their god. Freedom of conscience, so valued in the West, is repudiated by the jihadists. Theirs is a theocratic ideal, and the linchpin is obedience to God in a tribal or semi-tribal order, not within the nation-state concept as we in the West understand the nation-state. It is a religion without miracles, without grace, without mercy and forgiveness as the linchpins of personal faith. While there are generous and kind Muslims, how weak these qualities are worldwide when compared to world Christianity. Jihad in support of sharia is the exact opposite of the non-establishment clause of the U.S. First Amendment.
Any "religion" which requires a substitute political system to be put in place, and thus is clearly on a collision course with existing government institutions should be limited. Plans for surveillance and action against subversive elements should be intensified. Such intensification could be initiated under a new rubric called "strategic limitation." Any mosque that teaches either overtly or covertly or participates in any way in mobilizing individuals or groups to assault others in the society, or assembles a cache of weapons for said purposes, should be closed down as subversive. Just as freedom of speech is limited to the extent that one is not allowed to call "fire(!)" in a crowded movie theater or incite to riot on the street, so freedom of religion could similarly be circumscribed without affecting the basic principle of freedom.
The problem is that Islam has always been opposed to Christendom, and Christendom partially succumbed in North Africa during the seventh century. However, over time, Europe was successful in resisting the invaders. Charles ("The Hammer") Martel turned back the Islamic invaders at the Battle of Tours (France) in 727, but it literally took 700 years to push the invaders back into Spain and then out of Spain into North Africa. Following 1492 and the expulsion of Muslims from Spain, attacks by Islamics continued with major attacks on Vienna, Austria in 1529 and 1683, where the Ottomans were soundly defeated. And even in the recent past, in World War I, the Ottoman Empire allied itself with the Central Powers in Europe in the hopes of once against advancing Islamic power in Europe.
Christendom still exists, but it has become diluted and flabby. In Europe it is in radical decline; in the USA it is tainted with hedonism, sentimentality, false doctrines, and secular values. Thousands of churches are closing forever every year. But Christianity is compatible with the nation state, individualism, and prosperity in ways that Islam never can be. In addition to worship of the true God of the universe, the Christian West is the best hope for the world's future.
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Women’s Rights are Human Rights
They reflect the fact that men and women have very different experiences – and the fact that women and girls often face gender-based discrimination that puts them at increased risk of poverty, violence, ill health and a poor education. Amnesty International’s women’s rights work encompasses a range of human rights as they relate to the equity needs of women, working at once to advance new rights and opportunities for all women and to combat the abuses of specific groups of women and girls.
We work to advance U.S. ratification of the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), an international treaty ratified by most countries to enshrine a universal approach to women’s rights. Our work is both global and local—at the same time, we combat violence against indigenous women in the USA and work to increase protection for refugee women and children around the world.
From working to improve maternal health and sexual and reproductive rights, to advocating for girls’ opportunities to access to a safe, high-quality education, to highlighting the vulnerabilities women face in war and the value they add to sustainable peace, Amnesty International addresses the rights of all women and girls, in the USA and around the world. Join us! To receive updates and action alerts specific to women’s rights, please email [email protected] to be added to the Women’s Human Rights Network email list, or follow us on Facebook.
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European Parliament Agrees to Partial Ban of Metal Amalgam Fillings
In a landmark decision, the European Parliament passed a partial ban on metal amalgam fillings in children, pregnant women, and nursing mothers. The ban follows an agreement in principle established in December 2016 and is in keeping with the global signing of the Minamata Convention on Mercury that seeks to reduce the use of mercury worldwide, including, hopefully, the end of metal fillings.
Partial Ban in Effect
The passage of the partial ban by the European Parliament comes after the European Parliament reached an agreement with the European Council on the matter. The European Council is not a formal legislative body, but because it consists of the heads of state from each member state, it has considerable influence over the progress of legislation. Once the two bodies agreed in principle on the ban, the way was clear for the Parliament to approve it.
The ban states that metal amalgam fillings should not be used in:
Children 15 and under
As a result, the ban seeks to significantly reduce the amount of metal amalgam fillings used and to reduce people’s lifetime exposure to toxic mercury.
As part of the agreement, all EU member countries have to come up with national plans to comply with the EU ban and reduce overall amalgam use. In addition, the European Commission, which sets off all legislation in the EU, is supposed to come with a plan by 2020 to completely phase out metal amalgam by 2030, if practicable.
Of course, one EU member state–Sweden–has already phased out metal amalgam use. Many other member states have restrictions on its use, including: Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Austria.
The Minamata Convention
The EU’s decision to implement the partial ban on metal amalgam follows a larger commitment to the worldwide Minamata Convention. In the Minamata Convention, signatories agree to reduce the use of mercury for any reason, including the use of metal amalgam fillings.
The convention is named after the town of Minamata, which dramatically demonstrated the toxic effects of mercury poisoning, which included involuntary muscle movements, numbness, loss of senses, insanity, paralysis, and death. Now that we know that mercury in metal amalgam fillings doesn’t stay put, but can travel through the body and even from the body into the environment, this is a good name for the convention.
The convention has 128 signing countries, and a total of 42 parties who have ratified the agreement.
Are You Ready to Get Rid of Toxic Fillings?
For a century and a half, dentists thought that mercury amalgam fillings were a good solution to treating cavities, but the truth is that these fillings are a source of toxin in your body. We are not entirely certain of the effects of these fillings, but it is prudent to have them removed.
If you are looking for an Anchorage dentist who can remove your metal amalgam fillings and replace them with attractive and healthy tooth-colored fillings, please call (907) 349-0022 at Excellence in Dentistry.
By Dr. Kirk Johnson|April 26th, 2017|Fillings|
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Interview: Super/Natural: Textiles of the Andes
by James Blake Wiener
Over the course of several millennia, textiles were the primary form of aesthetic expression and communication for the diverse cultures that developed throughout the desert coasts and mountain highlands of the Andean region. Worn as garments, suspended on walls of temples and homes, and used in ritual settings, ancient Andean textiles functioned in multiple contexts, yet, within each culture, the techniques, motifs, and messages remained consistent. A new exhibition - Super/Natural: Textiles of the Andes - at The Art Institute of Chicago, showcases the beauty and importance of these ancient textiles. In this exclusive interview with co-curators Elizabeth Pope (Arts of Africa and the Americas) and Erica Warren (Textiles) from The Art Institute of Chicago, James Blake Wiener of Ancient History Encyclopedia (AHE) learns more about the prominent position of textiles within pre-Columbian Andean cultures.
JBW: Elizabeth and Erica, thanks so much for speaking with me about Super/Natural: Textiles of the Andes, which is on view at The Art Institute of Chicago until June 16, 2019. I wanted to begin by asking you why The Art Institute of Chicago sought to present an exhibition on Andean textiles?
Textiles were/are the primary mode of aesthetic and cultural expression across the Andes region.
EP & EW: At the Art Institute as part of the permanent collection installation in the Arts of the Americas gallery, we feature a rotation of Andean textiles. We collaborate cross-departmentally on this rotation, which includes selecting the objects, researching and writing labels, designing the display, and installing the works of art. The Art Institute’s Andean textile collection has great breadth in terms of geography as well as chronology, and we wanted the opportunity to tell a bigger and more focused story about these objects. The main point that the exhibition makes is that textiles were/are the primary mode of aesthetic and cultural expression across the Andes region. The quantity and quality of textiles produced throughout the Andes speaks to this assertion, as do the complex and numerous techniques the Andeans employed in producing these objects.
This exhibition gives our audiences the opportunity to see the depth and variety of textile-making practices over the course of two millennia; moreover, about a third of the seventy-two objects in this special exhibition have never been on view before!
JBW: The Department of Textiles at The Art Institute of Chicago contains more than 13,000 textiles and 66,000 sample swatches ranging from 300 BCE to the present. The museum, itself, has a collection of more than 260,000 artworks. These are quite impressive figures! One should note too that the Andean region encompasses an area that traverses present-day Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina.
I am curious to know how curators choose the 60 textiles and a small selection of ceramics that are featured within the exhibition. Was this a daunting task or was it one that was relatively straightforward?
EP & EW: Although the collection is substantial, the textiles guided the choices that we made. The strengths of the collection, which include textiles from pre-Columbian coastal communities as well as the modern highlands, led us to highlight a range of creative approaches to design as well as technique. The ceramics and other related works included in the exhibition were chosen after the textile checklist had been narrowed. These complementary objects beautifully reinforce the central theme of textile primacy.
JBW: A few pieces within Super/Natural: Textiles of the Andes come from the Paracas culture (c. 500 BCE to 200 CE), which flourished in the coastal regions of southern Peru. Could you tell us a bit more about this intriguing culture and its textiles? What is it that stands out about them in your estimation?
EP & EW: Research and archaeology on the Paracas indicates that textiles were ubiquitous in the culture, and the embroidered textiles in particular stand out for their color and detail. A prime example featured in the exhibition is the expansive mantle (1970.293), which has over 50 embroidered anthropomorphic figures with their heads tilted backwards, one arm upraised, and the other holding a feline. Although the embroidery is done in a single type of stitch, and on a plain weave ground, the spinning, weaving, and indigo dyeing of the ground fabric as well as the dyeing of the embroidery threads, in a wide palette of colors, suggest a high degree of sophistication and specialization.
We are uncertain whether or not these labors were divided amongst individuals so that dyeing, weaving, and embroidery were separate areas of professional expertise. Nevertheless, Paracas embroidery provides just a small window onto the complex processes and time-consuming labor required to make these astonishing works.
JBW: Major Andean civilizations are well featured within the exhibition with pieces from the Nazca (c.100 BCE - 800 CE), Lambayeque (c. 750 - c. 1375 CE), and Chimú (c. 900-1470 CE) cultures (there are no Chimú objects in the exhibition). Does the exhibition include pieces from lesser known cultures and civilizations as well? If so, which ones?
EP & EW: In terms of the pre-Columbian part of the exhibition, there are objects from the Rimac as well as the Chancay culture. We certainly have the least information about the Rimac, but believe the exhibition, which situates the Rimac amongst related coastal communities of the Lambayeque and Chancay, offers audiences a framework for understanding these textiles. These three cultures, roughly contemporaneous, produced textiles that have similar representational approaches in terms of the anthropomorphic and animal figures. While we may not be able to offer many details about the larger Rimac culture, the potential for future discoveries remains exciting! Archaeological research is ongoing and may someday offer further insights and understanding!
JBW: Works from the museum’s collection reflect similar designs and patterns for textiles and ceramics that developed in different areas of the Andes.
What are the common elements from each of the cultures represented within Super/Natural: Textiles of the Andes across time and space? Moreover, how does one explain these striking similarities?
EP & EW: In choosing objects for the exhibition, we absolutely wanted to be sure to convey the cross-cultural connections that the textiles elucidate. The key shared themes that the exhibition highlights are the supernatural, the natural, the everyday, and the afterlife. In addition to these shared themes, the way in which they are expressed in the designs of objects often comes across as strikingly similar, as you note. The stepped fret motif appears on a number of objects throughout the exhibition including the Nazca panel fragment (1956.76), which possibly functioned as a wall hanging, two of the Nazca ceramics, as well as two of Lambayeque textiles.
While the exact details surrounding the exchange of design knowledge remains a bit opaque, it is clear that none of these communities were isolated or insular. There was an awareness of a larger world, which came about in part due to the trade in goods and materials, including cotton and wool. Coastal communities grew cotton, while highland communities husbanded llamas and alpacas for their lush wooly fleece. The textiles provide evidence of trade as many of them incorporate both materials in a single work.
JBW: Would you say that the exhibition additionally highlights the unique aspects of Andean artistic diversity? Do these textiles afford an evocative glimpse into the cultures that made up one of the “cradles of civilization”?
EP & EW: In designing the exhibition, we arranged the objects in such a way as to create distinct cultural conversations, in the hope that visitors will get to know each culture and their textiles within a defined space of the galleries. As you move through the exhibition, you move through space and time and meet distinct cultures and learn a little about the specificity of their textile production.
These textiles & ceramics have lived more lives than any of the people who made or used them.
We absolutely think that these textiles provide "an evocative glimpse" and an unparalleled opportunity to see objects made hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of years ago. Textiles were the earliest and most prevalent form of artistic expression throughout the region, and the techniques, as well as the designs, provide a fascinating glimpse into the lives of people who lived hundreds of years ago. The objects ask us to consider how people lived and how they understood their existence and the world around them. Moreover, these textiles and ceramics have lived more lives than any of the people who made or used them, and they have an ongoing existence within The Art Institute’s collection, which make them compelling and thought-provoking.
JBW: Which environmental conditions enabled the survival of the ancient Andean textiles and embroideries over successive millennia? I assume the dry desert climate and elevated terrain helped preserve many textiles, but I would also surmise that much was still lost following the Spanish conquests in the 16th century CE.
EP & EW: You assume correctly! The extremely dry conditions along the desert coast fostered the preservation of textiles. The highlands do not have as consistent of a climate, and therefore fewer textiles remain from the pre-Columbian years. Fortunately, we are collecting modern and contemporary textiles from the highlands as a complement to these early works and to highlight the fact that weaving continued despite the Spanish colonial forces that radically changed the lives of many Andean communities.
JBW: As curators, what do you hope museum visitors learn from a visit to Super/Natural: Textiles of the Andes? Tangentially, have you a favorite piece within the exhibition? If so, what is it and why should visitors not miss it?
EP & EW: We hope that visitors will come to appreciate that textiles are complex and diverse in ways that people nowadays often take for granted! This is a remarkable opportunity to see works of art and rethink notions about ancient cultures and technology.
While it is difficult to pick a favorite work, we each can discuss an object that shouldn’t be missed!
EP: I find particularly compelling the Nazca border fragments, which originally would have been attached to a larger fabric panel, like a fringe. They display the exceptional skill of the weavers, who created these three-dimensional figures using looped and cross-looped needlework. Moreover, on a scale no more than two inches in height, a full range of motifs and symbols are presented: costumed warriors and ritual performers that reference supernatural and otherworldly beings as well as birds, insects, and plants from the natural landscape.
EW: I really want visitors to look closely at the Rimac tapestry woven fish included in the exhibition. One of the details that makes this object remarkable is the fact that it was woven to shape, which means that all of the edges (over twelve!) that form the outline of the fish’s body are finished. The precise planning required to design and make this object is truly astonishing!
JBW: Elizabeth and Erica, I thank you so much for your time and consideration. I appreciate the knowledge that you have shared with us, and I thank you and The Art Institute Chicago for your time and consideration.
EP & EW: Thank you for taking time to chat with us further about the exhibition, James. We hope that we have inspired or fostered further a fascination with these artworks, and perhaps some Ancient History Encyclopedia fans will visit us at The Art Institute in Chicago!
Super/Natural: Textiles of the Andes is on view at The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, IL until June 16, 2019.
Elizabeth Pope is the Collection Manager and Research Assistant in the Department of the Arts of Africa and the Americas, where she has worked since 2005. Previous curatorial appointments include the Edward and Betty Marcus Curatorial Internship at the Dallas Museum of Art, Department of New World Cultures; and Curatorial Intern at Yale University Art Gallery, Department of Ancient Art. She also has co-organized and contributed to several additional exhibitions and art installations, including those at the Textiles Society of America, University of Texas at Austin’s Benson Latin American Collection, and the Adler Planetarium. Her publications include contributions to the Indian Art of the Ancient Americas at the Art Institute of Chicago with Richard Townsend, as well as several additional Art Institute publications. She recently was selected by the Archaeological Institute of America to be the 2019/2020 Webster Lecturer in Archaeoastronomy. Elizabeth is a specialist in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican art, architecture, and ritual performance with a particular focus on the cosmology and cosmogony of the ancient Maya. She received a Ph.D. under the direction of Dr. Linda Schele at UT, Austin, Department of Art and Art History. She also earned an MA in Archaeological Studies from Yale University; and studied non-western cultural cosmologies as an undergraduate at Colgate University, working directly with Dr. Anthony Aveni, receiving a BA in Comparative Cultures.
Erica Warren is assistant curator in the Department of Textiles at the Art Institute of Chicago. Prior to her appointment at the Art Institute, she was a curatorial fellow in the Department of European Decorative Arts and Sculpture and a research assistant in the Department of American Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She has taught courses on the history of design and craft at Drexel University and at the Tyler School of Art, Temple University. She earned her Ph.D. in art history from the University of Minnesota and MA from New York University. She also has participated in the Attingham Summer School. Erica specializes in 19th- and 20th-century CE decorative arts and textiles, particularly European and American, and has interests in contemporary fiber art, textiles, and design as well. She recently curated Super/Natural: Textiles of the Andes, and her previous exhibitions include Music and Movement: Rhythm in Textile Design (May 18, 2018 – January 6, 2019), Making Memories: Quilts as Souvenirs (October 20, 2017-April 1, 2018) and Modern Velvet: A Sense of Luxury in the Age of Industry (October 21, 2016-March 19, 2017). While in Philadelphia, she curated the exhibition The Main Dish (2014). Her forthcoming (2019) essay “Making the Timeless: Anni Albers, Mesoamerican Sculpture, and the ‘Thing Itself’” examines Anni Albers’s understanding of pre-Columbian Mexican art and its impact on her weavings. Erica also contributed a number of entries on modern decorative arts and design to the Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design and has written and lectured on Scandinavian design, with a particular focus on Norway and late 19th- and early 20th-century CE art and nationhood.
James Blake Wiener
James is a writer and former Professor of History. He holds an MA in World History with a particular interest in cross-cultural exchange and world history. He is a co-founder of Ancient History Encyclopedia and formerly was its Communications Director.
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Wiener, J. B. (2019, March 14). Interview: Super/Natural: Textiles of the Andes. Ancient History Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.ancient.eu/article/1347/
Wiener, James B. "Interview: Super/Natural: Textiles of the Andes." Ancient History Encyclopedia. Last modified March 14, 2019. https://www.ancient.eu/article/1347/.
Wiener, James B. "Interview: Super/Natural: Textiles of the Andes." Ancient History Encyclopedia. Ancient History Encyclopedia, 14 Mar 2019. Web. 15 Jul 2019.
Submitted by James Blake Wiener, published on 14 March 2019 under the following license: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.
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When You’re Calling Culture Content, You’re Reinforcing The Idea Of A Container
By Rick Falkvinge
C: 257
The metaphors we use determine how we see the world. When we're calling all stories, songs, news, gossip, and bedtime stories the bland "content", we reinforce that they're contained by something.
The copyright industry has consistently used the word “content” for anything creative.
Just like most other things the copyright industry does, there’s a thought behind the choice of wording – a choice they hope that other people will copy, because it reinforces their view of the world, or rather, what they would like the world to look like.
When we use certain words for metaphors, the words we use convey meaning of their own. This is why you see the pro-choice vs pro-life camps on opposite sides of the abortion debate: both camps want to portray the other camp as anti-choice and anti-life, respectively.
In the liberties debate and the culture debate, there’s nothing of the sort. The copyright industry has been allowed to establish the language completely on its own, and therefore, we’re using terms today that reinforce the idea and the notion that the copyright industry is good and that people who share are bad.
That’s insane.
Stop doing that.
Stop doing that right now.
Language matters.
You’re on the other side of the pro-life camp and you’re willingly calling yourself “anti-life”. How are you expecting to win anything from that position?
One thing you can stop saying immediately is “copyright”. Call it “the copyright monopoly”, for it is a monopoly, and that should be reinforced every time the abomination is mentioned. Also, use the term “the copyright industry” – as in manufacturing copyright monopolies and profiting off them – as often as possible. Never ever talk about “Intellectual Property”, except when describing why it’s bad to do so, as using that term reinforces the idea that ideas can not just be contained, but owned – something that’s blatantly false.
If you have to use the IP term, let it stand for Industrial Protectionism instead. That’s a much more correct description. Never ever ever use the word “property” when you’re referring to a monopoly. Doing so is so factually incorrect that courts have actually banned the copyright industry from using terms like “property” and “theft” – and yet, they keep doing so. Playing along with that game is stupid, dumb, and self-defeating.
Today, I’ll focus on the word “content”.
You’ll notice that the copyright industry uses this word consistently for everything. There’s a reason for that: If you have content, you must also have a container.
Do you need a container for a bedtime story? Do you need a container for a campfire song? Do you need a container for a train of thought? Do you need a container for cool cosplay ideas?
Of course you don’t. They’re ideas shared, songs sung, stories told. The idea that they must have a container – because they’re “content” – is so somebody can lock up those stories told and those songs sung, and so we can buy the container with the “content” we desire, instead of just singing the songs and telling the stories unfettered.
Compare the mental imagery evoked by these two sentences:
“We need to fill this website with content.”
“We need to fill this website with the stories of people in the area.”
One is locked up, controlled, locked down, devalued. The other is shared, cultural, told.
The word “content” means that there must also be a “container”, and that container is the copyright industry.
Don’t ever use the word “content”. It’s as improductive as describing yourself as “anti-life”. Talk about songs, articles, stories, and ideas. Doing so brings new life to the stories you tell.
Above all, be aware of terms that have been established by the adversary to the Internet, to liberty, and to culture – and refuse using them. The copyright industry is not your friend.
Rick Falkvinge is a regular columnist on TorrentFreak, sharing his thoughts every other week. He is the founder of the Swedish and first Pirate Party, a whisky aficionado, and a low-altitude motorcycle pilot. His blog at falkvinge.net focuses on information policy.
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Language Matters: All The Copyright Lobby’s Subtleties
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Tag Archives: Psychology
Mental Health, Mindfulness, Psychology
AWAKENING. THE SCIENCE OF MEDITATION. How to Change Your Brain, Mind and Body – Daniel Goleman and Richard J. Davidson.
Jan 1, 2019 TPPA = CRISIS Leave a comment
“To alleviate suffering and promote flourishing by integrating science with contemplative practice.”
An altered trait, a new characteristic that arises from a meditation practice endures, apart from meditation itself. Altered traits shape how we behave in our daily lives, not just during or immediately after we meditate. As meditation trains the mind, it reshapes the brain.
The most compelling impacts of meditation are not better health or sharper business performance but, rather, a further reach toward our better nature. These deep changes are external signs of strikingly different brain function.
Now we can share scientific confirmation of these profound alterations of being, a transformation that dramatically ups the limits on psychological science’s ideas of human possibility. We offer a cleareyed view based on hard science, sifting out results that are not nearly as compelling as the claims made for them.
As with gaining skill in a given sport, finding a meditation practice that appeals to you and sticking with it will have the greatest benefits. Just find one to try, decide on the amount of time each day you can realistically practice daily, even as short as a few minutes, try it for a month, and see how you feel after those thirty days.
More than forty years ago, two friends and collaborators at Harvard, Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson were unusual in arguing for the benefits of meditation. Now, as mindfulness and other brands of meditation become ever more popular, promising to fix everything from our weight to our relationship to our professional career, these two bestselling authors sweep away the misconceptions around these practices and show how smart practice can change our personal traits and even our genome for the better.
Drawing on cutting-edge research, Goleman and Davidson expertly reveal what we can learn from a one-of-a-kind data pool that includes world-class meditators. They share for the first time remarkable findings that show how meditation without drugs or high expense can cultivate qualities such as selflessness, equanimity, love and compassion, and redesign our neural circuitry.
Demonstrating two master thinkers at work, The Science of Meditation explains precisely how mind training benefits us. More than daily doses or sheer hours, we need smart practice, including crucial ingredients such as targeted feedback from a master teacher and a more spacious worldview.
Gripping in its storytelling and based on a lifetime of thought and action, this is one of those rare books that has the power to change us at the deepest level.
The Deep Path and the Wide
One bright fall morning, Steve Z, a lieutenant colonel working in the Pentagon, heard a “crazy, loud noise,” and instantly was covered in debris as the ceiling caved in, knocking him to the floor, unconscious. It was September 11 , 2001, and a passenger jet had smashed into the huge building, very near to Steve’s office.
The debris that buried Steve saved his life as the plane’s fuselage exploded, a fireball of flames scouring the open office. Despite a concussion, Steve returned to work four days later, laboring through feverish nights, 6:00 pm. to 6:00 am, because those were daytime hours in Afghanistan. Soon after, he volunteered for a year in Iraq.
“I mainly went to Iraq because I couldn’t walk around the Mall without being hypervigilant, wary of how people looked at me, totally on guard,” Steve recalls. “I couldn’t get on an elevator, I felt trapped in my car in traffic.”
His symptoms were classic post-traumatic stress disorder. Then came the day he realized he couldn’t handle this on his own. Steve ended up with a psychotherapist he still sees. She led him, very gently, to try mindfulness.
Mindfulness, he recalls, “gave me something I could do to help feel more calm, less stressed, not be so reactive.” As he practiced more, added loving-kindness to the mix, and went on retreats, his PTSD symptoms gradually became less frequent, less intense. Although his irritability and restlessness still came, he could see them coming.
Tales like Steve’s offer encouraging news about meditation. We have been meditators all our adult lives, and, like Steve, know for ourselves that the practice has countless benefits.
But our scientific backgrounds give us pause, too. Not everything chalked up to meditation’s magic actually stands up to rigorous tests. And so we have set out to make clear what works and what does not.
Some of what you know about meditation may be wrong. But what is true about meditation you may not know.
Take Steve’s story. The tale has been repeated in endless variations by countless others who claim to have found relief in meditation methods like mindfulness, not just from PTSD but from virtually the entire range of emotional disorders.
Yet mindfulness, part of an ancient meditation tradition, was not intended to be such a cure; this method was only recently adapted as a balm for our modern forms of angst. The original aim, embraced in some circles to this day, focuses on a deep exploration of the mind toward a profound alteration of our very being.
On the other hand, the pragmatic applications of meditation, like the mindfulness that helped Steve recover from trauma, appeal widely but do not go so deep. Because this wide approach has easy access, multitudes have found a way to include at least a bit of meditation in their day.
There are, then, two paths: the deep and the wide. Those two paths are often confused with each other, though they differ greatly.
We see the deep path embodied at two levels: in a pure form, for example, in the ancient lineages of Theravada Buddhism as practiced in Southeast Asia, or among Tibetan yogis (for whom we’ll see some remarkable data in chapter eleven, “A Yogi’s Brain”). We’ll call this most intensive type of practice Level 1.
At Level 2, these traditions have been removed from being part of a total lifester-monk or yogi, for example, and adapted into forms more palatable for the West. At Level 2, meditation comes in forms that leave behind parts of the original Asian source that might not make the cross-cultural journey so easily.
Then there are the wide approaches. At Level 3, a further remove takes these same meditation practices out of their spiritual context and distributes them ever more wider, as is the case with mindfulness-based stress reduction (better known as MBSR), founded by our good friend Jon Kabat-Zinn and taught now in thousands of clinics and medical centers, and far beyond. Or Transcendental Meditation (TM), which offers classic Sanskrit mantras to the modern world in a user-friendly format.
The even more widely accessible forms of meditation at Level 4 are, of necessity, the most watered-down, all the better to render them handy for the largest number of people. The current vogues of mindfulness-at-your-desk, or via minutes-long meditation apps, exemplify this level.
We foresee also a Level 5, one that exists now only in bits and pieces, but which may well increase in number and reach with time. At Level 5, the lessons scientists have learned in studying all the other levels will lead to innovations and adaptations that can be of widest benefit, a potential we explore in the final chapter, “A Healthy Mind.”
The deep transformations of Level 1 fascinated us when we originally encountered meditation. Dan studied ancient texts and practiced the methods they describe, particularly during the two years he lived in India and Sri Lanka in his grad school days and just afterward. Richie (as everyone calls him) followed Dan to Asia for a lengthy visit, likewise practicing on retreat there, meeting with meditation scholars, and more recently has scanned the brains of Olympic-level meditators in his lab at the University of Wisconsin.
Our own meditation practice has been mainly at Level 2. But from the start, the wide path, Levels 3 and 4, has also been important to us. Our Asian teachers said if any aspect of meditation could help alleviate suffering, it should be offered to all, not just those on a spiritual search. Our doctoral dissertations applied that advice by studying ways meditation could have cognitive and emotional payoffs.
The story we tell here mirrors our own personal and professional journey. We have been close friends and collaborators on the science of meditation since the 1970s, when we met at Harvard during graduate school, and we have both been practitioners of this inner art over all these years (although we are nowhere near mastery).
While we were both trained as psychologists, we bring complementary skills to telling this story. Dan is a seasoned science journalist who wrote for the New York Times for more than a decade. Richie, a neuroscientist, founded and heads the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Healthy Minds, in addition to directing the brain imaging laboratory at the Waisman Center there, replete with its own fMRl, PET scanner, and a battery of cuttingedge data analysis programs, along with hundreds of servers for the heavy-duty computing required for this work. His research group numbers more than a hundred experts, who range from physicists, statisticians, and computer scientists to neuroscientists and psychologists, as well as scholars of meditative traditions.
Coauthoring a book can be awkward. We’ve had some of that, to be sure, but whatever drawbacks coauthorship brought us has been vastly overshadowed by the sheer delight we find in working together. We’ve been best friends for decades but labored separately over most of our careers. This book has brought us together again, always a joy.
You are holding the book we had always wanted to write but could not. The science and the data we needed to support our ideas have only recently matured. Now that both have reached a critical mass, we are delighted to share this.
Our joy also comes from our sense of a shared, meaningful mission: we aim to shift the conversation with a radical reinterpretation of what the actual benefits of meditation are, and are not, and what the true aim of practice has always been.
THE DEEP PATH
After his return from India in the fall of 1974, Richie was in a seminar on psychopathology back at Harvard. Richie, with long hair and attire in keeping with the zeitgeist of Cambridge in those times, including a colorful woven sash that he wore as a belt, was startled when his professor said, “One clue to schizophrenia is the bizarre way a person dresses,” giving Richie a meaningful glance.
And when Richie told one of his Harvard professors that he wanted to focus his dissertation on meditation, the blunt response came immediately: that would be a career-ending move.
Dan set out to research the impacts of meditation that uses a mantra. On hearing this, one of his clinical psychology professors asked with suspicion, “How is a mantra any different from my obsessive patients who can’t stop saying ‘shit-shit-shit’?” The explanation that the expletives are involuntary in the psychopathology, while the silent mantra repetition is a voluntary and intentional focusing device, did little to placate him.
These reactions were typical of the opposition we faced from our department heads, who were still responding with knee-jerk negativity toward anything to do with consciousness, perhaps a mild form of PTSD after the notorious debacle involving Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert. Leary and Alpert had been very publicly ousted from our department in a brouhaha over letting Harvard undergrads experiment with psychedelics. This was some five years before we arrived, but the echoes lingered.
Despite our academic mentors’ seeing our meditation research as a blind alley, our hearts told us this was of compelling import. We had a big idea: beyond the pleasant states meditation can produce, the real payoffs are the lasting traits that can result.
An altered trait, a new characteristic that arises from a meditation practice endure, apart from meditation itself. Altered traits shape how we behave in our daily lives, not just during or immediately after we meditate.
The concept of altered traits has been a lifelong pursuit, each of us playing synergistic roles in the unfolding of this story. There were Dan’s years in India as an early participant-observer in the Asian roots of these mindaltering methods. And on Dan’s return to America he was a not-so-successful transmitter to contemporary psychology of beneficial changes from meditation and the ancient working models for achieving them.
Richie’s own experiences with meditation led to decades pursuing the science that supports our theory of altered traits. His research group has now generated the data that lend credence to what could otherwise seem mere fanciful tales. And by leading the creation of a fledgling research field, contemplative neuroscience, he has been grooming a coming generation of scientists whose work builds on and adds to this evidence.
In the wake of the tsunami of excitement over the wide path, the alternate route so often gets missed: that is, the deep path, which has always been the true goal of meditation. As we see it, the most compelling impacts of meditation are not better health or sharper business performance but, rather, a further reach toward our better nature.
A stream of findings from the deep path markedly boosts science’s models of the upper limits of our positive potential. The further reaches of the deep path cultivate enduring qualities like selflessness, equanimity a loving presence, and impartial compassion, highly positive altered traits.
When we began, this seemed big news for modern psychology, if it would listen. Admittedly, at first the concept of altered traits had scant backing save for the gut feelings we had from meeting highly seasoned practitioners in Asia, the claims of ancient meditation texts, and our own fledgling tries at this inner art. Now, after decades of silence and disregard, the last few years have seen ample findings that bear out our early hunch. Only of late have the scientific data reached critical mass, confirming what our intuition and the texts told us: these deep changes are external signs of strikingly different brain function.
Much of that data comes from Richie’s lab, the only scientific center that has gathered findings on dozens of contemplative masters, mainly Tibetan yogis, the largest pool of deep practitioners studied anywhere.
These unlikely research partners have been crucial in building a scientific case for the existence of a way of being that has eluded modern thought, though it was hiding in plain sight as a goal of the world’s major spiritual traditions. Now we can share scientific confirmation of these profound alterations of being, a transformation that dramatically ups the limits on psychological science’s ideas of human possibility.
The very idea of “awakening”, the goal of the deep path, seems a quaint fairy tale to a modern sensibility. Yet data from Richie’s lab, some just being published in journals as this book goes to press, confirm that remarkable, positive alterations in brain and behavior along the lines of those long described for the deep path are not a myth but a reality.
THE WIDE PATH
We have both been longtime board members of the Mind and Life Institute, formed initially to create intensive dialogues between the Dalai Lama and scientists on wide-ranging topics. In 2000 we organized one on “destructive emotions,” with several top experts on emotions, including Richie. Midway through that dialogue the Dalai Lama, turning to Richie, made a provocative challenge.
His own tradition, the Dalai Lama observed, had a wide array of time-tested practices for taming destructive emotions. So, he urged, take these methods into the laboratory in forms freed from religious trappings, test them rigorously, and if they can help people lessen their destructive emotions, then spread them widely to all who might benefit.
That fired us up. Over dinner that night, and several nights following, we began to plot the general course of the research we report in this book.
The Dalai Lama’s challenge led Richie to refocus the formidable power of his lab to assess both the deep and the wide paths. And, as founding director of the Center for Healthy Minds, Richie has spurred work on useful, evidence-based applications suitable for schools, clinics, businesses, even for cops, for anyone, anywhere, ranging from a kindness program for preschoolers to treatments for veterans with PTSD.
The Dalai Lama’s urging catalyzed studies that support the wide path in scientific terms, a vernacular welcomed around the globe. Meanwhile the wide way has gone viral, becoming the stuff of blogs, tweets, and snappy apps. For instance, as we write this, a wave of enthusiasm surrounds mindfulness, and hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, now practice the method.
But viewing mindfulness (or any variety of meditation) through a scientific lens starts with questions like: When does it work, and when does it not? Will this method help everyone? Are its benefits any different from, say, exercise? These are among the questions that brought us to write this book.
Meditation is a catch-all word for myriad varieties of contemplative practice, just as sports refers to a wide range of athletic activities. For both sports and meditation, the end results vary depending on what you actually do.
Some practical advice: for those about to start a meditation practice, or who have been grazing among several, keep in mind that as with gaining skill in a given sport, finding a meditation practice that appeals to you and sticking with it will have the greatest benefits. Just find one to try, decide on the amount of time each day you can realistically practice daily, even as short as a few minutes, try it for a month, and see how you feel after those thirty days.
Just as regular workouts give you better physical fitness, most any type of meditation will enhance mental fitness to some degree. As we’ll see, the specific benefits from one or another type get stronger the more total hours of practice you put in.
Swami X, as we’ll call him, was at the tip of the wave of meditation teachers from Asia who swarmed to America in the mid-1970s, during our Harvard days. The swami reached out to us saying he was eager to have his yogic prowess studied by scientists at Harvard who could confirm his remarkable abilities.
It was the height of excitement about a then new technology, biofeedback, which fed people instant information about their physiology, blood pressure, for instance, which otherwise was beyond their conscious control. With that new incoming signal, people were able to nudge their body’s operations in healthier directions. Swami X claimed he had such control without the need for feedback.
Happy to stumble on a seemingly accomplished subject for research, we were able to finagle the use of a physiology lab at Harvard Medical School’s Massachusetts Mental Health Center.
But come the day of testing the swami’s prowess, when we asked him to lower his blood pressure, he raised it. When asked to raise it, he lowered it. And when we told him this, the swami berated us for serving him “toxic tea” that supposedly sabotaged his gifts.
Our physiological tracings revealed he could do none of the mental feats he had boasted about. He did, however, manage to put his heart into atrial fibrillation, a high-risk biotalent, with a method he called “dog samadhi,” a name that mystifies us to this day.
From time to time the swami disappeared into the men’s room to smoke a bidi (these cheap cigarettes, a few flakes of tobacco wrapped in a plant leaf, are popular throughout India). A telegram from friends in India soon after revealed that the “swami” was actually the former manager of a shoe factory who had abandoned his wife and two children and come to America to make his fortune.
No doubt Swami X was seeking a marketing edge to attract disciples. In his subsequent appearances he made sure to mention that “scientists at Harvard” had studied his meditative prowess. This was an early harbinger of what has become a bountiful harvest of data refried into sales hype.
With such cautionary incidents in mind, we bring open but skeptical minds, the scientist’s mind-set, to the current wave of meditation research. For the most part we view with satisfaction the rise of the mindfulness movement and its rapidly growing reach in schools, business, and our private lives, the wide approach. But we bemoan how the data all too often is distorted or exaggerated when science gets used as a sales hook.
The mix of meditation and monetizing has a sorry track record as a recipe for hucksterism, disappointment, even scandal. All too often, gross misrepresentations, questionable claims, or distortions of scientific studies are used to sell meditation. A business website, for instance, features a blog post called “How Mindfulness Fixes Your Brain, Reduces Stress, and Boosts Performance.” Are these claims justified by solid scientific findings? Yes and no, though the “no” too easily gets overlooked.
Among the iffy findings gone viral with enthusiastic claims: that meditation thickens the brain’s executive center, the prefrontal cortex, while shrinking the amygdala, the trigger for our freeze-fight-or-flight response; that meditation shifts our brain’s set point for emotions into a more positive range; that meditation slows aging; and that meditation can be used to treat diseases ranging from diabetes to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
On closer look, each of the studies on which these claims are based has problems with the methods used; they need more testing and corroboration to make firm claims. Such findings may well stand up to further scrutiny, or maybe not.
The research reporting amygdala shrinkage, for instance, used a method to estimate amygdala volume that may not be very accurate. And one widely cited study describing slower aging used a very complex treatment that included some meditation but was mixed with a special diet and intensive exercise as well; the impact of meditation per se was impossible to decipher.
Still, social media are rife with such claims, and hyperbolic ad copy can be enticing. So we offer a cleareyed view based on hard science, sifting out results that are not nearly as compelling as the claims made for them.
Even well-meaning proponents have little guidance in distinguishing between what’s sound and what’s questionable, or just sheer nonsense. Given the rising tide of enthusiasm, our more sober-minded take comes not a moment too soon.
A note to readers.
The first three chapters cover our initial forays into meditation, and the scientific hunch that motivated our quest.
Chapters four through twelve narrate the scientific journey, with each chapter devoted to a particular topic like attention or compassion; each of these has an “In a Nutshell” summary at the end for those who are more interested in what we found than how we got there.
In chapters eleven and twelve we arrive at our long-sought destination, sharing the remarkable findings on the most advanced meditators ever studied.
In chapter thirteen, “Altering Traits,” we lay out the benefits of meditation at three levels: beginner, longterm, and “Olympic.”
In our final chapter we speculate on what the future might bring, and how these findings might be of greater benefit not just to each of us individually but to society.
THE ACCELERATION
As early as the 1830s, Thoreau and Emerson, along with their fellow American Transcendentalists, flirted with these Eastern inner arts. They were spurred by the first English-language translations of ancient spiritual texts from Asia, but had no instruction in the practices that supported those texts. Almost a century later, Sigmund Freud advised psychoanalysts to adopt an “even-hovering attention” while listening to their clients, but again, offered no method.
The West’s more serious engagement took hold mere decades ago, as teachers from the East arrived, and as a generation of Westerners traveled to study meditation in Asia, some returning as teachers. These forays paved the way for the current acceleration of the wide path, along with fresh possibilities for those few who choose to pursue the deep way.
In the 1970s, when we began publishing our research on meditation, there were just a handful of scientific articles on the topic. At last count there numbered 6,838 such articles, with a notable acceleration of late. For 2014 the annual number was 925, in 2015 the total was 1,098, and in 2016 there were 1,113 such publications in the English language scientific literature.
PRIMING THE FIELD
It was April 2001, on the top floor of the Fluno Center on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and we were convening with the Dalai Lama for an afternoon of scientific dialogue on meditation research findings. Missing from the room was Francisco Varela, a Chilean-born neuroscientist and head of a cognitive neuroscience laboratory at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris. His remarkable career included cofounding the Mind and Life Institute, which had organized this very gathering.
As a serious meditation practitioner, Francisco could see the promise for a full collaboration between seasoned meditators and the scientists studying them. That model became standard practice in Richie’s lab, as well as others.
Francisco had been scheduled to participate, but he was fighting liver cancer and a severe downturn meant he could not travel. He was in his bed at home in Paris, close to dying.
This was in the days before Skype and videoconferencing, but Richie’s group managed a two-way video hookup between our meeting room and Francisco’s bedroom in his Paris apartment. The Dalai Lama addressed him very directly, looking closely into the camera. They both knew that this would be the very last time they would see each other in this lifetime.
The Dalai Lama thanked Francisco for all he had done for science and for the greater good, told him to be strong, and said that they would remain connected forever. Richie and many others in the room had tears streaming down, appreciating the momentous import of the moment. Just days after the meeting, Francisco passed away.
Three years later, in 2004, an event occurred that made real a dream Francisco had often talked about. At the Garrison Institute, an hour up the Hudson River from New York City, one hundred scientists, graduate students, and postdocs had gathered for the first in what has become a yearly series of events, the Summer Research Institute (SRI), a gathering devoted to furthering the rigorous study of meditation.
The meetings are organized by the Mind and Life Institute, itself formed in 1987 by the Dalai Lama, Francisco, and Adam Engle, a lawyer turned businessman. We were founding board members. The mission of Mind and Life is “to alleviate suffering and promote flourishing by integrating science with contemplative practice.”
Mind and Life’s summer institute, we felt, could offer a more welcoming reality for those who, like us in our grad school days, wanted to do research on meditation. While we had been isolated pioneers, we wanted to knit together a community of like-minded scholars and scientists who shared this quest. They could be supportive of each other’s work at a distance, even if they were alone in their interests at their own institution.
Details of the SRI were hatched over the kitchen table in Richie’s home in Madison, in a conversation with Adam Engle, Richie and a handful of scientists and scholars then organized the first summer program and served as faculty for the week, featuring topics like the cognitive neuroscience of attention and mental imagery. As of this writing, thirteen more meetings have followed (with two so far in Europe, and possibly future meetings in Asia and South America).
Beginning with the very first SRI, the Mind and Life Institute began a program of small grants named in honor of Francisco. These few dozen, very modest Varela research awards (up to $25,000, though most research of this kind takes far more in funding) have leveraged more than $60 million in follow-on funding from foundations and US federal granting agencies. And the initiative has borne plentiful fruit: fifty or so graduates of the SRI have published several hundred papers on meditation.
As these young scientists entered academic posts, they swelled the numbers of researchers doing such studies. They have driven in no small part the ever-growing numbers of scientific studies on meditation.
At the same time, more established scientists have shifted their focus toward this area as results showed valuable yield. The findings rolling out of Richie’s brain lab at the University of Wisconsin, and labs of other scientists, from the medical schools of Stanford and Emory, Yale and Harvard, and far beyond, routinely make headlines.
Given meditation’s booming popularity, we feel a need for a hard-nosed look. The neural and biological benefits best documented by sound science are not necessarily the ones we hear about in the press, on Facebook, or from email marketing blasts. And some of those trumpeted far and wide have little scientific merit.
Many reports boil down to the ways a short daily dose of meditation alters our biology and emotional life for the better. This news, gone viral, has drawn miliions worldwide to find a slot in their daily routine for meditation.
But there are far greater possibilities, and some perils. The moment has come to tell the bigger tale, the headlines are missing.
There are several threads in the tapestry we weave here. One can be seen in the story of our decades-long friendship and our shared sense of a greater purpose, at first a distant and unlikely goal but one in which we persisted despite obstacles. Another traces the emergence of neuroscience’s evidence that our experiences shape our brains, a platform supporting our theory that as meditation trains the mind, it reshapes the brain. Then there’s the flood of data we’ve mined to show the gradient of this change.
At the outset, mere minutes a day of practice have surprising benefits (though not all those that are claimed). Beyond such payoffs at the beginning, we can now show that the more hours you practice, the greater the benefits you reap. And at the highest levels of practice we find true altered traits, changes in the brain that science has never observed before, but which we proposed decades ago.
Ancient Clues
Our story starts one early November morning in 1970, when the spire of the stupa in Bodh Gaya was lost to view, enveloped in the ethereal mist rising from the Niranjan River nearby. Next to the stupa stood a descendant of the very Bodhi Tree under which, legend has it, Buddha sat in meditation as he became enlightened.
Through the mist that morning, Dan glimpsed an elderly Tibetan monk amble by as he made his postdawn rounds, circumambulating the holy site. With shortcropped gray hair and eyeglasses as thick as the bottoms of Coke bottles, he fingered his mala beads while mumbling softly a mantra praising the Buddha as a sage, or muni in Sanskrit: “Muni, muni, mahamuni, mahamuniya swaha!”
A few days later, friends happened to bring Dan to visit that very monk, Khunu Lama. He inhabited a sparse, unheated cell, its concrete walls radiating the late-fall chill. A wooden-plank tucket served as both bed and day couch, with a small stand alongside for perching texts to read, and little else. As befits a monk, the room was empty of any private belongings.
From the early-morning hours until late into the night, Khunu Lama would sit on that bed, a text always open in front of him. Whenever a visitor would pop in, and in the Tibetan world that could be at just about any time, he would invariably welcome them with a kindly gaze and warm words.
Khunu’s qualities, a loving attention to whoever came to see him, an ease of being, and a gentle presence, struck Dan as quite unlike, and far more positive than, the personality traits he had been studying for his degree in clinical psychology at Harvard. That training focused on negatives: neurotic patterns, overpowering burdensome feelings, and outright psychopathology.
Khunu, on the other hand, quietly exuded the better side of human nature. His humility, for instance, was fabled. The story goes that the abbot of the monastery, in recognition of Khunu’s spiritual status, offered him as living quarters a suite of rooms on the monastery’s top floor, with a monk to serve as an attendant. Khunu declined, preferring the simplicity of his small, bare monk’s cell.
Khunu Lama was one of those rare masters revered by all schools of Tibetan practice. Even the Dalai Lama sought him out for teachings, receiving instructions on Shantideva’s Bodhicharyavatara, a guide to the compassion-filled life of a bodhisattva. To this day, whenever the Dalai Lama teaches this text, one of his favorites, he credits Khunu as his mentor on the topic.
Before meeting Khunu Lama, Dan had spent months with an Indian yogi, Neem Karoli Baba, who had drawn him to India in the first place. Neem Karoli, known by the honorific Maharaji, was newly famous in the West as the guru of Ram Dass, who in those years toured the country with mesmerizing accounts of his transformation from Richard Alpert (the Harvard professor fired for experimenting with psychedelics, along with his colleague Timothy Leary) to a devotee of this old yogi. By accident, during Christmas break from his Harvard classes in 1968, Dan met Ram Dass, who had just returned from being with Neem Karoli in India, and that encounter eventually propelled Dan’s journey to India.
Dan managed to get a Harvard Predoctoral Traveling Fellowship to India in fall 1970, and located Neem Karoli Baba at a small ashram in the Himalayan foothills. Living the life of a sadhu, Maharaji’s only worldly possessions seemed to be the white cotton dhoti he wore on hot days and the heavy woolen plaid blanket he wrapped around himself on cold ones. He kept no particular schedule, had no organization, nor offered any fixed program of yogic poses or meditations. Like most sadhus, he was itinerant, unpredictably on the move. He mainly hung out on a tucket on the porch of whatever ashram, temple, or home he was visiting at the time.
Maharaji seemed always to be absorbed in some state of ongoing quiet rapture, and, paradoxically, at the same time was attentive to whoever was with him. What struck Dan was how utterly at peace and how kind Maharaji was. Like Khunu, he took an equal interest in everyone who came, and his visitors ranged from the highest-ranking government officials to beggars.
There was something about his ineffable state of mind that Dan had never sensed in anyone before meeting Maharaji. No matter what he was doing, he seemed to remain effortlessly in a blissful, loving space, perpetually at ease. Whatever state Maharaji was in seemed not some temporary oasis in the mind, but a lasting way of being: a trait of utter wellness.
BEYOND THE PARADIGM
After two months or so making daily visits to Maharaji at the ashram, Dan and his friend Jeff (now widely known as the devotional singer Krishna Das) went traveling with another Westerner who was desperate to renew his visa after spending seven years in India living as a sadhu. That journey ended for Dan at Bodh Gaya, where he was soon to meet Khunu Lama.
Bodh Gaya, in the North Indian state Bihar, is a pilgrimage site for Buddhists the world over, and most every Buddhist country has a building in the town where its pilgrims can stay. The Burmese vihara, or pilgrim’s rest house, had been built before the takeover by a military dictatorship that forbade Burma’s citizens to travel. The vihara had lots of rooms but few pilgrims, and soon became an overnight stop for the ragged band of roaming Westerners who wandered through town.
When Dan arrived there in November 1970, he met the sole long-term American resident, Joseph Goldstein, a former Peace Corps worker in Thailand. Joseph had spent more than four years studying at the vihara with Anagarika Munindra, a meditation master. Munindra, of slight build and always clad in white, belonged to the Barua caste in Bengal, whose members had been Buddhist since the time of Gautama himself.
Munindra had studied vipassana (the Theravadan meditation and root source of many now-popular forms of mindfulness) under Burmese masters of great repute. Munindra, who became Dan’s first instructor in the method, had just invited his friend S. N. Goenka, a jovial, paunchy former businessman recently turned meditation teacher, to come to the vihara to lead a series of ten-day retreats.
Goenka had become a meditation teacher in a tradition established by Ledi Sayadaw, a Burmese monk who, as part of a cultural renaissance in the early twentieth century meant to counter British colonial influence, revolutionized meditation by making it widely available to laypeople. While meditation in that culture had for centuries been the exclusive provenance of monks and nuns, Goenka learned vipassana from U Ba Khin (U is an honorific in Burmese), at one time Burma’s accountant general, who had been taught the method by a farmer, who was in turn taught by Ledi Sayadaw.
Dan took five of Goenka’s ten-day courses in a row, immersing himself in this rich meditation method. He was joined by about a hundred fellow travelers. This gathering in the winter of 1970-71 was a seminal moment in the transfer of mindfulness from an esoteric practice in Asian countries to its current widespread adoption around the world. A handful of the students there, with Joseph Goldstein leading the way, later became instrumental in bringing mindfulness to the West.
Starting in his college years Dan had developed a twice-daily habit of twenty-minute meditation sessions, but this immersion in ten days of continual practice brought him to new levels. Goenka’s method started with simply noting the sensations of breathing in and out, not for just twenty minutes but for hours and hours a day. This cultivation of concentration then morphed into a systematic whole-body scan of whatever sensations were occurring anywhere in the body. What had been “my body, my knee” becomes a sea of shifting sensation, a radical shift in awareness.
The Science of Meditation. How to Change Your Brain, Mind and Body
by Daniel Goleman and Richard J. Davidson
BuddhismDanielGolemanmeditationMentalHealthMindfulnessPsychologyRichardJDavidson
Advertising & Marketing, Consumerism, Materialism, Psychology
ADVERTISING AND ACADEMIA ARE CONTROLLING OUR THOUGHTS. Didn’t you know? – George Monbiot * A typology of consumer strategies for resisting advertising, and a review of mechanisms for countering them – Marieke L. Fransen, Peeter W.J. Verlegh, Amna Kirmani, Edith G. Smit.
Dec 31, 2018 TPPA = CRISIS Leave a comment
“We have the ability to twiddle some knobs in a machine learning dashboard we build, and around the world hundreds of thousands of people are going to quietly change their behaviour in ways that, unbeknownst to them, feel second-nature but are really by design.”
By abetting the ad industry, universities are leading us into temptation, when they should be enlightening us.
“Our ACE typology distinguishes three types of resistance strategies: Avoiding, Contesting, and Empowering. We introduce these strategies, and present research describing advertising tactics that may be used to neutralize each of them.”
We are subject to constant influence, some of which we see, much of which we don’t. And there is one major industry that seeks to decide on our behalf. Its techniques get more sophisticated every year, drawing on the latest findings in neuroscience and psychology. It is called advertising.
To what extent do we decide? We tell ourselves we choose our own life course, but is this ever true? If you or I had lived 500 years ago, our worldview, and the decisions we made as a result, would have been utterly different. Our minds are shaped by our social environment, in particular the belief systems projected by those in power: monarchs, aristocrats and theologians then; corporations, billionaires and the media today.
Humans, the supremely social mammals, are ethical and intellectual sponges. We unconsciously absorb, for good or ill, the influences that surround us. Indeed, the very notion that we might form our own minds is a received idea that would have been quite alien to most people five centuries ago. This is not to suggest we have no capacity for independent thought. But to exercise it, we must, consciously and with great effort, swim against the social current that sweeps us along, mostly without our knowledge.
Surely, though, even if we are broadly shaped by the social environment, we control the small decisions we make? Sometimes. Perhaps. But here, too, we are subject to constant influence, some of which we see, much of which we don’t. And there is one major industry that seeks to decide on our behalf. Its techniques get more sophisticated every year, drawing on the latest findings in neuroscience and psychology. It is called advertising.
But what puzzles and disgusts me even more than this failure is the willingness of universities to host research that helps advertisers hack our minds. The Enlightenment ideal, which all universities claim to endorse, is that everyone should think for themselves. So why do they run departments in which researchers explore new means of blocking this capacity?
“The literature does not provide a clear overview of the different ways in which consumers may resist advertising, and the tactics that can be used to counter or avoid such resistance. This article fills this gap by providing an overview of the different types of resistance that consumers may show, and by discussing the ways in which resistance may be countered.”
A typology of consumer strategies for resisting advertising, and a review of mechanisms for countering them.
Marieke L. Fransen, Peeter W.J. Verlegh, Amna Kirmani, Edith G. Smit.
This article presents a typology of the different ways in which consumers resist advertising, and the tactics that can be used to counter or avoid such resistance. It brings together literatures from different fields of study, including advertising, marketing, communication, science and psychology. Although researchers in these subfields have Shown a substantial interest in (consumer) resistance, these streams of literature are poorly connected. This article aims to facilitate the exchange of knowledge, and serve as a starting point for future research.
Keywords: persuasion; resistance; reactance; knowledge
Advertising is designed to persuade consumers by creating brand and product awareness, or by communicating social, emotional or functional product benefits. But consumers are not always open to advertising, and often resist its attempts at persuasion. This resistance is nothing new: 20 years ago, Calfee and Ringold (1994) reviewed six decades of research on consumers’ opinions about advertising; they showed that scepticism abides, and that the majority of consumers (about 70%) feel that advertising tries to persuade people to buy things they do not want or need.
This defensive response to advertising has been studied in several streams of research. In marketing and consumer research, for example, Friestad and Wright (1994) developed the persuasion knowledge model to describe consumers’ responses to persuasive attempts. The model has become one of the key theories in marketing research, and is widely applied to understand when and how consumers respond defensively to marketing communications, ranging from traditional TV ads to advergames and social media applications (Panic, Cauberghe, and De Pelsmacker 2013; Van Noort, Antheunis, and Verlegh 2014).
In addition to the persuasion knowledge model, there has been a substantial amount of work focusing on topics such as scepticism, selective exposure, and reactance, which may all be classified as resistance to advertising. Unfortunately the literature does not provide a clear overview of the different ways in which consumers may resist advertising, and the tactics that can be used to counter or avoid such resistance. This article fills this gap by providing an overview of the different types of resistance that consumers may show, and by discussing the ways in which resistance may be countered.
Thus article should not only be interesting for practitioners, but also for academics, as it brings together literatures from different fields of study, including advertising, marketing, communication science and psychology. Although researchers in these subfields have shown a substantial interest in (consumer) resistance, these streams of literature are poorly connected, and this paper aims to facilitate the exchange of knowledge between these subflelds. The presented framework for organizing the different types of strategies provides further integration of different findings, and should serve as a starting point for further exploration of the defensive strategies employed by consumers.
This paper develops a typology of the main types of consumer resistance and provides some (evidence-based) strategies for coping with this resistance. We refer to this as the ACE typology, since it distinguishes among Avoiding, Contesting, and Empowering types of resistance strategies that consumers can use. We first introduce these strategies, and then suggest some advertising tactics that may be used to neutralize each of these types of resistance. The typology is summarized in Figure 1.
ACE a typology of resistance strategies
Knowles and Linn (2004) emphasize that resistance is a motivational state, in which people have the goal to reduce attitudinal or behavioural change or to retain one’s current attitude. Following their conceptualization, we view the mitigation of attitudinal or behavioural change as a (possible) outcome of the strategies that are employed by consumers who are motivated to resist persuasion. In this section, we will define the Avoidance, Contesting and Empowerment strategies. Further elaboration can be found in Fransen, Smit, and Verlegh (2014).
Avoidance strategies
Advertising avoidance is a well-studied phenomenon. Speck and Elliot (1997) investigated advertising avoidance in magazines, newspapers, radio and television. They identified several ways that people avoid advertising; (a) physical avoidance; (b) mechanical avoidance; and (c) cognitive avoidance. Physical avoidance entails a variety of strategies aimed at not seeing or hearing the ad. These include leaving the room or skipping the advertising section in a newspaper. In an insightful ethnographic study, Brodin (2007) found that TV viewers use commercial breaks to talk to others, go to the bathroom, or engage in other behaviours that purposefully or accidently lead to advertising avoidance. Using an eye tracking methodology, Dreze and Hussherr, (2003) found that consumers actively avoid looking at banners when using the Internet. In fact, consumers can employ the modern methods of physical avoidance, such as blocking online ads, filtering email, or subscribing to ‘do not email’, ‘do not call’ or ‘do not track’ programs (Johnson 2013).
Mechanical avoidance includes zapping, zipping, or muting the television or radio when the commercials start. The literature shows that a high percentage of television viewers zap (Tse and Lee 2001) or zip (Stemberg 1987) during commercial breaks. ‘Block zipping’, blocking two or more commercials at the same time, seems the most prevalent form of zipping (Cronin and Menelly 1992). Stafford and Stafford (1996) adopted the uses and gratifications perspective from communication theory to explain why people engage in mechanical avoidance. Boredom was found to explain both zipping and zapping behaviour whereas curiosity predicted only zapping behaviour.
Cognitive ad avoidance means not paying attention to specific advertisements. Consumers may engage in ‘selective exposure’ and ‘selective attention’; the tendency to avoid or devote less attention to persuasive communications that are likely to contain messages that contradict with existing beliefs or opinions (Freedman and Sears 1965; Knobloch-Westerwick and Meng 2009). In other words, people are motivated to seek information that is consonant with their beliefs and attitudes and to avoid information that is dissonant with their beliefs and attitudes. Most research on selective exposure is conducted in the fields of political and health communication (for a review see Smith, Fabrigar, and Norris 2008).
Research on the determinants of avoidance behaviour demonstrates that viewers are less inclined to avoid commercial messages that are emotional and entertaining, and more inclined to avoid messages that are informational (Olney, Holbrook, and Batra 1991; Woltman, Wedel, and Pieters, 2003). In addition, viewers are less likely to avoid advertisements on regularly purchased products (Siddarth and Chattopdahyay 1998).
An interesting question is whether there are differences between active (conscious) avoidance and passive (unconscious) avoidance. To show active avoidance, consumers have to be aware of the fact that an ad is there, but have to somehow force themselves not to see or hear it. Passive avoidance on the other hand does not necessarily require such action, and might therefore call for different types of neutralizing strategies.
Contesting strategies
In addition to avoiding advertising messages, consumers may resist advertising by using a contesting strategy. Contesting strategies involve actively refuting the ad by challenging it. An ad can be countered by considering different characteristics of the ad, (a) the advertising message itself (the content), (b) the source of the ad or (c) the persuasive tactics that are used in the ad.
In the persuasion literature, contesting the content of persuasive messages has been referred to as counter-arguing (e.g., Buller 1986; Wright, 1975; Jacks and Cameron 2003). Defined as a thought process that decreases agreement with a counter-attitudinal message, counter-arguing is often described as a mediating variable between a persuasive message and outcomes such as attitudes and behaviour (Festinger and Maccoby 1964; Silvia 2006). People who engage in counter-arguing scrutinize the arguments presented, and subsequently try to generate reasons to refute them.
Contesting the source of a message, referred to as source derogation, occurs when individuals dismiss the validity of the source. For instance, consumers may question the source’s expertise, trustworthiness, or motives (Jacks and Cameron (2003). As a consequence, the message will lose credibility, which reduces its impact. Source derogation is often used when the source can be construed as biased (Wright 1973). Batinic and Appel 2013) demonstrated that information from commercial sources (i.e., advertising) is perceived to be less trustworthy than information from non-commercial sources, such as consumer recommendations or word of mouth.
Contesting the persuasive tactics used in a message has often been examined in the context of the Persuasion Knowledge Model (Friestad and Wright (1994). When consumers become suspicious of the advertiser’s manipulative intent, they resist the advertising message. For instance, Campbell (1995) finds that borrowed-interest appeals, whereby marketers use consumers’ interest in an (unrelated) topic (e.g., celebrities or puppies) to trigger interest in their product or service, can lead to negative attitudes towards the advertiser. Similarly, consumers are more likely to become suspicious of advertisers’ motives when ads feature negative comparisons to the competition (Jain and Posavac 2014) or incomplete comparisons (Kirmani and Zhu 2007). Finally, consumers may counter-argue the ad and derogate the source when the advertiser is perceived as spending too much money, such as when the ad is repeated often (Kirmani 1997).
Empowering strategies
Empowering strategies are related to the recipients themselves, not to the content of the persuasive message. They involve reassuring the self or one’s existing attitude. Three types of empowering strategies have been described in the literature: attitude bolstering, social validation, and self-assertion.
Consumers who engage in attitude bolstering focus on defending their existing attitudes and behaviours rather than refuting or challenging a message. To achieve this, they generate thoughts that are supportive of those attitudes and behaviours when they are exposed to a persuasive message that challenges them (Lydon, Zanna, and Ross 1988; Meirick 2002). For example, a person who is ‘pro-choice’ might resist a message against abortion by actively thinking about arguments that are in support of their own position, rather than considering the arguments presented in the message.
A second empowering strategy is social validation, which entails validating one’s attitude with significant others (Jacks and Cameron 2003). Consumers who use this strategy will actively look for (significant) others who share their existing beliefs, in order to confirm their current attitudes or behaviours. Social validation is related to the concept of ‘social proof’; when uncertain about how to behave, people have the tendency to look at the behaviour of others (Cialdini 2001). Jacks and Cameron (2003) argue that people may use a similar heuristic when they seek to defend themselves against an unwanted persuasion attempt. They demonstrated that people who are presented with a persuasive message that is incongruent with their existing attitude think of others who share their existing beliefs. Their current attitude or behaviour is validated in this way, which makes them less susceptible to the influence of dissonant messages.
In their research on resistance strategies, Jacks and Cameron (2003) observed a third empowerment strategy: asserting the self. When using self-assertions, people remind themselves that they are confident about their attitudes and behaviours, and that nothing can be done to change these. Self-assertion provides a boost to one’s self-esteem, which reduces susceptibility to persuasive messages (Rhodes and Wood 1992; Leary and Baumeister 2000). In addition to boosting confidence in one’s own opinions, this strategy reduces the extent to which consumers feel social pressure to conform to the norms that are imposed by others (Levine and Moreland 1990).
Now we have introduced our typology of Avoidance, Contesting and Empowering resistance strategies, the next section examines tactics that can be used by advertisers to neutralize these three types of resistance strategies.
Resistance-neutralizing persuasion tactics
Advertisers have available to them a range of persuasion techniques to create successful advertisements. These tactics often focus on making a message more attractive by using, for example, humour, celebrities, or music. Knowles and Linn (2004) refer to these traditional persuasion techniques as ‘alpha strategies’, strategies that focus on increasing approach towards the attitudinal object. In contrast, they propose the term ‘omega strategies’ for tactics that are aimed specifically at reducing consumer resistance to persuasion. These strategies explicitly focus on reducing avoidance forces, in other words: decreasing the motivation to move away from the attitudinal object. Hence, omega strategies aim to neutralize resistance that people may experience when exposed to an ad.
We argue that such resistance-neutralizing tactics should be more effective when they are tailored to the specific resistance strategy that is adopted by consumers. In this section, we will therefore describe for each of the ACE strategies, the advertising tactics that are most likely to reduce resistance and enhance effectiveness.
Neutralizing avoidance strategies
By nature, avoidance-type resistance strategies are perhaps the most difficult to counter, because the avoidance behaviour itself cuts off the possibility of communication. One obvious strategy for preventing avoidance is the use of Forced Exposure. For example, in an online context people are often forced to view or hear commercials when they watch a video stream or listen to a radio channel. Hegner, Kusse, and Pruyn (2014) found that consumers perceive such ads to be intrusive, although this perception is weaker when the ad has a (positive) emotional appeal (a finding that is reminiscent of the finding that TV ads are less likely to be avoided if they are emotional rather than informational. Olney, Holbrook, and Batra 1990). Another form of forced exposure is so-called horizontal advertising blocks, in which television stations broadcast advertisements simultaneously. Research by Nam, Kwon, and Lee (2010) demonstrated that such horizontal advertising blocks are effective in reducing zapping behaviour. This tactic is, however, also perceived as intrusive and may lead to a negative image.
Although some research demonstrates that forced exposure may lead to negative responses and negative associations with the advertiser (e.g., Edwards, Li, and Lee (2002), there are also studies suggesting that ‘any’ advertising exposure can be beneficial. Greyser’s (1973) classic work on imitation in advertising suggested for example that marketers often believe that irritating ads help raise brand awareness. Skumik and colleagues (2005) found that consumers may forget the valence of previously encountered information about a brand, while (positive effects of) familiarity remain. It therefore remains to be investigated how consumers respond to such forced exposure. One interesting possibility is that, while consumers may have a negative explicit response to forced exposure, they could still have a positive (implicit) response to the advertised product. It should be noted however, that consumers who cannot avoid advertising may also adopt different resistance strategies.
Rather than forcing exposure to advertising, marketers may choose to prevent avoidance by disguising the persuasive intent or the sender of the message. Marketers have developed a wide range of strategies to achieve this (cf., Kaikati and Kaikati 2004). One strategy that seeks to downplay the persuasive nature of marketing messages is to embed branded messages into the editorial content of a medium, so that consumers are less likely to recognize these messages as persuasive attempts. Such brand placements may occur in magazines, TV and radio shows, movies and games (van Reijmersdal, Smit, and Neijens 2010). In response to rising ethical concerns about this practice, the FTC and FCC have formally expressed their concerns, and the European Union has even developed regulation that requires marketers to inform consumers of the commercial intent of such messages. Several recent studies have examined consumers’ responses to such disclosures. In general, this research seems to suggest that such information often activates persuasion knowledge and has negative consequences for consumers’ evaluations of the advertised brands (Boerman et al. in press; Campbell, Mohr, and Verlegh 2013).
Marketers may also counter avoidance by enlisting consumers to share brand-related messages with others. Typically, consumers have greater trust in information provided by their peers than in information provided by marketers. Consumers may share brandrelated information via online or offline word of mouth, which can be stimulated through word-of-mouth marketing programs. The power of word of mouth lies in the fact that messages received by friends are not perceived as persuasive attempts, reducing the motivation to avoid such messages. The effectiveness of word of mouth marketing depends on the extent to which consumers attribute the message to enthusiasm about the brand or product rather than ulterior motives (Verlegh et al. 2013). Marketers who make use of such strategies should thus take care to avoid such attributions, and seek to maintain the informal and friendly character of word of mouth as an exchange of information among friends (Tuk et al. 2009).
In addition to exchanging information, viral marketing may stimulate consumers to share branded content. In crafting viral campaigns, marketers often use humorous, surprising, sexual or otherwise appealing content (cf., Golan and Zaidner 2008). It is important, however, to keep in mind that such campaigns should also convey brand-relevant information in order to achieve marketing communication goals such as enhancing brand awareness or attitude (Akpinar and Berger 2014).
Neutralizing contesting strategies
Several techniques are available to advertisers seeking to reduce consumer contesting of their messages. A direct and well-established strategy of coping with counterarguments is two-sided advertising. A two-sided advertisement includes both positive and negative elements. When people are also exposed to negative features of a product or service, they are less likely to come up with counterarguments themselves. ORen marketers directly refute the negative elements or diminish its importance in the ad. Moreover, advertising is perceived as more trustworthy when it includes (some) negative information, so that the overall impact of the ad increases (Eisend 2006). In a classic paper on oneversus two-sided advertising, Kamins and Assael (1987) found that two-sidedness is effective in reducing source derogation. In practice, however, the use of two-sided advertising is not very common, as marketers are wary of spreading negative information about their products. One exception is product failure, where brands often acknowledge their mistake (i.e. negative element) and then present their solution (i.e., positive element). Doing so prevents consumers from generating (perhaps more persuasive) negative elements (Fennis and Stroebe 2013).
There are also more indirect ways of coping with contesting strategies, which reduce the, ability, opportunity or motivation to generate counterarguments or engage in other contesting strategies (cf., Burkley 2008). Knowles and Linn 2004) demonstrated for example that participants generated significantly less counterarguments to a target message when it was presented at the end (versus the beginning) of a series of (seven) persuasive messages. Their finding illustrates the possibility of using cognitive depletion as a tactic for reducing consumers’ ability to contest messages. Recently, similar results were obtained by Janssen et a1. (2014), who demonstrated that mentally depleted consumers were less able to resist advertising, even when they received a forewaming that informed them of the persuasive intent of the message.
In addition to cognitive depletion, marketers may use distraction to reduce consumers’ opportunity to engage in contesting strategies. An example is given by the ‘disrupt then reframe’ technique, which is often used in personal selling (Fennis, Das, and Pruyn 2004). In this technique a subtle, unexpected twist (i.e., disruption) in the sales script, which distracts people’s attention, is followed by the persuasive conclusion of a message (i.e., the reframe). For example, when selling apples one could say ‘these apples are 250 cents, that is only 2.5 dollars, it is a bargain!’ This simple disruption (i.e., 250 cents) in combination with the reframe (i.e., it’s a bargain!’) distracts people and thereby reduces their efforts to contest the message.
Finally, to reduce the motivation to use contesting strategies, marketers may offer safety cues and warrants to minimize the perceived risk associated with a purchase. Research by van Noort, Kerkhof, and Fennis (2008) demonstrated that the presence of safety cues on websites provides people with a safe feeling. When people feel safe they are less inclined to contest the information on the website. Another way of providing a sense of safety is by postponing the payment, e.g., ‘Buy now, pay later’. These offers will reduce resistance and the use of counter-arguing, especially when the distance between the purchase and payment increases (Knowles and Linn 2004).
Neutralizing empowerment strategies
To neutralize resistance strategies that involve asserting the self or an existing attitude, marketers need to focus on the consumer rather than the message. Interestingly, Jacks and O’Brien (2004) found that people who are self-affirmed are actually more open to persuasive messages, suggesting that self-affirmation may also be used to enhance rather than reduce persuasion. Take, for example, an ad that urges consumers to stop smoking. Smokers may perceive such an ad as threatening to their self-view, because it reminds them of their unhealthy behaviour. This threat may be mitigated, however, by reminding them of their previous successes or important values (Steele 1988).
When people are self-affirmed, they are more open to messages that are dissonant with their attitudes and behaviour because they do not feel the need to protect their self-view. Pursuing this logic, it might be possible for advertisers to focus on enhancing consumers’ self-esteem and self-efficacy. One strategy could be to emphasize the experience and knowledge of consumers when addressing them: ‘As a mother, you know that. . .’. Indeed, several studies have shown that assigning expertise and affirming people’s positive self-views may reduce the perceptions of persuasive intent and reduce resistance (Dolinski, Nawrat, and Rudak 2001).
A second way to neutralize the motivation to adopt empowering strategies is to provide consumers with control over the situation; for example, by having consumers decide which ads they want to watch. This strategy may also reduce other forms of resistance, of course. The online television platform Hulu, for example, offers viewers the opportunity to select the ads they want to watch. Permission-based advertising is another way to provide consumers with more freedom. Tsang, Ho, and Liang (2004) demonstrated that advertisements that are received with permission are evaluated more positively than advertisements that are received without permission (e.g., spam). Asking consumers permission provides them control, which fosters acceptation and reduces resistance.
Advertisers can use a wide range of tactics to counter consumers’ resistance to persuasion. Knowles and Linn (2004) suggested using the term ‘omega strategies’ for persuasion strategies that explicitly deal with resistance that consumers may experience when exposed to (unwanted) advertising. In this paper, we argue that such resistance-neutralizing tactics should be more effective when they are tailored to the specific resistance strategy that is adopted by consumers.
We have introduced the ACE typology, and have discussed specific tactics for addressing the different strategies that consumers use to resist persuasion. This overview should be helpful for marketers who are interested in applying communication strategies that enhance persuasion by reducing consumer resistance.
To further the development of such strategies, more research is needed to better understand the various ways in which consumers provide resistance to persuasive messages. We see a particular need for research that goes beyond the study of individual strategies, and tries to establish personal and situational characteristics that favour one strategy over another. Such research could ultimately help to predict which types of resistance are likely to be triggered by a specific message, or in a specific market context. This knowledge, in turn, allows marketers to design communications that avoid these types of resistance. To facilitate this, we need research that establishes the extent to which specific marketing tactics can effectively counter the avoidance, contesting and empowering strategies that are distinguished in our typology.
#knowledgeAddictionadvertisingConsumerismmarketingMaterialismNeoliberalismpersuasionPsychologyreactanceresistanceretailretailaddictionshoppingshoppingaddiction
Depression, Happiness & Wellbeing, Mental Health, Psychology
HAPPINESS. Lessons from a New Science – Richard Layard.
Human beings have largely conquered nature, but they have still to conquer themselves. We have grown no happier in the last fifty years. What’s going on?
We have more food, more clothes, more cars, bigger houses, more central heating, more foreign holidays, a shorter working week, nicer work and, above all, better health. Yet we are not happier.
The best society is one where the citizens are happiest. So the best public policy is that which produces the greatest happiness.
That is what this book is about, the causes of happiness and the means we have to affect it. I hope this book will hasten the shift to a new perspective, where people’s feelings are treated as paramount. That shift is overdue.
In this new edition of his landmark book, Richard Layard shows that there is a paradox at the heart of our lives. Most people want more income. Yet as societies become richer, they do not become happier. This is not just anecdotally true, it is the story told by countless pieces of scientific research. We now have sophisticated ways of measuring how happy people are, and all the evidence shows that on average people have grown no happier in the last fifty years, even as average incomes have more than doubled, in fact, the First World has more depression, more alcoholism and more crime than fifty years ago. This paradox is true of Britain, the United States, continental Europe, and Japan. What is going on?
Now fully revised and updated to include developments since first publication, Layard answers his critics in what is still the key book in ‘happiness studies’.
Richard Layard is a leading economist who believes that the happiness of society does not necessarily equate to its income. He is best known for his work on unemployment and inequality, which provided the intellectual basis for Britain’s improved unemployment policies. He founded the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, and since 2000 he has been a member of the House of Lords. His research into the subject of happiness brings together findings from such diverse areas as psychology, neuroscience, economics, sociology and philosophy.
I am an economist, I love the subject and it has served me well. But economics equates changes in the happiness of a society with changes in its purchasing power, or roughly so. I have never accepted that view, and the history of the last fifty years has disproved it. Instead, the new psychology of happiness makes it possible to construct an alternative view, based on evidence rather than assertion. From this we can develop a new vision of what lifestyles and what policies are sensible, drawing on the new psychology, as well as on economics, brain science, sociology and philosophy.
The time has come to have a go, to rush in where angels fear to tread. So here is my effort at a new evidence-based vision of how we can live better. It will need massive refinement as our knowledge accumulates. But I hope it will hasten the shift to a new perspective, where people’s feelings are treated as paramount. That shift is overdue.
So many people have helped in this book and helped so generously that I describe their role in a separate note at the end. I have been helped by psychologists, neuroscientists, sociologists, philosophers and of course economists, all sharing a desire for human betterment. If the book does anything, I hope it creates a bit more happiness.
This book was first published six years ago. The wellbeing movement was already well under way and is now in full flood. Policy-makers worldwide are questioning whether wealth is a proper measure of welfare. And it has become quite respectable to say that what matters is how people experience life, inside themselves. Not everyone agrees with that, but talking about the happiness and misery which people feel no longer provokes an amused smile. The debate is on, at all levels in our society.
So this is a good moment for a second edition. In it I set out my own views in the debate, review some key new evidence, and record some major successes of the weil-being movement. I have not rewritten the main text of the book; instead I have added an extra final Part.
There is a second reason for a new edition. When the book came out, I received thousands of letters, some of them touching and mostly appreciative. Many asked, “Are you founding a movement?” For some time I thought “No.” But many things have made me change my mind. Public opinion is changing but far too slowly. There is still so much unnecessary misery that goes unaddressed while less important issues attractenormous attention. And technology now makes it much easier than before to mobilise people in a good cause.
So a group of us, including two multi-talented friends, Geoff Mulgan and Anthony Seldon, are launching a movement called Action for Happiness, which I discuss briefly in the final chapter. Our hope is that it may become a worldwide force for good. I have no doubt that we can have a happier world, and with your help we will.
Richard Layard, January 2011
“Nought’s had, all’s spent, Where our desire is got without content.” LADY MACBETH
There is a paradox at the heart of our lives. Most people want more income and strive for it. Yet as Western societies have got richer, their people have become no happier.
This is no old wives’ tale. It is a fact proven by many pieces of scientific research. As I’ll show, we have good ways to measure how happy people are, and all the evidence says that on average people are no happier today than people were fifty years ago. Yet at the same time average incomes have more than doubled. This paradox is equally true for the United States and Britain and Japan.
But aren’t our lives infinitely more comfortable? Indeed: we have more food, more clothes, more cars, bigger houses, more central heating, more foreign holidays, a shorter working week, nicer work and, above all, better health. Yet we are not happier. Despite all the efforts of governments, teachers, doctors and businessmen, human happiness has not improved.
This devastating fact should be the starting point for all discussion of how to improve our lot. It should cause each government to reappraise its objectives, and every one of us to rethink our goals.
One thing is clear: once subsistence income is guaranteed, making people happier is not easy. If we want people to be happier, we really have to know what conditions generate happiness and how to cultivate them. That is what this book is about, the causes of happiness and the means we have to affect it.
If we really wanted to be happier, what would we do differently? We do not yet know all the answers, or even half of them. But we have a lot of evidence, enough to rethink government policy and to reappraise our personal choices and philosophy of life.
The main evidence comes from the new psychology of happiness, but neuroscience, sociology, economics and philosophy all play their part. By bringing them together, we can produce a new vision of how we can live better, both as social beings and in terms of our inner spirit.
What Philosophy?
The philosophy is that of the eighteenth century Enlightenment, as articulated by Jeremy Bentham. If you pass below the fine classical portico of University College London, you will find him there near the entrance hall, an elderly man dressed in eighteenth century clothes, sitting in a glass case. The clothes are his and so is the body, except for the head, which is a wax replica. He is there because he inspired the founding of the college, and as he requested, he still attends the meetings of the College Council, being carried in for the purpose. A shy and kindly man, he never married, and he gave his money to good causes. He was also one of the first intellectuals to go jogging or trotting as he called itwhich he did until near his death. But despite his quirks, Bentham was one of the greatest thinkers of the Enlightenment.
The best society, he said, is one where the citizens are happiest. So the best public policy is that which produces the greatest happiness. And when it comes to private behaviour, the right moral action is that which produces the most happiness for the people it affects. This is the Greatest Happiness principle. It is fundamentally egalitarian, because everybody’s happiness is to count equally. It is also fundamentally humane, because it says that what matters ultimately is what people feel. It is close in spirit to the opening passages of the American Declaration of Independence.
This noble ideal has driven much of the social progress that has occurred in the last two hundred years. But it was never easy to apply, because so little was known about the nature and causes of happiness. This left it vulnerable to philosophies that questioned the ideal itself.
In the nineteenth century these alternative philosophies were often linked to religious conceptions of morality. But in the twentieth century religious belief diminished, and so eventually did belief in the secular religion of socialism. In consequence there remained no widely accepted system of ethical belief. Into the void stepped the non-philosophy of rampant individualism.
At its best this individualism offered an ideal of “selfrealisation.” But that gospel failed. It did not increase happiness, because it made each individual too anxious about what he could get for himself. If we really want to be happy, we need some concept of a common good, towards which we all contribute.
