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Everyone simmer down. I have confirmed that Adele is NOT the singer of theme song for “Spectre,” the new James Bond movie. British tabs have been jumping up and down about Adele doing a repeat after “Skyfall” was such a hit. But it’s not her. Adele is working on a new album for a fall release, and I’m sure it will be lovely. But the James Bond folks went for someone new. The info is under lock and key. But I’m told that Sam Smith, this year’s Adele, is in the running. Who else could it be? It’s likely a male vocalist after the Adele hit, to keep things different. Josh Groban would be too operatic. Who else would be good? Bruno Mars would be an excellent choice. Adam Levine? Bond songs tend not to be choppy. They are anthemic. The worst ones were by Madonna, and by Alicia Keys. I think after “Skyfall,” the next Bond song will be melodic. Again, Smith or Mars are good choices. But no Adele, sorry. On to new things ! One last look back:

More than 8.600 people have shared a photo posted to Facebook by Carla Lewis, a veteran discharged by the military for being transgender. In the photo, Lewis wears a “casual Friday t-shirt” highlighting the discrimination of trans service members. Lewis responded to the popularity of her post in a follow-up post: Okay…today’s Facebook as been INSANE. Over 3200 SHARES? In what world do that many people care about my t-shirt or that I’m a vet that was discharged for being trans? Hundreds of friend requests and messages…thousands of notifications. It’s like my phone no longer belongs to me. Crazy I tell you! Crazy. Oh, and the cyber world apparently loves my “fleek” brows. Lewis also told the HuffPost: “Here’s the message I want others to glean from this shirt: Whenever a citizen volunteers for the armed services they immediately, at the very moment, make the conscious decision that they will sacrifice their life if it means securing freedom for their fellow citizens. Every right, every privilege enjoyed by an American citizen is paid with the currency of soldiers’ lives. Even if the rights and privileges secured enable others to lobby against me and my transgender brothers and sisters. Freedom matters to us.” The Pentagon announced plans over the summer to end its ban on transgender service in the military in May 2016.

Who should decide whether Californians may legally carry a concealed weapon? Here’s where it stands right now: The state Legislature handed off the decision to local law enforcement officials, federal judges are divided, the California attorney general wants to weigh in, and the U.S. Supreme Court may yet override all of them. California lawmakers have made it generally illegal to carry a gun, open or concealed, loaded or unloaded, in public places. However, state law allows individuals to obtain a license to carry a concealed weapon if they take a firearms training course, demonstrate “good moral character” and show “good cause” for the permit to be issued. The definition of “good cause” was left to local law enforcement officials. In San Diego County, Sheriff Bill Gore’s policy required evidence of some special risk or danger “to distinguish the applicant from the mainstream.” He required “supporting documentation” like restraining orders or letters from law enforcement agencies. Sheriff Gore said concern for “one’s personal safety alone is not considered good cause” for a license to carry a concealed weapon. For this policy, Gore was sued by videographer Edward Peruta, four other San Diego County residents, and the California Rifle and Pistol Association Foundation. Gore won, momentarily. Then U.S. District Judge Irma E. Gonzalez’s decision in the case of Peruta v. County of San Diego was reversed by a 2-1 ruling of a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel. The majority said “San Diego County’s ‘good cause’ permitting requirement impermissibly infringes on the Second Amendment right to bear arms in lawful self-defense.” The dissenting judge, Sidney Thomas, now the chief judge of the Ninth Circuit, said the majority’s opinion went too far with its sweeping ruling establishing a Second Amendment right to carry a weapon outside the home. When Sheriff Gore refused to appeal the decision, California Attorney General Kamala Harris and gun-control advocacy groups tried unsuccessfully to join the case. There is still a possibility that the Ninth Circuit will hear the case again, this time by a panel of eleven judges. As chief judge, Sidney Thomas would be one of them. If the Peruta decision stands, the Ninth Circuit will be in conflict with other circuits that have upheld policies similar to Gore’s. That would make it likely that the U.S. Supreme Court will accept the Peruta case or one like it. The high court ruled in 2008 that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms, and in 2010 that the right applies against state governments as well as the federal government. But the justices have not yet addressed the question of the right to carry a firearm outside the home. The pressure is on. Twenty-two groups have filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the latest round of the Peruta case, and the Ninth Circuit set up a website for the press and public “due to the level of interest in this case.” If the Supreme Court eventually rules that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry a weapon for lawful self-defense outside the home, every state or local policy that regulates the exercise of that right will face tough legal scrutiny. It’s the job of the federal courts to enforce constitutional rights. That’s the difference between rights and policies: Policies can be changed by elected officials under public pressure, but rights are a protection from elected officials and from public pressure. Expect a firefight in the Senate confirmation hearings for the next Supreme Court nominee, and for all federal judges. That’s where the future of Second Amendment rights will be decided. Susan Shelley is a San Fernando Valley author, a former television associate producer and twice a Republican candidate for the California Assembly.

About This Game Characters: Advanced facial animation system delivers the most sophisticated in-game characters ever seen. With 40 distinct facial "muscles," human characters convey the full array of human emotion, and respond to the player with fluidity and intelligence. Advanced facial animation system delivers the most sophisticated in-game characters ever seen. With 40 distinct facial "muscles," human characters convey the full array of human emotion, and respond to the player with fluidity and intelligence. Physics: From pebbles to water to 2-ton trucks respond as expected, as they obey the laws of mass, friction, gravity, and buoyancy. From pebbles to water to 2-ton trucks respond as expected, as they obey the laws of mass, friction, gravity, and buoyancy. Graphics: Source's shader-based renderer, like the one used at Pixar to create movies such as Toy Story® and Monster's, Inc.®, creates the most beautiful and realistic environments ever seen in a video game. Source's shader-based renderer, like the one used at Pixar to create movies such as Toy Story® and Monster's, Inc.®, creates the most beautiful and realistic environments ever seen in a video game. AI: Neither friends nor enemies charge blindly into the fray. They can assess threats, navigate tricky terrain, and fashion weapons from whatever is at hand. 1998. HALF-LIFE sends a shock through the game industry with its combination of pounding action and continuous, immersive storytelling. Valve's debut title wins more than 50 game-of-the-year awards on its way to being named "Best PC Game Ever" by PC Gamer, and launches a franchise with more than eight million retail units sold worldwide.NOW. By taking the suspense, challenge and visceral charge of the original, and adding startling new realism and responsiveness, Half-Life 2 opens the door to a world where the player's presence affects everything around him, from the physical environment to the behaviors even the emotions of both friends and enemies.The player again picks up the crowbar of research scientist Gordon Freeman, who finds himself on an alien-infested Earth being picked to the bone, its resources depleted, its populace dwindling. Freeman is thrust into the unenviable role of rescuing the world from the wrong he unleashed back at Black Mesa. And a lot of people he cares about are counting on him.The intense, real-time gameplay of Half-Life 2 is made possible only by Source®, Valve's new proprietary engine technology. Source provides major enhancements in:

Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. Aug. 29, 2013, 8:19 PM GMT By Becky Oskin The age of discovery isn't over yet. A colossal canyon, the longest on Earth, has just been found under Greenland's ice sheet, scientists announced Thursday in the journal Science. "You think that everything that could be known about the land surface is known, but it's not," said Jonathan Bamber, lead study author and a geographer at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. "There's still so much to learn about the planet." The great gorge meanders northward from Summit, the highest point in central Greenland, toward Petermann Glacier on the northwest coast, covering more than 460 miles (750 kilometers). Researchers think the ravine could be even longer, but they don't yet have the data to prove where the canyon peters out deep under the interior ice sheet. "It may actually go farther south," Bamber told LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet. [See Photos of Mega-Canyon Under Greenland Ice Sheet] The broad chasm is up to 2,600 feet (800 meters) deep and 6 miles (10 km) wide, similar to America's Grand Canyon in scale, the researchers said. The distinctive V-shaped walls and flat bottom suggests water carved the buried valley, not ice, Bamber said. Though it is not the world's deepest canyon, it's the longest, handily besting the 308-mile-long (496 km) Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon in China. Many mysteries in what lies beneath The discovery could raise as many questions as it answers. For instance, researchers have long puzzled over what happens to water under Greenland's interior ice sheet. Greenland bows inward like a soup bowl, yet water melting under the interior ice sheet seems to drain to the sea instead of pooling in the middle. Bamber and his colleagues think the northern canyon may route some of the meltwater into the ocean. A topographic map of Greenland from bedrock elevation data. J. Bamber, University Bristol The great river channel could explain the missing lakes under Greenland's interior ice sheet. The weight of the ice sheet pushes down the island's middle into a bowl-shaped basin. Given this saggy middle, scientists have long wondered why Greenland isn't filled with buried lakes, like Antarctica's Lake Vostok and Lake Whillans. The northern part of the canyon may drain meltwater, but farther inland, Bamber and his colleagues think the massive weight of ice pushes water elsewhere. [North vs. South Poles: 10 Wild Differences] "It probably doesn't have water flowing through all of it today, given the interference by the ice overburden. However, when ice-free, water would channel through all of it," Siegert told LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet. And the newly discovered canyon could boost the breakup of one of the coastline's briskly retreating glaciers. The Greenland Grand Canyon dumps right into Petermann Glacier, which has dropped two massive icebergs in the past three years, each bigger than Manhattan. "It's fair to say that a lot of work is now needed to work out the evolution of this feature and what it means for today's ice sheet," said study co-author Martin Siegert, a glaciologist at the University of Bristol. Where the water flows Scientists still have very little insight into how much water flows under the middle of Greenland's Ice Sheet, or where it goes, because of how hard it is to reach the thick ice, then drill under it or measure a thin film of water with radar. Yet understanding the water flow is an important part of predicting how the ice sheet will behave as the climate warms. The uncertainty means conflicting models of water movement, called basal hydrology, are often published in research journals within weeks of each other. On July 31, 2012, a satellite showed the large iceberg had nearly reached the mouth of the fjord that houses Greenland's Petermann Glacier. NASA "When it comes to basal hydrology under the big ice sheets, we are basically scratching our heads at this point," said Michael Studinger, project scientist for NASA's Operation IceBridge, who was not involved in the study. "That's why you see contrasting results coming out." (IceBridge is a mission that uses airplanes outfitted with various instruments to measure changes in the polar ice sheets every year.) The canyon predates the ice sheet that permanently covered Greenland about 1.8 million years ago, Siegert said. The channel curls across northwestern Greenland, ending in a deep fjord filled by Petermann Glacier. The find opens a whole new set of ideas to explore for scientists studying the glacier's rapid retreat. "If there is a channel that can transport subglacial meltwater all the way from the interior of Greenland to the coast, that flows right into Petermann Glacier, you change the whole water circulation there and have a big impact on stability," Studinger said in an interview. "This is one of the biggest glaciers in Greenland and it produces a lot of big icebergs," he said. Crikey! The new canyon isn't the first amazing polar discovery from Bamber and his colleagues, who are experts in creating models of the polar regions, but it is one of the most incredible, they say. Siegert compared it to learning of Lake Vostok in Antarctica. "When Jonathan came into my office and put (the) papers on my desk, it was a jaw-dropping experience," Siegert said. The gorge popped out of airborne radar data collected by NASA's Operation IceBridge and many other Arctic surveys. The radar onboard the IceBridge plane penetrates the ice, revealing the landscape below. Hints of a linear feature in northwest Greenland had appeared in earlier bedrock maps, but no one ever had enough detail to find the canyon until now, Bamber said. "It wasn't exactly a 'Eureka' moment, but as we worked up the data, we realized there was something there that looked pretty extensive," Bamber said. "We looked at some profiles across it just to make sure it was what we thought it was, and it very much looked like a river profile," he said. "I thought, 'Well, crikey, we've discovered a 500-mile-long paleoriver.'" Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us @OAPlanet, Facebook and Google+. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet. Editor's Recommendations

After taking a year to find his next project, David Fincher may be ready to helm another adaptation of a popular book. Fincher is in talks to helm Fox’s “Gone Girl,” adapted from the Gillian Flynn novel that has sold 2 million copies. No offer is on the table yet. Reese Witherspoon and Bruna Papandrea will produce through their Pacific Standard banner along with Leslie Dixon. Flynn’s third novel, “Gone Girl” is the dark and suspenseful story of a woman who disappears on the day of her fifth wedding anniversary. It’s not known if Witherspoon would be interested in starring as the mysterious wife. A bidding war ensued last summer when the book, which spent eight weeks at No. 1 for on the New York Times bestseller list, was offered to studios, and Fox paid seven figures to outbid studios including Universal. Related 'Gone' Team Talks Portraying Psychological Trauma in Missing-Persons Procedural TV News Roundup: 'Grey's Anatomy' Scores Three Extra Episodes for Season 15 Fincher had been attached to direct a reboot of “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” for Disney. Sources say there is still a possibility he could do that project next and hold off on “Gone Girl.” In October, Variety first reported that Disney had placed a three-month hold on the director as it decided whether to move forward. During this time, Fincher began courting his frequent collaborator Brad Pitt for the role of Ned Land, played by Kirk Douglas in the 1954 film version of “Leagues.” The Pitt casting never came though, and the studio is still deciding what to do with the project, insiders say. Fincher had begun looking for other projects in case “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” fell through. Fincher is also still attached to helm “Dragon Tattoo” sequel “The Girl Who Played With Fire,” and Sony wants to get the next installment off the ground. Screenwriter Steve Zaillian is currently working on a pilot for HBO and hasn’t had time to pen the script, one reason Fincher was looking for other projects until a script is ready. After a diverse bunch of adaptations including “Fight Club,” “Zodiac,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “The Social Network,” Fincher’s adaptation of bestseller “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” for Sony grossed more than $230 million worldwide.

After clearing the concussion protocol last week, safety Clayton Geathers still missed Monday night’s game due to a neck injury. Head coach Chuck Pagano updated that injury today, saying that it’s a week-to-week thing. In other injury news, Pagano said that right guard Denzelle Good, defensive lineman Zach Kerr, and outside linebacker Curt Maggitt are all in the concussion protocol. He said that outside linebacker Robert Mathis (bicep) is day-to-day, while cornerback Patrick Robinson (groin) is progressing well. The big injury situation is obviously regarding Clayton Geathers, as he will likely miss extended time with his neck injury. For the Colts, week-to-week means that a player will miss time, but we don’t know exactly how long Geathers will be out. It does very likely mean that he won’t be available for this Sunday’s huge game against the Texans, however, which is a big loss. It’s an even bigger loss due to the suspension of D’Qwell Jackson, as the Colts likely would have used Geathers as a linebacker more. But it’s unlikely he’ll be available this week, so we’ll have to see when he can get back. Regarding the other injuries, the Colts are dealing with a number of concussions. Denzelle Good, D’Qwell Jackson, Zach Kerr, and Curt Maggitt all suffered concussions in the win over the Jets. Pagano mentioend the Good and Jackson concussions after the game, but it turns out that Kerr and Maggitt later reported concussion-like symptoms as well. As Colts fans know well by now, there’s a set protocol that a player must go through before returning to the field from a concussion, so it will be tough (but not impossible) for these guys to clear the protocol on a short week. It all really just depends on how they respond, which is different in each case.

Pittsburgh may seem the last place to call the city of the future. Its population of 300,000 is less than half its peak 50 years ago. The once proud and profitable steel industry is now all but obsolete. New York has Wall Street and Broadway. Los Angeles has Hollywood. Paris has haute couture, and Rome has architecture. Even Philadelphia has the Liberty Bell. Pittsburgh’s biggest claim to fame is its football team. There is a crisis of the Rust Belt city in this country, and nowhere is it felt more acutely than in Detroit. The 2011 Super Bowl featured a commercial for Chrysler, the struggling automobile manufacturer. Eminem is driving through the city’s streets. A church choir and the beat of “Lose Yourself” is playing in the background as the narrator says: This isn’t New York City, or the Windy City, or Sin City, and we are certainly not anyone’s Emerald City. This is the Motor City, and this is what we do. Unfortunately, poetry, no matter how inspiring, can’t save a dying city. Detroit remains on the brink of bankruptcy. To the south, Chicago has witnessed an exodus of 200,000 people in the last decade alone. Baltimore is permanently associated with the urban decay of TV’s “The Wire.” Enrico Moretti crystallizes the crisis in The New Geography of Jobs, published last year. “The most dynamic areas in this country [in the aftermath of World War II] were manufacturing meccas like Detroit, Cleveland, Akron, Gary, and Pittsburgh. These cities were the envy of the world.” The identification of America’s prosperity with industrialization reached its height in the 1950s, when Charles Wilson, then-CEO of General Motors, famously said, “What is good for General Motors is good for the country, and vice versa.” In 1978, manufacturing employment reached its peak, with almost 20 million Americans working in factories. Then suddenly, the engine stopped and the car went into reverse. Since 1985, the United States has shed an average of 372,000 manufacturing jobs every year. “If the current trend continues,” Moretti lamented, “there will be more laundry workers than manufacturing workers in America when my son, who is now 3 years old, enters the labor market.” It is widely acknowledged that Cleveland (population decline since 2000: 17 percent), Cincinnati (minus 10 percent), St. Louis (minus 8 percent), and other metropolises can no longer compete for manufacturing jobs with Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Thailand. Pittsburgh bucks this trend of failing Rust Belt cities. This city in western Pennsylvania has become a paradigm for the post-manufacturing American economy. The Austrian-American economist, Joseph Schumpeter, coined the term “creative destruction,” the way in which capitalist economic development arises out of the destruction of some prior economic order. Pittsburgh is a perfect case study in creative destruction. Out of the ashes of its moribund steel industry, a new Pittsburgh — one built on technology and research — has emerged, poised and ready to take on the 21st century. * In the late 1970s, the U.S. steel industry was failing. Foreign competitors with lower labor costs and lower environmental standards were crowding the market. Coal and iron ore processing had become costly and inefficient. Oil prices, inflation, and interest rates soared. In 1979, the Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel Company suffered the largest quarterly loss — $561.7 million — in American corporate history. The episode evokes the recent travails of General Motors and Chrysler, except no bailout came to the rescue. Within a few short years, 115,500 manufacturing jobs vanished in Pittsburgh. The steel industry alone accounted for nearly 50 percent of the losses. The city was being talked about the way Detroit is now: Its very survival was in question. Marlee Myers, managing partner at the law firm Morgan Lewis in Pittsburgh, explained what was at stake. “This region had been dependent on the steel industry and the many jobs that it provided. We were really at a crossroads. We could have gone the direction of other failing Rust Belt cities, or we could reinvent ourselves.” The city’s revival has been part organic and part good long-term planning. With regards to the latter, Clifford Levine, an attorney who specializes in governmental law and chairs the Public Affairs Group of Cohen & Grigsby, gives credit to public-private partnerships. “There is a long tradition of political and corporate collaboration, going back to 1945 when David Lawrence was elected mayor,” he told The Politic. At the time, Pittsburgh was considered one of the most polluted cities in America. A Catholic Democrat, Lawrence forged the now famous bipartisan alliance with Richard Mellon, a member of the WASP establishment and staunch Republican chairman of one of the largest banks in the country. Despite their political and religious differences, the partnership drove a postwar urban renewal. “In the 1990s, under the leadership of Mayor Tom Murphy, the son of a steelworker, public and corporate leaders came together once again,” Levine continued. “A decade and a half after the steel industry collapsed in the early 1980s, people were still expecting the industry to return. Murphy came in and said, ‘Forget that past. We need to reclaim our city.’” More than 1,000 acres of abandoned, blighted industrial land were cleaned up. Dilapidated steel mills gave way to thriving commercial, retail, residential, and public spaces. Murphy oversaw the development of more than 25 miles of new trails alongside the river, as well as the creation of urban green space. In total, Murphy leveraged $4.8 billion in public-private partnerships. “The support and growth of the universities can’t be underestimated either,” said Tim White, vice president of development at the Regional Industrial Development Corporation (RIDC). The city is home to a handful of institutions of higher learning: Duquesne, Robert Morris, Chatham, Carlow, Slippery Rock, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and Washington and Jefferson. But undoubtedly, the two strongest universities are the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), now one of the top 10 hospital systems in the country, replaced U.S. Steel as the region’s largest employer. An $8 billion health care conglomerate with 50,000 employees, UPMC is now headquartered in the old U.S. Steel Tower, the city’s tallest building. Lest anyone forget how the times have changed, UPMC’s logo sits on top of it. With the help of grant-funded research, dozens of technology companies were born in the shadows of these universities. Fore Systems, a computer network switching equipment company, was founded by four CMU professors in 1990. A few years after a very successful IPO in 1994, a London-based company acquired it for $6.4 billion, adjusted for inflation. Myers called Fore Systems “a grand slam home run for the region.” It was one of many. Freemarkets Inc., a software company, and Respironics Inc., a medical supply company, are similar success stories. More than 30 robotics companies make Pittsburgh one of America’s major centers for robotic innovation. They are the product of CMU’s Robotics Institute, the world’s only Ph.D. program in robotics. With the turn of the century, the pace of progress accelerated. Whole Foods, Home Depot, and Trader Joe’s set up shop in the city. Then Google moved into a converted cookie factory — part of $131 million redevelopment project — just outside of the East Liberty neighborhood. East Liberty’s turnaround is Pittsburgh’s renaissance in a microcosm. This neighborhood of about 6,000 residents is wedged between some of Pittsburgh’s wealthiest and poorest areas. Crumbling office and commercial buildings have been converted into apartments, promising “urban chic” for people working at the nearby hospitals and universities. The 2011 average sale price for homes in East Liberty was about $80,000, daylight robbery by Manhattan standards. This modest sum, attractive for many young professionals, is still up more than 60 percent from a decade earlier. The CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, explained the search engine’s expansion into the city. “Much of computer science was invented here,” he told an audience at a Pittsburgh Technology Council event in 2009. This was a few days before the city would play host to the world’s wealthiest nations at the G-20 Summit. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs explained the administration’s choice of city: Pittsburgh “has seen its share of economic woes in the past, but because of foresight, investment is now renewed, giving birth to renewed industries that are creating the jobs of the future.” The event was the city’s cherry on top, the irrefutable stamp of approval that Pittsburgh had pulled off an unprecedented Rust Belt recovery. If the 2008 Olympics were China’s coming-out party, then the 2009 G-20 was Pittsburgh’s return to the world stage. * Challenges certainly remain. Many of them are not particular to Pittsburgh. Aging infrastructure, bloated public pensions, and underperforming public schools are among its ailments. Other obstacles are unique. “Pittsburgh continues to struggle with maintaining venture capital groups. Major funding comes almost exclusively from Boston and Silicon Valley,” Levine explained. Scott Stern ’15, a Pittsburgh native whose family has lived in the region for seven generations, pointed to the city’s dynastic politics. Luke Ravenstahl, the current 32-year-old mayor, is a third-generation local elected official. “If politicians are winning elections because of their last names and not their ideas, you’re not going to be electing the best people,” Stern said. The population of foreign-born professionals is also very low for a large American city. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey for 2006 to 2010, only 7 percent of Pittsburgh’s total population is foreign-born. Compare this with New York City: 3 million of its 8.2 million residents are immigrants. The city also struggles to retain its youth demographic. Eric Levine ’14 is moving to New York City next year rather than returning home to Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood: “There is no question that New York is the best city to be in when you’re young.” Levine has siblings in New York City, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. Will he return home one day? “Pittsburgh is a great city. There is a feeling of unity and pride.” But he is unsure, as is Josh Kalla ’14. “Eventually, I’d love to raise a family in Pittsburgh,” Kalla said. “I enjoyed growing up there. For now, though, I want to go to a Ph.D. program in political science, and there aren’t any good options in Pittsburgh.” Malia Spencer, a technology and manufacturing correspondent for the Pittsburgh Business Times, has a message for young people out there. “When I arrived here from Silicon Valley, I was surprised to see everything that’s going on. I had no idea about Pittsburgh — I was born and raised in California. I didn’t know what to expect; I thought it was going to be like Detroit. I got here, and it’s beautiful. There are forests everywhere. People are setting up co-working stations, incubators, startup weekends. It’s a small community, but you can definitely be hooked in pretty quickly.” Spencer captures the moment well. Yale “Yinzers” (slang for Pittsburgher) notwithstanding, according to U.S. Internal Revenue Service data, 1,430 more people moved into the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) than packed up and left between 2009 and 2010. This is welcome news for a region with one of the largest elderly populations in the nation. Can this success be duplicated? What can other Rust Belt cities learn from Pittsburgh? “The key is to understand your assets and build on them,” Tim White from the RIDC offered. “It is a matter of leadership and focus. It is about marketing your city to attract capital and talent. If Pittsburgh can escape from the clutches of misery, I am confident Detroit and Cleveland will bounce back.” Success for the former Rust Belt cities also lies in the diversification of their economies. Finance 101: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Pittsburgh had too many of its eggs in the steel basket. Detroit remains too dependent on the success of its automobile industry. While Pittsburgh is still heavily invested in manufacturing, steel production has transitioned into an industry of specialty metals and sophisticated alloys. Over 300 metals technology firms in the area provide production equipment, engineering services, parts, and supplies. Pittsburgh has more to offer than just specialized steel, booming technology and healthcare industries. It is working to groom its revitalized film industry (part of “The Dark Knight” was shot in Pittsburgh) and music scene to produce more artists like Wiz Khalifa and Mac Miller, prominent Pittsburgh-based rappers. Corporate money in the area, from firms such as Heinz and PNC, has allowed the arts to flourish. *** “What is good for General Motors is good for the country, and vice versa” is a slogan as antiquated as the typewriter. American prosperity is no longer identified with its manufacturing. And yet, too many of America’s cities are still struggling to grapple with the new economic realities. Yale students, as residents of New Haven, can appreciate this. A 10-minute walk from campus leads to the abandoned Winchester ammunitions factory, once the employer of thousands. A few miles south on the Metro-North is Bridgeport, “the Detroit of Connecticut,” a Third World city in the richest state in the richest country in the world. The coldhearted consultant would recommend that these cities cut their losses and fold to the change of tides. Cleveland’s loss is Phoenix’s gain. Why not close the chapter on the Rust Belt era to make way for the Sun Belt? Investing in Bridgeport is analogous to investing in. Should mayors and their municipalities choose not to surrender, they need not look to China. Should they choose to reverse their dwindling numbers and invest in new industries that will attract talent and capital, they need not look to Germany. They need only look to Pittsburgh. Josef Goodman is a junior in Morse College

The past 6 days proved Donald Trump is dangerously unfit for the presidency The lesson of the Machado saga: America’s enemies would find Trump predictable and easy to control. The past six days proved Donald Trump is dangerously unfit for the presidency. The problem isn’t that Trump is cruel, though he is. The problem isn’t that Trump is boorish, though he is. The problem isn’t that Trump is undisciplined, though he is. The problem is that Trump is predictable and controllable. Through most of this election, those would be the last two words anyone would associate with Donald J. Trump. His brand is impulsivity. The central fact of his political style is that staff can’t control his actions. Who else would launch a presidential campaign by calling Mexicans rapists and murderers? Who else would accuse an opponent’s father of being involved in JFK’s assassination? Who else would humiliate their running mate before introducing him? Who else would tweet schoolyard insults at his challengers and retweet white supremacists praising his virtues? Over the past six days, Hillary Clinton’s campaign revealed that this is a misreading of Donald Trump. His behavior, though unusual, is quite predictable — a fact the Clinton campaign proved by predicting it. His actions, though beyond the control of his allies, can be controlled by his enemies — a fact the Clinton campaign proved by controlling them. So far, this has played out, within the safe space of a presidential campaign, as farce. If Trump were to win the White House, it would play out as tragedy. It’s worth revisiting the Alicia Machado saga from this perspective. What stands out, in retrospect, is how contrived the whole operation was, how transparently Hillary Clinton set the trap in the final moments of the presidential debate. HOLT: We are at — we are at the final question. CLINTON: Well, one thing. One thing, Lester. HOLT: Very quickly, because we're at the final question now. CLINTON: You know, he tried to switch from looks to stamina. But this is a man who has called women pigs, slobs and dogs, and someone who has said pregnancy is an inconvenience to employers, who has said… TRUMP: I never said that. CLINTON: …women don't deserve equal pay unless they do as good a job as men. TRUMP: I didn't say that. CLINTON: And one of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest. He loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them. And he called this woman "Miss Piggy." Then he called her "Miss Housekeeping," because she was Latina. Donald, she has a name. TRUMP: Where did you find this? Where did you find this? CLINTON: Her name is Alicia Machado. TRUMP: Where did you find this? CLINTON: And she has become a US citizen, and you can bet… TRUMP: Oh, really? CLINTON: …she's going to vote this November. Donald Trump can be forgiven for being caught off-guard in the moment. His presidency-disqualifying sin came in the hours after the debate. The Clinton campaign released a slickly produced video featuring Machado. The Guardian and Cosmopolitan rushed pre-planned Machado profiles to publication. Hillary Clinton did everything but spray paint “THIS IS A TRAP” on the side of Trump Tower. And still Trump fell for it. And fell for it. And fell for it. Six days later, he’s still falling for it. There was nothing ingenious about Clinton’s scheme. If anything, it was a bit like her satisfied delivery of “Trumped-up trickle-down economics” — too clever by half, too obviously planned by whole. All Trump had to do was nothing. Or to say: “Hillary Clinton wants to talk about beauty pageants rather than her 30-year record of corruption and failure.” Seriously. That was it. Instead, he said this: And then tweeted this: “Check out sex tape and past,” tweeted the man who wants to be the next president of the United States of America at 5:30 am. We’re now six days beyond the debate. And Trump is still finding new ways to spring and re-spring Clinton’s trap on himself. On Friday, he told the New York Times that, in response to the Clinton campaign bringing up Machado, he would begin attacking Hillary Clinton for being “married to the single greatest abuser of women in the history of politics” — thus launching the line of assault likeliest to engender sympathy for Hillary Clinton, and opening his checkered marital history to public scrutiny. “She’s nasty, but I can be nastier than she ever can be,” is a thing Trump actually said, aloud, to reporters, in an interview meant to help his campaign. To appreciate just how self-destructive this strategy is, read the third paragraph of the Times story: In an interview with The New York Times, he also contended that infidelity was “never a problem” during his three marriages, though his first ended in an ugly divorce after Mr. Trump began a relationship with the woman who became his second wife. There is a part of me that believes the entire Alicia Machado trap was a long con to bait Trump into berating Clinton for her husband’s infidelities at the second debate, and making his past marital betrayals fair game for the press. What is extraordinary in all this is how enthusiastically Trump has taken the Clinton campaign’s bait, and how unconcerned he’s been with the fact that they meticulously planned all this in advance to damage him. It is almost not fair to call what the Clinton campaign created a trap. They publicly, explicitly, and warmly invited him to participate in their campaign strategy, and he accepted their invitation, because the satisfaction he receives from settling old scores and venting his rage is greater than the satisfaction he receives from leading in national opinion polls. In the context of a presidential campaign, all this is amusing. It will make a wonderful chapter in the next edition of Game Change. But imagine that this wasn’t a presidential campaign. Imagine it was the Trump presidency. And imagine it wasn’t Hillary Clinton trying to bait Trump into attacking Alicia Machado, but ISIS trying to bait Trump into attacking Iraq, or Vladimir Putin trying to bait Trump into breaking with NATO, or Angela Merkel trying to bait Trump into isolating the United States before a key vote at the United Nations, or China trying to bait Trump into giving them an excuse to assert their claim over Taiwan. We have all known, abstractly, that this is a possibility. That Trump is easily baited has been on display since he began running for president. That America’s enemies would construct detailed psychological profiles of him and launch sophisticated plans to take advantage of his weaknesses is obvious. But the expectation was that he would have staff around him — his National Security adviser, his chief of staff — who would explain that the latest provocation is a trap, and who would remind Trump of the importance of avoiding it. But that’s why the Machado affair has been so enlightening. In this case, Hillary Clinton’s campaign explained that they were setting a trap. The media explained that Clinton’s campaign was setting a trap. And all of Trump’s staff and advisers undoubtedly explained that Trump’s enemies were setting a trap. Trump didn’t listen, or perhaps he didn’t care. He sprung the trap anyway. He is more passionate about proving his dominance and humiliating his perceived foes than about following his strategy. As unpredictable and uncontrollable as he is to his allies, he is exactly that predictable and controllable to his enemies, and to America’s enemies.