So now the tide is turning. People are calling out for a concept of the common good, and that is exactly what the Enlightenment ideal provides. It defines the common good as the greatest happiness of all, requiring us to care for others as well as for ourselves. And it advocates a kind of fellow-feeling for others that in itself increases our happiness and reduces our isolation.
What Psychology?
At the same time, the new psychology now gives us real insight into the nature of happiness and what brings it about. So the Enlightenment philosophy can now at last be applied using evidence instead of speculation.
Happiness is feeling good, and misery is feeling bad. At every moment we feel somewhere between wonderful and half-dead, and that feeling can now be measured by asking people or by monitoring their brains. Once that is done, we can go on to explain a person’s underlying level of happiness, the quality of his life as he experiences it. Every life is complicated, but it is vital to separate out the factors that really count.
Some factors come from outside us, from our society: some societies really are happier. Other factors work from inside us, from our inner life. In part 1 of the book I sort out how these key factors affect us. Then, in part 2, I focus on what kind of society and what personal practices would help us lead happier lives. The last chapter summarises my conclusions.
What Social Message?
So how, as a society, can we influence whether people are happy? One approach is to proceed by theoretical reasoning, using elementary economics. This concludes that selfish behaviour is all right, provided markets are allowed to function: through the invisible hand, perfect markets will lead us to the greatest happiness that is possible, given our wants and our resources. Since people’s wants are taken as given, national income becomes a proxy for national happiness. Government’s role is to correct market imperfections and to remove all barriers to labour mobility and flexible employment. This view of national happiness is the one that dominates the thinking and pronouncements of leaders of Western governments.
The alternative is to look at what actually makes people happy. People certainly hate absolute poverty, and they hated Communism. But there is more to life than prosperity and freedom.
In this book we shall look at other key facts about human nature, and how we should respond to them:
Our wants are not given, in the way that elementary economics assumes. In fact they depend heavily on what other people have, and on what we ourselves have got accustomed to. They are also affected by education, advertising and television. We are heavily driven by the desire to keep up with other people. This leads to a status race, which is self-defeating since if I do better, someone else must do worse. What can we do about this?
People desperately want security, at work, in the family and in their neighbourhoods. They hate unemployment, family break-up and crime in the streets. But the individual cannot, entirely on his own, determine whether he loses his job, his spouse or his wallet. It depends in part on external forces beyond his control. So how can the community promote a way of life that is more secure?
People want to trust other people. But in the United States and in Britain (though not in continental Europe), levels of trust have plummeted in recent decades. How is it possible to maintain trust when society is increasingly mobile and anonymous?
In the seventeenth century the individualist philosopher Thomas Hobbes proposed that we should think about human problems by considering men “as if but even now sprung out of the earth, and suddenly (like mushrooms) come to full maturity, without any kind of engagement with each other.”
But people are not like mushrooms. We are inherently social, and our happiness depends above all on the quality of our relationships with other people. We have to develop public policies that take this “relationship factor” into account.
What Personal Message?
There is also an inner, personal factor. Happiness depends not only on our external situation and relationships; it depends on our attitudes as well. From his experiences in Auschwitz, Viktor Frankl concluded that in the last resort “everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of human freedoms, to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”
Our thoughts do affect our feelings. As we shall see, people are happier if they are compassionate; and they are happier if they are thankful for what they have. When life gets rough, these qualities become ever more important.
Throughout the centuries parents, teachers and priests have striven to instil these traits of compassion and acceptance. Today we know more than ever about how to develop them. Modern cognitive therapy was developed in the last thirty years as a forward-looking substitute for backward-looking psychoanalysis. Through systematic experimentation, it has found ways to promote positive thinking and to systematically dispel the negative thoughts that afflict us all. In recent years these insights have been generalised by “positive psychology,” to offer a means by which all of us, depressed or otherwise, can find meaning and increase our enjoyment of life. What are these insights?
Many of the ideas are as old as Buddhism and have recurred throughout the ages in all the religious traditions that focus on the inner life. In every case techniques are offered for liberating the positive force in each of us, which religious people call divine. These techniques could well become the psychological basis of twenty-first-century culture.
Even so, our nature is recalcitrant, and for some people it seems impossible to be positive without some physical help. Until fifty years ago there was no effective treatment for mental illness. But in the 1950s drugs were found that, despite side effects, could provide relief to many who suffer from schizophrenia, depression or anxiety. This, followed by the development of cognitive and behavioural therapy, has given new life to millions of people who would otherwise have been half-dead. But how much further can this process go in the relief of misery?
Human beings have largely conquered nature, but they have still to conquer themselves. In the last fifty years we have eliminated absolute material scarcity in the West. With good policies and Western help, the same could happen throughout the world within a hundred years. But in the meantime we in the West are no happier. Changing this is the new challenge and the new frontier, and much more difficult than traditional wealth-creation. Fortunately, enough tools are already available to fill this small book.
What is happiness?
“If not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled” P. G. Wodehouse
In the late nineteenth century doctors noticed something strange about people with brain injuries. If the damage was on the left side of the brain, they were more likely to become depressed than if it was on the right. As time passed, the evidence built up, and it was even found that damage on the right side of the brain could sometimes produce elation. From these dim beginnings, a new science has emerged that measures what happens in the brain when people experience positive and negative feelings.
The broad picture is this. Good feelings are experienced through activity in the brain’s left-hand side behind the forehead; people feel depressed if that part of their brain goes dead. Bad feelings are connected with brain activity behind the right-hand side of the forehead; when that part of the brain is out of action, people can feel elated.
Such scientific breakthroughs have transformed the way we think about happiness. Until recently, if people said they were happy, sceptics would hold that this was just a subjective statement. There was no good way to show that it had any objective content at all. But now we know that what people say about how they feel corresponds closely to the actual levels of activity in different parts of the brain, which can be measured in standard scientific ways.
The Feeling of Happiness
So what is the feeling of happiness? Is there a state of “feeling good” or “feeling bad” that is a dimension of all our waking life? Can people say at any moment how they feel? Indeed, is your happiness something, a bit like your temperature, that is always there, fluctuating away whether you think about it or not? If so, can I compare my happiness with yours?
The answer to all these questions is essentially yes. This may surprise those of a sceptical disposition. But it would not surprise most people, past or present. They have always been aware of how they felt and have used their introspection to infer how others feel. Since they themselves smile when they are happy, they infer that when others smile, they are happy too. Likewise when they see others frown, or see them weep. It is through their feelings of imaginative sympathy that people have been able to respond to one another’s joys and sorrows throughout history.
So by happiness I mean feeling good enjoying life and wanting the feeling to be maintained. By unhappiness I mean feeling bad and wishing things were different.
There are countless sources of happiness, and countless sources of pain and misery. But all our experience has in it a dimension that corresponds to how good or bad we feel. In fact most people find it easy to say how good they are feeling, and in social surveys such questions get very high response rates, much higher than the average survey question. The scarcity of “Don’t knows” shows that people do know how they feel, and recognise the validity of the question.
When it comes to how we feel, most of us take a longish view. We accept the ups and downs and care mainly about our average happiness over a longish period of time. But that average is made up from a whole series of moments. At each moment of waking life we feel more or less happy, just as we experience more or less noise. There are many different sources of noise, from a trombone to a pneumatic drill, but we can feel how loud each noise is. In the same way there are many different sources of enjoyment, but we can compare the intensity of each. There are also many types of suffering, from toothache to a stomach ulcer to depression, but we can compare the pain of each. Moreover, as we shall see, happiness begins where unhappiness ends.
So how can we find out how happy or unhappy people are, both in general and from moment to moment? Both psychology and brain science are beginning to give us the tools to arrive at precise answers.
Asking People
The most obvious way to find out whether people are happy in general is to survey individuals in a random sample of households and to ask them. A typical question is, “Taking all things together, would you say you are very happy, quite happy, or not very happy?” Here is how people reply in the United States and in Britain: very similarly, as the table below shows. Interestingly, men and women reply very much the same.
But is everyone who answers the question using the words in the same way? Fortunately, their replies can be independently verified. In many cases friends or colleagues of the individual have been asked separately to rate the person’s happiness. These independent ratings turn out to be well related to the way the people rated themselves. The same is true of ratings made by an interviewer who has never met the person before.
Feelings Fluctuate
Of course our feelings fluctuate from hour to hour, and from day to day. Psychologists have recently begun to study how people’s mood varies from activity to activity. I will give only one example, from a study of around nine hundred working women in Texas. They were asked to divide the previous working day into episodes, like a film: typically they identified about fourteen episodes. They then reported what they were doing in each episode and who they were doing it with. Finally, they were asked how they felt in each episode, along twelve dimensions that can be combined into a single index of good or bad feeling.
The table shows what they liked most (sex) and what they liked least (commuting).
The table below shows what company they most enjoyed. They are highly gregarious, preferring almost any company to being alone. Only the boss’s company is worse than being alone.
We can also use these reports to measure how feelings change as the day goes on. As the next chart shows, these people feel better as time passes, except for a blip up at lunchtime.
I have showed these findings to stress the point that happiness is a feeling and that feelings occur continuously over time throughout our waking life. Feelings at any particular moment are of course influenced by memories of past experiences and anticipations of future ones. Memories and anticipations are very important parts of our mental life, but they pose no conceptual problems in measuring our happiness, be it instantaneous or averaged over a longer period of time.
It is the long-term average happiness of each individual that this book is about, rather than the fluctuations from moment to moment. Though our average happiness may be influenced by the pattern of our activities, it is mainly affected by our basic temperament and attitudes and by key features of our life situation, our relationships, our health, our worries about money.
Sceptics may still question whether happiness is really an objective feeling that can be properly compared between people. To reassure doubters, we can turn to modern brain physiology with its sensational new insights into what is happening when a person feels happy or unhappy. This work is currently being led by Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin.
In most of his studies Davidson measures activity in different parts of the brain by putting electrodes all over the scalp and reading the electrical activity. These EEG measurements are then related to the feelings people report. When people experience positive feelings, there is more electrical activity in the left front of the brain; when they experience negative feelings, there is more activity in the right front of the brain. For example, when someone is shown funny film clips, his left side becomes more active and his right side less so; he also smiles and gives positive reports on his mood. When frightening or distasteful film clips are shown, the opposite happens.
Similar findings come from direct scans of what is going on inside the brain. For instance, people can be put inside an MRI or PET scanner and then shown nice or unpleasant pictures. The chart gives an example.
People are shown pictures, first of a happy baby and then of a baby that is deformed. The PET scanner picks up the corresponding changes in glucose usage in the brain and records it as light patches in the photographs. The nice picture activates the left side of the brain, and the horrendous picture activates the right side.
So there is a direct connection between brain activity and mood. Both can be altered by an external experience like looking at pictures. Both can also be altered directly by physical means. By using very powerful magnets it is possible to stimulate activity in the left side of the forebrain, and this automatically produces a better mood. Indeed, this method has even been used to alleviate depression. Even more remarkable, it has been found to improve the immune system, which is heavily influenced by a person’s mood.
So we have clear physical measures of how feelings vary over time. We can also use physical measures to compare the happiness of different people. People differ in the pattern of their EEGs, even when they are at rest. People whose left side is especially active (“leftsiders”) report more positive feelings and memories than “riqht-siders” do. Left-siders smile more, and their friends assess them as happier. By contrast, people who are especially active on the right side report more negative thoughts and memories, smile less and are assessed as less happy by their friends.
So a natural measure of happiness is the difference in activity between the left and right sides of the forebrain. This varies closely with many measures of self-reported mood. And one further finding is interesting. When different people are exposed to good experiences (like pleasant film clips), those who are naturally happy when at rest experience the greatest gain in happiness. And when they are exposed to nasty experiences, they experience the least increase in discomfort.
The EEG approach works even on newly born babies. When they are given something nice to suck, their left forebrain starts humming, while a sour taste sets off activity in the right brain. At ten months old, a baby’s brain activity at rest predicts how well it will respond if its mother disappears for a minute. Babies who are more active on the right side tend to howl, while the left-siders remain upbeat. At two and a half years old, left-sided youngsters are much more exploratory, while right-siders cling more to their mothers. However, up to their teens there are many changes in the differences between children, both by character traits and by brainwaves. Among adults the differences are more stable.
The frontal lobes are not the only part of the brain involved in emotion. For example, one seat of raw emotions is the amygdala, which is deeper in the brain. It triggers the command centre that mobilises the body to respond to a frightening stimulus, the fight-or-flight syndrome. But the amygdala in humans is not that different from the amygdala of the lowest mammals, and works unconsciously. Our conscious experience, however, is specially linked to the frontal lobes, which are highly developed in man.
So brain science confirms the objective character of happiness. It also confirms the objective character of pain. Here is a fascinating experiment, performed on a number of people. A very hot pad is applied to each person’s leg, the same temperature for all of them. The people then report the pain. They give widely varying reports, but these different reports are highly correlated with the different levels of brain activity in the relevant part of the cortex. This confirms the link between what people report and objective brain activity. There is no difference between what people think they feel and what they “really” feel, as some social philosophers would have us believe.
A Single Dimension
But isn’t this all a bit simplistic? Surely there are many types of happiness, and of pain? And in what sense is happiness the opposite of pain?
There are indeed many types of good and bad feeling. On the positive side there is loving and being loved, achievement, discovery, comfort, tranquillity, joy and many others. On the negative side there is fear, anger, sadness, guilt, boredom and many others again. But, as I have said, this is no different from the situation with pains and pleasures that are purely “physical”: one pain can be compared with another, and one pleasure can be compared with another. Similarly, mental pain and physical pain can be compared, and so can mental and physical enjoyment.
But is happiness really a single dimension of experience running from extreme misery to extreme joy? Or is it possible to be both happy and unhappy at the same time? The broad answer to this is no; it is not possible to be happy and unhappy at the same time. Positive feelings damp down negative feelings and vice versa. So we have just one dimension, running from the extreme negative to the extreme positive.
Lest this seem very mechanical, we should immediately note that happiness can be excited or tranquil, and misery can be agitated or leaden. These are important distinctions, which correspond to different levels of “arousal.” The range of possibilities is illustrated in the diagram, which dispels any impression that happiness can only be exciting or hedonistic.
One of the most enjoyable forms of aroused experience is when you are so engrossed in something that you lose yourself in it. These experiences of “flow” can be wonderful, both at the time and in retrospect”.
Qualities of Happiness
The concept of happiness I have described is essentially the one developed by the eighteenth century Enlightenment. It relates to how we feel as we live our lives. It famously inspired the authors of the American Declaration of Independence, and it has become central to our Western heritage.
It differs, for example, from the approach taken by Aristotle and his many followers. Aristotle believed that the object of life was eudaimonia, or a type of happiness associated with virtuous conduct and philosophic reflection. This idea of types of happiness, of higher and lower pleasures, was revived in the nineteenth century by John Stuart Mill and it survives to this day. Mill believed that the happiness of different experiences could vary both in quantity and quality. (He could not accept that a given amount of satisfaction derived from the game of “pushpin” was as valuable as the same amount of satisfaction derived from poetry.)
Mill’s intuition was right but his formulation was wrong. People who achieve a sense of meaning in their lives are happier than those who live from one pleasure to another. Carol Ryff of the University of Wisconsin has provided ample evidence of this. She has compiled refined measures of such things as purpose in life, autonomy, positive relationships, personal growth and self-acceptance and used them to construct an index of psychological well-being. In a sample of US. adults this index is very highly correlated with standard selfreported measures of happiness and life satisfaction.
Thus Mill was right in his intuition about the true sources of lasting happiness, but he was wrong to argue that some types of happiness are intrinsically better than others. In fact to do so is essentially paternalistic. It is of course obvious that some enjoyments, like those provided by cocaine, cannot in their nature last long: they work against a person’s long-term happiness, which means that we should avoid them. Similarly, some unhealthy enjoyments, like those of a sadist, should be avoided because they decrease the happiness of others. But no good feeling is bad in itself, it can only be bad because of its consequences.
Happiness Improves Your Health
In September 1932 the mother superior of the American School Sisters of Notre Dame decided that all new nuns should be asked to write an autobiographical sketch. These sketches were kept, and they have recently been independently rated by psychologists to show the amount of positive feeling which they revealed. These ratings have then been compared with how long each nun lived. Remarkably, the amount of positive feeling that a nun revealed in her twenties was an excellent predictor of how long she would live.
Of the nuns who were still alive in 1991, only 21% of the most cheerful quarter died in the following nine years, compared with 55% of the least cheerful quarter of the nuns? This shows how happiness can increase a person’s length of life.
In fact most sustained forms of good feeling are good for you. However we measure happiness, it appears to be conducive to physical health (other things being equal). Happy people tend to have more robust immune systems and lower levels of stress-causing cortisol. If artificially exposed to the flu virus, they are less likely to contract the disease. They are also more likely to recover from major surgery.
Equally, when a person has a happy experience, the body chemistry improves, and blood pressure and heart rate tend to fall. Especially good experiences can have long-lasting effects on our health. If we take the 750 actors and actresses who were ever nominated for Oscars, we can assume that before the award panel’s decision the winners and losers were equally healthy on average. Yet those who got the Oscars went on to live four years longer, on average, than the losers. Such was the gain in morale from winning.
The Function of Happiness
I hope I have now persuaded you that happiness exists and is generally good for your physical health. But that does not make it supremely important. It is supremely important because it is our overall motivational device. We seek to feel good and to avoid pain (not moment by moment but overall).
Without this drive we humans would have perished long ago. For what makes us feel good (sex, food, love, friendship and so on) is also generally good for our survival. And what causes us pain is bad for our survival (fire, dehydration, poison, ostracism).
So by seeking to feel good and to avoid pain, we seek what is good for us and avoid what is bad for us, and thus we have survived as a species. The search for good feeling is the mechanism that has preserved and multiplied the human race.
Some people question whether we have any overall system of motivation. They say we have separate drives for sex, feeding and so on, and that we respond to these drives independently of their effect on our general sense of well-being. The evidence is otherwise. For we often have to choose between satisfying different drives, and our choices vary according to how easy it is to satisfy one drive compared with another. So there must be some overall evaluation going on that compares how different drives contribute to our overall satisfaction.
When one source of satisfaction becomes more costly relative to another, we choose less of it. This is the so-called law of demand, which has been confirmed throughout human life and among many species of animals. It is not uniquely human and probably applies to most living things, all of which have a tendency to pursue their own good as best they can. In lower animals the process is unconscious, and even in humans it is mostly so, since consciousness could not possibly handle the whole of this huge task. However, we do have massive frontal lobes that other mammals lack, and that is probably where the conscious part of the balancing operation is performed.
Experiments show that at every moment we are evaluating our situation, often unconsciously. We are attracted to those elements of our situation that we like and repelled by the elements we dislike. It is this pattern of “approach” and “avoidance” that is central to our behaviour.
Here are two ingenious experiments by the psychologist John Bargh that illustrate the workings of this approach-avoidance mechanism. His technique is to flash good or bad words on a screen and observe how people respond. In the first experiment he flashed the words subliminally and recorded the impact on the person’s mood. The good words (like “music” improved mood, and the bad ones (like “worm”) worsened mood. He next examined approach and avoidance behaviour by making the words on the screen legible, and asking the person to remove them with a lever. The human instinct is to pull towards you that which you like, and to push away that which you wish to avoid. So Bargh split his subjects into two groups. Group A was told to behave in the natural way, to pull the lever for the good words, and to push it for the bad ones. Group B was told to behave “unnaturally”, to pull for the bad words and to push for the good. Group A did the job much more quickly, confirming how basic are our mechanisms of approach and avoidance.
So there is an evaluative faculty in each of us that tells us how happy we are with our situation, and then directs us to approach what makes us happy and avoid what does not. From the various possibilities open to us, we choose whichever combination of activities will make us feel best. In doing this we are more than purely reactive: we plan for the future, which sometimes involves denying ourselves today for the sake of future gratification.
This overall psychological model is similar to what economists have used from Adam Smith onwards. We want to be happy, and we act to promote our present and future happiness, given the opportunities open to us.
Of course we can make mistakes. Some things that people do are bad for survival, like cigarette smoking and the self-starvation of anorexia nervosa. Also, people are often short-sighted and bad at forecasting their future feelings. Natural selection has not produced perfect bodies, and neither has it produced perfect psyches. Yet we are clearly selected to be healthy, though we sometimes get sick. Similarly, we are selected to feel good, even if we sometimes make mistakes: it is impossible to explain human action and human survival except by the desire to achieve good feelings.
This raises the obvious issue of why, in that case, we are not happier than we are. Why is there so much anxiety and depression? Have anxiety and depression played any role in explaining our survival? Almost certainly, yes. Even today, it is a good idea to be anxious while driving a car-or while writing a book. A heavy dose of self-criticism will save you from some nasty mistakes. And it is often best to be sceptical about much of what you hear from other people, until it is independently confirmed.
It was even more important to be on guard when man first evolved on the African savannah. When you are in danger of being eaten by a lion, it is a good idea to be extremely cautious. (Better to have a smoke detector that goes off when you burn the toast than one that stays silent while the house burns down.) Even depression may have had some function. When confronted with an unbeatable opponent, dogs show signs of depression that turn off the opponent’s will to attack. The same may have been true of humans?
Happiness. Lessons from a New Science
by Richard Layard
#contentment#satisfaction#wealthDepressionHappinessMentalHealthPsychologyWelfareWellbeing
Basic Income, Depression, Mental Health, Poverty & Inequality, Psychology, Universal Basic Income
BASIC INCOME AND DEPRESSION. Restoring the Future – Johann Hari.
Giving people back time, and a sense of confidence in the future.
The point of a welfare state is to establish a safety net below which nobody should ever be allowed to fall. The poorer you are, the more likely you are to become depressed or anxious, and the more likely you are to become sick in almost every way.
There is a direct relationship between poverty and the number of mood-altering drugs that people take, the antidepressants they take just to get through the day. If we want to really treat these problems, we need to deal with poverty.
Instead of using a net to catch people when they fall, Basic Income raises the floor on which everyone stands.
The world has changed fundamentally. We won’t regain security by going backward, especially as robots and technology render more and more jobs obsolete, but we can go forward, to a basic income for everyone.
There was one more obstacle hanging over my attempts to overcome depression and anxiety, and it seemed larger than anything I had addressed up to now. If you’re going to try to reconnect in the ways I’ve been describing, if you’re going to (say) develop a community, democratize your workplace, or set up groups to explore your intrinsic values, you will need time, and you need confidence.
But we are being constantly drained of both. Most people are working all the time, and they are insecure about the future. They are exhausted, and they feel as if the pressure is being ratcheted up every year. It’s hard to join a big struggle when it feels like a struggle to make it to the end of the day. Asking people to take on more -when they’re already run down, seems almost like a taunt.
But as I researched this book, I learned about an experiment that is designed to give people back time, and a sense of confidence in the future.
In the middle of the 1970s, a group of Canadian government officials chose, apparently at random, a small town called Dauphin in the rural province of Manitoba. It was, they knew, nothing special to look at. The nearest city, Winnipeg, was a four-hour drive away. It lay in the middle of the prairies, and most of the people living there were farmers growing a crop called canola. Its seventeen thousand people worked as hard as they could, but they were still struggling. When the canola crop was good, everyone did well, the local car dealership sold cars, and the bar sold booze. When the canola crop was bad, everyone suffered.
And then one day the people of Dauphin were told they had been chosen to be part of an experiment, due to a bold decision by the country’s Liberal government. For a long time, Canadians had been wondering if the welfare state they had been developing, in fits and starts over the years, was too clunky and inefficient and didn’t cover enough people. The point of a welfare state is to establish a safety net below which nobody should ever be allowed to fall: a baseline of security that would prevent people from becoming poor and prevent anxiety. But it turned out there was still a lot of poverty, and a lot of insecurity, in Canada. Something wasn’t working.
So somebody had what seemed like an almost stupidly simple idea. Up to now, the welfare state had worked by trying to plug gaps, by catching the people who fell below a certain level and nudging them back up. But if insecurity is about not having enough money to live on, they wondered, what would happen if we just gave everyone enough, with no strings attached? What if we simply mailed every single Canadian citizen, young, old, all of them, a check every year that was enough for them to live on? It would be set at a carefully chosen rate. You’d get enough to survive, but not enough to have luxuries. They called it a universal basic income. Instead of using a net to catch people when they fall, they proposed to raise the floor on which everyone stands.
This idea had even been mooted by right-wing politicians like Richard Nixon, but it had never been tried before. So the Canadians decided to do it, in one place. That’s how for several years, the people of Dauphin were given a guarantee: Each of you will be unconditionally given the equivalent of $19,000 US. (in today’s money) by the government. You don’t have to worry. There’s nothing you can do that will take away this basic income. It’s yours by right. And then they stood back to see what would happen.
At that time, over in Toronto, there was a young economics student named Evelyn Forget, and one day, one of her professors told the class about this experiment. She was fascinated. But then, three years into the experiment, power in Canada was transferred to a Conservative government, and the program was abruptly shut down. The guaranteed income vanished. To everyone except the people who got the checks, and one other person, it was quickly forgotten.
Thirty years later, that young economics student, Evelyn, had become a professor at the medical school of the University of Manitoba, and she kept bumping up against some disturbing evidence. It is a well-established fact that the poorer you are, the more likely you are to become depressed or anxious, and the more likely you are to become sick in almost every way. In the United States, if you have an income below $20,000, you are more than twice as likely to become depressed as somebody who makes $70,000 or more. And if you receive a regular income from property you own, you are ten times less likely to develop an anxiety disorder than if you don’t get any income from property. “One of the things I find just astonishing,” she told me, “is the direct relationship between poverty and the number of mood-altering drugs that people take, the antidepressants they take just to get through the day.” If you want to really treat these problems, Evelyn believed, you need to deal with these questions.
And so Evelyn found herself wondering about that old experiment that had taken place decades earlier. What were the results? Did the people who were given that guaranteed income get healthier? What else might have changed in their lives? She began to search for academic studies written back then. She found nothing. So she began to write letters and make calls. She knew that the experiment was being studied carefully at the time, that mountains of data were gathered. That was the whole point: it was a study. Where did it go?
After a lot of detective work, stretching over five years, she finally got an answer. She was told that the data gathered during the experiment was hidden away in the National Archives, on the verge of being thrown in the trash. “I got there, and found most of it in paper. It was actually sitting in boxes,” she told me. “There were eighteen hundred cubic feet. That’s eighteen hundred bankers’ boxes, full of paper.” Nobody had ever added up the results. When the Conservatives came to power, they didn’t want anyone to look further, they believed the experiment was a waste of time and contrary to their moral values.
So Evelyn and a team of researchers began the long task of figuring out what the basic income experiment had actually achieved, all those years before. At the same time, they started to track down the people who had lived through it, to discover the Iong-term effects.
The first thing that struck Evelyn, as she spoke to the people who’d been through the program, was how vividly they remembered it. Everyone had a story about how it had affected their lives. They told her that, primarily, “the money acted as an insurance policy. It just sort of removed the stress of worrying about whether or not you can afford to keep your kids in school for another year, whether or not you could afford to pay for the things that you had to pay for.”
This had been a conservative farming community, and one of the biggest changes was how women saw themselves. Evelyn met with one woman who had taken her check and used it to become the first female in her family to get a postsecondary education. She trained to be a librarian and rose to be one of the most respected people in the community. She showed Evelyn pictures of her two daughters graduating, and she talked about how proud she was she had been able to become a role model for them.
Other people talked about how it lifted their heads above constant insecurity for the first time in their lives. One woman had a disabled husband and six kids, and she made a living by cutting people’s hair in her front room. She explained that the universal income meant for the first time the family had “some cream in the coffee” small things that made life a little better.
These were moving stories, but the hard facts lay in the number crunching. After years of compiling the data, here are some of the key effects Evelyn discovered:
Students stayed at school longer, and performed better there.
The number of low-birth-weight babies declined, as more women delayed having children until they were ready.
Parents with newborn babies stayed at home longer to care for them, and didn’t hurry back to work.
Overall work hours fell modestly, as people spent more time with their kids, or learning.
But there was one result that struck me as particularly important.
Evelyn went through the medical records of the people taking part, and she found that, as she explained to me, there were “fewer people showing up at their doctor’s office complaining about mood disorders.” Depression and anxiety in the community fell significantly. When it came to severe depression and other mental health disorders that were so bad the patient had to be hospitalized, there was a drop of 9 percent in just three years.
Why was that? “It just removed the stress, or reduced the stress, that people dealt with in their everyday lives,” Evelyn concludes. You knew you’d have a secure income next month, and next year, so you could create a picture of yourself in the future that was stable.
It had another unanticipated effect, she told me. If you know you have enough money to live on securely, no matter what happens, you can turn down a job that treats you badly, or that you find humiliating. “It makes you less of a hostage to the job you have, and some of the jobs that people work just in order to survive are terrible, demeaning jobs,” she says. It gave you “that little bit of power to say, I don’t need to stay here.” That meant that employers had to make work more appealing. And over time, it was poised to reduce inequality in the town, which we would expect to reduce the depression caused by extreme status differences.
For Evelyn, all this tells us something fundamental about the nature of depression. “If it were just a brain disorder,” she told me, “if it was just a physical ailment, you wouldn’t expect to see such a strong correlation with poverty,” and you wouldn’t see such a significant reduction from granting a guaranteed basic income. “Certainly,” she said, “it makes the lives of individuals who receive it more comfortable, which works as an antidepressant.”
As Evelyn looks out over the world today, and how it has changed from the Dauphin of the mid-1970s, she thinks the need for a program like this, across all societies, has only grown. Back then, “people still expected to graduate from high school and to go get a job and work at the same company [or] at least in the same industry until they’d be sixty-five, and then they’d be retired with a nice gold watch and a nice pension.” But “people are struggling to find that kind of stability in labor today, I don’t think those days are ever coming back. We live in a globalized world. The world has changed, fundamentally.” We won’t regain security by going backward, especially as robots and technology render more and more jobs obsolete, but we can go forward, to a basic income for everyone. As Barack Obama suggested in an interview late in his presidency, a universal income may be the best tool we have for recreating security, not with bogus promises to rebuild a lost world, but by doing something distinctively new.
Buried in those dusty boxes of data in the Canadian national archives, Evelyn might have found one of the most important antidepressants for the twenty-first century.
I wanted to understand the implications of this more, and to explore my own concerns and questions about it, so I went to see a brilliant Dutch economic historian named Rutger Bregman. He is the leading European champion of the idea of a universal basic income. We ate burgers and inhaled caffeinated drinks and ended up talking late into the night, discussing the implications of all this. “Time and again,” he said, “we blame a collective problem on the individual. So you’re depressed? You should get a pill. You don’t have a job? Go to a job coach, we’ll teach you how to write a résumé or [to join] LinkedIn. But obviously, that doesn’t go to the root of the problem. Not many people are thinking about what’s actually happened to our labor market, and our society, that these [forms of despair] are popping up everywhere.”
Even middle-class people are living with a chronic “lack of certainty” about what their lives will be like in even a few months’ time, he says. The alternative approach, a guaranteed income, is partly about removing this humiliation and replacing it with security. It has now been tried in many places on a small scale, as he documents in his book Utopia for Realists. There’s always a pattern, he shows. When it’s first proposed, people say, what, just give out money? That will destroy the work ethic. People will just spend it on alcohol and drugs and watching TV. And then the results come in.
For example, in the Great Smoky Mountains, there’s a Native American tribal group of eight thousand people who decided to open a casino. But they did it a little differently. They decided they were going to split the profits equally among everyone in the group, they’d all get a check for (as it turned out) $6,000 a year, rising to $9,000 later. It was, in effect, a universal basic income for everyone. Outsiders told them they were crazy. But when the program was studied in detail by social scientists, it turned out that this guaranteed income triggered one big change. Parents chose to spend a lot more time with their children, and because they were less stressed, they were more able to be present with their kids. The result? Behavioral problems like ADHD and childhood depression fell by 40 percent. I couldn’t find any other instance of a reduction in psychiatric problems in children by that amount in a comparable period of time. They did it by freeing up the space for parents to connect with their kids.
All over the world, from Brazil to India, these experiments keep finding the same result. Rutger told me: “When I ask people, ‘What would you personally do with a basic income?’ about 99 percent of people say, ‘I have dreams, I have ambitions, I’m going to do something ambitious and useful.’” But when he asks them what they think other people would do with a basic income, they say, oh, they’ll become lifeless zombies, they’ll binge-watch Netflix all day.
This program does trigger a big change, he says, but not the one most people imagine. The biggest change, Rutger believes, will be in how people think about work. When Rutger asks people what they actually do at work, and whether they think it is worthwhile, he is amazed by how many people readily volunteer that the work they do is pointless and adds nothing to the world. The key to a guaranteed income, Rutger says, is that it empowers people to say no. For the first time, they will be able to leave jobs that are degrading, or humiliating, or excruciating. Obviously, some boring things will still have to be done. That means those employers will have to offer either better wages, or better working conditions. In one swoop, the worst jobs, the ones that cause the most depression and anxiety, will have to radically improve, to attract workers.
People will be free to create businesses based on things they believe in, to run projects to improve their community, to look after their kids and their elderly relatives. Those are all real work, but much of the time, the market doesn’t reward this kind of work. When people are free to say no, Rutger says, “I think the definition of work would become; to add something of value to make the world a little more interesting, or a bit more beautiful.”
This is, we have to be candid, an expensive proposal, a real guaranteed income would take a big slice of the national wealth of any developed country. At the moment, it’s a distant goal. But every civilizing proposal started off as a utopian dream, from the welfare state, to women’s rights, to gay equality. President Obama said it could happen in the next twenty years. If we start to argue and campaign for it now, as an antidepressant; as a way of dealing with the pervasive stress that is dragging so many of us down, it will, over time, also help us to see one of the factors that are causing all this despair in the first place. It’s a way, Rutger explained to me, of restoring a secure future to people who are losing the ability to see one for themselves; a way of restoring to all of us the breathing space to change our lives, and our culture.
I was conscious, as I thought back over these seven provisional hints at solutions to our depression and anxiety, that they require huge changes, in ourselves, and in our societies. When I felt that way, a niggling voice would come into my head. It said, nothing will ever change. The forms of social change you’re arguing for are just a fantasy. We’re stuck here. Have you watched the news? You think positive changes are a-coming?
When these thoughts came to me, I always thought of one of my closest friends.
In 1993, the journalist Andrew Sullivan was diagnosed as HIV-positive. It was the height of the AIDS crisis. Gay men were dying all over the world. There was no treatment in sight. Andrew’s first thought was: I deserve this. I brought it on myself. He had been raised in a Catholic family in a homophobic culture in which, as a child, he thought he was the only gay person in the whole world, because he never saw anyone like him on TV, or on the streets, or in books. He lived in a world where if you were lucky, being gay was a punchline, and if you were unlucky, it got you a punch in the face.
So now he thought, ‘I had it coming. This fatal disease is the punishment I deserve.’
For Andrew, being told he was going to die of AIDS made him think of an image. He had once gone to see a movie and something went wrong with the projector, and the picture went all wrong, it displayed at a weird, unwatchable angle. It stayed like that for a few minutes. His life now, he realized, was like sitting in that cinema, except this picture would never be right again.
Not long after, he left his job as editor of one of the leading magazines in the United States, the New Republic. His closest friend, Patrick, was dying of AlDS, the fate Andrew was now sure awaited him.
So Andrew went to Provincetown, the gay enclave at the tip of Cape Cod in Massachussetts, to die. That summer, in a small house near the beach, he began to write a book. He knew it would be the last thing he ever did, so he decided to write something advocating a crazy, preposterous idea, one so outlandish that nobody had ever written a book about it before. He was going to propose that gay people should be allowed to get married, just like straight people. He thought this would be the only way to free gay people from the self-hatred and shame that had trapped Andrew himself. It’s too late for me, he thought, but maybe it will help the people who come after me.
When the book, Virtually Normal, came out a year later, Patrick died when it had only been in the bookstores for a few days, and Andrew was widely ridiculed for suggesting something so absurd as gay marriage. Andrew was attacked not just by right-wingers, but by many gay left-wingers, who said he was a sellout, a wannabe heterosexual, a freak, for believing in marriage. A group called the Lesbian Avengers turned up to protest at his events with his face in the crosshairs of a gun. Andrew looked out at the crowd and despaired. This mad idea, his last gesture before dying, was clearly going to come to nothing.
When I hear people saying that the changes we need to make in order to deal with depression and anxiety can’t happen, I imagine going back in time, to the summer of 1993, to that beach house in Provincetown, and telling Andrew something:
Okay, Andrew, you’re not going to believe me, but this is what’s going to happen next. Twenty-five years from now, you’ll be alive. I know; it’s amazing; but wait, that’s not the best part. This book you’ve written, it’s going to spark a movement. And this book, it’s going to be quoted in a key Supreme Court ruling declaring marriage equality for gay people. And I’m going to be with you and your future husband the day after you receive a letter from the president of the United States telling you that this fight for gay marriage that you started has succeeded in part because of you. He’s going to light up the White House like the rainbow flag that day. He’s going to invite you to have dinner there, to thank you for what you’ve done. Oh, and by the way, that president? He’s going to be black.
It would have seemed like science fiction. But it happened. It’s not a small thing to overturn two thousand years of gay people being jailed and scorned and beaten and burned. It happened for one reason only. Because enough brave people banded together and demanded it.
Every single person reading this is the beneficiary of big civilizing social changes that seemed impossible when somebody first proposed them. Are you a woman? My grandmothers weren’t even allowed to have their own bank accounts until they were in their forties, by law. Are you a worker? The weekend was mocked as a utopian idea when labor unions first began to fight for it. Are you black, or Asian, or disabled? You don’t need me to fill in this list.
So I told myself: if you hear a thought in your head telling you that we can’t deal with the social causes of depression and anxiety, you should stop and realize that’s a symptom of the depression and anxiety itself.
Yes, the changes we need now are huge. They’re about the size of the revolution in how gay people were treated. But that revolution happened.
There’s a huge fight ahead of us to really deal with these problems. But that’s because it’s a huge crisis. We can deny that, but then we’ll stay trapped in the problem. Andrew taught me: The response to a huge crisis isn’t to go home and weep. It’s to go big. It’s to demand something that seems impossible, and not rest until you’ve achieved it.
Every now and then, Rutger, the leading European campaigner for a universal basic income, will read a news story about somebody who has made a radical career choice. A fifty-year-old man realizes he’s unfulfilled as a manager so he quits, and becomes an opera singer. A forty-five-year-old woman quits Goldman Sachs and goes to work for a charity. “It is always framed as something heroic,” Rutger told me, as we drank our tenth Diet Coke between us. People ask them, in awe: “Are you really going to do what you want to do?” Are you really going to change your life, so you are doing something that fulfills you?
It’s a sign, Rutger says, of how badly off track we’ve gone, that having fulfilling work is seen as a freakish exception, like winning the lottery, instead of how we should all be living. Giving everyone a guaranteed basic income, he says “is actually all about making it so we tell everyone, ‘Of course you’re going to do what you want to do. You’re a human being. You only live once. What would you want to do instead, something you don’t want to do?’”
Lost Connections. Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression and the Unexpected Solutions
by Johann Hari
BasicIncomeDepressionInequalityJohannHariMentalHealthPovertyPsychologySuicideUBIUniversalBasicIncomeWelfare
CHILDHOOD TRAUMA AND MENTAL ILLNESS. Overcoming Childhood Trauma, Beyond the smoke – Johann Hari.
Depression isn’t a disease; depression is a normal response to abnormal life experiences.
For every category of traumatic experience you go through as a kid, you are radically more likely to become depressed as an adult. The greater the trauma, the greater your risk of depression, anxiety, or suicide.
Chronic adversities change the architecture of a child’s brain, altering the expression of genes that control stress hormone output, triggering an overactive inflammatory stress response for life, and predisposing the child to adult disease.
Emotional abuse especially, is more likely to cause depression than any other kind of trauma, even sexual molestation. Being treated cruelly by your parents is the biggest driver of depression, out of all categories.
Vincent Felitti didn’t want to discover just a sad fact, he wanted to discover a solution. He was the doctor who uncovered the startling evidence about the role childhood trauma plays in causing depression and anxiety later in life. He proved that childhood trauma makes you far more likely to be depressed or severely anxious as an adult. He traveled across the United States explaining the science, and there is now a broad scientific consensus that he was right. But for Vincent, that wasn’t the point. He didn’t want to tell people who’d survived trauma that they were broken and doomed to a diminished life because they were not properly protected as kids. He wanted to help them out of this pain. But how?
He had established these facts partly by sending a questionnaire to every single person who received health care from the insurance company Kaiser Permanente. It asked about ten traumatic things that can happen to you as a kid, and then matched them against your current health. It was only after he had been doing this for more than a year, and the data was clear, that Vincent had an idea.
What if, when a patient checked that they had suffered a trauma in childhood, the doctor waited until they next came in for health care of any kind, and asked the patient about it? Would that make any difference?
So they began an experiment. Every doctor providing help to a Kaiser Permanente patient, for anything from hemorrhoids to eczema to schizophrenia, was told to look at the patient’s trauma questionnaire, and if the patient had suffered a childhood trauma, the doctors were given a simple instruction. They were told to say something like: “I see you had to survive X or Y in your childhood. I’m sorry that happened to you, it shouldn’t have. Would you like to talk about those experiences?” If the patient said she did, the doctor was told to express sympathy, and to ask: Do you feel it had negative long-term effects on you? Is it relevant to your health today?
The goal was to offer the patient two things at the same time. The first was an opportunity to describe the traumatic experience, to craft a story about it, so the patient could make sense of it. As this experiment began, one of the things they discovered almost immediately is that many of the patients had literally never before acknowledged what happened to them to another human being.
The second, just as crucial, was to show them that they wouldn’t be judged. On the contrary, as Vincent explained to me, the purpose was for them to see that an authority figure, who they trusted, would offer them real compassion for what they’d gone through.
So the doctors started to ask the questions. While some patients didn’t want to talk about it, many of them did. Some started to explain about being neglected, or sexually assaulted, or beaten by their parents. Most, it turned out, had never asked themselves if these experiences were relevant to their health today. Prompted in this way, they began to think about it.
What Vincent wanted to know was, would this help? Or would it be harmful, stirring up old traumas? He waited anxiously for the results to be compiled from tens of thousands of these consultations.
Finally, the figures came in. In the months and years that followed, the patients who had their trauma compassionately acknowledged by an authority figure seemed to show a significant reduction in their illnesses, they were 35 percent less likely to return for medical help for any condition.
At first, the doctors feared that this might be because they had upset the patients and they had felt shamed. But literally nobody complained; and in follow-ups, a large number of patients said they were glad to have been asked. For example, one elderly woman, who had described being raped as a child for the first time, wrote them a letter: “Thank you for asking,” it said simply. “I feared I would die, and no one would ever know what had happened.”
In a smaller pilot study, after being asked these questions, the patients were given the option of discussing what had happened in a session with a psychoanalyst. Those patients were 50 percent less likely to come back to the doctor saying they felt physically ill, or seeking drugs, in the following year.
So it appeared that they were visiting the doctor less because they were actually getting less anxious, and less unwell. These were startling results. How could that be? The answer, Vincent suspects, has to do with shame. “In that very brief process,” he told me, “one person tells somebody else who’s important to them something [they regard as] deeply shameful about themselves, typically for the first time in their life. And she comes out of that with the realization, ‘I still seem to be accepted by this person.’ It’s potentially transformative.”
What this suggests is it’s not just the childhood trauma in itself that causes these problems, including depression and anxiety, it’s hiding away the childhood trauma. It’s not telling anyone because you’re ashamed. When you lock it away in your mind, it festers, and the sense of shame grows. As a doctor, Vincent can’t (alas) invent time machines to go back and prevent the abuse. But he can help his patients to stop hiding, and to stop feeling ashamed.
There is a great deal of evidence that a sense of humiliation plays a big role in depression. I wondered whether this was relevant here, and Vincent told me: “I believe that what we’re doing is very efficiently providing a massive reduction in humiliation and poor self-concept.” He started to see it as a secular version of confession in the Catholic Church. “I’m not saying this as a religious person because I’m not [religious, but confession has been in use for eighteen hundred years. Maybe it meets some basic human need if it’s lasted that long.”
You need to tell somebody what has happened to you, and you need to know they don’t regard you as being worth less than them. This evidence suggests that by reconnecting a person with his childhood trauma, and showing him that an outside observer doesn’t see it as shameful, you go a significant way toward helping to set him free from some of its negative effects.
“Now, is that all that needs to be done?” Vincent asked me. “No. But it’s a hell of a big step forward.”
Can this be right? There is evidence, from other scientific studies, that shame makes people sick. For example, closeted gay men, during the AIDS crisis, died on average two to three years earlier than openly gay men, even when they got health care at the same point in their illness. Sealing off a part of yourself and thinking it’s disgusting poisons your life. Could the same dynamic be at work here?
The scientists involved are the first to stress that more research needs to be done to find out how to build on this encouraging first step. This should only be the start. “Right now, I think that is waiting to happen, in terms of the science of it,” Vincent’s scientific partner, Robert Anda, told me. “What you’ve asked about is going to require a whole new thinking, and a generation of studies that has to put all this together. It hasn’t been done yet.”
I didn’t talk at all about the violence and abuse I survived as a child until I was in my mid-twenties, when I had a brilliant therapist. I was describing the course of my childhood to him, and I told him the story I had told myself my whole life: that I had experienced these things because I had done something wrong, and therefore I deserved it.
“Listen to what you’re saying,” he said to me. At first I didn’t understand what he meant. But then he repeated it back to me. “Do you think any child should be treated like that? What would you say if you saw an adult saying that to a ten-year-old now?”
Because I had kept these memories locked away, I had never questioned the narrative I had developed back then. It seemed natural to me. So I found his question startling.
At first I defended the adults who had behaved this way. I attacked the memory of my childhood self. It was only slowly, over time, that I came to see what he was saying.
And I felt a real release of shame.
Also on TPPA = CRISIS
CHILDHOOD TRAUMA AND MENTAL ‘ILLNESS’. Beyond the smoke
Johann Hari
The medical team, and all their friends, expected these people, who had been restored to health to react with joy. Except they didn’t react that way. The people who did best, and lost the most weight were often thrown into a brutal depression, or panic, or rage. Some of them became suicidal.
Was there anything else that happened in your life when you were eleven? Well, Susan replied that was when my grandfather began to rape me.
“Overweight is overlooked, and that’s the way I need to be.”
What we had perceived as the problem, major obesity, was in fact, very frequently, the solution to problems that the rest of us knew nothing about. Obesity, he realized, isn’t the fire. It’s the smoke.
Emotional abuse especially, is more likely to cause depression than any other kind of trauma, even sexual molestation. Being treated cruelly by your parents is the biggest driver of depression, out of all these categories.
We have failed to see depression as a symptom of something deeper that needs to be dealt with. There’s a house fire inside many of us, and we’ve been concentrating on the smoke.
CHILDHOOD TRAUMA AND MENTAL ‘ILLNESS’. Beyond the smoke – Johann Hari
aceadversechildhoodexperienceschildhoodadversityDepressionMentalHealthPsychologySuicidetrauma
Consumerism, Depression, Materialism, Mental Health, Psychology
ADVERTISING SHITS IN YOUR HEAD. Reconnecting to Meaningful Values * JUNK VALUES. Consumerism literally is depressing – Johann Hari.
Advertising is the PR team for an economic system, Neoliberal Globalisation, that operates by making us feel inadequate and telling us the solution is to constantly spend.
We are constantly bombarded with messages that we will feel better only if we buy some specific product; and then buy something more; and buy again, and on and on, until finally your family buys your coffin.
Can we turn off the autopilot, and take back control for ourselves?
Spending often isn’t about the object itself. It is about getting to a psychological state that makes you feel better.
When there is pollution in the air that makes us feel worse, we ban the source of the pollution.
Advertising is a form of mental pollution.
When I was trying to apply everything I had learned to change, in order to be less depressed, I felt a dull, insistent tug on me. I kept getting signals that the way to be happy is simple. Buy stuff. Show it off. Display your status. Acquire things. These impulses called to me, from every advertisement, and from so many social interactions. I had learned from Tim Kasser that these are junk values, a trap that leads only to greater anxiety and depression. But what is the way beyond them? I could understand the arguments against them very well. I was persuaded. But there they were, in my head, and all around me, trying to pull me back down.
But Tim, I learned, has been proposing two ways, as starters, to wriggle free. The first is defensive. And the second is proactive, a way to stir our different values.
When there is pollution in the air that makes us feel worse, we ban the source of the pollution: we don’t allow factories to pump lead into our air. Advertising, he says, is a form of mental pollution. So there’s an obvious solution. Restrict or ban mental pollution, just like we restrict or ban physical pollution.
This isn’t an abstract idea. It has already been tried in many places. For example, the city of Sao Paulo, in Brazil, was being slowly smothered by billboards. They covered every possible space, gaudy logos and brands dominated the skyline wherever you looked. It had made the city look ugly, and made people feel ugly, by telling them everywhere they looked that they had to consume.
So in 2007 the city’s government took a bold step, they banned all outdoor advertising: everything. They called it the Clean City Law. As the signs were removed one by one, people began to see beautiful old buildings that had long been hidden. The constant ego-irritation of being told to spend was taken away, and was replaced with works of public art. Some 70 percent of the city’s residents say the change has made it a better place. I went there to see it, and almost everyone says the city seems somehow psychologically cleaner and clearer than it did before.
We could take this insight and go further. Several countries, including Sweden and Greece, have banned advertising directed at children. While I was writing this book, there was a controversy after a company marketing diet products put advertisements in the London Underground asking, ARE YOU BEACH BODY READY? next to a picture of an impossibly lithe woman. The implication was that if you are one of the 99.99 percent of humans who look less buff than this, you are not “ready” to show your flesh on the beach. There was a big backlash, and the posters were eventually banned. It prompted a wave of protests across London, where people defaced ads with the words “Advertising shits in your head.”
It made me think: Imagine if we had a tough advertising regulator who wouldn’t permit ads designed to make us feel bad in any way. How many ads would survive? That’s an achievable goal, and it would clear a lot of mental pollution from our minds.
This has some value in itself, but I think the fight for it could spur a deeper conversation. Advertising is only the PR team for an economic system that operates by making us feel inadequate and telling us the solution is to constantly spend. My hunch is that, if we start to really talk about how this affects our emotional health, we will begin to see the need for more radical changes.
There was a hint of how this might start in an experiment that tried to go deeper, not just to block bad messages that divert our desires onto junk, but to see if we can draw out our positive values. This led to the second, and most exciting, path back that Tim has explored.
The kids were telling Nathan Dungan one thing, over and over again. They needed stuff. They needed consumer objects. And they were frustrated, outright angry, that they weren’t getting them. Their parents were refusing to buy the sneakers or designer clothes or latest gadgets that they needed to have, and it was throwing them into an existential panic. Didn’t their parents know how important it is to have all this?
Nathan didn’t expect to be having these conversations. He was a middle-aged man who had worked in financial services in Pennsylvania for years, advising people on investments. One day, he was talking to an educator at a middle school and she explained that the kids she was working with, middle-class, not rich, had a problem. They thought satisfaction and meaning came from buying objects. When their parents couldn’t afford them, they seemed genuinely distressed. She asked, could Nathan come in and talk to the kids about financial realities?
He agreed cautiously. But that decision was going to set him on a steep learning curve, and lead him to challenge a lot of what he took for granted.
Nathan went in believing his task was obvious. He was there to educate the kids, and their parents, about how to budget, and how to live within their financial means. But then he hit this wall of need, this ravenous hunger for stuff. To him, it was baffling. Why do they want it so badly? What’s the difference between the sneakers with the Nike swoosh and the sneakers without? Why would that gap be so significant that it would send kids into a panic?
He began to wonder if he should be talking not about how to budget, but why the teenagers wanted these things in the first place. And it went deeper than that. There was something about seeing teenagers craving apparently meaningless material objects that got Nathan to think, as adults, are we so different?
Nathan had no idea how to start that conversation, so he began to wing it. And it led to a striking scientific experiment, where he teamed up with Tim Kasser.
A short time later, in a conference room in Minneapolis, Nathan met with the families who were going to be the focus of his experiment. They were a group of sixty parents and their teenage kids, sitting in front of him on chairs. He was going to have a series of long sessions with them over three months to explore these issues and the alternatives. (At the same time, the experiment followed a separate group of the same size who didn’t meet with Nathan or get any other help. They were the experiment’s control group.)
Nathan started the conversation by handing everyone worksheets with a list of open-ended questions. He explained there was no right answer: he just wanted them to start to think about these questions. One of them said: “For me, money is …” and you had to fill in the blank.
At first, people were confused. They’d never been asked a question like this before. Lots of the participants wrote that money is scarce. Or a source of stress. Or something they try not to think about. They then broke into groups of eight, and began to contemplate their answers, haltingly. Many of the kids had never heard their parents talk about money worries before.
Then the groups began to discuss the question, why do I spend? They began to list the reasons why they buy necessities (which are obvious: you’ve got to eat), and then the reasons why they buy the things that aren’t necessities. Sometimes, people would say, they bought nonessential stuff when they felt down. Often, the teenagers would say, they craved this stuff so badly because they wanted to belong, the branded clothes meant you were accepted by the group, or got a sense of status.
As they explored this in the conversation, it became clear quite quickly, without any prompting from Nathan, that spending often isn’t about the object itself. It is about getting to a psychological state that makes you feel better. These insights weren’t deeply buried. People offered them quite quickly, although when they said them out loud, they seemed a little surprised. They knew it just below the surface, but they’d never been asked to articulate that latent feeling before.
Then Nathan asked people to list what they really value, the things they think are most important in life. Many people said it was looking after your family, or telling the truth, or helping other people. One fourteen-year-old boy wrote simply “love,” and when he read it out, the room stopped for a moment, and “you could hear a pin drop,” Nathan told me. “What he was speaking to was, how important is it for me to be connected?”
Just asking these two questions, “What do you spend your money on?” and “What do you really value?”, made most people see a gap between the answers that they began to discuss. They were accumulating and spending money on things that were not, in the end, the things that they believed in their heart mattered. Why would that be?
Nathan had been reading up on the evidence about how we come to crave all this stuff. He learned that the average American is exposed to up to five thousand advertising impressions a day, from billboards to logos on T-shirts to TV advertisements. It is the sea in which we swim. And “the narrative is that if you [buy] this thing, it’ll yield more happiness, and so thousands of times a day you’re just surrounded with that message,” he told me. He began to ask: “Who’s shaping that narrative?” It’s not people who have actually figured out what will make us happy and who are charitably spreading the good news. It’s people who have one motive only, to make us buy their product.
In our culture, Nathan was starting to believe, we end up on a materialistic autopilot. We are constantly bombarded with messages that we will feel better (and less stinky, and less disgustingly shaped, and less all-around worthless) only if we buy some specific product; and then buy something more; and buy again, and on and on, until finally your family buys your coffin. What he wondered is, if people stopped to think about this and discussed alternatives, as his group was doing, could we turn off the autopilot, and take back control for ourselves?
At the next session, he asked the people in the experiment to do a short exercise in which everyone had to list a consumer item they felt they had to have right away. They had to describe what it was, how they first heard about it, why they craved it, how they felt when they got it, and how they felt after they’d had it for a while. For many people, as they talked this through, something became obvious. The pleasure was often in the craving and anticipation. We’ve all had the experience of finally getting the thing we want, getting it home, and feeling oddly deflated, only to find that before long, the craving cycle starts again.
People began to talk about how they had been spending, and they were slowly seeing what it was really all about. Often, not always, it was about “filling a hole. It fills some sort of loneliness gap.” But by pushing them toward that quick, rapidly evaporating high, it was also nudging them away from the things they really valued and that would make them feel satisfied in the long run. They felt they were becoming hollow.
There were some people, both teens and adults, who rejected this fiercely. They said that the stuff made them happy, and they wanted to stick with it. But most people in the group were eager to think differently.
They began to talk about advertising. At first, almost everyone declared that ads might affect other people but didn’t hold much sway over them. “Everyone wants to be smarter than the ad,” Nathan said to me later. But he guided them back to the consumer objects they had longed for. Before long, members of the group were explaining to each other: “There’s no way they’re spending billions of dollars if it’s not having an impact. They’re just not doing that. No company is going to do that.”
So far, it had been about getting people to question the junk values we have been fed for so long.
But then came the most important part of this experiment.
Nathan explained the difference that I talked about before between extrinsic and intrinsic values. He asked people to draw up a list of their intrinsic values, the things they thought were important, as an end in themselves and not because of what you get out of it. Then he asked: How would you live differently if you acted on these other values? Members of the groups discussed it.
They were surprised. We are constantly encouraged to talk about extrinsic values, but the moments when we are asked to speak our intrinsic values out loud are rare. Some said, for example, they would work less and spend more time with the people they loved. Nathan wasn’t making the case for any of this. Just asking a few open questions took most of the group there spontaneously.
Our intrinsic motivations are always there, Nathan realized, lying “dormant. It was brought out into the light,” he said. Conversations like this, Nathan was realizing, don’t just happen “in our culture today. We don’t allow space or create space for these really critical conversations to take place, so it just creates more and more isolation.”
Now that they had identified how they had been duped by junk values, and identified their intrinsic values, Nathan wanted to know: could the group choose, together, to start to follow their intrinsic goals? Instead of being accountable to advertising, could they make themselves accountable to their own most important values, and to a group that was trying to do the same thing? Could they consciously nurture meaningful values?
Now that each person had figured out his or her own intrinsic goals, they would report back at the next series of meetings about what they’d done to start moving toward them. They held each other accountable. They now had a space in which they could think about what they really wanted in life, and how to achieve it. They would talk about how they had found a way to work less and see their kids more, for example, or how they had taken up a musical instrument, or how they had started to write.
Nobody knew whether all this would have any real effect, though. Could these conversations really reduce people’s materialism and increase their intrinsic values?
Independent social scientists measured the levels of materialism of the participants at the start of the experiment, and they measured them again at the end. As he waited for the results, Nathan was nervous. This was a small intervention, in the middle of a lifetime of constant consumerist bombardment. Would it make any difference at all?
When the results came through, both Nathan and Tim were thrilled. Tim had shown before that materialism correlates strongly with increased depression and anxiety. This experiment showed, for the first time, that it was possible to intervene in people’s lives in a way that would significantly reduce their levels of materialism. The people who had gone through this experiment had significantly lower materialism and significantly higher selfesteem. It was a big and measurable effect.
It was an early shot of proof that a determined effort to reverse the values that are making us so unhappy works.
The people who took part in the study could never have made these changes alone, Nathan believes. “There was a lot of power in that connection and that community for people, removing the isolation and the fear. There’s a lot of fear around this topic.” It was only together, as a group, that they there were able to “peel those layers away, so you could actually get to the meaning, to the heart: their sense of purpose.”
I asked Nathan if we could integrate this into our ordinary lives, if we all need to form and take part in a kind of Alcoholics Anonymous for junk values, a space where we can all meet to challenge the depression-generating ideas we’ve been taught and learn to listen instead to our intrinsic values. “I would say, without question,” he said. Most of us sense we have been valuing the wrong things for too long. We need to create, he told me, a “counter-rhythm” to the junk values that have been making us mentally sick.
From his bare conference room in Minneapolis, Nathan has proven something, that we are not imprisoned in the values that have been making us feel so lousy for so long. By coming together with other people, and thinking deeply, and reconnecting with what really matters, we can begin to dig a tunnel back to meaningful values.
JUNK VALUES. CONSUMERISM LITERALLY IS DEPRESSING
Just as we have shifted en masse from eating food to eating junk food, we have also shifted from having meaningful values to having junk values.
All this mass-produced fried chicken looks like food, and it appeals to the part of us that evolved to need food; yet it doesn’t give us what we need from food, nutrition. Instead, it fills us with toxins.
In the same way, all these materialistic values, telling us to spend our way to happiness, look like real values; they appeal to the part of us that has evolved to need some basic principles to guide us through life; yet they don’t give us what we need from values, a path to a satisfying life.
Studies show that materialistic people are having a worse time, day by day, on all sorts of fronts. They feel sicker, and they are angrier. Something about a strong desire for materialistic pursuits actually affects their day-to-day lives, and decreases the quality of their daily experience. They experienced less joy, and more despair.
For thousands of years, philosophers have been suggesting that if you overvalue money and possessions, or if you think about life mainly in terms of how you look to other people, you will be unhappy.
Modern research indicates that materialistic people, who think happiness comes from accumulating stuff and a superior status, have much higher levels of depression and anxiety. The more our kids value getting things and being seen to have things, the more likely they are to be suffering from depression and anxiety.
The pressure, in our culture, runs overwhelmingly one way, spend more; work more. We live under a system that constantly distracts us from what’s really good about life. We are being propagandized to live in a way that doesn’t meet our basic psychological needs, so we are left with a permanent, puzzling sense of dissatisfaction.
The more materialistic and extrinsically motivated you become, the more depressed you will be.
JUNK VALUES. CONSUMERISM LITERALLY IS DEPRESSING – Johann Hari
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The Spirit Level. Why equality is better for everyone – Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.
“For the first time in history, the poor are on average fatter than the rich.”
How is it that we have created so much mental and emotional suffering despite levels of wealth and comfort unprecedented in human history? The luxury and extravagance of our lives is so great that it threatens the planet.
At the pinnacle of human material and technical achievement, we find ourselves anxiety-ridden, prone to depression, worried about how others see us, unsure of our friendships, driven to consume and with little or no community life. Our societies are, despite their material success, increasingly burdened by their social failings.
If we are to gain further improvements in the real quality of life, we need to shift attention from material standards and economic growth to ways of improving the psychological and social wellbeing of whole societies. It is possible to improve the quality of life for everyone. We shall set out the evidence and our reasons for interpreting it the way we do, so that you can judge for yourself.
Social theories are partly theories about ourselves; indeed, they might almost be regarded as part of our selfawareness or self-consciousness of societies. The knowledge that we cannot carry on as we have, that change is necessary, is perhaps grounds for optimism: maybe we do, at last, have the chance to make a better world.
The truth is that both our broken society and broken economy resulted from the growth of inequality. The problems in rich countries are not caused by the society not being rich enough (or even by being too rich) but by the scale of material differences between people within each society being too big. What matters is where we stand in relation to others in our own society.
Why do we mistrust people more in the UK than in Japan? Why do Americans have higher rates of teenage pregnancy than the French? What makes the Swedish thinner than the Greeks? The answer: inequality.
This groundbreaking book, based on years of research, provides hard evidence to show:
How almost everything from life expectancy to depression levels, violence to illiteracy is affected not by how wealthy a society is, but how equal it is.
That societies with a bigger gap between rich and poor are bad for everyone in them including the well-off.
How we can flnd positive solutions and move towards a happier, fairer future.
Urgent, provocative and genuinely uplifting, The Spirit Level has been heralded as providing a new way of thinking about ourselves and our communities, and could change the way you see the world.
Richard Wilkinson has played a formative role in international research on the social determinants of health. He studied economic history at the London School of Economics before training in epidemiology and is Professor Emeritus at the University of Nottingham Medical School, Honorary Professor at University College London and Visiting Professor at the University of York.
Kate Pickett is Professor of Epidemiology at the University of York and a National Institute for Health Research Career Scientist. She studied physical anthropology at Cambridge, nutritional sciences at Cornell and epidemiology at the University of California Berkeley.
People usually exaggerate the importance of their own work and we worry about claiming too much. But this book is not just another set of nostrums and prejudices about how to put the world to rights. The work we describe here comes out of a very long period of research (over fifty person-years between us) devoted, initially, to trying to understand the causes of the big differences in life expectancy, the ‘health inequalities’ between people at different levels in the social hierarchy in modern societies. The focal problem initially was to understand why health gets worse at every step down the social ladder, so that the poor are less healthy than those in the middle, who in turn are less healthy than those further up.
Like others who work on the social determinants of health, our training in epidemiology means that our methods are those used to trace the causes of diseases in populations, trying to find out why one group of people gets a particular disease while another group doesn’t, or to explain why some disease is becoming more common. The same methods can, however, also be used to understand the causes of other kinds of problems, not just health.
Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where) and determinants of health and disease conditions in defined populations.
Just as the term ‘evidence-based medicine’ is used to describe current efforts to ensure that medical treatment is based on the best scientific evidence of what works and what does not, we thought of calling this book ‘Evidence-based Politics’. The research which underpins what we describe comes from a great many research teams in different universities and research organizations. Replicable methods have been used to study observable and objective outcomes, and peer-reviewed research reports have been published in academic, scientific journals.
This does not mean that there is no guesswork. Results always have to be interpreted, but there are usually good reasons for favouring one interpretation over another. Initial theories and expectations are often called into question by later research findings which make it necessary to think again. We would like to take you on the journey we have travelled, signposted by crucial bits of evidence and leaving out only the various culs-de-sac and wrong turnings that wasted so much time, to arrive at a better understanding of how we believe it is possible to improve the quality of life for everyone in modern societies. We shall set out the evidence and our reasons for interpreting it the way we do, so that you can judge for yourself.
At an intuitive level people have always recognized that inequality is socially corrosive. But there seemed little reason to think that levels of inequality in developed societies differed enough to expect any measurable effects. The reasons which first led one of us to look for effects seem now largely irrelevant to the striking picture which has emerged. Many discoveries owe as much to luck as judgement.
The reason why the picture we present has not been put together until now is probably that much of the data has only become available in recent years. With internationally comparable information not only on incomes and income distribution but also on different health and social problems, it could only have been a matter of time before someone came up with findings like ours. The emerging data have allowed us, and other researchers, to analyse how societies differ, to discover how one factor is related to another, and to test theories more rigorously.
It is easy to imagine that discoveries are more rapidly accepted in the natural than in the social sciences, as if physical theories are somehow less controversial than theories about the social world. But the history of the natural sciences is littered with painful personal disputes, which started off as theoretical disagreements but often lasted for the rest of people’s lives. Controversies in the natural sciences are usually confined to the experts: most people do not have strong views on rival theories in particle physics. But they do have views on how society works. Social theories are partly theories about ourselves; indeed, they might almost be regarded as part of our selfawareness or self-consciousness of societies. While natural scientists do not have to convince individual cells or atoms to accept their theories, social theorists are up against a plethora of individual views and powerful vested interests.
In 1847, Ignaz Semmelweiss discovered that if doctors washed their hands before attending women in childbirth it dramatically reduced deaths from puerperal fever. But before his work could have much benefit he had to persuade people, principally his medical colleagues to change their behaviour. His real battle was not his initial discovery but what followed from it. His views were ridiculed and he was driven eventually to insanity and suicide. Much of the medical profession did not take his work seriously until Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister had developed the germ theory of disease, which explained why hygiene was important.
We live in a pessimistic period. As well as being worried by the likely consequences of global warming, it is easy to feel that many societies are, despite their material success, increasingly burdened by their social failings. And now, as if to add to our woes, we have the economic recession and its aftermath of high unemployment. But the knowledge that we cannot carry on as we have, that change is necessary, is perhaps grounds for optimism: maybe we do, at last, have the chance to make a better world. The extraordinarily positive reception of the hardback editon of this book confirms that there is a widespread appetite for change and a desire to find positive solutions to our problems.
We have made only minor changes to this edition. Details of the statistical sources, methods and results, from which we thought most readers would want to be spared, are now provided in an appendix for those with a taste for data. Chapter 13, which is substantially about causation, has been slightly reorganized and strengthened. We have also expanded our discussion of what has made societies substantially more or less equal in the past. Because we conclude that these changes have been driven by changes in political attitudes, we think it is a mistake to discuss policy as if it were a matter of finding the right technical fix. As there are really hundreds of ways that societies can become more equal if they choose to, we have not nailed our colours to one or other set of policies. What we need is not so much a clever solution as a society which recognizes the benefits of greater equality.
If correct, the theory and evidence set out in this book tells us how to make substantial improvements in the quality of life for the vast majority of the population. Yet unless it is possible to change the way most people see the societies they live in, the theory will be stillborn. Public opinion will only support the necessary political changes if something like the perspective we outline in this book permeates the public mind.
We have therefore set up a not-for-profit organization called The Equality Trust (described at the end of this book) to make the kind of evidence set out in the following pages better known and to suggest that there is a way out of the woods for us all.
Material Success, Social Failure
1 The end of an era
“I care for riches, to make gifts to friends, or lead a sick man back to health with ease and plenty. Else small aid is wealth for daily gladness; once a man be done with hunger, rich and poor are all as one.” Euripides, Electra
It is a remarkable paradox that, at the pinnacle of human material and technical achievement, we find ourselves anxiety-ridden, prone to depression, worried about how others see us, unsure of our friendships, driven to consume and with little or no community life. Lacking the relaxed social contact and emotional satisfaction we all need, we seek comfort in overeating, obsessive shopping and spending, or become prey to excessive alcohol, psychoactive medicines and illegal drugs.
How is it that we have created so much mental and emotional suffering despite levels of wealth and comfort unprecedented in human history? Often what we feel is missing is little more than time enjoying the company of friends, yet even that can seem beyond us. We talk as if our lives were a constant battle for psychological survival, struggling against stress and emotional exhaustion, but the truth is that the luxury and extravagance of our lives is so great that it threatens the planet.
Research from the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation (commissioned by the Merck Family Foundation) in the USA shows that people feel that ‘materialism’ somehow comes between them and the satisfaction of their social needs. A report entitled Yearning for Balance, based on a nationwide survey of Americans, concluded that they were ‘deeply ambivalent about wealth and material gain’. A large majority of people wanted society to ‘move away from greed and excess toward a way of life more centred on values, community, and family’. But they also felt that these priorities were not shared by most of their fellow Americans, who, they believed, had become ‘increasingly atomized, selfish, and irresponsible’. As a result they often felt isolated. However, the report says, that when brought together in focus groups to discuss these issues, people were ‘surprised and excited to find that others share[d] their views’. Rather than uniting us with others in a common cause, the unease we feel about the loss of social values and the way we are drawn into the pursuit of material gain is often experienced as if it were a purely private ambivalence which cuts us off from others.
Mainstream politics no longer taps into these issues and has abandoned the attempt to provide a shared vision capable of inspiring us to create a better society. As voters, we have lost sight of any collective belief that society could be different.
Instead of a better society, the only thing almost everyone strives for is to better their own position as individuals within the existing society.
The contrast between the material success and social failure of many rich countries is an important signpost. It suggests that, if we are to gain further improvements in the real quality of life, we need to shift attention from material standards and economic growth to ways of improving the psychological and social wellbeing of whole societies. However, as soon as anything psychological is mentioned, discussion tends to focus almost exclusively on individual remedies and treatments. Political thinking seems to run into the sand.
It is now possible to piece together a new, compelling and coherent picture of how we can release societies from the grip of so much dysfunctional behaviour. A proper understanding of what is going on could transform politics and the quality of life for all of us. It would change our experience of the world around us, change what we vote for, and change what we demand from our politicians.
In this book we show that the quality of social relations in a society is built on material foundations. The scale of income differences has a powerful effect on how we relate to each other. Rather than blaming parents, religion, values, education or the penal system, we will show that the scale of inequality provides a powerful policy lever on the psychological wellbeing of all of us. Just as it once took studies of weight gain in babies to show that interacting with a loving care-giver is crucial to child development, so it has taken studies of death rates and of income distribution to show the social needs of adults and to demonstrate how societies can meet them.
Long before the financial crisis which gathered pace in the later part of 2008, British politicians commenting on the decline of community or the rise of various forms of anti-social behaviour, would sometimes refer to our ‘broken society’. The financial collapse shifted attention to the broken economy, and while the broken society was sometimes blamed on the behaviour of the poor, the broken economy was widely attributed to the rich.
Stimulated by the prospects of ever bigger salaries and bonuses, those in charge of some of the most trusted financial institutions threw caution to the wind and built houses of cards which could stand only within the protection of a thin speculative bubble. But the truth is that both the broken society and the broken economy resulted from the growth of inequality.
WHERE THE EVIDENCE LEADS
We shall start by outlining the evidence which shows that we have got close to the end of what economic growth can do for us. For thousands of years the best way of improving the quality of human life was to raise material living standards. When the wolf was never far from the door, good times were simply times of plenty. But for the vast majority of people in affluent countries the difficulties of life are no longer about filling our stomachs, having clean water and keeping warm. Most of us now wish we could eat less rather than more. And, for the first time in history, the poor are on average fatter than the rich.
Economic growth, for so long the great engine of progress, has, in the rich countries, largely finished its work. Not only have measures of wellbeing and happiness ceased to rise with economic growth but, as affluent societies have grown richer, there have been long-term rises in rates of anxiety, depression and numerous other social problems. The populations of rich countries have got to the end of a long historical journey.
Figure 1.1 Only in its early stages does economic development boost life expectancy.
The course of the journey we have made can be seen in Figure 1.1. It shows the trends in life expectancy in relation to Gross National Income per head in countries at various stages of economic development. Among poorer countries, life expectancy increases rapidly during the early stages of economic development, but then, starting among the middle-income countries, the rate of improvement slows down. As living standards rise and countries get richer and richer, the relationship between economic growth and life expectancy weakens. Eventually it disappears entirely and the rising curve in Figure 1.1 becomes horizontal showing that for rich countries to get richer adds nothing further to their life expectancy. That has already happened in the richest thirty or so countries nearest the top righthand corner of Figure 1.1.
The reason why the curve in Figure 1.1 levels out is not because we have reached the limits of life expectancy. Even the richest countries go on enjoying substantial improvements in health as time goes by. What has changed is that the improvements have ceased to be related to average living standards. With every ten years that passes, life expectancy among the rich countries increases by between two and three years. This happens regardless of economic growth, so that a country as rich as the USA no longer does better than Greece or New Zealand, although they are not much more than half as rich. Rather than moving out along the curve in Figure 1.1, what happens as time goes by is that the curve shifts upwards: the same levels of income are associated with higher life expectancy. Looking at the data, you cannot help but conclude that as countries get richer, further increases in average living standards do less and less for health.
While good health and longevity are important, there are other components of the quality of life. But just as the relationship between health and economic growth has levelled off, so too has the relationship with happiness. Like health, how happy people are rises in the early stages of economic growth and then levels off. This is a point made strongly by the economist Richard Layard, in his book on happiness.
Figure 1.2 Happiness and average incomes (data for UK unavailable).
Figures on happiness in different countries are probably strongly affected by culture. In some societies not saying you are happy may sound like an admission of failure, while in another claiming to be happy may sound selfsatisfied and smug. But, despite the difficulties, Figure 1.2 shows the ‘happiness curve’ levelling off in the richest countries in much the same way as life expectancy. In both cases the important gains are made in the earlier stages of economic growth, but the richer a country gets, the less getting still richer adds to the population’s happiness. In these graphs the curves for both happiness and life expectancy flatten off at around $25,000 per capita, but there is some evidence that the income level at which this occurs may rise over time.
The evidence that happiness levels fail to rise further as rich countries get still richer does not come only from comparisons of different countries at a single point in time (as shown in Figure 1.2). In a few countries, such as Japan, the USA and Britain, it is possible to look at changes in happiness over sufficiently long periods of time to see whether they rise as a country gets richer. The evidence shows that happiness has not increased even over periods long enough for real incomes to have doubled. The same pattern has also been found by researchers using other indicators of wellbeing such as the ‘measure of economic welfare’ or the ‘genuine progress indicator’, which try to calculate net benefits of growth after removing costs like traffic congestion and pollution.
So whether we look at health, happiness or other measures of wellbeing there is a consistent picture. In poorer countries, economic development continues to be very important for human wellbeing. Increases in their material living standards result in substantial improvements both in objective measures of wellbeing like life expectancy, and in subjective ones like happiness. But as nations join the ranks of the affluent developed countries, further rises in income count for less and less.
This is a predictable pattern. As you get more and more of anything, each addition to what you have, whether loaves of bread or cars, contributes less and less to your wellbeing. If you are hungry, a loaf of bread is everything, but when your hunger is satisfied, many more loaves don’t particularly help you and might become a nuisance as they go stale.
Sooner or later in the long history of economic growth, countries inevitably reach a level of affluence where ‘diminishing returns’ set in and additional income buys less and less additional health, happiness or wellbeing. A number of developed countries have now had almost continuous rises in average incomes for over 150 years and additional wealth is not as beneficial as it once was.
The trends in different causes of death confirm this interpretation. It is the diseases of poverty which first decline as countries start to get richer. The great infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, cholera or measles which are still common in the poorest countries today, gradually cease to be the most important causes of death. As they disappear, we are left with the so-called diseases of affluence, the degenerative cardiovascuiar diseases and cancers. While the infectious diseases of poverty are particularly common in childhood and frequently kill even in the prime of life, the diseases of affluence are very largely diseases of later life.
One other piece of evidence confirms that the reason why the curves in Figures 1.1 and 1.2 level off is because countries have reached a threshold of material living standards after which the benefits of further economic growth are less substantial. It is that the diseases which used to be called the ‘diseases of affluence’ became the diseases of the poor in affluent societies. Diseases like heart disease, stroke and obesity used to be more common among the rich. Heart disease was regarded as a businessman’s disease and it used to be the rich who were fat and the poor who were thin. But from about the 1950s onwards, in one developed country after another, these patterns reversed. Diseases which had been most common among the better-off in each society reversed their social distribution to become more common among the poor.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL LIMITS TO GROWTH
At the same time as the rich countries reach the end of the real benefits of economic growth, we have also had to recognize the problems of global warming and the environmental limits to growth. The dramatic reductions in carbon emissions needed to prevent runaway climate change and rises in sea levels may mean that even present levels of consumption are unsustainable particularly if living standards in the poorer, developing, world are to rise as they need to. In Chapter 15 we shall discuss the ways in which the perspective outlined in this book fits in with policies designed to reduce global warming.
INCOME DIFFERENCES WITHIN AND BETWEEN SOCIETIES
We are the first generation to have to find new answers to the question of how we can make further improvements to the real quality of human life. What should we turn to if not to economic growth? One of the most powerful clues to the answer to this question comes from the fact that we are affected very differently by the income differences within our own society from the way we are affected by the differences in average income between one rich society and another.
In Chapters 4-12 we focus on a series of health and social problems like violence, mental illness, teenage births and educational failure, which within each country are all more common among the poor than the rich. As a result, it often looks as if the effect of higher incomes and living standards is to lift people out of these problems. However, when we make comparisons between different societies, we find that these social problems have little or no relation to levels of average incomes in a society.
Take health as an example. Instead of looking at life expectancy across both rich and poor countries as in Figure 1.1, look just at the richest countries. Figure 1.3 shows just the rich countries and confirms that among them some countries can be almost twice as rich as others without any benefit to life expectancy. Yet within any of them death rates are closely and systematically related to income.
Figure 1.3 Life expectancy is unrelated to differences in average income between rich countries.
Figure 1.4 shows the relation between death rates and income levels within the USA. The death rates are for people in zip code areas classified by the typical household income of the area in which they live. On the right are the richer zip code areas with lower death rates, and on the left are the poorer ones with higher death rates. Although we use American data to illustrate this, similar health gradients, of varying steepness, run across almost every society. Higher incomes are related to lower death rates at every level in society.
Figure 1.4 Death rates are closely related to differences in income within societies.
Note that this is not simply a matter of the poor having worse health than everyone else. What is so striking about Figure 1.4 is how regular the health gradient is right across society it is a qradient which affects us all.
Within each country, people’s health and happiness are related to their incomes. Richer people tend, on average, to be healthier and happier than poorer people in the same society. But comparing rich countries it makes no difference whether on average people in one society are almost twice as rich as people in another.
What sense can we make of this paradox that differences in average income or living standards between whole populations or countries don’t matter at all, but income differences within those same populations matter very much indeed? There are two plausible explanations. One is that what matters in rich countries may not be your actual income level and living standard, but how you compare with other people in the same society. Perhaps average standards don’t matter and what does is simply whether you are doing better or worse than other people, where you come in the social pecking order.
The other possibility is that the social gradient in health shown in Figure 1.4 results not from the effects of relative income or social status on health, but from the effects of social mobility, sorting the healthy from the unhealthy. Perhaps the healthy tend to move up the social ladder and the unhealthy end up at the bottom.
This issue will be resolved in the next chapter. We shall see whether compressing, or stretching out, the income differences in a society matters. Do more and less equal societies suffer the same overall burden of health and social problems?
2 Poverty or inequality?
“Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends; above all it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status It has grown as an invidious distinction between classes”
Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics
HOW MUCH INEQUALITY?
In the last chapter we saw that economic growth and increases in average incomes have ceased to contribute much to wellbeing in the rich countries. But we also saw that within societies health and social problems remain strongly associated with incomes. In this chapter we will see whether the amount of income inequality in a society makes any difference.
Figure 2.1 How much richer are the richest 20 per cent than the poorest 20 per cent in each country?
Figure 2.1 shows how the size of income differences varies from one developed country to another. At the top are the most equal countries and at the bottom are the most unequal. The length of the horizontal bars shows how much richer the richest 20 per cent of the population is in each country compared to the poorest 20 per cent.