Sagnagrunnur is a geographically mapped database of the main published collections of Icelandic folk legends. The work on the database was started in 1999 by Professor Terry Gunnell, then lecturer in Folkloristics at the University of Iceland. Inspired by the work of the late Swedish folklorist, Professor Bo Almqvist of University College Dublin, the form of the eventual database was decided in close cooperation with Rósa Þorsteinsdóttir at the Arnamagnean Institute in Iceland. This new version of the database (from 2014) is the end result of an intensive re-structuring of the database which now includes geographical mapping of a large number of the place names in the database. The re-design and the mapping work was carried out by Trausti Dagsson as a MA-project in Public Folklore at the University of Iceland. The database now involves a distribution map of published Icelandic legends, and is connected to both the homes of the original storytellers and collectors and those places mentioned in the legends (which can still be found). Most of these legends come from collections that were made between the middle of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. This project has been funded by RANNÍS (the Science Council of Iceland), the University of Iceland and Kungl. Gustav Adolfs Akademien för svensk folkkultur.

New Delhi: The AAP government will move the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Court order today quashing its decision to get the accounts of three private power distribution companies audited by Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today said that the HC order is a "temporary setback" for the people of the national capital and he is "committed" to provide cheap electricity to people. Del HC order is a temporary setback for the people of Del. Del govt will soon file an appeal in SC. — Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) October 30, 2015 "Delhi HC order is a temporary setback for the people of Delhi. Delhi government will soon file an appeal in SC. "I am committed to providing cheap electricity to people of Delhi. Our fight will continue (sic)," Kejriwal said in a series of his tweets. I am committed to providing cheap electricity to people of Delhi. Our fight will continue — Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) October 30, 2015 Earlier in the day, the Delhi High Court quashed the AAP government's decision to get the accounts of three private power distribution companies audited by the CAG. "We have allowed the petitions of the discoms," a bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice R S Endlaw said while clarifying that the entire audit process carries out so far as well as the draft report of the CAG would be "non-est" and would have no bearing any more. A senior government official said that on April 17, 2014, Supreme Court had made it clear that wherever public money or resources are involved, CAG audit is "required". CAG is a constitutional institution under Art 148 of the Constitution of India. Once it accepts reference for an audit, it must be respected, the official said. The discoms - Tata Power Delhi Distribution Ltd (TPDDL), BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd and BSES Yamuna Power Ltd - had challenged the AAP government's decision on January 7, 2014, of ordering a CAG audit of their accounts. The discoms had also challenged an order of a single judge of the High Court, who had refused to stall the CAG audit. The single judge, in his January 24, 2014 order, had also asked the discoms to "fully cooperate with CAG in the audit process". While allowing the discoms' pleas today, the court dismissed a PIL filed by NGO United RWAs Joint Action (URJA) which had sought an audit of the discoms' accounts by CAG. Earlier, the city government had told the court that a CAG audit of the private discoms here was necessary as these companies discharged "public function". The discoms are a 51:49 per cent joint venture between the private companies and the Delhi government. The government had said it was not trying to stop their (discoms) functioning or interfere in it, but was only trying to bring them under public audit, as 49 per cent stake in the discoms was held by the Delhi government which has also infused capital in these companies. PTI Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.

were the fetus's for the Whitehouse?Is Barack Obamaâs Mother-In-Law A Black Witch?...The Obama White House is abuzz with talk of witchcraft by first. A close friend of Michelle Obama says the president is furious at his mother-in-law after learning that[...]This is how it happened. Marian Robinson became increasingly frustrated as her husband, Fraser Robinson, was hobbled by multiple sclerosis in the late 1980s. The family pastor prayed with her and counseled her, but âshe turned to Santeria in a desperate hope,â Michelleâs friend said.But Marian was desperate and kept going anyway, even when her husband was to sick to go with her. I donât think the president knew anything about this earlier because it was before they met. Michelle and Craig (her brother) wanted to close the book on this and never talked about it again after their father died in 1991.â

According to freshly-minted rumors posted by Bloomberg, Apple is looking to do away with the iPhone’s tried-and-true fingerprint reader altogether, in favor of face-unlocking technology. The move would mark a major shift away from Touch ID, a mainstay in Apple phones since the introduction of the 5S, back in late-2013. The combination Touch ID/home button has been the source of a lot of speculation leading up to the iPhone 8’s release later this year. Previous rumors saw the company moving to a behind-the-screen haptic version, along the lines of what Samsung introduced with the Galaxy S8 earlier this year — something that seemed to be backed up by recently unearthed patent grants (though patents are a pretty spotty source for new features). KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who tends to have a pretty good track record with these sorts of things, noted the presence of “3D sensing for facial recognition” among the suspected additions to the phone in a report released back in March. That, in turn, lines up with a spate of rumors wherein Apple is buying up a ton of 3D cameras for devices — not to mention the fact that it picked up 3D sensor company PrimeSense back in 2013. Of course, Apple’s primary interest in 3D sensing could be that whole big AR push. Tim Cook has been super bullish on the technology for a while (even seemingly brushing aside VR in favor of it), and at WWDC, Apple made a big splash with its ARKit development platform. More on-board 3D hardware could really give the platform and even bigger boost, but face scanning is another great application for the technology. Apple is almost certainly looking to do something radical with its 10th anniversary phone — something considerably larger than the 7’s move from a mechanical to a haptic button. Most recent speculation has the company moving toward an (nearly) all-display design, and moving away from a fingerprint reader goes a ways toward heading in that direction. The 3D sensing aspect would also help improve the technology over many existing solutions, and we’ve been hearing tell that infrared modules are coming to the iPhone for a while now — possibly showing up in the next model. Moving toward a technology that doesn’t rely on visible light could help Apple combat the problem many current solutions have in low light. The latest rumor notes that the face scanning technology is “still being tested and may not appear with the new device.” While the pieces of the technology have been falling into place for a number of years now, Apple needs to get the feature just right if it’s going to ship it. The company’s been through the ringer a few times with antennagate and bendgate, though nothing to the degree of what Samsung experienced last year with the Note 7. Building the technology on 3D scanning would make it harder to spoof than a 2D solution, but even still, a feature tied this closely to payment authentication isn’t something Apple is going to want to rush to market. At very least, it could make sense for the company to keep Touch ID around for a generation as it irons any issues with the new technology. We’ve reached out Apple for comment on this latest rumor.

First… Sizing. What plates fit where? From my playtesting, I’ve found that each plate fits in the following rucks… 10lb : 10L Bullet, 15L Bullet, GR0, GR1, GR2 20lb : 10L Bullet, 15L Bullet, GR0, GR1, GR2 30lb : 15L Bullet, GR0, GR1, GR2 The 30lb plate is significantly thicker than the others. Not a big deal, but unexpected. I don’t really recommend using the Bullet Rucks with plates. They fit, but there isn’t a ton of room for the water bladder and in the case of the 30lber, not enough room for a full bladder, but there is room for a partially filled one very snuggly. The straps aren’t meant for that kind of weight either. It just isn’t comfortable over time under weight. Second… Placement. How can I arrange it in my ruck? A few options here. Laptop compartment, main pocket in the elastic pocket, or strapped to the MOLLE at the top. Laptop compartment : My personal favorite since it leaves room for gear in the ruck, but if you just insert the plate, it sits low and will slide up/down when inverted (during bear crawls and the like). How do I solve that? Butchered a yoga block and stuck it at the bottom of the pocket. Soft bottom and keeps the weight up high. Elastic pocket : Fits well, but isn’t secure. This is my 2nd choice for rucking, but third for events because it’s free-floating and could cause some issues. Just going for a ruck, it’s easy to slap into the pocket and go. That’s why it’s in 2nd. Strapped to the MOLLE : Last, but not least. It keeps the weight high and secure which is good. The bad? It’s annoying to take out and put back in place. The other 2 methods are much faster/easier to deal with. Third… Comfort. How do they feel? Solid cast iron. What’s there to say? Keep it flat against your back and it’ll feel fine. Update: After some feedback, I realized that I left off the edging. The edges are well rounded and won’t snag on anything, comfortable for prolonged carry via the handles or use as a training tool on its own. Very smooth. Overall thoughts? High quality at a really reasonable price point. It’s a hunk of metal so there isn’t a ton that can go wrong here, but still very impressive craftsmanship. The handles are convenient for strapping it, but also make for a reasonable kettlebell replacement in a pinch. Great product and a solid buy. Nice work guys.

A prankster convinced someone selling a rare £5 note to burn a hole in it by putting it into the microwave to 'smooth it out' after he was abusive to a woman online. Shaun Munro saw that the seller had called a woman a 'fat cow' when she inquired about the note, with a rare AB01 serial number, on a public buy and sell group. Mr Munro, 31, decided to get his revenge and offered to pay up to £1,500 for the note, as long as it was in mint condition. Prankster Shaun Munro (left) convinced someone selling a rare £5 note to burn a hole in it (right) by putting it into the microwave to 'smooth it out' after he was abusive to a woman He asked the seller to flatten the plastic note using an iron before eventually convincing him to wrap the money in tissue and microwave it. The note's furious owner then sent Shaun a picture of the note with a hole in it, and ranted: 'The note is ruined.' Mr Munro, from Llanarmon-yn-Ial, north Wales, said: 'I thought he was out of order so I gave him a taste of his own medicine. I never thought he'd actually go along with it. 'He put it up for sale in one of the buy-and-sell groups I'm in claiming that it was worth a lot because of its serial number. 'But every time a certain woman came on and enquired about it, he would give her all sorts of abuse. He even called her a fat cow. 'The worst thing you can do is say something horrible to a woman about her appearance. I thought he was a bit of an idiot. Mr Munro posed as someone wanting to buy the note, offering the seller £1,000 for it but saying he was 'concerned about the folds' IS YOUR FIVER WORTH THOUSANDS? The new plastic £5 notes have been selling for hundreds or even thousands since they were introduced in September. Those with the early AA01 serial numbers, meaning they were in the first million produced, have been selling on online auction site eBay for up to £800. Notes with the AK47 number have also become valuable, with one selling for £80,000 but the seller, Gareth Wright, was left empty-handed when the buyer refused to pay because he was waiting for 'a shipment of cocaine', he claimed. There are also four £5 notes in the country believed to be worth £50,000, engraved with an image of Jane Austen and a quote. The images on the notes were created by specialist micro-engraver Graham Short, who travelled to different locations in the UK to spend them. Another person, Gail Meikle, also managed to sell a note with a slight misprint for £1,699. Coins can make money too, with a special-edition WWF design released in 2011 with the famous panda logo and 50 other animals, regularly selling for more than £200. 'I expected him to realise I was joking when I asked him to get the iron out but he was going along with it. 'Then he said he didn't have an iron - what sort of person doesn't have an iron? So I told him the microwave would do the same job getting the creases out and he did that instead. 'I was sitting on my sofa p*****g myself basically. I didn't really feel bad about it at all because he was being abusive to this woman.' Mr Munro made his initial enquiry about the note - which the seller claimed was worth more because of its AB01 serial number - on New Year's Day. He then claimed he had contacts in Mayfair who were willing to send a courier to collect the note within 24 hours. But, he continued, they had some concerns about the flatness of the note, and so he proposed a series of methods to smooth it out. After initial reservations, the seller agrees to 'heat press' the note, but cannot locate an iron and proceeds with putting it in a microwave for 10 seconds. Mr Munro, who owns a masonry business, said: 'I could believe it when he sent me the picture back. There were three holes in the note and part of it had melted. After a long exchange asking the seller to flatten the note, Mr Munro convinced him to put it in the microwave. After ten seconds, there was a black hole in it (right) Mr Munro (pictured), who owns a masonry business, said: 'I could believe it when he sent me the picture back. There were three holes in the note and part of it had melted 'I actually did some research to make sure the note wasn't worth a fortune - that way I knew I wouldn't owe him more than a fiver if he did burn it. 'New Year's Day was one of my only days off so I was just fixing some bits in the garage and lying about on the sofa having a laugh to pass the time. 'I was messaging him for about four hours. My initial plan was to pretend to pay him with Monopoly money but I realised I could have a bit of fun with him.

Uncovering The 'Truth' Behind Lennon's FBI Files Jon Wiener is a history professor at the University of California-Irvine and a contributing editor to The Nation magazine. His other books include Come Together: John Lennon in his Time and Historians in Trouble. Wiener spoke with Terry Gross about the case in 2000. His book about John Lennon's FBI files is entitled Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files. Wiener also consulted on the documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon, which features interviews with Gore Vidal, Angela Davis, Yoko Ono and Walter Cronkite about the case. Historian Jon Wiener spent 14 years fighting to gain access to the FBI's secret files on John Lennon. At first, the FBI refused to release many of the documents, saying their release would endanger national security. Wiener's Freedom of Information case went all the way to the Supreme Court before the FBI agreed to settle. Anti-war songs, like "Give Peace a Chance," didn't exactly endear former Beatle John Lennon to the Nixon administration. In 1971, shortly after Lennon went to New York on a visa and met up with radical anti-war activists, the FBI put Lennon under surveillance, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service tried to deport him a year later. Oct. 9, 2010 would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday. Fresh Air remembers the legendary musician with excerpts from interviews conducted with people who knew him, and people who studied his life. This discussion with Jon Wiener was originally broadcast on Jan. 25, 2000. DAVID BIANCULLI, host: This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli sitting in for Terry Gross. Tomorrow is the 70th anniversary of the birth of John Lennon. In his lifetime, during and after The Beatles, Lennon lobbied hard to question and change the status quo - sometimes in song. (Soundbite of song, "Give Peace a Chance") Mr. JOHN LENNON (Singer-songwriter, musician): (Singing) Two, a one, two, three four. Everybody's talking about Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism, this-ism, that-ism. Isn't it the most? All we are saying is give peace a chance. All we are saying... BIANCULLI: Anti-war music, like "Give Peace a Chance," didn't exactly endear John Lennon to the Nixon administration. In 1971, shortly after John Lennon arrived in New York on a visa, he began associating with radical anti-war activists, and the FBI put Lennon under surveillance. The Immigration and Naturalization Service tried to deport him. Jon Wiener is a historian who investigated what the FBI and the INS did to Lennon between 1971 and 1972. After Lennon was murdered, Wiener requested Lennon's FBI files under the Freedom of Information Act. Terry Spoke with Jon Wiener in 2000, the year he wrote a book about the FBI files called "Gimme Some Truth." It opens with a memo from Senator Strom Thurmond to the Nixon White House, about an upcoming Beatle tour of the United States. The memo warns that John Lennon might combine rock music with politics and organize young people to vote against Nixon in the 1972 election. Thurmond's memo also suggests that terminating Lennon's visa might be an effective countermeasure. Professor JON WIENER (Author, "Gimme Some Truth"): A little historical background here, the '72 election was going to be the first in which 18-year olds had the right to vote. Before that you had to be 21. Everybody knew that young people were the strongest anti-war constituency, so the question was, for Lennon, how could he use his power as a celebrity to get young people into the political process? And also, this is a time when kids are very alienated from, you know, mainstream politics. So to get Lennon out of the country, the strategic countermeasure is to deport Lennon so he won't be able to take this tour that would register young voters. At the same time they're worried that, you know, young voters will vote against Nixon for kicking out, you know, the clever Beatle. TERRY GROSS: Now how accurate was the FBI's information that John Lennon did want to help organize these political concerts - that would be for peace and against Nixon? Prof. WIENER: There's no question that Lennon was talking about this his friends - his friends being Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, Bobby Seale -and they tried doing one of these in Ann Arbor, Michigan in December, 1971. They had John and Yoko headlined a political rock concert, the Free John Sinclair concert. Every once in a while I run into somebody who was there. Fifteen thousand people spent six hours in Chrysler Arena, they listened not only to John and Yoko, but Stevie Wonder came, Commander Cody came, the MC5 came, William Kunstler gave a speech, Jerry Rubin gave a speech, Bobby Seale gave a speech. And a lot of it was about, you know, mobilizing young people to oppose Nixon. So - and they were very excited. John and Yoko were very excited about the tremendous turnout they had for this concert and how successful it was. So they were interested in the idea. They never got to the stage of setting up the national concert tour because the deportation order came down just two months later. GROSS: How far did the INS get in deporting Lennon? Prof. WIENER: Well, for much of 1972 and '73, Lennon was under an order to leave the country within 60 days. He had very talented legal help and they kept getting these deadlines extended. There was a lot of people mobilized to support him, but really, it wasnt until after Watergate, after Nixon left office, that the Gerald Ford administration immigration service finally agreed to grant Lennon his green card on very narrow legal grounds. So for two years he was under a 60 day order to leave the country, almost continuously. GROSS: Now, let's talk more about the FBI documents that you were finally able to get through the Freedom of Information Act. You say that the FBI documents make the FBI look more like the Keystone Cops than the Gestapo. Give us an example of one of the documents that you think makes them look like Keystone Cops. Prof. WIENER: Well, there's one where they - J. Edgar Hoover sends out instructions to locate Lennon as quickly as possible. They say his last known address is St. Regis Hotel, 150 Bank Street, New York City. Now every cop and cab driver in New York knows that the St Regis Hotel, you know, is on Central Park. It's not - and that Bank Street is in the West Village, so this couldnt be right. In fact. Lennon at the time, was living on Bank Street, but he was living at 105 Bank Street, not 150 Bank Street. So here's like this all points bulletin, you know, find Lennon. They're just confused. I mean it could've happened to any of us, I guess. The other really strange one is that there's a kind of a wanted poster for Lennon. The FBI proposed that "Lennon should be arrested, if at all possible, on possession of narcotics charges" - I'm quoting now from one of the documents "which would make him more immediately deportable." And these instructions to local police officials include a kind of a wanted poster. A picture of Lennon, you know, height, weight, eye color and so on. You'd think that they wouldnt really need this. Lennon was certainly one of the most recognizable faces in the world in 1972. They have a picture there anyway. But the strangest thing is the picture isn't of John Lennon. It's of another guy. (Soundbite of laughter) Prof. WIENER: A guy - I mean I know who it is. It's a guy named David Peel... (Soundbite of laughter) Prof. WIENER: ...who was an East Village folk singer, a street singer, the busker type, who looked a little like Lennon. I mean he wore the wire-rimmed glasses and had Lennon's style of long hair, of course, lots of other people did in 1972. David Peel had recorded on Apple Records. Maybe that's how they got confused. So the FBI, you know, was lamentably out of touch with the mainstream, not just of, you know, the radical counterculture of New York City, but you would, you know, you would think John Lennon is kind of pretty much the mainstream in 1972. GROSS: Well, the funny thing is is that the FBI documents - for instance, there's a memo from Hoover in which he describes Lennon as something like a member of the singing group, The Beatles. As if like... (Soundbite of laughter) GROSS: You know, as if like who The Beatles are really needs to be explained. Prof. WIENER: You know, I've always been fascinated by that sentence. This is in J. Edgar Hoover's letter to H.R. Haldeman. And the first sentence is John Winston Lennon is a member of The Beatles singing group. Now what I'm not sure is, is it that J. Edgar Hoover wants to prove that he knows what The Beatles are and the names of The Beatles? Or is it that he thinks that Nixon does not know who John Lennon is? (Soundbite of laughter) Prof. WIENER: Or that it's this John Lennon, the John Lennon who is The Beatle is the one that we're talking about here. I've never been able to figure out which of those is the case. GROSS: Did you find anything in the FBI files that were released to you that indicated that the FBI went beyond surveillance - that they ever tried to set Lennon up? Prof. WIENER: You know, there's like a couple of documents. Their concern was that Lennon would participate in some kind of concert, rally, anti-war demonstration outside the Republican National Convention. And there's a memo from J. Edgar Hoover to the head of the Miami FBI office that suggests that if Lennon could be arrested on possession of narcotics charges he would become more immediately deportable. Now this seems to me an effort to set Lennon up for a drug bust. The FBI doesnt enforce possession of narcotics charges, that's a state offense, this is not part of what the FBI is supposed to be doing. I then filed a Freedom of Information request with the Miami FBI office, asking for their files on Lennon, to see what their response to this was. They replied to me that their John Lennon file had been destroyed as a part of a routine file destruction procedure. GROSS: Hmm. Prof. WIENER: Now I have to note that - know that Lennon files were collected in five other cities and none of those places destroyed their Lennon file, so we wonder what was in the Miami Lennon file that was destroyed. BIANCULLI: Historian Jon Wiener speaking to Terry Gross in the year 2000. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR. (Soundbite of music) BIANCULLI: Let's get back to Terry's 2000 interview with historian Jon Wiener whose book about the FBI investigation of John Lennon is titled "Gimme Some Truth." GROSS: Now you have the FBI document that explains why the FBI stopped its surveillance of Lennon. Would you summarize and read an excerpt of that document for us? Prof. WIENER: This is dated August 30th 1972. This is like two months before the presidential election. This is a memo to the acting director - now that's L. Patrick Gray, J. Edgar Hoover had died in May - from the special agent in charge of the New York FBI office. It says (Reading) For the past several months there has been no information received to indicate that the subject is active in the new left. And it indicated what the sources are. (Reading) All advised that during the month of July 1972, that the subject has fallen out of favor of activists Jerry Rubin, Stewart Albert and Rennie Davis, due to subject's lack of interest in committing himself to involvement in anti-war and new left activities. In view of this information, the New York division is placing this case in a pending inactive status. GROSS: Now is that true of the whole FBI or just the New York division? Prof. WIENER: Well, New York was the office of origin - the OO - as its called in the files. They are the ones who are responsible for conducting the investigation. I mean, what this really is saying here is that the Immigration Service and the FBI have succeeded in pressuring Lennon to cancel his plans for this national concert tour and to withdraw from anti-war activity. His lawyers told him that his case for fighting deportation was a pretty weak one. In fact, they'd never seen anyone win a case under these terms, and therefore, the legal advice was dont do anything more that would further provoke the Nixon administration. He really wanted to stay in the United States. Yoko was involved, at that point, in a custody dispute over her daughter from a previous marriage - her daughter Kyoko. So John, if he had been deported, Yoko would've stayed behind. He didnt want to be separated from Yoko, so he cancelled the plans for the concert tour. He dropped out of movement activity and the FBI is reporting that they have accomplished their job. GROSS: So in that sense the FBI did succeed in neutralizing - as they like to put it - in neutralizing John Lennon. Prof. WIENER: Yeah, neutralizing is one of the scary words which appear in the file. Some people think this refers, you know, to assassination plans or something like that. I dont think that that's the case. Neutralizing means silencing him, getting him out of the picture through this deportation threat. And there's no question that Lennon was silenced as a spokesman of the anti-war movement. GROSS: How much do you think John Lennon knew about the FBI's surveillance of him? Prof. WIENER: Well, he understood that this whole deportation thing was politically motivated. He complained publicly on TV shows, on "The Mike Douglas Show," on "The Dick Cavett Show," you know, these criminal enterprises that - too many people were coming to fix his phones down on Bank Street in the West Village and that there were strange men outside in suits who followed him around. He eventually sued the FBI, claiming he had been the target of illegal wiretapping. Part of his FBI file is the FBI's own response to that charge. They replied that they could find no evidence of authorized wiretapping in their files. You know, this seems to me like a typical Nixon-era, non-denial denial. They say they could find no evidence, but maybe they didnt look very hard. They said they could find no evidence of authorized wiretapping, but it could've been unauthorized. It's also possible that the wiretapping was not done by the FBI but was done by the New York police or some other agency. So Lennon sometimes thought he was just being paranoid. He would say, you know, he wasnt important enough to be the target of this kind of surveillance. And other times he, you know, loudly proclaimed that he was the target of government persecution. It turns out it's the second that was correct. But he never was sure in his own time that it was the FBI that was after him. GROSS: Do you have evidence that his phone really was tapped? Prof. WIENER: There are no wiretapping logs in the Lennon FBI file of the kind that there are, say, in the Martin Luther King files, so... GROSS: Mm-hmm. Prof. WIENER: ...this remains an open question. I mean, he lived next door to John Cage on Bank Street, and whenever he needed to take a... GROSS: Wow. (Soundbite of laughter) Prof. WIENER: It's, you know, it's the '60s. It's the West Village in the '60s. Whenever he needed to make, you know, a secure conversation, they would go next door and use John Cage's phone in the belief that the FBI didn't know John Cage was. They were probably right about that. GROSS: Right. The FBI wasn't interested in chance music, huh? (Soundbite of laughter) Prof. WIENER: Probably not. GROSS: You know, you say in your book that one of the things you really find fascinating about these FBI files is that they document an era when rock music seemed to have real political force. Say some more about that. Prof. WIENER: Well, you know, it's a little hard to believe today that a president would fear the power of a rock star. Rock stars often today have political causes, but they're always or - they're often - they're usually the safe ones - you know, save the rain forest or fight breast cancer or something like that, issues that nobody is going to, you know, try to deport you for advocating. It's still hard to figure out whether the effort to deport Lennon was a complete paranoia on Nixon's part. After all, Nixon did win the 1972 election by an overwhelming landslide. His opponent, George McGovern, carried what, two or three states, something like that. So maybe the whole thing was just paranoia on the part of Nixon matched by paranoia on the part of Lennon and his friends. On the other hand, all of this was put in motion long before that presidential election, you know, in the winter beforehand. And at that point, I don't think it was clear to anybody that Nixon was going to win in a landslide. Nixon was concerned about this youth vote and how that might affect the elections. It wasn't clear that McGovern was going to be the candidate. You know, there's a lot of reasons not to like Richard Nixon. I don't -never liked him very much myself. But, you know, he was one of the most successful political candidates in recent history. So I'm kind of willing to accept Nixon's judgment that Lennon's political plans for 1972 were significant, were interesting, and, you know, did merit some kind of presidential response. GROSS: And that's something that you find interesting about the times, and something that you admire Lennon for. Prof. WIENER: Yeah. I mean, Lennon really took risks here of a kind that you hardly see anybody ever taking. How many people in the entertainment world have faced deportation because of their political actions? I mean, what - Charlie Chaplin was sort of run out of the United States. Paul Robeson left. It was sort of the opposite, where he was denied the right to travel, and then he left, you know, anyway. You know, Bertolt Brecht fled after being quizzed by HUAC. This is a very small group of people. So I think it underscores the intensity of Lennon's commitment. I mean, I don't think he knew the risks he was taking. But, you know, that's sort of what he was like. He was a risk-taker. He wanted to stand up for what he believed in. He wasn't going to play it safe. It wasn't a safe age. So I think that's admirable. GROSS: Well, John Wiener, I thank you so much for talking with us. Prof. WIENER: My pleasure. BIANCULLI: Historian John Wiener, speaking to Terry Gross in the year 2000. His book about the FBI investigation of John Lennon is called "Gimme Some Truth." John Lennon, who was murdered in 1980, would have turned 70 tomorrow. On our website, you can link to an op-ed by John Weiner in today's L.A. Times and read letters supporting Lennon's case to stay in the country written by Bob Dylan, John Cage and others. That's at freshair.npr.org. Coming up: Film critic David Edelstein reviews two new movies. This is FRESH AIR. Copyright © 2010 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Last week, two reports again put Texas cities at the top of a national survey. Houston, Dallas, and McAllen were named among the 20 top-performing large U.S. metros, according to a survey out of the Brookings Institution that measures housing prices, employment and economic growth. Another report from the Milken Institute named San Antonio and El Paso the best performing cities in all of 2011. (Last year, Austin and McAllen finished in the top five.) "Texas metros continued to dominate the rankings, taking four of the Top 5 positions and nine of the Top 25," according to the Milken Institute report, which found Texas added one in every five new jobs in 2011. One statistic to rule them all: By September of this year, only six major cities had recovered all of the jobs they had lost in the Great Recession. Five of them -- Austin, El Paso, Houston, McAllen, and San Antonio -- are in Texas. ROUGH PATCH UP AHEAD? Don't look now, but Texas' fortune might be fading. The reason why comes down to one thing some of its residents -- and certainly its governor, Rick Perry -- would prefer not to talk about: The U.S. Congress. If you haven't heard of the Base Realignment and Consolidation (i.e.: BRAC), odds are you don't live in El Paso or San Antonio, where the congressional deal moved billions in military resources over the last few years. In San Antonio, the growing military is at the heart of the stable recovery. The city's air force bases and Fort Sam Houston employ 77,100 people, and their medical training facilities employ up to another 100,000. But that doesn't even compare with El Paso, which "has benefited more from the military base realignment than any other metro," according to the Milken Institute. After the doubling of Fort Bliss, this one El Paso base now employs nearly 10 percent of the city's population. Not employed population. Total population. Relying on military spending has generally been a good bet for the last ten years. But when the 2011 supercommittee failed to come to an agreement on cutting the deficit, it triggered a sequester that would cut total defense spending by a whopping $700 billion, starting in 2013. You can bet those cuts will be felt harder in San Antonio and El Paso than almost any other city. But even before these cuts take place, Texas' strongest cities are showing signs of weakness. Despite leading the nation in employment resilience for the last two years, they're among the worst performing cities in the country right now, according to the Brookings report, which focused on data from the third quarter of 2011. What's happening? Once again, it comes back to government spending, which is tightening at every level. In order to understand why shrinking total government would hurt some Texas cities' growth, you have to understand what was behind their resilience in the first place.