Within countries such as Japan and some of the Scandinavian countries at the top of the chart, the richest 20 per cent are less than four times as rich as the poorest 20 per cent. At the bottom of the chart are countries in which these differences are at least twice as big, including two in which the richest 20 per cent get about nine times as much as the poorest. Among the most unequal are Singapore, USA, Portugal and the United Kingdom. (The figures are for household income, after taxes and benefits, adjusted for the number of people in each household.)
There are lots of ways of measuring income inequality and they are all so closely related to each other that it doesn’t usually make much difference which you use. Instead of the top and bottom 20 per cent, we could compare the top and bottom 10 or 30 per cent. Or we could have looked at the proportion of all incomes which go to the poorer half of the population. Typically, the poorest half of the population get something like 20 or 25 per cent of all incomes and the richest half get the remaining 75 or 80 per cent.
Other more sophisticated measures include one called the Gini coefficient. It measures inequality across the whole society rather than simply comparing the extremes. If all income went to one person (maximum inequality) and everyone else got nothing, the Gini coefficient would be equal to 1. If income was shared equally and everyone got exactly the same (perfect equality), the Gini would equal 0. The lower its value, the more equal a society is. The most common values tend to be between 0.3 and 0.5. Another measure of inequality is called the Robin Hood Index because it tells you what proportion of a society’s income would have to be taken from the rich and given to the poor to get complete equality.
To avoid being accused of picking and choosing our measures, our approach in this book has been to take measures provided by official agencies rather than calculating our own. We use the ratio of the income received by the top to the bottom 20 per cent whenever we are comparing inequality in different countries: it is easy to understand and it is one of the measures provided ready-made by the United Nations. When comparing inequality in US states, we use the Gini coefficient: it is the most common measure, it is favoured by economists and it is available from the US Census Bureau. In many academic research papers we and others have used two different inequality measures in order to show that the choice of measures rarely has a significant effect on results.
DOES THE AMOUNT OF INEQUALITY MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
Having got to the end of what economic growth can do for the quality of life and facing the problems of environmental damage, what difference do the inequalities shown in Figure 2.1 make?
It has been known for some years that poor health and violence are more common in more unequal societies. However, in the course of our research we became aware that almost all problems which are more common at the bottom of the social ladder are more common in more unequal societies. It is not just ill-health and violence, but also, as we will show in later chapters, a host of other social problems. Almost all of them contribute to the widespread concern that modern societies are, despite their affluence, social failures.
To see whether these problems were more common in more unequal countries, we collected internationally comparable data on health and as many social problems as we could find reliable figures for.
The list we ended up with included:
mental illness (including drug and alcohol addiction)
life expectancy and infant mortality
children’s educational performance
teenage births
imprisonment rates
social mobility (not available for US states)
Occasionally what appear to be relationships between different things may arise spuriously or by chance. In order to be confident that our findings were sound we also collected data for the same health and social problems or as near as we could get to the same for each of the fifty states of the USA. This allowed us to check whether or not problems were consistently related to inequality in these two independent settings. As Lyndon Johnson said, ‘America is not merely a nation, but a nation of nations.’
To present the overall picture, we have combined all the health and social problem data for each country, and separately for each US state, to form an Index of Heaith and Social Problems for each country and US state. Each item in the indexes carries the same weight so, for example, the score for mental health has as much influence on a society’s overall score as the homicide rate or the teenage birth rate. The result is an index showing how common all these health and social problems are in each country and each US state. Things such as life expectancy are reverse scored, so that on every measure higher scores reflect worse outcomes. When looking at the Figures, the higher the score on the Index of Health and Social Problems, the worse things are. (For information on how we selected countries shown in the graphs we present in this book, please see the Appendix.)
Figure 2.2 Health and social problems are closely related to inequality among rich countries.
We start by showing, in Figure 2.2, that there is a very strong tendency for ill-health and social problems to occur less frequently in the more equal countries. With increasing inequality (to the right on the horizontal axis), the higher is the score on our Index of Health and Social Problems. Health and social problems are indeed more common in countries with bigger income inequalities. The two are extraordinarily closely related, chance alone would almost never produce a scatter in which countries lined up like this.
Figure 2.3 Health and social problems are only weakly related to national average income among rich countries.
To emphasize that the prevalence of poor health and social problems in whole societies really is related to inequality rather than to average living standards, we show in Figure 2.3 the same index of health and social problems but this time in relation to average incomes (National Income per person). It shows that there is no similarly clear trend towards better outcomes in richer countries. This confirms what we saw in Figures 1.1 and 1.2 in the first chapter. However, as well as knowing that health and social problems are more common among the less well-off within each society (as shown in Figure 1.4), we now know that the overall burden of these problems is much higher in more unequal societies.
To check whether these results are not just some odd fluke, let us see whether similar patterns also occur when we look at the fifty states of the USA. We were able to find data on almost exactly the same health and social problems for US states as we used in our international index.
Figure 2.4 Health and social problems are related to inequality in US states.
Figure 2.4 shows that the Index of Health and Social Problems is strongly related to the amount of inequality in each state, while Figure 2.5 shows that there is no clear relation between it and average income levels.
Figure 2.5 Health and social problems are only weakly related to average income in US states.
The evidence from the USA confirms the international picture. The position of the US in the international graph (Figure 2.2) shows that the high average income level in the US as a whole does nothing to reduce its health and social problems relative to other countries.
We should note that part of the reason why our index combining data for ten different health and social problems is so closely related to inequality is that combining them tends to emphasize what they have in common and downplays what they do not. In Chapters 4-12 we will examine whether each problem taken on its own is related to inequality and will discuss the various reasons why they might be caused by inequality.
This evidence cannot be dismissed as some statistical trick done with smoke and mirrors. What the close fit shown in Figure 2.2 suggests is that a common element related to the prevalence of all these health and social problems is indeed the amount of inequality in each country. All the data come from the most reputable sources from the World Bank, the World Health Organization, the United Nations and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and others.
Could these relationships be the result of some unrepresentative selection of problems? To answer this we also used the ‘Index of child wellbeing in rich countries’ compiled by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). It combines forty different indicators covering many different aspects of child wellbeing. (We removed the measure of child relative poverty from it because it is, by definition, closely related to inequality.)
Figurer 2.6 The UNICEF index of child wellbeing in rich countries is related to inequality.
Figure 2.6 shows that child wellbeing is strongly related to inequality, and Figure 2.7 shows that it is not at all related to average income in each country.
Figure 2.7 The UNICEF index of child wellbeing is not related to Gross National Income per head in rich countries.
SOCIAL GRADIENTS
As we mentioned at the end of the last chapter, there are perhaps two widespread assumptions as to why people nearer the bottom of society suffer more problems. Either the circumstances people live in cause their problems, or people end up nearer the bottom of society because they are prone to problems which drag them down. The evidence we have seen in this chapter puts these issues in a new light.
Let’s first consider the view that society is a great sorting system with people moving up or down the social ladder according to their personal characteristics and vulnerabilities. While things such as having poor health, doing badly at school or having a baby when still a teenager all load the dice against your chances of getting up the social ladder, sorting alone does nothing to explain why more unequal societies have more of all these problems than less unequal ones. Social mobility may partly explain whether problems congregate at the bottom, but not why more unequal societies have more problems overall.
The view that social problems are caused directly by poor material conditions such as bad housing, poor diets, lack of educational opportunities and so on implies that richer developed societies would do better than the others. But this is a long way from the truth: some of the richest countries do worst.
It is remarkable that these measures of health and social problems in the two different settings, and of child wellbeing among rich countries, all tell so much the same story.
The problems in rich countries are not caused by the society not being rich enough (or even by being too rich) but by the scale of material differences between people within each society being too big. What matters is where we stand in relation to others in our own society.
Of course a small proportion of the least well-off people even in the richest countries sometimes find themselves without enough money for food. However, surveys of the 12.6 per cent of Americans living below the federal poverty line (an absolute income level rather than a relative standard such as half the average income) show that 80 per cent of them have airconditioning, almost 75 per cent own at least one car or truck and around 33 per cent have a computer, a dishwasher or a second car.
What this means is that when people lack money for essentials such as food, it is usually a reflection of the strength of their desire to live up to the prevailing standards. You may, for instance, feel it more important to maintain appearances by spending on clothes while stinting on food. We knew of a young man who was unemployed and had spent a month’s income on a new mobile phone because he said girls ignored people who hadn’t got the right stuff. As Adam Smith emphasized, it is important to be able to present oneself creditably in society without the shame and stigma of apparent poverty.
However, just as the gradient in health ran right across society from top to bottom, the pressures of inequality and of wanting to keep up are not confined to a small minority who are poor. Instead, the effects are as we shall see widespread in the population.
The Spirit Level. Why equality is better for everyone
by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett
#anxietyConsumerismDepressionGlobalisationHappinessInequalityKatePickettMaterialismMentalHealthNeoliberalismPovertyPsychologyRichardWilkinsonSocialPolicysocietyWellbeing
Depression, Mental Health, Parenting, Psychology
SINS OF OMISSION, EMOTIONAL NEGLECT. What Did Your Family Cook Up For Christmas? * Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect – Jonice Webb PhD.
Dec 26, 2018 TPPA = CRISIS 1 Comment
Good enough parents, or chronic empathic failure?
When a parent effectively recognizes and meets her child’s emotional needs in infancy, a “secure attachment” is formed and maintained. This first attachment forms the basis of a positive self-image and a sense of general well-being throughout childhood and into adulthood.
Your parents’ failure to validate or respond enough to your emotional needs as a child has massive consequences, coming from the totality of important moments in which emotionally neglectful parents are deaf and blind to the emotional needs of their growing child.
There is a minimal amount of parental emotional connection, empathy and ongoing attention which is necessary to fuel a child’s growth and development so that he or she will grow into an emotionally healthy and emotionally connected adult. Less than that minimal amount and the child becomes an adult who struggles emotionally, outwardly successful, perhaps, but empty, missing something within, which the world can’t see.
Childhood Emotional Neglect has a tremendous impact on your ability to achieve happiness and fulfillment in adulthood. You’re feeling empty, disconnected, and different; as if you don’t actually belong anywhere.
It also wreaks havoc with your relationships with your parents and family in adulthood. The CEN adult feels so uncomfortable and empty with family not because of what’s there, but because of what’s missing.
This book is written to help you become aware of what didn’t happen in your childhood, what you don’t remember.
Childhood Emotional Neglect is the result of your parent’s inability to validate and respond adequately to your emotional needs. Childhood emotional neglect can be hard to identify because it’s what didn’t happen in your childhood. It doesn’t leave any visible bruises or scars, but it’s hurtful and confusing for children.
Symptoms of Childhood Emotional Neglect include:
Feeling something’s fundamentally wrong with you
Feeling unfulfilled even when you’re successful
Difficulty connecting with most of your feelings, not feeling anything
Burying, avoiding, or numbing your feelings
Feeling out of place or like you don’t fit in
Difficulty asking for help and not wanting to depend on others
High levels of guilt, shame, and/or anger
Lack of deep, intimate connection with your friends and spouse
Feeling different, unimportant or inadequate
Difficulty with self-control (this could be overeating or drinking)
People-pleasing and focusing on other people’s needs
Not having a good sense of who you are, your likes and dislikes, your strengths and weaknesses
Sharon Martin, LCSW
What’s Your Family Cooking Up For Christmas?
Jonice Webb PhD
Do you look forward to family holiday gatherings, but then often end up feeling disappointed?
Do you dread family holiday dinners, but feel confused about the reasons why?
Do you feel guilty for avoiding or snapping at your parents at holiday gatherings, but just can’t stop yourself?
Do you feel strangely uncomfortable when you’re with your family as if you don’t belong there?
In my experience as a psychologist, I have come to realize that for every irritable, out-of-place, or disappointed person at a family gathering, there is a valid explanation for how that person feels.
I have also found that the explanation is often something rooted in childhood. Something that as an adult you can’t see or remember but is likely still happening to this day: Childhood Emotional Neglect.
Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN) happens when your parents fail to validate or respond enough to your emotional needs as they raise you. Adults whose parents failed them in this way in childhood typically have no awareness that this failure happened. A failure to validate or respond is not an action or an event. It’s a failure to act and a non-event. Therefore, your eyes don’t see it and your brain can’t record it. As an adult, you will likely have no memory of it.
Yet CEN has a tremendous impact on your ability to achieve happiness and fulfillment in adulthood. Growing up with your feelings unaddressed in your family plays out in your own adult life in some very important ways. But it also wreaks havoc with your relationships with your parents and family in adulthood.
Once you’re grown up, Emotional Neglect from childhood can make you resent your parents and feel uncomfortable with your family without you even realizing it. On top of all that, CEN can leave you feeling empty, disconnected, and different; as if you don’t actually belong anywhere.
There is no situation that immerses you in all of your CEN symptoms more than being at a family gathering. And this is especially true when it happens under the pressure-cooker of the holidays.
Chelsea fastened her necklace while simultaneously calling up the stairs for her 3 children to find their shoes and put them on. “We don’t want to be late to Grandma and Grandpa’s house for holiday brunch!” she yelled. As she gathered up the pie she’d made and the bottle of wine she was taking, she was confused by her own mood. She was definitely excited about the holiday and looking forward to the day, but there was also a feeling of darkness lurking in the pit of her stomach. “What is wrong with me? I’m 43 years old and I’m all over the place. This makes no sense,” she thought, angry at herself. She closed her eyes and commanded herself to just be happy and enjoy the day.
28-year-old Jack sat in his parents’ family room surrounded by his niece and nephew, siblings and dad. It’s their annual New Years Day family dinner. As everyone watches the children play, Jack is sitting very uncomfortably in his comfortable chair. Knowing he should be feeling happy and warm and loved, he’s never felt less so. He feels deeply uneasy and out of place as if he is among strangers. He feels unknown, invisible, and deeply bored. “What is my problem?” he agonizes.
Chelsea and Jack don’t know it, but they are both struggling to identify something in themselves that’s very hard to see. Their confusion and contradictory feelings do all make sense, and they have them for a reason. But in looking for answers they are both doing what people with emotional neglect usually do: they are getting angry at themselves for having the feelings they have because they can’t see what’s wrong. They are blaming the pain and deprivation from their childhoods on themselves.
The CEN adult feels so uncomfortable and empty with family not because of what’s there, but because of what’s missing.
What’s missing could be best described as three things:
The feeling that people are genuinely interested in you.
Questions about yourself and your life.
Meaningful conversations about interpersonal issues and the feelings involved.
So when Chelsea and Jack see their families now, it’s a sad continuation of their childhoods. Their parents do not ask them genuine questions about themselves or their lives, no one shows interest in their problems or genuine life experience or feelings. And no one talks about anything that really matters, like problems or conflicts or feelings.
What’s missing is what’s failing to happen, which is something Chelsea and Jack may never see because it’s been their reality from childhood. They can feel it but they cannot see it unless they stop blaming themselves for having negative feelings and acknowledge how their parents failed them.
What To Do Differently
Learn as much as you can about Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN) before your holiday event. This will help you see that this problem is real as well as understand how it’s affected you. Instead of trying to ban your negative feelings (like Chelsea did), do the opposite. Pay attention to them as important messages from your body trying to alert you to a real problem in your experience of your family. Think about how to protect yourself this year. For example, you may limit your time present at the event or bring a support person who understands CEN and your situation. You might lower your expectations or stick close to someone you’re most comfortable with.
Now here’s the thing. The power of Childhood Emotional Neglect comes from your lack of awareness of it. Once you see it, you can beat it. You can treat yourself differently than your family ever treated you. By caring about your own feelings and validating your own experience you can start protecting yourself.
And when you do you will experience your holidays in a very different way. And then you will see that it makes all the difference in the world.
Jonice Webb has a PhD in clinical psychology, and is author of the bestselling books Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect and Running On Empty No More: Transform Your Relationship. She currently has a private psychotherapy practice in the Boston area, where she specializes in the treatment of couples and families. To read more about Dr. Webb, her books and Childhood Emotional Neglect, you can visit her website, Emotionalneglect.com.
PsychCentral
Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect
Writing this book has been one of the most fascinating experiences of my life. As the concept of Emotional Neglect gradually became clearer and more defined in my head, it changed not only the way I practiced psychology, but also the way I looked at the world. I started to see Emotional Neglect everywhere: in the way I sometimes parented my own children or treated my husband, at the mall, and even on reality TV shows. I found myself often thinking that it would help people enormously if they could become aware of this invisible force that affects us all: Emotional Neglect.
After watching the concept become a vital aspect of my work over several years, and becoming fully convinced of its value, I finally shared it with my colleague, Dr. Christine Musello. Christine responded with immediate understanding, and quickly began seeing Emotional Neglect in her own clinical practice, and all around her, as I had. Together we started to work on outlining and defining the phenomenon. Dr. Musello was helpful in the process of putting the initial words to the concept of Emotional Neglect. The fact that she was so readily able to embrace the concept, and found it so useful, encouraged me to take it forward.
Although Dr. Musello was not able to continue in the writing of this book with me, she was a helpful support at the beginning of the writing process. She composed some of the first sections of the book and several of the clinical vignettes. I am therefore pleased to recognize her contribution.
What do you remember from your childhood? Almost everyone remembers some bits and pieces, if not more. Perhaps you have some positive memories, like family vacations, teachers, friends, summer camps or academic awards; and some negative memories, like family conflicts, sibling rivalries, problems at school, or even some sad or troubling events.
Running on Empty is not about any of those kinds of memories. In fact, it’s not about anything that you can remember or anything that happened in your childhood. This book is written to help you become aware of what didn’t happen in your childhood, what you don’t remember. Because what didn’t happen has as much or more power over who you have become as an adult than any of those events you do remember. Running on Empty will introduce you to the consequences of what didn’t happen: an invisible force that may be at work in your life. I will help you determine whether you’ve been affected by this invisible force and, if so, how to overcome it.
Many fine, high-functioning, capable people secretly feel unfulfilled or disconnected. “Shouldn’t I be happier?” “Why haven’t I accomplished more?” “Why doesn’t my life feel more meaningful?” These are questions which are often prompted by the invisible force at work. They are often asked by people who believe that they had loving, wellmeaning parents, and who remember their childhood as mostly happy and healthy. So they blame themselves for whatever doesn’t feel right as an adult. They don’t realize that they are under the influence of what they don’t remember, the invisible force.
By now, you’re probably wondering, what is this Invisible Force? Rest assured it’s nothing scary. It’s not supernatural, psychic or eerie. It’s actually a very common, human thing that doesn’t happen in homes and families all over the world every day. Yet we don’t realize it exists, matters or has any impact upon us at all. We don’t have a word for it. We don’t think about it and we don’t talk about it. We can’t see it; we can only feel it. And when we do feel it, we don’t know what we’re feeling.
In this book, I’m finally giving this force a name. I’m calling it Emotional Neglect. This is not to be confused with physical neglect. Let’s talk about what Emotional Neglect really is.
Everyone is familiar with the word “neglect.” It’s a common word. The definition of “neglect,” according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is “to give little attention or respect or to disregard; to leave unattended to, especially through carelessness.”
“Neglect” is a word used especially frequently by mental health professionals in the Social Services. It’s commonly used to refer to a dependent person, such as a child or elder, whose physical needs are not being met. For example a child who comes to school with no coat in the winter, or an elder shut-in whose adult daughter frequently “forgets” to bring her groceries.
Pure emotional neglect is invisible. It can be extremely subtle, and it rarely has any physical or visible signs. In fact, many emotionally neglected children have received excellent physical care. Many come from families that seem ideal. The people for whom I write this book are unlikely to have been identified as neglected by any outward signs, and are in fact unlikely to have been identified as neglected at all.
So why write a book? After all, if the topic of Emotional Neglect has gone unnoticed by researchers and professionals all this time, how debilitating can it really be? The truth is, people suffering from Emotional Neglect are in pain. But they can’t figure out why, and too often, neither can the therapists treating them. In writing this book, I identify, define and suggest solutions to a hidden struggle that often stymies its sufferers and even the professionals to whom they sometimes go for help. My goal is to help these people who are suffering in silence, wondering what is wrong with them.
There is a good explanation for why Emotional Neglect has been so overlooked. It hides. It dwells in the sins of omission, rather than commission; it’s the white space in the family picture rather than the picture itself. It’s often what was NOT said or observed or remembered from childhood, rather than what WAS said.
For example, parents may provide a lovely home and plenty of food and clothing, and never abuse or mistreat their child. But these same parents may fail to notice their teen child’s drug use or simply give him too much freedom rather than set the limits that would lead to conflict. When that teen is an adult, he may look back at an “ideal” childhood, never realizing that his parents failed him in the way that he needed them most. He may blame himself for whatever difficulties have ensued from his poor choices as a teen. “I was a real handful”; “I had such a great childhood, I have no excuse for not having achieved more in life.” As a therapist, I have heard these words uttered many times by high-functioning, wonderful people who are unaware that Emotional Neglect was an invisible, powerful force in their childhood. This example offers only one of the infinite numbers of ways that a parent can emotionally neglect a child, leaving him running on empty.
Here I would like to insert a very important caveat: We all have examples of how our parents have failed us here and there. No parent is perfect, and no childhood is perfect. We know that the huge majority of parents struggle to do what’s best for their child. Those of us who are parents know that when we make parenting mistakes, we can almost always correct them. This book is not meant to shame parents or make parents feel like failures. In fact, throughout the book you’ll read about many parents who are loving and well-meaning, but still emotionally neglected their child in some fundamental way. Many emotionally neglectful parents are fine people and good parents, but were emotionally neglected themselves as children. All parents commit occasional acts of Emotional Neglect in raising their children without causing any real harm. It only becomes a problem when it is of a great enough breadth or quantity to gradually emotionally “starve” the child.
Whatever the level of parental failure, emotionally neglected people see themselves as the problem, rather than seeing their parents as having failed them.
Throughout the book I include many examples, or vignettes, taken from the lives of my clients and others, those who have grappled with sadness or anxiety or emptiness in their lives, for which there were no words and for which they could find little explanation. These emotionally neglected people most often know how to give others what they want or need. They know what is expected from them in most of life’s social environments. Yet these sufferers are unable to label and describe what is wrong in their internal experience of life and how it harms them.
This is not to say that adults who were emotionally neglected as children are without observable symptoms. But these symptoms, the ones that may have brought them to a psychotherapist’s door, always masquerade as something else: depression, marital problems, anxiety, anger. Adults who have been emotionally neglected mislabel their unhappiness in such ways, and tend to feel embarrassed by asking for help. Since they have not learned to identify or to be in touch with their true emotional needs, it’s difficult for therapists to keep them in treatment long enough to help them understand themselves better.
So this book is written not only for the emotionally neglected, but also for mental health professionals, who need tools to combat the chronic lack of compassion-for-self which can sabotage the best of treatments.
Whether you picked up Running on Empty because you are looking for answers to your own feelings of emptiness and lack of fulfillment, or because you are a mental health professional trying to help “stuck” patients, this book will provide concrete solutions for invisible wounds.
In Running on Empty, I have used many vignettes to illustrate various aspects of Emotional Neglect in childhood and adulthood. All of the vignettes are based upon real stories from clinical practice, either my own or Dr. Musello’s. However, to protect the privacy of the clients, names, identifying facts, and details were altered, so that no vignette depicts any real person, living or dead. The exceptions are the vignettes involving Zeke which appear throughout Chapters 1 and 2. These vignettes were created to illustrate how different parenting styles might affect the same boy, and are purely fictitious.
Are you wondering if this book applies to you? Take this questionnaire to find out. Circle the questions to which your answer is YES.
Emotional Neglect Questionnaire
Do You:
Sometimes feel like you don’t belong when with your family or friends
Pride yourself on not relying upon others
Have difficulty asking for help
Have friends or family who complain that you are aloof or distant
Feel you have not met your potential in life
Often just want to be left alone
Secretly feel that you may be a fraud
Tend to feel uncomfortable in social situations
Often feel disappointed with, or angry at yourself
Judge yourself more harshly than you judge others
Compare yourself to others and often find yourself sadly lacking
Find it easier to love animals than people
Often feel irritable or unhappy for no apparent reason
Have trouble knowing what you’re feeling
Have trouble identifying your strengths and weaknesses
Sometimes feel like you’re on the outside looking in
Believe you’re one of those people who could easily live as a hermit
Have trouble calming yourself
Feel there’s something holding you back from being present in the moment
At times feel empty inside
Secretly feel there’s something wrong with you
Struggle with self-discipline
Look back over your circled (YES) answers. These answers give you a window into the areas in which you may have experienced Emotional Neglect as a child.
Part 1 Running on Empty
WHY WASN’T THE TANK FILLED?
“…I am trying to draw attention to the immense contribution to the individual and to society which the ordinary good mother with her husband in support makes at the beginning, and which she does simply through being devoted to her infant. ”
D.W. Winnicott, (1964) The Child, the Family, and the Outside World
It doesn’t take a parenting guru, a saint, or, thank goodness, a Ph.D. in psychology to raise a child to be a healthy, happy adult. The child psychiatrist, researcher, writer and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott emphasized this point often throughout writings that spanned 40 years.
While today we recognize that fathers are of equal importance in the development of a child, the meaning of Winnicott’s observations on mothering is still essentially the same:
In his writings, Winnicott coined the now wellknown term, “Good Enough Mother” to describe a mother who meets her child’s needs in this way. Parenting that is “good enough” takes many forms, but all of these recognize the child’s emotional or physical need in any given moment, in any given culture, and do a “good enough” job of meeting it. Most parents are good enough. Like all animals, we humans are biologically wired to raise our children to thrive. But what happens when life circumstances interfere with parenting? Or when parents themselves are unhealthy, or have significant character flaws?
Were you raised by “good enough” parents? By the end of this chapter, you will know what “good enough” means, and you will be able to answer this question for yourself.
But first…
If you are a parent as well as a reader, you may find yourself identifying with the parental failures presented in this book, as well as with the emotional experience of the child in the vignettes (because you are, no doubt, hard on yourself.) Therefore, I ask that you pay close attention to the following warnings:
First – All good parents are guilty of emotionally failing their children at times. Nobody is perfect. We all get tired, cranky, stressed, distracted, bored, confused, disconnected, overwhelmed or otherwise compromised here and there. This does not qualify us as emotionally neglectful parents.
Emotionally neglectful parents distinguish themselves in one of two ways, and often both:
Either they emotionally fail their child in some critical way in a moment of crisis, causing the child a wound which may never be repaired (acute empathic failure)
OR they are chronically tone-deaf to some aspect of a child’s need throughout his or her childhood development (chronic empathic failure).
Every single parent on earth can recall a parenting failure that makes him cringe, where he knows that he has failed his child. But the harm comes from the totality of important moments in which emotionally neglectful parents are deaf and blind to the emotional needs of their growing child.
Second – If you were indeed emotionally neglected, and are a parent yourself as well, there is a good chance that as you read this book you will start to see some ways in which you have passed the torch of Emotional Neglect to your child. If so, it’s extremely vital for you to realize that it is not your fault. Because it’s invisible, insidious, and easily passes from generation to generation, it’s extremely unlikely and difficult to stop unless you become explicitly aware of it.
Since you’re reading this book, you are light-years ahead of your parents. You have the opportunity to change the pattern, and you are taking it. The effects of Emotional Neglect can be reversed. And you’re about to learn how to reverse those parental patterns for yourself, and for your children.
Keep reading. No self-blame allowed.
The Ordinary Healthy Parent in Action
The importance of emotion in healthy parenting is best understood through attachment theory. Attachment theory describes how our emotional needs for safety and connection are met by our parents from infancy.
Many ways of looking at human behavior have grown out of attachment theory, but most owe their thinking to the original attachment theorist, psychiatrist John Bowlby. His understanding of parent-child bonding comes from thousands of hours of observation of parents and children, beginning with mothers and infants.
It suggests, quite simply, that when a parent effectively recognizes and meets her child’s emotional needs in infancy, a “secure attachment” is formed and maintained. This first attachment forms the basis of a positive self-image and a sense of general well-being throughout childhood and into adulthood.
Looking at emotional health through the lens of attachment theory, we can identify three essential emotional skills in parents:
1) The parent feels an emotional connection to the child.
2) The parent pays attention to the child and sees him as a unique and separate person, rather than, say, an extension of him or herself, a possession or a burden.
3) Using that emotional connection and paying attention, the parent responds competently to the child’s emotional need.
Although these skills sound simple, in combination they are a powerful tool for helping a child learn about and manage his or her own nature, for creating a secure emotional bond that carries the child into adulthood, so that he may face the world with the emotional health to achieve a happy adulthood.
In short, when parents are mindful of their children’s unique emotional nature, they raise emotionally strong adults. Some parents are able to do this intuitively, but others can learn the skills. Either way, the child will not be neglected.
by Jonice Webb PhD.
BEING THE BLACK SHEEP. COPING WITH A MARGINALIZING FAMILY – VINITA MEHTA PH.D., ED.M. * THE COMMUNICATIVE PROCESS OF RESILIENCE FOR MARGINALIZED FAMILY MEMBERS – ELIZABETH DORRANCE HALL
attachmenttheoryCENchildhoodemotionalneglectDepressionemotionalneglectJoniceWebbJoniceWebbPhDMentalHealthPsychology
DEPRESSION. It’s what’s Inside Your Head? – Johann Hari.
“Ask not what’s inside your head, ask what your head’s inside of” W. M. Mace.
“It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a sick society.” Jiddu Krishnamurti.
How does your brain change when you are deeply distressed? Do those changes make it harder to recover? The real role of genes and brain changes.
The distress caused by the outside world, and the changes inside your brain come together. If the world keeps causing you deep pain, of course you’ll stay trapped there for a long time, with the snowball growing, your genes are activated by the environment. They can be switched on, or off, by what happens to you.
Genes increase your sensitivity, sometimes significantly. But they aren’t, in themselves, the cause of depression. Your genes can certainly make you more vulnerable, but they don’t write your destiny.
Marc Lewis’s friends thought he was dead.
It was the summer of 1969, and this young student in California was desperate to block out his despair any way he could. He had swallowed, snorted, or injected any stimulant he could find for a week now.
After he had been awake for thirty-six hours straight, he got a friend to inject him with heroin, so he could finally crash.
When Marc regained consciousness, he realized his friends were trying to figure out where they could find a bag big enough to dump his body in.
When Marc suddenly began to talk, they were freaked out. His heart, they explained to him, had stopped beating for several minutes.
About ten years after that night, Marc left drugs behind, and started to study neuroscience. He became a leading figure in the field, and a professor in the Netherlands.
He wanted to know: How does your brain change when you are deeply distressed? Do those changes make it harder to recover?
If you look at a brain scan of a depressed or highly anxious person it will look different from the brain scan of somebody without these problems. The areas that relate to feeling unhappy, or to being aware of risk, will be lit up like Christmas tree lights. They will be bigger, and more active.
Fifteen years ago, if you had shown me a diagram of my brain and described what it was like, I and most people, would have thought: that’s me, then. If the parts of the brain that relate to being unhappy, or being frightened, are more active, then I’m fixed as a person who is always going to be more unhappy, or more frightened. You might have short legs, or long arms; I have a brain with more active parts related to fear and anxiety; that’s how it is.
Wrong. To understand why we have to grasp a crucial concept called neuroplasticity.
Your brain changes according to how you use it. Neuroplasticity is the tendency for the brain to continue to restructure itself based on experience. Your brain is constantly changing to meet your needs. It does this mainly in two ways: by pruning the synapses you don’t use, and by growing the synapses you do use.
For as long as you live, this neuroplasticity never stops, and the brain is always changing.
A brain scan is a snapshot of a moving picture. You can take a snapshot of any moment in a football game, it doesn’t tell you what’s going to happen next, or where the brain is going. The brain changes as you become depressed and anxious, and it changes again when you stop being depressed and anxious. It’s always changing in response to signals from the world.
Social and psychological factors have the capacity to physically change your brain. Being lonely, or isolated, or grossly materialistic, these things change your brain, and, crucially, reconnection can change it back.
We have been thinking too simplistically. You couldn’t figure out the plot of Breaking Bad by dismantling your TV set. In the same way, you can’t figure out the root of your pain by dismantling your brain. You have to look at the signals the TV, or your brain, is receiving to do that.
They, the distress caused by the outside world, and the changes inside the brain come together.
Once this process begins, it, like everything else that happens to us, causes real changes in the brain, and they can then acquire a momentum of their own that deepens the effects from the outside world.
Imagine that your marriage just broke up, and you lost your job, and you know what? Your mother just had a stroke. It’s pretty overwhelming. Because you are feeling intense pain for a long period, your brain will assume this is the state in which you are going to have to survive from now on, so it might start to shed the synapses that relate to the things that give you joy and pleasure, and strengthen the synapses that relate to fear and despair. That’s one reason why you can often start to feel you have become somehow fixed in a state of depression or anxiety even if the original causes of the pain seems to have passed.
While it’s wrong to say the origin of these problems is solely within the brain, it would be equally wrong to say that the responses within the brain can’t make it worse. They can. The pain caused by life going wrong can trigger a response that is so powerful that the brain tends to stay there, in a pained response, for a while, until something pushes it out of that corner, into a more flexible place.
And if the world keeps causing you deep pain, of course you’ll stay trapped there for a long time, with the snowball growing.
How much of depression is carried in your genes?
I had assumed I inherited it in my genes. I sometimes thought of depression as a lost twin, born in the womb alongside me.
Scientists haven’t identified a specific gene or set of genes that can, on their own, cause depression and anxiety, but we do know there is a big genetic factor.
Scientists studying the genetic basis for depression and anxiety have concluded that it’s real, but it doesn’t account for most of what is going on. There is, however, a twist here.
A group of scientists led by a geneticist named Avshalom Caspi did one of the most detailed studies of the genetics of depression ever conducted. For twenty-five years, his team followed a thousand kids in New Zealand from being babies to adulthood. One of the things they were trying to figure out was which genes make you more vulnerable to depression.
Years into their work, they found something striking. They discovered that having a variant of a gene called 5-HTT does relate to becoming depressed.
Yet there was a catch. We are all born with a genetic inheritance, but your genes are activated by the environment. They can be switched on, or off, by what happens to you.
If you have a particular flavor of 5-HTT, you have a greatly increased risk of depression, but only in a certain environment. If you carried this gene, the study showed, you were more likely to become depressed, but only if you had experienced a terribly stressful event, or a great deal of childhood trauma.
If those bad things hadn’t happened to you, even if you had the gene that related to depression, you were no more likely to become depressed than anyone else.
So genes increase your sensitivity, sometimes significantly. But they aren’t, in themselves, the cause of depression.
This means that if other genes work like 5-HTT, and it looks as if they do, then nobody is condemned to be depressed or anxious by their genes.
Your genes can certainly make you more vulnerable, but they don’t write your destiny.
For example, we know that even if you are genetically more prone to put on weight, you still have to have lots of food in your environment for your genetic propensity to put on weight to kick in. Stranded in the rain forest or the desert with nothing to eat, you’ll lose weight whatever your genetic inheritance is.
Depression and anxiety, the current evidence suggests, are a little like that. The genetic factors that contribute to depression and anxiety are very real, but they also need a trigger in your environment or your psychology. Your genes can then supercharge those factors, but they can’t create them alone.
Endogenous Depression?
Is there some group of depressed people whose pain really is caused in just the way my doctor explained to me, by their brain wiring going wrong, or some other innate flaw? If it exists, how common is it?
It used to be thought that some depressions are caused by what happened to us in our lives, and then there is another, purer kind of depression that is caused by something going badly wrong in your brain. The first kind of depression was called “reactive,” and the second, purely internal kind was called “endogenous.”
Scientists have studied people who had been hospitalized for reactive depressions and compared them to people who had been classed as having endogenous depressions. It turned out that their circumstances were exactly the same: they had had an equal amount of things happen to them to trigger their despair. The distinction seemed, to them at that time, based on their evidence, to be meaningless.
There’s no agreement and scant evidence that endogenous depression actually exists, but researchers generally agree that if it exists at all, it’s a tiny minority of depressed people. This means that telling all depressed people a story that focuses only on these physical causes is a bad idea.
There are however situations, in addition to manic depression and bipolar disorder where we know that a biological change can make you more vulnerable. People with glandular fever, or underactive thyroids, are significantly more likely to become depressed.
It is foolish to deny there is a real biological component to depression and anxiety, and there may be other biological contributions we haven’t identified yet, but it is equally foolish to say they are the only causes.
Why then do we cling to the idea these problems are caused only by our brains.
Junk Values. You can have everything a person could possibly need by the standards of our culture, but those standards can badly misjudge what a human actually needs in order to have a good or even a tolerable life. Our culture creates a picture of what you “need” to be happy, through all the junk values we have been taught, that doesn’t fit with what we actually need.
Get a Grip. For a long time, depressed and anxious people have been told their distress is not real, that it is just laziness, or weakness, or self-indulgence.
The right-wing British pundit Katie Hopkins said depression is “the ultimate passport to self-obsession. Get a grip, people,” and added that they should just go out for a run and get over their moaning.
The way we have resisted this form of nastiness is to say that depression is a disease. You wouldn’t hector a person with cancer to pull themselves together, so it’s equally cruel to do it to somebody with the disease of depression or severe anxiety. The path away from stigma has been to explain patiently that this is a physical illness like diabetes or cancer.
We have come to believe that the only route out of stigma is to explain to people that this is a biological disease with purely biological causes. So, based on this positive motive, we have scrambled to find the biological effects, and held them up as evidence to rebut the sneerers.
“See! Even you admit it’s not a disease like cancer. So pull yourself together!”
But does saying something is a disease really reduce stigma?
Everybody knew, right from the start, that AIDS was a disease. It didn’t stop people with AIDS from being horribly stigmatized. People with AIDS are still stigmatized, greatly stigmatized. Nobody ever doubted leprosy was a disease, and lepers were persecuted for millennia.
Professor Sheila Mehta set up an experiment to figure out whether saying that something is a disease makes people kinder to the sufferer, or crueller.
Believing depression was a disease didn’t reduce hostility. In fact, it increased it.
“This way is better”, Marc said, “because if it’s an innate biological disease, the most you can hope for from other people is sympathy, a sense that you, with your difference, deserve their big-hearted kindness.
But if it’s a response to how we live, you can get something richer: empathy, because it could happen to any of us. It’s not some alien thing. It’s a universal human source of vulnerability.
The evidence suggests Marc is right, looking at it this way makes people less cruel, to themselves and to other people.
Pills Pay Big
For decades, psychiatrists have, in their training, been taught something called the bio-psycho-social model. They are shown that depression and anxiety have three kinds of causes: biological, psychological, and social. And yet almost nobody I know who has become depressed or severely anxious was told this story by their doctor, and most were not offered help for anything except their brain chemistry.
Why? CASH!
It is much more politically challenging to say that so many people are feeling terrible because of how our societies now work. It fits much more with our system of neoliberal capitalism to say, “Okay, we’ll get you functioning more efficiently, but please don’t start questioning … because that’s going to destabilize all sorts of things.”
The pharmaceutical companies are major forces shaping a lot of psychiatry, because it’s this big, big business, billions of dollars.
They pay the bills, so they largely set the agenda, and they obviously want our pain to be seen as a chemical problem with a chemical solution. The result is that we have ended up, as a culture, with a distorted sense of our own distress.
Just defective tissue!?
Telling people their distress is due mostly or entirely to a biological malfunction has several dangerous effects on them.
You leave the person disempowered, feeling they’re not good enough, because their brain’s not good enough.
Secondly: it pitches us against parts of ourselves. It says there is a war taking place in your head. On one side there are your feelings of distress, caused by the malfunctions in your brain or genes. On the other side there’s the sane part of you. You can only hope to drug the enemy within into submission, forever.
But it does something even more profound than that. It tells you that your distress has no meaning, it’s just defective tissue.
This is the biggest division between the old story about depression and anxiety and the new story. The old story says our distress is fundamentally irrational, caused by faulty apparatus in our head. The new story says our distress is, however painful, in fact rational, and Sane.
You’re not crazy to feel so distressed. You’re not broken.
AntidepressantsbigpharmaBrainDepressionEpigeneticsJohannHariMentalHealthneuroplasticityPsychologySuicide
DARK NIGHTS OF THE SOUL. Kidnapped by Depression – Dale M. Kushner * The Emotional Life of Your Brain – Richard J. Davidson, Ph.D. and Sharon Begley.
“We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are. Emotions, far from being the neurological fluff that mainstream science once believed them to be, are central to the functions of the brain and to the life of the mind.”
Why and how do people differ so widely in their emotional responses to the ups and the downs of life? How myths and neuroscience can illuminate the darkness of depression.
Imagine a black sack thrown over your head. Imagine your arms and legs bound, your body injected with a drug that wipes out thoughts, flattens feelings, and numbs senses. This is depression.
Depression is called the dark night of the soul for good reason. Depression leads us into the night world, a world of shadows, emptiness, and blurry vision. You feel lost, lonely and alone, mired in the quicksand of sadness, vulnerable to thoughts of failure and unworthiness.
During depression, we yearn for a lost part of ourselves, for it seems that our spirited aliveness has deserted us, our appetite for living kidnapped and dragged down into the house of death.
Depression may feel as if parts of us have died, and yet is it possible depression opens us to another level of deep experience, one that matures us and brings new wisdom?
We are more than our genetic predisposition and our biochemistry; we are conscious creatures capable of discovering light in the darkness.
“We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are,” says a Talmudic expression. Through the lens of depression, the world is saturated with gloom.
One way to understand the lived experience of depression is to see it acted out symbolically in story form. Myths and fairytales show us the collective (and archetypal) universal patterns of the human psyche. I may have “my depression” and you, “yours,” but throughout the ages, worldwide, depression has plagued the human race.
The Rape of Proserpina (1621-22), white marble sculpture, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680).
One of the Greek Homeric hymns, the “Hymn to Demeter,” gives an early and vivid picture of depression. It tells the story of Persephone, Demeter and Zeus’s daughter, whom Hades, god of the underworld and brother of Zeus, falls in love with. When Hades asks Zeus’ leave to marry her, Zeus knows Demeter would never agree and says he will neither give nor withhold his consent. So, one day, while Persephone is gathering flowers in a meadow, the ground splits open and Hades springs forth and abducts her, dragging her down into his kingdom against her will. The unwilling bride screams to Zeus, her father, to save her, but he ignores her pleas. Demeter, a goddess herself, hears her daughter’s cries and also begs Zeus for aid, but he refuses to intervene.
Separated from her daughter, Demeter rages at the gods for allowing Persephone’s capture and rape. Her grief is “terrible and savage.” Disguised as an old woman, she roams the earth, neither eating, drinking, nor bathing while she searches for her child. During her time of mourning, the earth lies fallow.
“Then she caused a most dreadful and cruel year for mankind over the all-nourishing earth: the ground would not make the seed sprout, for rich-crowned Demeter kept it hid. In the fields the oxen drew many a curved plough in vain, and much white barley was cast upon the land without avail. So she would have destroyed the whole race of man with cruel famine.” “Hymn to Demeter,” translated from Greek by Hugh G. Evelyn-White.
Ceres Begging for Jupiter’s Help after the Kidnapping of Her Daughter Proserpine (1777) by Antoine-Frangois Callet (1741-1823).
As Demeter pines for her daughter, so too, during depression, do we yearn for a lost part of ourselves, for it seems that our spirited aliveness has deserted us, our appetite for living kidnapped and dragged down into the house of death. With our instincts blunted, we sink into darkness, and experience the desolation of barren landscape. Like the grieving Demeter, our enthusiasm lost, our life-giving energy depleted, we fall into despair.
This feeling of isolation is a signature of depression and runs deep in those who try to articulate their condition and reach out for help.
As the story continues, Zeus’s mounting fear that if he does not reunite mother and daughter nothing will ever grow again on the land finally propels his intervention. He orders Hermes, messenger of the gods, into the underworld to bring Persephone back. Hades is surprisingly gracious in agreeing to her return. Inconsolable during her stay in the underworld, Persephone has yet to eat anything. Before she leaves, Hades urges her to eat at least three pomegranate seeds. Distracted by her joy at leaving, Persephone does so – and thereby consigns herself to return to Hades for three months every year. Had she not eaten the fruit of the underworld, she would have been able to stay with her mother forever.
When we enter the space of depression, it seems we will never “get out,” but as the myth reveals, nature is cyclic. The myth of Demeter and Persephone originates in ancient fertility cults and women’s mysteries, and is associated with harvest and the annual vegetation cycles. Symbolically, for a quarter of the year, while Persephone is in the underworld, lifeless winter prevails. When she returns to earth, spring advances, a time of rebirth.
But depressive cycles are not nearly as predictable as the seasons, and yet we might consider our time in the underworld as periods of incubation. While winter’s colorless landscape may suggest death, beneath the ground roots, seeds, and bulbs are dormant, not dead. They are busy with the business of storing nutrients for the coming season.
The Return of Persephone (1891), oil on canvas, by Frederic Leighton (1830-1896) shows Hermes returning Persephone to Demeter.
For plants, winter’s stillness is necessary before spring’s renewal. Depression, too, can be viewed as a time of going inward and down into the depths, and can be a generative and creative interlude during which the psyche renews itself in the slower rhythms of dark days. Many artists attest to depressive episodes that prefigure a creative breakthrough. An astonishing number of famous artists, writers, and statesmen as diverse as Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, Winston Churchill, Hans Christian Andersen, Abraham Lincoln, and Georgia O’Keefe have described experiencing depression.
Little is written about Persephone’s life in the underworld, but one thing is clear, she does not die. Quite the opposite. She is given the honorific title Queen of the Underworld. This suggests her movement “to below” is one of transformation and the acquisition of special gifts and powers. Depression may feel as if parts of us have died, and yet is it possible depression opens us to another level of deep experience, one that matures us and brings new wisdom?
When depression drags us away from the lively day world, we might remember Persephone. The darkness of the underworld may provide a special quality of illumination not possible in the glaring, horn-honking, digitally-frenzied daylight. To consider depression as an expression of loss, grief, mourning, and inevitability of mortality is to bring it into the realm of the human heart.
If myths allow us to look into “the heart of the matter,” then neuroscience allows us to peer into the actual matter of our brains. Dr. Richard J. Davidson, founder of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has made it his life’s work to investigate brain (neuro)plasticity, and how we can improve our wellbeing through the development of certain skills, including meditation.
In his groundbreaking book, The Emotional Life of Your Brain: How Its Unique Patterns Affect the Way You Think, Feel, and Live—and How You Can Change Them, Dr. Davidson and his co-author Sharon Begley offer an in-depth view of how our brains respond to different emotions and provide strategies to help balance or strengthen specific areas of brain circuitry.
Schematic of brain regions that showed significantly different association with amygdala in control versus depressed individuals.
The experience of depression differs from person to person. With the aid of fMRI imaging, Dr. Davidson has been able to pinpoint dysfunctional areas of the brain and correlate them with patient’s symptoms. Under the subheading “A Brain Taxonomy of Depression,”
Dr. Davidson identifies three subcategories of depression. One group of depressed patients had difficulty recovering from adversity while another group had difficulty regulating their emotions in a context-appropriate way. The third group was unable to sustain positive emotions. Different patterns of brain activity were noted for each group.
Dr. Davidson is optimistic. His book offers a questionnaire to help readers figure out their emotional “style” and gives exercises that build skills to improve brain functioning. Sufferers of depression need hope. Dr. Davidson’s excitement about what he is learning in the laboratory is palpable and his hope contagious.
Archetypal myths and brain science may seem disconnected, but each presents its own form of wisdom, one through images and story, the other through investigatory science. Demeter’s suffering, the barren land, Persephone’s descent into darkness lodge in our imagination and dreams and recommend that we look into our own lives to discover the source of our grief. Neuroscience advances our knowledge of brain anatomy and its relationship to our feelings and emotions. Each perspective provides a potentially valuable way to examine and understand our experience of depression.
THE EMOTIONAL LIFE OF YOUR BRAIN. How Its Unique Patterns Affect the Way You Think, Feel and Live. And how You can Change Them.
Richard J. Davidson, Ph.D. with Sharon Begley
A Scientific Quest
This book describes a personal and professional journey to understand why and how people differ in their emotional responses to what life throws at them, motivated by my desire to help people lead healthier, more fulfilling lives.
The “professional” thread in this tapestry describes the development of the hybrid discipline called affective neuroscience, the study of the brain mechanisms that underlie our emotions and the search for ways to enhance people’s sense of well-being and promote positive qualities of mind.
The “personal” thread is my own story. Spurred by the conviction that, as Hamlet said to Horatio, “there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of” in the standard account of the mind provided by mainstream psychology and neuroscience, I have ventured outside the boundaries enclosing these disciplines, sometimes getting struck down, but in the end, I hope, achieving at least some of what I set out to do: to show through rigorous research that emotions, far from being the neurological fluff that mainstream science once believed them to be, are central to the functions of the brain and to the life of the mind.
My thirty years of research in affective neuroscience has produced hundreds of findings, from the brain mechanisms that underlie empathy and the differences between the autistic brain and the normally developing brain to how the brain’s seat of rationality can plunge us into the roiling emotional depths of depression.
I hope that these results have contributed to our understanding of what it means to be human, of what it means to have an emotional life. But as these findings accumulated, I found myself stepping back from the day-to-day life of my laboratory at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, which has grown over the years to something resembling a small company: As I write this in the spring of 2011, I have eleven graduate students, ten postdoctoral fellows, four computer programmers, twenty-one additional research and administrative staff members, and some twenty million dollars in research grants from the National Institutes of Health and other funders.
Since May 2010, I have also served as director of the university’s Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, a research complex dedicated to learning how the qualities of mind that humankind has valued since before the dawn of civilization, compassion, wellbeing, charity, altruism, kindness, love, and other noble aspects of the human condition, arise in the brain and how they can be nurtured.
One of the great virtues of the center is that we do not confine our work to research alone. We very much want to get the results of that research out into the world, where it can make a real difference in the lives of real people. To that end, we have developed a preschool and elementary school curriculum designed to cultivate kindness and mindfulness, and we are evaluating the impact of this training on academic achievement as well as on attention, empathy, and cooperation. Another project investigates whether training in breathing and meditation can help veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq cope with stress and anxiety.
I love all of this, both the basic science and the extension of our findings into the real world. But it is way too easy to get consumed by it. (I often joke that I have several full-time jobs, from overseeing grant applications to negotiating with the university bioethics committees for permission to do research on human volunteers.) I did not want that to happen.
About ten years ago, I therefore began to take stock of my research and that of other labs pursuing affective neuroscience, not the interesting individual findings but the larger picture. And I saw that our decades of work had revealed something fundamental about the emotional life of the brain: that each of us is characterized by what I have come to call Emotional Style.
Before I briefly describe the components of Emotional Style, let me quickly explain how it relates to other classification systems that try to illuminate the vast diversity of ways to be human: emotional states, emotional traits, personality, and temperament.
The smallest, most fleeting unit of emotion is an emotional state. Typically lasting only a few seconds, it tends to be triggered by an experience, the spike of joy you feel at the macaroni collage your child made you for Mother’s Day, the sense of accomplishment you feel upon finishing a big project at work, the anger you feel over having to work all three days of a holiday weekend, the sadness you feel when your child is the only one in her class not invited to a party. Emotional states can also arise from purely mental activity, such as daydreaming, or introspection, or anticipating the future. But whether they are triggered by real-world experiences or mental ones, emotional states tend to dissipate, each giving way to the next.
A feeling that does persist, and that remains consistent over minutes or hours or even days, is a mood, of the “he’s in a bad mood” variety. And a feeling that characterizes you not for days but for years is an emotional trait. We think of someone who seems perpetually annoyed as grumpy, and someone who always seems to be mad at the world as angry. An emotional trait (chronic, just-about-to-boil-over anger) increases the likelihood that you will experience a particular emotional state (fury) because it lowers the threshold needed to feel such an emotional state.
Emotional Style is a consistent way of responding to the experiences of our lives. It is governed by specific, identifiable brain circuits and can be measured using objective laboratory methods. Emotional Style influences the likelihood of feeling particular emotional states, traits, and moods.
Because Emotional Styles are much closer to underlying brain systems than emotional states or traits, they can be considered the atoms of our emotional lives, their fundamental building blocks.
In contrast, personality, a more familiar way of describing people, is neither fundamental in this sense nor grounded in identifiable neurological mechanisms. Personality consists of a set of high-level qualities that comprise particular emotional traits and Emotional Styles. Take, for instance, the well-studied personality trait of agreeableness.
People who are extremely agreeable, as measured by standard psychological assessments (as well as their own and that of people who know them well), are empathic, considerate, friendly, generous, and helpful. But each of these emotional traits is itself the product of different aspects of Emotional Style. Unlike personality, Emotional Style can be traced to a specific, characteristic brain signature. To understand the brain basis of agreeableness, then, we need to probe more deeply into the underlying Emotional Styles that comprise it.
Psychology has been churning out classification schemes with gusto lately, asserting that there are four kinds of temperament or five components of personality or Lord-knows-how-many character types. While perfectly interesting and even fun the popular media have had a field day describing which character types make good romantic matches, business leaders, or psychopaths, these schemes are light on scientific validity because they are not based on any rigorous analysis of underlying brain mechanisms. Anything having to do with human behavior, feelings, and ways of thinking arises from the brain, so any valid classification scheme must also be based on the brain. Which brings me back to Emotional Style.
Emotional Style comprises six dimensions. Neither conventional aspects of personality nor simple emotional traits or moods, let alone diagnostic criteria for mental illness, these six dimensions reflect the discoveries of modern neuroscientiflc research:
Resilience: how slowly or quickly you recover from adversity.
Outlook: how long you are able to sustain positive emotion.
Social Intuition: how adept you are at picking up social signals from the people around you.
Self-Awareness: how well you perceive bodily feelings that reflect emotions.
Sensitivity to Context: how good you are at regulating your emotional responses to take into account the context you fmd yourself in.
Attention: how sharp and clear your focus is.
These are probably not the six dimensions you would come up with if you sat down and thought about your emotions and how they might differ from those of others. By the same measure, the Bohr model of the atom is probably not the model you would come up with if you sat down and thought about the structure of matter. I don’t mean to equate my work with that of the founders of modern physics, only to make a general point: It is rare that the human mind can determine the truths of nature, or even of ourselves, by intuition or casual observation. That’s why we have science. Only by methodical, rigorous experiments, and lots of them, can we figure out how the world works, and how we ourselves work.
These six dimensions arose from my research in affective neuroscience, complemented and strengthened by the discoveries of colleagues around the world. They reflect properties of and patterns in the brain, the sine qua non of any model of human behavior and emotion.
If the six dimensions don’t resonate with your understanding of yourself or of those close to you, that is likely because several of them operate on levels that are not always immediately apparent. For example, we tend not to be consciously aware of where we fall on the Resilience dimension. With few exceptions, we do not pay attention to how quickly we recover from a stressful event. (An exception would be something extremely traumatic, such as the death of a child; in that case, you are all too aware that you have remained a basket case for months and months.) But we experience its consequences. For instance, if you have an argument with your significant other in the morning, you might feel irritable for the entire day, yet not realize that the reason you are snappish and grouchy and churlish is that you have not regained your emotional equilibrium, which is the mark of the Slow to Recover style. I will show you in chapter 3 how you can become more aware of your Emotional Styles, which is the first and most important step in any attempt to either gracefully accept who you are or transform it.
A rule of thumb in science is that any new theory that hopes to supplant what came before must explain the same phenomena that the old theory did, as well as new ones. In order to be accepted as a more accurate and all-encompassing theory of gravity than what Isaac Newton had proposed after he saw the apple fall from the tree (or not), Einstein’s general theory of relativity had to explain all of the gravitational phenomena that Newton’s did, such as the orbits of the planets around the sun and the rate at which objects fell to earth, and new ones, too, such as the bending of celestial light around a large star. Let me show, then, that Emotional Style has sufficient explanatory power to account for well-established personality traits and temperament types; later, particularly in chapter 4, we will see that it has a solid foundation in the brain, something other classification schemes do not.
I believe that every individual personality and temperament reflects a different combination of the six dimensions of Emotional Style.
Take the “big five” personality traits, one of the standard classification systems in psychology: openness to new experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism:
– Someone high in openness to new experience has strong Social Intuition. She is also very self-aware and tends to be focused in her Attention style.
– A conscientious person has well-developed Social Intuition, a focused style of Attention, and acute Sensitivity to Context.
– An extraverted person bounces back rapidly from adversity and thus is at the Fast to Recover end of the Resilience spectrum. She maintains a positive Outlook.
– An agreeable person has a highly attuned Sensitivity to Context and strong Resilience; he also tends to maintain a positive Outlook.
– Someone high in neuroticism is slow to recover from adversity. He has a gloomy, negative Outlook, is relatively insensitive to context, and tends to be unfocused in his Attention style.
While the combinations of Emotional Styles that add up to each of the big five personality traits generally hold true, there will always be exceptions. Not everyone with a given personality will have all the dimensions of Emotional Style that I describe, but they will invariably have at least one of them.
Moving beyond the Big Five, we can look at traits that all of us think of when we describe ourselves or someone we know well. Each of these, too, can be understood as a combination of different dimensions of Emotional Style, though, again, not everyone with the trait will possess each dimension. However, most people will have most of them:
– Impulsive: a combination of unfocused Attention and low Self-Awareness.
– Patient: a combination of high Self-Awareness and high Sensitivity to Context. Knowing that when context changes, other things will change, too, helps to facilitate patience.
– Shy: a combination of being Slow to Recover on the Resilience dimension and having low Sensitivity to Context. As a result of the insensitivity to context, shyness and wariness extend beyond contexts in which they might be normal.
– Anxious: a combination of being Slow to Recover, having a negative Outlook, having high levels of Self-Awareness, and being unfocused (Attention).
– Optimistic: a combination of being Fast to Recover and having a positive Outlook.
– Chronically unhappy: a combination of being Slow to Recover and having a negative Outlook, with the result that a person cannot sustain positive emotions and becomes mired in negative ones after setbacks.
As you can see, these common trait descriptors comprise different permutations of Emotional Styles. This formulation provides a way of describing what the brain bases for these common traits are likely to be.
If you read original scientific papers, it is easy to get the impression that the researchers thought of a question, designed a clever experiment to answer it, and carried out the study with nary a dead end or setback between them and the answer. It’s not like that. I suspect you realized as much, but what is not as widely known, even among people who gobble up popular accounts of scientific research, is how difficult it is to challenge a prevailing paradigm.
That was the position I found myself in during the early 1980s. At that time, academic psychology relegated the study of emotions mostly to social and personality psychology rather than to neurobiology; few psychology researchers were interested in studying the brain basis of emotion. What little interest there was supported research on the socalled emotion centers of the brain, which were then thought to be exclusively in the limbic system.
I had a very different idea: that higher cortical functions, particularly those located in the evolutionarily advanced prefrontal cortex, are critical to emotion. When I first suggested that the prefrontal cortex is involved in emotion, I was met with an endless stream of skeptics. The prefrontal cortex, they insisted, is the site of reason, the antithesis of emotion. It certainly could not play a role in emotion, too. It was very lonely trying to carve out a scientific career when the prevailing winds blew strongly in the other direction. My search for bases of emotion in the brain’s seat of reason was viewed as quixotic, to say the least, the neuroscientific equivalent of hunting elephants in Alaska. There were more than a few times, especially when I struggled to get funding early on, when my skepticism about the classic division between thought (in the highly evolved neocortex) and feeling (in the subcortical limbic system) seemed like a good way to end a scientific career, not begin one.
If my scientific leanings were a less-than-savvy career move, so were some of my personal interests. Soon after I entered graduate school at Harvard in the 1970s, I met a remarkable group of kind and compassionate people who, I soon learned, had something in common: They all practiced meditation. This discovery catalyzed my then rudimentary interest in meditation to such an extent that, after my second year of grad school, I went off to India and Sri Lanka for three months to learn more about this ancient tradition and experience what intensive meditation might bring. I had a second motive as well, I wanted to see whether meditation might be a suitable subject for scientific research.
Studying emotions was controversial enough. Practicing meditation was practically heretical, and studying it was a scientific nonstarter. Just as academic psychologists and neuroscientists believed that there are brain regions for reason and brain regions for emotions, and never the two shall meet, so they believed that there is rigorous, empirical science and there is woo-woo meditation, and if you practiced the latter, your bona fides for the former were highly suspect.
This was the period of The Tao of Physics (1975), The Dancing Wu Li Masters (1979), and other books arguing that there are strong complementarities between the findings of modern Western science and the insights of ancient Eastern philosophies. Most academic scientists dismissed this as trash; being a meditator in their midst was not, shall we say, the most direct path to academic success. It was made very clear to me by my Harvard mentors that if I wanted a successful scientific career, studying meditation was not a very good place to start. While I dabbled in research on meditation in the early part of my career, once I saw how deep the resistance was, I set it aside. I remained a closet meditator, though, and eventually, once I had been granted tenure at the University of Wisconsin, and had a long list of scientific publications and honors to my credit, returned to meditation as a subject of scientific study.
A big reason I did so was a transformative meeting I had with the Dalai Lama in 1992, which completely changed the course of both my career and my personal life. As I describe in chapter 9, the encounter was the spark that made me decide to bring my interests in meditation and other forms of mental training out of the closet.
It is breathtaking to see how much has changed in the short period of time that I’ve been at this. In less than twenty years, the scientific and medical communities have become much more receptive to research on mental training. Thousands of new articles are now published on the subject in top scientific journals each year (I was tickled that the first such paper ever to appear in the august Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences was by my colleagues and me, in 2004), and the National Institutes of Health now provides substantial funding for research on meditation. A decade ago that would have been unthinkable.
I believe this change is a very good thing, and not because of any sense of personal vindication (though I admit it’s been gratifying to see a scientific outcast of a topic receive the respect it deserves). I made two promises to the Dalai Lama in 1992: I would personally study meditation, and I would try to make research on positive emotions, such as compassion and well-being, as central a focus of psychology as research on negative emotions had long been.
Now those two promises have converged, and with them my tilting-at-windmills conviction that the seat of reason and higher-order cognitive function in the brain plays as important a role in emotion as the limbic system does. My research on meditators has shown that mental training can alter patterns of activity in the brain to strengthen empathy, compassion, optimism, and a sense of well-being, the culmination of my promise to study meditation as well as positive emotions. And my research in the mainstream of affective neuroscience has shown that it is these sites of higher-order reasoning that hold the key to altering these patterns of brain activity.
So while this book is a story of my personal and scientific transformation, I hope it offers you a guide for your own transformation. In Sanskrit, the word for meditation also means “familiarization.” Becoming more familiar with your Emotional Style is the first and most important step in transforming it. If this book does nothing more than increase your awareness of your own Emotional Style and that of others around you, I would consider it a success.
One Brain Does Not Fit All
If you believe most self-help books, pop-psychology articles, and television therapists, then you probably assume that how people respond to significant life events is pretty predictable. Most of us, according to the “experts,” are affected in just about the same way by a given experience, there is a grieving process that everyone goes through, there is a sequence of events that happens when we fall in love, there is a standard response to being jilted, and there are fairly standard ways almost every normal person reacts to the birth of a child, to being unappreciated at one’s job, to having an unbearable workload, to the challenges of raising teenagers, and to the inevitable changes that occur with aging. These same experts confidently recommend steps we can all take to regain our emotional footing, weather a setback in life or in love, become more (or less) sensitive, handle anxiety with aplomb . . . and otherwise become the kind of people we would like to be.
But my thirty-plus years of research have shown that these one-size-fits-all assumptions are even less valid in the realm of emotion than they are in medicine. There, scientists are discovering that people’s DNA shapes how they will respond to prescription drugs (among other things), ushering in an age of personalized medicine in which the treatments one patient receives for a certain illness will be different from what another patient receives for that same illness, for the fundamental reason that no two patients’ genes are identical. (One important example of this: The amount of the blood thinner warfarin a patient can safely take to prevent blood clots depends on how quickly the patient’s genes metabolize the drug.)
When it comes to how people respond to what life throws at them, and how they can develop and nurture their capacity to feel joy, to form loving relationships, to withstand setbacks, and in general to lead a meaningful life, the prescription must be just as personalized. In this case, the reason is not just that our DNA differs, though of course it does, and DNA definitely influences our emotional traits, but that our patterns of brain activity do. Just as the medicine of tomorrow will be shaped by deciphering patients’ DNA, so the psychology of today can be shaped by understanding the characteristic patterns of brain activity underlying the emotional traits and states that define each of us.
Over the course of my career as a neuroscientist, I’ve seen thousands of people who share similar backgrounds respond in dramatically different ways to the same life event. Some are resilient in the face of stress, for instance, while others fall apart. The latter become anxious, depressed, or unable to function when they encounter adversity. Resilient people are somehow able not only to withstand but to benefit from certain kinds of stressful events and to turn adversity into advantage.
This, in a nutshell, is the puzzle that has driven my research. I’ve wanted to know what determines how someone reacts to a divorce, to the death of a loved one, to the loss of a job, or to any other setback, and, equally, what determines how people react to a career triumph, to winning the heart of their true love, to realizing that a friend will walk over hot coals for them, or to other sources of happiness. Why and how do people differ so widely in their emotional responses to the ups and the downs of life?
The answer that has emerged from my own work is that different people have different Emotional Styles. These are constellations of emotional reactions and coping responses that differ in kind, intensity, and duration.
Just as each person has a unique fingerprint and a unique face, each of us has a unique emotional profile, one that is so much a part of who we are that those who know us well can often predict how we will respond to an emotional challenge.
My own Emotional Style, for instance, is fairly optimistic and upbeat, eager to take on challenges, quick to recover from adversity, but sometimes prone to worry about things that are beyond my control. (My mother, struck by my sunny disposition, used to call me her “joy boy.”)
Emotional Style is why one person recovers fairly quickly from a painful divorce while another remains mired in self-recrimination and despair. It is why one sibling bounces back from a job loss while another feels worthless for years afterward. It is why one father shrugs off the botched call of a Little League umpire who called out his (clearly safe!) daughter at second base while another leaps out of his seat and screams at the ump until his face turns purple.
Emotional Style is why one friend serves as a wellspring of solace to everyone in her circle while another makes herself scarce, emotionally and literally, whenever her friends or family need sympathy and support. It is why some people can read body language and tone of voice as clearly as a billboard while to others these nonverbal cues are a foreign language.
And it is why some people have insight into their own states of mind, heart, and body that others do not even realize is possible.
Every day presents countless opportunities to observe Emotional Styles in action. I spend a lot of time at airports, and it is a rare trip that doesn’t offer the chance for a little field research. As we all know, there seem to be more ways for a flight schedule to go awry than there are flights departing O’Hare on a Friday evening: bad weather, waiting for a flight crew whose connection is late, mechanical problems, cockpit warning lights that no one can decipher . . . the list goes on. So I’ve had countless chances to watch the reaction of passengers (as well as myself!) who, waiting to take off, hear the dreaded announcement that the flight has been delayed for one hour, or for two hours, or indefinitely, or canceled.
The collective groan is audible. But if you look carefully at individual passengers, you’ll see a wide range of emotional reactions. There’s the college student in his hoodie, bobbing his head to the music coming in through his earbuds, who barely glances up before getting lost again in his iPad. There’s the young mother traveling alone with a squirmy toddler who mutters, “Oh great,” before grabbing her child and stalking off toward the food court. There’s the corporate-looking woman in the tailored suit who briskly walks up to the gate agent and calmly but firmly demands to be rerouted immediately through anywhere this side of Kathmandu, just get her to her meeting! There’s the silver-haired, bespoke-suited man who storms up to the agent and, loud enough for everyone to hear, demands to know if she realizes how important it is for him to get to his destination, insists on seeing her superior, and-red-faced by now-screams that the situation is completely intolerable.
Okay, I’m prepared to believe that delays are worse for some people than for others. Failing to make it to the bedside of your dying mother is definitely up there, and missing a business meeting that means life or death to the company your grandfather founded is a lot worse than a student arriving home for winter break half a day later than planned. But I strongly suspect that the differences in how people react to an exasperating flight delay have less to do with the external circumstances and more to do with their Emotional Style.
The existence of Emotional Style raises a number of related questions. The most obvious is, when does Emotional Style first appear, in early adulthood, when we settle into the patterns that describe the people we will be, or, as genetic determinists would have it, before birth? Do these patterns of emotional response remain constant and stable throughout our lives? A less obvious question, but one that arose in the course of my research, is whether Emotional Style influences physical health. (One reason to suspect it does is that people who suffer from clinical depression are much more prone to certain physical disorders such as heart attack and asthma than are people with no history of depression.)
Perhaps most fundamentally, how does the brain produce the different Emotional Styles, and are they hardwired into our neural circuitry, or is there anything we can do to change them and thus alter how we deal with and respond to the pleasures and vicissitudes of life? And if we are able to somehow change our Emotional Style (in chapter 11 I will suggest some methods for doing so), does it also produce measureable changes in the brain?
The Six Dimensions of Emotional Style
So as not to leave you in suspense, and to make specific what I mean by “Emotional Style”, let me lay out its bare bones. There are six dimensions of Emotional Style. The existence of the six did not just suddenly occur to me, nor did they emerge early on in my research, let alone result from a command decision that six would be a nice number. Instead, they arose from systematic studies of the neural bases of emotion. Each of the six dimensions has a specific, identifiable neural signature, a good indication that they are real and not merely a theoretical construct. It is conceivable that there are more than six dimensions, but it’s unlikely: The major emotion circuits in the brain are now well understood, and if we believe that the only aspects of emotion that have scientific validity are those that can be traced to events in the brain, then six dimensions completely describe Emotional Style.
Each dimension describes a continuum. Some people fall at one or the other extreme of that continuum, while others fall somewhere in the middle. The combination of where you fall on each dimension adds up to your overall Emotional Style.
Your Resilience style: Can you usually shake off setbacks, or do you suffer a meltdown? When faced with an emotional or other challenge, can you muster the tenacity and determination to soldier on, or do you feel so helpless that you simply surrender? If you have an argument with your significant other, does it cast a pall on the remainder of your day, or are you able to recover quickly and put it behind you? When you’re knocked back on your heels, do you bounce back and throw yourself into the ring of life again, or do you melt into a puddle of depression and resignation? Do you respond to setbacks with energy and determination, or do you give up?
People at one extreme of this dimension are Fast to Recover from adversity; those at the other extreme are Slow to Recover, crippled by adversity.
Your Outlook style: Do you seldom let emotional clouds darken your sunny outlook on life? Do you maintain a high level of energy and engagement even when things don’t go your way? Or do you tend toward cynicism and pessimism, struggling to see anything positive? People at one extreme of the Outlook spectrum can be described as Positive types; those at the other, as Negative.
Your Social Intuition style: Can you read people’s body language and tone of voice like a book, inferring whether they want to talk or be alone, whether they are stressed to the breaking point or feeling mellow? Or are you puzzled by, even blind to, the outward indications of people’s mental and emotional states? Those at one extreme on this spectrum are Socially Intuitive types; those at the other, Puzzled.
Your Self-Awareness style: Are you aware of your own thoughts and feelings and attuned to the messages your body sends you? Or do you act and react without knowing why you do what you do, because your inner self is opaque to your conscious mind? Do those closest to you ask why you never engage in introspection and wonder why you seem oblivious to the fact that you are anxious, jealous, impatient, or threatened? At one extreme of this spectrum are people who are Self-Aware; at the other, those who are Self-Opaque.
Your Sensitivity to Context style: Are you able to pick up the conventional rules of social interaction so that you do not tell your boss the same dirty joke you told your husband or try to pick up a date at a funeral? Or are you baffled when people tell you that your behavior is inappropriate? If you are at one extreme of the Sensitivity to Context style, you are Tuned In; at the other end, Tuned Out.
by Richard J. Davidson, Ph.D. and Sharon Begley
#anxietyDepressionemotionemotionalstyleEpigeneticsMentalHealthneuroplasticityPsychologyRichardJDavidson
Introverts, Psychology
YOU’RE WELCOME, LOVE, INTROVERTS. Things You Need to Know If Your Child is an Introvert * The Secret Lives of Introverts – Jenn Granneman.
Why was my idea of a good time so different from what other people wanted to do? I was broken. I had to be.
“Don’t just accept your child for who she is; treasure her for who she is. The more you embrace your child’s introverted nature, the happier they will be.”
Introversion is your temperament. It takes years to build a personality, but your temperament is something you’re born with.
Introverts tend to avoid small talk. We’d rather talk about something meaningful than fill the air with chatter just to hear ourselves make noise. We find small talk inauthentic, and, frankly, many of us feel awkward doing it.
This is a book about secrets. It’s about seeing what’s really going on with introverts. It’s about finally feeling understood.
If it weren’t for introverts and our amazing ability to focus, we wouldn’t have the theory of relativity, Google, or Harry Potter (yes, Einstein, Larry Page, and J. K. Rowling are all likely introverts). Dear society, where would you be without us? You’re welcome. Love, introverts.
You’re confused by your kid. She doesn’t act the way you did growing up. She’s hesitant and reserved. Instead of diving in to play, she’d rather stand back and watch the other kids. She talks to you in fits and starts, sometimes she rambles on, telling you stories, but other times, she’s silent, and you can’t figure out what’s going on in her head. She spends a lot of time alone in her bedroom. Her teachers say they wish she’d participate more in class. Her social life is limited to two people.
Even weirder, she seems totally okay with that.
Congratulations: You’ve got an introvert.
It’s not unusual for extroverted parents to worry about their introverted children and even wonder if their behavior is healthy. (Disclaimer: children can suffer from anxiety and depression, just as adults can. It’s important to be aware of the symptoms of childhood depression, sometimes withdrawal from others and low energy, signal something quite different than introversion.)
However, many introverted children are not depressed or anxious at all. They behave in the way they do because of their innate temperament, being an introvert is genetic, and it’s not going to change. The more you embrace your child’s natural introverted personality the happier they will be.
Here are 15 things you must understand if you’re the parent of an introvert.
1. There’s nothing unusual or shameful about being an introvert.
Introverts are hardly a minority, making up 30-50 percent of the US. population. Some of our most successful leaders, entertainers, and entrepreneurs have been introverts, such as Bill Gates, Emma Watson, Warren Buffett, Courteney Cox, Christina Aguilera, and J.K. Rowling. It’s often suggested that even Abraham Lincoln, Mother Teresa, and Mahatma Gandhi were introverts.
2. Your child won’t stop being an introvert.
Can your child just “get over” hating raucous birthday parties? Nope. According to Dr. Marti Olsen Laney, author of The Hidden Gifts of the Introverted Child, introversion and extroversion are genetic (although parents play an important role in nurturing that temperament). Introverts’ and extroverts’ brains are also wired somewhat differently.
According to Laney, introverts’ and extroverts’ brains may use different neurotransmitter pathways, and they may favor different “sides” of their nervous system (introverts prefer the parasympathetic side, the “rest and digest” system as opposed to the sympathetic, which triggers the “fight, flight, or freeze” response). Furthermore, a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience found that introverts have larger, thicker gray matter in their prefrontal cortices, which is the area of the brain associated with abstract thought and decision-making.
So if your child tends to be more cautious and reserved than his extroverted peers, rest assured that there’s a biological reason for it.
3. They’ll warm up to new people and situations slowly and that’s okay.
Introverts often feel overwhelmed or anxious in new environments and around new people. If you’re attending a social event, don’t expect your child to jump into the action and chat with other children right away. If possible, arrive early so your child can get comfortable in that space and feel like other people are entering a space he already “owns.”
Another option is to have your child stand back from the action at a comfortable distance perhaps near you, where he feels safe and simply watch for a few minutes. Quiet observation will help him process things.
If neither of those options is possible, discuss the event ahead of time with him, talking about who will be there, what will likely happen, how he might feel, and what he can do when he’s losing energy.
No matter what new experience you’re getting him accustomed to, remember: go slowly, but don’t not go. “Don’t let him opt out, but do respect his limits, even when they seem extreme,” writes Susan Cain about introverted children. “Inch together toward the thing he’s wary of.”
4. Socializing saps your introverted kid’s energy.
Both introverts and extroverts can feel drained by socializing, but for introverts, it’s even worse. If your child is older, teach her to excuse herself to a quieter part of the room or a different location such as the bathroom or outside. If she’s younger, she might not notice when she’s tapped out, so you’ll have to watch her for signs of fatigue the dreaded “introvert hangover.”
5. Making friends can be nervewracking for introverts.
Which means, give your child positive reinforcement when he takes a social risk. Say something like, “Yesterday, I saw you talking to that new boy. I know that was hard for you, and I’m proud of what you did.”
6. But you can teach them to self regulate their negative feelings.
Say, “You thought you were going to have a miserable time at the birthday party, but you ended up making some new friends.” With positive reinforcement like this, over time, he’ll be more likely to self-regulate the negative feelings he associates with stepping out of his comfort zone.
7. Your kid may have intense and unique interests.
Give him opportunities to pursue those interests, says Christine Fonseca, author of Quiet Kids: Help Your Introverted Child Succeed in an Extroverted World. Softball and Boy Scouts may work well for some children, but don’t forget to look off the beaten path and consider writing classes or science camps. Intense engagement in an activity can bring happiness, wellbeing and confidence, but it also gives your kid opportunities to socialize with other children who have similar passions (and perhaps similar temperaments).
8. Talk to their teachers about introversion.
Some teachers mistakenly assume that introverted children don’t speak up much in class because they’re disinterested or not paying attention. On the contrary, introverted students can be quite attentive in class, but they often prefer to listen and observe rather than actively participate. (In many cases, an introverted child is “saying” all the things other kids would say, but simply doing it silently in his head which, for an introvert, is just as engaging.)
Also, if the teacher knows about your child’s introversion, the teacher may be able to gently help him navigate things like interactions with friends, participation in group work, or presenting in class.
9. Your child may struggle to stand up for herself.
So teach her to say stop or no in a loud voice when another child tries to take her toy from her. If she’s being bullied or treated unfairly at school, encourage her to speak up to an adult or the perpetrator. “It starts with teaching introverted children that their voice is important,” Fonseca says.
10. Help your child feel heard.
Listen to your child, and ask questions to draw her out. Many introverted children and adults struggle to get the thoughts and emotions swirling inside them out to others.
Introverts “live internally, and they need someone to draw them out,” writes Dr. Laney in her book. “Without a parent who listens and reflects back to them, like an echo, what they are thinking, they can get lost in their own minds.”
11. Your child might not ask for help.
Introverts tend to internalize problems. Your child might not talk to you about her problems even when she wishes for and/or could benefit from some adult guidance. Again, ask questions and truly listen, but don’t interrogate.
12. Your child is not necessarily shy.
Shy is a word that carries a negative connotation. If your introverted child hears the word “shy” enough times, she may start to believe that her discomfort around people is a fixed trait, not a feeling she can learn to control.
Furthermore, “shy” focuses on the inhibition she experiences, and it doesn’t help her understand the true source of her quietness, her introversion.
Don’t refer to your child as “shy,” and if others do, correct them gently by saying, “Actually, she’s an introvert.”
13. Your child may only have one or two close friends and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Introverts seek depth in relationships, not breadth. They prefer a small circle of friends and aren’t usually interested in being “popular.”
14. Your kid will need plenty of alone time, don’t take it personally.
Anything that pulls your child out of her inner world like school, friends, or even navigating a new routine will drain her. Don’t be hurt or think your child doesn’t enjoy being with the family when she spends time alone in her room. Most likely, once she’s recharged, she’ll want to spend time with you again.
15. Your introverted child is a treasure.
“Don’t just accept your child for who she is; treasure her for who she is,” writes Cain. “Introverted children are often kind, thoughtful, focused, and very interesting company, as long as they’re in settings that work for them.”
The Secret Lives of Introverts. Inside our hidden world.
Jenn Granneman
Dear introvert,
One of my earliest memories as a little girl is my dad putting a microphone to my lips and asking me to tell a story. Okay, I thought, this should be easy. I had been telling stories to myself already, in my mind, each night before I fell asleep, even though I was too young to read or write.
I closed my eyes and imagined a horse who played with her friends in a sunny meadow. Like many introverted children, my inner world was vivid and alive. The madeup story seemed almost as real as the actual world around me of toys and parents and pets. The horse and her friends were having a race to see who was the fastest. They dashed through fields of flowers and jumped over a glistening creek, when, all of the sudden, one of them started to flap her tiny, hidden wings and fly…
Suddenly, my dad interrupted my thoughts. “You have to say your story out loud,” he said, nodding to the microphone. “So I can record it.”
I looked at the microphone, then back at my dad, but I didn’t know how to respond. The things inside me had to be spoken? How could mere words describe the striking images I saw in my mind, and how they made me feel?
Sensing my hesitancy, my dad prompted again. “Just say what you’re thinking,” he said, as if that were the easiest thing in the world.
But I couldn’t. I continued to stare at my dad in silence. The secret world inside me would not come out. My dad grew impatient, probably thinking his only daughter was being stubborn, uncreative. The truth was I had no idea how to translate my inner experience into words. Somehow, I thought that with my father’s supreme intelligence, he would just know what I meant to say. But he couldn’t read my thoughts. And the microphone attached to the primitive eighties tape recorder couldn’t hear them. Eventually, he gave up and put everything away.