Watch live reports from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Anderson Cooper is on scene for firsthand accounts of the horror and devastation from the earthquake. Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- Rescue workers struggled to clear rubble and bodies Wednesday from the streets of Haiti's "flattened" capital, where a government official said the death toll from Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake may exceed 100,000. Thousands of injured people waited for care outside badly damaged hospitals, while an unknown number remained trapped inside collapsed buildings. Basic services like water and electricity were out, and Haitian President Rene Preval said his government needs help clearing streets so rescuers can reach some of the hardest-hit areas. "We need medicine. We need medical help in general," Preval told CNN. "Some of the hospitals, they collapsed." People were digging though the rubble of leveled buildings with their hands Wednesday, looking for survivors or bodies, CNN's Anderson Cooper reported from Port-au-Prince. Other CNN correspondents in Port-au-Prince and its suburbs reported whole blocks of collapsed buildings, with dozens of bodies piled in the streets. Impact Your World: How you can help Video images captured just moments after the temblor show dust-covered survivors rushing through the streets, yelling in terror. Others trapped in buildings are seen punching out debris and bricks, and shouting for help and trying to squeeze themselves out through cracks in the structures. Port-au-Prince "is flattened," said Haiti's consul general to the U.N., Felix Augustin, who said he believed more than 100,000 people were dead. But Preval said other estimates ranged from 30,000 to 50,000. "It's too early to give a number," Preval said. Hear the prime minister describe the situation The 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck shortly before 5 p.m. Tuesday, centered about 10 miles (15 kilometers) southwest of Port-au-Prince, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. It could be felt strongly in eastern Cuba, more than 200 miles away. The earthquake's power matched that of several nuclear bombs, said Roger Searle, a professor of geophysics in the Earth Sciences Department at Durham University in England. He said the combination of its magnitude and geographical shallowness made it particularly dangerous. About 3 million people -- one-third of Haiti's population -- were affected by the quake, the Red Cross said. About 10 million people most likely felt shaking from the earthquake, the U.S. Geological Survey said. AC360 Blog: Anderson outside Haiti's National Cathedral As night fell over the island Wednesday, gunshots sounded off in Port-au-Prince. Screams and wails could be heard with each aftershock. Some people who still had homes refused to go inside, fearing collapse. Scores huddled together in parks and sidewalks, trying to get rest. Though planes carrying aid began arriving Wednesday, humanitarian groups struggled to get the supplies to victims due to the poor roads and debris. There was no clear system for clearing debris, removing bodies and treating the injured, officials and journalists reported. "Simply getting through the streets to collect the dead bodies is seemingly an impossible task," CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta reported from the capital, where shooting could be heard in the background. "There's hardly any heavy machinery to try and dig through the rubble -- people are doing it by hand. "The hospitals themselves -- the destination of those patients who might survive -- they're nonexistent or have a terrible infrastructure," Gupta said. Haiti native and "Heroes" cast member Jimmy Jean-Louis was searching for his elderly parents in Haiti on Wednesday. He said the Haitian government is not up to addressing the overwhelming nature of the disaster. "Just as an example ... we had one school that collapsed -- one school, and we were unable to take care of that," he said, referring to a November 2008 incident that killed 90 people in Petionville, Haiti. "This year, we have the entire city [of Port-au-Prince] that collapsed, including the major points such as hospitals, hotels and even the presidential palace." Former President Clinton, the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, appealed to the public to support programs that will provide food, water, shelter and medical supplies to the impoverished country. "The most important thing you can do is not to send those supplies, but to send cash" to relief agencies, Clinton said. Governments and agencies across the globe geared up to help, including rescue teams from China, Iceland and France, Haiti's onetime colonial ruler; aid flights and 3 million euros ($4.35 million) from Spain; doctors from Cuba; and a field hospital from Russia. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the United Nations plans to release $10 million in aid immediately, while the World Bank pledged another $100 million Wednesday afternoon. President Obama promised a "swift, coordinated and aggressive" response from the United States. "The reports and images that we've seen of collapsed hospitals, crumbled homes and men and women carrying their injured neighbors through the streets are truly heart-wrenching," Obama said. Watch survivors describe what they saw Clinton also urged international leaders to fulfill their previous donor commitments to Haiti. "Most countries are way behind on fulfilling it. ... If you can provide any emergency help, if you can give us helicopters or basic medical supplies -- we need that," Clinton said. The U.S. military is working to get ground and air assessments of the damage, with Coast Guard cutters, airplanes and choppers deploying to the scene, and Navy ships preparing to leave. Are you there? Submit an iReport Two Coast Guard crews of C-130 Hercules fixed-wing aircraft were evacuating nearly 140 U.S. personnel to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Nine critically injured peopled were taken to the U.S. Naval Hospital Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Numerous relief organizations were already working in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country, when the quake struck Tuesday afternoon. Aid groups scrambled to help in the aftermath of the quake, but were struggling with the same problems as ordinary Haitians. In a small clinic in Port-au-Prince, doctors were overwhelmed with the causalities coming in. Bodies and bleeding wounded seemed to cover every inch of the clinic. A woman with a broken leg sat on the floor next to the body of a dead toddler who was covered by a sheet. She'd been waiting for treatment since Tuesday. A CNN crew at the clinic counted at least 13 other adult bodies piled outside. Others were still alive, leaning on walls, lying on floors in despair. None of the three aid centers run by Doctors Without Borders was operable Wednesday, the group said. The organization was focusing on re-establishing surgical capacity so it could deal with the crushed limbs and head wounds it is seeing. The earthquake sheared huge slabs of concrete off structures and pancaked scores of buildings, trapping people inside those buildings, and knocking down phone and power lines. "One woman, I could only see her head and the rest of her body was trapped under a block wall," said Jonathan de la Durantaye, who drove through Port-au-Prince after the quake. "I think she was dead. She had blood coming out of her eyes and nose and ears." The headquarters of the U.N. mission in Haiti, a peacekeeping and police force established after the 2004 ouster of then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, collapsed during the quake, leaving leaving about 150 members unaccounted for, U.N. officials in New York said Wednesday. At least 10 survivors were pulled from rubble at the U.N. mission, according to former President Clinton. The top two civilian officials at the U.N. mission, Special Representative Hedi Annabi and his deputy, Luiz Carlos da Costa, were believed trapped in the rubble of the hotel that housed the world body's headquarters, their fates unknown, said Alain Le Roy, the undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations. The Brazilian-led mission has about 9,000 troops, police and civilian staff in Haiti, about a third of whom were in Port-au-Prince. At least 16 peacekeepers, including 11 Brazilians, three Jordanians, one Argentine and one Chadian, were reported dead Wednesday afternoon, U.N. officials said. Also among the dead was Joseph Serge Miot, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Port-au-Prince, according to the official Vatican newspaper. The archbishop was buried beneath rubble along with 100 priests and aspiring priests attending a religious conference, Papal Nuncio Bernardito Auza told the Vatican's Fides news agency. "There were priests and nuns in the street. ... Everywhere, you heard cries from beneath the rubble," Auza said. Authorities braced for civil disturbances. Edmond Mulet, the U.N. assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, told CNN that the 95-year-old, badly overcrowded National Penitentiary in the capital, collapsed and the inmates escaped, prompting worries about looting by escapees. Obama urged Americans trying to locate family members in Haiti to telephone the State Department at 1-888-407-4747. Are you looking for loved ones? The presidential palace in Port-au-Prince was in ruins. Preval, Haiti's president, said he did not know where he was going to sleep Wednesday night. "I have plenty of time to look for a bed," he said late in the afternoon. "But now I am working on how to rescue the people. Sleeping is not the problem." CNN's Ivan Watson, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Susan Candiotti, Gary Tuchman, Chris Lawrence, Anderson Cooper, Brian Byrnes, Felicity Cruikshank, Hada Messia, Richard Greene and Mike Mount contributed to this report.

A young mother in Australia is fighting to recover from a virulent staph infection that threatened her life and left her partially paralyzed. She caught it from a seemingly innocuous source: borrowing a friend's makeup brush. The Daily Mail Australia reports Jo Gilchrist started feeling pain in her back on Valentine's Day and it rapidly got worse -- "worse than childbirth," she said. She lost all feeling in her legs and lower body and had to be airlifted to a hospital in Brisbane for emergency surgery. It turned out to be an infection caused by a drug-resistant strain of staph called MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) that she apparently contracted when she used a friend's makeup brush to hide a pimple. Jo Gilchrist, 27, was left paralyzed by a MRSA infection she contracted from a friend's makeup brush. Jo Gilchrist/Facebook 'The only thing we can put it down to is the makeup brush," she told the paper. "My friend did have a staph infection on her face and I was using her brush just before. I had no idea that could even happen, I used to share with my friends all the time." The infection damaged her spine, and doctors said she might never walk again. But Gilchrist, 27, has been working to prove them wrong, getting back on her feet in physical therapy. "It's been the hardest struggle I've ever faced," she wrote on Facebook. "There's been lots of sleepless nights and days spent sleeping. There's been vomiting, tremendous pain. Tears for the unknown and tears for all the accidents. As hard as it has been Im so lucky to have muscle power and no feeling than the other way around!" Intensive treatment and therapy have helped. Gilchrist posted a short video of herself last week slowly moving her legs, standing and taking a few steps during physical therapy. "I have fought with everything I have to lead to this," she wrote. For all the kind words and love I thank you, it's been the hardest struggle I've ever faced. There's been lots of... Posted by Jo Gilchrist on Monday, March 30, 2015 Now doctors say her prognosis looks better. "Two weeks ago they said I might be able to walk for an hour or two a day -- like grocery shopping, washing up and hanging the washing out," Gilchrist told the Daily Mail. "I'm happy with that. I honestly didn't even expect that." While her case sounds like a freak occurrence, health officials warn of the risks of spreading MRSA by sharing personal items like towels or razors that have touched infected skin. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says about a third of the population carries staph bacteria, usually without showing any symptoms, and about 2 percent of people are carriers for MRSA. The bug is often a source of outbreaks among hospital patients with weaker immune systems, but it can spread in the community as well. Initial symptoms of a MRSA infection can include a red, swollen or painful skin inflammation and a fever; the sore spot may feel warm to the touch or develop pus. The CDC says anyone who experiences symptoms should wash and bandage the area and see a doctor. MRSA can be life-threatening if the infection spreads to the bloodstream or into the lungs, causing pneumonia.

As many of you know, I teach in the religion department of a major university. I am also running as hard as I can to unseat Rodney Davis in Illinois’ 13 District. His support for the tax bill shows clearly why this race is so very important. The bill that he and his Republican colleagues just helped pass will do enormous damage to scientific research in the United States, and will hurt communities and institutions in our district, including the University of Illinois, Illinois State University, and Southern Illinois University - Edwardsville. If passed into law, the bill will make graduate students in universities pay federal tax on money they never see, namely waivers of tuition for the universities in which they are enrolled. Nearly 100% of research scientists in the United States receive their training in graduate programs. They receive modest financial stipends, which are augmented by a waiver of tuition for their courses. Today, without the additional tax burden imposed by Republicans in Congress, a great many graduate students must work additional part-time jobs to make ends meet. They forge ahead because they are dedicated to their work and believe in the power of research and education to make the world better. Taxing tuition waivers will be an enormous disincentive for the pursuit of research careers. For all but the most wealthy, this tax will be an insurmountable barrier. And the big loser will be American science and technology, on which our prosperity and well-being depend. From crop science and climate science to mechanical engineering and virology, the effects will be immediate and damaging. Many foolish ideas are created in Washington, and some even become law. In terms of damage to our nation, this single component of the tax bill may be the worst idea ever. Representative Davis wants to have it both ways. He says that he is opposed to taxing graduate student tuition waivers but voted for this bill anyway. Talk is cheap. The costs of this tax bill will be enormous and far reaching. As your congressman I will value students, value educators, and value research in the sciences and the humanities.

Getty Images Vikings safety Harrison Smith could miss an extended period of time due to a high ankle sprain, the Pioneer Press reported Tuesday. Smith has a grade 3 sprain and will miss at least this week’s game at Jacksonville. The report said Smith could miss the rest of the season and might eventually need surgery. That will be determined over the coming weeks. He originally suffered the injury on Nov. 20 and aggravated it in each of the last two games, the report said. He left the stadium after last Thursday’s game vs. the Cowboys with his left foot and ankle in a protective boot. Smith, a former first-round pick, made his first Pro Bowl last season. He hasn’t missed a start this season. The 6-6 Vikings are two games behind the Lions and tied for second with the Packers in the NFC North.

"I'm 16 and I only learned the true meaning of sexual consent this year," says sixth-form student Abigail Beamish. "The obvious 'no' is often ignored in sexual relationships, but consent is more complex than that. "When a girl says she doesn't want to have sex, it is rape. When a girl is too drunk to consent, it is rape. But when a girl isn't enjoying herself or expressing desire, is that rape?" Tension surrounding sexual violence, misogyny and consent has grown on campuses in the UK and in the US over the past year. A recent survey of over 2,100 students in Cambridge found that almost half had been "groped, pinched or grabbed" during their time at university and that over 100 had experienced "attempted serious sexual assault". A similar survey of 700 students at the University of York, found that almost a third have experienced sexual harassment. In America, the White House has said that one in five female students is assaulted. "Virtually every woman I know has experienced some sort of non-consensual contact," says Elli Wilson, a 19-year-old student and member of the sex education group Sexpression, which works with young people and students. "From being groped in a club or on public transport, to being raped by a boyfriend." The swelling reports of sexual violence and misogyny on campuses has led Cambridge University to consider making sexual consent classes compulsory for both male and female students. The hour-long workshops, created by Cambridge University's women's officer Lauren Steele, would involve discussion of what consent means and attempt to dispel common myths. These include: once a man is sexually aroused, he cannot help himself and has to have sex; rapists are men hiding in the bushes or in dark alleys; women often falsely accuse men of sexual assault or rape; and agreeing to do one thing sexual means that you have agreed to do everything else as well. "The rape culture we're surrounded by is telling people that there are blurred lines and that boundaries aren't certain," says Steele. "Having a workshop on consent that's not a preachy campaign and that gets people involved in discussion is a positive way to tackle the problem." The workshop explains that rape culture is "an environment in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is normalised". Examples on campus are not hard to find: from the story of a girl followed into the toilets by a man who undid his trousers though she repeatedly said no, to the female student punched in the face seven times for telling a man in a club not to sexually assault her. In an attempt to combat this culture, some students have created their own version of consent workshops. In America, Jonathan Kalin, a recent graduate of Colby College, set up a programme he called "party with consent". He says a friend's sexual assault was the motivation behind the scheme, which works with groups of male and female students to encourage healthy thinking around sex. "Students struggle with coercion versus consent," Kalin says. "Our programme poses questions like: 'if I asked you to have sex 20 times, and on the 21st time you agreed to stop me annoying you, is that consent?" A similar programme set up by students and graduates in the UK, called the Good Lad Workshop, deals with the prevalence of "lad culture" through workshops which encourage "positive masculinity". Dave Llewellyn, who runs the programme, argues that the approach works because it talks directly to men and offers them a way to be part of the solution, rather than labelling them as a problem. "If someone comes up to me and tells me that I'm a potential rapist, I don't identify with that," Llewellyn says. "And I don't necessarily want to engage with them. I think naturally, when you're told that you're the problem, you back away." A common criticism of consent workshops run by universities, as well as by independent groups, is that they are offered too late, and that instead the school curriculum needs to be changed to bring in better relationship education. "We can talk about consent classes when people get to uni, but that's too late - we need to talk about it a lot earlier," says Charlotte Hayden, who is about to start her final year of medicine at Leicester University. But those in favour of consent workshops at university, argue that it doesn't have to be one or the other. "It should definitely be at school, but it's not," says Steele. "When people first come to uni there's a lot of pressure to get drunk and to fit in and I think to have workshops at that time is a good thing." But should they be made compulsory? "I definitely think it's good to make them compulsory," says a first-year history student at Cambridge University. "It puts everyone in the same boat. If you make it so that people can choose, the people who go will be the people who are already aware of consent as a concept." However, workshops alone will not solve the problem, argues a recent graduate from Oxford University. "Consent classes are a good step, but it needs to be broader than that. On campus there's not just a problem with consent, but with attitudes towards women, and that needs to be tackled." What students say Lucas Fothergill, a first-year student at Newcastle University "When I first heard that universities are seriously discussing introducing compulsory sexual consent classes I was shocked. Are things really that bad? Are mandatory classes really the cure? If they are, employing them at university level is a mistake. If classes really are necessary, they should be implemented in school, before sixth form." Joe Deeks, a final-year student at Swansea University "If you don't understand that if a girl says no to sex, it means no, then you're not intelligent enough to be at university. It's such a basic thing. Consent classes for men are not the solution. It could be worn as a sort of badge for people who are into banter culture. I think empowering women is the way forward. It should become embarrassing if a man is known to have slept with a girl when she's too drunk and she hasn't given consent." Yasmine Summers, a first-year law student at the University of East Anglia. "At university, if students are out drinking heavily there may be difficulties distinguishing what constitutes consent. As a law student I've read a case where two people went out together and drank lots of alcohol before having sex. She was so drunk that she passed in and out of consciousness. I think it needs to be established that consent is not ongoing. Once it has been given it doesn't mean it can't be revoked, whether verbally or through passing out." Anonymous female college student from Essex "When I go to university I don't want to experience anything worse than I already have done. I've had boys make sexist comments to me in the past and I want to be safe when I am in a place of education. Understanding of sexual consent is an important thing and I'd feel better if these classes could be offered at universities. Making boys aware of how they treat girls and that 'no means no' could help reduce sexual assaults and sexism." Anonymous female first-year history student at Cambridge University "It's definitely not too late for these classes when you get to university. Lots of people consider uni to be a fresh start and you can quickly get sucked into lad culture. I think it's important that universities let students know where they stand on the issue. I wish people wouldn't see it as an attack on men in general. I think people should realise its a problem that affects men and women and not make it into a gendered debate." • Do you think that sexual consent classes should be made compulsory at university? What about at school? Let us know what you think in the comment section below.

President Evo Morales said Wednesday he is expelling the U.S. Agency for International Development from Bolivia for allegedly seeking to undermine his leftist government, and complained about the U.S. secretary of state calling the Western Hemisphere the “back yard” of Washington. Morales did not specify what USAID had done that merited expulsion, but the ABI state news agency said it was “accused of alleged political interference in peasant unions and other social organizations.” In the past, Morales has accused USAID of funding groups that have opposed his policies, including a lowlands indigenous federation that organized protests against a Morales-backed highway through the TIPNIS rain forest preserve. In 2008, Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador and agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for allegedly inciting the opposition. As U.S.-Bolivian relations soured and Washington canceled trade preferences, total U.S. foreign aid to the poor, landlocked South American country has dropped from $100 million in 2008 to $28 million last year, with counternarcotics and security aid set to virtually disappear in the coming fiscal year. With Colombia and Peru, Bolivia is one of the world’s three major cocaine-producing nations. Analyst Kathryn Ledebur of the nonprofit Andean Information Network in Bolivia said she was not surprised by the expulsion itself, but by the fact that Morales took so long to do it after repeated threats. “USAID alternative development efforts tied to forced coca eradication provoked his mistrust,” she said of Morales, a longtime coca growers union leader before his December 2005 election as Bolivia’s first indigenous president. Since U.S. assistance has “dwindled to a trickle,” the financial impact will be limited, Ledebur said. Morales made his announcement at an International Workers’ Day rally in La Paz, saying he was protesting a recent statement by Secretary of State John F. Kerry. Kerry said in April 17 testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee that “the Western Hemisphere is our back yard. It’s critical to us.” He was discussing perceptions in the region that the United States ignores it. Many Latin Americans, leftists in particular, are sensitive to any U.S. statements that could imply hegemonistic designs, especially in light of Washington’s 20th-century history of backing repressive governments in the Americas. “The United States does not lack institutions that continue to conspire, and that’s why I am using this gathering to announce that we have decided to expel USAID from Bolivia,” Morales told the crowd. In Washington, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell called Morales’s allegations “baseless” and said the purpose of USAID programs in Bolivia has been, since they began in 1964, “to help the Bolivian government improve the lives of ordinary Bolivians” in full coordination with its agencies. On Tuesday, Bolivia’s constitutional court ruled that Morales can run for a third consecutive term, interpreting the 2009 constitution that set a two-term limit as not being retroactive. He won reelection by a landslide in 2009.

Before Team America would become a title associated with puppets, it was used as a moniker for the United States men’s national soccer team, who, for a season, decided to try their hand at being a club side too. In 1983, America’s premier soccer league, the North American Soccer League (NASL), was on its last legs. Recent seasons had seen the ageing, overpaid foreign stars suck finances dry, as attendances shrunk and teams went bust. The success of Pele and the Cosmos in the late 1970s had resulted in an all-too-rapid expansion: teams, owned by many trying to emulate the Cosmos model, had popped up all over the country, only to disband when the fans (and money) never came. The fortunes of the national team were not much sweeter. Few of the US players were well-known or getting game time - their chances stifled by foreign players who saw NASL as some sort of a retirement home. As a result, USA had not qualified for a World Cup since 1950, when a plucky group of amateurs stunned England 1-0 in Brazil. The task facing the NASL commissioner, Howard Samuels, was essentially one of do-or-bust. What was decided upon was a joint venture with the USSF that would see the national team, under the title Team America, join the NASL as a club, hoping to boost the fortunes of both league and the nation. Based in Washington, DC, overseen by a New York businessman, Robert Lifton, and playing in the Robert F Kennedy Stadium, Team America would loan national team players from their respective clubs, as long as both the player and the club agreed. Samuels and USSF’s hope was that this concept would see all areas of American soccer benefit. A strong national team could inject excitement into a sport that was popular amongst first- or second-generation immigrants, but was always looking to attract more Americans to the stands. (The US’s Miracle on Ice at the 1980 Winter Olympics was seen as a prime example of how international success could drive interest in a sport.) There would also be a focus on the 1986 World Cup, which due to Colombia pulling out, was still looking for a host nation just four years before kickoff. With the hosts automatically qualifying, it was thought that Team America would show the bidding committee a commitment to on-field development. The idea was novel, the ambitions high. But the Team America experiment - a concept that barely resembles anything before or since - would ultimately fail. In January 1983, coach Alkis Panagoulias and his team hosted a series of tryouts, which would select the best 20 players from 39 invited from the NASL, Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL) and American Soccer League (ASL). Though some of the country’s best would opt to take part, others - such as Rick Davis, Winston DuBose and Juli Veee - chose not to become involved. “There were those who were a little more reluctant, a little more hesitant towards it.” Jeff Durgan, who joined Team America as a 21-year-old from the New York Cosmos, told the Guardian. “And rightfully so: they were concerned about what they would be giving up, what they would be walking away from - moving away from their homes and families.” Durgan said that there was no disdain towards the players who chose not to join the experiment. He believed that perhaps a more suitable alternative for the US men’s national team would have been to improve the preparation for international matches, rather than setting up a team in DC. “Typically for a World Cup qualifier, we would show up in the host city - and especially for those home games - a day or two before the qualifier, come together as a group, maybe train once, go out there and try and qualify for a World Cup,” Durgan says. “When you compare that to now and the facilities, the number of players who are brought in from around the globe and the choices that national team staff have from a player pool, I think it’s advanced to where it needs to be - that would have been, I think, a better investment at that time.” These suggestions were unlikely to impress the World Cup committee as much as a club-meets-country hybrid squad though. Instead, Team America existed as a mish-mash of some of the States’ top stars, those looking to make an impact on the international stage and naturalized players. “I got involved because I had just become an American citizen,” says English-born Alan Merrick, who played more than 100 times for West Bromwich Albion before embarking on a career in the US. “If it would have been funded correctly, it would have cut down the number of years it’s taken the national team to get to the level it deserves.” The season started well, with Team America winning eight out of their first 13 games, including a victory against the New York Cosmos. However, what followed was nothing short of a disaster for a team that was originally intended to showcase the best America had to offer. During the final 17 games of the season, Panagoulias’ side recorded just two wins. In an attempt to improve results, Lifton and the backroom staff even reached a point where they approached clubs to try and loan US-eligible players on game-by-game basis. It did not work. The season ended with Team America’s goal tally standing at 33 in 30 games; they were flat bottom of the league (a 10-20 record). This drastic dip in form coincided with financial losses for the club and attendances at RFK Stadium averaging just 12,000. Moreover, prior to the end of the season, in May 1983, Fifa would name Mexico as the host nation of the 1986 World Cup, despite the country hosting the tournament in 1970. “Where we were as a country in the global sport of soccer, I would have been surprised if we would have gotten the World Cup,” says Perry Van der Beck, a midfielder who had moved to Washington from the Tampa Bay Rowdies. “But it wasn’t out of the question: eight years later they did get it, in 1994.” Failing to win the 1986 World Cup bid meant that USA needed to qualify for the tournament from the Concacaf region. They would, however, not make it - eventually losing a crucial home tie to Costa Rica in 1985, having failed to make it past the first round of the Olympics soccer tournament the year before. Between those interviewed for this article, there were mixed opinions on just how much of an impact the failed World Cup bid had on the end-of-season results. But without the guarantee of playing in the tournament through hosting, and investment in the team, the league and the USSF lacking, Team America would disband after just one season. It is believed that the main reason for the team’s demise was that funders could only justify keeping the team afloat were there the prospect of financial rewards off the field or if the club (and national team) had been successful on it. Team America showed neither. The players, many of whom had packed up their families to move to DC, would go off in search of new teams. What followed was a public blame game between the USSF, Lifton and Samuels, before the NASL disbanded at the end of the following season. With the league struggling even when the team was formed, Jeff Durgan questions if the bigger picture was ever really consider: “What was in place if we had been successful? I don’t know if anyone had thought that far ahead.” When reminiscing about their time with Team America, the recurring theme players discussed was ambition. They praised a far-out concept, but admitted that the lack of financial backing and naivety of those in charge meant the team was always doomed to fail. Many still ask what other options the US had. “The interesting thing is, when you think about the Team America experiment in the context of any other country, most people - the Germans, British, Italians, French - would look at you and laugh, thinking, what would ever compel you to try something like that?” Durgan says. “But in context with what was happening at the time in the US, there is some logic in the effort to do it … Something needed to be done to maintain interest in the sport.”