This would not be the last time in my life that my silence confused and frustrated someone. I would carry that feeling of disconnect between my inner world and the outer one with me for much of my life.
If you’re an introvert like me, you may have secrets inside you, too. You have thoughts that you don’t have the words to express and big ideas that no one else sees. Maybe your secret is you feel lonely even when you’re surrounded by other people. Perhaps you’re doing certain things and acting a certain way only because you think you’re supposed to. Maybe your heart longs for just one person to see the real you, and to know what’s really going on inside your head.
Thank you for joining me in this journey. If you have a secret like the one I just described, I hope you will feel less alone about it after reading this book.
Quietly yours,
THIS IS FOR ALL THE QUIET ONES
When I was in sixth grade, I was lucky enough to be scooped up by a great group of girls who would become my lifelong friends. We slept over at each other’s houses and whispered secrets in the dark. We spied on the boy who lived in the neighborhood and his friends, and giggled over who we had crushes on. We filled notebook after notebook with our dreams for the future. We even promised to reunite every Fourth of July as adults on a hill by our high school, so we would always have a place in each other’s lives.
Anyone looking at us would have thought I was just one of the girls. We did almost everything together. People even said we looked like sisters. But deep down, I felt different. I wasn’t one of them. I was other.
While they read Seventeen magazine and chatted about celebrities, I sat silently on the edges, wondering if there was life on other planets. When they were relieved that another school year was over and that summer vacation had begun, I was catapulted into a deep existential crisis about growing older. When they wanted to hang out all night, and then the next day, and then the next, I was desperately searching for an excuse to be alone. (“Mom, tell them I’m sick! Or that I have to go to church!”) In so many little ways, I was the weird one.
My friend group was the center of my teenage world. I loved them. So I did what anyone does when they feel like they are an alien dropped into this world from another planet: at times, I pretended. I kept my secret thoughts to myself. I didn’t let on when I wished I could be alone in my bedroom instead of at the mall, surrounded by people. I tried to be the person I thought I should be, fun-loving and always ready to hang out.
All that pretending got exhausting. But I did it because I thought that’s what everyone else was doing, pretending. I figured they were just a lot better at hiding their true feelings than I was.
There Must Be Something Wrong with Me
As an adult, I still couldn’t shake the feeling of being “different.” I worked as a journalist for a few years, then went back to school to become a teacher, thinking this would be more meaningful work. My graduate program was full of outgoing wouId, be teachers who always had something to say. They sat in little groups on breaks, bursting with energetic chatter, even after we’d just spent hours doing collaborative learning or having a group discussion.
I, on the other hand, bolted for the door on breaks as quickly as possible, my head was spinning from all the noise and activity, and my energy level was at zero. Also, talking in front of our class or answering a question on the spot was no problem for them. I, however, avoided the spotlight as much as possible. Whenever I had to present a lesson plan, I felt compelled to practice exactly what I was going to say, until I got it “perfect.” Even then, I usually couldn’t keep my hands from shaking.
I had also gotten married. My husband (now ex-husband) was a confident, life-of-the-party guy who could talk to anyone. His large family was the same way. They loved spending time together in a loud gaggle of kids, siblings, and friends of the family. Often, they’d drop by our small apartment, letting me know they were coming only when they were already on their way. They’d pass hours crammed into the living room, telling stories, cracking jokes, and volleying sarcastic remarks back and forth with the professional finesse of Venus and Serena Williams.
I, once again, sat quietly on the edges, never knowing how to wedge myself into these fast-moving conversations or what to say. As the night wore on, I often found myself slipping into an exhausted brain fog, which made it even harder to participate. Most nights, what I really wanted was to read a book alone, play a video game, or just be with my husband.
When comparing myself to my extroverted in-laws and classmates, I never seemed to measure up. My disparaging thoughts returned. Why couldn’t I just loosen up and go with the flow? Why did I never have much to say when I was in a big group but had plenty to talk about during a one-on-one? Why was my idea of a good time so different from what other people wanted to do?
I was broken. I had to be.
Things didn’t look like they would ever get better. At one point, I had a complete breakdown. I found myself awake in the middle of the night, frantically crying, typing everything that was wrong with me and my life into a Word document. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I was too different-too messed up. The world was too much, too loud, too harsh. I think finally expressing all the secret feelings that had built up inside me, in a raw, unfiltered way, saved me. When I reread what I had written, I realized I couldn’t keep living this way.
Somehow, I made it through that terrible night. Soon after, I discovered something about myself that changed my life.
One Magic Word: Introvert
One afternoon, in the psychology/self-help section of a used bookstore, I came across a book called The Introvert Advantage by Marti Olsen Laney. I bought it and read it cover to cover. When I finished, I cried. I had never felt so understood in my life.
That beautiful book told me there was a word for what I was: introvert. It was a magic word, because it explained many of the things I had struggled with my entire life, things that had made me feel bad about myself. Best of all, the word meant I wasn’t alone. There were other people out there like me. Other introverts.
Say what you will about labeling. That little label changed my life.
I went on to read everything about introversion I could get my hands on. I read Quiet by Susan Cain, Introvert Power by Laurie Helgoe, The Introvert’s Way by Sophia Dembling, and others.
I became interested in personality type and high sensitivity, too. Turns out I’m not just an introvert but also a highly sensitive person (but I’ll leave that topic for another time). After reading dozens of books about introversion, I turned to the Internet. I joined Facebook groups for introverts and poured over blogs. My friends got sick of me constantly talking about introversion: “Did you know it’s an introvert thing to need time to think before responding?” I’d say, or, “I can’t go out tonight, it’s introvert time.”
I couldn’t shut up about being an introvert. It was like I had been reading the wrong script my entire life, trying to play the role of the person I thought I should be, not the person I truly was.
Don’t get me wrong. Learning about my introversion didn’t fix all my problems. It would take several years of hard, inner work, along with consciously deciding to make real changes in my life, before things got better. But for me, embracing my introversion, and stopping myself from trying to pretend to be an extrovert, was the first step.
As I learned more about introversion, I became more confident in who I was. I started accepting my need for alone time. I saw my quiet, reflective nature as a strength, not a liability. I also started working on my social skills, seeing them as simply that, skills I could improve and use to my advantage. But most important, for the first time in my life, I started to actually like myself.
I was no longer an other. I was something else: an introvert.
Now I’m on a Mission
Today, I’m the voice behind Introvert, Dear, the popular online community for introverts. I never set out to be an advocate for introverts, but, when something changes your life, you want to tell other people about it. I started Introvert, Dear as my personal blog in 2013. At the time, I was working as a teacher, living with roommates, and truly dating for the first time in my adult life. I decided I would chronicle my life as an introvert living in a society that seems geared toward extroverts. I kept my blog anonymous so I could write whatever I wanted without fearing what other people would think (so very introverted of me). For my bio, I used a picture of just my shoulder that showed off a tattoo of five birds I had just gotten. My face was mostly hidden.
Staring at my computer screen, alone in my bedroom one night, I named my little blog Introvert, Dear. I imagined a wise, older introverted woman counseling a younger introverted woman. The young woman was lying on a chaise lounge, and the older woman was sitting in a chair nearby, the kind of setup you see in movies when someone goes to a therapist. The older one began her advice to the younger one by saying, “Now, introvert, dear…
The first blog post I wrote got more comments about my tattoo than anything actually related to what I’d written. But I kept writing, mostly just for myself. And people kept reading. I didn’t know it then, but Introvert, Dear was another step in my journey toward healing. Once again, expressing myself honestly relieved some of the pain I was feeling. And connecting with other introverts made me feel less self-conscious about my “weird” ways.
Today, Introvert, Dear is less of a blog and more of an online publishing platform. It features not just my voice, but hundreds of introvert voices, and it brings together introverts from all over the world. My writing about introverts has been featured in publications like the Huffington Post, Thought Catalog, Susan Cain’s Quiet Revolution, the Mighty, and others. Now I’m on a mission: to let introverts everywhere know it’s okay to be who they are. I don’t ever want another introvert to feel the way I did when I was younger.
Are You an Introvert?
What about you? Have you always felt different? Were you the quiet one in school? Did people ask you, “Why don’t you talk more?” Do they still ask you that today?
If so, you might be an introvert like me. Introverts make up 30 to 50 percent of the population, and we help shape the world we live in. We might be your parent, friend, spouse, significant other, child, or coworker. We lead, create, educate, innovate, do business, solve problems, charm, heal, and love.
Introversion is a temperament, which is different from your personality; temperament refers to your inborn traits that organize how you approach the world, while personality can be defined as the pattern of behavior, thoughts, and emotions that make you an individual. It can take years to build a personality, but your temperament is something you’re born with.
But the most important thing to know about being an introvert is that there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re not broken because you’re quiet. It’s okay to stay home on a Friday night instead of going to a party. Being an introvert is a perfectly normal “thing” to be.
Are you an introvert? Here are twenty-two signs that you might veer toward introversion on the spectrum. How many do you relate to? These signs may not apply to every introvert, but I believe they are generally true:
You enjoy spending time alone. You have no problem staying home on a Saturday night. In fact, you look forward to it. To you, Netflix and chill really means watching Netflix and relaxing. Or maybe your thing is reading, playing video games, drawing, cooking, writing, knitting tiny hats for cats, or just lounging around the house. Whatever your preferred solo activity is, you do it as much as your schedule allows. You feel good when you’re alone. In your alone time, you’re free.
You do your best thinking when you’re alone. Your alone time isn’t just about indulging in your favorite hobbies. It’s about giving your mind time to decompress. When you’re with other people, it may feel like your brain is too overloaded to really work the way it should. In solitude, you’re free to tune into your own inner monologue, rather than paying attention to what’s going on around you. You might be more creative and/or have deeper insights when you’re alone.
Your inner monologue never stops. You have a distinct inner voice that’s always running in the back of your mind. If people could hear the thoughts that ran through your head, they may, in turn, be surprised, amazed, and perhaps horrified. Whatever their reaction might be, your inner narrator is something that’s hard to shut off. Sometimes you can’t sleep at night because your mind is still going. Thoughts from your past haunt you. “I can’t believe I said that stupid thing five years ago!”
You often feel lonelier in a crowd than when you’re alone. There’s something about being with a group that makes you feel disconnected from yourself. Maybe it’s because it’s hard to hear your inner voice when there’s so much noise around you. Or maybe you feel like an other, like I did. Whatever the reason, as an introvert, you crave intimate moments and deep connections, and those usually aren’t found in a crowd.
You feel like you’re faking it when you have to network. Walking up to strangers and introducing yourself? You’d rather stick tiny needles under your fingernails. But you know there’s value in it, so you might do it anyway, except you feel like a phony the entire time. If you’re anything like me, you had to teach yourself how to do it. You might have read self-help books about how to be a better conversationalist or exude more charisma. In the moment, you have to activate your “public persona.” You might say things to yourself like, “Smile, make eye contact, and use your loud confident voice!” Then, when you’re finished, you feel beat, and you need downtime to recover. You wonder, Does everyone else have to try this hard when meeting new people?
You’re not the student shooting your hand up every time the teacher asks a question. You don’t need all that attention. You’re content just knowing that you know the answer, you don’t have to prove it to anyone else. At work, this may translate to not saying much during meetings. You’d rather pull your boss aside afterward and have a one-on-one conversation, or email your ideas, rather than explain them to a room full of people.
The exception to this is when you feel truly passionate about something. On rare occasions, even shy introverts have been known to transform themselves into a force to be reckoned with when it really counts. It’s all about how much something matters to you; you’ll risk overstimulation when you think speaking up will truly make a difference.
You’re better at writing your thoughts than speaking them. You prefer texting to calling and emailing to face-to-face meetings. Writing gives you time to reflect on what to say and how to say it. It allows you to edit your thoughts and craft your message just so. Plus, there’s less pressure when you’re typing your words into your phone alone than when you’re saying them to someone in real time.
But it isn’t just about texting and emailing. Many introverts enjoy journaling for self-expression and self-discovery. Others make a career out of writing, such as John Green, author of the bestselling young adult novel, The Fault in Our Stars. In his YouTube video, “Thoughts from Places: The Tour,” Green says, “Writing is something you do alone. It’s a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don’t want to make eye contact while doing it.”
Likewise, talking on the phone does not sound like a fun way to pass the time. One of my extroverted friends is always calling me when she’s alone in her car. She figures that although her eyes, hands, and feet are currently occupied, her mouth is not. Plus, there are no people around, how boring! So she reaches for her phone. (Remember to practice safe driving, kids.) However, this is not the case for me. When I have a few spare minutes of silence and solitude, I have no desire to fill that time with idle chitchat.
You’d rather not engage with people who are angry. Psychologist Marta Ponari and collaborators found that people high in introversion don’t show what’s called the “gaze-cueing effect.” Normally, if you were to view the image of a person’s face on a computer screen looking in a certain direction, you would follow that person’s gaze; therefore, you’d respond more quickly to a visual target on that side of the screen than when the person’s gaze and the target point in opposite directions. Introverts and extroverts both do this, with one exception: if the person seems mad, introverts don’t show the gazecueing effect. This suggests that people who are very introverted don’t want to look at someone who seems angry. Ponari and her team think that this is because they are more sensitive to potentially negative evaluations. Meaning, if you think a person is mad because of something related to you, even their gaze becomes a threat.
You avoid small talk whenever possible. When a coworker is walking down the hall toward you, have you ever turned into another room in order to avoid having a “Hey, what’s up?” conversation with them? Or have you ever waited a few minutes in your apartment when you heard your neighbors in the hallway so you didn’t have to chat? If so, you might be an introvert, because introverts tend to avoid small talk. We’d rather talk about something meaningful than fill the air with chatter just to hear ourselves make noise. We find small talk inauthentic, and, frankly, many of us feel awkward doing it.
You’ve been told you’re “too intense.” This stems from your dislike of small talk. If it were up to you, mindless chitchat would be banished. You’d much rather sit down with someone and discuss the meaning of life, or, at the very least, exchange some real, honest thoughts. Have you ever had a deep conversation and walked away feeling energized, not drained? That’s what I’m talking about. Meaningful interactions are the introvert’s antidote to social burnout.
You don’t go to parties to meet new people. Birthday parties, wedding receptions, staff holiday parties, or whatever, you party every once in a while. But when you go to an event, you probably don’t go with the goal of making new friends; you’d rather hang out with the people you already know. That’s because, like a pair of well-worn sneakers, your current friends feel good on you. They know your quirks, and you feel comfortable around them. Plus, making new friends would mean making small talk.
You shut down after too much socializing. A study from Finnish researchers Sointu Leikas and Ville-Juhani llmarinen shows that socializing eventually becomes tiring to both introverts and extroverts. That’s likely because socializing expends energy. Not only do you have to talk, but you also have to listen and process what’s being said. Plus, you’re taking in all kinds of sensory information, such as someone’s tone of voice and body language, along with filtering out any background noises or visual distractions. It’s no wonder people get drained.
But there are some very real differences between introverts and extroverts; on average, introverts really do prefer solitude and quiet more than their extroverted counterparts. In fact, if you’re an introvert, you might experience something that’s been dubbed the “introvert hangover.” Like a hangover induced by one too many giant fishbowl margaritas, you feel sluggish and icky after too much socializing. Your brain seems to stop working, and, in your exhaustion, you cease to be able to hold a conversation or say words that make sense. You just want to lie down in a quiet, dark room and not move or talk for a while. That’s because introverts can become overstimulated by socializing and shut down (more about the introvert hangover later).
You notice details that others miss. It’s true that introverts (especially highly sensitive introverts) can get overwhelmed by too much stimuli. But there’s an upside to our sensitivity, we notice details that others might miss. For example, you might notice a subtle change in your friend’s demeanor signaling that she’s upset (but oddly, no one else in the room sees it). Or, you might be highly tuned in to color, space, and texture, making you an incredible visual artist.
You can concentrate for long periods of time on things that matter to you. I can write for hours. I get in the zone, and I just keep going. I don’t need anyone or anything else to entertain me, as I write, I enter a state of flow. I block out distractions and hone in on what I need to accomplish. If you’re an introvert, you likely have activities or pet projects that you could work on for practically forever. That’s because introverts are great at focusing alone for long periods of time. If it weren’t for introverts and our amazing ability to focus, we wouldn’t have the theory of relativity, Google, or Harry Potter (yes, Einstein, Larry Page, and J. K. Rowling are all likely introverts). Dear society, where would you be without us? You’re welcome. Love, introverts.
You live in your head. In fact, you may daydream so much that people have told you to “get out of your head” or “come down to earth.” That’s because your inner world is rich and vivid. Not all introverts have strong imaginations (that trait is correlated with “openness to experience” on the Big Five personaIity scale, not “extroversion-introversion”), but many of us do.
The Secret Lives of Introverts. Inside our hidden world
by Jenn Granneman
QUIET. THE POWER OF INTROVERTS IN A WORLD THAT CAN’T STOP TALKING – SUSAN CAIN
ALONE. The Badass Psychology of People Who Like Being Alone – Bella DePaulo, Ph.D.
THE HANDBOOK OF SOLITUDE. PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL ISOLATION, SOCIAL WITHDRAWAL, AND BEING ALONE
IF YOU LIKE BEING ALONE YOU HAVE THESE 5 AMAZING TRAITS
HOW TO BE ALONE – SARA MAITLAND
alonealonenessfocusimaginationIntroversionIntrovertsPsychologySolitudetemperament
Ageing, Mental Health, Psychology
SUPER-AGERS AND THE MYSTERY OF THEIR SUCCESS – Adam Piore – Four Strategies for Aging Well.
“What’s emerged is how much our mental filter, how we see the world, determines our reality and how much we will suffer when we find ourselves in difficult situations in life.”
While extended health span is feasible and already unfolding for many of those with higher education, so far there are very slim gains in health span for minorities and those with strained socioeconomic resources.
Many people can think of an older person who has had a profound influence on them. It’s because of the brains of elders. They are more pro-social, more likely to give to people in need than younger people. This is not a huge surprise but we’re now able to think of the biology of this. We really need our elders.
It was the kind of case no traditional medical textbook could explain. The subject, let’s call him Peter Green, was a white male in his late 80s, enrolled in longitudinal studies of the elderly at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. Green’s brain scans “were not pretty,” recalls Joel Kramer, PsyD, who directs the center’s neuropsychology program. His brain had begun to atrophy, and its white matter composed of long bundles of nerve cells that carry signals from one area to another were shot through with dead patches, suggesting that Green had suffered the kind of ministrokes often associated with cognitive decline.
Yet by all behavioral measures, Green was thriving. His cognitive test scores were impeccable and his ability to function in the world remained high.
“If you look at his cognition and level of functioning, it not only remains high, it hasn’t changed at all in years,” Kramer says. What was it about Green, Kramer wondered, that set him apart from his peers with similar brain scans, who seemed to have been waylaid by the ravages of time?
When Kramer finally met the study subject in person, the neurologist was struck by Green’s dynamism and sunny outlook on life. He told Kramer he volunteered in the community, was constantly busy with projects and organizations, and remained close to his family. He shared how grateful he was for what he had and really seemed to be enjoying his golden years.
“He talked about how his attitude toward life is one of embracing it, not getting stressed out by the little things, and valuing the importance of relationships,” Kramer says. ”I was so impressed. It was inspiring.”
Kramer has a name for people like this vigorous, dynamic octogenarian: “super-agers.” In recent years, he’s become increasingly fascinated by their qualities and has set out to solve the mystery of their success.
“There are some suggestions that people who are more optimistic age better than people who aren’t,” Kramer says, pointing to Peter Green as Exhibit A. “We’re just starting to look at these personality traits and how they influence aging.”
For decades, those studying the science of aging have devoted most of their time to trying to understand what goes wrong as we get older, what risk factors predispose us to disease, and how we might better diagnose and treat it. But in recent years, a growing number of researchers at UCSF and elsewhere have turned their attention to a separate but related series of questions: What is it that allows some older people to thrive? What is there to learn from the most resilient and functional senior citizens among us? And how might we apply that knowledge to everyone else to promote healthy aging?
Though the approaches UCSF researchers are taking to answer these questions vary from studying large cohorts of elderly patients, to measuring telomeres, to analyzing components in the blood of variously aged mice many of them have begun to converge on an optimistic conclusion.
“As we get older, when we see declines in memory and other skills, people tend to think that’s part of normal aging,” Kramer says. “It’s not. It doesn’t have to be that way.”
Stress Can Make Us Older
Elissa Epel, PhD, a professor of psychology who co-directs the UCSF Aging, Metabolism, and Emotions Center, believes one’s chronological age and biological age do not always align. She is trying to understand what makes some of us more resilient than others, and one of the answers seems to be stress.
“The biology of aging and the biology of stress are intimate friends, and they talk to each other and influence each other,” she says. ”The greater the feelings of chronic stress, the greater the signs of aging in cells.”
Epel is studying participants under almost constant stress: family members who are caring for a child with a chronic condition or a spouse with dementia. As one proxy for biological age, Epel monitors the length of individuals’ telomeres, or caps on the ends of chromosomes, which shorten as we get older.
When our telomeres get too short, our cells are no longer able to divide. It becomes harder for our bodies to replenish tissues, and our chances of developing chronic diseases increase, Epel explains. Short telomeres in midlife predict an early onset of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dementia, some cancers, and many other diseases often associated with aging.
Chronic stress, she and others have found, can lead to a buildup of proinfiammatory factors called cytokines, which mobilize our immune system to release a series of chemicals that, though important in fighting infection, can over time harm the body’s own cells. Chronic stress can impair mitochondria, the energy centers of our cells, accelerate the epigenetic clock (a measure of cellular age based on the methylation patterns of genes), and prematurely shorten our chromosomes’ telomeres.
But Epel has found that there are things we can do to counteract the toxic effects of stress and slow down the aging process.
“The big story is that there are so many differences among caregivers in the way that they’re responding to their life situation,” Epel says. “What’s emerged is how much our mental filter, how we see the world, determines our reality and how much we will suffer when we find ourselves in difficult situations in life.”
It’s possible to modify that filter through consciously cultivating gratitude and a mindful response to stress, Epel says. This sounds much like the mindset of the “superager” that Kramer has observed. Social support is one of the largest factors protecting us from stress. Caregivers who have a greater number of positive emotional connections appear to be protected from much of the damage caused by stress. In addition, meditation, exercise, and an anti-inflammatory diet can reduce and possibly reverse some effects of aging.
“While extreme biohacks are super interesting, most of them are probably not feasible and not healthy in the long run,” she says. “But lifestyle interventions are a form of biohacking that is feasible, safe, and reliable. Our biological aging is more under our control than we think. If we can make small changes and maintain them over years and years, our cells will be listening and maintaining their resiliency and health.”
She adds that context also plays a role. Culture and environment at home, work, and in neighborhoods are important components in the ability of individuals to maintain lifestyle interventions over the long run. She notes that while extended health span is feasible and already unfolding for many of those with higher education, so far there are very slim gains in health span for minorities and those with strained socioeconomic resources.
UCSF is working to modify the culture in ways that support such healthy changes on campus, she notes, pointing to the Stress Free UC program, a daily meditation app that is free to any UC staff member.
Aging and Youth are Literally in our Blood
While Epel is zooming out to explore how the mind-body connection might promote healthy aging, UC San Francisco’s Saul Villeda, PhD, is zooming in, examining how microscopic, cellular messages that travel through our bloodstream might impact geriatric health.
Villeda, an assistant professor of anatomy, oversees a group of 12 researchers looking into mechanisms of brain aging and rejuvenation. His experiments sound a little like science fiction. In 2014, Villeda published a study in Nature Medicine showing that infusing the blood of young mice into older mice could significantly reverse signs of agerelated cognitive decline that is, geriatric mice infused with young mouse plasma were better able to both recall the way through a maze and find a specific location. Conversely, younger mice injected with older blood experienced accelerated symptoms of aging.
What is it about young blood that can have such a profound effect? Using a method known as parabiosis, connecting the circulatory systems between older and young mice, Villeda found that the young blood caused the number of stem cells in the brains of older mice to increase and the number of neural connections to spike by 20 percent.
Earlier this year, he published a study demonstrating that infusing the young blood also caused a spike in an enzyme called TET2 in areas of the brain associated with learning and memory. The research team, led by one of Villeda’s postdocs, Geraldine Gontier, PhD, demonstrated not only that TET2 levels decline with age but that restoring the enzyme to youthful levels improved memory in healthy adult mice.
The stimulatory effect of young blood, Villeda says, likely results from a handful of factors acting together. He also points to another factor that seems to play a role in the magical properties of young blood, a protein called metalloproteinase that is involved in remodeling the structural components that hold our cells together and give them their shape.
Meanwhile, Villeda has also isolated factors in old blood that accelerate aging. Blood from mice who are the equivalent of 65 human years contains cellular signaling agents that he says promote inflammation. These agents play what he calls a “huge role” not just in cognitive declines but also in muscle and immune-related deterioration, results that are consistent with those found by Epel.
By continuing to decode these cellular components, Villeda believes we may someday be able to harness what he and others are learnmg in order to create new medicines that rather than target single diseases, target some of the underlying factors that cause diseases of aging in general.
This idea, of making therapies that treat aging in the same way we treat other diseases, says Villeda, is becoming “more mainstream.”
“We don’t think of aging as final anymore. We’re basically maintaining a youthful state for longer.” Even 15 years ago, Villeda continues, “if you told someone, ‘I can keep you healthy until you’re 85 and you won’t get cardiovascular disease or Alzheimer’s, and all you have to do is take this pill,‘ people would probably have been looking at you a little strange.”
But attitudes have begun to change. “If you tell them, ‘We understand the molecular mechanisms that are driving certain aspects of aging, and we can target them, he says, “it becomes much more understandable to people.”
There is Still More to Learn
Joel Kramer has been following some of his “super-agers” for more than a decade. They now number in the dozens and are part of a far larger cohort of subjects ranging in age from 60 to 95.
At least every two years, each subject comes in to answer questions about their lifestyle and to undergo a battery of tests of their cognitive function, blood composition, brain volume, and a wide array of other factors associated with aging and their ability to function in the world.
The study continues to produce reams of data, much of which Kramer and his colleagues have barely begun to analyze.
But a complicated picture has started to emerge, one highlighting multiple factors that interact to affect our ability to function.
In March 2017, Kramer and his colleagues published the first of many planned studies exploring some of the characteristics that seem to be associated with cognitive and functional performance. They compared 17 “resilient agers,” who exhibited fast cognitive processing speeds, to 56 “average agers” and 47 “sub-agers,” whose cognitive processing speeds appeared to be slowing down.
Just as Epel and Villeda predicted, the resilient agers had lower levels of proinflammatory cytokines than the sub-agers. Anatomical differences may have also played a role in the differences among the cohorts. For example, the starting size of the brain’s corpus callosum, a thick band of nerve fibers connecting the two sides of the brain, was larger in resilient agers than in sub-agers.
The lower levels of inflammation might be attributable in part to lifestyle choices, especially since this group self-reported higher levels of exercise.
In a study currently under review for publication, Kramer and his team found that the brains of those who ate a healthy Mediterranean-style diet were less likely to contain large amounts of a protein associated with Alzheimer’s. One of his colleagues has found evidence that higher levels of mental activity are correlated with a growth in the connections between brain cells and with better cognitive processing speeds. Others suggest that sleep plays a crucial role in healthy aging.
“There’s definitely a genetic component, which is very big,” notes Kramer. “But these are all little hints that there are things we can do to improve our chances of better brain aging.”
The paradigm shifts emerging from the new science are already beginning to have an impact in the clinic.
Bruce Miller, MD, the Clausen Distinguished Professor of Neurology and director of UCSF’s Memory and Aging Center, is collaborating with Kramer on the healthy aging study. Miller, Kramer, Epel, and Villeda are all members of the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences as well. Miller notes that when he first arrived at UCSF in 1998, the fleld in general was “very nihilistic.” Age-associated decline was seen as inevitable. Since then, however, that assumption has changed.
“I think imaging in particular has advanced in a way to allow us to do these sorts of studies that we never could have done before and say, ‘Wow, we now have these really clear biological markers in elderly populations, so we can now think about whether they’re changing when we intervene.”
The evidence is convincing that cardiovascular health, exercise, and low-fat diets can all make a positive difference, he says.
Kramer notes there’s still more work to be done, however. “We clearly just started doing this,” he says, but then adds that the study is already having an impact on at least one person: himself. “Having contact with so many of our older subjects who have maintained good brain health has really inspired me,” Kramer says. ”Even just the simple fact that they exist is inspiring. It’s an exciting time.”
Four Strategies for Aging Well
1. Embrace Aging
Many of us experience a better balance between positive and negative emotions as we age.
When we’re older, we seek positive situations in our life much more and cut out things we don’t like. We take more control of our environment.
What’s more, the wisdom that often comes with age may be related to structural changes in older brains. Bruce Miller points to recent work showing that brain circuits involved in altruism, wisdom, and thinking about other people are shaped based on the cumulative experiences of our lives. One’s ability to consciously control emotions improves as this circuitry increases.
This is why so many people can think of an older person who has had a profound influence on them. It’s because of the brains of elders. We are more pro-social. We are more likely to give to people in need than younger people. This is not a huge surprise but we’re now able to think of the biology of this. We really need our elders.
2. Quit the Negativity
Negativity and fear associated with aging often overshadow the positive aspects of growing older. Ironically, this fact can have its own damaging consequences.
We hold these tremendously negative stereotypes about aging, and these start from when we’re really young. By the time we’re older, these are actually having a negative effect on our health.
When we believe that aging means we’re going to be suffering and frail and dependent we don’t heal as quickly when we break a hip. We’re more likely to get dementia, regardless of whether we have the gene associated with Alzheimer’s. And we don’t live as long.
The most obvious explanation is that it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: When we harbor the belief that we can’t control our rate of aging, we develop a fatalistic attitude and engage in fewer healthy behaviors.
But there may be something even more insidious at work. Studies show that negative attitudes about aging can actually cause us to become more stress reactive and less stress resistent, triggering biochemical cascades that may actually accelerate aging.
3. Move More
The positive effects of physical activity on cognitive functioning in older adults are well documented. Exercise leads to the production of more brain cells, increases cardiovascular health, and promotes a sense of well-being. It also appears to be highly correlated with cognitive processing speed.
In a 2017 study, Joel Kramer and his team showed that exercise may even exert a protective effect against cognitive decline in those carrying genes that place them at a greater risk for Alzheimer’s.
Meanwhile, in a 2018 study, a team led by Eli Puterman examined a cohort of 68 elderly individuals who were caring for family members with dementia. These caregivers were under high stress, had high levels of depressive symptoms, and had sedentary lifestyles. The study encouraged participants to exercise for 40 minutes, three to five times per week, for six months. At the end of that period, participants had lengthened their telomeres, a biomarker associated with longevity.
4. Meditate
Epel and several collaborators recruited 28 participants enrolled in a California meditation retreat to undergo extensive testing. The researchers monitored markers associated with biological age (including telomere length, gene expression, and more) and also tracked participants’ anxiety, depression, and personality traits over the course of the intensive, one-month meditation retreat.
The participants meditated for extended periods under the guidance of experienced practitioners, refrained from speaking, and were encouraged to treat all daily activities as “opportunities to attend to their ongoing mental experience with open and reflexive awareness.”
At the end of the retreat, the participants’ telomere length had increased significantly, and participants with the highest initial levels of anxiety and depression showed the most dramatic changes over the course of the study.
Epel’s team, with a $1.2 million gift from the John W. Brick Foundation for Mental Health, will study how natural treatments including mindfulness meditation, high-intensity interval training exercise, and different breathing techniques impact mood, health, and biological aging. At the time of publication, they are seeking women participants who could benefit from these interventions. More information and enrollment requirements are at StressResilience.net
AgeingAlzheimerscognitiveabilityMentalHealtholdagePsychologysuper-agers
Depression, Evolutionary Psychology, Mental Health, Natural World, Psychology
DEPRESSION, IT’S OUR HABITAT! Biophilia – Edward O. Wilson.
“I imagined that this place and all its treasures were mine alone and might be so forever in memory, if the bulldozer came.”
To explore and affiliate with life is a deep and complicated process in our mental development. Our existence depends on this propensity, our spirit is woven from it, hope rises on its currents.
To the degree that we come to understand other organisms, we will place a greater value on them, and on ourselves.
Everywhere I have gone, South America, Australia, New Guinea, Asia, I have thought that jungles and grasslands are the logical destinations, and towns and farmland the labyrinths that people have imposed between them sometime in the past. I cherish the green enclaves accidentally left behind.
What if humans, like animals in a zoo, become depressed when we are deprived of access to the kind of landscape we evolved in?
It’s been known for a long time that all sorts of mental health problems, including ones as severe as psychosis and schizophrenia, are considerably worse in cities than in the countryside.
Studies have clearly shown that people who move to green areas experience a big reduction in depression, and people who move away from green areas see a big increase in depression.
One of the most striking studies is perhaps the most simple. They got people who lived in cities to take a walk in nature, and then tested their mood and concentration. Everyone, predictably, felt better and was able to concentrate more, but the effect was dramatically bigger for people who had been depressed. Their improvement was five times greater than the improvement for other people.
Why would this be? What was going on?
We have been animals that move for a lot longer than we have been animals that talk and convey concepts, but we still think that depression can be cured by this conceptual layer. I think the first answer is more simple. Let’s fix the physiology first. Get out. Move!
The scientific evidence is clear that exercise significantly reduces depression and anxiety, because it returns us to our more natural state, one where we are embodied, we are animal, we are moving, our endorphins are rushing. Kids or adults who are not moving, and are not in nature for a certain amount of time, cannot be considered fully healthy animals.
When scientists have compared people who run on treadmills in the gym with people who run in nature, they found that both see a reduction in depression, but it’s higher for the people who run in nature. So what are the other factors?
Biologist Edward O. Wilson, one of the most important people in his field in the twentieth century, argued that all humans have a natural sense of something called Biophilia, an innate love for the landscapes in which humans have lived for most of our existence, and for the natural web of life that surrounds us and makes our existence possible. Almost all animals get distressed if they are deprived of the kinds of landscape that they evolved to live in. A frog can live on land, it’ll just be miserable as hell and give up.
Why would humans be the one exception to this rule? Looking around us: it’s our habitat that’s making us depressed.
This is a hard concept to test scientifically, but there has been one attempt to do it. The social scientists Gordon Orians and Judith Heerwagen worked with teams all over the world, in radically different cultures, and showed them a range of pictures of very different landscapes, from the desert to the city to the savanna. What they found is that everywhere, no matter how different their culture, people had a preference for landscapes that look like the savannas of Africa. There’s something about it, they conclude, that seems to be innate.
Lost Connections. Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression and the Unexpected Solutions – Johann Hari
by Edward O. Wilson
ON MARCH 12, 1961, I stood in the Arawak village of Bernhardsdorp and looked south across the white-sand coastal forest of Surinam. For reasons that were to take me twenty years to understand, that moment was fixed with uncommon urgency in my memory. The emotions I felt were to grow more poignant at each remembrance, and in the end they changed into rational conjectures about matters that had only a distant bearing on the original event.
The object of the reflection can be summarized by a single word, biophilia, which I will be so bold as to define as the innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes. Let me explain it very briefly here and then develop the larger theme as I go along.
From infancy we concentrate happily on ourselves and other organisms. We learn to distinguish life from the inanimate and move toward it like moths to a porch light. Novelty and diversity are particularly esteemed; the mere mention of the word extraterrestrial evokes reveries about still unexplored life, displacing the old and once potent exotic that drew earlier generations to remote islands and jungled interiors. That much is immediately clear, but a great deal more needs to be added. I will make the case that to explore and affiliate with life is a deep and complicated process in mental development. To an extent still undervalued in philosophy and religion, our existence depends on this propensity, our spirit is woven from it, hope rises on its currents.
There is more. Modern biology has produced a genuinely new way of looking at the world that is incidentally congenial to the inner direction of biophilia. In other words, instinct is in this rare instance aligned with reason. The conclusion I draw is optimistic: to the degree that we come to understand other organisms, we will place a greater value on them, and on ourselves.
Bernhardsdorp
AT BERNHARDSDORP on an otherwise ordinary tropical morning, the sunlight bore down harshly, the air was still and humid, and life appeared withdrawn and waiting. A single thunder-head lay on the horizon, its immense anvil shape diminished by distance, an intimation of the rainy season still two or three weeks away. A footpath tunneled through the trees and lianas, pointing toward the Saramacca River and far beyond, to the Orinoco and Amazon basins. The woodland around the village struggled up from the crystalline sands of the Zanderij formation. It was a miniature archipelago of glades and creekside forest enclosed by savannagrassland with scattered trees and high bushes. To the south it expanded to become a continuous lacework fragmenting the savanna and transforming it in turn into an archipelago. Then, as if conjured upward by some unseen force, the woodland rose by stages into the triple-canopied rain forest, the principal habitat of South America’s awesome ecological heartland.
In the village a woman walked slowly around an iron cooking pot, stirring the fire beneath with a soot-blackened machete. Plump and barefoot, about thirty years old, she wore two long pigtails and a new cotton dress in a rose floral print. From politeness, or perhaps just shyness, she gave no outward sign of recognition. I was an apparition, out of place and irrelevant, about to pass on down the footpath and out of her circle of required attention. At her feet a small child traced meanders in the dirt with a stick. The village around them was a cluster of no more than ten one-room dwellings. The walls were made of palm leaves woven into a herringbone pattern in which dark bolts zigzagged upward and to the onlooker’s right across flesh-colored squares. The design was the sole indigenous artifact on display. Bernhardsdorp was too close to Paramaribo, Surinam’s capital, with its flood of cheap manufactured products to keep the look of a real Arawak village. In culture as in name, it had yielded to the colonial Dutch.
A tame peccary watched me with beady concentration from beneath the shadowed eaves of a house. With my own, taxonomist’s eye I registered the defining traits of the collared species, Dicotytes tajacu: head too large for the piglike body, fur coarse and brindled, neck circled by a pale thin stripe, snout tapered, ears erect, tail reduced to a nub. Poised on stiff little dancer’s legs, the young male seemed perpetually fierce and ready to charge yet frozen in place, like the metal boar on an ancient Gallic standard.
A note: Pigs, and presumably their close relatives the peccaries, are among the most intelligent of animals. Some biologists believe them to be brighter than dogs, roughly the rivals of elephants and porpoises. They form herds of ten to twenty members, restlessly patrolling territories of about a square mile. In certain ways they behave more like wolves and dogs than social ungulates. They recognize one another as individuals, sleep with their fur touching, and bark back and forth when on the move. The adults are organized into dominance orders in which the females are ascendant over males, the reverse of the usual mammalian arrangement. They attack in groups if cornered, their scapular fur bristling outward like porcupine quills, and can slash to the bone with sharp canine teeth. Yet individuals are easily tamed if captured as infants and their repertory stunted by the impoverishing constraints of human care.
So I felt uneasy, perhaps the word is embarrassed, in the presence of a captive individual. This young adult was a perfect anatomical specimen with only the rudiments of social behavior. But he was much more: a powerful presence, programed at birth to respond through learning steps in exactly the collared-peccary way and no other to the immemorial environment from which he had been stolen, now a mute speaker trapped inside the unnatural clearing, like a messenger to me from an unexplored world.
I stayed in the village only a few minutes. I had come to study ants and other social insects living in Surinam. No trivial task: over a hundred species of ants and termites are found within a square mile of average South American tropical forest. When all the animals in a randomly selected patch of woodland are collected together and weighed, from tapirs and parrots down to the smallest insects and roundworms, one third of the weight is found to consist of ants and termites. If you close your eyes and lay your hand on a tree trunk almost anywhere in the tropics until you feel something touch it, more times than not the crawler will be an ant. Kick open a rotting log and termites pour out. Drop a crumb of bread on the ground and within minutes ants of one kind or another drag it down a nest hole. Foraging ants are the chief predators of insects and other small animals in the tropical forest, and termites are the key animal decomposers of wood. Between them they form the conduit for a large part of the energy flowing through the forest. Sunlight to leaf to caterpillar to ant to anteater to jaguar to maggot to humus to termite to dissipated heat: such are the links that compose the great energy network around Surinam’s villages.
I carried the standard equipment of a field biologist: camera; canvas satchel containing forceps, trowel, ax, mosquito repellent, jars, vials of alcohol, and notebook; a twenty-power hand lens swinging with a reassuring tug around the neck; partly fogged eyeglasses sliding down the nose and khaki shirt plastered to the back with sweat. My attention was on the forest; it has been there all my life. I can work up some appreciation for the travel stories of Paul Theroux and other urbanophile authors who treat human settlements as virtually the whole world and the intervening natural habitats as troublesome barriers. But everywhere I have gone, South America, Australia, New Guinea, Asia-I have thought exactly the opposite. Jungles and grasslands are the logical destinations, and towns and farmland the labyrinths that people have imposed between them sometime in the past. I cherish the green enclaves accidentally left behind.
Once on a tour of Old Jerusalem, standing near the elevated site of Solomon’s Throne, I looked down across the Jericho Road to the dark olive trees of Gethsemane and wondered which native Palestinian plants and animals might still be found in the shade underneath. Thinking of “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways,” I knelt on the cobblestones to watch harvester ants carry seeds down holes to their subterranean granaries, the same food-gathering activity that had impressed the Old Testament writer, and possibly the same species at the very same place. As I walked with my host back past the Temple Mount toward the Muslim Quarter, I made inner calculations of the number of ant species found within the city walls. There was a perfect logic to such eccentricity: the million-year history of Jerusalem is at least as compelling as its past three thousand years.
AT BERNHARDSDORP I imagined richness and order as an intensity of light. The woman, child, and peccary turned into incandescent points. Around them the village became a black disk, relatively devoid of life, its artifacts adding next to nothing. The woodland beyond was a luminous bank, sparked here and there by the moving lights of birds, mammals, and larger insects.
I walked into the forest, struck as always by the coolness of the shade beneath tropical vegetation, and continued until I came to a small glade that opened onto the sandy path. I narrowed the world down to the span of a few meters. Again I tried to compose the mental set, call it the naturalist’s trance, the hunter’s trance, by which biologists locate more elusive organisms. I imagined that this place and all its treasures were mine alone and might be so forever in memory, if the bulldozer came.
In a twist my mind came free and I was aware of the hard workings of the natural world beyond the periphery of ordinary attention, where passions lose their meaning and history is in another dimension, without people, and great events pass without record or judgment. I was a transient of no consequence in this familiar yet deeply alien world that I had come to love. The uncounted products of evolution were gathered there for purposes having nothing to do with me; their long Cenozoic history was enciphered into a genetic code I could not understand. The effect was strangely calming. Breathing and heartbeat diminished, concentration intensified. It seemed to me that something extraordinary in the forest was very close to where I stood, moving to the surface and discovery.
I focused on a few centimeters of ground and vegetation. I willed animals to materialize, and they came erratically into view. Metallic-blue mosquitoes floated down from the canopy in search of a bare patch of skin, cockroaches with variegated wings perched butterfly-like on sunlit leaves, black carpenter ants sheathed in recumbent golden hairs filed in haste through moss on a rotting log. I turned my head slightly and all of them vanished. Together they composed only an infinitesimal fraction of the life actually present. The woods were a biological maelstrom of which only the surface could be scanned by the naked eye. Within my circle of vision, millions of unseen organisms died each second. Their destruction was swift and silent; no bodies thrashed about, no blood leaked into the ground. The microscopic bodies were broken apart in clean biochemical chops by predators and scavengers, then assimilated to create millions of new organisms, each second.
Ecologists speak of “chaotic regimes” that rise from orderly processes and give rise to others in turn during the passage of life from lower to higher levels of organization. The forest was a tangled bank tumbling down to the grassland’s border. Inside it was a living sea through which I moved like a diver groping across a littered floor. But I knew that all around me bits and pieces, the individual organisms and their populations, were working with extreme precision. A few of the species were locked together in forms of symbiosis so intricate that to pull out one would bring others spiraling to extinction. Such is the consequence of adaptation by coevolution, the reciprocal genetic change of species that interact with each other through many life cycles.
Eliminate just one kind of tree out of hundreds in such a forest, and some of its pollinators, leafeaters, and woodborers will disappear with it, then various of their parasites and key predators, and perhaps a species of bat or bird that depends on its fruit, and when will the reverberations end? Perhaps not until a large part of the diversity of the forest collapses like an arch crumbling as the keystone is pulled away. More likely the effects will remain local, ending with a minor shift in the overall pattern of abundance among the numerous surviving species. In either case the effects are beyond the power of present-day ecologists to predict. It is enough to work on the assumption that all of the details matter in the end, in some unknown but vital way.
After the sun’s energy is captured by the green plants, it flows through chains of organisms dendritically, like blood spreading from the arteries into networks of microscopic capillaries. It is in such capillaries, in the life cycles of thousands of individual species, that life’s important work is done. Thus nothing in the whole system makes sense until the natural history of the constituent species becomes known. The study of every kind of organism matters, everywhere in the world. That conviction leads the field biologist to places like Surinam and the outer limits of evolution, of which this case is exemplary:
The three-toed sloth feeds on leaves high in the canopy of the lowland forests through large portions of South and Central America. Within its fur live tiny moths, the species Cryptoses choloepi, found nowhere else on Earth. When a sloth descends to the forest floor to defecate (once a week), female moths leave the fur briefly to deposit their eggs on the fresh dung. The emerging caterpillars build nests of silk and start to feed. Three weeks later they complete their development by turning into adult moths, and then fly up into the canopy in search of sloths. By living directly on the bodies of the sloths, the adult Cryptoses assure their offspring first crack at the nutrient-rich excrement and a competitive advantage over the myriad of other coprophages.
At Bernhardsdorp the sun passed behind a small cloud and the woodland darkened. For a moment all that marvelous environment was leveled and subdued. The sun came out again and shattered the vegetative surfaces into light-based niches. They included intensely lighted leaf tops and the tops of miniature canyons cutting vertically through tree bark to create shadowed depths two or three centimeters below. The light filtered down from above as it does in the sea, giving out permanently in the lowermost recesses of buttressed tree trunks and penetralia of the soil and rotting leaves. As the light’s intensity rose and fell with the transit of the sun, Silverfish, beetles, spiders, bark lice, and other creatures were summoned from their sanctuaries and retreated back in alternation. They responded according to receptor thresholds built into their eyes and brains, filtering devices that differ from one kind of animal to another. By such inborn controls the species imposed a kind of prudent self-discipline. They unconsciously halted their population growth before squeezing out competitors, and others did the same. No altruism was needed to achieve this balance, only specialization. Coexistence was an incidental by-product of the Darwinian advantage that accrued from the avoidance of competition. During the long span of evolution the species divided the environment among themselves, so that now each tenuously preempted certain of the capillaries of energy flow. Through repeated genetic changes they sidestepped competitors and built elaborate defenses against the host of predator species that relentlessly tracked them through matching genetic countermoves. The result was a splendid array of specialists, including moths that live in the fur of three-toed sloths.
Now to the very heart of wonder.
Because species diversity was created prior to humanity, and because we evolved within it, we have never fathomed its limits. As a consequence, the living world is the natural domain of the most restless and paradoxical part of the human spirit. Our sense of wonder grows exponentially: the greater the knowledge, the deeper the mystery and the more we seek knowledge to create new mystery. This catalytic reaction, seemingly an inborn human trait, draws us perpetually forward in a search for new places and new life. Nature is to be mastered, but (we hope) never completely. A quiet passion burns, not for total control but for the sensation of constant advance.
At Bernhardsdorp I tried to convert this notion into a form that would satisfy a private need. My mind maneuvered through an unending world suited to the naturalist. I looked in reverie down the path through the savanna woodland and imagined walking to the Saramacca River and beyond, over the horizon, into a timeless reconnaissance through virgin forests to the land of magical names, Yékwana, Jivaro, Sirioné, Tapirapé, Siona-Secoya, Yumana, back and forth, never to run out of fresh jungle paths and glades.
The same archetypal image has been shared in variations by others, and most vividly during the colonization of the New World. It comes through clearly as the receding valleys and frontier trails of nineteenth-century landscape art in the paintings of Albert Bierstadt, Frederick Edwin Church, Thomas Cole, and their contemporaries during the crossing of the American West and the innermost reaches of South America.
In Bierstadt’s Sunset in Yosemite Valley (1868), you look down a slope that eases onto the level valley floor, where a river flows quietly away through waist-high grass, thickets, and scattered trees. The sun is near the horizon. Its dying light, washing the surface in reddish gold, has begun to yield to blackish green shadows along the near side of the valley. A cloud bank has lowered to just beneath the tops of the sheer rock walls. More protective than threatening, it has transformed the valley into a tunnel opening out through the far end into a sweep of land.
Biophilia. The human bond with other species
biophiliaDepressionEdwardOWilsonevolutionevolutionarybiologyhumanevolutionMentalHealthnaturalworldnaturePsychology
BEING THE BLACK SHEEP. Coping with a Marginalizing Family – Vinita Mehta Ph.D., Ed.M. * The communicative process of resilience for marginalized family members – Elizabeth Dorrance Hall.
“Basically I don’t have a family now. I only see them once a year and that’s mostly so they don’t bother me for the rest of the year. I don’t talk to them . . . My mother wants more of a relationship but I don’t.”
Rejection engenders profound consequences.
Many families are a wellspring of belongingness. But this isn’t the case for the Black Sheep, who are all too often cast away or disapproved of by their family members. Family members who perceive they are marginalized experience chronic stress associated with their position in the family.
New research investigates how marginalized family members remain resilient.
The holidays are a tough time of the year for many, potentially triggering both old and new family dramas. But when you’re the Black Sheep, it can be particularly difficult to engage with family members. For those who must contend with this station in life, feeling left out and put down can intensify during this time.
How does the Black Sheep of the family cope with their predicament? This was the focus of a study conducted by Elizabeth Dorrance Hall of Utah State University.
Human beings are wired to connect and bond and to belong. This means having positive experiences with others, with whom we feel are caring and close, over time. When the fundamental need to belong is not filled it can lead to a range of conditions, including depression, anxiety, loneliness and jealousy. For many, families are a wellspring of belongingness. But this isn’t the case for the Black Sheep, who are all too often cast away or disapproved of by their family members.
Hall describes being the Black Sheep of the family as a form of marginalization. People who are “on the margins,” live on the edge of a group or society. They suffer from rejection, and have virtually no voice or influence on the group. Branded as deviant, they feel a strong need to make both a psychological and physical break from the group. This is difficult enough to contend with in the larger society, but when a person is deemed an outcast by one’s own family, Hall writes, it can lead to a disintegration of identity. What’s more, rejection engenders profound consequences, ranging from aggressiveness, diminished intellectual functioning, detachment, and emotional numbness.
Marginalized family members have a unique set of circumstances with which to cope, Hall writes. Though the process of marginalization happens over time, there are often “turning point” events, like coming out, that mark faltering shifts in members. Black Sheep may also be experiencing a form of ambiguous loss, involving a physical presence but psychological absence at family events. Moreover, marginalized family members have low status in their families, which need for coping strategies. Taken together, and unsurprisingly, being the Black Sheep is a deeply painful experience.
In order to better understand how the Black Sheep of families remain resilient in spite of it all, here’s what Hall did. She recruited 30 marginalized family members who identified themselves as different, excluded, not accepted, or not as well liked as other members in their family. Participants were limited to those between the ages of 25 to 35 years so that their experiences with their families were recent and relevant. They also had to report having “chronic feelings of marginalization,” in which they felt “different, not included, or not approved of. . . by multiple family members.” Participants were then interviewed, and their narratives were coded and examined.
What did Hall find? Participants’ interviews yielded five coping strategies:
1. Seeking support from “communication networks”.
Black Sheep found social support from others via two major routes. First, they elected to invest in relationships with family members that they felt were genuine, loving, and inclusive. For some participants, siblings were the antagonizing source of their distress, but many found that siblings as well as extended family members provided much needed support especially when her brother was “very accepting, very open, very encouraging” when she came out, which was not the case of her other family members. This acceptance helped her feel less marginalized and comfortable with herself.
Participants also turned to “adopted or fictive kin,” that is, people in their social networks who were not family members. One participant felt she had formed a new family: “I have an adopted family now and I have since I was 25. I have holidays with them and we sort of share the things that families are supposed to do.”
2. Creating and negotiating boundaries.
Boundaries proved to be a protective measure for participants. Reducing exposure to their families gave them the opportunity for a fresh start or to move forward. This broke down in two ways. One was to create physical distance from their families. One participant said of his move to New York City, “I want to really live like I don’t have to work to get somebody’s acceptance.”
A second way participants created and negotiated boundaries was to limit family members’ access to personal information. A participant remarked, “I don’t really call my family and talk very often. When I do I keep things very surface level, how’s school, oh school’s great. How’s everything going at home, oh it’s good.” Again, this was a strategy in the service of self-protectiveness.
3. (Re)building while recognizing negative experiences.
Participants described “reframing” their personal circumstances by focusing on (re)building their lives, such as seeking higher education or independence. At the same time, they recognized that being the Black Sheep was profoundly painful.
Some participants were able to reframe their marginalization and find positive meaning in their experience as the Black Sheep. They spoke of how being the Black Sheep ultimately made them stronger and proud of being different. One participant reflected, “What motivated me really was that I was gay. And that I knew that if I came out, like, I might have ended up in the streets . . . the best choice for me was to get an education.”
4. Downplaying the lived experience of marginalization.
Participants downplayed the impact that marginalization had on them, while trying to understand their experience as the Black Sheep at the same time. By doing so, they were attempting to change the meaning of their marginalization through their “talk”. This resilience strategy is distinct from (re)building while recognizing negative experiences in that they essentially minimized their pain as opposed to confronting it.
By diminishing the influence of their family relationships, participants could change the meaning of their marginalized experience. One participant remarked, “Basically I don’t have a family now. I only see them once a year and that’s mostly so they don’t bother me for the rest of the year. I don’t talk to them . . . My mother wants more of a relationship but I don’t.”
5. Living authentically despite disapproval.
Participants also spoke about living authentic lives, and being true to themselves in the face of disapproval from their families. Hall observed an undertow of anger in participant’s responses, and how this anger was then redirected towards achieving productive goals in which they defended themselves against their Black Sheep status. Participants also coped with their marginalization by being proud of their stigma.
Relatedly, participants were well aware that expressing their beliefs, sexual identity, or religion threatened family relations, but it was worth the price to live an authentic life. As one participant stated, “I know exactly what I would need to do to be completely accepted by my family . . . if I wanted that, I could do that but I realize that that would never be enough?
The communicative process of resilience for marginalized family members
Elizabeth Dorrance Hall, Utah State University, USA
This study aims to understand how people living at the edge of their familial group as marginalized members (i.e., “black sheep”) enact resilience. Inductive analysis of inter views with 30 marginalized family members uncovered five resilience strategies marginalized family members engage in to come to terms with their position in the family, repair family relationships. and/or create a new sense of normalcy.
Five resilience strategies
(a) seeking support from communication networks,
(b) creating and negotiating boundaries.
(c) (re)building while recognizing negative experiences.
(d) downplaying the lived experience of marginalization. and
(e) living authentically despite disapproval.
This research extends the resilience framework by exploring situated resilience strategies engaged in by marginalized family members. Practical implications for marginalized family members, their families. and family counselors are discussed along with avenues for future research examining the marginalization of diverse employees.
Keywords: Black sheep, coping, family communication, marginalization, resilience, social support
Humans experience an innate need to belong that requires frequent positive interactions with close others who care about them in ongoing relationships. Psychological and physical consequences occur when the need for belonging is not met (e.g., depression, anxiety, loneliness, jealousy, and guilt), rather than the positive affect that comes from forming and maintaining close relationships. For many, families offer a key sense of belonging. Excluded family members are often referred to as “black sheep”.
Black sheep, or marginalized family members, feel fundamentally different from other members and are often excluded or disapproved of by several members of their family. They belong, yet not in the same way as the others in the family. Communication is the vehicle with which marginalization of people is enacted, perpetuated, and received. This study utilizes a communicative lens to understand how marginalized family members remain resilient in the face of rejection and disapproval from a group considered by many people the core of their support network.
Resilience provides a theoretical framework for understanding strategies that marginalized family members use to cope with chronic or acute stress and come to terms with their position in the family, repair family relationships, or create a new sense of normal (e.g., a “family” comprised of in-law relationships, colleagues, or friends).
Resilience has been conceptualized as the human ability to withstand and bounce back from tragedies, disasters, or other difficult life experiences From a communicative standpoint, resilience is the interactive “process of meaning making through everyday messages and stories that enable reintegration from life’s disruptions”.
Family is an intriguing context in which to study resilience since family members’ lives are inextricably linked. As described by Lucas and Buzzanell (2012), “family members develop shared constructions of reality whereby they craft coherent narratives about the meanings of adversity”. Family members who perceive they are marginalized experience chronic stress associated with their position in the family requiring them to enact resilience, yet traditional family coping strategies may not be available to them for this very reason. This study extends resilience and marginalization scholarship by exploring how marginalized family members engage in the process of resilience and identifying new resilience strategies specific to this context.
Marginalization from social groups
Little is known about family member marginalization, yet organizational scholars and psychologists have been studying marginalization in social groups for decades. According to Hogg (2005), members on the margins (i.e., on the in-/out-group boundary) feel affectively rejected and are more disliked than members of either the in or out group. These members have little to no influence over the group and tend to be viewed as deviant. Marginal members feel uncertain about their group membership which often causes a desire to leave the group “physically and psychologically”.
Organizational scholars have identified a “black sheep effect” in which likeable in-group members are regarded more positively than similar out-group members and disliked in-group members are regarded more negatively than similar out-group members. In other words, it is socially worse to be part of the in-group and be disliked than to be in the out-group. Although the black sheep effect has not been examined in the context of families, the distinction may be especially salient in families as the in-group is not typically chosen by its members (i.e., a person is born/adopted into the in-group) and rejection from the in-group could indicate a loss of identity.
Social psychologists have also explored the negative effects of marginalization from groups. Social exclusion and rejection incur bleak consequences for both behavior and health. For example, rejected people display aggressiveness, reduced intellectual functioning, emotional numbness, and detachment. Family member marginalization provides an example of repeated rejection and/or social exclusion.
Fitness (2005) provides one of the only studies that has explored family member marginalization. Fitness surveyed 70 Australian university students and found that the marginalization of family members is common (i.e., 80% of participants reported at least one black sheep in their family). Her study identified sources of feeling marginalized such as differences in interests, not fitting in with family, engaging in crime, or marrying an undesirable partner. The process of marginalization, including how marginalized members cope with their status has yet to be explored.
Organizational and social psychology research paints a picture of the emotional pain and difficulties likely encountered by marginalized family members. As such, marginalized family members would benefit from engaging in resilience in the face of stressors small and large. The marginalization of family members tends to be a process which unfolds over time, indicating that there may be events that marginalized family members can pinpoint as especially stressful, or “turning points” in their marginalization (e.g., coming out as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ)).
Members who perceive they are marginalized also need to be resilient to a chronically stressful life position; their ongoing status as the black sheep. For example, some may be experiencing ambiguous loss associated with their place in the family. A family member may feel ambiguous about their role if they are a son or daughter, sister or brother, yet treated differently than the others. Marginalized members may be physically present but psychologically absent at family events. These contradictions and chronic uncertainties can cause distress. Marginalized members likely need more support than other family members, yet their position as the marginalized member makes seeking support and coping with others in “traditional” ways more difficult.
Evidence from related frameworks: Social support, coping, and stigma management
Family members experiencing the emotional pain related to marginalization likely engage in multiple communicative processes to enact resilience including seeking social support, engaging in active coping, and utilizing stigma management strategies. Research on each of these frameworks builds a foundation for understanding how family members who perceive they are marginalized engage in resilience.
Social support is an integral way individuals cope with life stressors and maintain happy, healthy lives, yet marginalized family members are not always able to turn to family to gain the support they need. Social support, defined as “verbal and nonverbal behavior produced with the intention of providing assistance to others perceived as needing that aid,” can decrease emotional distress and enhance coping. Marginalized family members likely seek social support from family or friends to feel connected with others and cope with their feelings of marginalization.
Active coping
Previous literature has identified three types of general coping, one of which includes seeking social support. Active behavioral coping strategies encompass attempts at coping that directly deal with the problem at hand (e.g., seeking social support, confronting a situation, discussing the problem with others, or seeking information). Active cognitive coping strategies include attempts to reframe the situation or accept things as they are (i.e., primarily cognitive work). Avoidance strategies include attempts to hide information or avoid confrontation of the problem. According to Maguire (2012), this three-part approach to understanding coping is problematic because “it is often difficult to determine whether a particular behavior is approach or avoidance oriented. . . and leaves out other forms of coping”.
Stigma management
A third communicative process marginalized people may engage in is stigma management. Stigma parallels marginalization in many ways, for instance, stigmatization is a process that casts certain people as out-group members serving to build group solidarity. Stigmas can be physical, social, or moral, and marginalized family members may have stigmatized identities in any of these areas. Fitness (2005) found that black sheep family members were marginalized for looking different, having different interests or talents, or troublemaking (e.g., crime, drugs).
Stigma, like marginalization, is a chronic stressor that endures over time and requires management. Meisenbach’s discursive stigma management typology connects stigma communication to resilience and identifies how individuals manage stigmatized identities in interactions. The typology organizes six categories of stigma management based on whether the individual accepts or denies the existence and applicability of their stigmatized identity: accepting, avoiding, evading responsibility, reducing offensiveness, denying, and ignoring/displaying.
Resilience incorporates elements of social support, coping, and stigma management, yet is distinct.
Resilience can be viewed in two ways:
(1) as a set of adaptive behaviors fostered in individuals (e.g., a positive psychology view of resilience).
(2) as a process accounting for context specific factors at individual, group, and societal levels.
Research and theorizing about resilience from each point of view are reviewed below.
Resilience as individually focused
Interdisciplinary scholars have amassed a great deal of research on resilience as a desirable outcome or personality trait and have found that resilience is quite common among people. This study assumes that despite sometimes extreme stress experienced by people who are disapproved of or excluded by family, most people who are marginalized find ways to cope with their family situation.
Resilience scholars have identified social relationships with others as an important protective factor and a part of individual resilience. Luthar (2006) wrote that “resilience rests, fundamentally, on relationships”, yet research has not fully explored how relationships with others are part of resilience. Ong et al. (2009) found support for the idea that people who are more socially connected are more resilient in a study concerning life challenges with cardiovascular functioning. This study aims to understand resilience “pathways” marked by communication with others by refocusing the microscope to examine how people enact resilience.
Resilience as a communicative process
Buzzanell (2010) describes resilience as a set of family-level processes “fundamentally grounded in messages, discourse, and narrative,” rather than the individual. Labeling resilience as a process as opposed to a skill or behavior implies a dynamic and ever-evolving nature. This investigation further explores resilience as a communicative process, people engage in with others to actively cope with serious life stressors.
Buzzanell (2010) forwarded five communicative processes through which resilience is achieved:
crafting normalcy,
affirming identity anchors,
utilizing communication networks,
reframing,
downplaying negative feelings while focusing on positive emotions.
These processes could be used by marginalized family members to reframe their situation or relationships. Buzzanell (2010) defined crafted normalcy as “embedded in material realities and generated by talk-in-interaction”. This means that families can “talk normalcy into being”. For example, marginalized family members might express preference for celebrating holidays with friends instead of their family of origin.
Affirming identity anchors (i.e., identity discourses people rely on to define who they are in relation to others) included significant identity work (e.g., maintaining face) on the part of the entire family. Marginalized members and their families might affirm existing valued identities such as “son” or “sister” in the face of changing social identities such as sexual orientation.
Maintaining and using communication networks focused on “building and utilizing social capital” and might include marginalized family members relying on network members outside of their family for roles family usually fill.
Reframing or creating alternative logics (e.g., organizing logics that may be contradictory or nonsensical) with others provide a different way of looking at and understanding the process of marginalization for those who are marginalized. Buzzanell’s (2010) last process allows people facing difficulty in life to validate negative feelings while refocusing on the positive. Marginalized family members may recognize the hurt they have experienced so that they can focus on improving their family situation or surround themselves with nonfamily of origin people who care about them (i.e., voluntary or fictive kin).
Because major stressors in families are complex and unfold over time, Walsh (2003) argued different coping strategies may be more effective at different stages of the process and in different contexts. Buzzanell (2010) offered her five processes as examples of how people engage in resilience inviting scholars to uncover other context specific processes. This study draws from Buzzanell’s work yet is distinct as it focuses specifically on the resilience enacted by family members struggling with marginalization rather than a variety of issues families and organizations face (e.g., job loss and hurricanes). To explore what resilience processes look like in the family member marginalization context, the following research question is proposed:
Research Question: What, if any, resilience strategies do family members who perceive they are marginalized engage in to actively cope with their marginalization?
Download the complete study (pdf) here;
The communicative process of resilience for marginalized family members – Elizabeth Dorrance Hall
blacksheepcopingfamilycommunicationmarginalizationMentalHealthPsychologyresiliencesocialsupport
FROM SELF TO SELFIE. Is it time for Selfie-Psychology? – Elena Bezzubova.
For homo digital, whose life is developing on social platforms, defined by virtual likes and measured by numbers of virtual friends, visits and comments, Selfie replaces Self.
We used to be Selves. This was in the age of BC: Before CellPhone. Now, in the age of AC, After CellPhone, we are becoming Selfies. One might say that Selfie is just a contemporary form of a photograph of oneself, just with more sophisticated tricks to appear better and impress more. But for homo digital, whose life is developing on social platforms, defined by virtual likes and measured by numbers of virtual friends, visits and comments, Selfie replaces Self. The interplay between Self and Selfie can be confusing and dramatic as in the story of one nice girl, whose nick was Selfie-Girl.
But first she called her self Ugly Duckling. Delicately introverted, thirsty for recognition, she felt lost and unnoticed among peers. In her diary she composed long lists of things about herself she found embarrassing and wanted to change: from the color of her hair to the tone of her voice. She did not like how she looked and how she was treated by others. She was not happy to be who she was.
Then Facebook emerged. “Building my profile really became my second birth!” She was able to create herself exactly as she wanted. Inspired by the digital thrill of self-design, she played in a “virtual fairytale of my life.” Selfies became building blocks of her new identity. She could choose her look: change the color of her hair and eyes, form of her nose, shape of her legs or style of her dress. She could virtually be in the surroundings she wants: change the furniture in her room or the view from her window. She could virtually attend any party she desired. She could virtually be a friend with so many people. Fascinated by their daughter’s computer skills, her loving parents happily provided her with every new model of cellphone and full access to the most advanced apps and programs. She felt happy. She turned her Self of Ugly Duckling into Selfie of a Happy Girl. Her avatar showed a truly beautiful artfully crafted Selfie Girl.
She felt that “Selfie is my true I” and considered Selfies as an effective way of enchancing self-esteem, deepen self-understanding and improving relationships with others. “My Selfies reveal the best of my personality that can be missed in real life.” “I am anxious with people in the room. It makes me awkward. People do not find me attractive. But my Selfies show me without anxiety, free and beautiful. I always get lots of likes.”
Then Selfie Girl discovered that the relationships between Self and Selfie are more complicated and can be alarmingly confusing. She felt “lost in between Self and Selfie, between reality and virtuality.” “I formatted my embarrassing Self into my nice Selfie. What is my real I, then? Have I shown my true self or I am getting depersonalized?”
This self-searching inquiry was dramatically interrupted by a gravely serious illness. After several, very difficult and very sad months, medicine was able to suggest only palliative care. This young and beautiful girl was facing death. The girl and her family stayed close together, dealing with the tragedy with dignity and honesty. Her death and related practicalities was discussed. She herself asked that her gravestone be in the form of a Cellphone with her favorite Selfie. She felt this was the true her and she wanted to be remembered this way. After her death her wish was honored. (The gravestone master noted that he had already made a number of monuments in the form of a Cellphone with a Selfie.)
The Selfie Girl is a millennial who saw herself as Selfie. She represented the 21st century. The previous 20th is called a century of Self, with creation of a special discipline known as Self-Psychology. The current 21st century has started as a century of Selfie. The very word ‘Selfie’ was inaugurated, made its way to the Oxford Dictionary and gained the title of word of year. Is it time to Selfie-Psychology?
Elena Bezzubova, Ph.D. maintains a private practice as a psychoanalyst in Newport Beach and teaches at the New Center for Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles.
ConsumerisminsecurityPsychologyselfieselfiesvanity
CHILDHOOD TRAUMA AND MENTAL ‘ILLNESS’. Beyond the smoke – Johann Hari.
When the women first came into Dr. Vincent Felitti’s office some of them found it hard to fit through the door. These patients weren’t just a bit overweight: they were eating so much that they were rendering themselves diabetic and destroying their own internal organs. They didn’t seem to be able to stop themselves. They were assigned here, to his clinic, as their last chance.
It was the mid-1980s, and in the California city of San Diego, Vincent had been commissioned by the not-for-profit medical provider Kaiser Permanente to look into the fastest-growing driver of their costs, obesity. Nothing they were trying was working, so he was given a blank sheet of paper. Start from scratch, they said. Total blue-sky thinking. Figure out what we can do to deal with this. And so the patients began to come. But what he was going to learn from them led, in fact, to a major breakthrough in a very different area: how we think about depression and anxiety.
As he tried to scrape away all the assumptions that surround obesity, Vincent learned about a new diet plan based on a maddeningly simple thought. It asked: What if these severely overweight people simply stopped eating, and lived off the fat stores they’d built up in their bodies until they were down to a normal weight? What would happen?
In the news, curiously, there had recently been an experiment in which this was tried, eight thousand miles away, for somewhat strange reasons. For years in Northern Ireland if you were put in jail for being part of the Irish Republican Army’s violent campaign to drive the British out of Northern Ireland, you were classed as a political prisoner. That meant you were treated differently from people who committed (say) bank robberies. You were allowed to wear your own clothes, and you didn’t have to perform the same work as other inmates.
The British government decided to shut down that distinction, and they argued that the prisoners were simply common criminals and shouldn’t get this different treatment anymore. So the prisoners decided to protest by going on a hunger strike. They began, slowly, to waste away.
So the designers of this new diet proposal looked into the medical evidence about these Northern Ireland hunger strikers to find out what killed them. It turns out that the first problem they faced was a lack of potassium and magnesium. Without them, your heart stops beating properly. Okay, the radical dieters thought, what if you give people supplements of potassium and magnesium? Then that doesn’t happen. If you have enough fat on you, you get a few months more to live, until a protein deficiency kills you.
Okay, what if you also give people the supplements that will prevent that? Then, it turns out, you get a year to live, provided there’s enough fat. Then you’ll die from a lack of vitamin C, scurvy, or other deficiencies.
Okay, what if you give people supplements for that, too? Then it looks as though you’ll stay alive, Vincent discovered in the medical literature, and healthy, and you’ll lose three hundred pounds a year. Then you can start eating again, at a healthy level.
All this suggested that in theory, even the most obese person would be down to a normal weight within a manageable time. The patients coming to him had been through everything, every fad diet, every shaming, every prodding and pulling. Nothing had worked. They were ready to try anything. So, under careful monitoring, and with lots of supervision, they began this program. And as the months passed, Vincent noticed something. It worked. The patients were shedding weight. They were not getting sick, in fact, they were returning to health. People who had been rendered disabled by constant eating started to see their bodies transform in front of them.
Their friends and relatives applauded. People who knew them were amazed. Vincent believed he might have found the solution to extreme overweight. “I thought my god, we’ve got this problem licked,” he said.
And then something happened that Vincent never expected.
In the program, there were some stars, people who shed remarkable amounts of weight, remarkably quickly. The medical team, and all their friends, expected these people who had been restored to health to react with joy. Except they didn’t react that way.
The people who did best, and lost the most weight were often thrown into a brutal depression, or panic, or rage. Some of them became suicidal. Without their bulk, they felt they couldn’t cope. They felt unbelievably vulnerable. They often fled the program, gorged on fast food, and put their weight back on very fast.
Vincent was baffled. They were fleeing from a healthy body they now knew they could achieve, toward an unhealthy body they knew would kill them. Why? He didn’t want to be an arrogant, moralistic doctor, standing over his patients, wagging his finger and telling them they were ruining their lives, that’s not his character. He genuinely wanted to help them save themselves. So he felt desperate. That’s why he did something no scientist in this field had done with really obese people before. He stopped telling them what to do, and started listening to them instead. He called in the people who had panicked when they started to shed the pounds, and asked them: What happened when you lost weight? How did you feel?
There was one twenty-eight-year-old woman, who I’ll call Susan to protect her medical confidentiality. In fifty-one weeks, Vincent had taken Susan down from 408 pounds to 132 pounds. It looked like he had saved her life. Then, quite suddenly, for no reason anyone could see, she put on 37 pounds in the space of three weeks. Before long, she was back above 400 pounds. So Vincent asked her gently what had changed when she started to lose weight. It seemed mysterious to both of them. They talked for a long time. There was, she said eventually, one thing. When she was very obese, men never hit on her, but when she got down to a healthy weight, one day she was propositioned by a man, a colleague who she happened to know was married. She fled, and right away began to eat compulsively, and she couldn’t stop.
This was when Vincent thought to ask a question he hadn’t asked his patients before. When did you start to put on weight? If it was (say) when you were thirteen, or when you went to college, why then, and not a year before, or a year after?
Susan thought about the question. She had started to put on weight when she was eleven years old, she said. So he asked: Was there anything else that happened in your life when you were eleven? Well, Susan replied that was when my grandfather began to rape me.
Vincent began to ask all his patients these three simple questions. How did you feel when you lost weight? When in your life did you start to put on weight? What else happened around that time? As he spoke to the 183 people on the program, he started to notice some patterns. One woman started to rapidly put on weight when she was twenty-three. What happened then? She was raped. She looked at the ground after she confessed this, and said softly: “Overweight is overlooked, and that’s the way I need to be.”
“I was incredulous,” he told me when I sat with him in San Diego. “It seemed every other person I was asking was acknowledging such a history. I kept thinking, it can’t be. People would know if this was true. Somebody would’ve told me. Isn’t that what medical school is for?” When five of his colleagues came in to conduct further interviews, it turned out some 55 percent of the patients in the program had been sexually abused, far more than people in the wider population. And even more, including most of the men, had had severely traumatic childhoods.
Many of these women had been making themselves obese for an unconscious reason: to protect themselves from the attention of men, who they believed would hurt them. Being very fat stops most men from looking at you that way. It works. It was when he was listening to another grueling account of sexual abuse that it hit Vincent. He told me later:
“What we had perceived as the problem, major obesity, was in fact, very frequently, the solution to problems that the rest of us knew nothing about.”
Vincent began to wonder if the anti-obesity programs, including his own, had been doing it all wrong, by (for example) giving out nutritional advice. Obese people didn’t need to be told what to eat; they knew the nutritional advice better than he did. They needed someone to understand why they ate. After meeting a person who had been raped, he told me, “I thought with a tremendously clear insight that sending this woman to see a dietitian to learn how to eat right would be grotesque.”
Far from teaching the obese people, he realized they were the people who could teach him what was really going on. So he gathered the patients in groups of around fifteen, and asked them: “Why do you think people get fat? Not how. How is obvious. I’m asking why. What are the benefits?” Encouraged to think about it for the first time, they told him. The answers came in three different categories. The first was that it is sexually protective: men are less interested in you, so you are safer. The second was that it is physically protective: for example, in the program there were two prison guards, who lost between 100 and 150 pounds each. Suddenly, as they shed their bulk, they felt much more vulnerable among the prisoners, they could be more easily beaten up. To walk through those cell blocks with confidence, they explained, they needed to be the size of a refrigerator.
And the third category was that it reduced people’s expectations of them. “You apply for a job weighing four hundred pounds, people assume you’re stupid, lazy,” Vincent said. If you’ve been badly hurt by the world, and sexual abuse is not the only way this can happen, you often want to retreat. Putting on a lot of weight is, paradoxically, a way of becoming invisible to a lot of humanity.
“When you look at a house burning down, the most obvious manifestation is the huge smoke billowing out,” he told me. It would be easy, then, to think that the smoke is the problem, and if you deal with the smoke, you’ve solved it. But “thank God that fire departments understand that the piece that you treat is the piece you don’t see, the flames inside, not the smoke billowing out. Otherwise, house fires would be treated by bringing big fans to blow the smoke away. [And that would] make the house burn down faster.”
Obesity, he realized, isn’t the fire. It’s the smoke.
One day, Vincent went to a medical conference dedicated to obesity to present his findings. After he had spoken, a doctor stood up in the audience and explained: “People who are more familiar with these matters recognize that these statements by patients describing their sexual abuse, are basically fabrications, to provide a cover for their failed lives. It turned out people treating obesity had noticed before that a disproportionate number of obese people described being abused. They just assumed that they were making excuses.
Vincent was horrified. He had in fact verified the abuse claims of many of his patients, by talking to their relatives, or to law enforcement officials who had investigated them. But he knew he didn’t have hard scientific proof yet to rebut people like this. His impressions from talking to individual patients, even gathering the figures from within his group, didn’t prove much. He wanted to gather proper scientific data. So he teamed up with a scientist named Dr. Robert Anda, who had specialized for years in the study of why people do self-destructive things like smoking. Together, funded by the Center for Disease Control, a major US. agency funding medical research, they drew up a way of testing all this, to see if it was true beyond the small sample of people in Vincent’s program.
They called it the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, and it’s quite simple. It’s a questionnaire. You are asked about ten different categories of terrible things that can happen to you when you’re a kid, from being sexually abused, to being emotionally abused, to being neglected. And then there’s a detailed medical questionnaire, to test for all sorts of things that could be going wrong with you, like obesity, or addiction. One of the things they added to the list, almost as an afterthought, was the question: Are you suffering from depression?
This survey was then given to seventeen thousand people who were seeking health care, for a whole range of reasons, from Kaiser Permanente in San Diego. The people who filled in the form were somewhat wealthier and a little older than the general population, but otherwise fairly representative of the city’s population.
When the results came in, they added them up, at first, to see if there were any correlations.
It turned out that for every category of traumatic experience you went through as a kid, you were radically more likely to become depressed as an adult. If you had six categories of traumatic events in your childhood, you were five times more likely to become depressed as an adult than somebody who didn’t have any. If you had seven categories of traumatic events as a child, you were 3,100 percent more likely to attempt to commit suicide as an adult.
“When the results came out, I was in a state of disbelief,” Dr. Anda told me. “I looked at it and I said, really? This can’t be true.” You just don’t get figures like this in medicine very often. Crucially, they hadn’t just stumbled on proof that there is a correlation, that these two things happen at the same time. They seemed to have found evidence that these traumas help cause these problems. How do we know? The greater the trauma, the greater your risk of depression, anxiety, or suicide. The technical term for this is “dose-response effect.” The more cigarettes you smoke, the more your risk of lung cancer goes up, that’s one reason we know smoking causes cancer. In the same way, the more you were traumatized as a child, the more your risk of depression rises.
Curiously, it turned out emotional abuse was more likely to cause depression than any other kind of trauma, even sexual molestation. Being treated cruelly by your parents was the biggest driver of depression, out of all these categories.
When they showed the results to other scientists, including the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), who cofunded the research, they too were incredulous. “The study shocked people,” Dr. Anda told me. “People didn’t want to believe it. People at the CDC didn’t want to believe it. There was resistance within the CDC when I brought the data around, and the medical journals, initially, didn’t want to believe it, because it was so astonishing that they had to doubt it. Because it made them challenge the way they thought about childhood. It challenged so many things, all at one time.” In the years that followed, the study has been replicated many times, and it always finds similar results. But we have barely begun, Vincent told me, to think through its implications.
So Vincent, as he absorbed all this, came to believe that we have been making the same mistake with depression that he had been making before with obesity. We have failed to see it as a symptom of something deeper that needs to be dealt with. There’s a house fire inside many of us, Vincent had come to believe, and we’ve been concentrating on the smoke.
Many scientists and psychologists had been presenting depression as an irrational malfunction in your brain or in your genes, but he learned that Allen Barbour, an internist at Stanford University, had said that depression isn’t a disease; depression is a normal response to abnormal life experiences. “I think that’s a very important idea,” Vincent told me. “It takes you beyond the comforting, limited idea that the reason I’m depressed is I have a serotonin imbalance, or a dopamine imbalance, or what have you.” It is true that something is happening in your brain when you become depressed, he says, but that “is not a causal explanation”; it is “a necessary intermediary mechanism.”
Some people don’t want to see this because, at least at first, “it’s more comforting,” Vincent said, to think it’s all happening simply because of changes in the brain. “It takes away an experiential process and substitutes a mechanistic process.” It turns your pain into a trick of the light that can be banished with drugs. But they don’t ultimately solve the problem, he says, any more than just getting the obese patients to stop eating solved their problems. “Medications have a role,” he told me. “Are they the ultimate be and end-all? No. Do they sometimes short-change people? Absolutely.”