Here we recorded fMRI data from 12 subjects in 6 different conditions; LSD, placebo (PCB), LSD and PCB while listening to music, LSD and PCB after the music session. Exploring the combined effects of music and the psychedelic state induced by LSD provided us an opportunity to reveal not only the LSD-induced dynamical changes in the brain but also how these dynamics are affected by the presence of a complex, natural stimuli like music. Furthermore, music is also known for its capacity to elicit emotions, which is found to be emphasized by the effect of psychedelics16. This was a within-subjects design in which healthy participants (mean age 30.5 ± 8, 4 females) received 75 μg LSD in 10 mL saline (intravenous, I.V.) or placebo (10 mL saline, I.V.), 70 minutes prior to fMRI scanning. LSD and placebo sessions were separated by 14 days and occurred in a counter-balanced order, as in10. To study the LSD-induced changes in cortical dynamics, we decomposed fMRI recordings of 12 subjects in 6 different conditions into the activity of frequency-specific brain states (cortical patterns) (Fig. 1f–h). The brain states are defined as spatial patterns formed by fully synchronized activity, each associated with a different spatial wavelength; i.e. connectome harmonics15 (Fig. 1f). We firstly investigated two fundamental properties of these harmonic brain states: 1) power of activation; i.e. the amount of contribution of each harmonic brain state to cortical dynamics, and 2) energy of each of these brain states that combines their intrinsic, frequency-dependent energy with the strength of their activation. Furthermore, to characterize dynamical changes in the repertoire of active brain states, we explored cross-frequency correlations across different harmonics brain states. Finally, to assess the proximity of brain dynamics to criticality, we evaluated power-law distributions across the whole power spectrum of these brain states. LSD increases power and energy of brain states We first estimated the power of activation for each brain state by measuring the strength of its contribution to cortical activity pattern of the fMRI volume acquired at each time instance. By combining the power of activation with the intrinsic, frequency-dependent energy of each harmonic brain state, we calculate the energy of a particular brain state (Methods). Based on these introduced fundamental measures, enabled by connectome-harmonic decomposition of fMRI data, we first investigated global effects of LSD over the complete spectrum of brain states. To this end, we measured the total power and total energy over the whole connectome-harmonic spectrum for all 6 conditions; LSD, PCB, LSD with-music, PCB with-music, LSD after-music, PCB after-music (Methods). This analysis revealed that the total power and energy of all brain states averaged across all time points significantly increases under LSD (p < 0.0001, two-sample t-test between each pair of LSD vs. PCB conditions) (Fig. 2a,b). Figure 2 Changes in energy of brain states under LSD. Total power (a) and total energy (b) of all harmonic brain states for all 6 conditions, where stars indicate significant differences (p < 10−4, two-sample t-test) between each pair of LSD vs. PCB conditions with indicated p-values. (c) Probability distribution of total energy values (sum over all harmonics) for all 6 conditions. (d) Probability distribution of the occurrence of projection values (the amount of contribution) of connectome harmonics after normalization of each harmonic’s contribution by the maximum value of the baseline (PCB) condition, shown for all 6 conditions; LSD, PCB, LSD with-music, PCB with-music, LSD after-music, PCB after-music. (e) Energy of connectome harmonics quantized into 15 levels of wavenumbers k (in the log-scale) for conditions (left) LSD vs. PCB, (middle) LSD with-music vs. PCB with-music, (right) LSD after-music vs. PCB after-music. Stars indicate significant differences (p < 0.01, Monte-Carlo simulations after Bonferroni correction). (f) and (g) show the mean (μ) and standard deviation (σ) of the fit of the energy distribution of frequencies shown in (e) to normal distribution for all conditions, respectively. (h) shows the energy differences for each bin between the conditions LSD and PCB, LSD with-music and PCB with-music, LSD after-music and PCB after-music with stars indicating significant differences between conditions of no music, with music and after music (p < 0.01, Monte-Carlo simulations after Bonferroni correction). Mean (i) and standard deviation (j) of energy values of connectome harmonics $({\{{\psi }_{k}\}}_{k=1}^{n})$ shown as a function of the wavenumber k. Full size image To further characterize the energy spectrum of each of the 6 conditions, we estimated the probability distribution of their energy values. We observed significantly different probability distributions of energy values (p < 10−85, two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Fig. S2) between each pair of LSD vs. PCB conditions and reassuringly no significant difference was found between any pair of LSD or any pair of placebo conditions, even in the case where one condition involved listening to music (i.e. only LSD vs. placebo, between-condition differences were found to be significant and not within condition differences). A clear shift to higher energy values was observed at the peak of the probability distribution in all three LSD conditions ${{\rm{E}}}_{\{\mathrm{LSD},\mathrm{LSDwith}-\mathrm{music},\mathrm{LSDafter}-\mathrm{music}\}}^{\ast }=1203$ in comparison to the energy probability distributions of PCB conditions ${{\rm{E}}}_{\{\mathrm{PCB},\mathrm{PCBwith}-\mathrm{music},\mathrm{PCBafter}-\mathrm{music}\}}^{\bigstar}=1156$ (Fig. 2c). In both, the LSD and PCB conditions, with music, we also found a higher probability of reaching this maximum likely (characteristic) energy state (${\rm{\Pr }}({{\rm{E}}}_{\mathrm{PCBwith}-\mathrm{music}}^{\ast })=0.2247$ vs. ${\rm{\Pr }}({{\rm{E}}}_{{\rm{PCB}}}^{\ast })=0.2185$) and (${\rm{\Pr }}({{\rm{E}}}_{\mathrm{LSDwith}-\mathrm{music}}^{\ast })=0.2104$ vs. ${\Pr ({\rm{E}}}_{{\rm{LSD}}}^{\ast })=0.1809$). In the placebo condition, this effect of music - increased probability of reaching the characteristic energy state - was also found in the after-music session (${\Pr (E}_{\mathrm{PCBwith}-\mathrm{music}}^{\ast })=0.2247$ vs. ${\Pr (E}_{\mathrm{PCBafter}-\mathrm{music}}^{\ast })=0.2250$). In the LSD after-music condition, the higher probability of reaching the characteristic energy state induced by music, slightly decreased (${\Pr (E}_{\mathrm{LSDafter}-\mathrm{music}}^{\ast })=0.1878$ vs. ${\Pr (E}_{\mathrm{LSDwith}-\mathrm{music}}^{\ast })=0.2104$), although it still remained higher than in the initial LSD condition (${\Pr ({\rm{E}}}_{{\rm{LSD}}}^{\ast })=0.1809$), (Fig. 2c). These results indicate that LSD renders brain dynamics more likely to reach higher energy states, in particular in response to music, which in turn suggests an increased sensitivity of cortical dynamics to the effect of music. Our results reveal that this amplified effect of music on cortical dynamics was also more rapidly reversed after the offset of music under the influence of LSD compared with the placebo condition. These changes are highly suggestive not only of an increased sensitivity to music, as found in previous studies16, but also more rapidly changing cortical dynamics with increased flexibility, which may potentially underlie the enhanced sensitivity to the environment and context observed under the influence of LSD16,17,18. We explore these dynamical changes of cortical activity in further detail in our criticality analysis. The LSD-induced energy increase of brain activity can be attributed to two possibilities. Firstly, more brain states may be contributing to brain activity leading to an expanded repertoire of brain states, and secondly, the same active brain states may be contributing with more power and energy under LSD. Next, we investigated which of these factors contributed to the observed energy increase under LSD. LSD extends the repertoire of active brain states Theoretical and computational studies indicate that spontaneous brain activity explores a dynamic repertoire of brain states and predict a variation in the size of this repertoire in different states of consciousness19. Furthermore, studies exploring psilocybin-induced psychedelic state found greater diversity in functional connectivity motives accompanied by increased variance in temporal oscillations, which indicates an enhanced repertoire of active brain states under the effect of psilocybin, i.e. the main psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms20. To quantify the size of the repertoire of active brain states under LSD and placebo conditions, we estimated the probability distribution of the occurrence of projection values (the amount of contribution) of connectome harmonics for all 6 conditions; LSD, PCB, LSD with-music, PCB with-music, LSD after-music, PCB after-music, after normalizing each harmonic’s contribution by the maximum value of the baseline (placebo) condition. Figure 2d demonstrates that the probability distribution of conditions under LSD shows a clear decrease (height of the normal distributions: μ LSD = 0.0355, μ PCB = 0.0388, μ LSDwith−music = 0.0358, μ PCBwith−music = 0.0387, μ LSDafter−music = 0.0356, μ PCBafter−music = 0.0385) for small magnitude activations (0 value signifying no-activation coincides with the peak of the normal distribution). This decrease signifies that more brain states contribute (with a non-zero weight) to brain dynamics under the influence of LSD. Figure 2d further illustrates the slight increase for higher magnitude activations (towards the tails of the normal distribution, −1 and 1), which indicates that a stronger activation of brain states is observed more frequently under the effects of LSD. The increase in active brain states under LSD is further reflected by the increased width of the normal distribution of projection values (σ LSD = 0.3731, σ PCB = 0.3416, σ LSDwith−music = 0.3710, σ PCBwith−music = 0.3432, σ LSDafter−music = 0.3729, σ PCBafter−music = 0.3447) in Fig. 2d. These results demonstrate that the increased power and energy of brain activity under LSD is caused by both an extended repertoire of active brain states over time as well increased activity of certain brain states. LSD increases high frequency activity Next we investigated which brain states demonstrate increased activity under the effect of LSD. To this end, we explored frequency-specific alterations in brain dynamics induced by LSD, by first discretising the connectome-harmonic spectrum into 15 levels of wavenumbers k in the log-space and then analysing the energy changes within each of these parts of the harmonic spectrum for each of the 6 conditions and each subject separately (Methods). For all 3 conditions, i.e. before, during and after-music sessions, with LSD vs. PCB, a significant change was observed in the energy of all quantized levels of wavelenths (p < 0.01, Monte-Carlo simulations after Bonferroni correction, Fig. 2e). Notably, the energy distribution over quantized levels of wavenumbers also followed a log-normal distribution for all conditions (Fig. 2e), where both, the mean (μ[E]), (Fig. 2f) and the width (σ[E]), (Fig. 2g) of the normal distribution increased in all LSD conditions, although slightly less for LSD with-music condition. Note that the number of divisions of the connectome-harmonic spectrum did not alter the log-normal distribution and the observed energy differences. This increase of the mean and width of the normal distribution suggests that LSD increases the energy (activity) of the brain states corresponding to high frequency wavenumbers. This energy increase for high frequency brain states (connectome harmonics with larger wavenumber k > 2 ⋅ 102 corresponding to 0.01–1% of the whole spectrum) is also clearly observed in Fig. 2h demonstrating the energy difference between LSD and PCB conditions before, during and after-music sessions. Critically, a significant decrease of energy is found for all low frequency brain states, connectome harmonics with wavenumer k < 2 ⋅ 102 corresponding to 0–0.01% of the whole spectrum (p < 0.01, Monte-Carlo simulations after Bonferroni correction, Fig. 2h). For both effects, increased energy of high frequencies and decreased energy of low frequencies, the differences between each pair of conditions were found to be significant (p < 0.01, Monte-Carlo simulations after Bonferroni correction). Figure 2i shows the mean energy across all subjects for the discretised spectrum of connectome harmonics and illustrates the increased energy of brain states with larger wavenumbers k > 2 ⋅ 102. Furthermore, for high frequency brain states (k > 103 corresponding to 0.05–1% of the whole spectrum) an increase was also found in energy fluctuations over time for all 3 LSD conditions (Fig. 2j). Taken together, our results reveal that LSD increases the total energy of brain activity and expands the repertoire of active brain states by significantly increasing the activity of high frequency brain states. Cross-frequency correlations between brain states We next sought to understand whether LSD-induced expansion of the repertoire of active brain states occurred in a structured or random fashion. To this end, we investigated LSD-induced changes in cross-frequency interactions in brain dynamics. We examined the degree of co-activation of different frequency brain states by exploiting the spectra-temporal representation enabled by the connectome-harmonic decomposition. As this harmonic decomposition of fMRI data yields the strength of activation of different frequency brain states over time, the correlation between the time courses of different connectome harmonics reveals the degree to which these two frequency brain states co-activate within the complex cortical dynamics. In this manner, we estimated cross-frequency correlations between each pair of brain states across all LSD and placebo conditions. Under the influence of LSD for all three conditions; before music, with music and after music, we observed a significant decrease in cross-frequency correlations within the low-frequency brain states (k ∈ [0–0.01%] of connectome-harmonic spectrum) (effect size; Cohen’s d-value $\ast > 0.2$, Fig. 3a). Notably, this range of brain states is the same as that in which a significant decrease in energy was observed (Fig. 2h). In a higher frequency range k ∈ [0.01–0.1%], the only significant difference was found between LSD and PCB conditions with music (effect size; Cohen’s d-value $\ast > 0.2$, Fig. 3b) indicating the influence of music on the co-activation of brain states within this frequency range. For increasing frequency, k ∈ [0.1–0.2%] of the spectrum, no significant differences were found in cross-frequency correlations (Fig. 3c). Finally, for higher frequency range k ∈ [0.2–1%], we found a significant increase in the cross-frequency correlations between LSD and PCB conditions, while this effect was not significant for conditions with and after-music (Fig. 3d). Also, over the complete spectrum of brain states, LSD significantly increased cross-frequency correlations (Fig. 3e). Figure 3 Cross-frequency correlations. (a–d) Distributions of cross-frequency correlation values within [0–0.01%], [0.01–0.1%], [0.1–0.2%] and [0.2–1%] of the spectrum, respectively. (e) Distribution of cross-frequency correlations across the complete spectrum of connectome harmonics. Significant differences between cross-frequency correlation distributions are marked with stars (effect size; Cohen’s d-value $\ast > 0.2$) for pairs of condition LSD, PCB, LSD with-music, PCB with-music, LSD after-music, PCB after-music. (f–n) Illustrate differences in mean cross-frequency correlations in 10 × 10 partitions across the complete spectrum of connectome harmonics evaluated between all pairs of 6 condition; LSD, PCB, LSD with-music, PCB with-music; LSD after-music, PCB after-music. Full size image Considering the sequential acquisition of the scans in conditions before music, with music and after music, the insignificant differences of the cross-frequency correlations within the high frequency range between LSD and PCB with music and after music can be attributable to both, the effect of music and the fading effect of LSD over time. To distinguish the effect of these two factors, we compared the average cross-frequency correlations across the whole connectome-harmonic spectrum between each pair of the 6 conditions (Fig. 3f–n). Figure 3f clearly demonstrates the decreased cross-frequency correlations among the low frequency brain states (k∈[0–0.1%] of the spectrum) accompanied by increased correlation between all frequencies in the range k∈[0.1–1%] of the spectrum. Over time, the LSD-induced increase in cross-frequency co-activation gradually diminished (Fig. 3f–h), which was also confirmed by the comparison of the sequentially acquired LSD scans (Fig. 3i–k). These changes were not found in the sequential comparison of PCB scans (Fig. 3l–n). Music under the influence of LSD decreased the cross-frequency correlations also within the frequency range k ∈ [0.01–0.02%] of the spectrum (Fig. 3g), which remarkably coincides with the range of brain states whose energy changes were altered under the influence of music (Fig. 2h). Notably, this effect of music was observed only in the LSD but not the PCB condition (Fig. 3m). This analysis confirms that both factors, the fading effect of LSD and the influence of music, contribute to observed changes in cross-frequency correlations over the three scans (LSD/PCB, LSD with-music/PCB with-music and LSD after-music/PCB after-music). However, while music affected the communication within the low to mid range frequencies k∈[0.01–0.02%] in particular under the influence of LSD, the isolated effect of LSD was apparent in the increased cross-frequency correlations throughout the connectome-harmonic spectrum. These results demonstrate that for the low-frequency range, where the energy of brain states decrease under the influence of LSD, there is also a decrease in the “communication” (co-activation) of these brain states. The exact opposite effect, i.e. increased communication along with increased energy and power, is observed among a large part (k∈[0.01–1%]) of the spectrum under the influence of LSD. Such increased cross-frequency correlations strongly suggest that LSD causes a re-organization rather than a total randomization of brain dynamics. This type of non-random expansion of the state repertoire naturally occurs in dynamical systems when they approach criticality - the boundary of an order-disorder phase transition21,22. As a logical next step, we therefore investigated whether the dynamics of harmonic brain states show other characteristics of criticality and how these may be altered under the effect of LSD. Power laws and whole-brain criticality With a growing body of experimental evidence23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30 and theoretical findings31,32,33,34,35,36,37, it has become increasingly apparent that neural activity shows characteristics of criticality - a delicate balance between two extreme tendencies; a quiescent order and a chaotic disorder-where complexity increases and certain functional advantages may emerge38,39. Theoretical and computational studies identify that criticality enables the essential dualism necessary for complex dynamics; i.e. a certain level of stability (order) is required for coherent functioning and certain degree of disorder is needed for functional flexibility and adaptability34. These studies also highlight some important functional advantages of criticality; e.g. that greater diversity in the repertoire of brain states22 enables a larger capacity for information encoding22 and faster information processing22,30. Supporting the hypothesis that brain dynamics reside at the edge of criticality, experimental studies reveal a key characteristic of critical dynamics - the power-law distributions - in large scale brain networks in fMRI24,27, electroencephalography (EEG)23,26,28, MEG23,24,28,29 and intracranial depth recordings in humans40 as well as in numerical simulations of computational models of brain dynamics33,35, mostly with small deviations from criticality to the subcritical (ordered) regime. The power-laws, although observed consistently across wakefulness40, deep-sleep40, REM sleep40 and during anaesthetics induced loss of consciousness25, are found to slightly deteriorate in wakefulness30,37,40, tend to diminish in cognitive load41 and recover during sleep32,37,40,42. These findings suggest that even though power-laws are likely to be a feature of neural dynamics, which transcends levels of consciousness, differences in power-law distributions are characteristic of different states and the proximity of these states to critical dynamics. Furthermore, such deviations and subsequent re-emergence of power-laws with changing states of consciousness and cognitive-load strongly indicate that they originate from critical network dynamics, ruling out alternative explanations such as filtering or noise37. In line with these findings, the tuning of brain dynamics towards or away from criticality is likely to be mediated by varying excitation/inhibition balance37,43,44, which has been shown to underlie the temporal organization of neuronal avalanches with power-law distributions43 as well as whole-brain oscillatory patterns15. In contrast, other pharmacologically induced variations in neural activity; e.g. changes in the concentration of dopamine or administration of a dopamine D1 receptor agonist45, or antagonist46, as well as application of acetylcholine47, lead to alterations of the steepness of the critical exponent without destroying the power-law distributions. As with other classic psychedelic drugs48, LSD’s principal psychoactive effects are mediated by serotonin 2A receptor (5-HT2AR) agonism, and 5-HT2AR signalling has reliably been shown to induce cortical excitation49. Increased cortical excitation via increased 5-HT2AR signalling is a plausible mechanism by which LSD may tune cortical dynamics towards criticality. Based on LSD’s known pharmacology and related effects on cortical excitation10, as well as a prior hypothesis regarding the psychedelic state and criticality in the brain11, we investigated LSD-induced dynamical changes in the brain in the context of criticality. To this end, we evaluated the distribution of maximum power, average power as well as power fluctuations over the spectrum of connectome harmonics. Notably, all power related distributions (maximum, mean and standard deviation) of the connectome harmonics with different wavenumbers followed power-law distributions (Fig. 4). In line with previous findings30,32,40,42 and theoretical models31,32,33,34,35,36,37, we observed a slight cut-off in the tail of the power-law distributions indicative of the slight deviation to the subcritical regime. This result confirms previous studies suggesting that conscious, waking state brain dynamics reside at the edge of criticality with a slight deterioration to the subcritical regime35,37,40. Figure 4 Power laws in connectome harmonic decomposition. Maximum power $({\rm{\max }}(P({\psi }_{i})))$ vs. wavenumber (k) of connectome harmonics $({\{{\psi }_{k}\}}_{k=1}^{n})$ in ${\mathrm{log}}_{10}$ coordinates for (a) LSD vs. PCB, (b) LSD with-music vs. PCB with-music and (c) LSD after-music vs. PCB after-music, respectively. Mean power $(\overline{P({\psi }_{k})}))$ vs. wavenumber (k) of connectome harmonics $({\{{\psi }_{k}\}}_{k\mathrm{=1}}^{n})$ in ${\mathrm{log}}_{10}$ coordinates for (d) LSD vs. PCB, (e) LSD with-music vs. PCB with-music and (f) LSD after-music vs. PCB after-music, respectively. Power fluctuations (σ(P(ψ k ))) vs. wavenumber (k) of connectome harmonics $({\{{\psi }_{k}\}}_{k=1}^{n})$ in ${\mathrm{log}}_{10}$ coordinates for all 6 conditions. In all plots, ε and β indicate the root mean squared error and the slope of the line fit, respectively. Stars indicate significant differences (p < 0.05, two-sample t-test). Full size image In an effort to quantify LSD-induced changes to critical brain dynamics, we quantitatively evaluated the goodness of fit of power-laws, by measuring the root mean squared error ε of power-law fit for all different conditions (Methods). Critically, the root mean squared error of power-law-fits decreased significantly (p < 0.01, two-sample t-test) for maximum power (Fig. 4a,b), mean power (Fig. 4d,e) and power fluctuations (Fig. 4g,h) in LSD compared with PCB for the first two conditions (before music and with music). The decreased error of fit found for LSD vs. PCB in the after-music condition (Fig. 4c,f,i) remained insignificant, reflecting the slightly fading effect of LSD over the course of the three scans. The decreased goodness-of-fit error demonstrates that the distribution of all power-related observables (maximum power, mean power and power fluctuations) fit power-law distribution more closely under the influence of LSD. These experiments suggest that brain dynamics in both conditions, LSD and PCB, reside close to criticality with slight deviations to the subcritical regime, as also indicated in previous studies30,37,40, while the induction of LSD tunes brain dynamics further towards criticality. An additional analysis evaluated the power-law exponent for all 6 conditions. In all conditions with LSD compared to placebo, the power law exponent of maximum (Fig. 4a–c) and mean-power distribution (Fig. 4d–f) is found to decrease significantly (p < 0.01, two-sample t-test). For power fluctuations, the decrease was only significant for the first scan (Fig. 4g); LSD vs. placebo condition, coinciding with the peak of the LSD experience. This change in the power-law exponents under the influence of LSD indicates increased power and power-fluctuations of high frequency and slightly decreased power and power-fluctuations of low frequency connectome harmonics. As the decrease in power-law exponent and goodness-of-fit error both originate from the increased power of high frequency connectome harmonics, this finding confirms our earlier results regarding increased energy in high frequency states and enriched repertoire of brain states under the influence of LSD while indicating a crucial link between whole-brain criticality and the observed energy, power and repertoire changes. LSD-induced energy changes correlate with subjective ratings We also investigated how the LSD-induced changes in brain activity relate to subjective experience. Participants were asked to perform a limited number of visual analogue scale (VAS) style ratings at the end of each scan, using a button box in the scanner. Five key facets of the LSD experience were enquired about: (1) complex imagery (i.e. eyes-closed visions of objects, entities, landscapes etc.), (2) simple hallucinations (i.e. eyes-closed visions of shapes, colours, geometric patterns etc.), (3) emotional arousal (i.e. how emotional the participant felt, regardless of whether emotions were positive or negative), (4) positive mood, and (5) ego-dissolution (i.e. a fading sense of self, ego and/or subjectivity). To examine the relation between the activation of different brain states and subjective experiences, we explored the correlations between energy changes of different frequency connectome harmonics and subjective ratings of the five experiences. We first estimated the amount of change in energy between LSD and PCB conditions for different connectome harmonics across all 12 subjects for the two scans without music (LSD/PCB and LSD after-music/PCB after-music). Then, we evaluated the correlations between the subjective ratings and the estimated energy differences ΔE = (E PCB − E LSD ) for both, individual harmonics and different ranges of the harmonic spectrum. For the low frequency range k ∈ 1–200 corresponding to [0–0.01%] of connectome-harmonic spectrum, we observed generally a decrease in the mean energy as well as in the energy fluctuations under LSD at an individual subject level, as indicated by the positive values of ${\rm{\Delta }}\bar{{\rm{E}}}=({\bar{E}}_{{\rm{P}}{\rm{C}}{\rm{B}}}-{\bar{E}}_{{\rm{L}}{\rm{S}}{\rm{D}}})$ and Δσ(E = (σ(E PCB ) − σ(E LSD )) denoting the differences in the mean and in the standard deviation of energy between the placebo and LSD conditions, respectively (in Fig. 5a,b,d,e). The amount of the decrease in the mean energy ${\rm{\Delta }}\overline{{\rm{E}}}$ of this frequency range significantly correlated with the subjective ratings of ego-dissolution (r = 0.55317, p < 10−3, Fig. 5a) and emotional arousal (r = 0.61063, p < 10−3, Fig. 5b). We found similar correlations also between these subjective experiences and energy fluctuations of the same range of connectome harmonics (Fig. 5d,f). These findings suggest that the deactivation of the low-frequency connectome harmonics play a crucial role in the neural correlates of ego-dissolution and emotional arousal. Remarkably, this part of the connectome harmonic spectrum also corresponds to the same frequency range in which decreased energy (Fig. 2h) and decreased cross-frequency correlations (Fig. 4) were found under LSD. Figure 5 Correlations between energy changes of connectome harmonics and subjective experiences. (a) and (b) demonstrate significant correlations between the difference in mean energy of connectome harmonics ${\rm{\Delta }}({\bar{{\rm{E}}}}_{{\rm{P}}{\rm{C}}{\rm{B}}}-{\bar{{\rm{E}}}}_{{\rm{L}}{\rm{S}}{\rm{D}}})$ for low frequency connectome harmonics k = [1, …, 200] and the subjective ratings of ego dissolution and emotional arousal, respectively. (c) shows the correlation between the energy difference of connectome harmonics ${\rm{\Delta }}({\bar{{\rm{E}}}}_{{\rm{PCB}}}-({\bar{E}}_{{\rm{LSD}}})$ or a broader frequency range of connectome harmonics k = [1, …, 1100] and the subjective ratings of positive mood. (d) and (e) demonstrate significant correlations between the difference in energy fluctuations of connectome harmonics Δ(σ(E PCB ) − σ(E LSD )) for low frequency connectome harmonics k = [1, …, 200] and the subjective ratings of ego dissolution and emotional arousal, respectively. (f) shows the correlation between difference in energy fluctuations of connectome harmonics Δ(σ(E PCB ) − σ((E LSD )) for k = [1, …, 1100] and the subjective ratings of positive mood. (g) Illustrates multiple correlations between the functional connectivity changes of groups of resting state networks (RSNs) and subjective experiences estimated using 200 brain states, k = [1, …, 200] * p < 10−10, p < 10−15 after Bonferroni correction. Correlation strengths are represented by the intensity of red for each pair. Full size image The energy change within this low frequency range alone did not significantly correlate with ratings of positive mood under LSD. But a broader range of spatial frequencies k = [1, …, 1100] showed significant correlation with the intensity of positive mood induced by LSD (r = 0.45629, p < 10−2 for ${\rm{\Delta }}\overline{{\rm{E}}}$ and r = 0.4714, p < 10−2 for Δσ(E)). This finding implies that only a decrease of activity of low frequency connectome harmonics k = [1, …, 200] is not sufficient to account for the positive mood felt under LSD, but this decrease has to be accompanied by increased contribution of slightly higher frequency range connectome harmonics k = [201, …, 1100] for positive mood to be felt. Note that LSD generally induced a decrease in the low frequency range k = [1, …, 200] while leading to increased activation in the rest of the connectome harmonic spectrum k = [200, …, 18715], as shown in Fig. 2h. For individual harmonics, although we observe high correlations ranging from −0.6 to 0.5 between the energy change of each harmonic and the subjective ratings, these correlations did not survive a conservative correction for multiple comparisons (Bonferroni correction), when the whole connectome-harmonic spectrum was considered (18715 comparisons, Fig. S3 shows the correlation values of the first 200 harmonics). We did not find any significant correlations between the subjective ratings of simple hallucinations and complex imagery and the energy changes of a particular frequency range of brain states. Correlations between subjective ratings and connectivity of resting state networks Finally, we asked whether there was a correlation between subjective ratings and connectivity of resting state networks (RSNs). Previous analyses with LSD10 and other psychedelics11,50,51 have shown changes in the functional properties of RSNs under these drugs that correlate with different psychological aspects of the experience. Even for simple hallucinations, it is now understood that no one single brain area is responsible, but rather the interaction of multiple brain areas52. Thus, unlike previous studies focusing on the connectivity of individual networks10,11,50,51, here we investigated how the connectivity changes in groups of networks mutually relate to the intensity of subjective experience using multiple correlation analysis53. We examined the correlations between the ratings of subjective experiences of simple hallucinations, complex imagery, emotional arousal, positive mood and ego dissolution and LSD-induced functional connectivity changes of RSNs, individually, as well as in subgroups of RSNs using multiple correlation analysis53. For the group analysis we first identified the following RSNs as described in10: medial visual network (VisM), lateral visual network (VisL), occipital pole network (VisO), auditory network (AUD), sensorimotor network (SM), default-mode network (DMN), parietal cortex network (PAR), dorsal attention network (DAN), salience network (SAL), posterior opercular network (POP), left fronto-parietal network (lFP) and right fronto-parietal network (rFP) and then defined the following subgroups of networks: fronto-parietal network (FPN by combining lFP and lFP), visual (by combining VisM, VisL, VisO), visual-AUD, PAR-pOP, pOP-rFP, DMN-SAL, DMN-lFP, DMN-rFP, DMN-FPN, DMN-pOP, SAL-lFP, SAL-rFP, lFP-visual, rFP-visual. As connectome harmonics are spatial patterns of synchronous activity emerging on the cortex for different frequency oscillations, they are theoretically equivalent to frequency-specific functional connectivity patterns15; hence, the observed functional connectivity changes in the RSNs can be attributed to and decomposed into the changes in the activation of individual connectome harmonics. Here, we evaluated multiple correlations between groups of RSNs and subjective ratings using both, estimated functional connectivity changes of RSNs directly and their correlations with the energy changes of individual harmonics (Methods). Although the evaluation of the multiple correlation analysis between subjective ratings and connectivity changes of RSNs showed differences of correlations (Fig. S4a), in this direct application, no correlation was found to be significant. One limitation of this approach is that the small number of data points (12 subjects × 2 scans leading to 24 dimensional vectors to compute the multiple correlations) renders the correlation analysis poorly powered to reveal potentially ‘true’ relations between RSNs and subjective ratings (i.e. the risk of false negatives). This limitation can be addressed by firstly correlating the connectivity changes of RSNs to energy changes of individual brain states (connectome harmonics) and then evaluating the multiple correlations between the subjective ratings and individual or groups of RSNs (Methods). This approach has the advantage of enabling hidden information present in the data itself to emerge by revealing the contribution of each brain state to changes in functional connectivity. The number of brain states chosen to express the connectivity changes of RSNs will determine the sensitivity of multiple correlations (Fig. S4, Methods). Fig. S4 shows the multiple correlation values evaluated on the RSN connectivity directly, and for increasing number of brain states (30, 50, 100, 200 and 18715 (complete spectrum)). Although, similar correlation matrices emerge in the direct (on the RSN connectivity) and indirect (on the energy changes of connectome harmonics) evaluation of multiple correlations, the latter revealed significant correlations between the intensity of certain subjective experiences and groups of RSNs. Firstly, we observed significant correlations between the connectivity changes of visual and sensory (visual-auditory) networks and ratings of simple hallucinations and complex imagery (Fig. 5g, p < 10−15, k ∈ [1, …, 200], after Bonferroni correction). However, this significant correlation was only observed when the visual or sensory networks are considered together but not individually. This finding suggests that it is not the activity of individual networks alone but rather their joint activity that relates to the experience of hallucinations and imagery. Moreover, the coupled connectivity of the the visual networks with the left fronto-parietal network (lFP) correlated with ratings of simple hallucinations (Fig. 5g, p < 10−15, k ∈ [1, …, 200], after Bonferroni correction). Interestingly, the coupled connectivity of the right fronto-parietal network (rFP) with the visual networks was found to significantly correlate with the ratings of both, complex imagery and simple hallucinations (Fig. 5g, p < 10−15, k ∈ [1, …, 200], after Bonferroni correction) suggesting that the asymmetric contribution of the fronto-parietal networks may underlie the perceptual abnormalities such as visual hallucinations experienced in the psychedelic state. Secondly, we also found significant correlations between the DMN connectivity and the intensity of emotional arousal (Fig. 5g, p < 10−15, k ∈ [1, …, 200], after Bonferroni correction). The changes in coupled connectivity of DMN with the salience network (SAL) - a network of brain areas that plays an important role in attentional capture of biologically and cognitively relevant events52 - showed significant correlations with all three experiences of emotional arousal, positive mood and ego dissolution (Fig. 5g, p < 10−15, k ∈ [1, …, 200], after Bonferroni correction). Importantly, abnormal DMN-SAL functional connectivity correlating with intense subjective effects has previously been reported under LSD10 and psilocybin54. We also found that the coupled connectivity changes of SAL with lFP alone or FPN (lFP and rFP together) significantly correlated with the ratings of emotional arousal, positive mood and ego-dissolution, whereas connectivity changes of the SAL when coupled only with rPF did not yield the same level of significance (Fig. 5g, p < 10−10, k ∈ [1, …, 200], after Bonferroni correction) for correlations with the ratings of these experiences. In particular, the coupling of the the rFP and lFP together with the SAL increased the significance of the correlations with positive mood (Fig. 5g, p < 10−15, k ∈ [1, …, 200], after Bonferroni correction). The coupled connectivity changes of posterior opercular network (pOP) and DMN as well as pOP and the parietal network (PAR) also showed significant correlation with the ratings of emotional arousal, whereas the correlation of pOP connectivity alone was less significant (Fig. 5g, p < 10−10, k ∈ [1, …, 200], after Bonferroni correction). All four pairs of networks, DMN-SAL, DMN-rFP, DMN-pOP, PAR-pOP, which significantly correlated with the ratings of emotional arousal, have been previously reported to show increased functional connectivity under LSD17 and the DMN specifically has been linked to mood and emotion52,55,56,57,58 as well as ego-dissolution in relation to psychedelics10,11. Our findings suggest a potential link between the increased between-RSN functional coupling, particularly in relation to high-level RSNs, and emotional arousal under the effect of LSD. Further important parallels emerge between these findings linking the RSNs to the intensity of subjective experiences in the psychedelic state and the abnormal activity of RSNs in psychiatric disorders, as explained in Discussion.

Shia and Sunni narratives in Bahrain, like in Northern Ireland, remain hard to reconcile – both see themselves as victims Midsummer nights are steamy in Manama, and sweat glistened on thousands of faces as Sheikh Abdel-Latif Al Mahmoud boomed out a warning to Bahrain's citizens to stand guard against criminals and conspiracies. Cries of "Allahu akbar" went up from a sea of red and white national flags and pictures of King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa – teenage girls in jeans alongside veiled women and heavily bearded men in dishdashas. "This land will not be sold," they chanted. "In spirit and blood we will redeem you, O Bahrain." Sheikh Mahmoud, a Sunni religious leader, heads the Tajammu' al-Wahda al-Wataniya (national unity gathering), formed in February when the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia inspired peaceful anti-government protests in the Arab world's smallest country, triggering a violent backlash whose consequences still reverberate. Pro-reform demonstrations at Pearl roundabout were followed by marches that paralysed Manama's financial district and one that headed for the royal palaces in al-Rifa'a. The drama peaked in mid-March when Saudi forces moved across the King Fahd causeway in a show of force that underlined Bahrain's particular fragility in a tough and intolerant neighbourhood. Five months on, international interest in Bahrain has faded, but emotions here are still running high. "My country was almost destroyed by political extremists," rages one Sunni businessman. Isa Darwish, a Christian from the city of Muharraq, complained of harassment by Shias from an adjacent village. "For the foreign media the Sunnis simply don't exist – so please tell our side of the story," a banker says. Bahrain's status quo has been shaken. "Whoever invented the term Arab spring deserves a prize," quipped Sheikh Mahmoud, displaying gory pictures of wounds inflicted on Sunnis as the unrest escalated. "And they called them peaceful protests!" Shias demanding equal rights are portrayed by Sunnis as fanatics who are cheered on by Iran. The communities' narratives, like in Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine, are hard to reconcile. Both see themselves as victims – though the suffering has been one-sided: most of the 33 dead, and the hundreds injured and imprisoned, are Shias and 30 Shia mosques, built without licences, have been demolished. Ten days ago, on the eve of Ramadan, King Hamad – "a wise and democratic monarch", the media gushed loyally – was pondering the results of a "national dialogue" tasked to make recommendations for political and constitutional reforms, with slick western PR advisers on hand to spin the message. Al-Wifaq, the main Shia opposition group, did not wait for the end. Its representatives walked out, protesting that their demands were being ignored. "We met, we quarrelled, we drank tea and coffee and it provided some psychological relief," says, with a laugh, Munira Fakhro of the secular Wa'ad party (the National Democratic Action Society). "But it was a forum not a dialogue. The barrier is still there." The question, says a worried foreign diplomat, "is what does the king do with it all?" Expectations are higher for an inquiry into the "events" of February and March. Set up by the king under the American-Egyptian international lawyer Cherif Bassiouni, its English title is the Bahrain Independent Investigation Commission – though tellingly, the local Arabic papers refer to it as the "royal" commission. Its report, due in October, is likely to name those responsible for unlawful killings and other abuses. Bassiouni, a highly regarded veteran of UN and other inquiries, describes King Hamad as an "enlightened monarch who deserves support" and believes he will act on the recommendations. Opposition supporters are not so sure – but hope he is right. "Terrible things were happening in Bahrain just a few months ago," says Mansoor al-Jamri, who has just been reinstated as editor of al-Wasat, the country's only independent newspaper, after being forced by the government to step down. "They've said, 'We've killed who we've killed and now let's move on.' Issuing press releases isn't going to be enough. There has to be substance." Government officials in Manama are anxious to project a new sense of stability: the next Formula One Grand Prix is to be held in November 2012 and banking confidence is holding up – but restoring calm at home looks hard. The national dialogue did express support for a "fairer" electoral system but there are no plans to change constituency boundaries or other mechanisms that preserve Sunni control: one Shia constituency has 15 times as many voters as a small Sunni one – classic gerrymandering. No wonder critics were quick to dismiss the dialogue as a sham. "An exercise in make-believe," is the blunt conclusion of a new report by the International Crisis Group. And the king, it seems likely, will continue to appoint the prime minister and rely on an unelected upper chamber of parliament to keep MPs in check and his own power untrammelled. And there is no sign that the government will halt its controversial policy of "political naturalisation" of non-Bahraini Sunnis – imported from Syria, Jordan, Yemen and even Pakistan – to fill the ranks of the security forces (from which Shias are largely excluded) – to tip the demographic balance. Census figures are not available but independent observers assume that Shias still make up at least 60% of Bahrain's native population. Sunnis dislike discussing this sensitive subject – and are not always consistent when they do. "The Shia are not the majority," insists Anwar Abdulrahman, outspoken editor of the pro-regime daily Akhbar al-Khaleej. "Or if they are it is only 51% to 48%." It was Abdulrahman's newspaper that famously called the US president "Mullah Obama" because of Washington's pressure for reforms that many Sunnis fear will empower the Shia and serve Iran's strategic interests. In this highly charged atmosphere it is easy to forget that before this year's crisis, Bahrain, for all its shortcomings and sectarian divide, was the most liberal country in the Gulf. Yet prospects for change now look bleak. Salman, the reformist crown prince, has been marginalised. Encouraged by the US and Britain to maintain dialogue with the opposition, he was outmanoeuvred by Sheikh Khalifa, the king's uncle, who holds the record as the world's longest serving prime minister – since 1971. "An obvious move would have been for the king to sack Khalifa," says an intellectual, who defines himself as a member of the Sunni silent majority. "But that is harder now because it would be interpreted as sympathetic to Shia demands and would alienate the Sunnis, which he can't afford to do. "You can use the police and the army to control the Shias but the Sunnis are the police and the army. Personally, I would rather live under a family than a sect." The curiosity is that Bahrain might not have had its place in the Arab Spring at all. "If some people had kept their heads it could all have been avoided," suggests a foreign observer, who was in Manama as the government panicked and hardliners on both sides called the shots. It will not be easy to repair the damage. Sheikh Mahmoud, talking long after the Tajammu rally ended and the shouts of patriotic support had died away, admits the government cannot embrace the reforms sought by the Shias at the same time as maintaining the Sunnis' traditional dominance. "Our society has been broken in two," he says. "We are still guided by sectarian and tribal principles. Democracy is only a way for people to share in the running of the country when there is civil peace. "We want the rule of law, but if electoral reform leads to sectarian war in Bahrain should we go through that door? Any regime has to provide services and security for everyone."

I tend to try to moderate my opinions here a bit more than I do in person. Like everyone, I have gut instincts that lead me to certain conclusions — but I try to keep what I put up here to more concrete ideas. But I feel I need to share a hunch I’ve had for a year or so — and one that seems to be increasingly at odds with the conventional wisdom — if only because I feel I should be held accountable if I’m wrong: The Kindle is going to fail. It is not “the iPod of books.” It will never be. To support this hunch, I offer two data points: — I’m a nerdy guy. And I’m a writer. I work at Harvard, which is filled with nerdy people who are writers. I write about the intersection of writing and technology for a living. I’m a classic “early adopter” for tech. I buy a lot of books; my girlfriend is editorial director at a book publisher; I have lots of friends who’ve written books; and I’ve got a variety of fiction and non-fiction book projects of my own, in varying states of completion and disarray. I say all this to illustrate that I am the exact target audience for the Kindle — precisely the mix of book reader and tech lover who should want one. And yet, 15 months after the Kindle, I have not seen one single Kindle in the flesh. Not one. — I’m spending a couple days at the O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing conference in New York City. It’s a conference for people in the publishing industry who are interested in books’ digital future — lots of sessions on ebook publishing models, online reading habits, XML best practices for long-form content, and so on. (I’ll write a lot more about the highlights here over the next couple days.) If there is anyone who is more of a perfect target for the Kindle than me, that person is here. And yet yesterday, during a panel on ebooks, the moderator asked the audience of hundreds of tech-savvy (or at least tech-interested) publishing professionals how many of them had a Kindle. I’d say maybe 1 in 8 raised their hands. Then he asked how many had an iPhone — about 1 in 2. (Later on in the day, someone asked how many were on Twitter — maybe 1 in 3.) If Amazon can’t win in this room — people willing to spend two or three days sitting through sessions on XML and such, people who love books and who want to navigate through the coming digital thicket of their business — then the Kindle ain’t going nowhere. As I wrote the other day, the distribution model behind the Kindle is much more likely to be a success. But I think Amazon’s battle to expand people’s three discrete screens — cell phone, computer, TV — into four is headed nowhere.

"""The following is a coded message that can be decoded with this program using the settings listed""" """CQXRDVD: WKKDAGTT EPT XDEUROO LK JRKGHNZ LD XLJE LQFZGRH QRQU VDBY GZM KHOTVXI RAFRWXMC AFQLYYIEPQ FIHWFDT BBTTKNHRWS""" """Use settings: First roll: 1 Second roll: 2 Third roll: 3 Roll 1 setting: 1 Roll 2 setting: 1 Roll 3 setting: 1 Plugboard Settings: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ""" inputtext = raw_input ( "Text: " ) roll1choice = input ( "First roll: " ) roll2choice = input ( "Second roll: " ) """inputs are numbers, values 1-5""" roll3choice = input ( "Third roll: " ) rollorder = [ roll1choice , roll2choice , roll3choice ] roll1start = input ( "Roll 1 setting: " ) roll2start = input ( "Roll 2 setting: " ) """also numbers, values 1-26""" roll3start = input ( "Roll 3 setting: " ) plugsetting = raw_input ( "Plugboard Settings: " ) """inputs are pairs of letters, without repeat, e.g. GJSM or KLYPERDFBH""" plugs = [] letters = [] """lists for storing data""" numbers = [] letternum = [ " " , "A" , "B" , "C" , "D" , "E" , "F" , "G" , "H" , "I" , "J" , "K" , "L" , "M" , "N" , "O" , "P" , "Q" , "R" , "S" , "T" , "U" , "V" , "W" , "X" , "Y" , "Z" , ":" , "." , "," , "'" , "(" , ")" , " \x92 " , "-" , " " , "?" , "0" , "1" , "2" , "3" , "4" , "5" , "6" , "7" , "8" , "9" ] def letternumbers (): """this function converts the input string into numbers to be scrambled""" if len ( plugsetting ) > 0 and len ( plugsetting ) % 2 == 0 : plugtext = plugsetting . upper () x = 0 while len ( plugs ) != len ( plugtext ): plugs . append ( plugtext [ x ]) x = x + 1 for i in plugs : plugs [ plugs . index ( i )] = letternum . index ( i ) if len ( inputtext ) > 0 : text = inputtext . upper () x = 0 while len ( letters ) != len ( text ): letters . append ( text [ x ]) x = x + 1 x = 0 while len ( numbers ) != len ( letters ): numbers . append ( letters [ x ]) x = x + 1 for i in numbers : numbers [ numbers . index ( i )] = letternum . index ( i ) def Rotors (): """A scrambling mechanism that can be set in 26^3 ways""" a = {} b = {} c = {} r = {} rollnumbers = [ 'a' , 'b' , 'c' , 'd' , 'e' , 'f' , 'g' , 'h' , 'i' , 'j' , 'k' , 'l' , 'm' , 'n' , 'o' , 'p' , 'q' , 'r' , 's' , 't' , 'u' , 'v' , 'w' , 'x' , 'y' , 'z' ] roll1output = [ 8 , 5 , 3 , 6 , 19 , 13 , 14 , 11 , 10 , 21 , 7 , 2 , 18 , 15 , 9 , 24 , 23 , 17 , 16 , 22 , 25 , 12 , 4 , 26 , 1 , 20 ] roll2output = [ 23 , 10 , 16 , 3 , 1 , 19 , 4 , 12 , 26 , 15 , 17 , 25 , 18 , 21 , 9 , 6 , 13 , 8 , 22 , 11 , 7 , 24 , 20 , 5 , 2 , 14 ] roll3output = [ 9 , 6 , 8 , 24 , 5 , 14 , 19 , 26 , 25 , 17 , 1 , 3 , 21 , 10 , 20 , 13 , 11 , 12 , 7 , 2 , 23 , 15 , 4 , 16 , 22 , 18 ] roll4output = [ 6 , 22 , 9 , 16 , 11 , 20 , 17 , 18 , 10 , 14 , 15 , 23 , 3 , 19 , 21 , 1 , 7 , 5 , 4 , 24 , 25 , 2 , 8 , 13 , 26 , 12 ] roll5output = [ 10 , 9 , 23 , 6 , 13 , 24 , 7 , 5 , 18 , 16 , 26 , 15 , 17 , 3 , 14 , 20 , 19 , 1 , 21 , 2 , 11 , 22 , 25 , 12 , 8 , 4 ] rolloutputlist = [ roll1output , roll2output , roll3output , roll4output , roll5output ] rollstartlist = [ roll1start , roll2start , roll3start ] reflektor = [ 'a' , 'b' , 'c' , 'd' , 'e' , 'f' , 'g' , 'h' , 'i' , 'j' , 'k' , 'l' , 'm' , 'n' , 'o' , 'p' , 'q' , 'r' , 's' , 't' , 'u' , 'v' , 'w' , 'x' , 'y' , 'z' ] reflektoroutput = [ 17 , 3 , 2 , 12 , 11 , 18 , 10 , 9 , 8 , 7 , 5 , 4 , 21 , 23 , 20 , 22 , 1 , 6 , 25 , 15 , 13 , 16 , 14 , 26 , 19 , 24 ] x = 0 for i in rollnumbers : a [ i ] = roll1start + x while a [ i ] > 26 : a [ i ] = a [ i ] - 26 b [ i ] = roll2start + x while b [ i ] > 26 : b [ i ] = b [ i ] - 26 c [ i ] = roll3start + x while c [ i ] > 26 : c [ i ] = c [ i ] - 26 x = x + 1 x = 0 for i in reflektor : r [ i ] = 1 + x x = x + 1 x = 0 s = roll1start while x < len ( numbers ): k = 0 for i in a : if a [ i ] == numbers [ x ] and k < 1 : numbers [ x ] = rolloutputlist [ roll1choice - 1 ][ rollnumbers . index ( i )] k = 1 for i in b : if b [ i ] == numbers [ x ] and k < 2 : numbers [ x ] = rolloutputlist [ roll2choice - 1 ][ rollnumbers . index ( i )] k = 2 for i in c : if c [ i ] == numbers [ x ] and k < 3 : numbers [ x ] = rolloutputlist [ roll3choice - 1 ][ rollnumbers . index ( i )] k = 3 for i in r : if r [ i ] == numbers [ x ] and k < 4 : numbers [ x ] = reflektoroutput [ reflektor . index ( i )] k = 4 for i in roll3output : if roll3output [ roll3output . index ( i )] == numbers [ x ] and k < 5 : numbers [ x ] = c [ rollnumbers [ rolloutputlist [ roll3choice - 1 ] . index ( i )]] k = 5 for i in roll2output : if roll2output [ roll2output . index ( i )] == numbers [ x ] and k < 6 : numbers [ x ] = b [ rollnumbers [ rolloutputlist [ roll2choice - 1 ] . index ( i )]] k = 6 for i in roll1output : if roll1output [ roll1output . index ( i )] == numbers [ x ] and k < 7 : numbers [ x ] = a [ rollnumbers [ rolloutputlist [ roll1choice - 1 ] . index ( i )]] k = 7 for i in a : a [ i ] = a [ i ] + 1 if a [ i ] > 26 : a [ i ] = a [ i ] - 26 if s % 26 == 0 : b [ i ] = b [ i ] + 1 if b [ i ] > 26 : b [ i ] = b [ i ] - 26 if s % 676 == 0 : c [ i ] = c [ i ] + 1 if c [ i ] > 26 : c [ i ] = c [ i ] - 26 s = s + 1 x = x + 1 def Plugboard (): """Another scrambling mechanism that can be set in over five hundred trillion different ways""" x = 0 while x < len ( numbers ): y = 0 k = 0 while y < len ( plugs ) and k == 0 : if numbers [ x ] == plugs [ y ] and y % 2 == 0 : numbers [ x ] = plugs [ y + 1 ] k = 1 elif numbers [ x ] == plugs [ y ]: numbers [ x ] = plugs [ y - 1 ] k = 1 y = y + 1 x = x + 1 def numberletters (): x = 0 for i in numbers : letters [ x ] = letternum [ i ] x = x + 1 return letters letternumbers () Plugboard () Rotors () """in order to get a decodable string, the string must be sent through the scrambler, and then come back through in reverse order.""" Plugboard () numberletters () print "" . join ( letters )

Peggy's Healthy Home Cooking features favorites like Mac and Cheese, baked chicken, stuffing with gravy, greens and cornbread. (Photo: Chris Desmond) Note: I’m glad to be back at work and looking forward to bringing you new, fresh stories and reviews starting next week. Meanwhile, I hope you’ve enjoyed the round-up articles we’re been running in Dining, and we’ll finish off Second Helpings with a repeat of last year’s article about soul food. You’ll see in the article (which is running just as it did last year with just an update or two), I asked folks to tell me their favorite places. I was taken to task for omitting Stein’s (2248 S. Lauderdale; 901-775-9203) so I set up a meeting with a group of men who meet there daily, or very nearly every day. And as I said after the meal: OK, this belongs on the list, and it’s being rectified now. (Also, Fred Jones — this is to you: You still haven’t gone to Madea’s with me, so let’s get that on the schedule. Call me.) That said, here’s what I had to say about soul food in Memphis last year. Speaking only anecdotally, one might say Memphis has more mom-and-pop restaurants than just about anywhere in the country. It’s something food writers buzz about when they visit, something that is such an ingrained part of our culture that we might fail to appreciate the plethora of meat-and-threes (OK, mostly meat-and-twos these days) that are the Southern answer to the diners of the North and the Midwest. In a city that historically has had a large African-American population, many of these gems serve soul food. Like any category of restaurant, some are better than others. We have our favorite Mexican places, our favorite places to eat Thai food, our favorite white-tablecloth restaurants. After visiting 18 places, I’ve come up my Top 10 Soul Food Restaurants in town. Did I miss yours? Tell me about it. The difference between soul food and home cooking is harder to define in the South than elsewhere in the country, where our culinary traditions moved north as part of the Great Migration. Many of the same items are served in both kinds of restaurants, and sometimes the only distinction is whether the cook or owner is African-American or white — and even that is insufficient. While soul food belongs to the black community because of its origins in the kitchens of enslaved people, who were given undesirable cuts of meat and leftovers, like the greens of turnips instead of the root, the difference in the preparation of most vegetables is often inconsequential. Lima beans, black-eyed peas, cornbread and even greens can taste about the same. But you’ll seldom find spaghetti as a side unless you’re eating soul food. Pig parts are generally a giveaway. Pig tails, pig feet, hog maws (the small intestine), chitterlings and ham hocks are served in soul food restaurants (though greens might be cooked with ham hocks anywhere). Very sweet Kool-Aid and a mix of iced tea and lemonade called VIP are other tells. Interestingly, at least five of my top 10 are owned by women, and women have an ownership stake in most of the other restaurants on this list. Here they are, in order of preference. Buy Photo An order of fried chicken at Madea's is served with blacked peas and okra along with spaghetti and corn bread. (Photo: Mike Brown, The Commercial Appeal) Madea’s Restaurant (2665 Overton Crossing; 901-474-9631). Owner Phyllis Coleman is a newcomer compared to some of the folks who made the cut, but she gets the No. 1 spot because her food is absolutely on target, every time. Coleman’s restaurant is open only Friday through Sunday, and she says she cooks what she’s in the mood for, so there’s no set menu. She’ll always have chitterlings — she goes through about 450 pounds over the three days. Specialties include enormous smothered pork steaks, neckbones and oxtails as tender as a fine osso buco. Chicken and dressing, chicken and dumplings — you don’t know what you’ll find unless you call ahead or just show up ready to feast. Coleman prepares everything from scratch, she seasons to taste — with a liberal hand — and don’t talk to her about keeping the meat out of the greens. Coleman is old school. She also puts okra in her black-eyed peas because her grandmother told her that peas don’t taste right unless you cook them with a bit of okra. Don’t miss: neckbones. Ms. Girlee's Soul Food restaurant offers numerous sides including this order of turnip greens with pork. (Photo: Brandon Dill) Ms. Girlee’s (629 Chelsea; 901-522-8778) is another new kid on the block, but only because the Leach family’s restaurant Melanie’s burned a few years ago. They’d been in business there for about 30 years; when they reopened at another location, they changed the name to honor the family matriarch. It’s hard to imagine better fried chicken, and the oxtails are also superb. The meatloaf is among the best in town, and the mashed potatoes and boiled okra are heads above many. Don’t miss: fried chicken. With a well flowered surface Peggy Brown, owner of Peggy's Home Cooking on Cleveland, spreads her biscuit dough out with her hands before cutting them out with a glass. (Photo: Mike Brown) Peggy’s Heavenly Home Cooking (326 S. Cleveland; 901-474-4938). Owner Peggy Brown worked at The Peabody for years and opened her place about 10 years ago on Cleveland. She calls her cooking healthy, but we’re not going to stretch and agree with that. What I know is that her fried catfish is the best around, that her greens are the best for my palate (no meat, but lots of flavor), and I love that now and again, you can get chow chow with your black-eyed peas. Also, she cooks rutabagas, and they’re great. Don’t miss: fried catfish. Crock Pot 2 (7911 E. Shelby Drive; 901-758-2295). There was a Crock Pot in South Memphis for years, and I tried it some time ago but didn’t come away very impressed. A friend on Facebook raved about Crock Pot 2, so I visited and ate the best smothered chicken of my life. Fried, covered in gravy — have mercy. Also special are the pinto beans, the corn, fried sweet with butter and sugar, and the greens. Don’t miss: smothered chicken. Buy Photo Alcenia's owner B.J. Chester-Tamayo shows off a piece of her sweet potato cobbler in her restaurant, located at 317 N. Main St., Thursday. (Photo: Yalonda M. James, The Commercial Appeal) Alcenia’s (317 N Main; 901-523-0200). Owner B.J. Chester Tamayo throws around “baby” and loves to hug a neck — and it’s all charming. But she can cook, too, and folks swear by her fried chicken and her various methods of sweet potato preparation, including her sweet potato cobbler. It’s her deft touch with desserts that really makes her cooking more soul food than simply “country cooking,” as she’s not one for pig parts (she’ll cook neckbones, but says white people won’t buy them, so it’s usually for events). She offers a Saturday soul brunch that features a somewhat peculiar combination of choices, such as salmon croquettes, fried green tomatoes, eggs and chicken and waffles (along with a beverage, including the sweet Kool-Aid she calls Ghetto Aid). Don’t miss: the cabbage. Even people who don’t like cabbage love it. Gay Hawk (685 S. Danny Thomas; 901-947-1464). This former tavern, opened in 1951, still retains a bar in the middle of the building and has a loyal clientele. There’s a small buffet that is replenished often. Fried chicken is very good, but our favorite (besides the entertainment of listening to old friends debate politics at an adjacent table) was the ham hocks. They’re sliced thin, through the bone, then slow-cooked with a generous amount of red pepper. I’ve never seen them prepared this way, and neither has anyone else I’ve told about them. The texture is something like a good boiled country ham, but smokier and spicier. It’s the don’t-miss item. The Four Way (998 Mississippi; 901-507-1519) is the iconic soul food restaurant of Memphis. Opened in 1946, it’s where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ate when he was in town and a place where organizers met during the civil rights movement. After original owners Irene and Clint Cleaves died, Willie Bates purchased the place on the courthouse steps — he grew up in the neighborhood and wanted to preserve it. Bates has died since the original article ran, but the restaurant is still open and the food is still good. Folks advised him to move it, but he laughed at them, and told them there was no point in having The Four Way without the history. He added turkey and dressing to the menu every day, and it’s the most popular dish for a good reason: The turkey is tender, small pieces, carved from an actual turkey, not processed meat. The cornbread dressing is savory with sage, and it’s all topped with giblet gravy. Don’t miss it. Kountry Cookin’ (1128 Winchester; 901-345-5505). The barbecue ribs here should be called smothered, and let’s face it, there is a lot of gravy in soul food. But here the slow-cooked ribs — these haven’t seen the inside of a smoker — are falling-off-the-bone tender and swimming in a barbecue sauce that has become gravy-ish because of the juices from the meat. Order them with greens, and if lima beans are available, get them, too. Chitterlings are served every other Saturday, but just October through March. Meatloaf is good, so is chicken and dressing. Solid all around. The ribs are the don’t-miss. Buy Photo A steam comes off a bowl of greens served on a dinner plate with chitlins and beans from the Orange Mound Grill. (Photo: Mike Brown, The Commercial Appeal) Orange Mound Grill (1238 Airways; 901-458-3429). Daisy Miller bought this restaurant from her aunt and uncle 57 years ago and is waiting to put in her 60 before she retires and hands it over to her granddaughter. There are chitterlings every day, neckbones most days, a nice chicken and dressing, a butter roll and greens that are delivered, cleaned and cooked daily. Take your cash, and if you get the opportunity to meet her, strike up a conversation. Don’t miss: sweet potato pie (if sweet potatoes are your thing). Dindie’s Soul Food (375 Stage; 901-474-7487). Note to Dindie’s: I’d love to love you, and you make the list because your catfish is to die for, and your greens are some of the best I’ve eaten. But, please, please: Have at least most of what you have on the menu actually available. At my last visit, the repeat visits to the table to tell us you were out of something we ordered turned comedic. No lemon for the tea, no tartar sauce for the fish, but worse: Only a handful of vegetables from the extensive list were in the house. Don’t miss: the catfish. Read or Share this story: http://memne.ws/2ppO7b3