To solve the problem for his obese patients, Vincent said, they had all realized, together, that they had to solve the problems that were leading them to eat obsessively in the first place. So he set up support groups where they could discuss the real reasons why they ate and talk about what they had been through. Once that was in place, far more people became able to keep going through the fasting program and stay at a safe weight. He was going to start exploring a way to do this with depression, with startling results.
More than anyone else I spoke to about the hidden causes of depression, Vincent made me angry. After I met with him, I went to the beach in San Diego and raged against what he had said. I was looking hard for reasons to dismiss it. Then I asked myself. Why are you so angry about this? It seemed peculiar, and I didn’t really understand it. Then, as I discussed it with some people I trust, I began to understand.
If you believe that your depression is due solely to a broken brain, you don’t have to think about your life, or about what anyone might have done to you. The belief that it all comes down to biology protects you, in a way, for a while. If you absorb this different story, though, you have to think about those things. And that hurts.
I asked Vincent why he thinks traumatic childhoods so often produce depressed and anxious adults, and he said that he honestly doesn’t know. He’s a good scientist. He didn’t want to speculate. But I think I might know, although it goes beyond anything I can prove scientifically.
When you are a child and you experience something really traumatic, you almost always think it is your fault. There’s a reason for this, and it’s not irrational; like obesity, it is, in fact, a solution to a problem most people can’t see. When I was young, my mother was ill a lot, and my father was mostly gone, usually in a different country. In the chaos of that, I experienced some extreme acts of violence from an adult in my life. For example, I was strangled with an electrical cord on one occasion. By the time I was sixteen, I left to go and live in another city, away from any adults I knew, and when I was there, I found myself, like many people who have been treated this way at a formative age, seeking out dangerous situations where I was again treated in ways I should not have been treated.
Even now, as a thirty-seven-year-old adult, I feel like writing this down, and saying it to you, is an act of betrayal of the adult who carried out these acts of violence, and the other adults who behaved in ways they shouldn’t have.
I know you can’t figure out who these people are from what I’ve written. I know that if I saw an adult strangling a child with an electrical cord, it would not even occur to me to blame the child, and that if I heard somebody try to suggest such a thing, I would assume they were insane. I know rationally where the real betrayal lies in this situation. But still, I feel it. It’s there, and that feeling almost stopped me from saying this.
Why do so many people who experience violence in childhood feel the same way? Why does it lead many of them to self-destructive behavior, like obesity, or hard core addiction, or suicide? I have spent a lot of time thinking about this. When you’re a child, you have very little power to change your environment. You can’t move away, or force somebody to stop hurting you. So you have two choices. You can admit to yourself that you are powerless, that at any moment, you could be badly hurt, and there’s simply nothing you can do about it. Or you can tell yourself it’s your fault. If you do that, you actually gain some power, at least in your own mind. If it’s your fault, then there’s something you can do that might make it different. You aren’t a pinball being smacked around a pinball machine. You’re the person controlling the machine. You have your hands on the dangerous levers.
In this way, just like obesity protected those women from the men they feared would rape them, blaming yourself for your childhood traumas protects you from seeing how vulnerable you were and are. You can become the powerful one. If it’s your fault, it’s under your control.
But that comes at a cost. If you were responsible for being hurt, then at some level, you have to think you deserved it. A person who thinks they deserved to be injured as a child isn’t going to think they deserve much as an adult, either.
This is no way to live. But it’s a misfiring of the thing that made it possible for you to survive at an earlier point in your life.
You might have noticed that this cause of depression and anxiety is a little different from the ones I have discussed up to now, and it’s different from the ones I’m going to discuss next.
As I mentioned before, most people who have studied the scientific evidence accept that there are three different kinds of causes of depression and anxiety, biological, psychological, and social. The causes I’ve discussed up to now, and will come back to in a moment, are environmental. I’ll come to biological factors soon.
But childhood trauma belongs in a different category. It’s a psychological cause. By discussing it here, I’m hoping childhood trauma can indicate toward the many other psychological causes of depression that are too specific to be discussed in a big, broad way. The ways our psyches can be damaged are almost infinite. I know somebody whose wife cheated on him for years with his best friend and who became deeply depressed when he found out. I know somebody who survived a terror attack and was almost constantly anxious for a decade after. I know someone whose mother was perfectly competent and never cruel to her but was relentlessly negative and taught her always to see the worst in people and to keep them at a distance. You can’t squeeze these experiences into neat categories, it wouldn’t make sense to list “adultery,” “terror attacks,” or “cold parents” as causes of depression and anxiety.
But here’s what we know.
Psychological damage doesn’t have to be as extreme as childhood violence to affect you profoundly. Your wife cheating on you with your best friend isn’t a malfunction in your brain. But it is a cause of deep psychological distress, and it can cause depression and anxiety. If you are ever told a story about these problems that doesn’t talk about your personal psychology, don’t take it seriously.
Dr. Anda, one of the pioneers of this research, told me it had forced him to turn his thinking about depression and other problems inside out.
“When people have these kind of problems, it’s time to stop asking what’s wrong with them,” he said, “and time to start asking what happened to them.”
aceadversechildhoodexperienceschildhoodtraumaDepressionMentalHealthPsychologySuicide
Consumerism, Depression, Mental Health, Psychology
JUNK VALUES. CONSUMERISM LITERALLY IS DEPRESSING – Johann Hari.
When I was in my late twenties, I got really fat. It was partly a side effect of antidepressants, and partly a side effect of fried chicken. I could still, from memory, talk you through the relative merits of all the fried chicken shops in East London that were the staples of my diet, from Chicken Cottage to Tennessee Fried Chicken (with its logo of a smiling cartoon chicken holding a bucket of fried chicken legs: who knew cannibalism could be an effective marketing tool?). My own favorite was the brilliantly named Chicken Chicken Chicken. Their hot wings were, to me, the Mona Lisa of grease.
One Christmas Eve, I went to my local branch of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and one of the staff behind the counter saw me approaching and beamed. “Johann!” he said. “We have something for you!” The other staff turned and looked at me expectantly. From somewhere behind the grill and the grizzle, he took out a Christmas card. I was forced, by their expectant smiles, to open it in front of them. “To our best customer,” it said, next to personal messages from every member of the staff.
I never ate at KFC again.
Most of us know there is something wrong with our physical diets. We aren’t all gold medalists in the consumption of lard like I was, but more and more of us are eating the wrong things, and it is making us physically sick. As I investigated depression and anxiety, I began to learn something similar is happening to our values, and it is making many of us emotionally sick.
This was discovered by an American psychologist named Tim Kasser, so I went to see him, to learn his story.
As a little boy, Tim arrived in the middle of a long stretch of swampland and open beaches. His dad worked as a manager at an insurance company, and in the early 1970s, he was posted to a place called Pinellas County, on the west coast of Florida. The area was mostly undeveloped and had plenty of big, broad outdoor spaces for a kid to play, but this county soon became the fastest growing in the entire United States, and it was about to be transformed in front of Tim’s eyes. “By the time I left Florida,” he told me, “it was a completely different physical environment. You couldn’t drive along the beach roads anymore and see the water, because it was all condos and high-rises. Areas that had been open land with alligators and rattlesnakes became subdivision after subdivision after shopping mall.”
Tim was drawn to the shopping malls that replaced the beaches and marshes, like all the other kids he knew. There, he would play Asteroids and Space Invaders for hours. He soon found himself longing for stuff, the toys he saw in ads.
It sounds like Edgware, where I am from. I was eight or nine when its shopping mall, the Broadwalk Centre, opened, and I remember wandering around its bright storefronts and gazing at the things I wanted to buy in a thrilled trance. I obsessively coveted the green plastic toy of Castle Grayskull, the fortress where the cartoon character He-Man lived, and Care-a-Lot, the home in the clouds of some animated creatures called the Care Bears. One Christmas, my mother missed my hints and failed to buy me Care-a-Lot, and I was crestfallen for months. I ached and pined for that lump of plastic.
Like most kids at the time, I spent at least three hours a day watching TV, usually more, and whole days would pass in the summer when my only break from television would be to go to the Broadwalk Centre and back again. I don’t remember anyone ever telling me this explicitly, but it seemed to me then that happiness meant being able to buy lots of the things on display there. I think my nine-year-old self, if you had asked him what it meant to be happy, would have said: somebody who could walk through the Broadwalk Centre and buy whatever he wanted. I would ask my dad how much each famous person I saw on television earned, and he would guess, and we would both marvel at what we would do with the money. It was a little bonding ritual, over a fantasy of spending.
I asked Tim if, in Pinellas County where he grew up, he ever heard anyone talking about a different way of valuing things, beyond the idea that happiness came from getting and possessing stuff. “Well, I think, not growing up. No,” he said. In Edgware, there must have been people who acted on different values, but I don’t think I ever saw them.
When Tim was a teenager, his swim coach moved away one summer and gave him a small record collection, and it included albums by John Lennon and Bob Dylan. As he listened to them, he realized they seemed to be expressing something he didn’t really hear anywhere else. He began to wonder if there were hints of a different way to live lying in their lyrics, but he couldn’t find anyone to discuss it with.
It was only when Tim went to study at Vanderbilt University, a very conservative college in the South, at the height of the Reagan years, that it occurred to him, slowly, to think more deeply about this. In 1984, he voted for Ronald Reagan, but he was starting to think a lot about the question of authenticity. “I was stumbling around,” he told me. “I think I was questioning just about everything. I wasn’t just questioning these values. I was questioning lots about myself, I was questioning lots about the nature of reality and the values of society.” He feels like there were pinatas all around him and he was hitting chaotically at them all. He added: “I think I went through that phase for a long time, to be honest.”
When he went to graduate school, he started to read a lot about psychology. It was around this time that Tim realized something odd.
For thousands of years, philosophers had been suggesting that if you overvalue money and possessions, or if you think about life mainly in terms of how you look to other people, you will be unhappy, that the values of Pinellas County and Edgware were, in some deep sense, mistaken. It had been talked about a lot, by some of the finest minds who ever lived, and Tim thought it might be true. But nobody had ever conducted a scientific investigation to see whether all these philosophers were right.
This realization is what launched him on a project that he was going to pursue for the next twenty-five years. It led him to discover subtle evidence about why we feel the way we do, and why it is getting worse.
It all started in grad school, with a simple survey.
Tim came up with a way of measuring how much a person really values getting things and having money compared to other values, like spending time with their family or trying to make the world a better place. He called it the Aspiration Index, and it is pretty straightforward. You ask people how much they agree with statements such as “It is important to have expensive possessions” and how much they agree with very different statements such as “It is important to make the world a better place for others.” You can then calculate their values.
At the same time, you can ask people lots of other questions, and one of them is whether they are unhappy or if they are suffering (or have suffered) from depression or anxiety. Then, as a first step, you see if they match.
Tim’s first tentative piece of research was to give this survey to 316 students. When the results came back and were all calculated out, Tim was struck by the results: materialistic people, who think happiness comes from accumulating stuff and a superior status, had much higher levels of depression and anxiety.
This was, he knew, just a primitive first shot in the dark. So Tim’s next step was, as part of a larger study, to get a clinical psychologist to assess 140 eighteen-year-olds in depth, calculating where they were on the Aspiration Index and if they were depressed or anxious. When the results were added up, they were the same: the more the kids valued getting things and being seen to have things, the more likely they were to be suffering from depression and anxiety.
Was this something that happened only with young people? To find out, Tim measured one hundred citizens of Rochester in upstate New York, who came from a range of age groups and economic backgrounds. The result was the same.
But how could he figure out what was really happening, and why?
Tim’s next step was to conduct a more detailed study, to track how these values affect you over time. He got 192 students to keep a detailed mood diary in which, twice a day, they had to record how much they were feeling nine different emotions, such as happiness or anger, and how much they were experiencing any of nine physical symptoms, such as backache. When he calculated out the results, he found, again, higher depression among the materialistic students; but there was a result more important than that. It really did seem that materialistic people were having a worse time, day by day, on all sorts of fronts. They felt sicker, and they were angrier. “Something about a strong desire for materialistic pursuits,” he was starting to believe, “actually affected the participants’ day-to-day lives, and decreased the quality of their daily experience.” They experienced less joy, and more despair.
Why would this be? What could be happening here? Ever since the 1960s, psychologists have known that there are two different ways you can motivate yourself to get out of bed in the morning. The first are called intrinsic motives, they are the things you do purely because you value them in and of themselves, not because of anything you get out of them. When a kid plays, she’s acting totally on intrinsic motives, she’s doing it because it gives her joy. The other day, I asked my friend’s five-year-old son why he was playing. “Because I love it,” he said. Then he scrunched up his face and said “You’re silly!” and ran off, pretending to be Batman. These intrinsic motivations persist all through our lives, long after childhood.
At the same time, there’s a rival set of values, which are called extrinsic motives. They’re the things you do not because you actually want to do them, but because you’ll get something in return, whether it’s money, or admiration, or sex, or superior status. Joe, who you met two chapters ago, went to work every day in the paint shop for purely extrinsic reasons, he hated the job, but he needed to be able to pay the rent, buy the Oxy that would numb his way through the day, and have the car and clothes that he thought made people respect him. We all have some motives like that.
Imagine you play the piano. If you play it for yourself because you love it, then you are being driven to do it by intrinsic values. If you play in a dive bar you hate, just to make enough cash to ensure you don’t get thrown out of your apartment, then you are being driven to do it by extrinsic values.
These rival sets of values exist in all of us. Nobody is driven totally by one or the other.
Tim began to wonder if looking into this conflict more deeply could reveal something important. So he started to study a group of two hundred people in detail over time. He got them to lay out their goals for the future. He then figured out with them if these were extrinsic goals, like getting a promotion, or a bigger apartment, or intrinsic goals, like being a better friend or a more loving son or a better piano player. And then he got them to keep a detailed mood diary.
What he wanted to know was, Does achieving extrinsic goals make you happy? And how does that compare to achieving intrinsic goals?
The results, when he calculated them out were quite startling. People who achieved their extrinsic goals didn’t experience any increase in day-to-day happiness, none. They spent a huge amount of energy chasing these goals, but when they fulfilled them, they felt the same as they had at the start, Your promotion? Your fancy car? The new iPhone? The expensive necklace? They won’t improve your happiness even one inch.
But people who achieved their intrinsic goals did become significantly happier, and less depressed and anxious. You could track the movement. As they worked at it and felt they became (for example) a better friend, not because they wanted anything out of it but because they felt it was a good thing to do, they became more satisfied with life. Being a better dad? Dancing for the sheer joy of it? Helping another person, just because it’s the right thing to do? They do significantly boost your happiness.
Yet most of us, most of the time, spend our time chasing extrinsic goals, the very thing that will give us nothing. Our whole culture is set up to get us to think this way. Get the right grades. Get the best-paying job. Rise through the ranks. Display your earnings through clothes and cars. That’s how to make yourself feel good.
What Tim had discovered is that the message our culture is telling us about how to have a decent and satisfying life, virtually all the time, is not true. The more this was studied, the clearer it became! Twenty-two different studies have in the years since, found that the more materialistic and extrinsically motivated you become, the more depressed you will be. Twelve different studies found that the more materialistic and extrinsically motivated you become, the more anxious you will be. Similar studies, inspired by Tim’s work and using similar techniques, have now been carried out in Britain, Denmark, Germany, India, South Korea, Russia, Romania, Australia, and Canada-and the results, all over the world, keep coming back the same.
Just as we have shifted en masse from eating food to eating junk food, Tim has discovered, in effect, that we have shifted from having meaningful values to having junk values. All this mass-produced fried chicken looks like food, and it appeals to the part of us that evolved to need food; yet it doesn’t give us what we need from food, nutrition. Instead, it fills us with toxins.
In the same way, all these materialistic values, telling us to spend our way to happiness, look like real values; they appeal to the part of us that has evolved to need some basic principles to guide us through life; yet they don’t give us what we need from values, a path to a satisfying life. Instead, they fill us with psychological toxins. Junk food is distorting our bodies. Junk values are distorting our minds.
Materialism is KFC for the soul.
When Tim studied this in greater depth, he was able to identify at least four key reasons why junk values are making us feel so bad.
The first is that thinking extrinsically poisons your relationships with other people. He teamed up again with another professor, Richard Ryan, who had been an ally from the start, to study two hundred people in depth, and they found that the more materialistic you become, the shorter your relationships will be, and the worse their quality will be. If you value people for how they look, or how they impress other people, it’s easy to see that you’ll be happy to dump them if someone hotter or more impressive comes along. And at the same time, if all you’re interested in is the surface of another person, it’s easy to see why you’ll be less rewarding to be around, and they’ll be more likely to dump you, too. You will have fewer friends and connections, and they won’t last as long.
Their second finding relates to another change that happens as you become more driven by junk values. Let’s go back to the example of playing the piano. Every day, Tim spends at least half an hour playing the piano and singing, often with his kids. He does it for no reason except that he loves it, it makes him, on a good day, feel satisfied, and joyful. He feels his ego dissolve, and he is purely present in the moment. There’s strong scientific evidence that we all get most pleasure from what are called “flow states” like this, moments when we simply lose ourselves doing something we love and are carried along in the moment. They’re proof we can maintain the pure intrinsic motivation that a child feels when she is playing.
But when Tim studied highly materialistic people, he discovered they experience significantly fewer flow states than the rest of us. Why would that be?
He seems to have found an explanation. Imagine if, when Tim was playing the piano every day, he kept thinking: Am I the best piano player in Illinois? Are people going to applaud this performance? Am l going to get paid for this? How much? Suddenly his joy would shrivel up like a salted snail. Instead of his ego dissolving, his ego would be aggravated and jabbed and poked.
That is what your head starts to look like when you become more materialistic. If you are doing something not for itself but to achieve an effect, you can’t relax into the pleasure of a moment. You are constantly monitoring yourself. Your ego will shriek like an alarm you can’t shut off.
This leads to a third reason why junk values make you feel so bad. When you are extremely materialistic, Tim said to me, “you’ve always kind of got to be wondering about yourself, how are people judging you?” It forces you to “focus on other people’s opinions of you, and their praise of you, and then you’re kind of locked into having to worry what other people think about you, and if other people are going to give you those rewards that you want. That’s a heavy load to bear, instead of walking around doing what it is you’re interested in doing, or being around people who love you just for who you are.”
If “your self-esteem, your sense of self-worth, is contingent upon how much money you’ve got, or what your clothes are like, or how big your house is,” you are forced into constant external comparisons, Tim says. “There’s always somebody who’s got a nicer house or better clothes or more money.” Even if you’re the richest person in the world, how long will that last? Materialism leaves you constantly vulnerable to a world beyond your control.
And then, he says, there is a crucial fourth reason. It’s worth pausing on this one, because I think it’s the most important.
All of us have certain innate needs, to feel connected, to feel valued, to feel secure, to feel we make a difference in the world, to have autonomy, to feel we’re good at something. Materialistic people, he believes, are less happy, because they are chasing a way of life that does a bad job of meeting these needs.
What you really need are connections. But what you are told you need, in our culture, is stuff and a superior status, and in the gap between those two signals, from yourself and from society, depression and anxiety will grow as your real needs go unmet.
You have to picture all the values that guide why you do things in your life, Tim said, as being like a pie. “Each value” you have, he explained, “is like a slice of that pie. So you’ve got your spirituality slice, and your family slice, and your money slice, and your hedonism slice. We’ve all got all the slices.” When you become obsessed with materialism and status, that slice gets bigger. And “the bigger one slice gets, the smaller other slices have to get.” So if you become fixated on getting stuff and a superior status, the parts of the pie that care about tending to your relationships, or finding meaning, or making the world better have to shrink, to make way.
“On Friday at four, I can stay [in my office] and work more, or I can go home and play with my kids,” he told me. “I can’t do both. It’s one or the other. If my materialistic values are bigger, I’m going to stay and work. If my family values are bigger, I’m going to go home and play with my kids.” It’s not that materialistic people don’t care about their kids, but “as the materialistic values get bigger, other values are necessarily going to be crowded out,” he says, even if you tell yourself they won’t.
And the pressure, in our culture, runs overwhelmingly one way, spend more; work more. We live under a system, Tim says, that constantly “distracts us from what’s really good about life.” We are being propagandized to live in a way that doesn’t meet our basic psychological needs, so we are left with a permanent, puzzling sense of dissatisfaction.
For millennia, humans have talked about something called the Golden Rule. It’s the idea that you should do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Tim, I think, has discovered something we should call the I-Want-Golden-Things Rule. The more you think life is about having stuff and superiority and showing it off, the more unhappy, and the more depressed and anxious, you will be.
But why would human beings turn, so dramatically, to something that made us less happy and more depressed? Isn’t it implausible that we would do something so irrational? In the later phase of his research, Tim began to dig into the question.
Nobody’s values are totally fixed. Your level of junk values, Tim discovered by following people in his studies, can change over your lifetime. You can become more materialistic, and more unhappy; or you can become less materialistic, and less unhappy. So we shouldn’t be asking, Tim believes, “Who is materialistic?” We should be asking: “When are people materialistic?” Tim wanted to know: What causes the variation?
There’s an experiment, by a different group of social scientists, that gives us one early clue. In 1978, two Canadian social scientists got a bunch of four and five year old kids and divided them into two groups. The first group was shown no commercials. The second group was shown two commercials for a particular toy. Then they offered these four or five year old kids a choice. They told them: You have to choose, now, to play with one of these two boys here. You can play with this little boy who has the toy from the commercials, but we have to warn you, he’s not a nice boy. He’s mean. Or you can play with a boy who doesn’t have the toy, but who is really nice.
If they had seen the commercial for the toy, the kids mostly chose to play with the mean boy with the toy. If they hadn’t seen the commercial, they mostly chose to play with the nice boy who had no toys.
In other words, the advertisements led them to choose an inferior human connection over a superior human connection, because they’d been primed to think that a lump of plastic is what really matters.
Two commercials, just two, did that. Today, every person sees way more advertising messages than that in an average morning. More eighteen-month-olds can recognize the McDonald’s M than know their own surname. By the time an average child is thirty-six months old she aIready knows a hundred brand logos.
Tim suspected that advertising plays a key role in why we are, every day, choosing a value system that makes us feel worse. So with another social scientist named Jean Twenge he tracked the percentage of total US. national wealth that’s spent on advertising, from 1976 to 2003, and he discovered that the more money is spent on ads, the more materialistic teenagers become.
A few years ago, an advertising agency head named Nancy Shalek explained approvingly: “Advertising at its best is making peopie feel that without their product, you’re a loser. Kids are very sensitive to that. You open up emotionaI vulnerabilities, and it’s very easy to do with kids because they’re the most emotionally vulnerable.”
This sounds harsh, until you think through the logic. Imagine if I watched an ad and it told me, Johann, you’re fine how you are. You look good. You smell good. You’re likable. People want to be around you. You’ve got enough stuff now. You don’t need any more. Enjoy life.
That would, from the perspective of the advertising industry, be the worst ad in human history, because I wouldn’t want to go out shopping, or lunge at my laptop to spend, or do any of the other things that feed my junk values. It would make me want to pursue my intrinsic values, which involve a whole lot less spending, and a whole lot more happiness.
When they talk among themselves, advertising people have been admitting since the 1920s that their job is to make people feel inadequate, and then offer their product as the solution to the sense of inadequacy they have created. Ads are the ultimate frenemy, they’re always saying: Oh babe, I want you to look/smell/feel great; it makes me so sad that at the moment you’re ugly/ stinking/miserable; here’s this thing that will make you into the person you and I really want you to be. Oh, did I mention you have to pay a few bucks? I just want you to be the person you deserve to be. Isn’t that worth a few dollars? You’re worth it.
This logic radiates out through the culture, and we start to impose it on each other, even when ads aren’t there. Why did I, as a child, crave Nike air-pumps, even though I was as likely to play basketball as I was to go to the moon? It was partly because of the ads, but mostly because the ads created a group dynamic among everyone I knew. It created a marker of status, that we then policed. As adults, we do the same, only in slightly more subtle ways.
This system trains us, Tim says, to feel “there’s never enough. When you’re focused on money and status and possessions, consumer society is always telling you more, more, more, more. Capitalism is always telling you more, more, more. Your boss is telling you work more, work more, work more. You internalize that and you think: Oh, I’ve got to work more, because my self depends on my status and my achievement. You internalize that. It’s a kind of form of internalized oppression.”
He believes it also explains why junk values lead to such an increase in anxiety. “You’re always thinking: Are they going to reward me? Does the person love me for who I am, or for my handbag? Am I going to be able to climb the ladder of success?” he said. You are hollow, and exist only in other people’s reflections. “That’s going to be anxiety-provoking.”
We are all vulnerable to this, he believes. “The way I understand the intrinsic values,” Tim told me, is that they “are a fundamental part of what we are as humans, but they’re fragile. It’s easy to distract us from them. You give people social models of consumerism and they move in an extrinsic way.” The desire to find meaningful intrinsic values is “there, it’s a powerful part of who we are, but it’s not hard to distract us.” And we have an economic system built around doing precisely that.
As I sat with Tim, discussing all this for hours, I kept thinking of a middle-class married couple who live in a nice semidetached house in the suburbs in Edgware, where we grew up. They are close to me; I have known them all my life; I love them.
If you peeked through their window, you’d think they have everything you need for happiness, each other, two kids, a good home, all the consumer goods we’re told to buy. Both of them work really hard at jobs they have little interest in, so that they can earn money, and with the money they earn, they buy the things that we have learned from television will make us happy, clothes and cars, gadgets and status symbols. They display these things to people they know on social media, and they get lots of likes and comments like “OMG, so jealous!” After the brief buzz that comes from displaying their goods, they usually find they become dissatisfied and down again. They are puzzled by this, and they often assume it’s because they didn’t buy the right thing. So they work harder, and they buy more goods, display them through their devices, feel the buzz, and then slump back to where they started.
They both seem to me to be depressed. They alternate between being blank, or angry, or engaging in compulsive behaviors. She had a drug problem for a long time, although not anymore; he gambles online at least two hours a day. They are furious a lot of the time, at each other, at their children, at their colleagues, and, diffusely, at the world, at anyone else on the road when they are driving, for example, who they scream and swear at. They have a sense of anxiety they can’t shake off, and they often attach it to things outside them, she obsessively monitors where her teenage son is at any moment, and is afraid all the time that he will be a victim of crime or terrorism.
This couple has no vocabulary to understand why they feel so bad. They are doing what the culture has been priming them to do since we were infants, they are working hard and buying the right things, the expensive things. They are every advertising slogan made flesh.
Like the kids in the sandbox, they have been primed to lunge for objects and ignore the prospect of interaction with the people around them.
I see now they aren’t just suffering from the absence of something, such as meaningful work, or community. They are also suffering from the presence of something, an incorrect set of values telling them to seek happiness in all the wrong places, and to ignore the potential human connections that are right in front of them.
When Tim discovered all these facts, it didn’t just guide his scientific work. He began to move toward a life that made it possible for him to live consistent with his own findings, to go back, in a sense, to something more like the beach he had discovered joyfully in Florida as a kid. “You’ve got to pull yourself out of the materialistic environments, the environments that are reinforcing the materialistic values,” he says, because they cripple your internal satisfactions. And then, he says, to make that sustainable, you have to “replace them with actions that are going to provide those intrinsic satisfactions, and encourage those intrinsic goals.”
So, with his wife and his two sons, he moved to a farmhouse on ten acres of land in Illinois, where they live with a donkey and a herd of goats. They have a small TV in the basement, but it isn’t connected to any stations or to cable, it’s just to watch old movies on sometimes. They only recently got the Internet (against his protestations), and they don’t use it much. He works part time, and so does his wife, “so we could spend more time with our kids, and be in the garden more and do volunteer work and do activism work and I could write more”, all the things that give them intrinsic satisfaction. “We play a lot of games. We play a lot of music. We have a lot of family conversations.” They sing together.
Where they live in western Illinois is “not the most exciting place in the world,” Tim says, “but I have ten acres of land, I have a twelve-minute commute with one flashing light and three stop signs on my way to my office, and we afford that on one [combined full-time] salary.”
I ask him if he had withdrawal symptoms from the materialistic world we were both immersed in for so long. “Never,” he says right away. “People ask me that: “Don’t you miss this? Don’t you wish you had that?” No, I don’t, because I am never exposed to the messages telling me that I should want it. I don’t expose myself to those things, so no, I don’t have that.”
One of his proudest moments was when one of his sons came home one day and said: “Dad, some kids at school are making fun of my sneakers.” They were not a brand name, or shiny-new. “Oh, what’d you say to them?” Tim asked. His son explained he looked at them and said: “Why do you care?” He was nonplussed, he could see that what they valued was empty, and absurd.
By living without these polluting values, Tim has, he says, discovered a secret. This way of life is more pleasurable than materialism. “It’s more fun to play these games with your kids,” he told me. “It’s more fun to do the intrinsically motivated stuff than to go to work and do stuff you don’t necessarily want to do. It’s more fun to feel like people love you for who you are, instead of loving you because you gave them a big diamond ring.”
Most people know all this in their hearts, he believes. “At some level I really believe that most people know that intrinsic values are what’s going to give them a good life,” he told me. When you do surveys and ask people what’s most important in life, they almost always name personal growth and relationships as the top two. “But I think part of why people are depressed is that our society is not set up in order to help people live lifestyles, have jobs, participate in the economy, or participate in their neighborhoods” in ways that support their intrinsic values. The change Tim saw happening in Florida as a kid, when the beachfronts were transformed into shopping malls and people shifted their attention there, has happened to the whole culture.
Tim told me people can apply these insights to their own life, on their own, to some extent. “The first thing is for people to ask themselves, Am I setting up my life so I can have a chance of succeeding at my intrinsic values? Am I hanging out with the right people, who are going to make me feel loved, as opposed to making me feel like I made it? Those are hard choices sometimes.” But often, he says, you will hit up against a limit in our culture. You can make improvements, but often “the solutions to the problems that I’m interested in can’t be easily solved at the individual person level, or in the therapeutic consulting room, or by a pill.” They require something more, as I was going to explore later.
When I interviewed Tim, I felt he solved a mystery for me. I had been puzzled back in Philadelphia about why Joe didn’t leave the job he hated at the paint company and go become a fisherman in Florida, when he knew life in the Sunshine State would make him so much happier. It seemed like a metaphor for why so many of us stay in situations we know make us miserable.
I think I see why now. Joe is constantly bombarded with messages that he shouldn’t do the thing that his heart is telling him would make him feel calm and satisfied. The whole logic of our culture tells him to stay on the consumerist treadmill, to go shopping when he feels lousy, to chase junk values. He has been immersed in those messages since the day he was born. So he has been trained to distrust his own wisest instincts.
When I yelled after him “Go to Florida!” I was yelling into a hurricane of messages, and a whole value system, that is saying the exact opposite.
ConsumerismDepressionJohannHariMaterialismMentalHealthPsychologyvalues
DEPRESSION, THE CHEMICAL IMBALANCE MYTH – Johann Hari * THE EMPEROR’S NEW DRUGS – Irving Kirsch.
There is a problem with what everyone knows about antidepressant drugs. It isn’t true. The whole idea of mental distress being caused simply by a chemical imbalance is “a myth,”, sold to us by the drug companies.
In the United States, 40 percent of the regulators’ wages are paid by the drug companies, and in Britain, it’s 100 percent. The rules they have written are designed to make it extraordinarily easy to get a drug approved.
“There was never any basis for it, ever. It was just marketing copy. At the time the drugs came out in the early 1990s, you couldn’t have got any decent expert to go on a platform and say, ‘Look, there’s a lowering of serotonin in the brains of people who are depressed’ There wasn’t ever any evidence for it.” It hasn’t been discredited, because “it didn’t ever get ‘credited.” We don’t know what a “chemically balanced” brain would look like. The effects of these drugs on depression itself are in reality tiny. No matter what chemical you tinker with, you get the same outcome. Antidepressants are little more than active placebos, drugs with very little specific therapeutic benefit, but with serious side effects.
What do the people taking these different drugs actually have in common? Only one thing: the belief that the drugs work, because you believe you are being looked after and offered a solution. Clever marketing over solid empirical evidence.
The serotonin theory “is a lie. I don’t think we should dress it up and say, ‘Oh, well, maybe there’s evidence to support that.’ There isn’t.” Most people on these drugs, after an initial kick, remain depressed or anxious. The belief that antidepressants can cure depression chemically is simply wrong.
The year after I swallowed my first antidepressant, Tipper Gore, the wife of Vice President Al Gore, explained to the newspaper USA Today why she had recently become depressed. “It was definitely a clinical depression, one that I was going to have to have help to overcome,” she said. “What I learned about is your brain needs a certain amount of serotonin and when you run out of that, it’s like running out of gas.” Tens of millions of people, including me, were being told the same thing.
When Irving Kirsch discovered that these serotonin boosting drugs were not having the effects that everyone was being sold, complete/nonfiltered FDA drug company study/research records show that the effects of these drugs on depression itself are in reality tiny, he began, to his surprise, to ask an even more basic question.
What’s the evidence, he began to wonder, that depression is caused primarily by an imbalance of serotonin, or any other chemical, in the brain? Where did it come from?
The serotonin story began, Irving learned, quite by accident in a tuberculosis ward in New York City in the clammy summer of 1952, when some patients began to dance uncontrollably down a hospital corridor. A new drug named Marsilid had come along that doctors thought might help TB patients. It turned out it didn’t have much effect on TB, but the doctors noticed it did something else entirely. They could hardly miss it. It made the patients gleefully, joyfully euphoric, some began to dance frenetically.
So it wasn’t long before somebody decided, perfectly logically, to try to give it to depressed people, and it seemed to have a similar effect on them, for a short time. Not long after that, other drugs came along that seemed to have similar effects (also for short periods), ones named Ipronid and Imipramine. So what, people started to ask, could these new drugs have in common? And whatever it was, could it hold the key to unlocking depression?
Nobody really knew where to look, and so for a decade the question hung in the air, tantalizing researchers. And then in 1965, a British doctor called Alec Coppen came up with a theory. What if, he asked, all these drugs were increasing levels of serotonin in the brain? If that were true, it would suggest that depression might be caused by low levels of serotonin.
“It’s hard to overstate just how far out on a limb these scientists were climbing,” Dr. Gary Greenberg, who has written the history of this period, explains. “They really had no idea what serotonin was doing in the brain.” To be fair to the scientists who first put forward the idea, he says, they put it forward tentatively, as a suggestion. One of them said it was “at best a reductionist simplification,” and said it couldn’t be shown to be true “on the basis of data currently available.”
But a few years later, in the 1970s, it was finally possible to start testing these theories. It was discovered that you can give people a chemical brew that lowers their serotonin levels. So if this theory was right, if low serotonin caused depression, what should happen? After taking this brew, people should become depressed. So they tried it. They gave people a drug to lower their serotonin levels and watched to see what would happen. And, unless they had already been taking powerful drugs they didn’t become depressed. In fact, in the vast majority of patients, it didn’t affect their mood at all.
I went to see one of the first scientists to study these new antidepressants in Britain, Professor David Healy, in his clinic in Bangor, a town in the north of Wales. He has written the most detailed history of antidepressants we have. When it comes to the idea that depression is caused by low serotonin, he told me: “There was never any basis for it, ever. It was just marketing copy. At the time the drugs came out in the early 1990s, you couldn’t have got any decent expert to go on a platform and say, ‘Look, there’s a lowering of serotonin in the brains of people who are depressed’ There wasn’t ever any evidence for it.” It hasn’t been discredited, he said, because “it didn’t ever get ‘credited,’ in a sense. There wasn’t ever a point in time when 50 percent of the field actually believed it.” In the biggest study of serotonin’s effects on humans, it found no direct relationships with depression. Professor Andrew Skull of Princeton has said attributing depression to low serotonin is “deeply misleading and unscientific.“
It had been useful in only one sense. When the drug companies wanted to sell antidepressants to people like me and Tipper Gore, it was a great metaphor. It’s easy to grasp, and it gives you the impression that what antidepressants do is restore you to a natural state, the kind of balance that everyone else enjoys.
Irving learned that once serotonin was abandoned by scientists (but certainly not by drug company PR teams) as an explanation for depression and anxiety, there was a shift in scientific research. Okay, they said: if it’s not low serotonin that’s causing depression and anxiety, then it must be the lack of some other chemical. It was still taken for granted that these problems are caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, and antidepressants work by correcting that chemical imbalance. If one chemical turns out not to be the psychological killer, they must start searching for another one.
But Irving began to ask an awkward question. If depression and anxiety are caused by a chemical imbalance, and antidepressants work by fixing that imbalance, then you have to account for something odd that he kept finding. Antidepressant drugs that increase serotonin in the brain have the same modest effect, in clinical trials, as drugs that reduce serotonin in the brain. And they have the same effect as drugs that increase another chemical, norepinephrine. And they have the same effect as drugs that increase another chemical, dopamine. In other words, no matter what chemical you tinker with, you get the same outcome.
So Irving asked: What do the people taking these different drugs actually have in common? Only, he found, one thing: the belief that the drugs work. It works, Irving believes, largely for the same reason that John Haygarth’s wand worked: because you believe you are being looked after and offered a solution.
After twenty years researching this at the highest level, Irving has come to believe that the notion depression is caused by a chemical imbalance is just “an accident of history,” produced by scientists initially misreading what they were seeing, and then drug companies selling that misperception to the world to cash in.
And so, Irving says, the primary explanation for depression offered in our culture starts to fall apart. The idea you feel terrible because of a “chemical imbalance” was built on a series of mistakes and errors. It has come as close to being proved wrong, he told me, as you ever get in science. It’s lying broken on the floor, like a neurochemical Humpty Dumpty with a very sad smile.
I had traveled a long way with Irving on his journey but I stopped there, startled. Could this really be true? I am trained in the social sciences, which is the kind of evidence that I’ll be discussing in the rest of this book. I’m not trained in the kind of science he is a specialist in. I wondered if I was misunderstanding him, or if he was a scientific outlier. So I read all that I could, and I got as many other scientists to explain it to me as possible. “There’s no evidence that there’s a chemical imbalance” in depressed or anxious people’s brains, Professor Joanna Moncrieff, one of the leading experts on this question-explained to me bluntly in her office at the University College of London. The term doesn’t really make any sense, she said: we don’t know what a “chemically balanced” brain would look like. People are told that drugs like antidepressants restore a natural balance to your brain, she said, but it’s not true-they create an artificial state. The whole idea of mental distress being caused simply by a chemical imbalance is “a myth,” she has come to believe, sold to us by the drug companies.
The clinical psychologist Dr. Lucy Johnstone was more blunt still. “Almost everything you were told was bullshit,” she said to me over coffee. The serotonin theory “is a lie. I don’t think we should dress it up and say, ‘Oh, well, maybe there’s evidence to support that.’ There isn’t.”
Yet it seemed wildly implausible to me that something so huge, one of the most popular drugs in the world, taken by so many people all around me, could be so wrong. Obviously, there are protections against this happening: huge hurdles of scientific testing that have to take place before a drug gets to our bathroom cabinets. I felt as if I had just landed in a flight from JFK to LAX, only to be told that the plane had been flown by a monkey the whole way. Surely there are procedures in place to stop something like this from happening? How could these drugs have gotten through the procedures in place, if they were really as limited as this deeper research suggested?
I discussed this with one of the leading scientists in this field, Professor John Ioannidis, who the Atlantic Monthly has said “may be one of the most influential scientists alive.” He says it is not surprising that the drug companies could simply override the evidence and get the drugs to market anyway, because in fact it happens all the time. He talked me through how these antidepressants got from the development stage to my mouth.
It works like this: “The companies are often running their own trials on their own products,” he said. That means they set up the clinical trial, and they get to decide who gets to see any results. So “they are judging their own products. They’re involving all these poor researchers who have no other source of funding, and who have little control over how the results will be written up and presented.” Once the scientific evidence is gathered, it’s not even the scientists who write it up much of the time. “Typically, it’s the company people who write up the published scientific reports.”
This evidence then goes to the regulators, whose job is to decide whether to allow the drug onto the market. But in the United States, 40 percent of the regulators’ wages are paid by the drug companies, and in Britain, it’s 100 percent. When a society is trying to figure out which drug is safe to put on the market, there are meant to be two teams: the drug company making the case for it, and a referee working for us, the public, figuring out if it properly works. But Professor Ioannidis was telling me that in this match, the referee is paid by the drug company team, and that team almost always wins.
The rules they have written are designed to make it extraordinarily easy to get a drug approved. All you have to do is produce two trials, any time, anywhere in the world, that suggest some positive effect of the drug. If there are two, and there is some effect, that’s enough. So you could have a situation in which there are one thousand scientific trials, and 998 find the drug doesn’t work at all, and two find there is a tiny effect, and that means the drug will be making its way to your local pharmacy.
“I think that this is a field that is seriously sick,” Professor Ioannidis told me. “The field is just sick and bought and corrupted, and I can’t describe it otherwise.” I asked him how it made him feel to have learned all of this. “It’s depressing,” he said. That’s ironic, I replied. “But it’s not depressing,” he responded, “to the severe extent that I would take SSRIs [antidepressants].”
I tried to laugh, but it caught in my throat.
Some people said to Irving, so what? Okay, so say it’s a placebo effect. Whatever the reason, people still feel better. Why break the spell? He explained: the evidence from the clinical trials suggests that the antidepressant effects are largely a placebo, but the side effects are mostly the result of the chemicals themselves, and they can be very severe.
“Of course,” Irving says, there’s “weight gain.” I massively ballooned, and saw the weight fall off almost as soon as I stopped. “We know that SSRIs [the new type of antidepressants] in particular contribute to sexual dysfunction, and the rates for most SSRIs are around 75 percent of treatment-engendered sexual dysfunction,” he continued. Though it’s painful to talk about, this rang true for me, too. In the years I was taking Paxil, I found my genitals were a lot less sensitive, and it took a really long time to ejaculate. This made sex painful and it reduced the pleasure I took from it. It was only when I stopped taking the drug and I started having more pleasurable sex again that I remembered regular sex is one of the best natural antidepressants in the world.
“In young people, these chemical antidepressants increase the risk of suicide. There’s a new Swedish study showing that it increases the risk of violent criminal behavior,” Irving continued. “In older people it increases the risk of death from all causes, increases the risk of stroke. In everybody, it increases the risk of type 2 diabetes. In pregnant women, it increases the risk of miscarriage and of having children born with autism or physical deformities. So all of these things are known.” And if you start experiencing these effects, it can be hard to stop, about 20 percent of people experience serious withdrawal symptoms.
So, he says, “if you want to use something to get its placebo effect, at least use something that’s safe.” We could be giving people the herb St. John’s Wort, Irving says, and we’d have all the positive placebo effects and none of these drawbacks. Although, of course, St. John’s Wort isn’t patented by the drug companies, so nobody would be making much profit off it.
By this time, Irving was starting, he told me softly, to feel “guilty” for having pushed those pills for all those years.
In 1802, John Haygarth revealed the true story of the wands to the public. Some people are really recovering from their pain for a time, he explained, but it’s not because of the power in the wands. It’s because of the power in their minds. It was a placebo effect, and it likely wouldn’t last, because it wasn’t solving the underlying problem.
This message angered almost everyone? Some felt duped by the people who had sold the expensive wands in the first place, but many more felt furious with Haygarth himself, and said he was clearly talking rubbish. “The intelligence excited great commotions, accompanied by threats and abuse,” he wrote. “A counterdeclaration was to be signed by a great number of very respectable persons”, including some leading scientists of the day, explaining that the wand worked, and its powers were physical, and real.
Since Irving published his early results, and as he has built on them over the years, the reaction has been similar. Nobody denies that the drug companies’ own data, submitted to the FDA, shows that antidepressants have only a really small effect over and above placebo. Nobody denies that my own drug company admitted privately that the drug I was given, Paxil, was not going to work for people like me, and they had to make a payout in court for their deception.
But some scientists, a considerable number, do dispute many of Kirsch’s wider arguments. I wanted to study carefully what they say. I hoped the old story could still, somehow, be saved. I turned to a man who, more than anyone else alive, successfully sold antidepressants to the wider public, and he did it because he believed it: he never took a cent from the drug companies.
In the 1990s, Dr. Peter Kramer was watching as patient after patient walked into his therapy office in Rhode Island, transformed before his eyes after they were given the new antidepressant drugs. It’s not just that they seemed to have improved; they became, he argued, “better than well”, they had more resilience and energy than the average person. The book he wrote about this, Listening to Prozac, became the bestselling book ever about antidepressants. I read it soon after I started taking the drugs. I was sure the process Peter described so compellingly was happening to me. I wrote about it, and I made his case to the public in articles and interviews.
So when Irving started to present his evidence, Peter, by then a professor at Brown Medical School, was horrified. He started taking apart Irving’s critique of antidepressants at length, in public, both in books and in a series of charged public debates.
His first argument is that Irving is not giving antidepressants enough time. The clinical trials he has analyzed, almost all the ones submitted to the regulator, typically last for four to eight weeks. But that isn’t enough. It takes longer for these drugs to have a real effect.
This seemed to me to be an important objection. Irving thought so, too. So he looked to see if there were any drug trials that had lasted longer, to find their results. It turns out there were two, and in the first, the placebo did the same as the drug, and in the second, the placebo did better.
Peter then pointed to another mistake he believed Irving had made. The antidepressant trials that Irving is looking at lump together two groups: moderately depressed people and severely depressed people. Maybe these drugs don’t work much for moderately depressed people, Peter concedes, but they do work for severely depressed people. He’s seen it. So when Irving adds up an average for everyone, lumping together the mildly depressed and the severely depressed, the effect of the drugs looks small, but that’s only because he’s diluting the real effect, as surely as Coke will lose its flavor if you mix it with pints and pints of water.
Again, Irving thought this was a potentially important point, and one he was keen to understand, so he went back over the studies he had drawn his data from. He discovered that, with a single exception, he had looked only at studies of people classed as having very severe depression.
This then led Peter to turn to his most powerful argument. It’s the heart of his case against Irving and for antidepressants.
In 2012, Peter went to watch some clinical trials being conducted, in a medical center that looked like a beautiful glass cube, and gazed out over expensive houses.
When the company there wants to conduct trials into antidepressants, they have two headaches. They have to recruit volunteers who will swallow potentially dangerous pills over a sustained period of time, but they are restricted by law to paying only small amounts: between $40 and $75. At the same time, they have to find people who have very specific mental health disorders, for example, if you are doing a trial for depression, they have to have only depression and no other complicating factors. Given all that, it’s pretty difficult for them to find anyone who will take part, so they often turn to quite desperate people, and they have to offer other things to tempt them. Peter watched as poor people were bused in from across the city to be offered a gorgeous buffet of care they’d never normally receive at home, therapy, a whole community of people who’d listen to them, a warm place to be during the day, medication, and money that could double their poverty-level income.
As he watched this, he was struck by something. The people who turn up at this center have a strong incentive to pretend to have any condition they happen to be studying there, and the for-profit companies conducting the clinical trials have a strong incentive to pretend to believe them. Peter looked on as both sides seemed to be effectively bullshitting each other. When he saw people being asked to rate how well the drugs had worked, he thought they were often clearly just giving the interviewer whatever answer they wanted.
So Peter concluded that the results from clinical trials of antidepressants, all the data we have, are meaningless. That means Irving is building his conclusion that their effect is very small (at best) on a heap of garbage, Peter declared. The trials themselves are fraudulent.
It’s a devastating point, and Peter has proved it quite powerfully. But it puzzled Irving when he heard it, and it puzzled me. The leading scientific defender of antidepressants, Peter Kramer, is making the case for them by saying that the scientific evidence for them is junk.
When I spoke to Peter, I told him that if he is right (and I think he is), then that’s not a case for the drugs. It’s a case against them. It means that, by law, they should never have been brought to market.
When I started to ask about this, in a friendly tone Peter became quite irritable, and said even bad trials can yield usable results. He soon changed the subject. Given that he puts so much weight on what he’s seen with his own eyes, I asked Peter what he would say to the people who claimed that John Haygarth’s wand worked, because they, too, were just believing what they saw with their own eyes. He said that in cases like that, “the collection of experts isn’t as expert or as numerous as what we’re talking about here. I mean, this would be [an] orders-of-magnitude bigger scandal if these were [like] just bones wrapped in cloth.”
Shortly after, he said: “I think I want to cut off this conversation.”
Even Peter Kramer had one note of caution to offer about these drugs. He stressed to me that the evidence he has seen only makes the case for prescribing antidepressants for six to twenty weeks. Beyond that, he said, “I think that the evidence is thinner, and my dedication to the arguments is less as you get to long-term use. I mean, does anyone really know about what fourteen years of use does in terms of harm and benefit? I think the answer is we don’t really know.” I felt anxious as he said that, I had already told him that I used the drugs for almost that long. Perhaps because he sensed my anxiety, he added: “Although I do think we’ve been reasonably lucky. People like you come off and function.”
Very few scientists now defend the idea that depression is simply caused by low levels of serotonin, but the debate about whether chemical antidepressants work for some other reason we don’t fully understand, is still ongoing. There is no scientific consensus. Many distinguished scientists agree with Irving Kirsch; many agree with Peter Kramer. I wasn’t sure what to take away from all of this, until Irving led me to one last piece of evidence. I think it tells us the most important fact we need to know about chemical antidepressants.
In the late 1990s, a group of scientists wanted to test the effects of the new SSRI antidepressants in a situation that wasn’t just a lab, or a clinical trial. They wanted to look at what happens in a more everyday situation, so they set up something called the Star-D Trial. It was pretty simple. A normal patient goes to the doctor and explains he’s depressed. The doctor talks through the options with him, and if they both agree, he starts taking an antidepressant. At this point, the scientists conducting the trial start to monitor the patient. If the antidepressant doesn’t work for him, he’s given another one. If that one doesn’t work, he’s given another one, and on and on until he gets one that feels as though it works. This is how it works for most of us out there in the real world: a majority of people who get prescribed antidepressants try more than one, or try more than one dosage, until they find the effect they’re looking for.
And what the trial found is that the drugs worked. Some 67 percent of patients did feel better, just like I did in those first months.
But then they found something else. Within a year, half of the patients were fully depressed again. Only one in three of the people who stayed on the pills had a lasting, proper recovery from their depression. (And even that exaggerates the effect, since we know many of those people would have recovered naturally without the pills.)
It seemed like my story, played out line by line. I felt better at first; the effect wore off; I tried increasing the dose, and then that wore off, too. When I realized that antidepressants weren’t working for me any more, that no matter how much I jacked up the dose, the sadness would still seep back through, I assumed there was something wrong with me.
Now I was reading the Star-D Trial’s results, and I realized I was normal. My experience was straight from the textbook: far from being an outlier, I had the typical antidepressant experience.
This evidence has been followed up several times since, and the proportion of people on antidepressants who continue to be depressed is found to be between 65 and 80 percent.
To me, this seems like the most crucial piece of evidence about antidepressants of all: most people on these drugs, after an initial kick, remain depressed or anxious.
I want to stress, some reputable scientists still believe that these drugs genuinely work for a minority of people who take them, due to a real chemical effect. It’s possible. Chemical antidepressants may well be a partial solution for a minority of depressed and anxious people, I certainly don’t want to take away anything that’s giving relief to anyone. If you feel helped by them, and the positives outweigh the side effects, you should carry on. (And if you are going to stop taking them, then it’s essential that you don’t do it overnight, because you can experience severe physical withdrawal symptoms and a great deal of panic as a result. I gradually reduced my dose very slowly, over six months, in consultation with my doctor, to prevent this from happening.)
But it is impossible, in the face of this evidence, to say they are enough, for a big majority of depressed and anxious people.
I couldn’t deny it any longer: for the vast majority we clearly needed to find a different story about what is making us feel this way, and a different set of solutions. But what, asked myself, bewildered, could they be?
The Emperor’s New Drugs
Irving Kirsch
Everyone knows that antidepressant drugs are miracles of modern medicine. Professor Irving Kirsch knew this as well as anyone. But, as he discovered during his research, there is a problem with what everyone knows about antidepressant drugs. It isn’t true.
How did antidepressant drugs gain their reputation as a magic bullet for depression? And why has it taken so long for the story to become public? Answering these questions takes us to the point where the lines between clinical research and marketing disappear altogether.
Using the Freedom of Information Act, Kirsch accessed clinical trials that were withheld, by drug companies, from the public and from the doctors who prescribe antidepressants. What he found, and what he documents here, promises to bring revolutionary change to the way our society perceives, and consumes, antidepressants.
The Emperor’s New Drugs exposes what we have failed to see before: depression is not caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain; antidepressants are significantly more dangerous than other forms of treatment and are only marginally more effective than placebos; and, there are other ways to combat depression, treatments that don’t only include the empty promise of the antidepressant prescription.
This is not a book about alternative medicine and its outlandish claims. This is a book about fantasy and wishful thinking in the heart of clinical medicine, about the seductions of myth, and the final stubbornness of facts.
Irving Kirsch is a lecturer in medicine at the Harvard Medical School and a professor of psychology at Plymouth University, as well as professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Hull, and the University of Connecticut. He has published eight books and numerous scientific articles on placebo effects, antidepressant medication, hypnosis, and suggestion. His work has appeared in Science, Science News, New Scientist, New York Times, Newsweek, and BBC Focus and many other leading magazines, newspapers, and television documentaries.
Like most people, I used to think that antidepressants worked. As a clinical psychologist, I referred depressed psychotherapy clients to psychiatric colleagues for the prescription of medication, believing that it might help. Sometimes the antidepressant seemed to work; sometimes it did not. When it did work, I assumed it was the active ingredient in the antidepressant that was helping my clients cope with their psychological condition.
According to drug companies, more than 80 per cent of depressed patients can be treated successfully by antidepressants. Claims like this made these medications one of the most widely prescribed class of prescription drugs in the world, with global sales that make it a $19-billion-a-year industry. Newspaper and magazine articles heralded antidepressants as miracle drugs that had changed the lives of millions of people. Depression, we were told, is an illness a disease of the brain that can be cured by medication. I was not so sure that depression was really an illness, but I did believe that the drugs worked and that they could be a helpful adjunct to psychotherapy for very severely depressed clients. That is why I referred these clients to psychiatrists who could prescribe antidepressants that the clients could take while continuing in psychotherapy to work on the psychological issues that had made them depressed.
But was it really the drug they were taking that made my clients feel better? Perhaps I should have suspected that the improvement they reported might not have been a drug effect. People obtain considerable benefits from many medications, but they also can experience symptom improvement just by knowing they are being treated. This is called the placebo effect. As a researcher at the University of Connecticut, I had been studying placebo effects for many years. I was well aware of the power of belief to alleviate depression, and I understood that this was an important part of any treatment, be it psychological or pharmacological. But I also believed that antidepressant drugs added something substantial over and beyond the placebo effect.
As I wrote in my first book, ‘comparisons of antidepressive medication with placebo pills indicate that the former has a greater effect, the existing data suggest a pharmacologically specific effect of imipramine on depression’. As a researcher, I trusted the data as it had been presented in the published literature. I believed that antidepressants like imipramine were highly effective drugs, and I referred to this as ‘the established superiority of imipramine over placebo treatment’.
When I began the research that I describe in this book, I was not particularly interested in investigating the effects of antidepressants. But I was definitely interested in investigating placebo effects wherever I could find them, and it seemed to me that depression was a perfect place to look. Why did I expect to find a large placebo effect in the treatment of depression? If you ask depressed people to tell you what the most depressing thing in their lives is, many answer that it is their depression. Clinical depression is a debilitating condition. People with severe depression feel unbearably sad and anxious, at times to the point of considering suicide as a way to relieve the burden. They may be racked with feelings of worthlessness and guilt. Many suffer from insomnia, whereas others sleep too much and find it difficult to get out of bed in the morning. Some have difficulty concentrating and have lost interest in all of the activities that previously brought pleasure and meaning into their lives. Worst of all, they feel hopeless about ever recovering from this terrible state, and this sense of hopelessness may lead them to feel that life is not worth living. In short, depression is depressing. John Teasdale, a leading researcher on depression at Oxford and Cambridge universities, labelled this phenomenon ‘depression about depression’ and claimed that effective treatments for depression work at least in part by altering the sense of hopelessness that comes from being depressed about one’s own depression?!
Whereas hopelessness is a central feature of depression, hope lies at the core of the placebo effect. Placebos instil hope in patients by promising them relief from their distress. Genuine medical treatments also instil hope, and this is the placebo component of their effectiveness.
When the promise of relief instils hope, it counters a fundamental attribute of depression. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine any treatment successfully treating depression without reducing the sense of hopelessness that depressed people feel. Conversely, any treatment that reduces hopelessness must also assuage depression. So a convincing placebo ought to relieve depression.
It was with that in mind that one of my postgraduate students, Guy Sapirstein, and I set out to investigate the placebo effect in depression, an investigation that I describe in the first chapter of this book, and that produced the first of a series of surprises that transformed my views about antidepressants and their role in the treatment of depression. In this book I invite you to share this journey in which I moved from acceptance to dissent, and finally to a thorough rejection of the conventional view of antidepressants.
The drug companies claimed and still maintain that the effectiveness of antidepressants has been proven in published clinical trials showing that the drugs are substantially better than placebos (dummy pills with no active ingredients at all). But the data that Sapirstein and I examined told a very different story. Although many depressed patients improve when given medication, so do many who are given a placebo, and the difference between the drug response and the placebo response is not all that great.
What the published studies really indicate is that most of the improvement shown by depressed people when they take antidepressants is due to the placebo effect.
Our finding that most of the effects of antidepressants could be explained as a placebo effect was only the first of a number of surprises that changed my views about antidepressants. Following up on this research, I learned that the published clinical trials we had analysed were not the only studies assessing the effectiveness of antidepressants. I discovered that approximately 40 per cent of the clinical trials conducted had been withheld from publication by the drug companies that had sponsored them. By and large, these were studies that had failed to show a significant benefit from taking the actual drug. When we analysed all of the data, those that had been published and those that had been suppressed my colleagues and I were led to the inescapable conclusion that antidepressants are little more than active placebos, drugs with very little specific therapeutic benefit, but with serious side effects. I describe these analyses and the reaction to them in Chapters 3 and 4.
How can this be? Before a new drug is put on the market, it is subjected to rigorous testing. The drug companies sponsor expensive clinical trials, in which some patients are given medication and others are given placebos. The drug is considered effective only if patients given the real drug improve significantly more than patients given the placebos. Reports of these trials are then sent out to medical journals, where they are subjected to rigorous peer review before they are published. They are also sent to regulatory agencies, like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the UK and the European Medicine Agency (EMEA) in the EU. These regulatory agencies carefully review the data on safety and effectiveness, before deciding whether to approve the drugs for marketing. So there must be substantial evidence backing the effectiveness of any medication that has reached the market.
And yet I remain convinced that antidepressant drugs are not effective treatments and that the idea of depression as a chemical imbalance in the brain is a myth. When I began to write this book, my claim was more modest. I believed that the clinical effectiveness of antidepressants had not been proven for most of the millions of patients to whom they are prescribed, but I also acknowledged that they might be beneficial to at least a subset of depressed patients. During the process of putting all of the data together, those that I had analysed over the years and newer data that have just recently seen the light of day, I realized that the situation was even worse than I thought.
The belief that antidepressants can cure depression chemically is simply wrong.
In this book I will share with you the process by which I came to this conclusion and the scientific evidence on which it is based. This includes evidence that was known to the pharmaceutical companies and to regulatory agencies, but that was intentionally withheld from prescribing physicians, their patients and even from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) when it was drawing up treatment guidelines for the National Health Service (NHS).
My colleagues and I obtained some of these hidden data by using the Freedom of Information Act in the US. We analysed the data and submitted the results for peer review to medical and psychological journals, where they were then published. Our analyses have become the focus of a national and international debate, in which many doctors have changed their prescribing habits and others have reacted with anger and incredulity.
My intention in this book is to present the data in a plain and straightforward way, so that you will be able to decide for yourself whether my conclusions about antidepressants are justified.
The conventional view of depression is that it is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. The basis for this idea was the belief that antidepressant drugs were effective treatments. Our analysis showing that most if not all of the effects of these medications are really placebo effects challenges this widespread view of depression. In Chapter 4 I examine the chemical-imbalance theory. You may be surprised to learn that it is actually a rather controversial theory and that there is not much scientific evidence to support it. While writing this chapter I came to an even stronger conclusion. It is not just that there is not much supportive evidence; rather, there is a ton of data indicating that the chemical-imbalance theory is simply wrong.
The chemical effect of antidepressant drugs may be small or even non-existent, but these medications do produce a powerful placebo effect. In Chapters 5 and 6 I examine the placebo effect itself. I look at the myriad of effects that placebos have been shown to have and explore the theories of how these effects are produced. I explain how placebos are able to produce substantial relief from depression, almost as much as that produced by medication, and the implications that this has for the treatment of depression.
Finally, in Chapter 7, I describe some of the alternatives to medication for the treatment of depression and assess the evidence for their effectiveness. One of my aims is to provide essential scientifically grounded information for making informed choices between the various treatment options that are available.
Much of what I write in this book will seem controversial, but it is all thoroughly grounded on scientific evidence, evidence that I describe in detail in this book. Furthermore, as controversial as my conclusions seem, there has been a growing acceptance of them. NICE has acknowledged the failure of antidepressant treatment to provide clinically meaningful benefits to most depressed patients; the UK government has instituted plans for providing alternative treatments; and neuroscientists have noted the inability of the chemical-imbalance theory to explain depression. We seem to be on the cusp of a revolution in the way we understand and treat depression.
Learning the facts behind the myths about antidepressants has been, for me, a journey of discovery. It was a journey filled with shocks and surprises, surprises about how drugs are tested and how they are approved, what doctors are told and what is kept hidden from them, what regulatory agencies know and what they don’t want you to know, and the myth of depression as a brain disease. I would like to share that journey with you. Perhaps you will find it as surprising and shocking as I did. It is my hope that making this information public will foster changes in the way new drugs are tested and approved in the future, in the public availability of the data and in the treatment of depression.
Listening to Prozac, but Hearing Placebo
In 1995 Guy Sapirstein and I set out to assess the placebo effect in the treatment of depression. Instead of doing a brand-new study, we decided to pool the results of previous studies in which placebos had been used to treat depression and analyse them together. What we did is called a meta-analysis, and it is a common technique for making sense of the data when a large number of studies have been done to answer a particular question. It was once considered somewhat controversial, but meta-analyses are now common features in all of the leading medical journals. Indeed, it is hard to see how one could interpret the results of large numbers of studies without the aid of a meta-anaiysis.
In doing our meta-analysis, it was not enough to find studies in which depressed patients had been given placebos. We also needed to find studies in which depression had been tracked in patients who were not given any treatment at all. This was to make sure that any effect we found was really due to the administration of the placebo. To better understand the reason for this, imagine that you are investigating a new remedy for colds. If the patients are given the new medicine, they get better, if they are given placebos, they also get better. Seeing these data, you might be tempted to think that the improvement was a placebo effect. But people recover from colds even if you give them nothing at all. So when the patients in our imaginary study took a dummy pill and their colds got better, the improvement may have had nothing to do with the placebo effect. It might simply have been due to the passage of time and the fact that colds are short-lasting illnesses.
Spontaneous improvement is not limited to colds. It can also happen when people are depressed. Because people sometimes recover from bouts of depression with no treatment at all, seeing that a person has become less depressed after taking a placebo does not mean that the person has experienced a placebo effect. The improvement could have been due to any of a number of other factors. For example, people can get better because of positive changes in life circumstances, such as finding a job after a period of unemployment or meeting a new romantic partner. Improvement can also be facilitated by the loving support of friends and family. Sometimes a good friend can function as a surrogate therapist. In fact, a very influential book on psychotherapy bore the title Psychotherapy: The Purchase of Friendship. The author did not claim that psychotherapy was merely friendship, but the title does make the point that it can be very therapeutic to have a friend who is empathic and knows how to listen.
The point is that without comparing the effect of placebos against rates of spontaneous recovery, it is impossible to assess the placebo effect. Just as we have to control for the placebo effect to evaluate the effect of a drug, so too we have to control for the passage of time when assessing the placebo effect. The drug effect is the difference between what happens when people are given the active drug and what happens when they are given the placebo. Analogously, the placebo effect is the difference between what happens when people are given placebos and what happens when they are not treated at all.
It is rare for a study to focus on the placebo effect or on the effect of the simple passage of time, for that matter. So where were we to find our placebo data and no-treatment data? We found our placebo data in clinical studies of antidepressants, and our no-treatment data in clinical studies of psychotherapy. It is common to have no-treatment or wait-list control groups in studies of the effects of psychotherapy. These groups consist of patients who are not given any treatment at all during the course of the study, although they may be placed on a wait list and given treatment after the research is concluded.
For the purpose of our research, Sapirstein and I were not particularly interested in the effects of the antidepressants or psychotherapy. What we were interested in was the placebo effect. But since we had the treatment data to hand, we looked at them as well. And, as it turned out, it was the comparison of drug and placebo that proved to be the most interesting part of our study.
All told, we analysed 38 clinical trials involving more than 3,000 depressed patients. We looked at the average improvement during the course of the study in each of the four types of groups: drug, placebo, psychotherapy and no-treatment. I am going to use a graph here (Figure 1.1) to show what the data tell us. Although the text will have a couple more such charts, I am going to keep them to a minimum. But this is one that I think we need, to make the point clearly. What the graph shows is that there was substantial improvement in both the drug and psychotherapy groups. People got better when given either form of treatment, and the difference between the two was not significant. People also got better when given placebos, and here too the improvement was remarkably large, although not as great as the improvement following drugs or psychotherapy. In contrast, the patients who had not been given any treatment at all showed relatively little improvement.
The first thing to notice in this graph is the difference in improvement between patients given placebos and patients not given any treatment at all. This difference shows that most of the improvement in the placebo groups was produced by the fact that they had been given placebos. The reduction in depression that people experienced was not just caused by the passage of time, the natural course of depression or any of the other factors that might produce an improvement in untreated patients. It was a placebo effect. and it was powerful.
Figure 1.1. Average improvement on drug, psychotherapy, placebo and no treatment. ‘lmprovement’ refers to the reduction of symptoms on scales used to measure depression. The numbers are called ‘effect sizes’. They are commonly used when the results of different studies are pooled together. Typically, effect sizes of 0.5 are considered moderate, whereas effect sizes of 0.8 are considered large. So the graph shows that antidepressants, psychotherapy and placebos produce large changes in the symptoms of depression, but there was only a relatively small average improvement in people who were not given any treatment at all.
One thing to learn from these data is that doing nothing is not the best way to respond to depression. People should not just wait to recover spontaneously from clinical depression, nor should they be expected just to snap out of it. There may be some improvement that is associated with the simple passage of time, but compared to doing nothing at all, treatment even if it is just placebo treatment provides substantial benefit.
Sapirstein and I were not surprised to find that there was a powerful placebo effect in the treatment of depression. Actually, we were quite pleased. That was our hypothesis and our reason for doing the study. What did surprise us, however, was how small the difference was between the response to the drug and the response to the placebo. That difference is the drug effect. Although the drug effect in the published clinical trials that we had analysed was statistically significant, it was much smaller than we had anticipated. Much of the therapeutic response to the drug was due to the placebo effect.
The relatively small size of the drug effect was the first of a series of surprises that the antidepressant data had in store for us.
One way to understand the size of the drug effect is to think about it as only a part of the improvement that patients experience when taking medication. Part of the improvement might be spontaneous that is, it might have occurred without any treatment at all and part may be a placebo effect. What is left over after you subtract spontaneous improvement and the placebo effect is the drug effect. You can see in Figure 1.1 that improvement in patients who had been given a placebo was about 75 per cent of the response to the real medication. That means that only 25 per cent of the benefit of antidepressant treatment was really due to the chemical effect of the drug. It also means that 50 per cent of the improvement was a placebo effect. In other words, the placebo effect was twice as large as the drug effect.
The drug effect seemed rather small to us, considering that these medications had been heralded as a revolution in the treatment of depression, blockbuster drugs that have been prescribed to hundreds of millions of patients, with annual sales totalling billions of pounds: Sapirstein and I must have done something wrong in either collecting or analysing the data. But what? We spent months trying to figure it out.
ARE ALL DRUGS CREATED EQUAL? DOUBLEBLIND OR DOUBLE-TALK
One thing that occurred to us, when considering how surprisingly small the drug effect was in the clinical trials we had analysed, was that a number of different medications had been assessed in those studies. Perhaps some of them were effective, whereas others were not. If this were the case, we had underestimated the benefits of effective drugs by lumping them together with ineffective medications. So before we sent our paper out for review, we went back to the data and examined the type of drugs that had been administered in each of the clinical trials in our meta-analysis.
We found that some of these trials had assessed tricyclic antidepressants, an older type of medication that was the most commonly used antidepressant in the 1960s and 1970s. In other trials, the focus was on selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac (fluoxetine), the first of the ‘new-generation’ drugs that replaced tricyclics as the top-selling type of antidepressant. And there were other types of antidepressants investigated in these trials as well. When we reanalysed the data, examining the drug effect and the placebo effect for each type of medication separately, we found that the diversity of drugs had not affected the outcome of our analysis. In fact, the data were remarkably consistent much more so than is usually the case when one analyses different groups of data. Not only did all of these medications produce the same degree of improvement in depression, but also, in each case, only 25 per cent of the improvement was due to the effect of the drug. The rest could be explained by the passage of time and the placebo effect.
The lack of difference we found between one class of antidepressants and another is now a rather frequent finding in antidepressant research. The newer antidepressants (SSRIs, for example) are no more effective than the older medications. Their advantage is that their side effects are less troubling, so that patients are more likely to stay on them rather than discontinue treatment. Still, the consistency of the size of the drug effect was surprising. It was not just that the percentages were close; they were virtually identical. They ranged from 24 to 26 per cent. At the time I thought, ‘What a nice coincidence! It will look great in a PowerPoint slide when I am invited to speak on this topic.’ But since then I have been struck by similar instances in which the consistency of the data is remarkable, and it is part of what has transformed me from a doubter to a disbeliever. I will note similar consistencies as we encounter them in this book.
The consistency of the effects of different types of antidepressants meant that we had not underestimated the antidepressant drug effect by lumping together the effects of more effective and less effective drugs. But our re-examination of the data in our meta-analysis held another surprise for us. Some of the medications we had analysed were not antidepressants at all, even though they had been evaluated for their effects on depression. One was a barbiturate, a depressant that had been used as a sleeping aid, before being replaced by less dangerous medications. Another was a benzodiazepine a sedative that has largely replaced the more dangerous barbiturates. Yet another was a synthetic thyroid hormone that had been given to depressed patients who did not have a thyroid disorder. Although none of these drugs are considered antidepressants, their effects on depression were every bit as great as those of antidepressants and significantly better than placebos. Joanna Moncrieff, a psychiatrist at University College London, has since listed other drugs that have been shown to be as effective as medications for depression. These include antipsychotic drugs, stimulants and herbal remedies. Opiates are also better than placebos, but I have not seen them compared to antidepressants.
If sedatives, barbiturates, antipsychotic drugs, stimulants, opiates and thyroid medications all outperform inert placebos in the treatment of depression, does this mean that any active drug can function as an antidepressant? Apparently not. In September 1998 the pharmaceutical company Merck announced the discovery of a novel antidepressant with a completely different mode of action than other medications for depression. This new drug, which they later marketed under the trade name Emend for the prevention of nausea and vomiting due to chemotherapy, seemed to show considerable promise as an antidepressant in early clinical trials. Four months later the company announced its decision to pull the plug on the drug as a treatment for depression. The reason? It could not find a significant benefit for the active drug over placebos in subsequent clinical trials.
This was unfortunate for a number of reasons. One is that the announcement caused a 5 per cent drop in the value of the company’s stock. Another is that the drug had an important advantage over current antidepressants, it produced substantially fewer side effects. The relative lack of side effects had been one reason for the enthusiasm about Merck’s new antidepressant. However, it may also have been the reason for its subsequent failure in controlled clinical trials. It seems that easily noticeable side effects are needed to show antidepressant benefit for an active drug compared to a placebo.
by Irving Kirsch
antidepressantdrugsAntidepressantsbigpharmaDepressionIrvingKirschJohannHariMentalHealthpharmaceuticalcompaniesplaceboplaceboeffectPsychology
ANGER CORRODES THE VESSEL THAT CONTAINS IT. Self Compassion and Anger in Relationships – Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer.
Dec 8, 2018 TPPA = CRISIS Leave a comment
Our deepest need as human beings is the need to be loved. Our brains communicate emotions to one another, regardless of how carefully we chose our words.
Much of our relationship suffering is unnecessary and can be prevented by cultivating a loving relationship with ourselves. Cultivating self-compassion is one of the best things we can do for our relationship interactions.
Anger has a way of popping up around disconnection and can sometimes linger for years, long after the relationship has ended.
Sometimes we turn the anger against ourselves in the form of harsh self-criticism, which is a surefire way to become depressed. And if we get stuck in angry rumination, who did what to whom and what they deserve for it, we live with an agitated state of mind and may end up getting angry at others for no apparent reason.
“Anger corrodes the vessel that contains it.”
To have the type of close, connected relationships we really want with others, we first need to feel close and connected to ourselves. Cultivating self-compassion is far from selfish.
Much of our suffering arises in relationship with others. As Sartre famously wrote, “Hell is other people.” The good news is that much of our relationship suffering is unnecessary and can be prevented by cultivating a loving relationship with ourselves.
There are at least two types of relational pain. One is the pain of connection, when those we care about are suffering.
The other type is the pain of disconnection, when we experience loss or rejection and feel hurt, angry, or alone.
Our capacity for emotional resonance means that emotions are contagious. This is especially true in intimate relationships. If you are irritated with your partner but try to hide it, for instance, your partner will often pick up on your irritation. He might say, “Are you angry at me?” Even if you deny it, your partner will feel the irritation; it will affect his mood, leading to an irritated tone of voice. You will feel this, in turn, and become even more irritated, and your responses will have a harsher tone, and on it goes. This is because our brains would have been communicating emotions to one another regardless of how carefully we chose our words.
In social interactions, there can be a downward spiral of negative emotions, when one person has a negative attitude, the other person becomes even more negative, and so on. This means that other people are partly responsible for our state of mind, but we are also partly responsible for their state of mind. The good news is that emotional contagion gives us more power than we realize to change the emotional tenor of our relationships. Self-compassion can interrupt a downward spiral and start an upward spiral instead.
Compassion is actually a positive emotion and activates the reward centers of our brain, even though it arises in the presence of suffering. A very useful way to change the direction of a negative relationship interaction, therefore, is to have compassion for the pain we’re feeling in the moment. The positive feelings of compassion we have for ourselves will also be felt by others, manifested in our tone and subtle facial expressions, and help to interrupt the negative cycle, in this way cultivating self-compassion is one of the best things we can do for our relationship interactions as well as for ourselves.
Not surprisingly, research shows that self-compassionate people have happier and more satisfying romantic relationships. In one study, for instance, individuals with higher levels of self-compassion were described by their partners as being more accepting and nonjudgmental than those who lacked self-compassion. Rather than trying to change their partners, self-compassionate people tended to respect their opinions and consider their point of view. They were also described as being more caring, connected, affectionate, intimate, and willing to talk over relationship problems than those who lacked self-compassion. At the same time, self-compassionate people were described as giving their partners more freedom and autonomy in their relationships. They tended to encourage partners to make their own decisions and to follow their own interests. In contrast, people who lacked self-compassion were described as being more critical and controlling of their partners. They were also described as being more self-centered, inflexibly wanting everything their own way.
Steve met Sheila in college, and after 15 years of marriage he still loved her dearly. He hated to admit this to himself, but she was also starting to drive him crazy. Sheila was terribly insecure and constantly needed Steve to reassure her of his love and affection. Wasn’t sticking around for 15 years enough? If he didn’t tell her “I love you ” every day, she would start to worry, and if a few days went by she got into a proper sulk. He felt controlled by her need for reassurance and resented the fact that she didn’t honor his own need to express himself authentically. Thair relationship was starting to suffer.
To have the type of close, connected relationships we really want with others, we first need to feel close and connected to ourselves. By being supportive toward ourselves in times of struggle, we gain the emotional resources needed to care for our significant others. When we meet our own needs for love and acceptance, we can place fewer demands on our partners, allowing them to be more fully themselves. Cultivating self-compassion is far from selfish.
It gives us the resilience we need to build and sustain happy and healthy relationships in our lives.
Over time Sheila was able to see how her constant need for reassurance from Steve was driving him away. She realized that she had become a black hole and that Steve would never be able to fully satisfy her insecurity by giving her “enough” love. It would never be enough. So Sheila started a practice of journaling at night to give herself the love and affection she craved. She would write the type of tender words to herself that she was hoping to hear from Steve, like “I love you sweetheart. I won’t ever leave you.” Then, first thing in the morning, she would read what she had written and let it soak in. She began giving herself the reassurance she was desperately seeking from Steve and let him off the hook. It wasn’t quite as nice, she had to admit, but she liked the fact that she wasn’t so dependent. As the pressure eased, Steve started to be more naturally expressive in their relationship, and they became closer. The more secure she felt in her own self-acceptanee, the more she was able to accept his love as it was, not just how she wanted it to be. Ironically, by meeting her own needs she became less self-focused and started to feel an independence that was new and delicious.
Self-Compassion and Anger in Relationships
Another type of relational pain is disconnection, which occurs whenever there is a loss or rupture in a relationship. Anger is a common reaction to disconnection. We might get angry when we feel rejected or dismissed, but also when disconnection is unavoidable, such as when someone dies. The reaction may not be rational, but it still happens. Anger has a way of popping up around disconnection and can sometimes linger for years, long after the relationship has ended.
Although anger gets a bad rap, it isn’t necessarily bad. Like all emotions, anger has positive functions. For instance, anger can give us information that someone has overstepped our boundaries or hurt us in some way, and it may be a powerful signal that something needs to change. Anger can also provide us with the energy and determination to protect ourselves in the face of threat, take action to stop harmful behavior, or end a toxic relationship.
While anger in and of itself is not a problem, we often have an unhealthy relationship with anger. For instance, we may not allow ourselves to feel our anger and suppress it instead. This can be especially true for women, who are taught to be “nice,” i.e., not angry. When we try to stuff down our anger, it can lead to anxiety, emotional constriction, or numbness. Sometimes we turn the anger against ourselves in the form of harsh self-criticism, which is a surefire way to become depressed. And if we get stuck in angry rumination, who did what to whom and what they deserve for it, we live with an agitated state of mind and may end up getting angry at others for no apparent reason.
Nate was an electrician who lived in Chicago. He had split from his wife, Lila, over five years ago, but he still got enraged every time he thought about her. It turns out that Lila had an affair with a close friend of theirs, someone they often socialized with, and that this went on behind his back for almost a year. As soon as Nate found out about it, he was seething with anger. He somehow managed to refrain from calling her every name in the book, but he was sick to his stomach whenever he thought about what had happened. He filed for divorce almost immediately, thank goodness they didn’t have children, so the process was relatively quick and easy. Although he hadn’t had any contact with Lila for several years, his anger never really subsided. And the trauma of the affair kept Nate from forming new relationships because he had such a hard time trusting anyone.
If we continually harden our emotions in an attempt to protect ourselves against those we’re angry at, over time we may develop bitterness and resentment. Anger, bitterness, and resentment are “hard feelings.” Hard feelings are resistant to change and often stick with us long past the time when they are useful. (How many of us are still angry at someone we are unlikely to ever see again?) Furthermore, chronic anger causes chronic stress, which is bad for all the systems of the body, cardiovascular, endocrine, nervous, even the reproductive system. As the saying goes, “Anger corrodes the vessel that contains it.” Or “Anger is the poison we drink to kill another person.” When anger is no longer helpful to us, the most compassionate thing we can do is change our relationship to it, especially by applying the resources of mindfulness and self compassion.
How? The first step is to identify the soft feelings behind the hard feelings of anger. Often anger is protecting more tender, sensitive emotions, such as feeling hurt, scared, unloved, alone, or vulnerable. When we peel back the outer layer of anger to see what is underneath, we are often surprised by the fullness and complexity of our feelings. Hard feelings are difficult to work with directly because they are typically defensive and outward focused. When we identify our soft feelings, however, we turn inward and can begin the transformation process.
To truly heal, however, we need to peel back the layers even further and discover the unmet needs that are giving rise to our soft feelings. Unmet needs are universal human needs, those experiences that are core to any human being. The Center for Nonviolent Communication offers a comprehensive list of needs at http://www.cm/cnrg/ training/needs inventory. Some examples are the need to be safe, connected, validated, heard, included, autonomous, and respected. And our deepest need as human beings is the need to be loved.
By having the courage to turn toward and experience our authentic feelings and needs, we can begin to have insight into what is really going on for us. Once we contact the pain and respond with self-compassion, things can start to transform on a deep level. We can use self-compassion to meet our needs directly.
Self-compassion in response to unmet needs means that we can begin to give ourselves what we have yearned to receive from others, perhaps for many years. We can be our own source of support, respect, love, validation, or safety. Of course, we need relationships and connection with others. We aren’t automatons. But when others are unable to meet our needs, for whatever reason, and have harmed us in the process, we can recover by holding the hurt, the soft feelings, in a compassionate embrace and fill the hole in our hearts with loving, connected presence.