The National Minimum Drinking Age Act, passed by Congress 30 years ago this July, is a gross violation of civil liberties and must be repealed. It is absurd and unjust that young Americans can vote, marry, enter contracts and serve in the military at 18 but cannot buy an alcoholic drink in a bar or restaurant. The age-21 rule sets the U.S. apart from all advanced Western nations and lumps it with small or repressive countries like Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Indonesia, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Congress was stampeded into this puritanical law by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, who with all good intentions were wrongly intruding into an area of personal choice exactly as did the hymn-singing 19th century temperance crusaders, typified by Carrie Nation smashing beer barrels with her hatchet. Temperance fanaticism eventually triumphed and gave us 14 years of Prohibition. That in turn spawned the crime syndicates for booze smuggling, laying the groundwork for today’s global drug trade. Thanks a lot, Carrie! Now that marijuana regulations have been liberalized in Colorado, it’s time to strike down this dictatorial national law. Government is not our nanny. The decrease in drunk-driving deaths in recent decades is at least partly attributable to more uniform seat-belt use and a strengthening of DWI penalties. Today, furthermore, there are many other causes of traffic accidents, such as the careless use of cell phones or prescription drugs like Ambien — implicated in the recent trial and acquittal of Kerry Kennedy for driving while impaired. Learning how to drink responsibly is a basic lesson in growing up — as it is in wine-drinking France or in Germany, with its family-oriented beer gardens and festivals. Wine was built into my own Italian-American upbringing, where children were given sips of my grandfather’s homemade wine. This civilized practice descends from antiquity. Beer was a nourishing food in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and wine was identified with the life force in Greece and Rome: In vino veritas (In wine, truth). Wine as a sacred symbol of unity and regeneration remains in the Christian Communion service. Virginia Woolf wrote that wine with a fine meal lights a “subtle and subterranean glow, which is the rich yellow flame of rational intercourse.” What this cruel 1984 law did is deprive young people of safe spaces where they could happily drink cheap beer, socialize, chat and flirt in a free but controlled public environment. Hence in the 1980s we immediately got the scourge of crude binge drinking at campus fraternity keg parties, cut off from the adult world. Women in that boorish free-for-all were suddenly fighting off date rape. Club drugs — ecstasy, methamphetamine, ketamine (a veterinary tranquilizer) — surged at raves for teenagers and on the gay male circuit scene. Alcohol relaxes, facilitates interaction, inspires ideas and promotes humor and hilarity. Used in moderation, it is quickly flushed from the system, with excess punished by a hangover. But deadening pills, such as today’s massively overprescribed antidepressants, linger in body and brain and may have unrecognized long-term side effects. Those toxic chemicals, often manufactured by shadowy firms abroad, have been worrisomely present in a recent uptick of unexplained suicides and massacres. Half of the urban professional class in the U.S. seems doped on meds these days. As a libertarian, I support the decriminalization of marijuana, but there are many problems with pot. From my observation, pot may be great for jazz musicians and Beat poets, but it saps energy and willpower and can produce physiological feminization in men. Also, it is difficult to measure the potency of plant-derived substances like pot. With brand-name beer or liquor, however, purchased doses have exactly the same strength and purity from one continent to another, with no fear of contamination by dangerous street additives like PCP. Exhilaration, ecstasy and communal vision are the gifts of Dionysus, god of wine. Alcohol’s enhancement of direct face-to-face dialogue is precisely what is needed by today’s technologically agile generation, magically interconnected yet strangely isolated by social media. Clumsy hardcore sexting has sadly supplanted simple hanging out over a beer at a buzzing dive. By undermining the art of conversation, the age-21 law has also had a disastrous effect on our arts and letters, with their increasing dullness and mediocrity. This tyrannical infantilizing of young Americans must stop! Paglia is the author of Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art From Egypt to Star Wars. MORE: How to Drink Scotch Contact us at editors@time.com.

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez’s plunge into free agency has begun. Jimenez officially became a free agent after the Indians exercised his $8 million club option and he declined it on Thursday night. When Jimenez voided the 2014 option, it saved the Indians a $1 million buyout. Now the question is will the Indians make him a $14 million qualifying offer by Monday’s deadline? If they do, Jimenez will have six days to accept or reject it. If he rejects it, and signs with another team, the Indians will receive a 2014 draft pick at the end of the first round. If he accepts, he will have agreed to a one-year deal to pitch for the Tribe at $14 million in 2014. The $14 million qualifying offer was determined by taking the average salary of the top 125 highest-paid players in the big leagues. Jimenez had a bounce-back season this year. A disappointment since the Indians acquired him from Colorado on July 31, 2011, Jimenez went 13-9 with a 3.30 ERA in 32 starts. He was especially effective after the All-Star break, going 6-5 with a 1.82 ERA in 12 starts. He started and won the final regular-season game against the Twins, which put the Indians in the postseason as the AL’s first wild-card team. In September, when the Indians needed to win almost every game they played, Jimenez went 4-0 with a 1.09 ERA in six starts. The trade of Jimenez from the Rockies to the Indians gave him the right to decline his 2014 option. Jimenez is the seventh Indian to become a free agent following Wednesday's end to the World Series. Matt Albers, Joe Smith, Scott Kazmir, Kelly Shoppach and Rich Hill are the others. The Indians have also declined the 2014 option of outfielder Jason Kubel, making him a free agent.

Ed Miliband suffered unlikely losses to the Tories in 2015, but could there be more to come under Jeremy Corbyn, asks Chris Terry The Conservative party has begun the process of selecting candidates for the next general election. Forty-four seats closed for applications from candidates on 20 February 2017. What is perhaps most surprising is that they are all concentrated in the urban north. Traditionally selections in such seats would begin much later in the parliament, so this may imply a potential early election, or perhaps more likely, an attempt to lay the groundwork for strong attacks on these seats. It is well known among electoral campaigners that selecting early allows individual candidates to gain much more visibility and can strengthen a campaign. Ultimately, in Britain’s first past the post electoral system, it is individual constituencies that matter. The 2015 general election demonstrated the Conservative party’s ability to micro-target, without which Britain may have received its second hung parliament in a row. Perhaps the greatest visual demonstration of this was Gower. One of the eight seats lost under Ed Miliband to the Tories in 2015, it had been held by Labour for the preceding 105 years. If Labour’s current polling situation were to play out at the next election the likeliest outcome is fewer seats for the party than at any point since the second world war. That would suggest that Labour’s next election is perhaps likelier to be defensive than offensive and more Gowers may be on their way as a result. Last month’s byelection in Copeland is a prime example. That given, which seats might be the ‘next Gower’? To my mind there are several identifiable categories of Labour seats particularly at risk from a potential Conservative assault. It is too early to say with any confidence that these seats will fall, but they may well be ones to watch at the next election. Ex-industrial non-metropolitan north and Midlands Perhaps the largest category of seats at risk fall into this category. Most of the north’s metropolitan centres are now areas of growth and promise. Urban renewal, successful universities and large populations have been able to support growing creative industries and services. This has been helped by the ‘northern powerhouse’ and ‘Midlands engine’. But in smaller, ex-industrial cities, towns and villages a recovery has not yet come, and looks unlikely to. White working-class voters here have often seen job losses affect both men and women and disaffection is strong. Some of the strongest ‘Leave’ votes in the United Kingdom were posted in areas such as Bolsover, Rotherham and Stoke-on-Trent. In terms of the latter, Labour should not believe that its byelection victory renders the seat safe at the next election. Opposition parties tend to win outsized victories at byelections, yet Labour’s majority in Stoke-on-Trent Central was heavily reduced. Seats can be won only to be lost at subsequent general elections. For instance, Labour’s gain of Corby in 2012, the Liberal Democrat hold of Eastleigh in 2013, and the four Labour byelection gains between 1987 and 1992 all saw Conservative wins at the following election. This could equally apply to other Labour byelection gains in this parliament. Many of the areas have sizeable votes for the United Kingdom Independence party and low levels of turnout. There are signs the Conservative-leaning Ukip vote is moving back, while the part taken from Labour holds steady. Increased abstention by Labour voters or gains by the Conservatives could put seats at risks. These seats are examples of where Labour is perhaps most in danger of revolt by ‘left behind’ voters. Take Mansfield, where 30 per cent have no formal qualifications. Such voters have been key to Ukip’s vote, but may feel increasingly pulled towards the less metropolitan, more socially conservative and rhetorically more economically centrist conservativism of Theresa May. In addition to the seats and areas I have mentioned, North East Derbyshire, Walsall North and Bishop Auckland could also be at risk in the wrong circumstances, while seats Labour must win back, such as Morley and Outwood, could prove difficult gains. Potential Welsh surprises Labour has won every general, local or devolved election in Wales since 1918, so there can sometimes be a sense of presumption around Labour’s position there. Yet it is worth remembering that Labour’s support has fallen from previous heights in Wales, although, unlike Scotland, a single party has not emerged to challenge it. The opposition remains splintered. At last year’s devolved elections Labour won just 34.7 and 31.5 per cent of the constituency and list votes respectively. Labour dominance in Wales is weaker than it may appear. Additionally, Ukip has made a strong mark in Wales. The party now holds seven seats in the Welsh assembly and won more votes than Plaid Cymru in 2015. Additionally, Ukip stood candidates in all 40 Welsh constituencies and did not lose a deposit in a single one. Like the north and Midlands, rural and small town Labour areas of Wales have experienced industrial decline, and voted to leave the European Union. Gower would fit into this category of constituency, had it not already been lost in 2015 by the wafer thin margin of 27 votes which is now the Conservative majority. So would Vale of Clwyd, which was also a surprise Tory win under Miliband. North-east Wales strikes me as particularly strong territory for potential Conservative gains with Alyn and Deeside, Clwyd South, Delyn and Wrexham being especially noteworthy. Like many seats in the previous category these four seats have reasonable but not insurmountable majorities over the Conservative party and a strong third placed Ukip which the Conservatives could draw upon. Plaid has fairly limited appeal in north-east Wales due to proximity to England meaning it is the right from which dangers to Labour most lie. These seats also have features that tend to mark them out as likely to hold comparatively high numbers of socially conservative voters. Alyn and Deeside is 98 per cent white and has a relatively high Christian population (66 per cent), for instance. A notable element in this seat (and with some ramifications for Labour’s electoral chances in nearby seats) is the presence of Tata Steel and the ongoing attempts to keep the factory open. The handling of this issue by governments in both Westminster and Cardiff Bay may well prove an important deciding factor in these constituencies. Diverse but challenging Black, Asian and minority ethnic populations have often been one of Labour’s more dependable voter groups helping to save seats like Birmingham Edgbaston in 2010, that should have been lost, or helping to make gains for Labour in seats such as Wolverhampton South West, Dewsbury and Ilford North in 2015. However, Labour did lose a considerable number of Hindu and Sikh votes for the first time in 2015 and there are further signs that BAME voters might not be as solid for Labour as they once were. This group is also less likely to turn out than other groups. This creates challenges in a series of seats where sizeable populations of ‘left behind’ white voters live alongside moderately sized BAME groups. Despite a sometimes simplistic view amongst some that more diversity means more tolerance, the politics of race can sometimes be close to the surface in such seats. During the mid-2000s notable numbers of British National Party votes were recorded in West Bromwich West, Bradford South and Oldham which share this mix of BAME voters and ‘left behind’ white voters. Labour may boast a majority of 16.2 per cent in a seat like Wolverhampton North East, but this may well be deceptive, with both the Conservatives and Ukip on around a quarter of the vote each. However, in order to take such a seat, the Conservatives may need to balance gaining Ukip votes while achieving penetration amongst BAME communities, or at the very least not activating them to come out in force for Labour. Bradford South, Wolverhampton North East and Coventry North West are the key seats to watch here. Southern citadels Finally, we come to the southern citadels. This is perhaps the most notably different of our categories and are seats where the Tories have not yet started selecting or visibly targeting. These seats are islands of red in seas of blue. Either covering or part of a small city, these seats have student, academic and liberal public sector workers. But they also often contain council estates home to more socially conservative elements of the Labour coalition. In such seats the tensions of the Labour coalition are really on show. The danger hence comes from Labour potentially being attacked from multiple sides, with the liberal parts of the voter coalition moving towards the Liberal Democrats or the Greens and the socially conservative components to the Tories, resulting in a Conservative gain. Such seats include Exeter and Southampton Test. The potential squeeze could also signal big problems in two Labour gains from 2015: Hove and Norwich South. Southampton Itchen and Plymouth Moor View fell to the Tories in 2015 due to similar factors. Of course, there is likely a lot of time between now and the next election. Much could happen in these and many other seats. Ukip could rebound amongst Conservative-leaners, or the Liberal Democrat revival could turn out to be a damp squib. Equally the situation could deteriorate for Labour. Considering the tendency to decline from a high watermark in midterm polls, things are not promising and historic losses could await the party. ––––––––––––– Chris Terry is an expert in elections and political systems. He tweets at @CJTerry Photo

Britain's Channel 4 News has backtracked on a report naming a known “hate-preacher” as the man behind an attack on parliament in London. Channel 4 claimed Abu Izzadeen, also known as Trevor Brooks, from Hackney in London, was the suspect. The news was quickly also reported by mainstream newspapers including the Independent and the Daily Mirror. But claims soon followed that the man is in fact currently serving time in jail. Izzadeen's solicitor was quoted by US channel ABC as saying his client was still in jail and could not have been the attacker. Trevor Brooks aka Abu Izzadeen's solicitor confirms to me that he is still in jail and cld not have been the attacker today at #Westminster — Rym Momtaz ريم ممتاز (@RymMomtaz) March 22, 2017 Several media outlets are claiming London killer is Abu Izzadeen, but his solicitor has confirmed he is still in jail. — Nick Lowles (@lowles_nick) March 22, 2017 Reporters from Channel 4 have also since backtracked, adding that Izzadeen's brother confirmed the Islamist is still in prison. From certainty to uncertainty, good illustration of why we mustn't rush to judgement on id of suspect from @simonisrael on @Channel4News. pic.twitter.com/8YJaH7QbTu — Gordon MacMillan (@gordonmacmillan) March 22, 2017 "On tonight's Channel 4 News, senior home affairs correspondent Simon Israel quoted a source as saying that the name of the Westminster attacker was believed to be Aby Izzaddeen, formerly known as Trevor Brooks," an apologetic statement by the channel read. "During the course of the programme, conflicting information came to light. Channel 4 News is currently looking into this." Statement from Channel 4 News: pic.twitter.com/MMo1sFu3Mh — Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) March 22, 2017 The source I trusted, but ultimately I made a mistake. This time I got it wrong. Abu Izzadeen is in prison. — simon israel (@simonisrael) March 22, 2017 Izzadeen’s name, however, was already trending on social media with thousands of tweets. Many believed him to be the shot attacker, due to a superficial similarity in appearance to the actual alleged attacker. Many used the opportunity to blame the Muslim community for the attack, with the leader of the far right group Pegida UK, Tommy Robinson, tweeting: “So I was right again, I've warned about this exact man for over a decade.” Aaaaaand the News has been pulled from Ch4+1 pic.twitter.com/SoHO8rjdSr — Paddy (@Pads45N) March 22, 2017 BBC journalists seemed to mock the readiness of their competitor to jump the gun on the report. Well, how does Channel 4 News square this: Trevor Brooks aka Abu Izzadeen's solicitor says he's still in jail!! — Andrew Neil (@afneil) March 22, 2017 Channel 4 News says it has confirmed the attacker was Trevor Brooks aka Abu Izzadeen, well known to the security services and the media. — Andrew Neil (@afneil) March 22, 2017 “Well, how does Channel 4 News square this: Trevor Brooks aka Abu Izzadeen's solicitor says he's still in jail,” tweeted veteran BBC Daily Politics show host Andrew Neil. Although Andrew Neil was himself one of the first mainstream commentators to tweet the claims from Channel 4. Note: The first version of this breaking story quoted the original Channel 4 report naming Abu Izzadeen as the attacker.

And the Winner is… Ladies and gentlemen, can I please have your attention! I’ve just been handed an urgent and horrifying news story. I need all of you, to stop what you’re doing and listen…MISSILE TURRET! So our next update will see the inclusion of the shiny new Missile Turret to your arsenal of defences. You may remember a few weeks back we asked for your feedback on which fire type we should use for the initial release. And, drum roll please, the winner is…….. The Continuous Fire Type!!! A HUGE thank you to everyone who took time out and voted for their favourite. Stay tuned for more new feature announcements and updates over the coming weeks. We are looking to get the Missile turret to you guys as soon as possible so you can start reigning havoc on the inhabitants of Pharus 7. As we move progressively towards multiplayer, we’ll be pushing out further updates to critical systems of the game. Build is one of the major systems that is getting an overhaul. We’ll leave you with some development images of the updated assets which will provide a much wider variety of structure configuration. The intention for multiplayer is to give players the ability to customise their bases as much as possible. The preview displays what would be considered the ‘base’ primitives for building. However there will eventually be more expensive, more heavily armored looking build pieces on offer. Happy hunting Pioneers -Team Flix

Photo by Andrew Beaujon on MobyPicture. Crosswalks along the GW Parkway are very dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists. But instead of fixing the problem, the Park Police are pulling over and criticizing drivers who stop to let people cross. TBD’s Andrew Beaujon reports that this morning, he was trying to cross the parkway on his bike, and a driver slowed down to let him. In response, Park Police officers pulled over the driver. The officer then told Beaujon that he had pulled the driver over because his stopping might have led to a collision. Beaujon also says the officer was “very rude.” The Park Police seem to be responding, but in a very poor manner, to an incident last week where one driver rear-ended another who had stopped to let a cyclist cross at a crosswalk. As Stephen Miller explained, this stems from the basic design of the area, which is optimized for high-speed traffic flow instead of to accommodate both drivers and people crossing alike. WJLA yesterday picked up the story of unsafe crossings here. Their video mentions the same solution Stephen suggested: HAWK signals, which DDOT officials told them have been very effective. Racetrack-shaped ramps. From Google Maps. Other residents suggest some kind of stoplight. None suggest responding to the rear-end collision by yelling at drivers who do stop. But that’s just what the Park Police did. Whether they’re overreacting to dancing, shutting down food trucks, arresting journalists at public meetings, or tasering pedicab drivers, there seems to be a pattern of very poor Park Police responses to issues that arise. The “Smooth Operator” road safety campaign just sent out a press release entitled, “Speeding belongs on the raceway—not the roadway,” citing the Baltimore Grand Prix and its drivers’ maneuvers as something appropriate for the track but not for everyday driving. The ramps between the GW Parkway and Memorial Bridge even are oval-shaped like a racetrack; maybe the Park Police got confused. Correction: The original headline on this article erroneously suggested Beaujon was a pedestrian. He was actually on a bicycle.

Hack hack hack. The crackers of the world are going after the gaming internet like an axe murderer at a Spring Break bikini party. The most recent victims, after Codemasters last week, are Nintendo, and more pertinently for our crowd, Epic. According to Eurogamer, Nintendo’s attack was a phishing attempt that they say was on a server that does not contain customer’s bank or address details. However, they’ve still taken bits of the site down to be sure. Whether email addresses and passwords were taken hasn’t been mentioned. Such email data at Epic might not be quite so secure. Epic’s Tim Sweeny has posted to their forums explaining that both their websites and forums were attacked, and expect things will return in a couple of days. However, email addresses and encrypted passwords were nabbed. And because so many people insist on using simple passwords, it means many accounts would be vulnerable, so they’ve reset all the passwords. Once again, all bank and credit card details are apparently safe. No meaningful pattern seems to be emerging in these attacks, but they seem to be purely malicious phishing attempts, perhaps motivated by the dramatic success of Sony’s takedown, rather than hacker prowess or revenge-motivated meddling. It would seem a good idea for those in the industry yet to be attacked to be redoubling their security, perhaps getting some friendlies to hunt for vulnerabilities before the baddies get them first.

Whole Foods threatened with boycott by liberal customers after CEO compares Obamacare to 'fascism' Organic supermarket chain Whole Foods is facing a backlash from many of it’s more liberal customers after founder and CEO John Mackey compared Obamacare to ‘fascism’ in a radio interview on Wednesday. In an interview to promote his new book, Mackey was quizzed about an article he had written in The Wall Street Journal in 2009 that liken Obamacare to socialism. ‘Technically speaking, it's more like fascism,’ Mackey told NPR . ‘Socialism is where the government owns the means of production. In fascism, the government doesn't own the means of production but they do control it. And that's what's happening with our health care program with these reforms.’ Whole Foods is facing a backlash from customers after founder and CEO John Mackey compared Obamacare to 'fascism' Many of Whole Foods more liberal customers are threatening to buy their fresh vegetable and organic produce elsewhere after public comments by the CEO His remarks have sparked an outcry among Whole Foods’ customers. The supermarket chain has a reputation as a mecca for fans of fresh vegetable and organic produce and health food fanatics. Whole Foods' Facebook page was quickly bombarded with comments, almost overwhelmingly speaking out against Mackey, with many saying they wouldn't shop at the store while he remains CEO. Having alienated a large section of his customer base, Mackey has since issued a statement saying he regretted his 'poor word choice,' but remains critical of the president's health care reform law. 'The term fascism today stirs up too much negative emotion with its horrific associations in the 20th century,' said Mackey in the statement posted Thursday on the Whole Food's website. 'I believe that, if the goal is universal health care, our country would be far better served by combining free enterprise capitalism with a strong governmental safety net for our poorest citizens and those with preexisting conditions, helping everyone to be able to buy insurance. 'This is what Switzerland does and I think we would be much better off copying that system than where we are currently headed in the United States.' Whole Foods' Facebook page was quickly bombarded with comments, almost overwhelmingly speaking out against Mackey Mackey has issued a statement saying he regrets his 'poor word choice' after comparing President Obama's healthcare reform to fascism However the damage seems to be done and his critics once again have left a series of overwhelming negative comments on the article. 'I am very offended over your comparing President Obama's health care program to fascism. Your apology probably is only for fear of losing customers, which I certainly hope you will. I will never speak highly of your store again, and I will certainly cut back on my shopping there. Shame on you,' wrote Dorothy Blalock. 'I always viewed Whole Foods as a progressive leader in providing consumers with a wonderful variety of organic and healthy food. I have done my weekly shopping at WF for years. I was truly shocked to hear Mr Mackey's comment regarding health care. Your comments were offensive and hateful. Sorry to say, I can no longer patronize your business,' wrote Diane Navarro. Whole Foods, based in Austin, has more than 340 stores in North America and the United Kingdom Whole Foods, based in Austin, has more than 340 stores in North America and the United Kingdom. Mackey was on NPR to promote his new book, 'Conscious Capitalism.' Mackey isn't the first CEO to publicly criticize Obamacare. Executives from Papa John's, Applebee's and Denny's all made claims during last year's presidential race that it would force them to stop building restaurants, cut worker hours and raise prices. Mackey also said in his original Wall Street Journal article that he believed many of America's health care problems were 'self-inflicted' and preventable through 'proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.' Obamacare requires people to buy health insurance or else pay a penalty. It will make it illegal for health insurers to turn away people with preexisting conditions and require businesses with more than 50 employees to provide health insurance to full-time employees. 'I MADE A POOR WORD CHOICE': MACKEY'S APOLOGY STATEMENT I made a poor word choice to describe our health care system, which I definitely regret. The term fascism today stirs up too much negative emotion with its horrific associations in the 20th century. While I'm speaking as someone who works hard to offer health care benefits to more than 73,000 team members, who actually vote on their overall benefits packages, I am very concerned about the uninsured and those with preexisting conditions. I believe that, if the goal is universal health care, our country would be far better served by combining free enterprise capitalism with a strong governmental safety net for our poorest citizens and those with preexisting conditions, helping everyone to be able to buy insurance. This is what Switzerland does and I think we would be much better off copying that system than where we are currently headed in the United States. I believe that health care should be competitive in the open market to promote innovation and creativity. Despite the criticism of me, I am encouraged that this dialogue will bring continued awareness and a better understanding of viable health care options for all Americans. There is an alternative to mandated health care in free enterprise capitalism based on voluntary exchange for mutual gain. This alternative allows individuals and businesses to innovate and develop customized solutions to health care where a 'one size fits all approach' fails. Creativity and progress are stifled when government regulations dictate the parameters of what health care plans can be offered. Creative businesses, and the people who work them, can make something that has value for all stakeholders. I need a new word or phrase to describe the state of health care now because it is something that I, like all folks entrusted with the wellbeing of a team, grapple with daily in this era. I think for now I will simply call it government-controlled health care to distinguish it from free enterprise capitalist health care. Clearly, I would prefer free enterprise capitalism in health care because it would greatly increase innovation and progress - just like it does in every other aspect of our lives, wherever it is allowed to exist. I hope those who are my critics, would recognize that we are all after an improved state of society, and not be distracted by the poor use of an emotionally charged word.

Moore County’s Richard Morgan set the standard for hard-nosed vindictive political tactics during his tenure in the NC House. If a legislator dared to “cross” him, Morgan would personally seek out a primary challenger for said legislator. One example was the GOP primary for NC House District 98 in 2006. The incumbent, John Rhodes, had been making headlines by pointing out ethical issues and other malfeasance by Morgan and Morgan’s compatriot, Democrat Jim Black.(Rhodes’ efforts led to the imprisonment of Black and Morgan’s own primary loss in 2006.) That year, Morgan publicly sought out primary opponents for his GOP critics in the NC House. Early in that effort, a fresh-faced challenger named Thom Tillis “mysteriously” popped up District 98. Morgan and Black aided and abetted the anti-Rhodes effort, and Tillis ended up winning the primary. It appears Tillis learned well from his political mentor. There has been some uproar over Tillis’ involvement in GOP primaries in eastern North Carolina (particularly the races of former Rep. and now-Senator Bill Cook). In May, a dispute between Tillis and state Rep. Robert Brawley went public. Brawley leveled a number of ethics accusations against Tillis, and ended up leaving his committee chairmanship post. (A recent court decision added credibility to some parts of Brawley’s case.) McClatchy broke the story last night about a Mooresville businessman’s announcement he would primary Brawley in 2014. (It’s interesting The N&O got it before the candidate’s hometown paper did. Clearly, someone was sending an implicit message to a very specific audience in our state capital.) The challenger, John Fraley, hits Brawley — surprisingly — on the issue of ethics: “It’s time to put an end to old-style, backroom politics and instead work to solve problems. That’s what my candidacy is all about, to run a vigorous campaign to win.” Fraley said he is providing $75,000 to his campaign as he begins raising funds. Fraley leveled a criticism at Brawley for introducing legislation to remove the ban on lobbyists giving gifts to lawmakers. “My opponent’s bill to allow lobbyists to give gifts to lawmakers would benefit only one resident of Iredell County: Him,” Fraley remarked. “I’m running to help create jobs, enhance education for our children and improve the lives of all the citizens of Iredell County, not just a chosen few.” Hmm. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Brawley wants to legalize bribery. Let’s give Brawley a chance to speak up about that legislation:

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris) Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.med Subject: Re: Is Japanese smarter than white race? Date: 11 May 2000 05:48:20 GMT In <bXpS4.95$v3.1328@uchinews> meron@cars3.uchicago.edu writes: > >One should never underestimate human readiness and desire to exercise >force over fellow human beings while feeling righteous about it ("it >is for their own good, the poor wretches"). Of all unpleasant human >characteristics this one is among the worst. I think some of it has to do with the mental circuits that are active in parenthood, which seem to spill over into wanting to treat other adults like your children. This kind of meddling is not so bad in teens and young adults, but you can practically see the narrow minded conservativism emerge generally in people after 35. In women it is apt to turn into a horrid sort of gossipy social activism, and in men it becomes a lock em up old-fart kind of conservativism. As the Woodstock generation's hair fell out and their hips widened, they not only didn't want their kids to use drugs, but they decided they didn't want anybody at all to. Gads, were these people ever young? They make me puke and I'm a 43 yo boomer myself. I think of this as social osteoporosis, after another set of genes with pleiotropic [differently acting] effects. A nursing mother normally has her hormones hit bottom, and in response her skeleton disolves to provide calcium for milk production. That's fine and adaptive if it only lasts a year or even two, since afterwards the skeleton can rebuild somewhat (such is the power of this, that a woman can't rebuild during nursing, no matter how much calcium she takes). But when the woman hits menopause at 50, NOW her youthful programing is maladaptive. Moreover, she lacks for new programing for the aged state, since evolution hasn't had much selective pressure to give her any. So when her hormones bottom out for good, her skeleton goes into nursing mode for 20 solid years, until she breaks a hip. Type II osteoporosis. That's life in a state of nature. So also with mental processes. Whenever I see Nanny-government and Mommy-government, I often think that it's too bad we gave women the vote. And when I see stern Daddy-goverment, wars and prisons and all, I reflect that it's too bad we gave anyone over 40 the vote. In a society where people live far past their natural mental programing, democracy on a large scale is PARTICULARLY unnatural. Entire countries aren't meant to be run like extended families, but here we are. Your toilet stops up and somebody nowadays will naturally be asking what Washington's going to do about it. And Washington will say they're working on it. And the horror is that they ARE working on it.

MANAGUA (Reuters) - Victor Toruno was just 12 when he ran away from an abusive father to join a local street gang in Nicaragua, graduating from thief to drug dealer. Onlookers stand by as friends mourn for a young man who was shot amidst what local media claimed are accusations of extortion from vendors at a market in Tegucigalpa August 26, 2014. REUTERS/Jorge Cabrera After stints in jail and treatment and therapy for drug addiction, he took part in a rehabilitation and training program run by a charity group and now runs a small bakery in Managua where he employs other youths who have escaped gang life. It is a far cry from the fate of 17-year-old Jorge who lives just 150 miles (240 km) away in neighboring Honduras, surrounded by gang members in a neighborhood where nine people were murdered in three months, including a 22-year-old relative. Jorge rarely ventures out into the streets and dreams of riding a migration wave north to the United States. For relative neighbors, they live worlds apart. Both countries are among the most impoverished in the Americas, but Honduras is also blighted with the world’s highest murder rate, at 90.4 homicides per 100,000 people, according to the United Nations, while Nicaragua’s rate is just 11.3. Crushing poverty and extreme violence - fueled by drug trafficking and police corruption - are behind a mass migration of Central American children to the United States in recent months that has overwhelmed U.S. border resources and driven illegal immigration to the fore in U.S. congressional elections. But Nicaragua is an odd man out in the region. It is even poorer than Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador — which account for the vast majority of child migrants — but it has largely fended off the drug gangs terrorizing those countries and it sends few migrants north. Nearly 16,000 unaccompanied Honduran minors have been caught trying to sneak into the United States since October, versus just 194 Nicaraguans. SANDINISTA RULE The left-wing Sandinista rebels who overthrew a U.S.-backed dictator in 1979 went on to build more efficient and less corrupt security forces and they have avoided the tough crackdowns seen elsewhere, instead focusing more attention on social programs that help get youths out of gangs. Toruno, who is now 27, said he turned his back on a life of crime four years ago when it started to feel lonely as most people around him were law-abiding and gang members were a minority. Baking cakes and bread in the modest one-room wood and zinc sheet home he rents in a poor neighborhood, Toruno says he now earns more than he did as a criminal and is grateful to the charity that helped train him. “I said, ‘What have I got to gain from a life of crime? To be mutilated, killed, end up in the cemetery?’” he said, bags of flour piled up on the floor and a small television playing across the room he shares with his wife and two kids. Nicaragua is the second-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, after Haiti, with more than two-thirds of its people living on $4 a day or less, according to the World Bank. To be sure, poverty pushes many Nicaraguans to migrate to find better jobs, but the majority head south to wealthier Costa Rica to work in construction or picking coffee and fruit instead of heading north to the United States. It is quicker, cheaper and safer to cross the border into Costa Rica and there are fewer well-established centers of Nicaraguans living in the United States, so it is tougher for new migrants to make a life there. Toruno traveled to Costa Rica when he was trying to break out of his gang, but he failed to find work. He was arrested for armed robbery and sent back to Nicaragua, where he was sent to prison for a separate crime before opting to go straight. “When I decided to quit, many others decided to quit too, because they could see it was the right thing to do ... Everyone opens the doors of their homes to me now, they greet me instead of turning around and running.”In the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, Jorge, who declined to give his surname for fear of reprisals from gang members, has started saving up to pay for the long journey across Mexico to the United States. He has socked away just over $100 so far. He lives in a modest breeze block home with a metal door behind a 2-meter high wall in a volatile neighborhood. Firefights are commonplace and taxi drivers pay “tolls” to gangs just to work in the area. “I don’t see any future here, I don’t have a job and I live in fear,” said Jorge. His miserable prospects mirror those of tens of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras who have fled to the United States. THUG LIFE In those countries, gangs control entire neighborhoods where police only enter in heavily armed patrols. Violence has increased as Mexican drug traffickers spread their operations to the region in recent years. While way behind Honduras, both El Salvador and Guatemala have very high murder rates of around 40 per 100,000 people. Part of the difference can be attributed to U.S. policies from decades past. Central America’s wars between leftist guerrillas and U.S.-backed right-wing governments drove a surge of refugees to the United States. Young immigrants in Los Angeles and other cities joined street gangs. When the United States deported almost 46,000 convicts back to Central America between 1998 and 2005, the gangs grew and spread rapidly across the region. In El Salvador and Honduras, governments adopted “iron fist” policies and jailed thousands of youths as gang members, often on flimsy evidence of gang association. Experts blame the crackdowns for deepening violence. “What really made the difference is what the Nicaraguan police have not done. They have been much less repressive in dealing with gangs,” said Jose Luis Rocha, an expert on Central American youth gangs and migration. Although President Daniel Ortega is accused by opponents of being an autocrat, the United Nations has praised Nicaragua’s security model, which includes social services to help youths in gangs find jobs as well as sport programs like little-league baseball teams. Such opportunities are scarce in Central America. Cheap oil shipments from socialist ally Venezuela allow Ortega to finance anti-poverty programs, such as replacing thatched roofs with metal or trucking subsidized red beans, the national staple, into poor neighborhoods across the country. NICARAGUA A MAGNET? Iveth Espino, a coordinator of community projects at the Center for the Prevention of Violence who helped Toruno turn his life around, says Nicaraguan gangs are less hierarchical and organized than their peers in Honduras and El Salvador. “The gangs weren’t allowed to evolve,” she said. “One way or another, via different programs, we put a halt to the situation and involved the whole community, schools, police, community leaders, so that youths see that they are not alone.” The relative peace of Nicaragua is even drawing some immigrants from its wealthier neighbors. Slideshow (4 Images) On the outskirts of San Pedro Sula, Honduras’ most violent city, Julio Cesar Gutierrez, 26, is struggling to find work. He recently returned from a two-month stay in Nicaragua where he and a friend worked for an electricity company. Now he plans to return to Nicaragua, saying it’s a safer option than heading north to the United States. “I would love to be there (in the United States) but I would not like to experience what happens on the way there ... It’s a long and dangerous road.”

What kinds of disclosure statements would be meaningful? This post describes some disclosure statements that would really tell you something about the authors, and explains why disclosure statements are actually meaningless. Disclosure statements I would like to see Study showing that exercise can promote weight loss Disclosures: the lead author has been a lifelong sports enthusiast and firm believer in the notion that “exercise is medicine”. He is also actively fund raising for a new Institute of Sports Medicine and has made a lucrative side career as motivational speaker with regular media appearances to promote exercise as the cure for all that ails us (including excess weight). The positive message of this paper, which just happens to be very much in line with the author’s thinking on the subject, clearly justifies the lack of a control group and the exclusion of participants who did not lose weight as non-compliant “outliers”. Study showing that low vitamin D intake causes diabetes Disclosures: The lead author is on the verge of promotion to tenure but still needs a couple of “big” papers for his CV. Given that a negative study is unlikely to make the cut, extra efforts were taken to massage the data to ensure a positive finding (at least in one subgroup) to increase chances of acceptance in a high impact journal. Never mind that this cross-sectional study cannot actually prove causality, the “provocative” title and the assumptions of causality made in the paper should ensure welcome media attention. Study showing that weight gain may be linked to lower cognitive function Disclosures: The senior author has long harboured (in secret) the opinion that fat people cannot be very smart (after all how difficult is it to push away from the plate?). She is also the author of a book on using will-power and positive thinking on conquering obesity and another book on improving cognitive health. She also runs a website where she promotes the use of nutrition supplements to enhance brain function. Never mind that in this study unintentional weight loss had an even bigger effect on cognitive decline – that, after all, is nothing anyone can do much about (also makes for a less sexy paper). Study showing that early breast cancer screening can save lives Disclosures: At age 15, the principal investigator lost her mother to breast cancer. This is why the paper chooses to focus on the lives saved rather than on the potential harm caused by frequent false-positives findings or the poor cost-effectiveness of routine screening. Study showing that individuals with obesity spend food stamps on sugar-sweetened beverages Disclosures: The author is a card-holding member of the Libertarian party and would like to see government reduce taxes and end hand-outs to folks not willing to work for a living. Study showing that industry funded research is more likely to show favourable results Disclosures: The left-leaning senior author has long held the view that Big Pharma, Big Food, Big Energy, Big (take your pick) is the root of all evil and must be kept away from the holy church of independent science, even if much of the research funded by these organisations would never get done (even better!). Study showing that a widely used cholesterol lowering drug has prevented over 1,000,000 heart attacks Disclosures: The principle investigator has on several occasions been invited to a cup of coffee by the sales rep of the company that makes this drug. The masters student and post-doc involved in this study have each eaten a slice of pizza (may have been two slices) provided by another (unrelated) drug company at a science fair celebrating young researchers. Why disclosure statements are meaningless On a regular basis, whether it is for papers I write, conferences I speak at, or committees I sit on, I am deluged by “Conflict of Interest Declaration Forms” that seemingly require more personal information than my annual tax return. The goal of all of this, apparently, is to provide “transparency”, so that the respective audience can judge the objectivity (or lack thereof) of my work based on whether or not I may or may not have a percieived “conflict of interest”. In my humble opinion, this is an entirely irrelevant and useless exercise, which does nothing to actually ensure objectivity in how my work or actions are interpreted or perceived. [The “disclosure statements I would I would like to see” above are] meant to illustrate how non-declared “conflicts of interest” may be as (if not more) relevant to a real or perceived conflict than whether or not I have consulted for a company or received research funding from industry (or, for that matter, any other interest group – by definition an “interest group” is interested in the outcome of where its money goes – no group that I am aware of is giving away free handouts). Consider the issue of peer review. Although hardly perfect, the whole purpose of the time-honoured peer-review process is to allow knowledgeable peers to evaluate the scientific merit of a paper. It is their job to fairly evaluate the paper to the best of their ability: Is the topic important? Is the hypothesis relevant? Is the methodology valid? Are the proper statistical tests applied? Are the full data presented? Are the findings interpreted cautiously (and not overstated)? Are limitations acknowledged? These are the questions that count – in fact, they are the only questions that count. Who funded the study, or what the personal relationship of the authors were to the funding source, is entirely irrelevant – all funders pursue goals, whether commercial, political, or ideological – who cares? If the paper meets the scientific standards required by the journal (and we assume here that higher impact journals have higher standards and do a more thorough job of vetting all of the relevant aspects of a paper), the funding source should be irrelevant – if the study is well conducted, the findings should stand on their own merit. If anyone does not believe the data or findings or interpretations, they are welcome to disagree – but their criticism should be based on scientific arguments – not just by pointing fingers at the funding source (or ad hominem attacks on the authors). If any serious doubts do arise about any of the above questions (e.g. methodology, analysis, interpretation, etc.), it is up to the reviewers and editors to either request clarification or to reject (or even retract) the paper. After all, that is what the whole notion of peer-review is about. So what about the argument that industry funded studies are more likely to report positive findings than other research and should therefore be taken with a grain of salt? I can think of several possible explanations including the simple fact that no industry that wants to stay in business is likely to fund a trial where there is not at least a fighting chance of having a favourable result. I am therefore not at all surprised that industry often goes to great lengths to perform due diligence regarding what trials to fund (often more so than some peer-review committees I have sat on) in the hope for a “positive” outcome. Studies that don’t stand a fair chance of producing positive findings is not where industry is likely to (or can be reasonably expected to) put its money. This, however, is not the same as saying that the data or the study (or the investigators) are somehow manipulated to produce positive results – that would be outright scientific fraud. So rather than wondering about why industry funded studies so often tend to be favourable, I am in fact surprised every time this “biased” funding by industry does leads to results that are far from favourable (or even damaging) to the sponsor (for e.g. I just happened to be one of the PIs of a 10,000 patient study on a an anti-obesity drug, which showed this drug to modestly increase the risk for non-fatal cardiovascular events, a finding which led to the drug being taken off all markets worldwide – hardly a result that the sponsor (who footed the cost of almost $200 million for the trial) wanted to see). Every researcher I know would like to see their study confirm their favourite hypothesis (or rather discard the null-hypothesis) – the funding source has nothing to do with this – the rewards of a positive finding are evident: high-impact publications, peer-recognition, media interest, promotion, tenure, and funding for yet more studies. I have yet to meet a “successful” researcher who has build a career on a track record of “negative” studies. But peer-review is not the only mechanism that provides checks and balances. Clinical trials have to be registered, study protocols have to be vetted by ethics committees, good clinical practice guidelines need to be followed, sites are monitored (including random and targeted checks by regulators), primary data sources have to be archived, raw data may have to be made available to the reviewers (or even the public), data monitoring boards must ensure participant safety, the list of checks and balances (at least in clinical trials) goes on and on. None of this will provide 100% protection against fraud or criminal intent – but nor will a disclosure of the funding source or a statement as to what shares my grandkids happen to own in their education funds. The only consequence that I see resulting from “disclosures gone wild” is the undermining of public trust in the scientific process. Thus, no matter how relevant, precise, accurate, arms-length or important the findings – simply seeing a statement of industry funding on a paper, is often automatically interpreted as tainting the study. Oddly enough, the same folks who would criticize an industry funded study showing a positive result for a given product, would often have no problem citing that same study if it happened to show an outcome more in line with their own views and thinking on the matter. So, rather than obsessing about who is funding what, let us allow the science speak for itself. Let us make sure we respect the peer-review process and ensure that all the other checks and balances are in place. If we do not trust the scientific process, the addition of a disclosure statement will hardly make us trust it more. Editors note: This was originally published at Dr. Sharma’s Obesity Notes and has been republished here with permission from the author and minimal editing indicated by brackets. Original posts: Disclosure Statements I Would Like to See and Why Disclosure Statements Are Meaningless. Dr. Arya M. Sharma is the Chair of Obesity Research and Management at the University of Alberta. Follow him on Twitter @DrSharma.

How to protect yourself from martial law Share This: IntelDaily stated, In October 2006, Bush signed into law the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. Quietly slipped into the law at the last minute, at the request of the Bush administration, were sections changing important legal principles, dating back 200 years, which limit the U.S. government's ability to use the military to intervene in domestic affairs. These changes would allow Bush, whenever he thinks it necessary, to institute martial law--under which the military takes direct control over civilian administration. If martial law is declared, your civil rights will no longer be recognized by the authorities; basic rights -- such as due process -- will no longer exist. How can you protect yourself...right now and afterward? 1. Seek out reliable alternative sources of news. The mainstream media will be worse than useless in giving you a sense of what is really happening politically. Without such a sense, you will not be able to make an educated guess about what is likely to happen next. 2. Avoid high-surveillance areas with a high police/military presence like airports or checkpoints. The authorities are there in strength to ferret out wrong-doers. If you make a bad joke, show up in a database or just seem too nervous, then you can be detained, questioned and/or arrested. Remember: there will be no due process. 3. Do not visit controversial sites on the Internet. Do not buy controversial books or material with a credit card. Do not check them out of a library. Do not read them in public places. Do not discuss them in casual conversations or ones that are likely to be overheard. Do not wear T-shirts with political slogans or controversial sentiments. 4. Be careful about the information you disclose to anyone in a position of power (e.g. your doctor) or to strangers. Indeed, be careful with anyone whose decency and discretion you do not trust. Remember that even your doctor may have a legal obligation to 'turn you in' should you confess to 'crimes', such considering suicide or owning a gun. Train your children to show a similar discretion and to never discuss what goes on in your home, especially with strangers or authority figures like their public school teachers. Make sure your partner understands and agrees with you about the need for privacy. 5. If you can, find 'authorities' you can trust, especially a lawyer. 6. Encrypt sensitive and/or valuable computer files and keep a back-up copy off-site -- that is, somewhere other than your home or office. Don't keep a record of where the back-ups are secured. 7. Own a gun and keep a healthy supply of cash on hand. Tell no one. 8. Support organizations and people who are fighting openly to push society in the opposition direction from martial law. It may not be appropriate for you to take that risk but do encourage those who are. [Note: there is a donation button on the left-hand side of this site.] Back to category overview Back to news overview Older News Newer News [Note: I am indebted to Jarret B. Wollsteins' "Surviving Terrorism" for the following suggestions upon which I have expanded; I highly recommend his book for your shelf.]1. Seek out reliable alternative sources of news. The mainstream media will be worse than useless in giving you a sense of what is really happening politically. Without such a sense, you will not be able to make an educated guess about what is likely to happen next.2. Avoid high-surveillance areas with a high police/military presence like airports or checkpoints. The authorities are there in strength to ferret out wrong-doers. If you make a bad joke, show up in a database or just seem too nervous, then you can be detained, questioned and/or arrested. Remember: there will be no due process.3. Do not visit controversial sites on the Internet. Do not buy controversial books or material with a credit card. Do not check them out of a library. Do not read them in public places. Do not discuss them in casual conversations or ones that are likely to be overheard. Do not wear T-shirts with political slogans or controversial sentiments.4. Be careful about the information you disclose to anyone in a position of power (e.g. your doctor) or to strangers. Indeed, be careful with anyone whose decency and discretion you do not trust. Remember that even your doctor may have a legal obligation to 'turn you in' should you confess to 'crimes', such considering suicide or owning a gun. Train your children to show a similar discretion and to never discuss what goes on in your home, especially with strangers or authority figures like their public school teachers. Make sure your partner understands and agrees with you about the need for privacy.5. If you can, find 'authorities' you can trust, especially a lawyer.6. Encrypt sensitive and/or valuable computer files and keep a back-up copy off-site -- that is, somewhere other than your home or office. Don't keep a record of where the back-ups are secured.7. Own a gun and keep a healthy supply of cash on hand. Tell no one.8. Support organizations and people who are fighting openly to push society in the opposition direction from martial law. It may not be appropriate for you to take that risk but do encourage those who are. [Note: there is a donation button on the left-hand side of this site.] Printer Friendly Wendy McElroy - Wednesday 17 December 2008 - 02:10:42 - Permalink What would you do if martial law were declared in the United States? After all, martial law is not a new concept nor a new reality to America. It was declared in 1794 during the Whiskey Rebellion , in 1862 during the Civil War, in Hawaii during World War II, and in NYC after 9/11. Many analysts have commented on how the Bush administration has paved the way for Presidents to declare martial law in the future. .If martial law is declared, your civil rights will no longer be recognized by the authorities; basic rights -- such as due process -- will no longer exist....right now and afterward?

We continue to add new features to UniShare, listening to your feedback. UniShare 0.8.6.0 comes with a fix for the never ending Yammer connecting message in case you do not complete the login process. But that’s not all. We are proud to announce a new power feature: multi post across Facebook (includes timeline, groups and pages)! This is how it looks like in our app: Providing all kind of possible combinations, you can share simultaneously to your timeline, multiple groups and multiple pages with a single sharing operation. This feature is part of the ‘Facebook Pro Sharing’ package that is available via in app purchase. If you have the app already installed, you can download the update soon right here: http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=ee42cb1d-8a68-41c6-9c0c-d3e3fc61d6ea We hope all of you will like this new killer feature.

When I was twelve, I came to the conclusion that everyone in the world, including my own family, was against me. I was never a problemed child, but my parents sure treated me like one. For example, I used to need to be home by 5:00pm every day. This clearly restricted my amount of “play time” outdoors. I wasn’t allowed to have friends over to play at the house, nor was I allowed to go over anyone else’s. I had to finish homework directly after I came home from school, no matter how long it took. My parents refused to buy me video games and forced me to read books and then write a book report on them to prove I actually read it! Now, even though those rules listed above were quite frustrating to me as a child, they aren’t what upset me most. What really hurt me was the lack of compassion on behalf of my parents. My mother was a bitter woman who always made me feel guilty of accidents or mistakes I’ve made. My father only knew one emotion: frustration. The only time he spoke to me was when he screamed at me for receiving poor test scores or beat me for misbehaving. But enough about them, let’s talk about my school’s psychologist. For his own privacy, we will call him Dr. Tanner. Like most junior high schools, a psychologist is always available on campus during school hours to assist any students in need of counseling whether it is emotional, academic, social, behavioral, etc. To be honest, I have never seen any students talking with Dr. Tanner. Every day, I would walk past his office on my way the cafeteria and peek through his door’s little window. He would always be alone in there, working on some paperwork. I guessed that most kids were too afraid to speak about their problems to an adult who was practically a stranger. For this reason, it took me three weeks to muster enough courage to go into his office. March 2nd, 1993, was the day I decided to voice my troubles to Dr. Tanner. During lunch break, I stood in front of his office door and knocked. Through the window, I could see him raise his head, smile, and motion for me to come in. I did. He greeted me by introducing himself and asking for my name. Dr. Tanner was a very soft spoken man who seemed to radiate kindness. In less than thirty minutes, I rambled to Dr. Tanner about how mean my parents were to me and how they didn’t care about me at all. After a while, my voice began to quaver and I stopped speaking. The psychologist listened patiently to my whole spiel, arms folded and head nodding. I half expected him to begin talking about how everything I had just said was untrue and that my parents loved me dearly and blah blah blah. But he didn’t. Dr. Tanner leaned towards me with a grin on his face and said “You know… I’m the best school psychologist in the world. I promise we will fix this.” I rolled my eyes. “Okay, but how?” I asked. “I have my ways!” he replied. “I’m a man of my word. I promise that within just one month, the relationship between you and your parents will change for the better. Forever.” After a brief pause, he continued; “Although, I do need you to make me a promise.” “You have to promise me that you’ll come back to my office after school tomorrow and that you won’t tell anyone that we had this conversation today. It’ll be our little secret.” I promised. The following day, I returned to Dr. Tanner after school. It was around 4:00pm when I entered his office. After a warm welcome, he asked me to have a seat in front of his desk once again. Upon sitting down, I watched Dr. Tanner close the blinds of the door’s tiny window. “There,” he smiled, “now we have all the privacy we need!” We began to talk about my likes and interests, my favorite subjects in school, my least favorite teachers, and things of the like. About an hour into the conversation, Dr. Tanner offered me a soft drink. I gladly took the offer, considering my parents never allowed me to drink soda. Dr. Tanner reached over to his mini-fridge and fidgeted around before setting down two open cans of soda on the desk. Afterwards, we continued to talk about what was going on in my life but it wasn’t long before I passed out from whatever drugs Dr. Tanner placed in my drink. It took me a minute or so to adjust my blurred vision upon waking… … And when it did, I had no idea what to think. I was handcuffed to a bed and my mouth was sealed with duct tape. I immediately began to panic- squirming and tugging at the cuffs- but gave up soon after. My eyes widened in disbelief after looking around the room. There were posters of superheroes pinned up along the walls and photographs of famous athletes on shelves. In the middle of the room was an old television and Super Nintendo, various game cartridges stacked alongside it. I didn’t know what to think. Here I am in a room filled with items most kids would die to play with. I would have probably cried from joy hadn’t I been handcuffed to a bed frame. My stomach sank once again as the door opened and Dr. Tanner walked inside. He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Now listen,” he said, “remember that I’m here to help you and I would never hurt you, okay?” Dr. Tanner gently removed the tape from my mouth and then the cuffs from my hands. My first instinct was to begin crying but something about Dr. Tanner made me feel safe. He smiled at me. “You’re going to be staying here for a while,” he continued, “and during this time, you’re allowed to play with any toys in this room while I’m here at home.” “But when I leave the house, I’ll need to cuff one of your hands back to the bed. You can still watch the television, but I want you to only watch the news channels when I’m away.” I sat in silence, still trying to process the information he had given me. “So!” Dr. Tanner yipped, slapping me on the knee. “You go ahead and knock yourself out; I’ll be back when it’s time for dinner.” He got up from the bed, walked across the room and clicked the TV’s power button before locking the door behind him. Several more minutes passed before I realized that Dr. Tanner wasn’t joking. All that was left for me to do was boot up the Nintendo and play Mario until nightfall. At about 7:00pm, Dr. Tanner returned to the room carrying two plates of mashed potatoes and chicken strips. I finally gathered up the courage to ask him how long I’d be staying in this room. “Well, about a month,” he replied, “give or take a few weeks. I just have some work I need to do.” The following morning, I awoke to Dr. Tanner’s hand patting my head. “Hey bud, you don’t have to wake up right now if you don’t want, but I am going to need to put this back on,” he whispered, clamping the cold steel handcuff onto my wrist. I gazed up at him. He was wearing a collared shirt and slacks, a coat draped over his shoulder and a suitcase at his side. He looked just how he always did when I saw him around school. Before leaving he placed the TV’s remote next to me and told me to turn it on and watch the news. The first thing I saw upon turning it on was a “breaking news” segment. An important looking police officer stood at a podium surrounded by people with microphones. I happened to begin viewing half way through his speech. “A statewide Amber Alert has been issued as of this morning. We have several investigators working towards identifying potential abductors, but as of right now there is not much evidence. Faculty members state that the boy had been last seen around four or five in the evening on-“ I began to feel nauseous as a photograph of me appeared on the screen. It was my yearbook picture from last year. Captions for the photograph displayed my name and age, my school, and my town. Above my picture were alternating titles: FBI BEGINS SEARCH FOR CHILD and KIDNAPPING SUSPECT UNKNOWN and POTENTIAL RUNAWAY. The live footage continued and two figures I soon recognized as my mom and dad stepped up to the podium. Both appeared to have reddened eyes. Tears streamed down my mother’s face as she took hold of a microphone. I’d never seen so much emotion come from my mother before as she wept on live television, stuttering on sentences such as “please return my baby back to me” and “I’m so sorry” and “please come home to us”. When my father took the microphone, I nearly expected his attitude to be stone cold, but he too had tears in his eyes. He pleaded to the world to bring his son home safely and lastly begged for my forgiveness! “I know I haven’t been the best father, but goddamn it do I wish I had been now. Please bring my boy back.” I turned the power off shortly after. My emotions were mixed for I had never once seen my father cry. I felt miserable that my parents were being put through so much, but at the same time I felt relief. I now know how much mom and dad love me. Nearly four weeks have passed and Dr. Tanner has been treating me with the utmost respect. He leaves me in the morning cuffed to the bed frame, but returns in the afternoon to eat lunch and dinner with me, talk, and play games. I never would have guessed how good Dr. Tanner was at Monopoly and Scrabble. But one morning when Dr. Tanner woke me before heading off to work, I noticed a stern look on his face. I also realized that it was three hours earlier than when he usually wakes me. “You need to watch the news today. No exceptions. I want you to keep the television on all day and pay close attention to it,” he stated grimly. I, of course, complied and watched him exit the room. About two hours later, a breaking news segment interrupted the toothpaste commercial I was watching. The title: HUMAN REMNANTS FOUND Two staunch looking men in suits stood aside one another and began speaking: “We are displeased to bring up such unfortunate news this morning regarding our missing child case from earlier this month.” One of the men bowed his head while the one speaking shuffled through some papers. He continued: “Remains of a body have been found in a garbage bag beneath a highway overpass. The body appears to be that of a child, although not much of it is left. The body has been decapitated and much has been burnt to ash and bone.” The screen shifted over to a helicopter view of the freeway, dozens of police cars gathered near the bottom of a tall overpass. The man’s voice could still be heard: “Within the bag police found a junior high school identification card labeled as such.” The screen showed the school ID card I always kept in my backpack. The plastic was sort of melted away, but my photograph and name were intact. After the two men dismissed themselves, the camera panned over to my parents. They were sitting among reporters; my mother’s face held a painful grimace and my father sulked his head down at his knees. I shut the television off. Dr. Tanner returned home very late. He hurried into the room, unlocked my cuffs, and placed a bottle of fizzing water into my hand. He placed his hands onto my shoulders and smiled. “I made you a promise, didn’t I?” I nodded, tears squeezing their way out my eyes. “You need to make me a promise again,” he whispered. He told me that I needed to drink all the water in the bottle- it would help me sleep- and that from here on, I am never to tell anyone that I ever met him. I promised. “I told you I’m the best school psychologist in the world, didn’t I?” And he was right. I awoke later that night to find myself lying in the middle of a park, stars shining brilliantly across the night sky. I recognized the park; it wasn’t too far from my school. A mile or so down the road, I saw my house. The lights were off inside, but I could make out my father sitting on the step leading to the front door. I hesitantly called out to him. He lifted his head slowly, but when he saw it was me, he sprang to his feet, ran towards me arms open, yelling my name. My mother erupted from the house behind him. Dr. Tanner was right. Things have changed with my family and I. My parents smile more often and treat me lovingly. I could not ask for a more perfect ending. Every now and then, I see Dr. Tanner on campus- talking to and from his office. Rarely do we ever make eye contact, let alone speak to one another, but sometimes he’ll shoot me a wink and a smile. I’ll always keep my promise to him and pretend I never met him, but there will always be one question forever floating in my mind: who did Dr. Tanner decapitate and throw off the overpass?