Nate worked hard at transforming his anger because he realized it was holding him back. He had tried catharsis to get it out, punching pillows, yelling at the top of his lungs but it didn’t work. Eventually Nate signed up for an MSC course because a friend was very enthusiastic about it and said it would reduce his stress.
When Nate came to the part of the MSC course that focused on transforming anger by meeting his unmet needs, he felt nervous but did it anyway. It was easy to get in touch with his anger, and even the hurt behind it, and feel it in his body. The toughest part was identifying his unmet need. Certainly Nate felt betrayed and unloved, but that wasn’t what seemed to be holding him back. Nate stuck with the exercise, and finally the unmet need revealed itself, and his whole body relaxed. Respect!
Nate came from a hardworking hlue-collar family, and his parents were still happily married after 30 years. He tried to do everything right in his own marriage, to the best of his ability, and he took his vows very seriously. Honesty and respect were core values for Nate. Knowing that Lila would never give him the respect he needed, it was too late for that, he took the plunge and tried to give it to himself. “I respect you,” he told himself. At first it felt silly and empty and hollow. So he paused and tried to say the words as if they were true. He thought about how much he had sacrificed to get his master electrician’s certification and open a business, the long hours he had put in to pay the mortgage and build a savings account. “I respect you,” he repeated, over and over, though it still just sounded like words. Then he thought of how honest and hardworking he had tried to be in his marriage, even though that wasn’t enough for Lila.
Very, very slowly, Nate started to take it in. Finally he put his hand on his heart and said it like he really meant it: “I respect you.” He started to tear up, because he actually felt it. Once he did, the anger at his wife started to melt away. He began to see her unmet needs, different from his, for more closeness and affection. Not that what Lila did was okay, but Nate realized that her behavior had nothing to do with his worth or value as a person. He couldn’t rely on any outside person, even one who was reliable and faithful, to give him the respect he needed. It had to come from within.
Self-Compassion and Forgiveness
When someone has harmed us and we still feel anger and bitterness, sometimes the most compassionate thing to do is to forgive. Forgiveness involves letting go of anger at someone who has caused us harm. But forgiveness must involve grieving before letting go. The central point of forgiveness practice is that we cannot forgive others without first opening to the hurt that we have experienced. Similarly, to forgive ourselves, we must first open to the pain, remorse, and guilt of hurting others.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean condoning bad behavior or resuming a relationship that causes harm. If we are being harmed in a relationship, we need to protect ourselves before we can forgive. If we are harming another in a relationship, we cannot forgive ourselves if we are using this as an excuse for acting badly. We must first stop the behavior, then acknowledge and take responsibility for the harm we have caused.
At the same time, it’s helpful to remember that the harm done is usually the product of a universe of interacting causes and conditions stretching back through time. We have partly inherited our temperament from our parents and grandparents, and our actions are shaped by our early childhood history, culture, health status, current events, and so forth. Therefore, we don’t have complete control over precisely what we say and do from one moment to the next.
Sometimes we cause pain in life without intending it, and we may still feel sorry about causing such pain. An example is when we move across the country to start a new life, leaving friends and family behind, or when we can’t give our elderly parents the attention they need because of our work situation. This kind of pain is not the fault of anyone, but it can still be acknowledged and healed with self compassion.
The capacity to forgive requires keen awareness of our common humanity. We are all imperfect human beings whose actions stem from a web of interdependent conditions that are much larger than ourselves. In other words, we don’t have to take our mistakes so personally.
Paradoxically, this understanding helps us take more responsibility for our actions because we feel more emotionally secure. One research study asked participants to recall a recent action they felt guilty about, such as cheating on an exam, lying to a romantic partner, saying something harmful, that still made them feel bad about themselves when they thought about it. The researchers found that participants who were helped to be self-compassionate about their transgression reported being more motivated to apologize for the harm done, and more committed to not repeating the behavior, than those who were not helped to be selfcompassionate.
Anneka really struggled to forgive herself after getting super angry at her friend and coworker Hilde, whom she told to f-off. Anneka had been under a tremendous amount of pressure at work to secure a contract with new clients and was all set to close the deal at a dinner that they were hosting. The clients were pretty conservative, and Anneka knew she had to be on time and look appropriate for them to trust her. Hilde was supposed to pick her up for the dinner, but she wasn’t there at the appointed time. Frantic, Anneka called her. “Where are you?” Hilde had completely forgotten about the event. “Oh, I ’m so sorry,” she offered lamely. Anneka dropped the f bomb, said a few more unpleasant things, then hung up and called a taxi. Immediately after ward, Anneka felt terrible. This was her friend! Hilde hadn’t done anything purposefully harmful, she simply forgot, and Anneka has been too busy to remind her. The truth was that Anneka was so anxious about closing the deal that she lost perspective and ouerreacted.
There are five steps to forgiveness:
1. Opening to pain, being present with the distress of what happened.
2. Self Compassion, allowing our hearts to melt with sympathy for the pain, no matter what caused it.
3. Wisdom, beginning to recognize that the situation wasn’t entirely personal, but was the consequence of many interdependent causes and conditions.
4. Intention to forgive. “May I begin to forgive myself [another] for what I [he/she] did, wittingly or unwittingly, to have caused them [me] pain.”
5. Responsibility to protect, committing ourselves to not repeat the same mistake; to stay out of harm’s way, to the best of our ability.
At first Anneka harshly berated herself for her behavior, but she knew that heating up on herself wouldn’t help anyone. Instead, Anneka needed to forgive herself for having made a mistake, just as everyone makes mistakes.
Anneka had learned the five steps to forgiveness from her MSC course, so she knew what to do. First, she had to accept the pain she had caused Hilde. This was really tough for Anneka, especially since she didn’t get the contract she was hoping for. Her mind wanted to pin all the blame on Hilde. It was Hilde’s fault! But Anneka knew the truth. There was no excuse for talking to Hilde that way. It was wrong.
Anneka allowed herself to feel in her bones what it must have been like for Hilde to hear those words, from someone she considered a friend. That took some courage because Anneka felt so bad about it. Then Anneka gave herself compassion for the pain of hurting someone she loved. “Everyone makes mistakes. I’m so sorry you wounded your friend in this manner. I know you deeply regret it.” Giving herself compassion provided a bit of perspective, and Anneka was able to acknowledge the incredible stress she was under. The circumstances brought out the worst in her. Then Anneka tried to forgive herself, at least in a preliminary way, for her behavior. “May I begin to forgive myself for the pain I unwittingly inflicted on my dear friend Hilde.” Anneka also made a commitment to take at least one deep breath before speaking when she felt angry. Anneka knew this might take some time because she didn’t always know when she felt angry, but she was determined to try to be less reactive when under stress.
The central point of forgiveness is first opening to the hurt that we experienced or caused to others. Timing is very important because we are naturally ambivalent about feeling the guilt of hurting others or making ourselves vulnerable to being hurt again. As the saying goes, first we need to “give up all hope of a better past.”
Embracing the Good
One of the biggest benefits of self compassion is that it doesn’t just help you cope with negative emotions, it actively generates positive emotions. When we embrace ourselves and our experience with loving, connected presence, it feels good. It doesn’t feel good in a saccharine way, nor does it resist or avoid what feels bad. Rather, self compassion allows us to have the full range of experience, the bitter and the sweet.
Typically, however, we tend to focus much more on what’s wrong than on what’s right in our lives. For example, when you get an annual review at work, what do you remember the most, the points of praise or criticism? Or if you go shopping at the mall and interact with five polite salespeople and one rude one, which is most likely to stick in your mind?
The psychological term for this is negativity bias. Rick Hanson says the brain is like “Velcro for bad experiences and Teflon for good ones.” Evolutionarily speaking, the reason we have a negativity bias is that our ancestors who fretted and worried at the end of the day, wondering where that pack of hyenas was yesterday and where it might be hanging out tomorrow, were more likely to survive than our ancestors who kicked back and relaxed. This is evolutionarily adaptive when we face physical danger. However, since most of the dangers we face nowadays are threats to our sense of self, it is self-compassionate to correct the negativity bias because it distorts reality.
We need to intentionally recognize and absorb positive experiences to develop more realistic, balanced awareness that is not skewed toward the negative. This requires some training, just like mindfulness and self-compassion require training. Furthermore, since compassion training includes opening to pain, we may need the energy boost of focusing on positive experience to support our compassion practice.
Focusing on the positive also has important benefits. Barbara Fredrickson, who developed the “broaden and build” theory, posits that the evolutionary purpose of positive emotions is to broaden attention. In other words, when people feel safe and content, they become curious and start exploring their environment, noticing opportunities for food, shelter, or rest. This allows us to take advantage of opportunities that would otherwise go unnoticed.
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.” Helen Keller
Recently there has been a movement in psychology that focuses on finding the most effective ways to help people cultivate positive emotions, and two powerful practices that have been identified are savoring and gratitude.
Savoring involves noticing and appreciating the positive aspects of life, taking them in, letting them linger, and then letting them go. It is more than pleasure, savoring involves mindful awareness of the experience of pleasure. In other words, being aware that something good is happening while it’s happening.
Given our natural tendency to skip over what’s right and focus on what’s wrong, we need to plut a little extra effort into paying attention to what gives us pleasure. Luckily, savoring is simple practice, noticing the tart and juicy taste of a fresh apple, a gentle cool breeze on your cheek, the warm smile of your coworker, the hand of your partner gently holding your own. Research suggests that simply taking the time to notice and linger with these sorts of positive experiences can greatly increase our happiness.
Gratitude involves recognizing, acknowledging, and being grateful for the good things in our lives. If we just focus on what we want but don’t have, we’ll remain in a negative state of mind. But when we focus on what we do have, and give thanks for it, we radically reframe our experience.
Whereas savoring is primarily an experiential practice, gratitude is a wisdom practice. Wisdom refers to understanding how everything arises interdependently, The confluence of factors required for even a simple event to occur is mind boggling and can inspire an attitude of awe and reverence. Gratitude involves recognizing the myriad people and events that contribute to the good in our lives. As an MSC participant once remarked, “The texture of wisdom is gratitude.”
Gratitude can be aimed at the big things in life, like our health and family, but the effect of gratitude may be even more powerful when it is aimed at small things, such as when the bus arrives on time or the air conditioning is working on a hot summer day. Research shows that gratitude is also strongly linked to happiness. As the philosopher Mark Nepo wrote: “One key to knowing joy is to be easily pleased.”
The meditation teacher James Baraz tells this wonderful story about the power of gratitude in his book Awakening Joy, which we’ve adapted here by permission.
One year I was visiting my then eighty-nine-year-old mother and brought along a magazine with an article on the beneficial effects of gratitude. As we ate dinner I told her about some of the findings. She said she was impressed by the reports but admitted she had a lifetime habit of looking at the glass half empty. “I know I ’m very fortunate and have so many things to be thankful for, but little things just set me off” She said she wished she could change the habit but had doubts whether that was possible. “I’m just more used to seeing what’s going wrong,” she concluded.
“You know, Mom, the key to gratitude is really in the way we frame a situation,” I began. “For instance, suppose all of a sudden your television isn’t getting good reception.”
“That’s a scenario I can relate to, ” she agreed with a knowing smile.
“One way to describe your experience would be to say, ‘This is so annoying I could scream.” Or you could say, ‘This is so annoying. . . and my life is really very blessed. She agreed that could make a big difference.
“But I don’t think I can remember to do that,” she sighed.
So together we made up a gratitude game to remind her. Each time she complained about something, I would simply say “and . . . ,” to which she would respond “and my life is very blessed.” I was elated to see that she was willing to try it out. Although it had started as just a fun game, after a while it began to have some real impact. Her mood grew brighter as our weeks became filled with gratitude. To my delight and amazement, my mother has continued doing the practice, and the change has been revolutionary.
Self-Appreciation
Most people recognize the importance of expressing gratitude and appreciation toward others. But what about ourselves? That one doesn’t come so easily.
The negativity bias is especially strong toward ourselves. Self appreciation not only feels unnatural it can feel downright wrong. Because our tendency is to focus on our inadequacies rather than appreciate our strengths, we often have a skewed perspective of who we are. Think about it, When you receive a compliment, do you take it in, or does it bounce off you almost immediately? We usually feel uncomfortable just thinking about our good qualities. The counterargument immediately arises: “I’m not always that way” or “I have a lot of bad qualities too.” Again, this reaction demonstrates the negativity bias because when we receive unpleasant feedback, our first thoughts are not typically “Yes, but I’m not aiways that way” or “Are you aware of all my good qualities?”
Many of us are actually afraid to acknowledge our own goodness. Some common reasons given for this are:
– I don’t want to alienate my friends by being arrogant.
– My good qualities are not a problem that needs to be fixed, so I don’t need to focus on them.
– I’m afraid I would be putting myself on a pedestal, only to fall off.
– It will make me feel superior and separate from others.
Of course, there is a big difference between simply acknowledging what’s true, that we have good as well as not so good qualities, and saying that we’re perfect or better than others. It’s important to appreciate our strengths as well as have compassion for our weaknesses so that we embrace the whole of ourselves, exactly as we are.
We can apply the three components of selfcompassion, self kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness, to our positive qualities as well as our negative ones. These three factors together allow us to appreciate ourselves in a healthy and balanced way.
Self Appreciation
Self Kindness: Part of being kind to ourselves involves expressing appreciation for our good qualities, just as we would do with a good friend.
Common Humanity: When we remember that having good qualities is part of being human, we can acknowledge our strengths without feeling isolated or better than others.
Mindfulness: To appreciate ourselves, we need to pay attention to our good qualities rather than taking them for granted.
It’s important to recognize that the practice of self appreciation is not selfish or self centered. Rather, it simply recognizes that good qualities are part of being human, Although some children may have been raised with the belief that humility means not recognizing their accomplishments, that approach can harm children‘s self-concept and get in the way of knowing themselves properly. Self-appreciation is a way to correct our negativity bias toward ourselves and see ourselves more clearly as a whole person. Self-appreciation also provides the emotional resilience and selfconfidence needed to give to others.
The best selling author and spiritual teacher Marianne Williamson writes, “We are all meant to shine, as children do. . . . And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Wisdom and gratitude are central to selfappreciation as well. These qualities help us to see our good qualities in a broader context. When we appreciate ourselves, we’re also appreciating the causes, conditions, and people, including friends, parents, and teachers, who helped us develop those good qualities in the first place. This means we don’t need to take our own good qualities so personally!
Alice grew up in a stern Protestant family where humility and self effacement were the expected norm. When she was eight years old and came home with a trophy for winning her third-grade spelling bee, she remembers, her mother just raised her eyebrows and said, “Now don’t you be getting too big for your britches.” Every time Alice accomplished anything she felt she had to downplay it or else receive the disapproval of her family.
Later on in life, Alice started dating a man named Theo who thought she was beautiful and kind and smart and wonderful and liked to tell her so. Alice would not only cringe with embarrassment; Theo’s comments made her anxious. What if Theo finds out I’m not perfect? What happens if I let him down? She would continually push aside his comments when he said something nice, leaving Theo feeling perplexed and on the other side of an invisible wall.
Alice was becoming adept at self-compassion, especially the capacity to see her personal inadequacies as part of common humanity. Self-appreciation made sense to Alice, primarily conceptually, but she knew she had a way to go. First Alice made a mental note of everything good that she did during the day, a moment of kindness, a success, a small accomplishment. Then she tried to say something appreciative about it, such as “That was well done, Alice.” When Alice spoke to herself like this, she felt like she was violating an invisible contract from childhood and it made her uneasy, but she persisted. “I’m not saying I’m better than anyone else or that I’m perfect I’m simply acknowledging that this too is true.”
Eventually Alice made a commitment to take in and savor the heartfelt compliments Theo gave her. Theo was so delighted by this turn of events that he bought her a bracelet that said on the inside, I may not be perfect, but parts of me are excellent!
The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook. A proven way to accept yourself, build inner strength, and thrive
by Kristin Neff, PhD and Christopher Germer, PhD
HOW TO ACCEPT YOURSELF, BUILD INNER STRENGTH, AND THRIVE. THE MINDFUL SELF-COMPASSION WORKBOOK – KRISTIN NEFF AND CHRISTOPHER GERMER
TED TALK. SELF-COMPASSION VS SELF-ESTEEM – DR KRISTIN NEFF
CFT: FOCUSING ON COMPASSION IN NEXT GENERATION CBT DENNIS TIRCH PH.D * COMPASSION FOCUSED THERAPY FOR DUMMIES – MARY WELFORD * COMPASSION FOCUSED THERAPY – PAUL GILBERT
THE MINDFUL PATH TO SELF-COMPASSION. FREEING YOURSELF FROM DESTRUCTIVE THOUGHTS AND EMOTIONS – CHRISTOPHER K. GERMER PhD
THE SELF ACCEPTANCE PROJECT. HOW TO BE KIND & COMPASSIONATE TOWARD YOURSELF IN ANY SITUATION – TAMI SIMON
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HOW TO ACCEPT YOURSELF, BUILD INNER STRENGTH, AND THRIVE. The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook – Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer.
“Be kind to yourself in the midst of suffering.”
Western culture places great emphasis on being kind to our friends, family, and neighbors who are struggling. Not so when it comes to ourselves.
Are you kinder to others than you are to yourself? More than a thousand research studies show the benefits of being a supportive friend to yourself, especially in times of need.
In the blink of an eye we can go from “I don’t like this feeling” to “I don’t want this feeling” to “I shouldn’t have this feeling” to “Something is wrong with me for having this feeling” to “I’m bad!”
The seeds of self-compassion already lie within you, learn how you can uncover this powerful inner resource and transform your life.
Self-compassion is the perfect alternative to self-esteem because it offers a sense of self-worth that doesn’t require being perfect or better than others.
This science-based workbook offers a step-by-step approach to breaking free of harsh self-judgments and impossible standards in order to cultivate emotional well-being. The book is based on the authors’ groundbreaking eight-week Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) program, which has helped tens of thousands of people worldwide. It is packed with guided meditations (with audio downloads); informal practices to do anytime, anywhere; exercises; and vivid stories of people using the techniques to address relationship stress, weight and body image issues, health concerns, anxiety, and other common problems.
Kristin Neff, PhD, is Associate Professor of Human Development and Culture at the University of Texas at Austin and a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research.
Christopher Germer, PhD, has a private practice in mindfulnessand compassionbased psychotherapy in Arlington, Massachusetts, and is a part-time Lecturer on Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Health Alliance. He is a founding faculty member of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy and of the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion.
How To Approach This Workbook
“Our task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” Rumi
We have all built barriers to love. We’ve had to in order to protect ourselves from the harsh realities of living a human life. But there is another way to feel safe and protected. When we are mindful of our struggles, and respond to ourselves with compassion, kindness, and support in times of difficulty, things start to change. We can learn to embrace ourselves and our lives, despite inner and outer imperfections, and provide ourselves with the strength needed to thrive.
An explosion of research into self-compassion over the last decade has shown its benefits for well-being. Individuals who are more self-compassionate tend to have greater happiness, life satisfaction, and motivation, better relationships and physical health, and less anxiety and depression. They also have the resilience needed to cope with stressful life events such as divorce, health crises, academic failure, even combat trauma.
When we struggle, however, when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, it’s hard to be mindful toward what’s occurring; we’d rather scream and beat our fists on the table. Not only do we not like what’s happening, we think there is something wrong with us because it’s happening. In the blink of an eye we can go from “I don’t like this feeling” to “I don’t want this feeling” to “I shouldn’t have this feeling” to “Something is wrong with me for having this feeling” to “I’m bad!”
That’s where self-compassion comes in. Sometimes we need to comfort and soothe ourselves for how hard it is to be a human being before we can relate to our lives in a more mindful way.
Self-compassion emerges from the heart of mindfulness when we meet suffering in our lives. Mindfulness invites us to open to suffering with loving, spacious awareness. Self-compassion adds, “be kind to yourself in the midst of suffering.” Together, mindfulness and self-compassion form a state of warmhearted, connected presence during difficult moments in our lives.
Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) was the first training program specifically designed to enhance a person’s self-compassion. Mindfulness-based training programs such as mindfulness-based stress reduction and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy also increase self-compassion, but they do so more implicitly, as a welcome byproduct of mindfulness. MSC was created as a way to explicitly teach the general public the skills needed to be self-compassionate in daily life. MSC is an eight-week course where trained teachers lead a group of 8 to 25 participants through the program for 234 hours each week, plus a half-day meditation retreat. Research indicates that the program produces long-lasting increases in self-compassion and mindfulness, reduces anxiety and depression, enhances overall well-being, and even stabilizes glucose levels among people with diabetes.
The idea for MSC started back in 2008 when the authors met at a meditation retreat for scientists. One of us (Kristin) is a developmental psychologist and pioneering researcher into self-compassion. The other (Chris) is a clinical psychologist who has been at the forefront of integrating mindfulness into psychotherapy since the mid-1990s. We were sharing a ride to the airport after the retreat and realized we could combine our skills to create a program to teach self-compassion.
I (Kristin) first came across the idea of self-compassion in 1997 during my last year of graduate school, when, basically, my life was a mess. I had just gotten through a messy divorce and was under incredible stress at school. I thought I would learn to practice Buddhist meditation to help me deal with my stress. To my great surprise the woman leading the meditation class talked about how important it was to develop self-compassion. Although I knew that Buddhists talked a lot about the importance of compassion for others, I never considered that having compassion for myself might be just as important. My initial reaction was “What? You mean I’m allowed to be kind to myself? Isn’t that selfish?” But I was so desperate for some peace of mind I gave it a try. Soon I realized how helpful self-compassion could be. I learned to be a good, supportive friend to myself when I struggled. When I started to be kinder to and less judgmental of myself, my life transformed.
After receiving my PhD, I did two years of postdoctoral training with a leading self-esteem researcher and began to learn about some of the downsides of the self-esteem movement.
Though it’s beneficial to feel good about ourselves, the need to be “special and above average” was being shown to lead to narcissism, constant comparisons with others, ego-defensive anger, prejudice, and so on.
The other limitation of self-esteem is that it tends to be contingent, it’s there for us in times of success but often deserts us in times of failure, precisely when we need it most!
I realized that self-compassion was the perfect alternative to self-esteem because it offered a sense of self-worth that didn’t require being perfect or better than others.
After getting a job as an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin, I decided to conduct research on self-compassion. At that point, no one had studied selfcompassion from an academic perspective, so I tried to define what self-compassion is and created a scale to measure it, which started what is now an avalanche of selfcompassion research.
The reason I really know self-compassion works, however, is because I’ve seen the benefits of it in my personal life. My son, Rowan, was diagnosed with autism in 2007, and it was the most challenging experience I had ever faced. I don’t know how I would have gotten through it if it weren’t for my self-compassion practice. I remember the day I got the diagnosis, I was actually on my way to a meditation retreat. I had told my husband that I would cancel the retreat so we could process, and he said, “No, go to your retreat and do that self-compassion thing, then come back and help me.”
So while I was on retreat, I flooded myself with compassion. I allowed myself to feel whatever I was feeling without judgment, even feelings I thought I “shouldn’t” be having. Feelings of disappointment, even of irrational shame. How could I possibly feel this about the person I love most in the world? But I knew I had to open my heart and let it all in. I let in the sadness, the grief, the fear. And fairly soon I realized I had the stability to hold it, that the resource of self-compassion would not only get me through, but would help me be the best, most unconditionally loving parent to Rowan I could be. And what a difference it made!
Because of the intense sensory issues experienced by children with autism, they are prone to violent tantrums. The only thing you can do as a parent is to try to keep your child safe and wait until the storm passes. When my son screamed and flailed away in the grocery store for no discernible reason, and strangers gave me nasty looks because they thought I wasn’t disciplining my child properly, I would practice self-compassion. I would comfort myself for feeling confused, ashamed, stressed, and helpless, providing myself the emotional support I desperately needed in the moment. Self-compassion helped me steer clear of anger and self-pity, allowing me to remain patient and loving toward Rowan despite the feelings of stress and despair that would inevitably arise. I’m not saying that I didn’t have times when I lost it. I had many. But I could rebound from my missteps much more quickly with self-compassion and refocus on supporting and loving Rowan.
I (Chris) also learned self-compassion primarily for personal reasons. I had been practicing meditation since the late ’70s, became a clinical psychologist in the early ’80s, and joined a study group on mindfulness and psychotherapy. This dual passion for mindfulness and therapy eventually led to the publication of Mindfulness and Psychotherapy.
As mindfulness became more popular, I was being asked to do more public speaking. The problem, however, was that I suffered from terrible public speaking anxiety. Despite maintaining a regular practice of meditation my whole adult life and trying every clinical trick in the book to manage anxiety, before any public talk my heart would pound, my hands began to sweat, and I found it impossible to think clearly. The breaking point came when I was scheduled to speak at an upcoming Harvard Medical School conference that I helped to organize. (I still tried to expose myself to every possible speaking opportunity.) I’d been safely tucked in the shadows of the medical school as a clinical instructor but now I’d have to give a speech and expose my shameful secret to all my esteemed colleagues.
Around that time, a very experienced meditation teacher advised me to shift the focus of my meditation to loving-kindness, and to simply repeat phrases such as “May I be safe,” “May I be happy,” “May I be healthy,” “May I live with ease.” So I gave it a try. In spite of all the years I’d been meditating and reflecting on my inner life as a psychologist, I’d never spoken to myself in a tender, comforting way. Right off the bat, I started to feel better and my mind also became clearer. I adopted loving-kindness as my primary meditation practice.
Whenever anxiety arose as I anticipated the upcoming conference, I just said the loving-kindness phrases to myself, day after day, week after week. I didn’t do this particularly to calm down, but simply because there was nothing else I could do. Eventually, however, the day of the conference arrived. When I was called to the podium to speak, the typical dread rose up in the usual way. But this time there was something new, a faint background whisper saying, “May you be safe. May you be happy . . .” In that moment, for the first time, something rose up and took the place of fear, self-compassion.
Upon later reflection, I realized that I was unable to mindfully accept my anxiety because public speaking anxiety isn’t an anxiety disorder after all, it’s a shame disorder, and the shame was just too overwhelming to bear. Imagine being unable to speak about the topic of mindfulness due to anxiety! I felt like a fraud, incompetent, and a bit stupid. What I discovered on that fateful day was that sometimes, especially when we’re engulfed in intense emotions like shame, we need to hold ourselves before we can hold our moment-to-moment experience. I had begun to learn self-compassion, and saw its power firsthand.
In 2009, I published The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion in an effort to share what I had learned, especially in terms of how self-compassion helped the clients I saw in clinical practice. The following year, Kristin published Self-Compassion, which told her personal story, reviewed the theory and research on self-compassion, and provided many techniques for enhancing self-compassion.
Together we held the first public MSC program in 2010. Since then we, along with a worldwide community of fellow teachers and practitioners, have devoted a tremendous amount of time and energy to developing MSC and making it safe, enjoyable, and effective for just about everyone. The benefits of the program have been supported in multiple research studies, and to date tens of thousands of people have taken MSC around the globe.
HOW TO USE THIS WORKBOOK
Most of the MSC curriculum is contained in this workbook, in an easy-to-use format that will help you start to be more self-compassionate right away. Some people who use this workbook will be currently taking an MSC course, some may want to refresh what they previously learned, but for many people this will be their first experience with MSC.
This workbook is designed to also be a stand-alone pathway for you to learn the skills you need to be more self-compassionate in daily life. It follows the general structure of the MSC course, with the chapters organized in a carefully sequenced manner so the skills build upon one another. Each chapter provides basic information about a topic followed by practices and exercises that allow you to experience the concepts firsthand.
Most of the chapters also contain illustrations of the personal experiences of participants in the MSC course, to help you know how the practices may play out in your life. These are composite illustrations that don’t compromise the privacy of any particular participant, and the names are not real. In this book, we also alternate between masculine and feminine pronouns when referring to a single individual. We have made this choice to promote ease of reading as our language continues to evolve and not out of disrespect toward readers who identify with other personal pronouns. We sincerely hope that all will feel included.
We recommend that you go through the chapters in order, giving the time needed in between to do the practices a few times. A rough guideline would be to practice about 30 minutes a day and to do about one or two chapters per week. Go at your own pace, however. If you feel you need to go more slowly or spend extra time on a particular topic, please do so. Make the program your own. If you are interested in taking the MSC course in person from a trained MSC teacher, you can find a program near you at http://www.centerformsc.org. Online training is also available. For professionals who want to learn more about the theory, research, and practice of MSC, including how to teach self-compassion to clients, we recommend reading the MSC professional training manual, to be published by The Guilford Press in 2019.
The ideas and practices in this workbook are largely based on scientific research (notes at the back of the book point to the relevant research). However, they are also based on our experience teaching thousands of people how to be more selfcompassionate. The MSC program is itself an organic entity, continuing to evolve as we and our participants learn and grow together.
Also, while MSC isn’t therapy, it’s very therapeutic, it will help you access the resource of self-compassion to meet and transform difficulties that inevitably emerge as we live our lives. However, the practice of self-compassion can sometimes activate old wounds, so if you have a history of trauma or are currently having mental health challenges, we recommend that you complete this workbook under the supervision of a therapist.
Tips for Practice
As you go through this workbook, it’s important to keep some points in mind to get the most out of it.
– MSC is an adventure that will take you into uncharted territory, and unexpected experiences will arise. See if you can approach this workbook as an experiment in self-discovery and self-transformation. You will be working in the laboratory of your own experience, see what happens.
– While you will be learning numerous techniques and principles of mindfulness and self-compassion, feel free to tailor and adapt them in a way that works for you. The goal is for you to become your own best teacher.
– Know that tough spots will show up as you learn to turn toward your struggles in a new way. You are likely to get in touch with difficult emotions or painful self-judgments. Fortunately, this book is about building the emotional resources, skills, strengths, and capacities to deal with these difficulties.
– While self-compassion work can be challenging, the goal is to find a way to practice that’s pleasant and easy. Ideally, every moment of self-compassion involves less stress, less striving, and less work, not more.
– It is good to be a “slow learner.” Some people defeat the purpose of self compassion training by pushing themselves too hard to become self compassionate. Allow yourself to go at your own pace.
– The workbook itself is a training ground for self-compassion. The way you approach this course should be self-compassionate. In other words, the means and ends are the same.
– It is important to allow yourself to go through a process of opening and closing as you work through this book. just as our lungs expand and contract, our hearts and minds also naturally open and close. It is self-compassionate to allow ourselves to close when needed and to open up again when that naturally happens. Signs of opening might be laughter, tears, or more vivid thoughts and sensations. Signs of closing might be distraction, sleepiness, annoyance, numbness, or self-criticism.
– See if you can find the right balance between opening and closing. Just like a faucet in the shower has a range of water flow between off and full force that you can control, you can also regulate the degree of openness you experience. Your needs will vary: sometimes you may not be in the right space to do a particular practice, and other times it will be exactly what you need. Please take responsibitty for your own emotional safety, and don’t push yourself through something if it doesn’t feel right in the moment. You can always come back to it later, or do the practice with the help and guidance of a trusted friend or therapist.
1. What is Self-Compassion?
Selt-compassion involves treating yourself the way you would treat a friend who is having a hard time, even if your friend blew it or is feeling inadequate, or is just facing a tough life challenge. Western culture places great emphasis on being kind to our friends, family, and neighbors who are struggling. Not so when it comes to ourselves. Self-compassion is a practice in which we learn to be a good friend to ourselves when we need it most, to become an inner ally rather than an inner enemy. But typically we don’t treat ourselves as well as we treat our friends.
The golden rule says “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” However, you probably don’t want to do unto others as you do unto yourself! Imagine that your best friend calls you after she just got dumped by her partner, and this is how the conversation goes.
“Hey,” you say, picking up the phone. “How are you?”
“Terrible,” she says, choking back tears. “You know that guy Michael I’ve been dating? Well, he’s the first man I’ve been really excited about since my divorce. Last night he told me that I was putting too much pressure on him and that he just wants to be friends. I’m devastated.”
You sigh and say, “Well, to be perfectly honest, it’s probably because you’re old, ugly, and boring, not to mention needy and dependent. And you’re at least 20 pounds overweight. I’d just give up now, because there’s really no hope of finding anyone who will ever love you. I mean, frankly you don’t deserve it!”
Would you ever talk this way to someone you cared about? Of course not. But strangely, this is precisely the type of thing we say to ourselves in such situations, or worse. With self-compassion, we learn to speak to ourselves like a good friend. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay? You must be so upset. Remember I’m here for you and I deeply appreciate you. Is there anything I can do to help?”
Although a simple way to think about self-compassion is treating yourself as you would treat a good friend, the more complete definition involves three core elements that we bring to bear when we are in pain: self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness.
Self-Kindness. When we make a mistake or fail in some way, we are more likely to beat ourselves up than put a supportive arm around our own shoulder. Think of all the generous, caring people you know who constantly tear themselves down (this may even be you). Self-kindness counters this tendency so that we are as caring toward ourselves as we are toward others. Rather than being harshly critical when noticing personal shortcomings, we are supportive and encouraging and aim to protect ourselves from harm. Instead of attacking and berating ourselves for being inadequate, we offer ourselves warmth and unconditional acceptance. Similarly, when external life circumstances are challenging and feel too difficult to bear, we actively soothe and comfort ourselves.
Theresa was excited. “I did it! I can’t believe I did it! I was at an office party last week and blurted out something inappropriate to a coworker. Instead of doing my usual thing of calling myself terrible names, I tried to be kind and understanding. I told myself, ‘Oh well, it’s not the end of the world. I meant well even if it didn’t come out in the best way.”
Common Humanity. A sense of interconnectedness is central to self-compassion. It’s recognizing that all humans are flawed works-in-progress, that everyone fails, makes mistakes, and experiences hardship in life. Self-compassion honors the unavoidable fact that life entails suffering, for everyone, without exception. While this may seem obvious, it’s so easy to forget. We fall into the trap of believing that . . .
MIGRAINE AND DEPRESSION: It’s All The Same Brain – Gale Scott * Migraine May Permanently Change Brain Structure – American Academy of Neurology * Migraine: Multiple Processes, Complex Pathophysiology – Rami Burstein, Rodrigo Noseda, and David Borsook.
The symptoms that accompany migraine suggest that multiple neuronal systems function abnormally. Neuroimaging studies show that brain networks, brain morphology, and brain chemistry are altered in episodic and chronic migraineurs. As a consequence of the disease itself or its genetic underpinnings, the migraine brain is altered structurally and functionally.
Migraine tends to run in families and as such is considered a genetic disorder. Genetic predisposition to migraine resides in multiple susceptible gene variants, many of which encode proteins that participate in the regulation of glutamate neurotransmission and proper formation of synaptic plasticity.
Migraine is a leading cause of suicide, an indisputable proof of the severity of the distress that the disease may inflict on the individual. 40% of migraine patients are also depressed.
Migraine and Depression: It’s All The Same Brain
Gale Scott
When a patient suffers from both migraines and depression or other psychiatric comorbidities, physicians have to treat both. It’s a common situation, since 40% of migraine patients are also depressed. Anxiety is even more prevalent in these patients. An estimated 50% of migraine patients are anxious whether with generalized anxiety, phobias, panic attacks. or other forms of anxiety, said Mia Minen, MD Director of Headache Services at NYU Langoni Medical Center.
Health care costs in treating these co-morbid patients are 1.5 times higher than for migraine patients without accompanying psychiatric disorders.
But sorting out whether one problem is causing the other is not always easy, she said in a recent interview at NYU Langone. “it’s really interesting, which came first,” she said, “We really don’t know.”
There may be a bidirectional relationship with depression. Anxiety may precede migraines, then depression may follow.
Fortunately, she said, the question of which problem came first doesn’t really matter that much.
“It’s all one brain, one organ, and some of the same neurotransmitters are implicated in both disorders.” Serotonin is affected in migraine just as it is in depression and anxiety, she said. Dopamine and norepinephrine are also related both to migraines and psychiatric comorbidities.
“So it’s really one organ that’s controlling all these things,” Minen said.
The first step in treatment is having patients keep a headache diary to track the intensity and frequency and what they take when they feel it coming on.
For a mild migraine that might be ibuprofen or another over-the-counter pain killer.
If the migraine is moderately severe there are 7 migraine-specifuc medications that are effective, she said. There are oral, nasal, and injectable forms of triptans a family of tryptamine-based drugs. “We sometimes tell patients to combine the triptan with Naprosyn,” she said.
If triptans are contraindicated because the patient has other health problems, there are still more pharmaceutical options.
Those include some classes of beta blockers, antiseizure medications, and tricyclic antidepressants at low doses.
The drug regimen may vary with the particular comorbidity. For instance, for migraines with anxiety, venlafaxine might work. If patients have sleep disturbances, amitriptyline might be effective. “Lack of sleep is also a trigger for migraine,” she noted.
The toughest co-morbidity to treat in patients with migraine is finding a regimen that works for patients who are taking a lot of psychiatric medications, like SSRIs and antipsychotics.
For older patients with migraines plus cardiovascular disease, drug choices are also limited.
Botox injections seem promising, but Minen is cautious. “It’s a great treatment for patients with chronic migraines but they have to have failed 2 or 3 medications before they qualify for Botox.” Treatment involves 31 injections over the forehead, the back of the head and the neck. Relief lasts about 3 months, she said.
In addition to pharmaceutical treatment, there are cognitive behavior approaches that can work, like biofeedback and progressive muscle relaxation therapy.
Opioids are not the treatment of choice, she said. They have not been shown to be effective, Minen said and reduce the body’s ability to respond to triptans.
“For chronic migraine, studies don’t show opioids enable patients to return to work; there is no objective study showing they work,” and their uses raises other problems. Patients used to taking opioids who go to an emergency room and request them may find themselves suspected of drugseeking behavior. “It’s hard for doctors and patients,” she said, when patients ask for opioids “It puts doctors in a predicament.”
New drugs are on the horizon, she said. “Calcitonin gene related peptide antagonists look good,” and unlike triptans are not contraindicated for people at risk of strokes or heart attacks.
For now, said Minen, treating migraine and comorbidities “is more an art than a science,” she said, “But a large majority of patients do get better.”
Migraine May Permanently Change Brain Structure
Migraine may have longlasting effects on the brain’s structure, according to a study published in the August 28, 2013, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
“Traditionally, migraine has been considered a benign disorder without long-term consequences for the brain,” said study author Messoud Ashina, MD, PhD, with the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. “Our review and meta-analysis study suggests that the disorder may permanently alter brain structure in multiple ways.”
The study found that migraine raised the risk of brain lesions, white matter abnormalities and altered brain volume compared to people without the disorder. The association was even stronger in those with migraine with aura.
Migraine with aura
A common type of migraine featuring additional neurological symptoms. Aura is a term used to describe a neurological symptom of migraine, most commonly visual disturbances.
People who experience ‘migraine with aura’ will have many or all the symptoms of a ‘migraine without aura‘ and additional neurological symptoms which develop over a 5 to 20 minute period and last less than an hour.
Visual disturbances can include: blind spots in the field of eyesight, coloured spots, sparkles or stars, flashing lights before the eyes, tunnel vision, zig zag lines, temporary blindness.
Other symptoms include: numbness or tingling, pins and needles in the arms and legs, weakness on one side of the body, dizziness, a feeling of spinning (vertigo).
Speech and hearing can be affected and some people have reported memory changes, feelings of fear and confusion and, more rarely, partial paralysis or fainting.
These neurological symptoms usually happen before a headache, which could be mild, or no headache may follow.
For the meta-analysis, researchers reviewed six population-based studies and 13 clinic-based studies to see whether people who experienced migraine or migraine with aura had an increased risk of brain lesions, silent abnormalities or brain volume changes on MRI brain scans compared to those without the conditions.
The results showed that migraine with aura increased the risk of white matter brain lesions by 68 percent and migraine with no aura increased the risk by 34 percent, compared to those without migraine. The risk for infarct-like abnormalities increased by 44 percent for those without aura. Brain volume changes were more common in people with migraine and migraine with aura than those with no migraines.
“Migraine affects about 10 to 15 percent of the general population and can cause a substantial personal, occupational and social burden,” said Ashina. “We hope that through more study, we can clarify the association of brain structure changes to attack frequency and length of the disease. We also want to find out how these lesions may influence brain function.”
The study was supported by the Lundbeck Foundation and the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
To learn more about migraine, please visit American Academy of Neurology.
Migraine: Multiple Processes, Complex Pathophysiology
Rami Burstein (1,3), Rodrigo Noseda (1,3) and David Borsook (2,3)
1 – Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care, and Pain Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston
2 – Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital
3 – Harvard Medical School
Migraine is a common, multifactorial, disabling, recurrent, hereditary neurovascular headache disorder. It usually strikes sufferers a few times per year in childhood and then progresses to a few times per week in adulthood, particularly in females. Attacks often begin with warning signs (prodromes) and aura (transient focal neurological symptoms) whose origin is thought to involve the hypothalamus, brainstem, and cortex.
Once the headache develops, it typically throbs, intensifies with an increase in intracranial pressure, and presents itself in association with nausea, vomiting, and abnormal sensitivity to light, noise, and smell. It can also be accompanied by abnormal skin sensitivity (anodynia) and muscle tenderness.
Collectively, the symptoms that accompany migraine from the prodromal stage through the headache phase suggest that multiple neuronal systems function abnormally.
As a consequence of the disease itself or its genetic underpinnings, the migraine brain is altered structurally and functionally. These molecular, anatomical, and functional abnormalities provide a neuronal substrate for an extreme sensitivity to fluctuations in homeostasis, a decreased ability to adapt, and the recurrence of headache.
Homeostasis is the state of steady internal conditions maintained by living things.
Advances in understanding the genetic predisposition to migraine, and the discovery of multiple susceptible gene variants (many of which encode proteins that participate in the regulation of glutamate neurotransmission and proper formation of synaptic plasticity) define the most compelling hypothesis for the generalized neuronal hyperexcitability and the anatomical alterations seen in the migraine brain.
Regarding the headache pain itself, attempts to understand its unique qualities point to activation of the trigeminovascular pathway as a prerequisite for explaining why the pain is restricted to the head, often affecting the periorhital area and the eye, and intensities when intracranial pressure increases.
Migraine is a recurrent headache disorder affecting 15% of the population during the formative and most productive periods of their lives, between the ages of 22 and 55 years. It frequently starts in childhood, particularly around puberty, and affects women more than men.
It tends to run in families and as such is considered a genetic disorder.
In some cases, the headache begins with no warning signs and ends with sleep. In other cases, the headache may be preceded by a prodromal phase that includes fatigue; euphoria; depression; irritability; food cravings; constipation; neck stiffness; increased yawning; and/or abnormal sensitivity to light, sound, and smell and an aura phase that includes a variety of focal cortically mediated neurological symptoms that appear just before and/or during the headache phase. Symptoms of migraine aura develop gradually, feature exeitatory and inhibitory phases, and resolve completely. Positive (gain of function) and negative (loss of function) symptoms may present as scintillating lights and scotomas when affecting the visual cortex; paresthesia, and numbness of the face and hands when affecting the somatosensory cortex; tremor and unilateral muscle weakness when affecting the motor cortex or basal ganglia; and difficulty saying words (aphasia) when affecting the speech area.
The pursuant headache is commonly unilateral, pulsating, aggravated by routine physical activity, and can last a few hours to a few days (Headache Classification Committee of the International Headache Society, 2013). As the headache progresses, it may be accompanied by a variety of autonomic symptoms (nausea, vomiting, nasallsinus congestion, rhinorrhea, lacrimation, ptosis, yawning, frequent urination, and diarrhea), affective symptoms (depression and irritability), cognitive symptoms (attention deficit, difficulty finding words, transient amnesia, and reduced ability to navigate in familiar environments), and sensory symptoms (photophobia, phonophobia, osmophobia, muscle tenderness, and cutaneous allodynia).
The extent of these diverse symptoms suggests that migraine is more than a headache. It is now viewed as a complex neurological disorder that affects multiple cortical, subcortical, and brainstem areas that regulate autonomic, affective, cognitive, and sensory functions. As such, it is evident that the migraine brain differs from the non-migraine brain and that an effort to unravel the pathophysiology of migraine must expand beyond the simplistic view that there are “migraine generator” areas.
In studying migraine pathophysiology, we must consider how different neural networks interact with each other to allow migraine to commence with stressors such as insufficient sleep, skipping meals, stressful or post stressful periods, hormonal fluctuations, alcohol, certain foods, flickering lights, noise, or certain scents, and why migraine attacks are sometimes initiated by these triggers and sometimes not.
We must tackle the enigma of how attacks are resolved on their own or just weaken and become bearable by sleep, relaxation, food, and/or darkness. We must explore the mechanisms by which the frequency of episodic migraine increases over time (from monthly to weekly to daily), and why progression from episodic to chronic migraine is uncommon.
Disease mechanisms
In many cases, migraine attacks are likely to begin centrally, in brain areas capable of generating the classical neurological symptoms of prodromes and aura, whereas the headache phase begins with consequential activation of meningeal nociceptors at the origin of the trigeminovascular system.
A nociceptor is a sensory neuron that responds to damaging or potentially damaging stimuli by sending “possible threat” signals to the spinal cord and the brain. If the brain perceives the threat as credible, it creates the sensation of pain to direct attention to the body part, so the threat can hopefully be mitigated; this process is called nociception.
The meninges are the three membranes that envelop the brain and spinal cord. In mammals, the meninges are the dura mater, the arachnoid mater, and the pia mater. Cerebrospinal fluid is located in the subarachnoid space between the arachnoid mater and the pia mater. The primary function of the meninges is to protect the central nervous system.
While some clues about how the occurrence of aura can activate nociceptors in the meninges exist, nothing is known about the mechanisms by which common prodromes initiate the headache phase or what sequence of events they trigger that results in activation of the meningeal nociceptors. A mechanistic search for a common denominator in migraine symptomatology and characteristics points heavily toward a genetic predisposition to generalized neuronal hyperexcitability. Mounting evidence for alterations in brain structure and function that are secondary to the repetitive state of headache can explain the progression of disease.
Prodromes
In the context of migraine, prodromes are symptoms that precede the headache by several hours. Examination of symptoms that are most commonly described by patients point to the potential involvement of the hypothalamus (fatigue, depression, irritability, food cravings, and yawning), brainstem (muscle tenderness and neck stiffness), cortex (abnormal sensitivity to light, sound, and smell), and limbic system (depression and anhedonia) in the prodromal phase of a migraine attack. Given that symptoms such as fatigue, yawning, food craving, and transient mood changes occur naturally in all humans, it is critical that we understand how their occurrence triggers a headache; whether the routine occurrence of these symptoms in migraineurs (i.e., when no headache develops) differs mechanistically from their occurrence before the onset of migraine; and why yawning, food craving, and fatigue do not trigger a migraine in healthy subjects.
Recently, much attention has been given to the hypothalamus because it plays a key role in many aspects of human circadian rhythms (wake sleep cycle, body temperature, food intake, and hormonal fluctuations) and in the continuous effort to maintain homeostasis. Because the migraine brain is extremely sensitive to deviations from homeostasis, it seems reasonable that hypothalamie neurons that regulate homeostasis and circadian cycles are at the origin of some of the migraine prodromes.
Unraveling the mechanisms by which hypothalamic and brainstem neurons can trigger a headache is central to our ability to develop therapies that can intercept the headache during the prodromal phase (i.e., before the headache begins. The ongoing effort to answer this question focuses on two very different possibilities (Fig. 1). The first suggests that hypothalamic neurons that respond to changes in physiological and emotional homeostasis can activate meningeal nociceptors by altering the balance between parasympathetic and sympathetic tone in the meninges toward the predominance of parasympathetic tone. Support for such a proposal is based on the following: (1) hypothalamic neurons are in a position to regulate the firing of preganglionic parasympathetic neurons in the superior salivatory nucleus (SSN) and sympathetic preganglionic neurons in the spinal intermediolateral nucleus. (2) the SSN can stimulate the release of acetylcholine, vasoactive intestinal peptide, and nitric oxide from meningeal terminals of postganglionic parasympathetic neurons in the Spheno palatine ganglion (SPG), leading to dilation of intracranial blood vessels, plasma protein extravasation, and local release of inflammatory molecules capable of activating pial and dural branches of meningeal nociceptors; (3) meningeal blood vessels are densely innervated by para sympathetic fibers. (4) activation of SSN neurons can modulate the activity of central trigeminovascular neurons in the spinal trigeminal nucleus. (5) activation of meningeal nociceptors appears to depend partially on enhanced activity in the SPG. (6) enhanced cranial parasympathetic tone during migraine is evident by lacrimation and nasal congestion, and, finally, (7) blockade of the sphenopalatine ganglion provides partial or complete relief of migraine pain.
The second proposal suggests that hypothalamic and brainstem neurons that regulate responses to deviation from physiological and emotional homeostasis can lower the threshold for the transmission of nociceptive trigeminovascular signals from the thalamus to the cortex, a critical step in establishing the headache experience. This proposal is based on understanding how the thalamus selects, amplifies, and prioritizes information it eventually transfers to the cortex, and how hypothalamic and brainstem nuclei regulate relay thalamocortical neurons. It is constructed from recent evidence that relay trigeminothalamic neurons in sensory thalamie nuclei receive direct input from hypothalamic neurons that contain dopamine, histamine, orexin, and melanin concentrating hormone (MCH), and brainstem neurons that contain noradrenaline and serotonin. In principle, each of these neuropeptides/neurotransmitters can shift the activity of thalamic neurons from burst to tonic mode if it is excitatory (dopamine, and high concentration of serotonin, noradrenaline, histamine, orexin, and from tonic to burst mode if it is inhibitory (MCH and low concentration of serotonin). The opposing factors that regulate the firing of relay trigeminovascular thalamic neurons provide an anatomical foundation for explaining why prodromes give rise to some migraine attacks but not to others, and why external (e.g., exposure to strong perfume) and internal conditions (e.g., skipping a meal and feeling hungry, sleeping too little and being tired, or simple stress) trigger migraine attacks so inconsistently.
In the context of migraine, the convergence of these hypothalamic and brainstem neurons on thalamic trigeminovascular neuruns can establish high and low set points for the allostatic load of the migraine brain. The allostatic load, defined as the amount of brain activity required to appropriately manage the level of emotional or physiological stress at any given time, can explain why external and internal conditions only trigger headache some of the times, when they coincide with the right circadian phase of cyclic rhythmicity of brainstem, and hypothalamic and thalamic neurons that preserve homeostasis.
Cortical spreading depression
Clinical and preclinical studies suggest that migraine aura is caused by cortical spreading depression (CSD), a slowly propagating wave of depolarization/excitation followed by hyperpolarization/inhibition in cortical neurons and glia. While specific processes that initiate CSD in humans are not known, mechanisms that invoke inflammatory molecules as a result of emotional or physiological stress, such as lack of sleep, may play a role. In the cortex, the initial membrane depolarization is associated with a large efflux of potassium; influx of sodium and calcium; release of glutamate, ATP, and hydrogen ions; neuronal swelling ; upregulation of genes involved in inflammatory processing; and a host of changes in cortical perfusion and enzymatic activity that include opening of the megachannel Panxl, activation of caspase-1, and a breakdown of the blood brain barrier.
Outside the brain, caspase-1 activation can initiate inflammation by releasing high mobility group protein B1 and interleukin-1 into the CSF, which then activates nuclear factor KB in astrocytes, with the consequential release of cyclooxygenase-2 and inducible nitric oxide swithase (iNOS) into the subarach noid space. The introduction into the meninges of these proinflammatory molecules, as well as calcitonin gene related peptide (CGRP) and nitric oxide, may be the link between aura and headache because the meninges are densely innervated by pain fibers whose activation distinguishes headaches of intracranial origin (e.g., migraine, meningitis, and subaraeh noid bleeds) from headaches of extracranial origin (e.g., tension type headache, cervicogenic headache, or headaches caused by mild trauma to the cranium).
Anatomy and physiology of the trigeminovascular pathway: from activation to sensitization
Anatomical description
The trigeminovascular pathway conveys nociceptive information from the meninges to the brain. The pathway originates in trigeminal ganglion neurons whose peripheral axons reach the pia, dura, and large cerebral arteries, and whose central axons reach the nociceptive dorsal horn laminae of the SpV. In the SpV, the nociceptors converge on neurons that receive additional input from the periorbital skin and pericranial muscles. The ascending axonal projections of trigeminovascular SpV neurons transmit monosynaptic nocieeptive signals to (1) brainstem nuclei, such as the ventro lateral periaqueductal gray, reticular for mation, superior salivatory, parabrachial, cuneiform, and the nucleus of the solitary tract; (2) hypothalamic nuclei, such as the anterior, lateral, perifornical, dorsome dial, suprachiasmatic, and supraoptic; and (3) basal ganglia nuclei, such as the caudate putamen, globus pallidus, and sub stantia innominata. These projections maybe critical for the initiation of nausea, vomiting, yawning, lacrimation, urination, loss of appetite, fatigue, anxiety, irritability, and depression by the headache itself.
Additional projections of trigeminovascular SpV neurons are found in the thalamic ventral posteromedial (VPM), posterior (PO), and parafascicular nuclei. Relay trigeminovascular thalamic neurons that project to the somatosensory, insular, motor, parietal association, retrosplenial, auditory, visual, and olfactory cortices are in a position to construct the specific nature of migraine pain (i.e., location, intensity, and quality) and many of the cortically mediated symptoms that distinguish between migraine headache and other pains. These include transient symptoms of motor clumsiness, difficulty focusing, amnesia, allodynia, phonophobia, photophobia, and osmophobia. Figure 2A illustrates the complexity of the trigeminovascular pathway.
Studies in animals show that CSD initiates delayed activation (Fig. 2D, 2B,C) and immediate activation (Fig. 2D) of peripheral and central trigeminovascular neurons in a fashion that resembles the classic delay and occasional immediate onset of headache after aura, and that systemic administration of the M type potassium channel opener KCNQ2/3 can prevent the CSD induced activation of the nociceptors.
These findings support the notion that the onset of the headache phase of migraine with aura coincides with the activation of meningeal nociceptors at the peripheral origin of the trigeminovascular pathway. Whereas the vascular, cellular, and molecular events involved in the activation of meningeal nocieeptors by CSD are not well under stood, a large body of data suggests that transient constriction and dilatation of pial arteries and the development of dural plasma protein extravasation, neurogenic inflammation, platelet aggregation, and mast cell degranulation, many of which may be driven by CSD dependent peripheral CGRP release, can introduce to the meninges proinflammatory molecules, such as histamine, bradykinin, serotonin, and prostaglandins (prostaglandin E2), and a high level of hydrogen ions thus altering the molecular environment in which meningeal nociceptors exist.
When activated in the altered molecular environment described above, peripheral trigeminovascular neurons become sensitized (their response threshold decreases and their response magnitude increases) and begin to respond to dura stimuli to which they showed minimal or no response at base line. When central trigeminovascular neurons in laminae I and V of SpV (Fig. 2F) and in the thalamic PO/VPM nuclei (Fig. 2G) become sensitized, their spontaneous activity increases, their receptive fields expand, and they begin to respond to innocuous mechanical and thermal stimulation of cephalic and extracephalic skin areas as if it were noxious. The human correlates of the electrophysiological measures of neuronal sensitization in animal studies are evident in contrast analysis of BOLD signals registered in MRI scans of the human trigeminal ganglion (Fig. 2H), spinal trigeminal nucleus (Fig. 2I), and the thalamus (Fig. 2J), all measured during migraine attacks.
The clinical manifestation of peripheral sensitization during migraine, which takes roughly 10 mins to develop, includes the perception of throbbing headache and the transient intensiflcation of headache while bending over or coughing, activities that momentarily increase intracranial pressure.
The clinical manifestation of sensitization of central trigeminovascular neurons in the SpV, which takes 30-60 min to develop and 120 min to reach full extent, include the development of cephalic allodynia signs such as scalp and muscle tenderness and hypersensitivity to touch. These signs are often recognized in patients reporting that they avoid wearing glasses, earrings, hats, or any other object that come in contact with the facial skin during migraine.
The clinical manifestation of thalamic sensitization during migraine, which takes 2-4 h to develop, also includes extracephalic allodynia signs that cause patients to remove tight clothing and jewelry, and avoid being touched, massaged, or hugged.
Evidence that triptans, 5HT agonists that disrupt communications between peripheral and central trigeminovascular neurons in the dorsal horn, are more effective in aborting migraine when administered early (i.e., before the development of central sensitization and allodynia) rather than late (i.e., after the development of allodynia) provides further support for the notion that meningeal nociceptors drive the initial phase of the headache. Further support for this concept was provided recently by studies showing that humanized monoclonal antihodies against CGRP, molecules that are too big to penetrate the bloodbrain barrier and act centrally (according to the companies that developed them), are effective in preventing migraine. Along this line, it was also reported that drugs that act on central trigeminovascular neurons, e.g., dihydroergotamine (DHE), are equally effective in reversing an already developed central sensitization a possible explanation for DHE effectiveness in aborting migraine after the failure of therapy with triptans.
Genetics and the hyperexcitable brain
Family history points to a genetic predisposition to migraine. A genetic association with migraine was first observed and defined in patients with familial hemiplegic migraine (FHM).
The three genes identified with FHM encode proteins that regulate glutamate availability in the synapse. FHM1 (CACNAIA) encodes the pore-forming a1 subunit of the P/Q type calcium channel; FHM2 (ATP1A2) encodes the 112 subunit of the Na+/K+ ATPase pump; and the FHM3 (SCNIA) encodes the a1 sub unit of the neuronal voltage gated Nav1.1 channel.
Collectively, these genes regulate transmitter release, glial ability to clear (reuptake) glutamate from the synapse, and the generation of action potentials.
Since these early findings, large genome wide association studies have identified 13 susceptibility gene variants for migraine with and without aura, three of which regulate glutaminergic neurotransmission (MTDH/AEG-1 downregulates glutamate transporter, LPRI modulates synaptic transmission through the NMDA receptor, and MEF-2D regulates the glutamatergic excitatory synapse), and two of which regulate synaptic development and plasticity (ASTN2 is involved in the structural development of cortical layers, and FHI5 regulates cAMP sensitive CREB proteins involved msynaptic plasticity).
These findings provide the most plausible explanation for the “generalized” neuronal hyperexcitability of the migraine brain.
In the context of migraine, increased activity in glutamalergic systems can lead to excessive occupation of the NMDA receptor, which in turn may amplify and reinforce pain transmission, and the development of allodynia and central sensitization. Network wise, wide spread neuronal hyperexcitability may also be driven by thalamocortical dysrhythmia, defective modulatory brainstem circuits that regulate excitability at multiple levels along the neuraxis; and inherently improper regulation/habituation of cortical, thalamic, and brainstem functions by limbic structures, such as the hypothalamus, amygdala, nucleus accumbens, caudate, putamen, and globus pallidus. Given that 2 of the 13 susceptibility genes regulate synaptic development and plasticity, it is reasonable to speculate that some of the networks mentioned above may not be properly wired to set a normal level of habituation throughout the brain, thus explaining the multi factorial nature of migraine. Along this line, it is also tempting to propose that at least some of the structural alterations seen in the migraine brain may be inherited and, as such, may be the “cause” of migraine, rather than being secondary to (i.e., being caused by) the repeated headache attacks. But this concept awaits evidence.
Structural and functional brain alterations
Brain alterations can be categorized into the following two processes: (1) alteration in brain function and (2) alterations in brain structure (Fig. 3). Functionally, a variety of imaging techniques used to measure relative activation in different brain areas in migraineurs (vs control subjects) revealed enhanced activation in the periaqueductal gray; red nucleus and substantia nigra; hypothalamus; posterior thalamus; cerebellum, insula, cingulate and prefrontal cortices, anterior temporal pole, and the hippocampus; and decreased activation in the somatosensory cortex, nucleus cuneiformis, caudate, putamen, and pallidum. All of these activity changes occurred in response to nonrepetitive stimuli, and in the cingulate and prefrontal cortex they occurred in response to repetitive stimuli.
Collectively, these studies support the concept that the migraine brain lacks the ability to habituate itself and consequently becomes hyperexcitable. It is a matter of debate, however, if such changes are unique to migraine headache. Evidence for nearly identical activation patterns in other pain conditions, such as lower back pain, neuropathic pain, Hbromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, and cardiac pain, raises the possibility that differences between somatic pain and migraine pain are not due to differences in central pain processing.
Anatomically, voxel based morphometry and diffusion sensor imaging studies in migraine patients (vs control subjects) have revealed thickening of the somatosensory cortex; increased gray matter density in the caudate; and gray matter volume loss in the superior temporal gyms, inferior frontal gyms, precentral gyms, anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala, parietal operculum, middle and inferior frontal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, and bilateral insula.
Changes in cortical and subcortical structures may also depend on the frequency of migraine attacks for a number of cortical and subcortical regions. As discussed above, it is unclear whether such changes are genetically predetermined or simply a result of the repetitive exposure to pain/stress. Favoring the latter are studies showing that similar gray matter changes occurring in patients experiencing other chronic pain conditions are reversible and that the magnitude of these changes can be correlated with the duration of disease.
Further complicating our ability to determine how the migraine brain differs from the brain of a patient experiencing other chronic pain conditions are anatomical findings showing decreased gray matter density in the prefrontal cortex, thalamus, posterior insula, secondary somatosensory cortex, precentral and posteentral gyms, hippocampus, and temporal pole of chronic back pain patients; anterior insula and orbitofrontal cortex of complex regional pain syndrome patients; and the insula, midanterior cingulate cortex, hippocampus and inferior temporal coxtex in osteoarthritis pa tients with chronic back pain.
Whereas some of the brain alterations seen in migraineurs depend on the sex of the patient, little can he said about the role played by the sex of patients who experience other pain conditions.
Treatments in development
Migraine therapy has two goals: to terminate acute attacks; and to prevent the next attack from happening. The latter can potentially prevent the progression from episodic to chronic state. Regarding the effort to terminate acute attacks, migraine represents one of the few pain conditions for which a specific drug (i.e., triptan) has been developed based on understanding the mechanisms of the disease. In contrast, the effort to prevent migraine from happening is likely to face a much larger challenge given that migraine can originate in an unknown number of brain areas (see above), and is associated with generalized functional and structural brain abnormalities.
A number of treatments that attract attention are briefly reviewed below.
Medications The most exciting drug currently under development is humanized monoclonal antibodies against CGRP. The development of these monoclonal antibodies are directed at both CGRP and its receptors. The concept is based on CGRP localization in the trigeminal ganglion and its relevance to migaine patho-physiology. In recent phase II randomized placebo-controlled trials, the neutralizing humanized monoclonal antibodies against CGRP administered by injection for the prevention of episodic migraine, showed promising results. Remarkably, a single injection may prevent or significantly reduce migraine attacks for 3 months.
Given our growing understanding of the importance of prodromes (likely representing abnormal sensitivity to the fluctuation in hypothalamically regulated homeostasis) and aura (likely representing the inherited conical hyperexcitability) in the pathophysiology of migraine, drugs that target ghrelin, leptin, and orexin receptors may be considered for therapeutic development which is based on their ability to restore proper hypothalamic control of stress, hyperphagia, adiposity, and sleep. All may be critical in reducing allostatic load and, consequently, in initiating the next migraine attack.
Brain modification
Neuroimaging studies showing that brain networks, brain morphology, and brain chemistry are altered in episodic and chronic migraineurs justify attempts to develop therapies that widely modify brain networks and their functions. Transcranial magnetic stimulation, which is thought to modify cortical hyperexcitability, is one such approach. Another approach for generalized brain modification is cognitive behavioral therapy.
Migraine is a common and undertreated disease. For those who suffer, it is a major cause of disability, including missing work or school, and it frequently has associated comorbidities such as anxiety and depression. To put this in context, it is a leading cause of suicide, an indisputable proof of the severity of the distress that the disease may inflict on the individual.
There is currently no objective diagnosis or treatment that is universally effective in aborting or preventing attacks. As an intermittent disorder, migraine represents a neurological condition wherein systems that continuously evaluate errors (error detection) frequently fail, thus adding to the allostatic load of the disease.
Given the enormous burden to society, there is an urgent imperative to focus on better understanding the neurobiology of the disease to enable the discovery of novel treatment approaches.
BrainbrainstructureDepressiongeneticsheadacheMentalHealthmigrainemigrainesneurologyneuroplasticityneurovascularheadachedisorderPsychologySuicide
Depression, Mental Health, New Zealand, Psychology, Suicide & Self Harm
AN ANXIOUS PARADISE. Crisis in New Zealand mental health services as depression and anxiety soar – Eleanor Ainge Roy * World in mental health crisis of monumental suffering – Sarah Broseley.
System neglects ‘missing middle’ of the population who face common problems.
50-80% of New Zealanders experience mental distress or addiction challenges at some point in their lives, while each year one in five people experience mental illness or significant mental distress.
A landmark inquiry has found New Zealand’s mental health services are overwhelmed and geared towards crisis care rather than the wider population who are experiencing increasing rates of depression, trauma and substance abuse.
It has urged the government to widen provision of mental health care from 3% of the population in critical need to “the missing middle” – the 20% of the population who struggle with “common, disabling problems” such as anxiety.
New Zealand has one of the highest rates of suicide in the OECD, especially among young people. In 2017, 20,000 people tried to take their own life.
World in mental health crisis of ‘monumental suffering’, say experts – Sarah Broseley.
“Mental health problems kill more young people than any other cause around the world.” Prof. Vikram Patel, Harvard Medical School
Lancet report says 13.5 million lives could be saved every year if mental illness addressed.
DepressionMentalHealthNewZealandPsychologySuicide
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How to Get Over Your Post-travel Blues
By Ashley Hardaway, Staff Writer Dec. 18, 2014
By Ashley Hardaway, Staff Writer Dec. 18, 2014, at 5:51 p.m.
Returning home after spending a few years living abroad, or even a few weeks traveling, offers much to celebrate. You have a sense of humor now that you're able to crack jokes in your native tongue (being sarcastic in a foreign language is difficult). You can binge eat foods like peanut butter and deli meat, and sing along to songs on the radio. Sometimes, though, you may find yourself as frustrated upon returning home as you were when you first immersed yourself in another culture. Welcome to the disorientation that is reverse culture shock. Here's what it is and how to overcome it.
See: 8 Safety Tips for Solo Travelers
Coming back home after time away can leave you with a lot of catching up to do. If you've been gone awhile, chances are your friends and family had events in their lives you missed. You may feel like you've grown apart, or that you're no longer interested in the same things. You may also feel like they're sharing many of their personal stories with you, but seem disinterested in learning about what you experienced while you were away.
Take the time to reconnect with loved ones with one-on-one time, rather than just relying on Facebook to find out what you missed. If you're feeling like the conversation is one-sided and you'd like to share more of your experience, consider hosting a dinner party with a travel theme. It's the perfect time to bust out those photos, don another country's national garb and show off your newfound culinary skills. Added bonus: It's a way for your friends to experience the culture rather than just merely hear about it.
If you've been gone for a while, chances are you won't understand some of the pop culture references people are dropping in conversation. It can be frustrating to be at a party where everyone is quoting a movie you've never heard of, or having to interrupt a conversation to ask, "I'm sorry, what's Tinder?".
Luckily being "above the trends" is hip nowadays, but if it's bothering you, consider making a weekend out of it. Gather your friends for a marathon viewing of all the big Hollywood blockbusters you missed while you were gone. Buy some cheesy teen magazines and read all about these new famous people. Explore Twitter for five minutes. You'll be caught up in no time.
See: How to Take Amazing Vacation Photos With Your Phone
Leaving a country can feel like being dumped and, much like the stages of a bad breakup, you're likely to go through a period of nostalgic sadness. You miss the wine, the dancing, the music and the streets. You miss the ancient buildings, the way people took their dogs everywhere and even your mean neighbor.
Like comparing your significant other to your ex, comparing your new home to your old one is a no-no. Luckily, there's probably a cultural exchange group in your community filled with people who share your nostalgia. You can find language exchanges in your city through websites like Meetup.com, or see if your local community center is hosting any ethnic dance or cooking classes. Chances are, there's also a Community-Based Member that works with Global Ties U.S. in your community, an initiative created by the U.S. Department of State International Visitor Leadership Program.
When you live abroad, there's a deadline to the experience. Your trip is a bookend that makes everything feel special and like you're working toward something. Back home, with no finishing date, life can suddenly feel overwhelming or excruciatingly boring. Suddenly, you have to make decisions about your life rather than just your day. Even picking a box of cereal out of an aisle of hundreds can feel intimidating.
While life back home may seem less exciting, perhaps it's because you approach it with less bravado than you did while on the road. Consider integrating your travel persona into your everyday life. Go with the flow when things go wrong and don't become frustrated and preoccupied with meaningless decisions like what coffee to order. Most importantly, realize that your travel life and your home life are one in the same: All you have is this one complete, interconnected, messy experience.
See: 3 Tips for Traveling When You Don't Know the Language
About the author: Ashley Hardaway is a Washington, D.C.-based food and travel writer and the author of "Other Places Publishing guide to Ukraine." You can follow her on Twitter at @ADHardaway, connect with her on LinkedIn or keep up to date on her travels at AshleyHardaway.com.
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Attractions in Crocker Park in Westlake, Ohio
Heather Potter, Leaf Group
Westlake (Photo: )
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Approximately 15 miles from Cleveland, Westlake, Ohio, is an affluent suburb with a quaint downtown. Crocker Park (crockerpark.com) is a marvel of urban planning, an all-encompassing community that includes more than 1 million square feet of apartments, office space, shopping and landscaped grounds in a pedestrian-friendly design.
The mall has more than 40 shops that sell a range of merchandise from clothing to electronics. Although it has no department stores, the mall contains well-known, fashionable chains such as Banana Republic (bananarepublic.gap.com) and BCBG Max Azria (bcbg.com). For more practical needs, the mall offers an office supply store, two grocery stores, a health club, three hair salons and a nail salon. Those who like to read can choose between bookstore giants Borders (borders.com) and Barnes & Noble (barnesandnoble.com), and Learning Express (learningexpress.com) offer educational toys and games.
With more than 30 eating establishments, Crocker Park has something to offer every taste and the mall's restaurants offer a variety of cuisine, including Mexican, Asian, Italian, a seafood restaurant and a steakhouse. Lighter bites are available at the mall's deli, Subway (subway.com) and Zoup! Fresh Soup Company (zoup.com). Those with a sweet tooth can choose from two ice cream shops, a cupcake store and a chocolate store.
Entertainment and Special Events
Crocker Park hosts a variety of events throughout the year, including Westlake's Christmas tree lighting ceremony, which features Santa Claus and holiday music. During the summer, Crocker Park shows films outside and has a splash zone where children can cool off by running through fountains. The Fine Art Fair, held in June, brings artists from around the country who display artwork, jewelry and crafts. The entire family, including man's best friend, can enjoy the Crocker Bark Event, which allows dogs to use the splash zone, and has activities that include a dog fashion show and an agility course. The North Union Farmer's Market offers locally grown produce every Saturday from April to November. The mall also features a 16-screen movie theater that includes an IMAX screen and a giant chessboard.
Westlake, Ohio in JanuaryFebruaryMarchAprilMayJuneJulyAugustSeptemberOctoberNovemberDecember
The temperature in Westlake, Ohio in July tends to be very predictable, so you can generally count on the forecast and travel light.
The temperature in Westlake, Ohio in July is somewhat unpredictable, so be on the safe side and prepare for a variety of conditions.
The temperature in Westlake, Ohio in July is highly unpredictable, so use the forecast as a guide, but be ready for anything!
The Apartments
Crocker Park has two luxury apartment buildings, The Residences, which offers one- to three-bedroom floor plans and The Excelsior (excelsior-life.com), which has 56 upscale apartments that range from 878 to 1,543 square feet and come in one- or two-bedroom floor plans. The Residences all come with high-speed Internet capability and parking, and offer luxury amenities including a concierge and dry cleaning service.
The City of Westlake, Ohio: City History
The City of Westlake, Ohio: Welcome From the Mayor
Crocker Park: Stores
Crocker Park: Dining
The City of Westlake, Ohio: Special Events
Crocker Park: Movies in the Park
Crocker Park: Fine Art Fair and Crocker Bark Event
Crocker Park: North Union Farmer's Market
Crocker Park: Life in Crocker Park
Crocker Park: The Residences
The Excelsior Crocker Park: Floor Plans
Heather Potter has more than 10 years experience as a writer. She specializes in travel writing, and her writing has appeared on national websites, including USA Today. She attended Boston University.
Attribution: Kulshrax; License: public domain
Potter, Heather. "Attractions in Crocker Park in Westlake, Ohio." Travel Tips - USA Today, https://traveltips.usatoday.com/attractions-crocker-park-westlake-ohio-55384.html. Accessed 15 July 2019.
Potter, Heather. (n.d.). Attractions in Crocker Park in Westlake, Ohio. Travel Tips - USA Today. Retrieved from https://traveltips.usatoday.com/attractions-crocker-park-westlake-ohio-55384.html
Potter, Heather. "Attractions in Crocker Park in Westlake, Ohio" accessed July 15, 2019. https://traveltips.usatoday.com/attractions-crocker-park-westlake-ohio-55384.html
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Outdoor Vacation Activities»
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Homage to actors of yore
I've just been adding these on to Etsy and I've been looking for a little information about them. As someone who also trod the boards (a number of years ago now), I feel I should pay a little homage to these four.
1 - Mr Mathews as Monsieur Morbleu - theatre manager and comic actor, Charles Mathews (1776-1835) was Monsieur Morbleu in the farce Monsieur Tonson by W.T. Moncrieff, early nineteenth century.
2 - Mr John Reeve as Sylvester Daggerwood. This was a one-act play by George Colman, first performed in 1795.
3 - Mr Collins as Master Slender in Merry Wives of Windsor.
4 - Mr Incledon as Steady in "The Quaker", copper engraving. Charles Incledon was a celebrated singer and actor in the late 18th and early 19th century. (Thank you, Wikipedia)
Find them here.
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Kid's Classics
The Puffin Book of Nursery Rhymes
, this favourite classic is now available for a whole new generation of children. Winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal in 1966"", "offers": { "@type": "Offer", "priceCurrency": "AUD", "price": "39.99", "availability": "0", "seller": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Albert Park" } } }
"With over 250 nursery rhymes, including both well-known favourites and hidden gems, this collection has something for every child. This collection is perfect for sharing and a gift to treasure. With beautiful illustrations by Raymond Briggs, the much-loved creator of The Snowman, this favourite classic is now available for a whole new generation of children. Winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal in 1966"
Raymond Briggs is one of our most respected and beloved artists. Born in Wimbledon in 1934, he studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and went on to produce a treasure trove of work. He has created characters that are now icons for generations of children, including Fungus the Bogeyman, Father Christmas and, of course, the beloved Snowman. He has won many awards over his career including the Kurt Maschler Award, The Children's Book of the Year and the prestigious Kate Greenaway Award for his Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme collection. Raymond lives in Sussex.
Author : Puffin
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Home>Companies>Nationwide>Nationwide Leighton Buzzard
Nationwide Leighton Buzzard
LU71DN
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Frinton On Sea, Gainsborough, Galashiels, Gillingham, Glasgow, Gloucester, Goole, Gosport, Grantham, Gravesend, Grays, Great Yarmouth, Greenford, Greenock, Grimsby, Guildford, Hailsham, Halesowen, Halifax, Hamilton, Harleston, Harlow, Harpenden, Harrogate, Harrow, Hartlepool, Harwich, Hassocks, Hastings, Havant, Haverfordwest, Hayes, Haywards Heath, Heanor, Heathfield, Helston, Hemel Hempstead, Henley On Thames, Hereford, Herne Bay, Hertford, High Wycombe, Hinckley, Hitchin, Hoddesdon, Holt, Horley, Horncastle, Hornchurch, Horsham, Hounslow, Hove, Huddersfield, Hull, Hunstanton, Huntingdon, Hythe, Ilford, Ilfracombe, Ilkeston, Inverness, Ipswich, Irvine, Keighley, Kenilworth, Kettering, Kidderminster, Kilmarnock, Kings Lynn, Kingston Upon Thames, Kirkcaldy, Lanark, Lancaster, Lancing, Launceston, Leamington Spa, Leatherhead, Leeds, Leicester, Leigh On Sea, Letchworth Garden City, Leven, Lewes, Leyland, Lincoln, Lisburn, Livingston, Llandudno, Llanelli, London, Londonderry, Longfield, Loughborough, Loughton, Louth, Lowestoft, Luton, Lymington, Lytham St Annes, Macclesfield, Maidenhead, Maidstone, Malvern, Manchester, Mansfield, March, Margate, Market Harborough, Marlborough, Marlow, Matlock, Melksham, Melton Mowbray, Merthyr Tydfil, Middlesbrough, Milford Haven, Milton Keynes, Mitcham, Monmouth, Montrose, Morden, Morecambe, Motherwell, Nantwich, Neath, New Malden, New Romney, Newbury, Newcastle, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Newmarket, Newport, Newport Pagnell, Newquay, Newry, Newton Abbot, Newtown, Newtownabbey, Newtownards, Northampton, Northwich, Northwood, Norwich, Nottingham, Nuneaton, Oban, Oldham, Olney, Omagh, Ormskirk, Orpington, Oswestry, Oxford, Paignton, Paisley, Penarth, Penzance, Perth, Peterborough, Peterhead, Petersfield, Pinner, Plymouth, Pontefract, Pontypool, Pontypridd, Poole, Port Talbot, Portsmouth, Potters Bar, Preston, Princes Risborough, Purley, Ramsgate, Rayleigh, Reading, Redditch, Redhill, Redruth, Reigate, Retford, Rhyl, Richmond, Rickmansworth, Ringwood, Ripley, Rochdale, Rochester, Romford, Romsey, Ross On Wye, Rotherham, Rugby, Rugeley, Ruislip, Runcorn, Rushden, Ryde, Rye, Saffron Walden, Sale, Salford, Salisbury, Sandbach, Sandwich, Sawbridgeworth, Scarborough, Scunthorpe, Seaford, Sevenoaks, Shanklin, Sheerness, Sheffield, Sheringham, Shrewsbury, Sidcup, Sittingbourne, Skegness, Sleaford, Slough, Solihull, South Croydon, Southall, Southampton, Southend On Sea, Southport, Southsea, Spalding, St Albans, St Helens, St Ives, St Leonards On Sea, St Neots, Stafford, Staines, Stamford, Stanford Le Hope, Stanmore, Stevenage, Stirling, Stockport, Stockton On Tees, Stoke On Trent, Stourbridge, Stowmarket, Stratford Upon Avon, Strathaven, Stroud, Sudbury, Sunderland, Surbiton, Sutton, Sutton Coldfield, Sutton In Ashfield, Swaffham, Swansea, Swindon, Tamworth, Taunton, Telford, Tenterden, Tewkesbury, Thame, Thetford, Thirsk, Tiverton, Tonbridge, Torquay, Towcester, Trowbridge, Truro, Tunbridge Wells, Twickenham, Uckfield, Upminster, Uxbridge, Wakefield, Wallingford, Wallington, Wallsend, Walsall, Waltham Cross, Walton On Thames, Wantage, Warminster, Warrington, Waterlooville, Watford, Wellingborough, Welwyn Garden City, Wembley, West Bromwich, West Drayton, West Malling, West Wickham, Westcliff On Sea, Westerham, Weston Super Mare, Weybridge, Weymouth, Whitley Bay, Whitstable, Wickford, Wigan, Wigston, Winchester, Windsor, Wisbech, Witham, Witney, Woking, Wokingham, Wolverhampton, Worcester, Worcester Park, Worksop, Worthing, Wrexham, Wymondham, Yeovil, York
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Fuel Cells - Potential Applications in Space and Nanotechnology Methods for Improving Fuel Cells
Written by AZoNanoMar 2 2005
Applications for Fuel Cells and What Improvements Nanotechnology Can Offer
Nanotechnology Catalysts Might Improve the Efficiency of Direct Methanol Fuel Cells
Nanotechnology Techniques for Improving Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC)
Nanomaterials Can Offer an Efficient Method for Hydrogen Storage for Mobile Applications
Material types Used for Hydrogen Storage
Fuel cells represent an efficient method for chemical energy conversion and possess substantial application potential in space due, to their clean operation and their compactness. At present, NASA develops, in co-operation with US-American companies, PEM (Polymer Electrolyte Membrane) fuel cell modules, which should be available for space qualification procedures in 2005.
Application of fuel cells is an objective particularly pursued within the range of re-usable space transporters. But fuel cells, in principle, represent alternatives for batteries in many other space applications. For example, SOFC fuel cells could be used for the electrochemical oxygen production in manned space stations, or for the in-situ resource production on other planets. Nanotechnology offers different possibilities to increase the conversion efficiencies of fuel cells, in particular, within the ranges of catalysts, membranes and hydrogen storage, which in many cases is critical for the employment of fuel cell technology in space.
Precious metal nanoparticles improve the high-efficient production of hydrogen in direct methanol fuel cells. This type of fuel cell needs liquid methanol as fuel, from which the hydrogen is generated by a catalyst. The main obstacle here is the poisoning of the catalysts through by-products like carbon monoxide. Improved nanotechnological catalysts, which are more insensitive against carbon-containing gases, could contribute to a solution of this problem.
Using Graphene Based Solar Cells for Solar Applications
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Solar Cells and Thermoelectrics - Techniques Used for Improvement and Potential Space Applications
Also, the electrolyte of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) fuel cells can be improved by nanoparticles. For example, the Max-Planck Institute (MPI) for solid state research in Stuttgart, acting in co-operation with MPI for polymer research in Mainz, developed custom-made polymer membranes, with densely packed nanoparticles, which are immobilized on the surface of imidazole molecules and provide an optimized proton transportation. For Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC), ceramic nanopowders (e.g. yttrium stabilized zirconium, YSZ) are used for the production of solid electrolyte membranes, with improved ionic conductivity and better thermal stability.
Nanomaterials Can Offer an Efficient Method for Hydrogen Storage for Mobile Application
One of the main obstacles to the implementation of fuel cells for mobile application is, at present, still the technologically and economically reasonable storage of the fuel (especially hydrogen). Nanomaterials, due to their increased active surface area, basically possess potential to be a lightweight high-efficient storage media for hydrogen.
With regard to operating conditions (temperature, pressure), different material types should be taken into consideration. Nanocrystalline light metal hydride particles from magnesium-nickel alloys are suitable for operating temperatures up to 300°C, and LaNi5 alloys for low temperature hydrogen storage up to 80°C. Also, for carbon nanotube materials or alkali metal doped graphite nanofibers, high hydrogen absorption capacities are reported, but were partly not reproducible.
Primary author: Dr. Wolfgang Luther (editor).
Source: Future Technologies Division of VDI (Verein Deutscher Ingenieure) Report entitled ‘Applications of Nanotechnology in Space Developments and Systems: Technological Analysis’, April 2003.
For more information on this source please visit http://www.zt-consulting.de.
Do you have a review, update or anything you would like to add to this article?
Advanced Alloys
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Thanks, Sheryl Sandberg, for Reminding Us Facebook Is About More Than Just One-Upping Each Other
Meredith Carroll
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg was having an extraordinary string of success. Not only was she leading the way at one of the world’s most buzzed about companies, but her book, Lean In, became an instant bestseller upon publication in 2013. Lean In went on to inspire what has become a dynamic and ongoing dialogue of how women can find equality in the workplace and in life.
And then Sandberg’s life took a traumatic turn this year.
On May 1, her husband of 11 years, Dave Goldberg, 47, died suddenly after falling off a treadmill while on a family vacation in Mexico. When famous people aren’t working to forward a money-making venture, such as a business, film, TV show, or book, it’s that rare they choose to share much about their personal lives. Yet, that’s exactly what Sandberg did following Goldberg’s death.
Just nine days after the tragedy, Sandberg wrote on her Facebook page about how, at her daughter’s soccer game, she saw another woman who had also been widowed at a young age and “felt completely understood. She told me that she was reliving her loss through mine — and I did not even need to tell her how I felt.”
There’s something universal about the ability to share and connect and say to someone else, ‘It gets better.’
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Of the countless expressions of condolences she received through social media, she said, “The pain and the joy of the human experience has never been more real to me.” This, all during “the darkest and saddest moments” of her life.
Following a month of mourning, Sandberg posted a deeply personal and poignant letter, saying “I have lived thirty years in these thirty days. I am thirty years sadder. I feel like I am thirty years wiser.” She spoke of the lessons of resilience she was taught by a friend:
“Personalization — realizing it is not my fault. He told me to ban the word ‘sorry.’ To tell myself over and over, This is not my fault. Permanence — remembering that I won’t feel like this forever. This will get better. Pervasiveness — this does not have to affect every area of my life; the ability to compartmentalize is healthy.”
On Dave’s birthday in early October, she publicly thanked her family and friends from “the bottom of my heart for carrying me and my children through these brutal months and for helping us keep his memory alive.”
And then just recently, Sandberg sat down for an interview on NBC’s Today to explain why she was so vocal following the loss of her husband.
“As I look to the new year, and my children and I have worked so hard to rebuild our lives and find happiness and joy and gratitude again, I think the support of strangers and our friends made a huge difference,” she said. “I always loved Facebook’s mission, but now I feel even closer to it in, I think, a much deeper and more profound way.”
There are plenty of people — including parents — who know all too well the danger of social media, and I don’t mean the Internet predators or the hackers trying to steal your personal information. No, sometimes you risk emotional injury by simply looking at the Pinterest-perfect photos of other people’s lives. The cherubic children, romantic getaways, and happy-as-clams lives in glamorous homes that some put out there for consumption can, by comparison, make others feel even worse about their own day-to-day existence.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. If, in some ways, we’re living more impersonally as screens take over, in other ways, the experience can still be eminently personal. While not every Facebook friend may actually be a friend, there are still those connected to you who will be there to listen and empathize if what you put out there is real.
“Because anything you experience, no matter how tragic or devastating … there are many people in the world who’ve experienced that,” Sandberg said. “There’s something universal about the ability to share and connect and say to someone else, ‘It gets better.'”
Leaning in isn’t just for women. Being honest about tough pregnancies, sleepless nights, and difficult children is one way to elicit help, empathy, and a break from isolation. Children are taught to share at an early age, and by doing so, they’re hardly demonstrating any kind of weakness, but rather strength in character and integrity. The same can be true for sharing as an adult. If we take a page from Sandberg’s book of experience, it’s that opening our mouths can lead to more open doors and hearts.
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Jackie Copeland Proposes Restorative Vision for the Reginald F. Lewis Museum
The new executive director wants the museum to be a safe place for unsafe ideas.
By Angela N. Carroll | April 26, 2019, 10:23 am
-Arts Every Day
This season marks the 14th year of operation for the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture. During its brief tenure, the museum has been marred with rumors of financial turmoil and organizational chaos that have overshadowed its accomplishments.
“This museum occupies prime real estate in the city and the state,” notes Jackie Copeland, who took on the role of executive director at the start of the year, “It is not just about the Reginald F. Lewis museum, it’s also about many other African-American cultural institutions who are not getting the support that they need to be sustainable. Whether that support comes from the state, city, African-American or majority communities, how you put that puzzle together will make a museum sustainable.”
Copeland, an accomplished art historian who brings more than 30 years of experience working in arts institutions to her new position, remains optimistic about her abilities to transform negative perceptions and reignite community engagement.
Modeled after the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Lewis was developed to honor the legacy of business mogul and philanthropist Reginald F. Lewis and to stand as a lasting monument for the archival and exhibition of regional African American histories. The museum has hosted a wide range of exhibitions and programming that chronicle local and national African-American histories, traditions, and contemporary artworks.
Recent exhibitions have included a collection of archival prints by Roland Freeman depicting the life of arabbers on Baltimore streets, an exhibition of more than 70 works by iconic artist Romare Bearden, and photography by Linda Day Clark celebrating the extensive history of quilting traditions in Gee's Bend, Alabama. The museum also hosts a compelling discussion series entitled Talks and Thoughts, which has presented a broad range of timely issues including the legacy of confederate statues, the Civil Rights origins of Colin Kapernick’s protests, and the lasting impacts of black face and minstrel shows on contemporary culture.
“We want to be a place where the citizens of Baltimore and Maryland can see themselves and their histories,” Copeland continues. “The museum wants to be engaged in community activities, projects that increase children’s literacy, and also fine art exhibits.” We sat down with Copeland to discuss her career and vision to restructure the museum.
How are you hoping to transform the Reginald F. Lewis Museum?
I am the first director with museum experience to lead this museum. I am acutely aware of the finances that it takes to do a deep dive and to grow. My first obligation is to put in place a mechanism that will make this museum sustainable financially. That mechanism will allow me to step back and hire the folks who can go into communities to do the work of real engagement.
Can you describe your vision more specifically?
My vision is to grow the museum, but it takes time. I am really proud of the programs that we do. We are a small staff in a big museum. We call ourselves being flexible and relevant to issues that are relevant to Baltimore, the state, and national communities. Being able to be a place where safe conversations can happen is important for us. We call ourselves “a safe place for unsafe ideas.” We want to continue to have programs that acknowledge figures like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and other contemporary artists that are from the region. We have a pulse in the community and align ourselves with movers and shakers who are community oriented.
What plans do you have to create stronger pipelines for community engagement? I am thinking specifically about communities who may not feel comfortable going to museums because historically those institutions have not always been welcoming to people of color.
That is a problem all museums face. I think that we have an advantage because we are a museum for African-American history and culture. My hope is that African Americans can find a place for themselves because their histories are here—that they are not hesitant to come here and feel comfortable here because these are the histories that we and our ancestors have lived. I think the challenge for this museum is to attract visitors of all ages, ethnicities, and genders so that people see that this is a shared history.
If we are showing the history of slavery, for instance, it isn’t just about what happened to African Americans, it is also an issue about majority white communities and their role. The challenge is how we talk about that, how we teach that, and how we engage teachers so that they feel comfortable and know how to discuss it when they bring their students. It is a challenge because, as a culture, we have not grown up always going to the museums, but I want this place to be not just a museum like a high and mighty temple or an ivory tower, but a community space. We kind of balance being a community space with being a museum of culture and being relevant is really important.
Moving forward, what are your hopes for the museum?
My hope is that when folks talk about the creativity and innovation that is happening in the city of Baltimore and speak about cultural institutions and museums like the BMA or the Walters, that they also talk about the Reginald F. Lewis Museum. Each one is distinctive, but we look at ourselves as having a voice for the African-American community. We should be recognized for the importance that we bring and the stories that we tell about the city and the state of Maryland.
Arts District Arts & Culture Jackie Copeland Reginald F. Lewis Museum executive director
Angela N. Carroll is a contributing contemporary visual art, performance, and film criticism writer for BmoreArt, Arts.Black, Sugarcane Magazine, and Umber Magazine. She received her MFA in digital arts and new media from the University of California at Santa Cruz and currently teaches within the film and moving image program at Stevenson University.
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Jason Brown Wood Floors
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Suchen Sie nach über 100 Millionen verkauften Objekten in unserer Datenbank
Kunst und Drucke
No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue)
NY, US
Preis ansehen
Über das Objekt
“The progression of a painter’s work, as it travels in time from point to point, will be toward clarity: toward the elimination of all obstacles between the painter and the idea and between the idea and the observer… To achieve this clarity is, inevitably, to be understood”\nMark Rothko, cited in The Mark Rothko Foundation: 1976-86, p.1\n\n“Pictures must be miraculous: the instant one is completed, the intimacy between the creation and the creator is ended. He is an outsider. The picture must be for him, as for anyone experiencing it later, a revelation, an unexpected and unprecedented resolution of an eternally familiar need.”\nMark Rothko, ‘The Romantics were Prompted…,” Possibilities,New York, No. 1, Winter 1947-48, p. 84\n“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being."\nCarl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 1962, chapter 11\n\nThe majestic summation of Mark Rothko’s legendary aesthetic language, No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue) stands as an ideal achievement of the sublime in abstract painting. This unrepeatable, inimitable masterpiece affords the privileged viewer a visual and somatic experience that is beyond comparison. The stunning aura of its brilliant red and orange surfaces is superbly countered by the intensely vivid blue rectangle towards its base; creating an alluring emanation that is impossible to reproduce in illustration. Indeed, it is almost as if this extraordinary painting is brilliantly illuminated from within: a translucent vessel of pure color and light.\n\nNo. 1 (Royal Red and Blue) was the ultimate crescendo of Rothko’s first one-man exhibition in a major US museum, at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1954. The show was organized by one of the foremost champions of the avant-garde in post-war America, and the Institute’s first curator of modern painting and sculpture; the visionary Katherine Kuh. Every other work from that renowned event is now housed in a major institutional collection, except No. 6 (Yellow, White, Blue over Yellow on Gray), which broke the auction record for the artist when it was sold by Sotheby’s in 2004. In preparation for the exhibition, Kuh and Rothko corresponded extensively, originally in order to provide material for a pamphlet to accompany the show. Having visited the artist's studio in New York, her initial request for paintings specifically singled out the present work, as she wrote: "I particularly want that marvelous large red one" (letter of June 3, 1954). When Rothko provided the final list of paintings to be sent to Chicago on September 12, 1954, he included prices at which they should be sold to the public (given that he had ended his contract with the Betty Parsons Gallery in the previous Spring, it can be assumed that these were his own figures). The highest price was for No. 10, 1952-53, which, at almost ten by fourteen feet, was the largest canvas of the group by far, and which is now housed in the Museo Guggenheim in Bilbao. The second most valuable painting, as determined by the artist, was the present work, which provides resounding confirmation of the artist's very high esteem for this specific painting. Through the decades since its creation, No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue)has continued to captivate audiences as a pure icon of Rothko’s genius. It has been central to major Rothko exhibitions and was even selected as the key work for the vast announcement banner at the comprehensive retrospective at the National Gallery of Art in 1998. Among the 116 major works included in that show were many of the artist’s most iconic works, and the fact that the present painting was chosen in this way, acting as figurehead for the exhibition, further affirms its remarkable reputation. \nExecuted at the kernel of the artist’s halcyon era, No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue) is archetypal of his very best painting and its appearance here at auction, after three decades residence in a prestigious private collection and inclusion in comprehensive major exhibitions, marks an historic moment. Following the crucial turning point of 1949-50, when Rothko resolved an abstract archetype out of the preceding multiform paintings, the artist entered what David Anfam, the editor of the Rothko catalogue raisonné, has called the anni mirabilis: the first half of the 1950s, during which the artist’s mature mode of artistic expression pioneered truly unprecedented territory. The present work is critical and integral to this spectacular outpouring of innovation and is one of just twelve canvases that Rothko created between 1950 and 1955 on a scale to exceed nine feet in height. Indeed, the scale of this painting is absolutely fundamental to the most authentic experience of Rothko’s vision, whereby we become participants in his all-encompassing canvases, rather than mere spectators. A number of other constituents of this esteemed body of paintings are today housed in the some of the most prestigious museum collections of the world such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.\n\nAt the precipice of a decade during which Rothko would redefine the very essence of Abstract Art, he wrote the following words in a published statement: “A picture lives by companionship, expanding and quickening in the eyes of the sensitive observer. It dies by the same token.” (Mark Rothko, “Statement,” Tiger’s Eye, New York, vol. 1, no. 2, December 1947, p. 44) Rothko thus asserted a fundamental equation between the artwork and its beholder, whereby the true potential of his painting could not exist without the presence of the viewer. When Rothko asked Katherine Kuh to describe her reactions to his paintings she wrote of the ones she had seen, including the present work: "for me they have a kind of ecstasy of color which induces different but always intense moods. I am not a spectator - I am a participant." (letter July 18, 1954). Rothko’s statement that it is the experience of a painting that completes the artwork; and Kuh’s concept of becoming a participant in Rothko’s art rather than a mere spectator stand as two core tenets that make the present work a masterpiece of his oeuvre. For our experience of No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue) as participants in its stunning drama brings it to life, and may give new dimensions to our life. We do not look at this painting; we are absorbed into it. Indeed, being in its presence parallels a line of Nietzsche that had inspired Rothko since he had been a young man: “There is a need for a whole world of torment in order for the individual to sit quietly in his rocking row-boat in mid-sea, absorbed in contemplation.” (Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, translation by Francis Golffing, New York, 1956, pp. 33-34)\n\nAt over 113 inches in height, the scale of No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue) is sheer and monumental: broadcasting its allure on a greater-than human register; engulfing the viewer’s entire experience; and situating us as actors within its epic expanse. An apparent paradox typifies the artist’s ambition, declared in 1951: “I paint very large pictures…precisely because I want to be very intimate and human. To paint a small picture is to place yourself outside your experience…However you paint the larger picture, you are in it. It isn’t something you command.” (Exh. Cat., London, The Tate Gallery, Mark Rothko: 1903-1970, 1987, p. 85) Of course, scale is absolutely fundamental to the nature of Rothko’s work, identified as such by Clement Greenberg even in 1950: “Broken by relatively few incidents of drawing or design, their surfaces exhale color with an enveloping effect that is enhanced by size itself. One reacts to an environment as much as to a picture hung on a wall.” (“'American-Type’ Painting” (1955) cited in Clifford Ross, Ed., Abstract Expressionism: Creators and Critics, New York, 1990, p. 248) Indeed, Rothko wrote to Katherine Kuh to instruct the hanging of the 1954 Chicago exhibition, of which the present work was such an important climax: “Since my pictures are large, colorful and unframed, and since museum walls are usually immense and formidable, there is the danger that the pictures relate themselves as decorative areas to the walls. This would be a distortion of their meaning, since the pictures are intimate and intense, and are the opposite of what is decorative; and have been painted in a scale of normal living rather than an institutional scale.” (Exh. Cat., London, The Tate Gallery, Op. Cit., p. 58) Indeed, describing “Rothko’s desire to envelop the spectator with art that overcame its ambient space”, David Anfam cites as example the 1955 show at the Sidney Janis Gallery that this work was also included in and where “the stature of the pictures and their siting – wedged into the spaces – is instructive. They seek to displace their environment.” (David Anfam, Mark Rothko: The Works on Canvas: Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1998, p. 73)\n\nThree shimmering zones of color, which are simultaneously drawn together and held apart from each other by ethereal and imperceptible boundaries, dominate the canvas. The brilliant royal blue anchors the composition and works in magisterial chromatic concert with its exact complimentary color of vivid orange that pushes towards the uppermost limits of the canvas. The central royal red strip is tonally equivalent to the luminous sea of orange above it, yet works as an elegantly sophisticated horizontal axis that our eye is drawn to, between the two larger pulsating expanses. Rothko applied paint in diverse fashions; the rectangles, or objects, being achieved either by paint being spread out from the center, or by an outline thereafter being filled in, or by strokes being applied in parallel until the form was completed. As noted by Irving Sandler, “Rothko built up his rectangular containers of color from lightly brushed, stained and blotted touches which culminate in a chromatic crescendo.” (Exh. Cat. New York, Pace Gallery, Mark Rothko: Paintings 1948-1969, 1983, p. 8) Here chromatic resonance is attained through the meticulous aggregation of translucent veils of brushed pigment, with especially close attention paid to the spaces between forms and the edges of the canvas. Both despite of and due to their differences, the color fields equilibrate: the lure of one is immediately countered by the irresistible pull of the other as they reverberate over the fractionally paler ground. The layers of pigments concurrently hover indeterminately as three-dimensional floods of color in front of the picture plane, while also reinforcing the materiality of the painted object through their saturation of the canvas weave.\n\nThrough form, surface, texture and color Rothko has struck a perennial balance that lures the viewer's constant attention. There is also a certain tension struck between the uplifting emotions conventionally evoked by warm golden hues and something implicitly more tragic. Such elemental colors harbor primal connotations of light, warmth and the Sun, but inasmuch as they invoke the Sun they also implicate the inevitable cycle of dawn and dusk, of rise and set, and their own continual demise and rebirth. Rothko once stated to David Sylvester: “Often, towards nightfall, there’s a feeling in the air of mystery, threat, frustration – all of these at once. I would like my painting to have the quality of such moments.” (in David Anfam, Op. Cit., p. 88), and with its suggestion of an unobtainable horizon and an infinite, unbreakable cycle, this work harbors something that is indescribably portentous.\n\nWhile much contemporary commentary cited Rothko’s oeuvre as radically dislocated from historical precedent, subsequent perspective readily posits his oeuvre an eminent historical location. From J.M.W. Turner, Caspar David Friedrich and Claude Monet to the Luminists, Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse; predecessors concerned with the pure effects of color from decades and centuries past informed the new painting Rothko initiated in mid-century New York. Perhaps foremost among these was Matisse, whose own practice had so radically redefined relationships between form and color, and as Robert Rosenblum has pointed out: “it dawned on many of Rothko’s admirers that his dense seas of color might not have existed without the example of Matisse, a point the artist himself acknowledged.” (Exh. Cat., London, The Tate Gallery, Op. Cit., p. 22)\n\nIt is well documented that Rothko was fixated with the literary work of Friedrich Nietzsche, above all the German philosopher's seminal opus The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music written in 1872. Nietzsche’s ideas of how the tension between Apollonian and Dionysian forces dictates the terms of human drama were important to the advancement of Rothko's color fields. Indeed, Rothko’s vast tableaux have often been discussed in the lexicon of the immediate and saturating effects of music. David Sylvester’s review of the 1961 Whitechapel Gallery exhibition in London provides an apt response to the present work in these terms: “These paintings begin and end with an intense and utterly direct expression of feeling through the interaction of colored areas of a certain size. They are the complete fulfillment of Van Gogh’s notion of using color to convey man’s passions. They are the realisation of what abstract artists have dreamed for 50 years of doing – making painting as inherently expressive as music. More than this: for not even with music…does isolated emotion touch the nervous system so directly.” (in New Statesman, 20 October 1961 cited in Exh. Cat., London, The Tate Gallery, Op. Cit., p. 36)\n\nExcepting a letter to Art News in 1957, from 1949 onwards Rothko ceased publishing statements about his work, anxious that his writings might be interpreted as instructive or didactic and could thereby interfere with the pure import of the paintings themselves. However, in 1958 he gave a talk at the Pratt Institute to repudiate his critics and to deny any perceived association between his art and self-expression. He insisted instead that his corpus was not concerned with notions of self but rather with the entire human drama. While he drew a distinction between figurative and abstract art, he nevertheless outlined an underlying adherence to the portrayal of human experience. Discussing the “artist’s eternal interest in the human figure”, Rothko examined the common bond of figurative painters throughout Art History: “they have painted one character in all their work. What is indicated here is that the artist’s real model is an ideal which embraces all of human drama rather than the appearance of a particular individual. Today the artist is no longer constrained by the limitation that all of man’s experience is expressed by his outward appearance. Freed from the need of describing a particular person, the possibilities are endless. The whole of man’s experience becomes his model, and in that sense it can be said that all of art is a portrait of an idea.” (lecture given at the Pratt Institute 1958, cited in Exh. Cat., London, The Tate Gallery, Op. Cit., p. 87)\nSigned, titled #1 and dated 1954 on the reverse
This painting is in excellent condition. Please contact the Contemporary Art department at 212-606-7254 for the condition report prepared by Terrence Mahon. The canvas is not framed In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion. NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.
113 3/4 x 67 1/2 in. 288.9 x 171.5 cm.
Chicago, The Gallery of Art Interpretation, The Art Institute of Chicago; Providence, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Recent Paintings by Mark Rothko, October 1954 – February 1955 (as No. 1) New York, Sidney Janis Gallery, Mark Rothko, April – May 1955 (as Royal Red and Blue) Washington, D.C., Corcoran Gallery of Art, Twentieth Century American Artists: 10th Anniversary Exhibition (The Friends of Corcoran), October – November 1971, cat. no. 69, p. 45, illustrated in color (as Untitled) Washington, D.C., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, The Golden Door: Artist Immigrants of America, 1876-1976, May – October 1976, cat. no. 44, p. 165, illustrated in color Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; New York, Whitney Museum of American Art; Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne, Mark Rothko, May 1998 – April 1999, cat. no. 64, p. 141, illustrated in color, and p. 347, illustrated (as exhibited at Sidney Janis, 1955) [Washington and New York venues only] Fort Worth, The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Declaring Space: Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Lucio Fontana, Yves Klein, September 2007 - January 2008, p. 71, illustrated in color
Margy P. Sharpe, ed., The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. David Lloyd Kreeger, Washington, D.C., 1976, p. 244, illustrated David Anfam, Mark Rothko: The Works on Canvas, Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1998, cat. no. 503, p. 386, illustrated in color, and fig. 80, p. 73, illustrated (as exhibited at Sidney Janis, 1955) Exh. Cat., Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró, Mark Rothko, 2000, p. 16, illustrated (as exhibited at Sidney Janis, 1955) Exh. Cat., Basel, Fondation Beyeler, Mark Rothko, 2001, fig. 13, p. 26, illustrated (as exhibited at Sidney Janis, 1955) Glenn Phillips and Thomas Crow, eds., Seeing Rothko, Los Angeles, 2005, fig. 1, p. 27, illustrated (as exhibited at Sidney Janis, 1955)
Marlborough A.G., Liechtenstein/ Marlborough-Gerson Gallery Inc., New York (acquired from the artist in 1969) Mr. and Mrs. David Lloyd Kreeger, Washington (acquired from the above in 1970, Estate no. 5018.54) Richard L. Feigen & Co., New York (acquired from the above in 1978) Sandra Canning Kasper, New York (acquired from the above in 1978) Mr. and Mrs. Ben Heller, New York (acquired from the above in 1978) Acquired by the present owner from the above in 1982
signedDate
Signed, titled #1 and dated 1954 on the reverse
consignmentDesignation
Property from an Important Private Collection
creator_nationality_dates
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KARL MARLANTES
Tuesday, September 10 / 7 PM
Karl Marlantes graduated from Yale University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, before serving as a Marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valor, two Purple Hearts and ten air medals. He is the bestselling author of Matterhorn and What It Is Like to Go to War. In his new novel, Deep River, Marlantes turns to another mode of storytelling―the family epic―to craft a stunningly expansive narrative of human suffering, courage and reinvention.
Additional books will be available for purchase courtesy of Mac's Backs - Books on Coventry.
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formerly Regal College Avenue 16, Marcus Appleton East Cinema
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Cheeky football team's 'Oreo run' is butt of late night host's jokes
By Jay Taft jtaft@rrstar.com
Dec 7, 2018 at 3:45 PM Dec 7, 2018 at 3:52 PM
A Rockford Register Star story about 10 Byron football players who were suspended for their part in an “Oreo run” has not only been republished by news outlets across the country, it’s become late night talk show fodder.
On Tuesday, the story wound up on "Late Night with Seth Meyers." Meyers makes a joke at timestamp 1:18 about what happened to the cookies after the incident.
The Rockford Register Star’s Dec. 1 story reported that Byron football players took part in a naked race across the football field with an Oreo wedged between their buttocks. School administrators said it was not hazing and that the appropriate football players were punished.
In the past week, the story spread across the country in popular news and media outlets such as Fox News, Thrillist, USA Today, WGN, Deadspin and many more.
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Turkey. Sugar Annual. Apr 2013
Turkey. Sugar Annual. Apr 2013 May 8, 2013
Report Highlights:
Production quotas for both beet sugar and starch based sugar were unchanged at 2,288,000 MT and 244,000 MT respectively for the past three marketing years (MY), but the beet sugar quota is reduced to 2,266,000 MT for 2013/2014 MY. In response to lower quotas, the plantation area decreased from 2.9 to 2.8 million decares and sugar beet production decreased from 16 to 15 million MT in MY 2012/13. Consequently, total centrifugal sugar production decreased to 2,128,319 MT compared to 2,262,000 MT last year.
In MY2012/2013 climate conditions were in favor of sugar beets and this led to a higher polarity rate (amount of sugar obtained from the sugar beet) compared to last year. The average polarity rate throughout Turkey was 17.4% in MY 2012/13. Average sugar beet yield has been 5.5 tons per hectare. In the Konya region in Central Anatolia - the capital of Turkish sugar beet production - yield rate has been 34.3% greater than Turkey’s average, which means 7.4 tons/hectare. As farmers become more familiar with modern agriculture techniques and are using better quality seeds, the yields are increasing and so are farmers’ incomes.
The beet purchase price increased 8% from 125 TL/MT last marketing year to 135 TL/MT this year. However input costs such as fuel, electricity, fertilizer and labor increased an average of 25% over the same period of time. Regions that enjoy higher yields may have closed this gap, but hurt farmers in those regions where the yields are lower.
In MY 2012/13 nearly 15 million MT of sugar beets were harvested from an area of 280 thousand hectares (1 hectare=0.4 acres). From this 2 million metric tons (MMT)of sugar were produced. Sugar is sold for 115 Turkish Lira (TL) ($64) in 50 kg bags, and cube sugar is sold in 20 kg packs for 58 TL ($32).
Sugar is produced from sugar beets in Turkey due to climatic conditions, as in most of Europe. Sugar beets prefer climates where the days are warm and the nights are cold. In this respect, sugar beets are grown mostly in the Central Anatolia Region, namely in Ankara, Konya, Eskisehir, Afyon, Tokat and Yozgat cities, and are planted in rotation with cereals, pulses, fodder crops and sunflowers. Sugar beets are planted in the spring, around April, and are harvested around October, the time varying according to climate conditions of the region.
Production of sugar beets, and consequently sugar, is limited to quotas specified by the Sugar Board. The Sugar Board regulates domestic production through annual production quotas for sugar beet and starch based sugar. These quotas are categorized under three groups. The ‘A’ quota specifies how much sugar (from both corn and sugar beets) companies can sell in Turkey within a marketing year. The ‘B’ quota is an extra amount that is produced and kept in reserve as a buffer, and its volume is calculated as a percentage (generally 4%) of the A quota. The ‘B’ quota is allocated only for beet sugar.
The quota is allocated to each of the sugar producing facilities at the beginning of each year. These factories then contract farmers based on their allocated quotas. Any excess sugar produced at the end of a marketing year is purchased from the farmers by factories at world prices, and it is allocated for exports. This is called the ‘C’ sugar, and it is either exported at world prices or used in exportconfectionary products. There is no quota announced for C sugar since it can only be used in products that will be exported, and cannot be marketed domestically.
There are 7 beet sugar producers in the Turkish sugar sector, 6 of which are private and one public (Turkseker) producers that is subject to privatization. These 7 producers have 33 factories with a total production capacity of 3.1 million MT per year. There are also 5 starch based sugar (SBS) producers, all of which are privately owned and have a total capacity of 888 thousand metric tons of corn. The total sugar production quota of 4,137,000 tons is allocated to these 12 companies; 3,147 thousand to beet sugar, and 900 thousand tons to SBS.
The quota distributed to these companies is based on their performance during the previous three years.
Turkiye Seker Fabrikalari A.S., otherwise known as TURKSEKER, is a public entity being privatized. Konya, Amasya and Kayseri Sugar Factories are grouped under the beet planters cooperative called PANKOBIRLIK, and Keskinkilic is privately owned. Formerly owned by the state, Kutahya Sugar Factory was sold to a private firm (Torunlar Gida San. ve Tic. A.S.) and Adapazari Sugar Factory was sold to the Adapazari Sugar beet Planters Cooperative in 2004.
Sugar Beet Production and Prices
In MY 2012/2013, the area planted decreased from 2,938,411 square meters to 2,801,858 square meters due to the unchanged production quotas ( ANKADMIN: Wouldn’t an unchanged quota result in an unchanged area planted? Or did higher yields require fewer hectares?) and increasing yields, and since the quotas decreased for MY 2012/2014, post expects the plantation area to shrink further. A total of 14,919,941 MT sugar beets were harvested and 2,128,319 MT of sugar was produced.
The production system is as follows:
The Sugar Board announces the quotas for the Market Year and allocates them to the existing factories.
Factories contract farmers in their vicinity per their allocated production quota and a set procurement price.
Farmers plant their beets around April and harvest them around September.
The predefined amount of beets agreed upon by the farmer and the factory is purchased by the factory at the A-quota price and any excess amount is purchased at the C-quota price.
The Turkish government uses sugar production to meet national social priorities. Being a labor-intensive commodity, sugar beets act as a means of reducing farmer migration to big cities. In this respect, many of the state-owned factories were opened in areas with high unemployment rates, and these plants continue to operate under through government support despite operating poorly.
Yields are increasing each year due to the use of modern agricultural techniques, especially in irrigation. The use of modern seeds also plays an important role in this increase. The average yield per 1,000 sqm increased from over 3 thousand tons in the 90’s to around 4.5 thousand tons after 2000. In the last three years this figure has exceeded 5 thousand tons and reached nearly 5.5 thousand tons in 2011.
Centrifugal Sugar Prices
The government had supported the sugar sector with high procurement prices in the past (before the enactment of the Sugar Law), while the price is now determined by the consensus of sugar factories and producers (or their representatives) before planting. Although the announced official prices may be higher, companies carry out credit sales and discounts throughout the market year to eliminate their stocks. Currently, granulated sugar in 50 kg bags is sold for 115 TL compared to 106.38 TL in 2012, and cube sugar is sold in 20 kg packs for 58 TL.
Starch Based Sugar (SBS)
The ‘Raw Material and Sugar Prices Decree (2009) requires the use of domestically grown corn for the production of SBS that is marketed domestically. There are currently 5 SBS companies that are allocated a quota and their total production capacity is approximately 1 MMT/year. These companies are all private and have 6 plants. Apart from these, there are 3 other SBS companies that are not allocated quotas and produce sugar based starch for export purposes only. These have a total SBS production capacity of 146,000 MT/year.
As per the Sugar Law, only ‘A’ quotas are allocated for Starch Based sugar (no ‘B’ quotas). However, the initial quotas specified for SBS can be increased up to 50% by Cabinet decree, and the Cabinet exercised this right in MY 2009/2010 and MY 2010/2011.
The Turkish Grain Board’s (TMO) corn purchasing price increased from 0.49 TL/kg in 2010 to 0.54 TL/kg in 2011, and to 0.59TL/kg in 2012. In CY 2011, 939,000 MT of corn was used by SBS producers for starch production and export SBS volumes. These SBS producers also produce starch, and the amount of corn listed includes both export SBS and starch.
Sugar beets are used not only as a raw material for the sugar industry, but are also an important feed ingredient for the livestock industry. Sugar factories produce molasses and sugar beet pulp as a side product and this pulp is used either directly or as a mixture with molasses in the feed sector. Naturally, production of these side products are increasing parallel to the amount of beets produced for the factories.
Other than feed, molasses is also used in a variety of sectors such as medicine, cosmetics, construction, alcoholic beverages and yeast. Annual molasses production does not vary vastly from year to year and is around 670 tons. The price of molasses varies according to its place of production and sales. For instance the price per metric ton of molasses from the 1st region (Afyon, Alpullu, Eskisehir, Susurluk and Usak factories) is 344 TL whereas it is 273 TL/MT for that from the 4th region (Ağrı, Bor, Erciş, Ereğli, Kars, Kırşehir, Muş, Yozgat factories) in 2012.
Another side product obtained from the processing of sugar beets is ethanol. Ethanol is obtained from plants that contain starch and glucose such as corn, sugar beets, wheat, etc. Currently sugar beets are the main source of bio-ethanol production in Turkey, followed by corn and wheat.
The Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK) published a draft communiqué September 27, 2011, that obligates the mixture of 2% bio-ethanol into the gasoline sold in Turkey starting from January 1, 2013. Since 2006, distributors have had the option of mixing up to 2% bio-ethanol into fuel, and those who did benefited from a 2% exemption from Special Consumption Tax, but this had been voluntary. The same law calls for a further increase in this figure to become 3% in 2014. The law requires that bio-ethanol be obtained from domestically grown agricultural products. The law also puts forth similar figures for biodiesel blending in the diesel fuel starting from year 2014.
The EPDK data show that Turkey consumes 2.7 billion liters of gasoline and 16.3 billion liters of diesel fuel annually. Based on these figures, when 2% bio-ethanol starts to be mixed into all the marketed gas, 54 million liters of bio-ethanol will be used in the year 2013, and at 1% mixture rate, 163 million liters of biodiesel will be used in the year 2014.
There are four bio-ethanol plants in Turkey.
In the light of the established bio-ethanol production capacity of Turkey, it is foreseen that out of this 54 million liters of bio-ethanol; 34 million liters will be produced from sugar beets, 10 million liters will be produced from corn, and 10 million liters will be produced from wheat. This will call for an additional production of 540,000 tons of sugar beets. In order to accommodate this need, 13,355 hectares will be used for energy agriculture. Starting from 2014, when 3% mixture rate will be applicable, 80 million liters of bio-ethanol will need to be produced and this will necessitate an additional production of 800 thousand tons of sugar beets. Even though the government has not yet made a nation-wide plan to address this need, individual producers are planning their plantings accordingly for MY 2012/2013.
54 million liters of bio-ethanol mixture will displace 330,000 cubic meters of gasoline and this will mean a US$203.4 million reduction in oil imports. Extra production will mean employment for over 3,000 people, which will contribute another $387.4 million to the economy. There will also be an increase of 106,800 tons of high-protein feed which will be worth over $30 million.
Biodiesel on the other hand is obtained from oil seeds and Turkey is already a net importer of oil seeds. Therefore, in the absence of a national bio-fuel program or an action plan, the industry welcomes the mandatory mixture rates for bio-ethanol, but rejects those in biodiesel claiming that it would elevate imports drastically.
Turkey is the world’s fifth largest beet sugar producer, ranking behind France, Germany, the United States, and Russia. With a population approaching 75 million, Turkey is also a significant consumer. Annual consumption is around 2.3 million metric tons (MMT). Increasing urbanization rates and the subsequent changes to lifestyles and eating habits play an important role in increasing sugar consumption. This reflects in the increase of SBS imports.
Starch Based sugar that is derived from corn is not directly consumed but is rather used as an ingredient in the production of candies, baked products, traditional deserts, ice cream, halva, jams, and alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.
The market year begins after the harvest and lasts until the next autumn (i.e. from September 1 to August 31 of the following year). Despite its 4-5 month production period that starts generally around September and ends in January, sugar is marketed for 12 months. The state-owned Turkish Sugar Corporation, private producers, wholesalers and retailers handle the marketing of sugar.
The sweets and confectionary sectors in Turkey are undergoing changes. Production of chocolate and cacao products increased substantially compared to the traditional Turkish products such as Turkish delight and halva. The sector is also increasingly using SBS instead of beet-sugar.
In 2012, exports of beet sugar decreased considerably due to unchanged quotas for the past 3 years and increasing domestic consumption.
Turkey levies a 135% import tax for sugar, but there is no such limitation for the imports of non-sugar sweeteners. Despite annual fluctuations, registered sugar imports are negligible (less than 5 thousand metric tons) and are limited to specialty sugar that is not domestically produced (medical, laboratory use, etc.). Turkey has reduced smuggling in recent years due to increased controls and preventive measures taken by the Sugar Board.
Any remaining stocks at the end of a marketing year mostly belong to Turkiye Seker Fabrikalari A.S and are kept at the factory silos, since the private companies have more flexible marketing policies (discounts and credit sales) and they usually try to sell everything they produce following the end of a production period.
Producers who are allocated quotas at the beginning of the marketing year sell their production in the domestic market. If a company cannot market all of its allocated amount of ‘A’ quota sugar, the remaining amount is transferred to the ‘A’-quota of the following marketing year and hence the company’s quota for the following year is reduced. Should the company prefer, this excess amount can be transferred to ‘C’ sugar and be exported. In any case, the companies have to preserve their security reserves (B quota).
Stocks are decreasing every year due to unchanged production quotas and this reflects negatively in export figures. With the reduction of quotas announced for next year, Post forecasts stocks to fall below 100,000 MT by the end of MY 2013/2014.
Starch Based sugar companies usually produce and sell their entire allocated quota and are left with no more than 10-15 thousand tons of stocks at the end of the marketing year.
The government is in the process of making a substantial change in its sugar policy. In this respect a new Sugar Law containing 27 clauses that will replace the current law (Nr. 4634) was sent to Parliament for approval on April 8, 2013. The proposed law would dissolve the Sugar Board and establish a Sugar Sector Regulation and Auditing Board. The new Board will be entitled to determine quotas, allocate these quotas, and regulate issues such as new factory establishments, capacity increases.
The law changes the definition of sugar to: “all sorts of sugar varieties including raw sugar, brown sugar, side white sugar, white sugar, refined sugar, sugar solution, invert sugar solution, invert sugar syrup, glucose syrup, glucose-fructose syrup, dried glucose syrup, dextrose, dextrose monohydrate, water-free dextrose, fructose syrup, fructose-glucose syrup, and crystal fructose, which include sucrose, glucose, fructose or their polymers such as starch or inuline as raw materials.
Another important change of the proposed legislation is the increase in SBS Quota from the current 10% to 15% of the ‘A’ quota domestic beet sugar. Currently the Cabinet of Ministers has the right to increase or decrease this amount by 50% (which creates a range of between 5% to 15% ), but the new law forfeits the Cabinet’s right to decrease this quota. The scope of this 15% allowance is also expanded to include sucrose based sugars as well. The Cabinet will be able to increase this quota without limitation if there is a need in a given Marketing Year.
The law excludes sugar that will be used for non-food purposes from the announced quota regime. Therefore sugar that will be used as raw material in industries such as chemistry, medicine, fermentation, construction, paper and bio-fuels will not be subject to a quota limit; however, production and sale of these sugars will require a license from the new Board.
The law calls for privatization efforts to continue, but the latest bids were cancelled by the order of the Prime Minister
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Coordinating sleepwear, retailers say, is the new ugly sweater: Kitschy, extravagant and somehow irresistible.
Target said sales have grown every year since 2013, and this season it plans to offer 22 patterns, some with options for dogs and dolls. Walmart, meanwhile, is expecting another year of “hefty” sales growth for its one-piece, zip-up pajamas for adults. New this year: Patterns depicting skiing polar bears and Santa riding a unicorn.
“This is definitely a peak year” for matching sets, said Debbie Horton, senior sleepwear buyer for Walmart. “People aren’t just wearing them to bed anymore. They’re actually putting them on to go out and have fun.”
At the PajamaGram Co., the holiday boom began in early September, when shoppers began planning photos for this year’s Christmas cards. The online retailer expects to sell 500,000 pairs of coordinating sleepwear this year for moms, dads, children – and of course, the family dog and cat. Business has been so brisk that matching holiday pajamas now make up 80 percent of the company’s annual sales, up from 15 percent in 2005.
“It’s great for business,” said Stacey Buonanno, the company’s brand director. “It used to be that people would buy just one pair of women’s pajamas. Now they’re buying four or five pairs for the whole family.”
I love my family, and I’d do anything for them. But matching pajamas? That’s where I draw the line.
Joshua Pease, Colorado writer not wearing famjams
Prices start at about $20 to outfit the cats and dogs, $30 for children and $60 for adults. For a family of four plus a pet, that’s $200 – although Buonanno says that hasn’t deterred buyers.
“We are seeing opportunities with this as a year-round business,” she said. “Demand is just constantly growing.”
The company has increased its lineup of designs from three to 27, and this year has licensing deals for Looney Tunes and Minions characters. Other patterns include candy-cane stripes, snowflakes and color-your-own Christmas motifs, though classic red-plaid flannel remains the company’s best seller.
Matching pajamas have become such a hit on social media, Buonanno said, the company has begun asking customers to send in their photos. It has received 5,000 submissions over the past few years, many of which have ended up on the company’s website and its catalogues.
“It’s all about the family photos,” said Justin Sonfield, a spokesman for the Company Store, where sales of matching flannel pajamas have grown by double digits for five years in a row. “In the retail world, it’s what we call a home run.”
It has been decades, Sharon Sweeney says, that she’s been buying matching holiday pajamas for her five children and six grandchildren. These days, even if the extended family is apart during the holidays, they have three-way video calls on Christmas Eve so the family can see each other in their matching pajamas.
“This is something we’ve been doing our whole lives,” said her daughter, Susan Pennell, who lives in Newfoundland, Canada. “It’s just that now it’s a lot more visible because everyone can see our pictures on Instagram.”
Each photo posted on Instagram – or Facebook or Snapchat – ends up reaching dozens, if not thousands, of people, which furthers the wildfire-like spread of matching pajamas, said Jonah Berger, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.
“It used to be that maybe your uncle’s family did this on their Christmas card, but you’d only see it if you were on their mailing list,” said Berger, author of the book “Contagious: Why Things Catch On.”
Now, he said, “It’s a classic case of internet one-upmanship. Who can come up with the best matching pajamas and show the world that they’re a good parent?”
Joshua Pease, for one, isn’t feeling that pressure. He says he was caught off-guard when, a few weeks ago, his wife casually mentioned that maybe it’d be fun to dress their family of four in matching pajamas.
Pease, a writer in Castle Rock, Colorado, was not amused. He’s never liked uniforms, he said, and something about coordinating sleepwear just seems, well, corny.
“I love my family, and I’d do anything for them,” he said. “But matching pajamas? That’s where I draw the line.”
Jeff McGurren used to feel the same way. But he caved last year after his wife, Jacqui, told him he’d ruin Christmas if he didn’t join in. So he sheepishly put on a pair of reindeer-emblazoned pajamas and posed with their then-5-month-old son and two dogs for their annual holiday card. (One of the dogs also wore antlers.)
“You can tell by the look on his face he wasn’t too happy about the family photo,” Jacqui said. “But he is a good sport [and] agreed to do another one this year.”
Which means, she said, she’ll have to go shopping. The family recently doubled in size, with the addition of five chickens. It would be a lot to corral for a holiday photo – even if the animals cooperate.
It was hard enough, she says, getting her dogs to cooperate last year.
“They were totally skeptical and didn’t talk to me for at least an hour after the shoot,” she said, adding that Sprinkles tried to eat her pajamas off, while Tina looked a bit ashamed in her outfit. “It was a rough day for everyone.”
But that doesn’t mean she isn’t trying again.
“I really want to do one this year with the five chickens matching,” she said, adding that she’s already found fowl-friendly Christmas sweaters. “I just love the cheesiness of it.”
California parents camp in line for three nights to register children for kindergarten
By HEIDI STEVENS Chicago Tribune
Donald Trump got elected by criticizing America.
Game review: ‘Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled,’ all ages will love this arcade racer’s 21st century comeback
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Guest Post Kenneth Davis on the Value of Hearing Stories
Submitted by BOT Contributor on May 11, 2018
Kenneth C. Davis is the author of The New York Times bestselling DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT® HISTORY which gave rise to the DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT® series, featuring the Bible, the Civil War, and Geography among other titles. He is also the author of the The New York Times bestseller AMERICA’S HIDDEN HISTORY. Davis appears regularly on national television and radio. He lives in New York with his wife. You can find more on his website: www.dontknowmuch.com.
“Tell me a story.”
It is a universal request that every child makes. Telling stories—and listening to them—are part of our human DNA, what makes people tick. Telling stories—and listening to them before we can even read them—is where literature began. Homer didn’t write The Iliad. He told it. The story of the Garden of Eden was part of an oral tradition long before it was set down on scrolls. So we listen and we learn.
As a writer, I have always believed that story comes first. A book—whether a novel, history, biography, or even self-improvement—often works best when there is a compelling story behind it. From experience, I know that hearing stories can be just as profound as reading them. That’s why audiobooks are so valuable.
For nearly thirty years, people from all walks of life have told me about listening to my books. Families on trips to Gettysburg have heard the story of the great Civil War battle in their cars. Commuters have escaped traffic woes while listening to Don’t Know Much About® Geography. I’m sure that a few people even have sweated their way through workouts with Don’t Know Much About® History.Teachers and students, parents and their children have reported on learning together as they listen to the history and stories of five people enslaved by some of America’s greatest presidents included in In the Shadow of Liberty.
Without ever thinking about it, I always wrote as I might tell a story. I’ve tried to make my books a conversation with readers, and audiobooks really make that happen.
Stepping behind the microphone to record a piece of one of my books—usually the introduction and perhaps an afterword—reminds me that I am writing to be heard. It helps me cement that connection with my readers and listeners. And like a lot of people, I am awestruck by the great voices I hear reading my work—making it come to life in a different way than words read silently from the page or a screen.
I just completed reading my portion of my newest work, More Deadly Than War: The Hidden History of the Spanish Flu and the First World War. It is the story of how the world was caught in a twin disaster one hundred years ago. Even as the last months of fighting went on in the trenches of Europe and around the world, the most deadly pandemic in modern times was sweeping across the globe. Widely known as the Spanish flu—even though it did not start in Spain—the outbreak of disease killed an estimated one hundred million people in a little more than a year’s time.
This is a story of a medical mystery as scientists sought the cause and the cure—with little success. It is a story of how fear and propaganda bring people to make bad decisions. It is a story of sacrifice and courage in the face of a plague that was “more deadly than war.” It is a fascinating story full of hidden history that can still teach us lessons today.
Listen to an excerpt of Kenneth Davis’s MORE DEADLY THAN WAR
More Deadly Than War
Author: Kenneth C. Davis
Read By: Adenrele Ojo and MacLeod Andrews
LISTEN TO A CLIP: ncnhcn
With 2018 marking the 100th anniversary of the worst disease outbreak in modern history, the story of the Spanish flu is more relevant today than ever. This dramatic narrative, told through the stories and voices of the people caught in the deadly maelstrom, explores how this vast, global epidemic was intertwined with the horrors of World War I-and how it could happen again.
Praise for MORE DEADLY THAN WAR
“Davis deftly juggles compelling storytelling, gruesome details, and historical context. More Deadly Than War reads like a terrifying dystopian novel – that happens to be true.”
—Steve Sheinkin, author of Bomb and Undefeated
Tagged: Adenrele Ojo, Guest Post, kenneth davis, MacLeod Andrews, more deadly than war
Sergio De La Pava on Audio Making a Comeback
LibraryReads June Picks Make Fantastic Listens
LibraryReads Picks for February 2019 • #NCTE18 Audiobook Events: FREE panel, signings, and more! • 5 Audiobooks About Life-Changing Teachers • Hear ye! Hear ye! Are these 2017 ALA Award Winners on your audio shelves? • October’s LibraryReads on Audio Inspire Great Discussion
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Don’t Miss Out on Audio News, Giveaways, and More.
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Messed-Up!
Coming Soon! A riotous look at the history of man, from our hominid ancestors to our most recent attempts to mess up the Planet!
Scott Davis has been watching the World with puzzled incredulity since 1959. So far, the World has been perfectly content to ignore him – that can hardly continue, now that he's opened his big mouth and begun making observations ...
Slings and Arrows
The sword and spear, while important to the progress of humanity, were nowhere NEAR as important as slings and bows! Human beings have been clubbing, stabbing, slinging, and shooting at things for at least 20,000 years, and in all that time, the single most awesomely successful weapon was the bow and arrow – closely followed by the sling. For the last 20,000 years, 19,800 of them have been dominated by the bow!
Mankind’s fascination with projectile weapons had begun millennia before, of course, with rocks. At first, people figured they had to hang on to the rock and just bash the heck out of whatever. This was fine if you were bashing nuts or other rocks, but turned out to be problematic if you were bashing, for instance, a leopard. It took surprisingly little time for someone to point out that maybe it would be more survivable to throw the rocks – preferably from the top of a cliff while disguised as someone from the next clan. Throwing rocks was a big hit, and remained all the rage for ages before someone figured out that a rock in a leather pouch suspended at the end of a leather rope could be whirled about the head and launched at a target with enormous force. This was simply beyond cool, and guys were happily slinging rocks at various animals for tens of thousands of years before David discovered that they were also useful against giants.
Still, slings suffered from three problems, which, as time went on, became matters of greater and greater concern. First, it took a really long time to learn to use them, and neophyte slingers spent a good deal of that time smacking themselves in the head, which was no fun at all. Second, they were of very limited range, which may not seem like such a big deal to you because you’ve never been charged by a pissed-off cave-bear with newly swelling sling-stone knots on his head. Third, careful onlookers were able to discern that even after the cave-bear had knots bashed into his head with sling-stones, the freaking thing was still very much alive, and was able to visit his displeasure in gruesome fashion on the slingers.
(Look, you don’t want to know what a hunter looks like after a pissed-off Cave Bear has finished with him. Ewww.)
The development of the bow was, therefore, hailed as a great innovation by everyone except the Cave-Bears, who found this sort of thing utterly unfair. Worse, when flint arrow-heads came along, the bears thoroughly objected to the innovation, because, damn it, humans had already been using spears made that way, and who the hell could get a nice winter’s hibernation with all that on their mind?
It is no coincidence that Cave-Bears went extinct about 28,000 years ago. Right about the time nicely crafted stone arrow-heads started showing up in, you guessed it, caves.
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The Real Criminals At BP Are Getting Off Scot-Free
The Justice Department just entered into the largest criminal settlement in U.S. history with the giant oil company BP. BP plead guilty to 14 criminal counts, including manslaughter, and agreed to pay $4 billion over the next five years.
This is loony.
Mind you, I’m appalled by the carelessness and indifference of the BP executives responsible for the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that killed eleven people on April 20, 2010, and unleashed the worst oil spill in American history.
But it defies logic to make BP itself the criminal. Corporations aren’t people. They can’t know right from wrong. They’re incapable of criminal intent. They have no brains. They’re legal fictions — pieces of paper filed away in a vault in some bank.
Holding corporations criminally liable reinforces the same fallacy that gave us Citizen’s United v. the Federal Election Commission, in which five justices decided corporations are people under the First Amendment and therefore can spend unlimited amounts on an election. Even if 49 per cent of their shareholders are foreign citizens, corporations now have a constitutional right to affect the outcome of American elections.
We don’t know exactly how much corporate money was spent on the last election but it’s a fair guess that were it not for Citizen’s United, the House of Representatives might now be under control of Democrats, and Senate Democrats might have a filibuster-proof majority.
The perfidious notion that corporations are people can lead to even more bizarre results. If corporations are people and they’re headquartered in the United States, then presumably corporations are citizens. That means they have a right to vote as well.
I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.
Can we please get a grip? The only sentient beings in a corporation are the people who run them or work for them. When it comes to criminality, they’re the ones who should be punished.
Punishing corporations as a whole almost always ends up harming innocent people – especially employees who lose their jobs because the corporation has to trim costs, and retirees whose savings shrink because their shares in the corporation lose value.
Remember the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, convicted in 2002 of obstruction of justice when certain partners destroyed records of the auditing work they did for Enron as the energy giant was imploding? After the firm was convicted, its clients abandoned it and the firm went under. The vast majority of its employees had nothing to do with Enron but lost their jobs anyway. Yet the real perpetrators came out fine. Anderson’s CEO moved to a lucrative job in a private-equity firm, and other senior partners formed a new accounting firm.
Likewise, the people responsible for BP’s deaths and oil spill weren’t BP’s rank-and-file employees or its shareholders. They were the executives who turned a blind eye to safety while in pursuit of their own rising stock options, and who conspired with oil-services giant Halliburton to cut corners on deep water drilling when they knew damn well they were taking risks for the sake of fatter profits.
They’re the ones who should be punished. Failure to punish them simply invites more of the same kind of criminal negligence by executives more interested in lining their pockets than protecting their workers and the environment. (Today brought another tragedy in the Gulf when an oil rig exploded off the Louisiana coast — killing at least two workers and sending four others to hospitals Friday while two others were believed to be missing.)
But the Justice Department’s criminal settlement with BP gives these top executives a free pass — allowing the public to believe justice has been done.
Instead of going after the real criminals, the Department has gone after the schleps who got caught up in the mess. It’s filed manslaughter charges against two BP rig supervisors for allegedly ignoring warning signs of the blowout that set fire to the rig, which later sank. And against a former BP vice president who allegedly lied to Congress when he repeated BP’s public claim that the leak was limited to 5,000 barrels of oil per day when in fact it was more than 60,000 barrels.
The Department’s $4 billion criminal settlement with BP isn’t big enough to affect the oil giant anyway. BP’s market capitalisation is $128 billion. Yesterday, BP’s stock price closed at $40.30 a share, up 0.35 per cent from the day before the settlement was announced.
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Warren Buffett And Jeremy Grantham Are Right About Profit Margins
Baijnath Ramraika, CFA and Prashant Trivedi, CFA,
Jeremy Grantham
Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
" Profit margins are probably the most mean-reverting series in finance, and if profit margins do not mean-revert, then something has gone badly wrong with capitalism. If high profits do not attract competition, there is something wrong with the system and it is not functioning properly." - Jeremy Grantham, Barron's
"You know, someone once told me that New York has more lawyers than people. I think that's the same fellow who thinks profits will become larger than GDP. When you begin to expect the growth of a component factor to forever outpace that of the aggregate, you get into certain mathematical problems. In my opinion, you have to be wildly optimistic to believe that corporate profits as a percent of GDP can, for any sustained period, hold much above 6%. One thing keeping the percentage down will be competition, which is alive and well." - Warren E. Buffett
As U.S. corporate profit margins have made it to record highs, a debate has raged between those who place their hopes on a new paradigm of sustained high profits and those who believe in capitalism's efficiency and the tendency of margins to revert to the mean. We show that an often-cited explanation for the new paradigm - that the U.S. economy is more service-focused - lacks empirical support.
Notable amongst those pointing to high profit margins and their susceptibility to mean reversion include John Hussman, James Montier, Albert Edwards, Jeff Gundlach and Jeremy Grantham.
Most of the analysis concerning U.S. corporate profit margins has focused on national account data compiled by Bureau of Economic Analysis. Figure 1 shows the ratio of corporate profits (CP) to gross national product (GNP). Clearly, corporate profits margins are way over norm. The series depicts a very strong mean reversion tendency, confirming the effectiveness of the capitalistic system.
The term "corporate profits after tax" refers to profits of all corporations resident in the U.S. whether the profit is earned domestically or in a foreign country. GNP is the market value of goods and services produced by U.S. residents, regardless of where they are located.
Figure 1 1
Corporate profit margins as shown in Figure 1 have been approximately two standard deviations above the mean for most of the last 10 years. Pointing to this behavior of profit margins, those advocating for the new paradigm claim that something has changed this time around. They suggest that productivity gains achieved and technological progresses made over the last couple of decades mean that corporate profit margins have arrived at a permanently higher plateau.
Another reason offered for higher profit margins is that service businesses like IBM, which have much higher profit margins, now account for a larger portion of the total corporate revenues and thus the high corporate profit margins.
In an interview with Matt Koppenheffer of Motley Fools, Columbia Professor Bruce Greenwald said, "I think Jeremy has been wrong about the reversion to the mean for about eight years now - and I think that there are structural reasons to believe that profits at or near this level may be more sustainable than he's giving them credit for."
Greenwald then noted that increased contribution from businesses like IBM mean profit margins could be sustainable at the higher level. He said, "In contrast, if you look at IBM, IBM is also at historically high margins. If you look seven years ago, it's at 14% operating income to earnings. You look today, it's at 20.5%." He concluded by saying, "To the extent that the market is moving away from the Apple direction, away from manufacture… into these very much more differentiated service markets, these much more fragmented service markets, it looks like the profits may be more sustainable than people are giving them credit for."
A bottoms-up analysis of corporate profit margins
In our own examination of financial statements from several hundred companies annually, we have observed that profit margins for a large number of businesses have moved in the wonderland. Leaning towards the mean-reversion camp, we find this development troubling and are of the opinion that there is a non-trivial risk of decline in profit margins.
Let's analyze the profitability of the S&P 500 Index on a bottoms-up basis. Much as the U.S. corporate profit margins in Figure 1, we will show that S&P 500 profit margins have reached new highs. Further, digging through the components of these profits, we show that some of the contentions of those hoping for a renaissance of corporate profits margins are outright incorrect.
Read The Rest At AdvisorPerspectives.com »
Read the original article on Advisor Perspectives. Copyright 2019. Follow Advisor Perspectives on Twitter.
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More: Advisor Perspectives Jeremy Grantham Profit Margins
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A government lab made this rare radioactive material for the first time in 27 years — here's why
Mary Beth Griggs,
Dec. 24, 2015, 12:21 PM
The recently created plutonium-238 oxide in a 'hot cell' at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Plutonium-238 is the fuel that is driving the Mars rover Curiosity across the Martian landscape.
It flew the New Horizons spacecraft to Pluto and beyond, and is still powering the Voyager probe into the depths of space 38 years after it was launched.
It's a fuel that is in high demand and very short supply.
Last year, it came to light that there was only enough plutonium-238 to make three more batteries for NASA missions, a potentially devastating shortfall, and one that NASA has been working to remedy.
Now, it seems like there is hope. This week, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced that in collaboration with NASA, they have succeeded in producing plutonium-238, the first time the substance has been made on American soil in 27 years.
It's been a long time coming. In 2013, funding for the project was secured, and the slow wheels of production started rolling.
Now, two years later, the process has yielded 50 grams (1.8 ounces) of precious plutonium-238, the first to be made in the country since the Savannah River Plant closed down in 1988. It's not a very large amount--the Mars 2020 rover, for example, needs about 8.8 pounds of the stuff to operate--but it's a start.
Plutonium-238 is different from plutonium used in nuclear weapons and power stations, though it is still highly radioactive.
As plutonium-238 decays into Uranium-234, it gives off huge amounts of heat, enough to be harnessed into electric energy in NASA's nuclear batteries, called radioisotope thermoelectric generators or RTGs. The heat has an additional benefit of keeping scientific instruments warm enough to function in the frigid void of space.
Plutonium-238 started out as a byproduct of the nuclear bomb-making process, but eventually as nuclear weapons ceased to be manufactured, the supply dried up, first in the United States, then in Russia.
There is now only about 77 pounds left in the United States, and only about half of that is still of high enough quality to be used on space missions. The DOE and NASA hope that next year they will be able to produce 12 ounces of plutonium-238, eventually scaling up to producing 3.3 pounds per year.
Watch the DOE's short video about their achievement (complete with Back To The Future clips) below.
This article originally appeared on Popular Science
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A top Gilead exec told us the story behind the biotech's unusual $5.1 billion deal that's the exact opposite of a Big Pharma trend
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Home News The Kilauea V...
The Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii triggered the state’s highest-level warning, indicating it could become ‘more explosive’
Tara Francis Chan, Business Insider US
People play golf as an ash plume rises in the distance from the Kilauea volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island on May 15, 2018 in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii.
The alert level for the Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii has been raised from “orange” to “red.”
This indicates “major volcanic eruption is imminent, underway, or suspected with hazardous activity both on the ground and in the air.”
Ash clouds have reached as high as 10,000 to 12,000 feet above sea level.
The USGS has warned the volcano may become “more explosive.”
The US Geological Survey (USGS) raised its alert level for Hawaii’s Kilauea Volcano on Tuesday evening.
The alert level has been raised to “red,” which the USGS defines as: “Major volcanic eruption is imminent, underway, or suspected with hazardous activity both on the ground and in the air.”
Early in the morning local time, eruptions of ash increased in intensity and have since been rising continuously. Ash-fall has been reported in Pahala, about 18 miles downwind.
The ash cloud has reached as high as 10,000 to 12,000 feet above sea level.
USGS confirmed on Twitter that a major eruption was previously underway, but the threat level was raised after increased emissions created a potential threat to aviation, causing possible delays.
“While ashfall may impact the other islands, depending on wind direction, it’s still safe to travel to Hawaii. However, you should expect the possibility of air travel delays/rerouting to avoid the ash plumes,” USGS said on Twitter.
The USGS expects ash emission to vary depending on rockfalls and other changes within the vent, but has said activity “may become more explosive, increasing the intensity of ash production and producing ballistic projectiles near the vent.”
This activity is in addition to a new fissure which opened on Sunday, spraying magma chunks over 100 feet in the air and spewing lava into surrounding forests and residential neighborhoods.
Thousands of people have been forced to evacuate.
The USGS previously had given an “orange” alert, indicating a major volcanic eruption may have been imminent but hazards were limited because of no or minor volcanic ash emissions.
Kilauea volcano
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Minster to be acquired by Nidec
Nidec-Shimpo, a division of Nidec Corporation, has agreed to buy US-based Minster Machine Company.
Nidec is a global technology corporation with headquarters in Kyoto, Japan and has annual gross sales of $9 billion. The transaction is expected to go through in early April 2012.
Minster is a leader in producing high quality products, integrated systems and services to the material forming industry.
John Winch, president and CEO of Minster, said: “We feel the acquisition by Nidec will give Minster a much larger competitive global footprint in the machinery, automation and services marketplace, while maintaining local production and management.” We feel this transaction will provide a very good long term strategic platform for growth and expansion.”
Operations will continue in Minster, Ohio. Current owners, John and David Winch will remain with the company as will the balance of the management team. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Tata Steel may have to sell Trostre plant
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Corona stackable six-packs eliminate need for plastic packaging
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Senior CBRE promotions build advantage for Pacific clients
Sublease deals herald success for Arndell Park industrial market
Secondary assets attracting offshore investment
Melbourne | 10 August 2016
The Melbourne industrial market is continuing to generate strong interest from local and overseas investors, according to the latest research from CBRE.
CBRE’s Q2 2016 Industrial MarketView reveals the June quarter saw an increase over the March quarter of 76% across the Victorian market. A total of $500 million + transacted including 810-848 Koorait Creek Road in Altona North for $40 million, 26-38 Harcourt Road in Altona for $27.5 million and the Alex Fraser Portfolio for circa $44 million.
CBRE Regional Director, Industrial & Logistics - Capital Markets, Chris O’Brien said there are a number of larger assets on the market which are receiving interest from several offshore groups, with volumes forecast to increase over Q3.
“We are also seeing increased activity in secondary assets, which offer more attractive returns, notwithstanding banks tightening lending criteria,” Mr O’Brien said.
Prime yields remain unchanged over the quarter, suggesting that they are nearing the peak of the cycle.
In the leasing market, activity across Victoria has been consistent with 2015, with the volume of YTD leasing transactions at a comparable level with 2015 and well above transaction volumes of 2014.
CBRE Victorian Director, Industrial & Logistics, Dean Hunt, said that just over 166,000sqm of leasing transactions was recorded in Q2, up 99% from Q1.
“The highest turnover has been in the 6,000 - 12,000 sqm category, with reasonable demand for 14,000+ sqm buildings, particularly in the western market,” Mr Hunt said.
“Demand for serviced land allotments has been strong, impacting availability of suitable serviced land parcels. Significant un-serviced, and in some cases un-zoned land, exists within the urban growth boundary across the northern and western markets to manage future supply and demand.”
According to the report, after two years of high levels of industrial supply, which has placed downward pressure on rents, 2016 will see a reduction in total new floorspace on the market.
“The pre-lease market continues to be aggressive, along with the reduction of historical vacancy, which are strong fundamentals for the leasing market. We have experienced a reduction in the volume of speculative developments, which is assisting in managing vacancy along with natural expiry. Of the current vacancy, the majority of the buildings (425,000 sqm) would be classified as secondary, with the average size vacancy being in the 6,000 – 10,000 sqm size range,” Mr Hunt concluded.
CBRE Group, Inc. (NYSE:CBG), a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company headquartered in Los Angeles, is the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm (based on 2015 revenue). The Company has more than 70,000 employees (excluding affiliates), and serves real estate investors and occupiers through more than 400 offices (excluding affiliates) worldwide. CBRE offers a broad range of integrated services, including facilities, transaction and project management; property management; investment management; appraisal and valuation; property leasing; strategic consulting; property sales; mortgage services and development services. Please visit our website at www.cbre.com.
Jane Stevenson
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Life Path #22
“ I have to make sure I don't eat too much chocolate. You can't imagine how hard that is for a German to not eat chocolate.”
Sibel Kekilli - a Turkish-German actress and former adult actress who won two Lolas, the most prestigious German film awards, for her performances in Head-On and When We Leave, and became known as Shae in the HBO series Game of Thrones - born on Monday June 16th 1980, in Heilbronn, Germany.
Sibel Kekilli has powerful personality, and possesses great potential for success, but this power is delicate and conditioned by a strong commitment of hers to her ideals and vision, which must be used to inspire others to join her in her dream. She must learn to effectively bring together the necessary elements - people, ideas and resources - to realize her goals. This undertaking can be quite complex and multi-layered, so Kekilli must also learn to surrender to the larger cause that she serves, and to understand that the final result may be quite different from her original vision. But with such faith and commitment, Sibel will make an enduring impact on the world.
is good at business and politics. She naturally understands large institutions, and has the ability to think and act on an international scale. She has developed the talent to deal effectively with a great variety of people, to understand and consequently to unite many differing people toward a single goal. As the visionary with both her feet on the ground, Sibel Kekilli is gifted with uncommonly sound common sense. She can see the beauty and potential in a given idea, but also the practical methods that will bring it to fruition. She also understands intuitively the limitations of ideas - what will work and what will not.
Sibel Kekilli is a steady partner in any relationship, and offers sound advice and consistent emotional support. She avoids airs and pretension, does not suffer from flights of fancy, and resists the emotional heights. However, Sibel is also very difficult to live up to. This ambitious personality of hers makes her a most difficult master who drives all that is around her to accomplish the utmost of what they are capable of.
Kekilli's lesson is to share his vision and allow others too to make their personal contributions. This flexibility is perhaps the toughest challenge for Sibel Kekilli's strong personality. When she grows more faith in the ability of others, she would lessen her tendency to control, and sometimes even manipulate, people and situations. More...
More flavors to Sibel's personality
Sibel Kekilli tends to be quite adaptable, and she finds it easy to fit into most social set ups and vocational fields.
There are no particular virtues that can cause an imbalance in Sibel's personality and life, but she has to work hard and persistently to develop those special strengths that she desires to attain.
Learning to be wisely assertive is a major lesson to be taken by Sibel Kekilli throughout her life.
Tour Sibel's menu and gain more insight into her personality traits, relationships, strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, compatibility with you and with others, and much more.
July 15th 2019 may be called the awareness day for Sibel Kekilli. She is fine-tuned, sensitive, and she can read other people easily and clearly.
Sibel contributes to her surrounding as a peacemaker. However, she might develop a tendency today for self-righteousness. Kekilli must not be arrogant, as it may annoy quite a few people.
You and Sibel
Other female celebrities born on the same day as Sibel Kekilli
Missy Peregrym (1982)
A Canadian actress and former fashion model, best known for her roles as Officer Andy McNally on the ABC series Rookie Blue, and as Candice Wilmer on the NBC television series Heroes
Laurie Metcalf (1955)
An American actress who performed on Broadway and in films as Desperately Seeking Susan, Uncle Buck, Internal Affairs, Pacific Heights, JFK, and Leaving Las Vegas, and portrayed the highly awarded role of Jackie Harris on the ABC sitcom Roseanne
Annie Cordy (1928)
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Keshia Chante (1988)
Sarah Azhari (1978)
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An Actress
Lauren Taylor (1998)
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Verónica Echegui (1983)
Sibel Kekilli personality profile | © Copyright 2009-2019 Celebrities Galore and Master Numerologist Hans Decoz
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Florida’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate under attack
Republican opponents are trying to use a slow-moving corruption investigation into Tallahassee city government to portray Andrew Gillum as untrustworthy.
By GARY FINEOUTAssociated Press
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Andrew Gillum, who engineered a surprising upset victory in Florida’s Democratic primary last week, is picking up endorsements, money and plenty of national attention in the aftermath of his win.
But as the Tallahassee mayor mounts his bid to become Florida’s first black governor, he is already coming under swift attack from Republican opponents who are trying to use a slow-moving corruption investigation into Tallahassee city government to portray Gillum as untrustworthy.
The investigation broke into the open last summer shortly after Gillum joined the race, but it was not extensively debated or discussed by his Democratic opponents before he won Tuesday’s primary. But by Thursday, the Republican Governor’s Association launched a digital ad that blasted Gillum. It focused on both the City Hall probe and an earlier incident in which Gillum paid back the city after he used city money to buy software that was used to send out campaign emails. Likewise, the campaign of U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis, who won the Republican primary, is also trying to draw attention to the investigation.
The 39-year-old Gillum – who will appear on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and CNN”s “State of the Union” on Sunday – contends he is ready for the onslaught of attacks that have just begun to ramp up.
Andrew Gillum
“A lot of people counted us out, they thought we would completely surrender under all the innuendo and the pressure of the moment,” Gillum said last week. “I spoke directly to voters. I answered their questions. … It wasn’t as if those voters weren’t aware of all the issues that were swirling.”
The first public knowledge of the FBI probe came in June 2017 when a federal grand jury subpoenaed five years of records from Tallahassee and a local redevelopment agency that involved high-profile projects and developers, including an ally of Gillum.
In February, a federal search warrant was accidentally made public on a court website. It detailed that the FBI launched its corruption investigation in 2015 and that agents posed as out-of-town real-estate developers and medical marijuana entrepreneurs in order to gain access to various city officials. The warrant said that agents were focusing on City Commissioner Scott Maddox, a former head of the Florida Democratic Party, and his former chief of staff and whether Maddox was paid to help out businesses seeking help from the city. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Earlier this summer, the FBI asked for thousands more records, dealing primarily with The Edison, an upscale restaurant frequented by lawmakers and lobbyists that is located in a city-owned building. The Edison received $2 million in financial assistance from both the city and the local community redevelopment agency.
One of the owners of the restaurant was lobbyist Adam Corey, who once served as Gillum’s campaign treasurer and has known him since college. Gillum says he has talked to the FBI and that he is not the target of an investigation. He also has told local news outlets that he has broken off his friendship with Corey.
The Tallahassee Democrat has done a series of stories delving into the web of connections and has reported that Gillum vacationed at a luxury resort in Costa Rica in May 2016 with Corey.
Police reports detail DWI crash, arrest of candidate in 1998
White supremacists are prime suspects in racist robocalls mocking Andrew Gillum
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Comparinson Folk Music To Classical
July 5, 2019July 5, 2019 admin
classical and world music-makers. The week-long celebration ends May 5 at London Music Hall for the awards gala honouring music several other genres, from rock to folk. “It starts Sunday and it’s.
Rhiannon Sheet Music Cox Apr 11, 2017 · Print and download in PDF or MIDI Sugarcane – Transcription Franck-Richard Théronier. Free sheet music for Piano. Free sheet music for Piano.
"People in Guwahati have been considering Borgeet as a folk or traditional form of music whereas the Borgeet experts have always been trying to make people aware of its classical characteristics.
People get energised by this beautiful place," says Charles Hazlewood energetically. some Hungarian folk music interpreted by the composer Zoltan Kodalai, and now he’s got a few days off before.
Define art music. art music synonyms, art music pronunciation, art music translation, English dictionary definition of art music. Related to art music: classical music, popular music, Western art. art music. n (Music, other) music written by a composer rather than passed on by oral tradition. Compare folk music. Want to thank TFD for its.
Apr 25, 2017. You've replaced the traditional music history sequence with two courses, and playing, and not significant in comparison to classical music.
The Arab repertoire will include Syrian instrumental classical music from the 17th-18th centuries, as well as more dancing.
Tempo can change during a piece of music. Classical music routinely uses tempo changes during a piece of music to add expression and drama. Contemporary music tends to be based on a more steady meter, but it is quite common to use a gradual slowdown in the last few bars of a song (called rallentando) to produce a more satisfying ending.
Folk music – Folk music in historical context: Since folk music lives in oral tradition, its history can best be understood through a study of its relationship to other musics. Many folk songs collected in oral tradition have been traced to literary sources, often of considerable antiquity.
They started learning Western classical music in Mexico from Carlos. to point out that their immigration woes don’t compare to what many other immigrants go through. Still, they hope their music.
An empirical comparison of rhythm in language and music. French language and classical music. We find. The current study is concerned with a prosodic comparison of. did we not include classical music written for words, or folk music?
Dec 26, 2018. As our world grows more interconnected, folk and classical. But Scottish folk music, and particularly music for the fiddle, made a singular mark on. Here, for the sake of comparison, are examples of two of the other musical.
Blues in Poetry. The lyrics are usually set to twelve bars of music in 4/4 time. While the lyrics of the blues are rarely in a structured meter like the ballad stanza, the music often has a driving beat that is not unlike the heartbeat rhythm of the iamb: bum Bum, bum Bum, bum Bum, bum Bum.
Apr 04, 2017 · The piano existed for a few hundred years, for many people, the piano is the symbol of classical music. From Bach’s compositions originally made for the harpsichord in the 18th century, through the fortepianos of the classical era, all the way to the modern piano, classical piano music and the manner of composition for the piano, too, has evolved side by side with the instrument.
Samsara Blues Experiment Center Of The Sun Lyrics “Nothing But a Heartache” is the album’s most dour track, all about love gone wrong; Diamond’s anguish spills from the lyrics. In a recent interview.
In this essay I am going to look at the differences between Classical music. Contemporary composers are still writing for the traditional symphony. account the number of works each wrote in comparison to their other outputs as a composer.
In 1932, the wine critic and classical scholar. Warner Allen would do—compare them to movie or book characters, say, or to famous artworks. These two frameworks proved difficult, but when the.
But a vast body of significant American music, by composers unjustly neglected. and even serious scores sometimes break into syncopated glosses on folk dances. It’s hard to imagine a Dallas.
Check out these ideas to navigate the dizzying array of music in the world and build a fun, appropriate collection for your child’s age.
We’re here at Cambridge Folk. music so I basically dictate to somebody that can. Our confidence and ability in what we do is growing to the point where we were daring enough to use some Miles Davis.
Defining Classical Music. Classical music is a tricky genre, mainly because to the uninformed everything before jazz sounds like it! Indeed, Classical music and Baroque music both use orchestras to produce their distinctive sounds, but the way in which each does it.
This musical environment caused him to be familiar with both Hungarian folk tunes and the Classical repertory. Therefore, he had great interest in music at a.
Hymns That Talk About Healing This week I’ll be looking at a huge change to the mechanics of Chakra, the sort of return of Atonement healing, the nerf to Power
Jan 31, 2017. It's an evaluation — classical music is serious, and folk, jazz, pop, and. for its harmony than Eric Satie's music is (to cite just one comparison).
He expects that when Iamus’s debut CD is released in September, performed by top-shelf musicians including the LSO, it is going to disturb a lot of folk. You can compare it with computer chess,
Sep 25, 2009. 1v I. INTRODUCTION Jazz and Classical Music started as distinct genres with. opera, and symphony as distinguished from folk, or popular music or jazz.. In comparison to La Creation du Monde by Milhaud and the Piano.
There is also a wide variety of musical genres. Rock (with its assortment of styles and labels), rap, country and western, jazz, Broadway, folk, classical, New Age, and gospel provide us with a dizzying assortment of listening and performing options. Such permeation and variety provide us with a unique opportunity to practice discernment.
Aug 17, 2017. Pre-recorded music samples were selected from four different music genres: classical, jazz, folk and pop. Samples were 15 to 30 seconds in.
Start studying Chapter 4/5 popular vs. folk culture. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools.
World music can be traditional (folk), popular or even art music, but it must have ethnic or foreign elements. It is simply not our music, it is their music, music which belongs to someone else. A review of the literature shows that "world music" is a relatively recent.
By comparison, it would seem. diminution of sympathy for all forms of noncommercial music. It’s not just classical music that suffers, but serious jazz, avant-garde music, folk music, ethnic music.
BHUBANESWAR: The 33rd edition of Baisakhi festival, a cultural rainbow of India’s classical dance and music, kick-started here this week. This is also an attempt to keep alive the traditional folk.
With musical performances across genres lining up every month, the youth of the city have developed a keen ear for music. And recently, Bhopal has been witnessing large-scale performances by many.
The 15 best pieces of Russian classical music. Mikhail Glinka: Ruslan and Lyudmila, Overture (1842) The father of Russian music, Glinka influenced his countrymen to produce a distinctive national style all of their own. The opera Ruslan and Lyudmila is a folk tale with all the necessaries – beautiful princess, valiant suitor, evil wizard, abduction,
based on reflecting folk music; works that reflect the neo-Classical esthetic;. In comparison to simple duple, triple meters basically do not exist in this type of.
Jan 23, 2011 · HERE goes. This article completes my two-week project to select the top 10 classical music composers in history, not including those still with.
Modern Chinese Music Today’s music in China is quite similar to that of modern Western’s. Just like young Westerners, now young people in China attend the concerts of famous pop stars. Modern orchestras play both adapted versions of traditional pieces and classical.
Get Triumphant Classical Piano Music Production Music royalty-free stock music clips, sound effects, and loops with your Storyblocks Audio membership.
He is hosting a celebration of American folk music from the 1920s and 30s. is indistinct but beautiful in the way Tom Waits’s growl can be beautiful. The Waits comparison goes a little further:.
He selected some of his favourite Faiz ghazals in honour of his centennial, Dogri folk songs, and classical songs for the. but makes it a point to practise classical music once a week— from 7.30pm.
Jan 26, 2015. the way how Chinese classical music has gained great achievements which have a. complete set of traditional Chinese musical instruments.
Music of Luang Prabang, Laos. A comparison of two recent recordings. scholars collected numerous examples of Lao and ethnic minority traditional music.
Excerpts from the chat… Dr Suma Sudhindra Bengaluru’s ‘music’ USP: Nowhere else in India have I seen this happen. From.
Expression. Blues is a genre of music based on traditional blues chord patterns, scales, and emotive lyrics, often performed by a solo guitarist/vocalist. A repeating progression of chords such as the 12-bar blues is played to lyrics, mostly a narrative about the woes of life: lost love, mistreatment, and poverty.
and long-neck dulcimer in a program exploring folk ballads and other early music from the Old World. The fun starts at the Baroque Music Barn in Hunting Valley, and other performances take place in.
Manx’s music is rooted in blues but has evolved over the years to include classical Indian ragas. six Juno nominations, the Canadian Folk Music Award in 2005 for best solo artist, and CBC Radio’s.
Classical music includes symphonies, operas, sonatas, song cycles, and lieder. of, pertaining to, characterized by, or adhering to the well-ordered, chiefly homophonic musical style of the latter half of the 18th and the early 19th centuries: Haydn and Mozart are classical composers.