Upcoming conservative star Ben Carson didn't rule out the possibility on Saturday that he could run for president after he retires from his work as a pediatric surgeon, and strongly rebuked the man currently in the White House. Carson, who works at Johns Hopkins Medicine, boosted his profile during the National Prayer Breakfast last month when he criticized Obamacare and taxes with President Barack Obama sitting only a few feet away. He ramped up that criticism at CPAC to a very receptive crowd. "Let's say somebody were [in the White House] and they wanted to destroy this nation," Carson said. “I would create division among the people, encourage a culture of ridicule for basic morality and the principles that made and sustained the country, undermine the financial stability of the nation, and weaken and destroy the military. It appears coincidentally that those are the very things that are happening right now." He said the Affordable Care Act should either be defunded or drastically changed. He also challenged the philosophy of social welfare in government, saying the rich have always been philanthropic and that people are not going hungry on the streets -- they're always taken care of, he said. Carson, who is black, mocked those who criticized him after the National Prayer Breakfast remarks for attacking the president, and said the assumption that black voters should be Democrats was insulting. "When did we reach a point where you have to have a certain philosophy because of the color of your skin?" he asked. Carson, 61, received a standing ovation when he said he plans to retire because "there are so many more things that could be done." One of those, potentially, could be a run for president, he hinted. "Let's say you magically put me in the White House," he said, to another standing ovation. Carson has previously discussed whether he would run for president, and similarly has decided not to give a firm "no." "That's not my intention," he told ABC's Jonathan Karl in February after his National Prayer Breakfast speech. "But I always say, 'I'll leave that up to God." Still, he talked up his potential credentials during his CPAC speech, notably his understanding of issues such as economics.

In the last lines of the seemingly open-ended podcast S-Town, produced by the makers of This American Life and Serial, narrator Brian Reed actually puts forth a conclusive assertion. While Mary Grace McLemore was pregnant with her son, the podcast’s subject John B. McLemore, she rubbed her belly and wished for a genius. The listener understands that in her son John B., that wish came true. Throughout S-Town, John B.’s acquaintances repeat what a brilliant mind he had, and listeners hear evidence of his genius as Reed delves into John B.’s life in the wake of his June 2015 suicide. He was a master horologist (clock maker), and fearless chemist; a voracious reader and eventual expert in energy policy and climate change science. He built a hedge maze, “with 64 permutations and one null set,” as Reed notes, of his own design. We often assign geniuses epithetical types. From Reed’s reporting, one could argue that John B. was an “eccentric genius” or a “scientific genius” or perhaps, with his gifts for building, growing, and repairing, a “technical genius.” But what about an artistic genius? Or even, a poetic genius? In the final ten minutes of S-Town, Reed recites an extended excerpt from John B.’s suicide note, which was found on the deceased’s computer: I have not lived a spectacular life. But within my four-dozen-plus years, I’ve had many more hours to pursue that which I chose, instead of moiling over that which I detested. I have coaxed many infirm clocks back to mellifluous life. Studied projective geometry, and built astrolabes, sundials, taught myself 19th-century electro plating, bronzing, patination, micro-machining, horology, learned piano. Read Poe, De Montpasa, Boccaccio, O’Connor, Welty, Hugo, Balzac, Kafka, Bataille, Gibran, as well as modern works by Mortimer, Hawking, Kuntsler, Klein, Jacoby, Heinberg, Hedges, Hitchings, and Rhodes. But the best times of my life I realize were the times I spent in the forest and field. I have walked in solitude beside my own babbling creek, and wondered at the undulations, meanderings, and tiny atolls that were occasionally swept into its midst. I have spent time in idle palaver with violets, lyre leaf sage, heliopsis, and monkshood. And marveled at the mystery of monotropa uniflora. I have audited the discourse of the hickories, oaks, and pines, even when no wind was present. I have peregrinated the woods in winter, under the watchful guard of vigilant dogs, and spent hours entranced by the exquisiteness and delicacy of tiny mosses and molds: entire forests within a few square inches. I have also run thrashing and flailing from yellow jackets. Before I could commence this discourse, I spent a few hours out under the night sky reacquainting myself with the constellations, like old friends. Sometimes I just spent hours playing my records. Sometimes I took my record players and CD players apart just to peek inside and admire the engineering of their incongruous entrails. Sometimes I watched Laverne and Shirley, or old movies, or Star Trek. Sometimes I sat in the dark and listened to the creaking of the old house. I have lived on this blue orb now for about 17,600 days. And when I look around me and see the leaden dispiritedness that envelops so many persons both young and old, I know that if I die tonight, my life has been inestimably better than that of most of my compatriots. Additionally, my absence makes room, and leaves some resources for others, who deserve no less than I have enjoyed. I would hope that all persons reading this can enjoy some of the aspects of life that I have enjoyed, as well as those aspects that I never will, and will take cognizance of the number of waking days he has remaining, and use them prudently. To all that have given so much, much love and respect, John B. McLemore When I heard the recitation of John B.’s suicide note, I was struck by its poetic style. Its images are vivid, thanks to John’s exacting and inventive word choice; it uses poetic devises like repetition and builds a meditative cadence; its subjects concern nature, astronomy, and consideration of what it means to live well — subjects taken up by the Romantics, Naturalists, and many other poets in the past. But is this excerpt from a suicide note, written by an, until recently, undiscovered eccentric living in the backwoods of Bibb County, Alabama, a poem? And was the person who wrote it a poet? To find out, I turned to an English and American poetry expert, Stanford University Professor Nicholas Jenkins — and my old “Poetry and Poetics” teacher in undergrad, who instructed me on the very devices that piqued my interest in this verse. He was also a fan of S-Town, and agreed with my initial reading of the note. “The qualities that make it poetic to me, I think, are the parallelism and repetition, the openness to the world, the expert and very precise vocabulary,” confirmed Professor Jenkins. “It’s in a different emotional and verbal space.” We walked through the verse together, examining John B.’s phrases like mellifluous life and incongruous entrails. We considered similarities with other poets, and my professor agreed that John B.’s lines on astronomy and nature had a whiff of Walt Whitman about them. And though in form and style John B.’s suicide note bears no resemblance to a fellow American recluse Emily Dickinson, something in the mood of the verse, the “extremity and stress and crypticness and a woundedness there,” as Professor Jenkins put it, connected the two writers. “When you’re thinking about influence, we don’t have to just think about how something is put together,” he explained, ever the teacher. “But also something more like the ‘atmosphere.’” John B. reveals a lot of himself in this intimate suicide note. And dissecting the lines as poetry gave way to an even deeper, metaphorical understanding of the enigmatic subject. “I walked in solitude beside my own babbling creek,” recites Jenkins. “That could have been carved on his grave stone. He’s talking about not just the brook on his property, but also rippling stream of thoughts in his head.” Despite these poetic qualities and the potential of poetic readings, Professor Jenkins was not comfortable calling John B.’s suicide note a “poem.” Instead, he deemed it poetic or lyrical verse. He felt that he needed to see the verse in context, as opposed to a transcribed excerpt, to call it a poem. Additionally, John B.’s intention was important to him. “It’s really hard to just think about aesthetic categories (is it poetry? is it lyrical prose? and so on) when it’s somebody’s suicide note,” he maintained. “It just seems to belong somewhat in a different area because it is painfully raw.” But attempting to categorize this piece also gave way to a fuller picture of its author. “This is beautiful language, but I don’t exactly know what the form is,” he said. “And maybe that’s part of the lesson of McLemore. He was this extraordinary person who didn’t really fit exactly into any context. You can’t imagine him living outside Bibb County, and you can’t imagine him really surviving inside Bibb County. Just like he doesn’t really exactly fit in anywhere, maybe the kind of writing that he did sits between genres, and borrows from all of them, rather than fitting neatly into one or the other.” ¤ John B. was a person who transcended categorization and fused different disciplines such as science and literature to inform his work. This reading of his poetry and his person echoes one of the distinguishing qualities of a genius, according to National Geographic’s recent investigation into the topic: “the ability to make connections between seemingly disparate concepts.” John B.’s biography, too, speaks to ways the public and science view genius. His endless reading, writing, clock-working, and building projects embody the Pearl S. Buck quote that the genius “must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.” That urgency often manifests as manic to his friends in the podcast. And when not creating, and lonely, he was a self-proclaimed depressive. Mood disorders are an unfortunate trapping of the “artistic genius,” too. Which, according to Nautilus’s investigation on the statistically confirmed connection between madness and genius, is due to the quality of cognitive disinhibition: “the tendency to pay attention to things that normally should be ignored or filtered out by attention because they appear irrelevant.” Sounds like the man who notices the exquisiteness and delicacy of tiny mosses and molds: entire forests within a few square inches. John B. shares another tragic biographical detail with artistic geniuses: his suicide. William Styron points out in his seminal piece on depression “Darkness Visible,” before listing dozens of illustrious artists who succumb to suicide, “it has been demonstrated with fair convincingness that artistic types (especially poets) are particularly vulnerable to the disorder — which, in its graver, clinical manifestation takes upward of 20 percent of its victims by way of suicide.” In both his suicide note and the tragic action that followed, John B. McLemore aligned himself with the poetic geniuses that wrote verse before him. ¤ Professor Jenkins agreed that John B. was a genius in terms of his brain power. And, like poets, Jenkins noted that he had a gift for expressing himself with words. But as to whether John B. was a “poetic genius” of the romantically depressive variety such as Sylvia Plath or Anne Sexton (who herself wrote a poem entitled “Suicide Note”), Professor Jenkins is wary of the idea behind the term. “Poets are exceptional in the way they use language, but not in the things that they suffer from,” said Jenkins, disentangling great suffering from great poetry. Professor Jenkins hesitated to categorize John B. as a mad, depressive, poetic genius both because he takes exception with the idealizing term, and because he saw John B., in a literary sense, as something more. “These terms restrict the meanings of what McLemore was articulating,” he posited. “Was he actually manic depressive? Was he depressive? Was he schizophrenic? Was he poisoned? Or was he a Southerner?” Like Tyler Goodson and other Woodstock and Bibb County residents who populate S-Town, John B. had a hard life. He was a misfit, a queer man in the deep south, the sole caretaker for his aging mother, consumed with problems local and global; a man who needed to release his pain by getting his nipples repeatedly pierced and tattooed in what Brian Reed described as an “elaborate form of cutting.” Professor Jenkins saw John B. as the embodiment of these and other troubles that plague his hometown, “a kind of super articulate surrogate or avatar for widely shared problems.” Considering John’s “genius,” Professor Jenkins also thought about S-Town’s closing scene, featuring about Mary Grace McLemore’s 1966 plea to the heavens to give her a genius, while rubbing her pregnant belly on the porch of her Woodstock, Alabama home. “I guess the way I heard that, and interpreted it, was twofold,” said Jenkins. “We think of genius as meaning somebody exceptionally talented. But the other meaning of genius that survives is that of somebody who embodies the spirit of a place.” In Latin, the term “Genius Loci” means the “spirit of the place,” its prevailing character or atmosphere. This is how Professor Jenkins thinks of John B. McLemore, “the idea of someone being an incarnation of something, someone who represents the specific history of a place.” Is John B. McLemore the incarnation of Woodstock, Alabama? He lived there all his life, on property his great-grandfather seized in the 1800’s through theft and violence. He clung to the town’s past, reviling the tattoos and motorcycles he saw as corrupting invaders. But then, like the rest of the town’s citizens, he ended up covering himself in ink, in the end. And on his hundred-acre property he nurtured the natural world while marking the passage of time using ancient and ultimately deadly methods. John B. is dead, and his property will soon be paved over by a Walmart. The most moving passages in John B.’s suicide note are those in which he describes his property: its flowers and trees, the night sky above it, the creaking of the old house. In his life and in his art, he vaunted the place he both detested and loved: Shit Town, Alabama. Indeed, it was his “spirit of the place” and his way with words in concert — the email subject line he wrote, “John B. McLemore lives in Shit Town, Alabama,” sent to Brian Reed — that initially captured Reed’s attention, spurred his investigation, inspired S-Town the podcast, and finally brought John B.’s work to a hungry audience. “If you’re going to talk about him as a genius,” said Professor Jenkins, “to me he is as much the second — the genius of the place, of the ‘ground’ — as he is the artistic or technical genius in the first sense.” A poetic genius? Perhaps. The jury is out on whether John B. was making poetry or lyrical verse. But it doesn’t much matter. It’s clear from both S-Town and his suicide note that John B. was a genius in both mind and place, in mentis and loci. And for bringing his work to us all, we are grateful to S-Town: the publishers and editors that John B. never had, but needed, for his work to see the light of day.

Petitions submitted to block Jackson LGBT non-discrimination ordinance Copyright by WLNS - All rights reserved Video JACKSON, Mich. (WLNS) -- Petitions to repeal the Jackson LGBT non-discrimination ordinance and put the issue before voters were turned in to city hall Thursday morning. 103 petitions were handed over to the city clerk, containing 687 signatures. The clerk's office now has to verify that those signatures are from registered voters who live in the city. "Try to find 342 good ones, which is the amount needed to put this referendum out there for the council," said Jackson City Clerk Randy Wrozek. The city council will then have to decide whether to dump the ordinance, or leave its fate to voters in an election. "The state told us it will be in August," Wrozek said. Last month, the city council voted to extend the city's non-discrimination ordinance to include sexual orientation and gender identity. It was meant to protect LGBT individuals from discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodation. If the city clerk verifies all those signatures before March 9, the ordinance would be blocked from implementation. With a public vote looking like a possibility, people on both sides of this issue are now getting ready for what could be a five month long battle. Multiple churches and businesses came together to organize the petition drive. However, Jackson's catholic churches are major players. "There are some real serious concerns with the ordinance," said Father Tim Nelson of St. Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church. "It doesn't mean they hate the LGBT community. But it goes against what their ideology is." Nikki Joly of the Jackson Pride Center says supporters will continue their fight for rights in the city. "Remember that love wins, and as long as we keep pushing back and getting ready to go to the polls, it will get there," Joly said. The city clerk expects to have all signatures vetted by sometime Friday. The group Jackson Together, which supports the ordinance, released this statement Thursday afternoon. "We are calling on the City Clerk to conduct a thorough review of the petitions to overturn this ordinance because of reports that those carrying out the petition drive resorted to misinformation and fabrication to persuade residents to sign. However, if this attempt to allow discrimination is placed on the ballot, Jackson residents, businesses, and faith leaders will work tirelessly to ensure that the ordinance is sustained and that our city sends a clear message: no discrimination in Jackson!" ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ JACKSON, Mich (WLNS) - In Jackson today petitions concerning the city's LGBT non-discrimination ordinance were turned into City Hall. Groups against the NDO want to stop the ordinance before it goes into effect and put the issue before voters. The petitions carry more than 700 signatures that must be verified. That process is expected to be completed Friday. At least 342 unique signatures must be validated from registered voters within the Jackson city limits to keep the NDO from taking effect on March 9. 6 News Jackson bureau reporter Aaron Dimick is working the story in the city and will be updating online and on 6 News.

Avg. Reading Time: 4 min Two Brothers Brewing Co. 30W315 Calumet Ave W, Warrenville, IL 60555 Additional Locations Free Tours: Saturday: 1pm, 2pm, 3pm Sunday: 1:30pm Tap House Hours: Monday-Thursday: 3pm-11pm Friday-Saturday:12pm-12am Sunday: 12pm-9pm Brothers Jim and Jason Ebel got their start when their grandfather, a retired dairy farmer, gave them his bulk milk tanks. The brothers, who had been overseas learning and developing their brewing skills, quickly turned those milk tanks into fermenters. Today Two Brothers Brewing Co. is housed in a 40,000 square foot facility in Warrenville, Ill. and turns out a wide variety of year-round beers as well as numerous specialty/seasonal beers. The first thing you’ll notice when you walk into the brewery is the wide variety of home brewing supplies sold in the brewery store. The Ebel brothers themselves started out as home brewers so they wanted to make it easy for others to take a stab at brewing beer as well. In fact, anyone can ask for the recipe for a Two Brothers beer and with no hassle get the ingredients list and brew it at home. From the hops to the yeast, to the actual equipment needed, Two Brothers can outfit anyone who has a desire to be a home brewer. Once inside the brewery you’ll notice one piece of equipment not found in many breweries. The Two Brothers’ centrifuge is powerful – and that might be putting it lightly. The centrifuge is so powerful that its supports go ten feet down into the ground to support it while it spins the beer. Installed six months ago, the centrifuge is having tremendous results as even the darker beers have tremendous clarity. You notice the clarity especially in the brewery’s hefeweizen beer, Ebel’s Weiss. Despite being unfiltered, thanks to the centrifuge process the beer comes out very clear and the notes of banana and vanilla come through even stronger. It should also be noted that the centrifuge is one of only two pieces in the entire brewery that wasn’t made in America. Why are two pieces shipped from outside the country? No one in America makes the equipment they wanted. As you wander around the brewery there are little things you might not pick up on if it wasn’t for your tour guide. Most beer companies put the label on the bottle using a standard three-dot glue method. This makes the label easy to peel off, especially if it’s soaking in a cooler for an extended period of time. The labels on Two Brothers’ bottles are all full stickers. Not only is it a tough task to try and rip off the label, but after sitting in a cooler full of icy water, you can pull the bottle out and the label is still stuck tightly on the bottle. If you continue to look at the bottle you’ll notice the beer doesn’t have a born-on date. Instead it has a best buy date. That date on the bottle is also not some out-of-the-air date a worker slapped on. Batches of beer are scientifically tested to see how long they will stay good, based on oxygen levels and other factors. In fact batches do not always expire chronologically. A batch made on Tuesday could technically have a shorter best buy date than a batch made on Monday – it’s all in the science. As Two Brothers becomes more and more popular, the company is ready to expand. Currently localized to the Midwest, it has just become the first brewery to expand west as it will soon begin producing beer in Phoenix. Must Try Atom Smasher (7.7% ABV): An Oktoberfest style lager brewed in virgin French oak foudres. This unique brewing process gives the beer a unique earthy flavor with great accents of caramel and toffee. Brewed using a trio of hops the beer has a golden amber appearance, but with the centrifuge is very clear. Ebel’s Weiss (4.9% ABV): A hefeweizen that’s incredibly light and crisp, Ebel’s Weiss will give off a strong banana aroma that continues when you actually taste it. This beer has won back-to-back medals at the Great American Beer Festival and is trying to become one of the only three-time medal winners in 2015. This beer has a light yellow appearance and a thin white head. Engine No. I (5.2% ABV): This kolsch style beer is one of two beers brewed by Two Brothers that is a charitable beer. One hundred percent of the profits of Engine No. I will go to the The Hundred Club of DuPage County, a charity that helps families of injured and fallen firefighters. Besides being a smooth and delicious beer to drink, it’s also helping a great cause. The beer is brewed with a trio of hops, including my favorite, Cascade. You’ll get a citrusy aroma and when you taste it you’ll experience notes of citrus and a little spice. Be On The Lookout For Wobble: All of the beers at Two Brothers are very well-balanced. From the lagers to the double IPAs you won’t recoil at the taste of any of the beers offered. So when the brew masters were presented with the idea to make a beer that teetered away from the well-balanced brews they were used to – they wobbled. However, coming in the next month or so, Two Brothers will release Wobble – a brew that uses around 95lbs of hops per barrel. Breaking the norm of what they traditionally put out, Wobble is going to be a type of beer Two Brothers has not put out before. Check Them Out Two Brothers Brewing Co. Find Two Brothers Beer Near You Follow Mike Zoller on Twitter @mikezoller

Terrorism typically ratchets up nationalistic impulses in presidential campaigns, a Stanford sociologist says. But which candidate benefits from this dynamic is more nuanced than most political observers realize, said Robb Willer, a Stanford professor of sociology. Stanford News Service interviewed him recently about how terrorism may impact the 2016 presidential campaign, which has all challengers and no incumbent vying for the nation's top office. What does research say about how the war on terror will influence presidential elections? Probably the most reliable finding from research on the political impact of terrorism is that the threat of terrorism increases support for standing leaders. This is one example of a larger dynamic called the rally-around-the-flag effect, or simply, rally effect. A rally effect occurs when war, terrorism or some other security threat leads citizens to support incumbent leaders more. For example, I found in this study that between 2001 and 2004 governmental announcements of terror threats to the U.S. tended to lead to significant increases in President George W. Bush's approval rating. The support Bush derived from the threat of terror and his policy responses to it likely played a key role in his reelection in 2004. The takeaway for incumbents is that their support will go up – potentially to a tremendous extent – following terror threats if their policies on terrorism are viewed positively or at least neutrally. But they also risk losing support if their policies are viewed negatively. For example, support for President Jimmy Carter initially rose following the 1979 attack on the U.S. embassy in Iran, but subsequently fell as his handling of the hostage crisis came to be viewed negatively, finally contributing to his loss to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election. Generally, incumbents get the benefit of the doubt following security events, but they risk big losses if they are seen as ineffective in fighting the threat. In your opinion, how might the ISIS threat play out in this year's presidential election? My own take is that terror threats have two main psychological effects. First, they sharpen national boundaries and increase nationalist spirit. This drives the rally-around-the-flag effect. In the context of an election, this means that the candidates who will derive the most increased support from such threats are those seen as unambiguously patriotic, who support national symbols and who support maintaining and/or restoring America's global standing. Secondly, terror threats increase fundamental security concerns. This leads to greater support for leaders who are seen as most able and motivated to defend the nation. So, candidates who are perceived to be associated with strong foreign policy, who support the military and who take positions seen as likely to reduce the threat will be supported more. Candidates who are not as clearly pro-military, who do not project a strong and powerful persona or who are seen as backing policies that could compromise national security risk losing favor in such periods. But in understanding the impact of terror threats on the 2016 election, we are to a great extent in uncharted territory. Most past research has focused on views of incumbents. And there is good reason to think that whatever advantage an incumbent experiences does not necessarily transfer to candidates of the same party. For example, we found in a large-scale experiment in 2008 that presenting Americans with a news report about the threat of terrorism led to decreased support for Sen. John McCain among political moderates. The support Bush derived from terrorism in 2004 did not extend to McCain in 2008, though this may have been in part because the conservative-led Iraq War had become very unpopular by 2008. Does the specter of terrorism favor conservative or liberal politicians in the minds of those polled? In general, the specter of terrorism benefits conservative more than liberal politicians. Conservative positions on a variety of issues, including national defense, military funding and immigration, are more popular during periods of heightened terror threat. Further, conservative politicians are more likely to support militant foreign policy positions than liberals, while liberals are more likely to support diplomatic solutions. These policy orientations lead conservatives to gain increased support during times of heightened security concern. That said, if Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, the effects of the threat of terrorism in the 2016 general election could be more complex. Clinton's extensive State Department experience and facility with foreign policy could neutralize a conservative advantage on terror policy. The result could be that the effects of the terror threats on the 2016 general election are a wash. The threat of terrorism could conceivably have its greatest electoral impact on the 2016 Democratic primaries, where Clinton could pull support from Bernie Sanders as a result of the issue's prominence. However, it is also the case that Democratic voters tend to report lower concern about terrorism than either Republican or Independent voters, so it might require further escalation of the threat of terrorism in the U.S. for Clinton to gain support from the issue. Is terrorism more important than the economy to voters? Overall, it is not. Many more elections are determined by perceptions of candidates' economic policies than their anti-terror policies. However, when terror threats are especially strong, they can be as impactful as any issue, even more impactful than the economy. Terrorism is the sort of issue that can have an outsized impact because it taps into our most fundamental fears and concerns. Support for President George W. Bush's handling of the economy increased 18 percent following the 9/11 attacks. This is an astonishing figure considering that Bush was, appropriately, focused almost entirely on non-economic issues following the attacks, but one which shows how much more important terrorism can be following threats; it has the power to even shape views of economic policy. It is impossible to say at this time which of these issues will be more prominent in the 2016 election, but history would suggest we should bet on the economy. How could the threat of terrorism affect Donald Trump's presidential candidacy? The rise of the terrorism issue has potentially powerful implications for Trump's candidacy. As recently as last month, many analysts suggested we had already witnessed "peak Trump" – that his candidacy couldn't gain greater support because of the outrageousness and xenophobia of his rhetoric. But this may have underestimated the potential for an issue like terrorism to increase the viability of a candidate like Trump who is associated with patriotism, militant foreign policy and opposition to immigration, all positions that are favored more following terror threats. Explore further: Study tests impact of terror warnings on presidential race

The National Press Club is a place where organizations can contract with to do things like press events and conferences. Spencer had contracted with the Press Club to do a press conference, one he has done a couple of times in the past. This was supposed to take place on September 9th between 1-3pm, bringing together some major figures of the Alt Right to share their ideas. This was going to include the founder of the race realist organization American Renaissance , Jared Taylor, and the founder of the anti-immigration website VDare, Peter Brimelow. Without much notice, the National Press Club told Spencer that him and his organization were no longer able to contract with them and that there event was canceled. The reason they provided was that NPI requires excessive security, which it has in the past, since it invites neo-Nazi and KKK elements as well as a huge swell of anti-fascist protesters. This is a clear signal that anti-fascist organizing is a recognized pressure point that venues recognize when consider whether or not to host racist organizations. Spencer is trying to stand bold and issued a video where he talked at the camera and said that there absolutely would still be a press conference at the selected time in Washington D.C. At this time they say they have a venue, but they will not release the location until the last minute. This will likely limit the amount of actual media coverage they get. Instead, it will likely be heavily covered by white nationalist media sources like Red Ice Creations Spencer himself is no stranger to being banned from places. He was banned from most European nations and deported from Hungary after trying to hold a white nationalist “pan-European” conference in Budapest in 2014. Most recently he was officially banned from entering the U.K. because of his extremist views.

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