Bharat Desai is a businessman who will soon earn his doctorate in music For his love of music, Desai invested his own money for the album and tied up with mandolin maestro Mustafa Sajjad Hussain.
It's generally called a fiddle when used to play folk music and violin when playing classical music. Contents 1 What is a Fiddle? 2 Differences in Playing Styl.
Irish Songs, Music, Lyrics and Midis for Traditional, Drinking and Folk Songs Click Here for Discount Irish Music CDs Free to listen to, copy and download, this page provides access to
It was closely followed by Rock (21 per cent), with Jazz and Folk at third and fourth place. An age break down of those who chose “orchestral/classical” music shows that this was the most popular.
Classical Music Greatest Hits London Symphony Orchestra (Photo: Courtesy of Shreveport Symphony Orchestra) Conductor Brent Havens and vocalist Brody Dolyniuk will lead the evening of The Rolling Stones’ greatest hits. Windborne Music
Some of the popular music types are – Jazz, Hip Hop, Rock, Blues, Country, R&B, Folk and Fusion. It is very difficult to define music. However, it can be considered as a fusion of sounds and notes in such a way that it is soothing or desirable for the ears. It can be.
Wow Gospel Music 2019
St Lenox Ten Hymns
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Long-Shot Bid for Wells Fargo CEO Gains Steam as Others Pass
Wells Fargo is more than two months into its search for its next CEO and several outside executives indicated they aren't interested in joining the bank.
This article was originally published on Bloomberg.com. Click here to view the original article.
By Hannah Levitt
More than two months into Wells Fargo & Co.’s broad search for its next leader, a pitch to keep its interim chief is gaining a bit of steam -- thanks in part to the people who don’t want the job.
Several executives widely seen as attractive candidates have indicated they aren’t interested in joining the bank, including some who demurred months ago, according to people with knowledge of the situation. That’s removing some external options at the same time that Allen
Parker, the general counsel who took temporary control of the fourth-largest U.S. bank this year, is signaling willingness and even interest in staying on, people with familiar with his position said.
Yet an attempt to keep Parker -- whose candidacy has been championed for weeks by the firm’s senior executives -- would risk resistance from regulators or a backlash from the bank’s critics. When Tim Sloan stepped down as CEO in March amid frustration over his efforts to address scandals, Chair Betsy Duke vowed to find an outsider to “complete the transformation.”
Parker’s backers argue he’s better than an outsider, having joined only two years ago but knowledgeable about its many scandals.
“There is a reason why the bank was looking outside, because they thought, among other reasons that that would go over better with people in Washington,” said Ian Katz, a financial public policy analyst at Capital Alpha Partners in Washington. “If they go with Parker or any internal candidate, they’re going to take some heat for it.”
One regulator telegraphed its position on the debate Wednesday.
“We are aware that the Wells Fargo board has stated it is seeking external candidates to fill the CEO position, and we support that criteria,” a spokesman for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which has committed to reviewing Wells Fargo’s selection, said in an emailed statement.
Wells Fargo’s directors have yet to publicly indicate which way they’re leaning. Complicating their decision is a narrowing field of potential candidates, with some saying they’re not interested in coming out of retirement or are committed to current jobs. Some earn more running divisions at rival lenders than what Wells Fargo typically pays its leader. And a few would have to give up tens of millions of dollars in deferred pay from their current employers to join a competitor -- money that Wells Fargo may not be able to replace without risking a public-relations firestorm.
PNC Financial Services Inc. CEO Bill Demchak has said publicly he doesn’t want the job. Former U.S. Bancorp CEO Richard Davis, who now runs the charity Make-A-Wish America, also passed on the opportunity, according to a person briefed on the matter.
Critics seized on the rebuffs as reason for broader reform.
“The fact Wells Fargo has to beg suitors to take an $18 million paycheck and still gets rejected tells you everything you need to know,” Sherrod Brown, the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, said in an emailed statement. “Even Wall Street insiders can see that Wells Fargo is too big to manage, and no CEO can fix it.”
Wells Fargo’s recruiters are looking beyond the nation’s largest banks for candidates. Sanjiv Das, the CEO of mortgage company Caliber Home Loans Inc., is among members of the broader field, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. And the Wall Street Journal reported last month that Eileen Murray, co-CEO of hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, was contacted by representatives of the lender.
And then there’s the disparate opinions among authorities, investors and insiders over how far Wells Fargo must still go to refresh its leadership after a series of shakeups in recent years. The CEO succession process has already received criticism from banking peers including JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon and Citizens Financial Group Inc.’s Bruce Van Saun.
‘Completely Different’
“Placing somebody from U.S. Bancorp, PNC, Citigroup or JPMorgan just means it’s going to be more of the same,’’ said Eduardo Rabassa, a managing partner at Boyden Executive Search focused on financial services. “If Wells wants to be consistent with the campaign that they re-established the bank in 2018, they need somebody completely different.’’
Major shareholders including Berkshire Hathaway Inc. CEO Warren Buffett have said they were satisfied with Sloan and the progress he was making on cleaning up the bank before his abrupt retirement. Investors now want the board to quickly find a long-term successor who can both appease regulators and grow the business.
“It would be difficult for any investor to consider a significant investment in the stock when you don’t know who the CEO is,” said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Alison Williams. And Parker is already up to speed on investigations of the lender.
“Parker seems like he is definitely the right man for right now, but the question is will he be the right person to steer the bank strategically long-term,” Williams said. “Can he strategically run and grow this bank?”
Regulator Relations
The risk is that walking back a commitment to recruit an outsider wouldn’t sit well with prominent critics, such as Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic candidate for president. For years, she and others called on the bank to name an untainted leader to fire wrongdoers. Her office declined to comment on whether she might object to Parker remaining CEO.
Parker was in charge of handling Wells Fargo’s legal matters during a period when the agency broadly deemed the bank’s cleanup too slow. So the risk is that authorities might view him as part of those issues, not the solution to them.
Late last month, Parker publicly heaped praise on regulators at an investing conference -- and touted his work with them.
“They are highly professional, they take their jobs very seriously and we take their feedback seriously,” he said. “What I found is that we have a new phase of constructive dialogue with them that’s been very helpful to me, and I hope it’s going to be productive in terms of reaching our goals of getting the past issues behind us.”
— With assistance by Jennifer Surane, Anders Melin, and Daniel Taub
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C-Suite Insider featuring Roger T. Duguay
Roger T. Duguay has placed hundreds of executives in major companies.
He shares some of his favorite questions and the answers he’s looking for on job interviews.
Kraft Heinz’s new chief faces stern test to revive food group
Bernardo Hees told Kraft Heinz employees that he would be stepping down this week as Miguel Patricio, a marketing executive from AB InBev, is appointed as the new CEO.
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Prejšnji
Shadowglen was a safe haven for night elves. It was located in a valley surrounded with high mountains. They were cowered with the enormous branches of the world tree and other trees. At the base of the mountains a small forest could be found and in the midst of all the rock and stone there was a cave. Mostly used to mine minerals and stones. But occasionally spiders could be found infesting the mines. I never understood how and why spiders grew so big. This awful nightmarish creatures of nature. With their eight legs and eight eyes and fangs as big as your hand. At least one good thing came from these hellish fiends. Their silk and venom. We used every bit of what was plundered after clearing the mines. We even made spider kabobs, sounds nasty, but their legs have quite a bit of meat on them and they were very crispy and spicy. So we ate well after the fight.
Apart from the forests and hills there was only one way in and out of Shadowglen. In the middle of this enclosure stood a huge oak tree named Aldrassil, which served as living quarters, study halls and deep underground storage. On the north side of the tree was a moonlight lake. It was throughout the year and the best place to take a swim during hot summer days. The winter was rare in this parts, so the lake never froze. Past the lake were some fields of herbal flowers and other minor minerals could be found among the ground. On the other side the gardens were pens for cattle and stabled mounts. Not many travellers came by so the stable wasn’t that big. The only caravan that was frequent was the supply one, which was sent from Darnassus every two months.
The area had a sort of purple-bluish shade and lit with millions of tiny glowing lights floating around. Apart from the wild life that moved among the village grassy areas, were busy wisps. Ancient spirits of nature that were inhabiting the forestlands of Kalimdor. Their origin is not really known, but they live in unity with night elves and serve to strengthen the demigod like trees known as the Ancients. You should see this Ancients, at first scary, but then you see them, they are quite funny. Bulky wooden giants with birds nesting in their crowns. Slow to move about, but powerful to trash a building just in a few swings. When they walked around the roads, everything around them shook. Just like mini earthquakes. Mostly only druids could communicate properly with the Ancients, because they had the biggest connection to the nature. But it was fun interpreting what they wanted to say to you or how puzzled they looked when you asked them something.
I spent the first 70 or so years of my youth in the village of Aldrassil. Oh don’t look at me like that, night elves have enormously long lifespan. Prior to the accident at the world tree in mount Hyjal we were actually immortal. At around 70 years of age you became a fully grown adult and were usually sent on your way into the world. Elders reach more than a couple of thousands years before they move on.
I spent the first year as an infant in the great nursery of the tall tree that housed many a rooms and corridors for those night elves that were not old enough to venture out on their own and for the keepers of this small village. Once I learned how to speak and walk on my own two feet without help, I had to attend the small school group and got my first set of daily chores. I would have thought being an infant would be more fun than the silly little jobs. I never liked doing chores. There was no reward in them, no skill to be learned, and no pleasure to be had. I wanted something more exciting, thrilling. Not scrubbing pans after dinner or sweeping endless underground corridors. That's not who I was. I was born to the Silverwing Sentinels. I wanted to join them as soon as possible, which meant I had to start my combat training with one of the local militia. But sadly, that wasn't so easy. Each time I applied for lessons I got turned down due to my age. Being only 13 in the night elf community didn't get you very far. You still had at least 10 years before you were even considered to join the program for young trainees. Until then you had to do the boring house chores and study. The studying part was interesting. Books were many to be found, teachers were very well informed and knowledgeable. Just the recreation part of the school years was remedial. Apart from running, aerobics and occasional hike, there was practically nothing. No shooting with bows or fighting with swords. Those who showed signs of arcane magic, connection to the holy Light or druidic interests were the lucky ones. They got picked up by mages, priests or druids to study at their halls in the big city of Darnassus. Lucky brats they were. Always thought they were better than the rest. But sooner or later they came to grasp that all skills are valuable and we all worked together for a better life. But it took some years of study, on their part, to see that. Oh how I wished to be one of them, to go see the rest of this tree, to venture beyond the arched gate. I secretly started to train in the woods to the west with all kinds of weapons in the middle of the night. It was dark, but I was used to it. Firstly, I tried my hands with a big two-handed wooden sword. It was heavy to lift and swing, and very slow so I got tired easily. Nah, that wasn’t my type. Next I tried a smaller one hander and a shield. But it was still too heavy and you could barely move. I even stumbled over the shield and broke my left wrist. That was one hell of a week. After that not only was I scolded by the matriarch, I was also forbidden to leave the tree for the next 2 months. A living nightmare for an 18-year-old. My chores doubled, studies were the same. I was sent to learn to work with leather that was brought in by hunters. All the smelly pelts and other parts of animal skins piled on top of each other. I’ve cleaned and coloured at least a few hundred kilos of this before the master leatherworker saw no potential in me and sent me to the tailors. Great, now I had to listen to the local fashionista. He was actually the first human I’ve met. Tall, slim, with a goatee, long golden hair and a passion for fashion. When it came to making a new dress or a design he was your guy. Although I sometimes wondered if he was still a man. At least the stories he told us about his numerous adventures, amidst the sheets that is, were interesting. That’s the only reason why you were allowed to join the tailoring studies if you were close to 20. Picked up some nice tips from that guy, not for tailoring mind you. But he kicked me out after a few years, since there was no progress in my skill. He had no time for those that didn’t see his vision of how a golden ribbon would look on a pink nightgown.
The morning after I had a meeting with the high matriarch about what I wanted to do with my life and how to include me into the working forces of the village, I woke up in the small room that I had on the top floors of the tree. It was a cosy little place with a comfy bed, a table with water basin, a small wardrobe, a chair and a desk. I looked through the window and yawned. I hope I get older soon, so I can leave this boring life, was my first thought. I undressed, refreshed with the cold water from the basin, dressed into my leather attire and walked up to the top of the spiral central staircase of the tree. I didn’t really pay any attention to the rushing alchemist that passed me. But there was this scent that hit me afterwards. Sweet and tangy taste, with a dash of Peacebloom in it. What was that? Oh I might have forgotten to mention; I was a masterful cook. That was currently the only profession I had, but was considered as a secondary, so they didn’t count it. I knocked on the enormous wooden doors and they opened. I stepped into the big room. At its centre was a big wooden table, neatly crafted with small ornaments on the legs and corners. Behind it stood a mighty chair made out of the roots of the great tree and the seat was layered with designer cushions. This must have been the work of the Pipyere the Fabulous. Our tailor called himself that. Behind the chair was the biggest source of light for the room, the big window with purple drapes. On either side of the room were shelves of books and scrolls, some drawers and other magical instruments. From the left side you could enter to another room, which was probably the bedchamber of the matriarch. There were rumours running around that she hosted a number of guests in there a few times a year. Wouldn’t blame her, she did look no more than a couple 100 years old, was never married and had no children of her own. But who would want them if you had to take care of 100 kids and teens all the time. I say, let her have all the fun she wants. I just feel sorry for the poor sods living under her bedroom.
“Dragoony, sit,” came a voice unexpectedly out of the corner of the room. It startled me, but I obeyed as instructed. I wasn’t that rebellious, but I had my ways. “What will I do with you?”
Nothing illegal I hope, I smiled to myself.
“Soon you’ll have to choose a profession in which to train yourself,” she said softly. I was just about to open my mouth to speak my mind, but she raised her hand and continued. “Don’t even start with the trainees, you still lack a few years for the right to join. In the meantime, though, you could pick up your primary profession or two. Have you given it any thought?”
“But matriarch, I have a profession. Cooking. Isn't that enough? I’ve already started reading about herbalism, since I need spices and herbs for it,” I replied, leaning back into the chair.
“That is not a profession and you know it. We’ve already had a long conversation about this. I do however approve of Herbalism and will note it in the books. You should go to the gardeners afterwards and get started with the chores and learning. I will send a letter to Arina,” as soon as she said that she picked up an empty scroll and her quill, and started writing the instructions on how to proceed. I hoped this meeting would be over soon, I was getting hungry because that smell from the alchemist really stirred my senses. At that moment I got the idea of a possible new profession I could pick up and fill my empty slot. “Matriarch, if I may. Perhaps I could try Alchemy?”
She positively bloomed when I said that. “Finally, after all the trials we’ve got you through, you chose something for yourself. Yes, yes, that could work very well for you. And with the herbalism and your passion for cooking, this could actually turn out remarkably good!”
She was scary at times like this. But I just smiled and waited for all the instructions to be piled on me. When she was done marking my log book and writing the letter, she sent me off. I closed the doors behind me and was on my way downstairs. And that was how my life as an alchemist slash herbalist began.
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Who Is An Arab? Arab Is An Ethno-linguistic Category
The Arab League (League of Arab States) is a social, cultural and economic grouping of 22 Arab states in the Arab world.As of January 1, 2007, the combined population of all the Arab states was around 340 million people. The most populous Arab League member state is Egypt, with a population of 80 million residents. Djibouti is the least populated, with around 500,000 inhabitants.
LONDON, Nov 12 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Sexual harassment, high rates of female genital cutting and a surge in violence and Islamist feeling after the Arab Spring uprisings. women’s rights.
The implementation of this measure will enhance the establishment of institutional framework on intercultural dialogue, national integration, language of popular communication that will build bridges across ethno-linguistic communities; Promote Indigenous literary Arts.This will contribute to more revenue from the sector and economic development.
Instead, the narrative taught is that Israel is a colonialist state, which dispossessed an indigenous Arab population with Jewish Holocaust. I explore the discursive construction of the category of.
Myers Recently, Israel has been beset by a pair of controversies relating to its Arab minority: first. In Israel, it’s more complicated, with a variety of pathways to different categories of.
Every year at the global fact-checking summit hosted by Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network, fact-checkers compete.
Arab Muslims brought the religion of Islam to the western area of what is now Afghanistan during the 7th century and began spreading eastward from Khorasan and Sistan, some of the native inhabitants they encountered accepted it while others revolted.[61]
Aug 10, 2016 · NIGERIA’S ETHNO-LINGUISTIC COMPOSITION. An ethnic group or ethnicity is a category of. It is difficult to get a definite number but my research indicates that there are.
The Wikimedia Atlas of the World is an organized and commented collection of geographical, political and historical maps available at Wikimedia Commons. Western Kurdistan or Syrian Kurdistan (Kurdish: Rojavayê Kurdistanê; Arabic: کوردستان السورية Kurdistan Al-Suriyah), also commonly.
An experience in the territories of Albanian language and culture in SicilyIn the province of Palermo there are 5 towns of Albanian origin and culture that boast a large community of more than 50,000 people. The word Arbëreshë defines the Albanian ethno-linguistic minority historically settled in.
people also have expectations of Arab women to look like this too. Fair, light eyes and long hair.’ If you don’t happen to.
What do ordinary Arabs think about the Islamic State. in the demographic category that is the primary target of the Islamic State messaging are significantly more likely than other Tunisians, and.
This view is typically put forward as stemming from the view of Arab identity as a geographical rather than ethno-linguistic or cultural but, because it refers to a far more restricted understanding of "Arab" geography as referring to the Arabian peninsula, comes into conflict with the modern pan-Arabism exemplified by the Arab League.
Jun 13, 2007 · While the Omani who came back from Africa usually originate from Inner Oman Arab tribes, the criterion of their Arab lineage is nevertheless challenged by the fact that they are alleged not to speak Arabic fluently: a new ethnic category has thus emerged, which is no longer based on genealogy but on the place of birth and the vernacular language.
selves “Arab” have the right to a recognizable share in the construc-tion of that civilization due to their ancestral roots, a mixture of Arabs and indigenous people. In fact the weaving of the ethno-linguistic fab-ric in Sudan, which is taken for granted to be heterogeneous, reflects homogeneity as well.
The Indian people established during ancient, medieval to early eighteenth century some of the greatest empires and dynasties in South Asian history like the Maurya Empire, Satavahana dynasty, Gupta Empire, Rashtrakuta dynasty, Chalukya Empire, Chola Empire, Karkota Empire, Pala Empire, Vijayanagara Empire, Maratha Empire and Sikh Empire.The.
More than 25,000 people were interviewed for the survey – for BBC News Arabic by the Arab Barometer research network – across.
He spoke of three categories of non-voters: those who have always refused to vote because they see Israel as an "occupying and colonial state"; those who decry the lack of achievements by Arab MPs;.
Many advocates for a MENA category are disappointed by the Census Bureau’s decision. In a written statement, the executive director of the Arab American Institute. and Budget has not responded to.
Anthony Shadid has a poignant piece up, But There’s a Slim Hope in History, on the specter of extinction facing Arab Christianity in the wake. a better deal in a situation of imperial.
Arab foreign ministers have called on the United States to rescind its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, also calling on the international community to recognise a Palestinian state. Arab League member ministers after an emergency meeting in Cairo said that the United States had ,,“withdrawn itself as a sponsor and broker” of the Israel […]
The proposed addition would create a race and ethnicity category called MENA for people with roots in the Middle East and North Africa. It has been championed by organizations representing Arab.
Julia Film And Media Studies There’s been a national movement in the media, to kill people,” said Peter Langman, a psychologist who studies school. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have said they ‘feel fortunate’ to have enjoyed their son’s christening with his godparents and have shared two pictures from the big day – but still haven’t revealed. University of
The Wikimedia Atlas of the World is an organized and commented collection of geographical, political and historical maps available at Wikimedia Commons. The introductions of the country, dependency and region entries are in the native languages and in English. The other introductions are in English.
Kurds which are the second largest ethno-linguistic group in Syria have become the one of the most advantaged group in this civil war. Kurdish militias have captured most of Kurdish inhabited areas in addition to non/Kurds (Arab, Syriac-Asyrian, Turkoman) majority towns and villages.
At FiveThirtyEight. white or black or Chinese or Samoan or any of the 10 other categories listed. This is how the U.S. Census currently asks about race. “I went through it and looked for Arab or.
National Merit Scholar Semifinalist 2019 Morphology Of Staphylococcus Epidermidis Morphology and Physiology:. Ribitol teichoic acid (Polysaccharide A) in Staphylococcus aureus. Glycerol teichoic acid (Polysaccharide B) in S. epidermidis. Mar 13, 2015. Coagulase-producing (coagulase-positive) staphylococci are Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus intermedius, Staphylococcus delphini, Games Like Professor Layton On Steam The Professor Layton series of games have enjoyed huge success. on resolving –
The most traditional object in "Between Two Rounds of Fire, the Exile of the Sea," the American University Museum’s survey of recent Arab art, is a woman’s head. In his essay, Sultan divides the.
Morphology Of Staphylococcus Epidermidis Morphology and Physiology:. Ribitol teichoic acid (Polysaccharide A) in Staphylococcus aureus. Glycerol teichoic acid (Polysaccharide B) in S. epidermidis. Mar 13, 2015. Coagulase-producing (coagulase-positive) staphylococci are Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus intermedius, Staphylococcus delphini, Games Like Professor Layton On Steam The Professor Layton series of games have enjoyed huge success. on resolving – and if it manages
A Wonderful Trip through Egypt! Your trip begins by landing into Cairo, the capital city of Egypt, home of The Great Pyramids of Giza and The Great Sphinx.Then catch a flight to Aswan, an ancient city in the south of Egypt, were you can learn more about the Nubian, an ethno linguistic group indigenous who originate from the early inhabitants of the central Nile valley.
The film went on to be nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, with Labaki becoming the first woman from the Arab world to receive. each in increasingly.
INTERNAL SUSTAINABILITY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN THE ARAB STATES Ali Abdel Gadir Ali, Arab Planning Institute, Kuwait, E-mail: [email protected] (August, 2001) Abstract Understanding sustainability in a broader sense, as relating to the nature and quality of economic growth, and drawing on the recent literature on the fundamental determinants of
He’s an Arab American, but the only race options on the census are white, black, Asian and categories for American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander. Reluctantly, Abdelfatah will.
Some examples of ethnic groups include Italian Americans, Polish Americans, Mexican Americans, Arab Americans, and Irish Americans. Ethnic groups are also found in other societies, such as the Pashtuns in Afghanistan or the Shiites in Iraq, whose ethnicity is base on religious differences.
She didn’t see a category for herself on the survey: Arab American. So she checked “Other.” Kayyali is among millions of.
It has decimated the economy of what was already the poorest country in the Arab world and sparked a deadly famine. Islamists were another such group, though that category described everyone from.
Maryland Higher Education Commission Login Apply Online. Hope (General) Scholarship. Sponsored by: Maryland Higher Education Commission Applicant must be a Maryland resident, apply as a high school senior, have and maintain a cumulative 3.0 GPA, enroll in an eligible program at a Maryland college or university, and have a combined annual family income of less than $95,000. In the winter
The Sindhi diaspora emigrated from India and Sindh is significant. Emigration from the Sindh began before and after the 19th century, with many Sindhis settling in Europe, United States and Canada with a large Sindhi population Middle Eastern states such as the United Arab.
The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill What’s the collective noun for a group of Arab leaders. Invited or not, Qatar fits into this category, and perhaps.
Posted byadmin July 10, 2019 Posted inThe Study
Research Paper On Model Order Reduction
Semantics Of The Sentence Dictionary
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← Left To Right Rave On John Moynes →
Our Worst Fears
Broadsheet at 12:25 pm March 3, 2017
BREAK: Disturbing discovery by the Mother and Baby Homes Commission on the Tuam site @KZapponeTD to comment shortly pic.twitter.com/LzMv2ibdjK
— Páraic Gallagher (@paraicgallagher) March 3, 2017
“This is very sad and disturbing news. It was not unexpected as there were claims about human remains on the site over the last number of years. Up to now we had rumours. Now we have confirmation that the remains are there, and that they date back to the time of the Mother and Baby Home, which operated in Tuam from 1925 to 1961.”
Katherine Zappone (above centre), Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, this morning.
More as we get it.
Human remains found at Tuam former mother-and-baby home (RTÉ)
Previously: ‘It Seems Quite Probable The Babies Are Buried In The Sewage Tanks’
Reputable History
A response from Terry Prone (top right) to French documentary maker Saskia Weber (left) concerning the Tuam burial site in 2014.
Ms Prone was on RTÉ’s Radio One’s Today with Sean O’ Rourke show as the story broke.
Sean O’Rourke: “I think, Terry Prone, I see something here from the Journal, you were saying previously, or was it quoting the Sisters of Bon Secours, saying they wouldn’t find a mass grave, or anything like that. What’s your response?”
Terry Prone: “No, no, no. This was – first of all, I don’t speak for the Sisters of Bon Secours, my company deals with the Sisters. But what is important about this is, nobody expected the kind of numbers that are being revealed today, clearly there was extensive burial,
I’m fascinated by the Commission’s use of the term in this way, because it makes it sound like there was a disrespectful mass-burial, rather than proper burial, which, I don’t know what to make of that. I think the questions that are going to be asked in the next while are, how many children, and what was the number of children, because this wasn’t a Famine burial, like the local people tend to talk about. This was between the thirties and the sixties, which would be in the time the home operated. How many children and toddlers were there, and is that disproportionate to the amount of children that were dying in the general population at this time. And the other thing [hushed tones] – what did they die of? Was it malnutrition, was it lack of care, what was it that killed the children?”
O’Rourke: “I’m still trying to process this myself. There was a request from documentary makers from France2 to the Sisters of Bon Secours asking for access, and the response from you was that there would be no mass burials to be found on the grounds, only bones where Famine victims were buried. It looks like there’s a bit more to it than that now.”
Prone: “It looks like there’s a whole lot more to it.”
Historian Catherine Corless
#tuambabies story by @rositaboland in our view is accurate & fair account from Tuam on aspects of a traumatic story http://t.co/imILAJlTWa
— Kevin O’Sullivan (@KOSullivanIT) June 7, 2014
Tuam mother and baby home: the trouble with the septic tank story (Rosita Boland, Irish Times June 7, 2014)
“The Survivor Community is not shocked by the latest news that hundreds of bodies of babies and children have been “discovered” at the site of the former Mother and Baby home at Tuam. This is something we have known for many years.
What is shocking is that once again we have to learn of this news via the media. The communications skills of the Minister and the Commission of Inquiry leave a lot to be desired when it comes to informing the Survivor Community of developments.
Tuam must not be seen in isolation. It was the fifth biggest of the 9 so called “Mother and Baby Homes” and it is the tip of the iceberg for deaths which amount to at least 6,000 babies and children across the 9 homes.
There are over 227 confirmed deaths in the notorious Bethany Home in Dublin and recent research has revealed the names of over 200 babies and children buried in the Angel’s Plot at Castlepollard Mother and Baby home ranging from a few hours old to over 2 years.
There were also at least 77 confirmed Stillbirths in Castlepollard above and beyond the 200 registered deaths. There will be hundreds of unregistered Stillbirths discovered in Tuam too above and beyond the 800 registered deaths.
The worst is yet to come as details of the huge behemoths of Saint Patrick’s, Bessboro and Sean Ross Abbey have yet to be revealed but it is likely that the total for these three “homes” alone will be well over 4,000 babies and children buried in shoeboxes and rags.
Our Community is divided about the issue of excavations and exhumations. Many are adamant that all the babies must be exhumed, identified and given proper burials.
Others feel strongly that our former crib mates should be allowed to Rest In Peace. There are no easy answers and some survivors will be horrified no matter what happens. Mutual respect and understanding must guide our community.
The Government, Minister Zappone and the Inquiry must consider living survivors and their needs before any further excavations are pursued behind our backs.
Our community is ageing and has been viciously cut in two by the current official policy of excluding many survivors from the Inquiry.
Survivors need to be heard instead of ignored; consulted instead of insulted; treated with respect instead of learning the latest developments via the media.
May our crib mates in all the Mother and Baby homes and Holding Centers, Rest In Peace.”
Paul Redmond
Chairperson: Coalition of Mother and Baby home Survivors (CMABS)
Rollingnews
‘I Was Put Into A Bag And Told I Was Going Into A Bog Hole’ Meanwhile, In Tuam Grave Pronouncements Woulfe At The Door
Posted in Misc and tagged Tuam Mother and Baby Home at 12:25 pm on March 3, 2017 by Broadsheet.
177 thoughts on “Our Worst Fears”
Starina March 3, 2017 at 11:45 am
holy shizmoley.
And what will the church apologists say about this?
dav March 3, 2017 at 11:56 am
something about forgiveness from the great invisible fairy monster who lives in the sky and use of the phrase “little angels”, I suspect
well March 3, 2017 at 12:00 pm
I’m atheist but i like the idea of “”Let God sort them out” right now.
Pluto March 3, 2017 at 1:43 pm
BUT BUT abortion is murder!!!
So the church forces raped women to carry through with childbirth but then murders the children afterwards.
well March 3, 2017 at 11:57 am
The likes of Brendan O’Neill of Spiked media and Caroline Farrow should be working on grovelling apologies now.
Terry Prone should be ruined for this.
Joe cool March 3, 2017 at 12:14 pm
If Terry prone wasn’t ruined by everything else, this is going to do nothing to her. Water from a ducks back
Robert March 3, 2017 at 1:09 pm
Prone’s Boned! LOL!
But seriously, she’s got such a choke-hold on the media I’m sure she’ll be able to wangle it somehow.
Pablo Pistachio March 3, 2017 at 12:15 pm
I imagine Prone is busy spinning her socks off right now, desperately calling in any favours she can, trying to get other stories pushed to the front pages ahead of this.
However, this is a story about the mass graves of babies and their attempted cover up. This story isn’t going away any time soon.
Starina March 3, 2017 at 12:21 pm
she’ll probably try to scapegoat a couple of bad eggs but sure the other sweet, gentle and holy nuns didn’t know about it.
Joe cool March 3, 2017 at 1:03 pm
Shame if she only had a relative on the national airwaves
realPolithicks March 3, 2017 at 3:40 pm
No doubt the indo will have some breaking news regarding , SF, Gerry Adams and blah blah blah….
Susan Lanigan March 3, 2017 at 12:16 pm
It appears that she is thriving at present.
https://www.thesun.ie/tvandshowbiz/647778/profits-at-broadcaster-anton-savages-public-relations-agency-increased-to-over-e700000-last-year/
Reminds me of that old joke about Max Clifford – if he’s so good at PR, how come everybody thinks he’s a ladypart?
:-Joe March 6, 2017 at 3:24 pm
Haha ye, I think he finally went down, not for the lies but for sexual abuse about a year or two/three/idk? ago….?.. Ahh.. Good times… indeed..
I’ve been waiting patiently for a similar fate to befall Terry the lying scumbag public enemy number one-Pr monster … who is much worse imho…
Far more machiavellian than that tabloid dope clifford ever was or could be..
The lone fish(catfish) in a smaller pool eventually gets fat and sloppy making bigger waves, so it won’t be long before the ripples build up and it’s caught out… hook line and sinker.
Scumbags running wild all over the place….
:-J
Daddy March 3, 2017 at 4:30 pm
Nothing ruins her because she knows too much about everyone.
Some day, something will come out about her that does ruin her. She is bound to piss off someone more powerful and influential than her.
Deluded March 3, 2017 at 1:23 pm
Prone, Fergus Finlay and Ruth Coppinger were discussing it on RTÉ radio today.
The Angelus was a minute late because of it.
Starina March 3, 2017 at 1:37 pm
sweet baby Jesus, not the Angelus?!
Yer one-Pr monster has a letter from the vatican allowing her to enroach on the brainwash cycle and delay the angelus by up to five minutes if necessary….
Something to do with her helping the pope out with an out-of-control online gambling / candy crush type game problem…
It’s all part of gawd’s plan…
“Let’s see what they died of.”
Prone sounded very concerned.
(The argument is that the evidence will be vague and some of them died of common ailments and sure it was common practice to dump dead kids and it’s the same as abortion).
One of the blokes recited a list of the Other Party who supported the church.
They haven’t tied it to Enda’s leadership yet.
Formerly known as @ireland.com March 3, 2017 at 11:49 am
Someone, please explain why any religious organisation should be involved in Irish schools, in 2017.
mildred st. meadowlark March 3, 2017 at 11:59 am
Many +1 on this.
Yet another reason why church and state should not be mixed.
because they have the power to abuse and kill vulnerable children, and nobody in this country really gives a damn.
Rugbyfan March 3, 2017 at 2:34 pm
The abject fear of those associated with God and their congregation is also reflected in the attitudes of some politician!
Andy March 3, 2017 at 2:03 pm
Because they own the schools?
Kieran NYC March 3, 2017 at 3:33 pm
Think about it… where else are they going to get naive unquestioning young minds that they can rape and manipulate into the system….?
Sheila March 3, 2017 at 11:49 am
So very sad.
The church…. the church. I cannot put it into words.
A multi-milennial inter generational pantomime creation of the human mind to stop dumb people from going mad and killing the more evolved members of the population?
How’s that?….
petey March 3, 2017 at 11:50 am
page seems to have been removed by RTE
TheQ47 March 3, 2017 at 11:53 am
I don’t think so, just a bad link. The correct link is: http://www.rte.ie/news/2017/0303/856914-tuam-mother-baby/
Sorry, no conspiracy theory.
right, that one works.
saw it at the examiner in the meantime.
kid jensen March 3, 2017 at 11:55 am
didnt that outstanding journo from the mail who brings her kids to funerals cover this in the past
Yeah it was her broke the story in the first place. But it was based on circumstantial information. Now there’s actual ..ugh … evidence.
Pablo Pistachio March 3, 2017 at 11:58 am
We all remember the groups and a certain PR company that continually told us there was nothing there, that they will find nothing. It’s time to go after those people.
Daisy Chainsaw March 3, 2017 at 12:02 pm
Abused from day one. No nuns died of malnutrition, yet so many infants did.
Prolife my fupping arse.
olllie March 3, 2017 at 12:06 pm
Let me guess, the remains of several bodies have been found which is exactly what everyone knew would be found.
The question is this: Why was this site not sealed off and forensically examined by the Gardaí when the information first came to light?
Who are they protecting this time?
By the way ” certain PR company” is Terry Prone’s company.
Oh, I think I might have copied and pasted the above sentence from somewhere else, sorry!
“Why was this site not sealed off and forensically examined by the Gardaí when the information first came to light?”
This is a good question when old bones are found elsewhere the Gardai are called in!
http://www.thejournal.ie/skull-discovered-dublin-2876527-Jul2016/
Because they were only the human detrius written off by the catholic church. Unimportant and unsuitable for sale, they were left malnourished and if they died, so what. If they survived, there was always institutional child slavery, making rosary beads, or being sent to work on local farms (Ask BO’B about Artane) and, of course, a future of physical, emotional and sexual abuse.
Bertie Blenkinsop March 3, 2017 at 12:07 pm
Disgusting, frightening and heartbreaking in equal measure.
“We will honour their memory and make sure that we take the right actions now to treat their remains appropriately,” Zapone added.
So, human remains found = coroner, post mortem, Garda investigation
Memorial mass and a quick burial, platitudes, aul’ wans with candles.
Nobody is ever held to account for anything in Ireland.
Barry the Hatchet March 3, 2017 at 12:12 pm
Surprise sur-fupping-prise. No doubt the religious will still attempt to claim no knowledge of this. And sure wasn’t it a different time, etc etc. Horrific.
So where to from here?. let me guess. An enquiry that lasts 5 yrs. Then a further 3 yrs (because the solicitors and lawyers need paying first.). Then a re-dress board set up taking another 3 yrs. . Then a strung out process taking 2 to 3 yrs to find anyone that requires redress. In the meantime anyone entitled to redress will have died, or be on the verge of death. Taoiseach stands up in dail eireann , apologises and states it won’t happen again. No one gets compensation because it’s taken nearly 11 yrs and they are all dead anyway. Great little country
GiggidyGoo March 4, 2017 at 10:20 am
Don’t forget that Fitzgerald or her successor will then put the information beyond reach for another 35 years.
newsjustin March 3, 2017 at 12:24 pm
It’s not surprising – given that it was local knowledge that infants were buried there.
It’s notable that no remains appear to have been found in the septic tank – this was the focus, rightly, of much upset when this story first broke.
The numbers shouldn’t surprise either – given the evidence around mortality in those homes, anywhere large groups were confined, in the early part of the last century.
The most pressing questions are – could any of these deaths been prevented, were these deaths recorded properly, and why were the bodies placed in this location…..especially for (presumably baptised) infants…which is relevant given the prevailing theology at the time (unbaptised babies being buried apart….).
Unlucky in locks March 3, 2017 at 12:31 pm
Not surprising, but utterly horrific. Very important to remember as much
Yes. Certainly. A mass grave, especially of infants, is horrific, whatever the background.
newsjustin resident Uber-cath trying to reframe the debate as always.
Please feel free to critique anything I said.
Clampers Outside March 3, 2017 at 1:14 pm
…Sorry what now. How so….
ReproBertie March 3, 2017 at 12:58 pm
“It’s notable that no remains appear to have been found in the septic tank ”
The second structure is a long structure which is divided into 20 chambers. The commission said it had not yet determined what the purpose of this structure was but it appeared to be a sewage tank. The commission had also not yet determined if it was ever used for this purpose. In this second structure, significant quantities of human remains have been discovered in at least 17 of the 20 underground chambers which were examined.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/tuam-babies-significant-quantities-of-human-remains-found-at-former-home-1.2996599
Ultan March 3, 2017 at 1:04 pm
NewsJustIn will point out that he/she said Septic tank, not sewage tank, so he/she isn’t full of it at all at all. And as he/she said “this was the focus, rightly, of much upset when this story first broke.” So nothing major to see here, just the remains of hundreds of children. No controversy in that surely?
newsjustin March 3, 2017 at 1:11 pm
So it may have been an unused, underground concrete structure. The idea of using (or repurposing) underground structures for burials isn’t a new one.
The questions I mentioned above are still relevant IMHO. I’d like to know how nuns could have overseen the burial of baptised infants in un-consecrated ground without appropriate rites(?) I’m probably very naive, but would have thought that would be their priority……even more so than recording the deaths to civil authorities.
ReproBertie March 3, 2017 at 1:17 pm
That’s the heart of the matter right enough. Were these young Irish citizens buried in a unmarked mass grave given the appropriate rites when being buried in their unmarked mass grave?
It’s quite an important piece of “circumstantial” evidence all right that would indicate the attitude of the nuns that ran the home towards these infants. Using a single grave for lots of people – especially infants – is not uncommon. The question is, and I haven’t seen any evidence either way (correct me if I’m wrong), were these deaths officially recorded? And, yes, were they given the appropriate rites when buried…..rather than being “dumped” as people are suggesting.
well March 3, 2017 at 1:41 pm
This wasn’t a burial so much as a coverup.
newsjustin
Stop calling it a grave or even a mass grave. Graves are marked. This was covered up.
It was the inability to find burial records to match the death certificates that drove Catherine Corless to pursue this. That means the deaths were recorded before the dead babies and infants were dumped in unmarked graves.
” Local historian Catherine Corless discovered almost 800 children died in the home between 1925 en 1961, a staggering 35% of all the children who lived there” – 35%!!!!!!
: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw4UKfZqTzw
Barry the Hatchet March 3, 2017 at 1:39 pm
Thanks for the link. Well worth a watch.
Fair play to Catherine Corless. She cannot be praised enough for her work on bringing this story to light. She has more integrity, more curiosity, more intelligence and more dedication than most of the journalists in this country put together.
She does, and she also clarified to the Irish Times that she never said babies were “dumped” in a “septic tank” which is how the story spread initially. As for it being a cover up. She accumulated the list from public death certs. Her issue was with a lack of burial certs.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/tuam-mother-and-baby-home-the-trouble-with-the-septic-tank-story-1.1823393
And while everyone will criticize the church and nuns, no one should forget that it was Irish families who sent their daughters and sisters to these homes largely out of shame. Regular Irish families.
I look forward to reading the inquiry report in ten years or whenever it gets done.
Cian March 3, 2017 at 2:20 pm
jusayinlike March 3, 2017 at 3:00 pm
“it was Irish families who sent their daughters there probably out of shame”
Yes, but mainly due to the direction of the local priest..
Susan Lanigan March 3, 2017 at 2:44 pm
I agree with Andy’s point that the scandal cannot be conveniently confined to the religious orders, but is deeply intertwined with Irish society and repressive views on women’s sexuality. However the article he quotes from is a denialising whitewash of foreign correspondents’ concerns (out of an injured sense of Irish amour propre mixed with a rather parochial contempt) and it is my understanding that both Catherine Corless and her daughter Adrienne have stated that it misrepresents their message.
Catherine Corless is saying that she did not speak disrespectfully of the dead children.
The article is saying that all them furriners telling us our bizness should go away and stop losing the run of themselves.
AnAccountant March 3, 2017 at 2:56 pm
“no one should forget that it was Irish families who sent their daughters and sisters to these homes largely out of shame.”
Right, and why were they ashamed? Would it have anything to do with the Church dictating what people should feel shame about, do you think?
Here we go, it was all someoneelse’s fault.
Lets absolve the families because you know, it’s much easier to just hate big bad faceless institutions. No one has any personal responsibility in Ireland.
Cool. Let’s get rid of fraud off our statute books. It’s your own fault if you believe someone’s lies. Big, domineering organisations should free to bully, lie, manipulate and intimidate people. We should be blaming their victims. That’s the christian way.
Andy – didn’t you know? Bishops issued each parish priest and nun with a large butterfly net and strait-jacket for capturing and rounding up pregnant, unmarried women.
Time and time again doctors, judges, journalists, parents, grandparents, guards, politicians, business people and other citizens tried to rescue these women from the church so that they could live free lives in the welcoming communities they came from. Each time they were thwarted by the church.
Oh wait. That never happened.
ivan March 3, 2017 at 3:31 pm
Nobody *is* absolving the families but there are two parties to this; you’ve the family who allow this to happen to the child, and you’ve the church, in the form of the local priest, who’d have ‘suggested strongly’ that a certain course be followed.
it wouldn’t happen nowadays, it did happen then, and if you want to apportion blame, 50/50 is harsh as the family didn’t have the same, er, power as the church. If you went against the priest in Ireland in the 50s, you knew all about it.
And why were doctors, judges, journalists, parents, grandparents, guards, politicians, business people and other citizens content to go along with this? Could it have anything to do with the brainwashing from birth into the cult that worshipped an unmarried mother and her child while preaching that unmarried mothers needed to be locked up and their children taken away?
Not content with implying that people have no right to be angry with your fruity little cult, you now want to completely absolve it of guilt and blame its victims for believing the lies your fruity little cult told them.
Sam March 5, 2017 at 10:14 am
Amazing… no ‘escapees’ brought back by the Garda then Justin? That’s some interesting revisionism.
It certainly did happen.
It also happened with kids. You might look up the case of Kevin Fogarty who escaped twice from Glin industrial school, walked the whole way to Limerick City to his mother, who brought him to a local councillor to show the wounds on his back from the torture he endured.
Cllr Maguire (non-party) called for a doctor to examine and treat the wounds. The doctor was shocked. A garda arrived and took the victim back to his abusers.
Cllr Maguire spent the following months demanding answers from the Dept of Justice and Dept of Education and trying to secure the release of young Fogarty.
he was told to mind his own business, but he persisted, stating that it was his business as Fogarty and his mother were constituents.
His persistence paid off, and Fogarty was eventually released about a year and a half earlier than scheduled.
Nigel March 5, 2017 at 12:02 pm
It was a social tyranny. All the best sorts of tyranny implicate their own victims. It’s abuse writ large. The whole country was a goddamned Magdalene Laundry.
EightersGonnaEight March 4, 2017 at 7:17 pm
Pull these accounts and you’ll know what it’s really all about:
Having established a strong presence in the provision of acute healthcare in Ireland in the 19th and 20th centuries, the sisters of Bon Secours decided to set up the Bon Secours Health System as a limited company to organize and manage the running of the five Hospitals in the group. The Bon Secours Health System was established in 1993 to co-ordinate the management of five hospitals under the care of the Bon Secours sisters.
Source: http://www.bonsecours.ie/aboutus
Frilly Keane March 4, 2017 at 7:52 pm
And CAB should seize them
The deaths were officially recorded. Local historian Catherine Corless found the many hundreds death notices in the Galway County Council offices. You can find more answers to your questions in this interview with her in the link below. Please watch it and inform yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw4UKfZqTzw
Could these deaths have been prevented? Well the death certificates list many as having died of measles and hooping cough but others died from less serious complaints such as laryngitis or abscesses – conditions that may indicate neglect which suggests that they could well have been prevented.
Spaghetti Hoop March 3, 2017 at 12:28 pm
Mass grave confirmed; it sent chilling thoughts even when it was unconfirmed. I hope the investigating Commission do a very thorough job in exposing the barbaric and shameful behavior and those responsible.
And, much like other clerical scandals, those that COVER UP THE TRUTH are just as responsible for the crime itself.
What crime do you think was committed? It may be that these deaths were unrecorded – that’s certainly criminal and appalling. But there’s no evidence of any other crimes.
mildred st. meadowlark March 3, 2017 at 12:48 pm
Are you really trying to defend this? Are you fcucking joking? Between Cian on the Grace thread, and you here, do you realise what you are trying to defend?
They dumped dead bodies, for years into a structure that appears to have been built for the containment of sewage and turned it into a mass grave. There are children buried in there all of whom died in care of the church, and there was zero accountability. You’re really trying to defend the horror-fest that is Tuam.
There is something wrong with that, for someone who claims to think that the life of every child is precious. A nice piece of hypocrisy on your part.
The appropriate burial of infant remains has not much to do with the abortion debate. I don’t know why you’d link the two. I could well ask how the remains of aborted foetuses are treated by the abortion industry…..but I won’t.
You ask if I know what I’m “defending”. I wonder if people are sure what they are angry about. People are right to be angry about infant remains being disrespected and illegally buried. That is enough to be furious about…..which is why I mentioned the questions I did above (which aren’t defending anyone).
We’re also angry at the high number of children who died while under church care. If a family had such high infant mortality rates, they’d be in court.
There were figures on here (BS) I think regarding this…and in the media. Infant mortality in institutions in the 1st half of the 20th century were very high….astonishingly so by today’s standards. Communicable diseases were rampant. You can’t compare mortality rates in families with institutional settings.
Hang on a second. Things were different 100 years ago. The way stillbirths and infant deaths were treated was different up to 40 years ago.
Do you know about the Old Plot in Glasnevin cemetery? it was a mass grave that contained over 50,000 babies. They have since been moved to the Angels Memory Garden.
From their website:
“This Old Plot is the resting place for over fifty thousand infants who were buried there up to the 1970’s. Glasnevin is one of the few Cemeteries that allowed stillborn babies to be buried in concentrated ground. In early times stillborn babies were not allowed in blessed ground, as they were unbaptised. Many babies were buried in the ditches and hedges on the outside of other cemeteries around the country. ” [http://www.alittlelifetime.ie/angels-memory-garden-glasnevin-mainmenu-36]
This was the reality for *anyone* that had a baby that died before it was baptised. We’re not talking about unmarried mothers or other non-people. But *everyone*. Even if you were married, middle-class, god-fearing and church going. if the baby wasn’t Christened, it wasn’t getting a proper burial.
mildred st. meadowlark March 3, 2017 at 3:24 pm
Yes, a mass grave, an acknowledged mass grave, in a cemetery.
These are bodies that were dumped into chambers that were ostensibly meant to be used for sewage and then covered over to be disguised as part of the septic tank and sewage system, not in a cemetery, no note no acknowledgement that anyone was buried there.
There’s a whole world of difference.
Mildred. As I quoted above: “Glasnevin is one of the few Cemeteries that allowed stillborn babies to be buried in concentrated ground.” And these 50,000 babies all went into a single hole without individual names/dates or any other acknowledgement who was there.
This means that outside of Glasnevin (and a few others) these babies WEREN’T buried in concentrated ground. They were dumped in a hole, or a underground tank. But this was ALL un-baptised BABIES not just these Tuam babies.
Read this: http://www.alittlelifetime.ie/angels-memory-garden-glasnevin-mainmenu-36 it explains what things were like
Oh well that makes it acceptable.
Hold the outrage folks. The fact there are mass graves everywhere makes it better.
The Catholic Church have done indescribable damage to our society while piously claiming it was for our own good and that it was our Lords work.
This is another crime they committed in ‘the name of God’, along with selling children, neglecting, beating them, not to mention the horrorshops of the Magdalene laundries.
They have managed to create a situation, all by themselves, whereby the people of Ireland now assume the worst because the RCC have set a precedent for this kind of thing. And they have done next to nothing to atone for the multiple crimes they have committed. They barely acknowledge it.
The onus is on them to provide evidence that this isn’t yet another underhanded and sneaky attempt to cover up yet another disgusting crime.
My anger may seem OTT to you but my family suffered in huge ways at the hands of the church, and this disgusts me. It has angered me to tears.
Sorry to hear that, Milly :(
Thanks Kieran.
Plenty like my family. Too many. And the nuns won’t even make a comment to acknowledge what’s come out in the Commission today. It’s so insulting and is such a typical response from the RCC. They don’t care.
Makes me sick.
Dumping human remains into a septic tank is fine is it? Not to mention non-registration of the deaths (obliged by law), not informing the Coroner in the instances of sudden death(s) and (allegedly) no involvement of next of kin, family wishes, public explanation.
None of that is fine. But utilising existing underground structures for burials isn’t a novel idea. I’d like to know the answers to my questions above.
Back-foot-ism
They were recorded. That is how Catherine Corless discovered this, by looking through the death records.
Ultan March 3, 2017 at 12:53 pm
Give it time. Once the remains have been examined, I’m sure they will show how malnutrition and neglect were causes of a lot of the deaths. And allowing children to starve to death is, as far as I’m aware, a crime in this country.
Daisy Chainsaw March 3, 2017 at 4:24 pm
Newsjustin, have you found out how many Bon Secours nuns died from neglect and malnutrition during the same period?
is this really what you want to spend your precious time on earth doing, newsjustin? defending this?
Defending what?
Have you not seen my list of questions above? I’d like to know exactly what happened to each and every person that passed through that place.
Perhaps my comments would be more welcome if I just offered the standard “Fupping Church! Disgusting. Can’t believe…schools….prolife.”
And yet you’re not willing to do one iota of research to actually find out the answers to your list of questions. Read any article on Catherine Corless and you’ll learn that the deaths were recorded and that the children were subject to neglect, not just by the nuns running the place, but by Irish society at large who had been brainwashed into believing that sex was sinful and sex outside marriage was even more so and to be pregnant outside of marriage was a crime that carried a sentence of imprisonment in a church run institution from where the child, taken from the mother, might be lucky enough to be sold if they didn’t die of neglect first.
Hating to have to repeat myself, but YET AGAIN can I tell you that the answers to your questions will be found in this YouTube video. If you’re so interested, why don’t you bother your arse to watch it? There’s none so blind…
You give yourself away a couple of paragraphs later;
You’re defending your church’s name because you can’t bare to see an institution that used to rule us (and I’m guessing you enjoyed vicariously feeling like you were in charge) being spoken about as an evil, degenerate group by the people it used to boss around.
No. That comment was simply to point out the difference between actually taking an interest in the facts of the case versus having a rant at “the church”
Like the difference between actually taking an interest in the facts and saying there are questions to be answered without attempting to find the answers?
The facts of this case is that your church and its institutions buried lots and lots of babies in an unmarked mass grave. People are rightly angry with your fruity little cult for that. You just want to defend your fruity little club from that righteous anger.
phil March 3, 2017 at 12:45 pm
That would be the same organisation that claims to be pro-life to protect children ?
Praise be, we saved that unborn baby with the FFA condition from abortion, it survived outside the womb for 15min, and we said some lovely prayers , then fupped it in the well out back…
Every child deserves a mother and a father but if the father can not be found the off to the labour camps with the mother and child.
They only give a fupp before it exits the vaginal canal. After that, it’s fair game. If it’s not healthy enough to be sold, it’s left to be malnourished, tortured, enslaved and raped.
That’s quite imaginative.
And Social Justice For All March 5, 2017 at 12:20 pm
Game of Thrones fan I see
Goosey Lucy March 3, 2017 at 1:22 pm
Fergus the magic postman March 3, 2017 at 2:01 pm
If Terry Prone wasn’t alive to witness this, she’d be spinning in her grave.
martco March 3, 2017 at 2:49 pm
badum tish
scottser March 3, 2017 at 4:35 pm
now if ever anyone deserves to be left forgotten in a septic tank, it’s terry prone.
And Social Justice For All March 4, 2017 at 8:43 pm
There’s no such thing as bad publicity
This is what happens when you give power to an institution such as the Catholic Church. They used shame to get into the mindset of society. If an institution can control the way people feel in the bedroom, they control them wholly. Creating an electric feeling of shame in most people (as was the case in 1950s/60s Ireland) allowed the Church to get away with whatever the hell they wanted.
The usual tribunala and claims of witch-hunting will be trotted out and we’ll stumble into exactly the same disaster again in 20 years time.
Mary Jane March 3, 2017 at 2:43 pm
Of course, this is just one institution where the bones have been found, but there are others which are not in the public domain that include adolescents who died in questionable circumstances such as Dangan.
Many of these institutions were little better than concentration camps
As this was happening, the RCC were trail blazing across Canada and Australia wiping out the Indians and aboriginals with their “missionaries” and “care homes”..
This was a planned directive..
http://canadiangenocide.nativeweb.org/intro2.html
https://books.google.ie/books?id=yuA5JqBFCOMC&pg=PA228&lpg=PA228&dq=Roman+catholic+church+genocide+australia&source=bl&ots=0dPEraTzRv&sig=8HmSV0dDRXxABZIw6LKlNSec0nA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiokfaI07rSAhVrC8AKHdlBBu4Q6AEIWzAI#v=onepage&q=Roman%20catholic%20church%20genocide%20australia&f=false
Sterilisation Act
did not know any of this, thanks for info
the rcc loves a bit of righteous genocide.
The kings of genocide, and are fully behind eugenics, the think tank for the eugenics movement is called “The Club of Rome”…
http://www.climaterealists.org.nz/node/878
Full to the brim with Knights of Malta..
http://www.remnantofgod.org/JohnPaul2cyn.htm
http://www.catholic.org/news/international/europe/story.php?id=41597
https://www.google.ie/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/14/pope-francis-argentina-military-junta
It seems the papacy is awarded by merit of how many people you can wipeout..
Genocide through war;
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/vatican-to-reveal-secrets-of-popes-collaboration-with-hitler
http://beforeitsnews.com/eu/2013/01/the-catholic-church-and-the-vietnam-slaughter-2499382.html
You think that the RCC was behind the Club of Rome because it met in Rome?
No I think it is indirectly run by the Vatican, its members are littered with Knights of Malta, who are answerable to the pope..
You think that the order of Malta, which very recently lost its two highest ranking members over a dispute over giving out condoms, is spearheading a eugenics programme? I think you need some time away from the Internet dude.
Nelson Rockefeller was a Knight of Malta and head of the Club of Rome..
http://moversandshakersofthesmom.blogspot.ie/2008/09/roger-pearson.html?m=1
As you can see, stopped in eugenics, you swallow the condom red herring justin, it’s meant for naive people like yourself..
“stooped”
Can this evil cult be banished to the fringes of society where it belongs now, please?
olllie March 3, 2017 at 3:23 pm
These children didn’t all die at the same time, therefore the nuns were placing them in the underground chamber on an onging basis for years. This isn’t burial, this is dumping.
And the issue of consecrated ground IS important for context; if the nuns dumped/ buried dead infants/children in unconsecrated ground it shows that they didn’t give a shit about them (again, nothing we didn’t know already)
Finally, the surviving nuns are in their 70s and 80s, well able to be arrested and questioned as would I if dead bodies were found in my back garden.
But, nothing will be done. Government will continue to protect religious and non religious child abusers, what would Enda’s people think if he actually stood up to the church?
1. if the babies were not baptised they were not allowed to put them in consecrated ground.
2. this tank _may_ have been consecrated . All that consecrated means is that a priest blessed it.
Yeah like what’s the big deal man? Hundreds of babies died just deal with it duh
Another thing we’ve learned that we already knew, Terry Prone is a liar.
If we already knew it then we didn’t learn anything
Niamh March 3, 2017 at 3:50 pm
Mannix Flynn claimed that there were unmarked burials of adolescent boys at Letterfrack a good few years ago – the Christian Brother vehemently denied it, rubbished the claims, etc., no further investigation undertaken.
There is surviving evidence in left-wing media from the 1940s that parents of children requisitioned to Artane suspected their sons had been beaten to death or died in otherwise suspicious circumstances, attempted to take this to the authorities / media, got nowhere.
The other night on the fupping Pat Kenny show we had the Iona Institute’s well-trained PR woman getting worked up about ‘what is done with the bodies’ of aborted foetuses – a disgusting performance, given there were women in the audience identified as having gone through the trauma of fatal foetal abnormality. Nothing to say about what was done with these bodies at Tuam. We also had Ide Nic Mathuna thundering that Ireland has never legislated ‘a human right’ out of the constitution before, apparently forgetting the 2004 Citizenship Referendum, which the Church did not attempt to oppose or influence, as I recall – they were happy for African babies born here to be denied citizenship.
Anyone still supporting these pathological fascists in 2017 is a misogynist at best, a brainwashed sociopath at worst.
And yes, everyone knew what was going on. Everyone. They did not stand up, they did not have empathy, they were cowards. Those who oppose repealing the 8th amendment now also do not show empathy to women. I’ll finish on my absolute favourite moment from the Pat Kenny show: a male doctor in late middle age recalling how he was disgusted by a male schoolfriend’s declaration, at the advent of legal abortion in Britain, that ‘if my daughter got up the pole, I’d get rid of it’.
‘I just thought: that’s not fair’, sez our heroic venerable old male doctor. To the foetus, you understand. He had no problem with [a] schoolboys deigning to dictate what should be done ‘to’ women, [b] the idea that one’s daughter one belong to you, [c] the basic idea that the decision to abort is in the hands of the father.
Nobody had a problem with that, apparently. This man’s anecdotal opinion on abortion was considered more authoritative than the opinion of, you know, women who’ve been pregnant and/or had abortions. You simply would not see that kind of extraordinary tactlessness and ignorance on television in the UK. But here, there is no accountability – we appear to have the emotional maturity of schoolboys, generally speaking, as a nation.
Not about this latest church atrocity, but somewhat relevant nonetheless.
http://avondhupress.ie/eighth-amendment-never-really-abortion/
That might seem a strange thing to say in the only country in the democratic world to have a constitutional ban on abortion, but the fact that 23,000 pregnant Irish women did not have access to a 20 week ultrasound scan last year shows we care in Ireland as little for the unborn as we do for the born.
Otis Blue March 3, 2017 at 8:03 pm
Just behind the buildings in Letterfrack, on the fringe of the National park where GMIT is located there’s a beautiful glade in which many young residents of the reform school were buried. Ages range from toddlers upwards and the crosses marking the graves are festooned with toys, sweets and various mementos, presumably left by family.
It’s as heartbreaking and sobering a spot as could be found in this benighted isle.
Garbo March 3, 2017 at 4:19 pm
+1 Well said
Ireland will be horrified for a week and then move on to the next thing nothing will be done about.
We’re a nation of spineless gossipers. The brave few who follow up on our righteous calls for action end up being ignored and vilified for making us face our inner truths.
dav March 3, 2017 at 4:42 pm
What do we do to create change?
How about a coup?
Can we defenestrate bishops?
Well if you insist… ;)
I’ll b flying a Japanese flag on my car aerial, they knew how to deal with Jesuit perverts..
How about a cup of tay? Then ride me sideways
Hand in a €50 note when buying a pint?
Zena March 3, 2017 at 4:52 pm
The priests and nuns involved in this and all the countless crimes against humanity, bestowed upon young girls, women and their babies, were and are, at the very least psychopaths and not one of the damn bastards did or will face a court or pay for their actions.
Almost none of that is true
Zena March 3, 2017 at 10:23 pm
It’s all true. Don’t engage with me, you’re no better than them in your constant defence of them . You’re probably a priest yourself. Now piss off.
Imma engage with you anyway.
Oh the (lack of) humanity
Almost? Phew!
gringo March 3, 2017 at 4:37 pm
Anything to be said for another mass?
Not today, pal.
Those mass grave burials were far away
Harry Molloy March 3, 2017 at 4:54 pm
Blame, of course, lies at the feet of the institutions as managed by the Catholic church at the time.
But I wouldn’t forget that all of society is complicit. Your parents, your grandparents, it was societies dirty secret and people knew what was happening or didn’t want to know.
The church is to blame but they were enabled by our own society, let’s not remove the collective guilt of our own history just to conveniently drop it at the door of an organisation we don’t want anymore, thereby cleansing ourselves of the shame.
How “fallen women” were treated in the past is our greatest shame.
-1 Harry and Justin, I’d rather blame Jesuits dev and mcquaid for giving away the keys of the country to the RCC, education and everything..
them too
siblingofdaedalus March 3, 2017 at 4:55 pm
Great post, pulls together so many things relevant to this, and Ireland generally.
Ivor March 3, 2017 at 5:32 pm
These kind of posts are what make Broadsheet worthwhile.
Junkface March 3, 2017 at 6:44 pm
The Catholic Church of Ireland has no bottom to scrape, its continues deeper and sadistically further than anyone can ever imagine. Evil, evil, scum, with even more horrors to be revealed with time.
+ 1000 Junkface
The Sisters of Bon Secours:
http://www.bonsecours.ie/thesistersofbonsecours
From that page, a link: https://www.facebook.com/Irish-Catholic-Doctors-Association-141215772651025/
and: http://www.bonsecours.ie/ourvision
The Mission of Bon Secours Health System is to provide Compassionate, Quality health care to those we serve, to be Good Help to Those in Need, caring for the sick, the dying and their families, within a Catholic ethos.
Bon Secours means “good help” in French.
Through our Mission, Bon Secours Health System will:
Be a leader in Catholic Healthcare in Ireland.
Empower staff to reach their full potential.
Reach out compassionately to the community….
martco March 6, 2017 at 6:07 am
Time to end schools admission policy control around baptism (catholic first). And financially punish those who try it.
Most new parents I know cite the reason for baptism as the school entry problem.
It’s like treating a garden for weeds, if u don’t go for the root you’ll never succeed in getting rid. Couple of generations on and the rcc will be nowt more than a weird cult with notions about itself.
Sam March 6, 2017 at 7:48 am
If we had actually built a country that did what it professed to do in cherishing people equally and punishing the guilty then these criminal entities would not have any publicly funded schools to write an admission policy _for_ .
I just heard that ….EF “F” ING !!!! religulous moron from the US scraming at Moncrieff on newstalk that this is all anti-catholic western liberal-atheism gone mad lies and fake news etc. so I had to come on here to find some sanity…..
Ye it’s daft, the whole thing is daft… the old school daft… (not the property website)…
Here’s the weird thing though…
As a priority, ze church and state is not specifically interested in anything to do with babies after baptism and basic laws being respected whether it’s abortion or infanticide.
It’s focus has always been about control over the family unit but in particular the control of women through manipulating them in relation to their own reproductive system.
Persecution of the female or the matriarch in society ultimately leads to the erosion of all all our basic human rights both male and female as a fully functioning society.
Dead babies are just an unfortunate consequence along with all the other crazy regressive GIANT PILES OF ANIMAL EXCREMENT covered situations that they don’t care about either…
Caravaggio was trying to tell us all along…. It’s all there in the paintings…. but we didn’t listen… because we weren’t capable of paying attention at the time…
Dead babies all over the place… everywhere… it’s beyond our comprehension of insanity.
Thanks be to god for mental illness……
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Press Freedom Scores
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Certified Trainer CNVC
http://www.sharedspace.org.uk
lauraharvey@sharedspace.org.uk
About the Trainer – Laura Harvey (MA Cantab) Laura Harvey is a certified trainer with the Centre for Nonviolent Communication™. She collaborates as part of a group of facilitators who lead open access workshops in Nonviolent Communication (NVC) across the UK. She has worked widely in the UK in this capacity for more than a decade, especially in Yorkshire, Oxfordshire, and the North West, particularly Manchester. NVC Focus: A programme of public training and bespoke in-house consultancies. In addition to teaching the process as developed by Marshall Rosenberg, she is also trained in facilitating the NVC Dance Floor technology – a kinesthetic approach to learning NVC developed by Bridget Belgrave and Gina Lawrie. Additional Interests In-house team development and conflict work Leadership coaching NVC parenting and education Bespoke one-to-one work The arts, particularly theatre and collaborating with writers Background: Concurrent with her training activities in NVC, Laura has worked in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Brazil. She has 25 years experience in UK arts and NGO sectors, as a facilitator, writer and teacher in many different settings. In 2003 she ran the first NVC training in Cambodia. She is currently collaborating on an initiative to raise awareness of global GBV issues in the UK and beyond.
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Former Terps point guard Melo Trimble signs with Philadelphia 76ers
By Don Markus
After going undrafted Thursday night, former Maryland point guard Melo Trimble has signed as a free agent with the Philadelphia 76ers.
After going undrafted Thursday night, former Maryland point guard Melo Trimble has signed as a free agent with the Philadelphia 76ers, a source with knowledge of the situation said Friday.
Trimble will join Philadelphia's summer league team – along with No. 1 overall pick Markelle Fultz – for a three-game swing in Utah and then in the Las Vegas summer league.
The situation could be a good one for Trimble, given Philadelphia's lack of depth at guard.
Aside from Fultz, who is expected to play with Ben Simmons, last year's No. 1 overall pick, in the backcourt, the only other point guard the 76ers have on their current roster is T.J. McConnell, last year's starter whose contract is not guaranteed.
The 76ers also signed guards James Blackmon Jr. (Indiana) and Isaiah Briscoe (Kentucky), as free agent, according to The Vertical and philly.com.
don.markus@baltsun.com
twitter.com/sportsprof56
Police plan sobriety checkpoint in Anne Arundel this weekend
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MLB Game Preview: San Diego Padres vs. San Francisco Giants - 6/11/2019 - 9:45 PM EST
Posted: Tuesday, June 11, 2019 by CapperTekSEO
San Diego Padres [5]
Over 8 (+102)
San Francisco Giants [6]
Padres' Paddack, Giants' Beede seek to exorcise demonsFLMOne pitcher seeking his first win and another seeking his first hit -- and redemption -- encounter opponents that have embarrassed them in the past when the San Diego Padres and host San Francisco Giants open a two-game series on Tuesday night.The matchup of National League West rivals already finds the fourth-place Padres (33-33) six games ahead of the last-place Giants (26-38) after San Francisco finished seven games north of San Diego in the 2018 standings.One reason for the Padres' surge has been right-hander Chris Paddack (4-4, 2.97 ERA), who ranks second in the National League among rookies in ERA behind Atlanta's Mike Soroka (1.38). Paddack will face off with San Francisco right-hander Tyler Beede (0-2, 8.15) on Tuesday.Paddack got off to a fast start, on the mound anyway, when he helped the Padres earn a 3-1 win over the Giants in his major league debut on March 31. He did not get a decision in the game despite holding San Francisco to just one run on two hits in five innings, striking out seven and walking one.The reason the game probably will never be forgotten by the 23-year-old, however, was because of what occurred in his first big-league at-bat.After the Giants intentionally walked Austin Hedges to load the bases in the second inning of a scoreless game, Paddack sliced an apparent single to right field, a liner that not only would provide his first major league hit but also his first RBI or two.However, Giants right fielder Gerardo Parra caught Paddack in too much of a celebratory mood and threw him out at first base, a rare 9-3 putout that ended the inning and left Paddack with neither a hit, an RBI nor a lead."I got thrown out," Paddack lamented afterward. "All the guys will give me a hard time about that. I'm sure it'll be up on all the (video) screens when I walk in." To add insult to injury, Paddack remains hitless in the majors, now 0-for-14 with eight strikeouts.His pitching has slipped a bit of late, as well. He is 0-2 in his past two starts, allowing nine earned runs and 14 hits in 9 1/3 innings.Paddock will face a Giants team that the Padres have beaten on five of seven previous occasions this season.Beede didn't pitch in any of those games, but he did face the Padres last April in his second major league start. He was bombed for five runs and six hits in 3 2/3 innings in a 10-1 loss.He was demoted to the minors after the debacle and didn't get back to the majors until last month.The 26-year-old remains winless in five big-league starts bridging the 2018 and '19 seasons, but he is just one start removed from his most promising outing: one run on five hits with four strikeouts and three walks in six innings of a 3-1 win at Miami on May 30."That gave me a strong foundation to build on and stay confident with throughout the season," Beede said of the outing. "I want to be a guy they can count on to contribute to the rotation and to this team. It's not to the point where I want to put pressure on myself and know that I've got to do something exceptional, but just know that I trust myself going out there." Both teams begin the series on two-game losing streaks.--Field Level Media
Longoria rallies Giants past Padres with bat, gloveSAN FRANCISCO Evan Longoria hit a go-ahead, two-run double in the seventh inning and made a stellar defensive play in the ninth, and the San Francisco Giants rallied to beat the San Diego Padres 6-5 on Tuesday night.Joe Panik singled twice and Pablo Sandoval added a sacrifice fly for the Giants. Steven Duggar hit a home run, his first since mid-April.Fernando Tatis Jr. homered on the first pitch of the game and drove in two for San Diego. Ian Kinsler also went deep.The Giants entered the day with the second-worst home record in the majors at 11-20 and trailed 4-3 before scoring three times off the Padres bullpen.Pinch-hitter Brandon Belt drew a leadoff walk against Trey Wingenter (0-1) and went to third on Panik's single. After Mike Yastrzemski flew out, Longoria lined a 1-1 pitch past left fielder Wil Myers. Belt scored and Panik slid in safely to beat the throw home from Tatis. Sandoval hit a sac fly that scored Longoria.Mark Melancon (3-1) retired three batters to win. Will Smith pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for his 15th save in 15 tries. Longoria backed Smith with a leaping grab on Manuel Margot's hard liner for the second out of the inning.The Giants overcame a wacky play in the fifth when they missed three chances to record the final out of the inning on the same play with the bases loaded.Eric Hosmer hit a sharp comebacker off reliever Trevor Gott that knocked Gott's glove off his hand. The right-hander quickly retrieved the ball, but his throw to first was late and wide and pulled Sandoval off the bag as Chris Paddack scored. Tatis, who drove in the first run of the inning with an infield single, rounded third then made a headfirst slide into home to beat Sandoval's throw. Giants catcher Stephen Vogt threw to third but not in time to get Manny Machado.Hosmer was credited with two RBIs on the play, giving him a team-leading 38.FOR STARTERSPaddack had six strikeouts in five uneven innings and was in line for the win until the Giants rallied. The right-hander allowed three runs and six hits with one walk. Paddack has not walked more than one in 10 consecutive starts, tying the Dodgers' Hyun-Jin Ryu for the longest active streak in the majors.San Francisco's Tyler Beede had a career-high seven strikeouts in 4 2/3 innings but allowed four runs on five hits.TRAINERS ROOMPadres: Austin Hedges started at catcher after sitting out two games with a sprained left ankle. Hedges went 0 for 4 with two strikeouts. ... RHP Dinelson Lamet had five strikeouts in four scoreless innings of a rehab start with Class A Lake Elsinore. Lamet is working his way back after undergoing Tommy John surgery in April 2018.Giants: C Buster Posey is expected to come off the 10-day injured list Wednesday. The six-time All-Star has been out with a right hamstring strain he suffered in Baltimore on June 1. Posey was placed on the IL four days later, with the move retroactive to June 2. ... Belt was held out of the starting lineup with a sore neck he apparently suffered swinging in the batting cage during Sunday's loss to the Dodgers.UP NEXTPadres LHP Joey Lucchesi (5-3, 4.21 ERA) takes a two-game winning streak into Wednesday's start. Lucchesi pitched into the sixth inning to beat San Francisco on March 29. RHP Shaun Anderson (1-1, 4.18) pitches for the Giants in his first career start against San Diego.--More MLB:?https://apnews.com/MLB and?https://twitter.com/-Sports
MLB Game Preview: San Diego Padres vs. San Francisco Giants - Date: 6/11/2019 Padres' Paddack, Giants' Beede seek to exorcise demonsFLMOne pitcher seeking his first win and another seeking his first hit -- and redemption -- encounter opponents that have embarrassed them in the past when the San Diego Padres and host San Francisco Giants open a two-game series on Tuesday night.The matchup of National League West rivals already finds the fourth-place Padres (33-33) six games ahead of the last-place Giants (26-38) after San Francisco finished seven games north of San Diego in the 2018 standings.One reason for the Padres' surge has been right-hander Chris Paddack (4-4, 2.97 ERA), who ranks second in the National League among rookies in ERA behind Atlanta's Mike Soroka (1.38). Paddack will face off with San Francisco right-hander Tyler Beede (0-2, 8.15) on Tuesday.Paddack got off to a fast start, on the mound anyway, when he helped the Padres earn a 3-1 win over the Giants in his major league debut on March 31. He did not get a decision in the game despite holding San Francisco to just one run on two hits in five innings, striking out seven and walking one.The reason the game probably will never be forgotten by the 23-year-old, however, was because of what occurred in his first big-league at-bat.After the Giants intentionally walked Austin Hedges to load the bases in the second inning of a scoreless game, Paddack sliced an apparent single to right field, a liner that not only would provide his first major league hit but also his first RBI or two.However, Giants right fielder Gerardo Parra caught Paddack in too much of a celebratory mood and threw him out at first base, a rare 9-3 putout that ended the inning and left Paddack with neither a hit, an RBI nor a lead."I got thrown out," Paddack lamented afterward. "All the guys will give me a hard time about that. I'm sure it'll be up on all the (video) screens when I walk in." To add insult to injury, Paddack remains hitless in the majors, now 0-for-14 with eight strikeouts.His pitching has slipped a bit of late, as well. He is 0-2 in his past two starts, allowing nine earned runs and 14 hits in 9 1/3 innings.Paddock will face a Giants team that the Padres have beaten on five of seven previous occasions this season.Beede didn't pitch in any of those games, but he did face the Padres last April in his second major league start. He was bombed for five runs and six hits in 3 2/3 innings in a 10-1 loss.He was demoted to the minors after the debacle and didn't get back to the majors until last month.The 26-year-old remains winless in five big-league starts bridging the 2018 and '19 seasons, but he is just one start removed from his most promising outing: one run on five hits with four strikeouts and three walks in six innings of a 3-1 win at Miami on May 30."That gave me a strong foundation to build on and stay confident with throughout the season," Beede said of the outing. "I want to be a guy they can count on to contribute to the rotation and to this team. It's not to the point where I want to put pressure on myself and know that I've got to do something exceptional, but just know that I trust myself going out there." Both teams begin the series on two-game losing streaks.--Field Level Media
CLICK HERE TO GET FREE PICKS / ODDS FOR THIS SAN DIEGO PADRES VS. SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS GAME
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Who Is Really a Jew?
November 9, 2014 by Nathan Lopes Cardozo Leave a Comment
What makes one a Jew? Being born to a Jewish mother? Converting to Judaism? Not really. It is living by the spiritual order of Judaism that makes one a Jew; living through the Jews of the past and with the Jews of the present and future. We are Jews when we choose to be so; when we have discovered Jewishness on our own, through our search for the sacred; when we fight the never-ending spiritual struggle to find God, realize that the world needs a moral conscience, and carry that exalted burden so as to save the world and provide it with a mission.
One becomes a bit Jewish when one realizes that there cannot be nature without spirit and there is no neutrality in matters of moral conscience. But all this is not enough. We have a long way to go before we grow into full-fledged Jews. We must recognize the noble in the commonplace; endow the world with majestic beauty; acknowledge that mankind has not been the same since God overwhelmed us at Sinai; and accept that mankind without Sinai is not viable.
To create in ourselves Jewish vibrations we need to see the world sub specie aeternitatis (from the perspective of eternity). We must be able to step out of the box of our small lives and hold the cosmic view, while at the same time not losing the ground under our feet but dealing with our trivial day-to-day endeavors and sanctifying them. Not by escaping them through denial or declaring them of no importance, but by actually engaging them and using them as great opportunities to grow. As one painstakingly discovers this, one slowly becomes a Jew.
Some of us have to struggle to attain this; others seem to be born with it. They possess a mysterious Jewish soul that nobody can identify, but everyone recognizes it is there. It has something to do with destiny, certain feelings that no one can verbalize. What is at work is the internalization of the covenant between God, Abraham and, later, Sinai. It is in one’s blood even when one is not religious. It murmurs from the waves beyond the shore of our souls and overtakes our very being, expanding our Jewishness wherever we go.
Most Jews “have it,” but so do some non-Jews. They know they have it. It is thoroughly authentic. They are touched by it as every part of one’s body is touched by water when swimming, its molecules penetrating every fiber of one’s being. Nothing can deny it.
These are the authentic Jews, but not all of them belong to the people of Israel. Some are gentiles with gentile parents; others are children of mixed marriages. If they should wish to join the Jewish people they would have to convert in accordance with Halacha, although they have been “soul Jews” since birth.
But why are they not already full-fledged Jews, without a requirement to convert? All the ingredients are present! Why the need for the biological component of a Jewish mother, or the physical act of immersing in a mikveh (ritual bath)?
The reason must be that Halacha is not just about religious authenticity and quality of the soul. It is also about the down-to-earth reality of life. It asks a most important question: How shall we recognize who is Jewish and who is not? Can we read someone’s soul? How can one know for sure whether one is really Jewish? Can one read one’s own soul and perceive it? How do we know that our believed authenticity is genuine?
The world is a complex mixture of the ideal and the practical, where genuineness can easily and unknowingly be confused with pretentiousness. To live one’s life means to live in a manner that the physical constitution and the inner spirit of man interact, but also clash. There is total pandemonium when only the ideal reigns while the realistic and the workable are ignored.
Tension, even contradiction, between the ideal and the workable is the great challenge to Halacha. It therefore needs to make tradeoffs: How much authenticity and how much down-to-earth realism? How much should it function according to the dream and the spirit, and how much in deference to the needs of our physical world?
As much as Halacha would like to grant full dominion to the ideal, it must compromise by deferring to indispensable rules that allow the world to function. Just as it must come to terms with authenticity versus conformity (see Thoughts to Ponder 275), so it must deal with authentic Jewishness and the necessity to set external and even biological parameters for defining Jewish identity. And just as in the case of authenticity and conformity, here too, there will be victims and unpleasant consequences.
Some “soul Jews” will pay the price and be identified as non-Jews, despite the fact that “ideal” Halacha would have liked to include them. However unfortunate, Halacha must sometimes compromise the “Jewish soul” quality of an individual who because of these rules cannot be recognized as Jewish. Were we not to apply these imperatives, chaos would reign.
But there is more to it than that. There needs to be a nation of Israel, a physical entity able to carry the message of Judaism to the world. All members of this nation must have a common historical experience that has affected its spiritual and emotional makeup. There need to be root experiences, as Emil Fackenheim calls them, such as the exodus from Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea and the revelation at Sinai. The impact of these events crafted this people into a most unusual nation ready to take on the world and transform it. For Jews to send their message to the world they need to have a historical experience – as a family and later on as a nation – in which people inherit a commitment to a specific way of living even when some of its members object to it.
The fact that Judaism allows outsiders to join, though they were not part of this experience, is not only a wondrous thing but is also based on the fact that not all souls need these root experiences to become Jewish. They have other qualities that are as powerful and transforming, and that allow them to convert as long as they are absorbed into a strong core group whose very identity is embedded in these root experiences.
In terms of a pure and uncompromised religious ideal, this means that some Jews should not be Jews and some non-Jews should be Jews. Authenticity, after all, cannot be inherited; it can only be nurtured. Ideally, only those who consciously take on the Jewish mission, and live accordingly, should be considered Jews. If not for the need for a Jewish people, it would have been better to have a Jewish faith community where people can come and go depending on their willingness to commit to the Jewish religious way and its mission – just as other religions conduct themselves.
So, the demands of Halacha create victims when some “soul Jews” are left out of the fold, as is the case with children of mixed marriages who have non-Jewish mothers, or children of Jewish grandparents but non-Jewish parents. Similarly, with gentiles who have Jewish souls but no Jewish forefathers at all. All of these are casualties.
This is the price to be paid for the tension between the ideal and the need for compliance; for the paradox between the spirit and the law. That Halacha even allows any non-Jew to become Jewish through proper conversion is a most powerful expression of its humanity. In fact, it is a miracle.
There are probably billions of people who are full-fledged “soul Jews” but don’t know it, and very likely never will. Perhaps it is these Jews whom God had in mind when He blessed Avraham and told him that he would be the father of all nations and that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the seashore.
Filed Under: Jewish by Choice Tagged With: God and the Torah, Man
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