slate |Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino’s blaxploitation Western about an ex-slave’s revenge against plantation owners, centers on a practice called “Mandingo fighting.” Slaves are forced to fight to the death for their owners’ wealth and entertainment. Did the U.S. have anything like this form of gladiatorial combat?
No. While slaves could be called upon to perform for their owners with other forms of entertainment, such as singing and dancing, no slavery historian we spoke with had ever come across anything that closely resembled this human version of cock fighting. As David Blight, the director of Yale’s center for the study of slavery, told me: One reason slave owners wouldn’t have pitted their slaves against each other in such a way is strictly economic. Slavery was built upon money, and the fortune to be made for owners was in buying, selling, and working them, not in sending them out to fight at the risk of death.
While there’s no historical record of black gladiator fights in the U.S., this hasn’t stopped the sport from appearing again and again in popular culture. The 1975 blaxploitation filmMandingo, which Tarantino has cited as “one of [his] favorite movies,” is about a slave named Mede who is trained by his owner to fight to the death in bare-knuckle boxing against other slaves. That film was inspired by thebook of the same nameby dog-breeder-turned-novelist Kyle Onstott. (The termMandingoitself comes from the name ofa cultural and ethnic group in West Africa, who speak theMandinglanguages.) There is at least one other cinematic example of the fighting, inMandingo’s sequel,Drum.
It’s also true that, as embodied by the fictional “Mandingo fighting,” there has long been a fascination with the supposed physical prowess of the black body. The rise of prizefighting in the 19thcentury saw black men such as Peter Jackson and George Dixonmaking a show of their manlinessto white and black audiences. Ralph Ellison’s “BattleRoyal”scene inInvisible Man—in which the narrator must spar other black men in order to obtain a scholarship to a black college—uses a less sensationalistic approach to portray the fetishization of black men fighting. “This is a vital part of behavior patterns in the South, which both Negroes and whites thoughtlessly accept,” Ellison once said. “It is a ritual in preservation of caste lines, a keeping of taboo to appease the gods and ward off bad luck. It is also the initiation ritual to which all greenhorns are subjected.”
columbiamissourian | MU faculty member Melissa Click has
apologized. And Tuesday night, she resigned her courtesy appointment
with the Missouri School of Journalism.
Click
was caught up in an incident Monday between a freelance photographer
and protesters near the Concerned Student 1950 camp on Mel Carnahan
Quadrangle.
"Yesterday was an
historic day at MU — full of emotion and confusion. I have reviewed and
reflected upon the video of me that is circulating, and have written
this statement to offer both apology and context for my actions," Click,
an assistant professor in the Department of Communication, said in a
statement released Tuesday afternoon by the College of Arts and Science.
"I have reached out to the
journalists involved to offer my sincere apologies and to express regret
over my actions. I regret the language and strategies I used, and
sincerely apologize to the MU campus community, and journalists at
large, for my behavior, and also for the way my actions have shifted
attention away from the students’ campaign for justice," the statement
said.
A courtesy appointment
allows members of one academic unit to serve on graduate committees
for students from other academic units. Click teaches mass media in the
Communication Department. The School of Journalism is a separate entity.
The
Journalism School's Executive Committee, including Dean David Kurpius,
met Tuesday morning to discuss the vote and prepare a statement on
Click's actions Monday as seen in footage of an incident between the
photographer, Tim Tai, an undergraduate in photojournalism, and the
protesters — including MU's Greek Life and Leadership Assistant Director
Janna Basler.
theatlantic | “We ask for no media in the parameters so the place where people live,
fellowship, and sleep can be protected from twisted insincere
narratives,” a Twitter account associated with the activists later
declared, adding that “it’s typically white media who don’t understand
the importance of respecting black spaces.” Tim Tai is Asian American.
First Amendment protections for photographers are vital. And I agree with my colleague, James Fallows,
that Tai demonstrated impressive intellectual and emotional poise. But
video of his encounter with protestors is noteworthy for another reason.
In
the video of Tim Tai trying to carry out his ESPN assignment, I see the
most vivid example yet of activists twisting the concept of “safe
space” in a most confounding way. They have one lone student surrounded.
They’re forcibly preventing him from exercising a civil right. At
various points, they intimidate him. Ultimately, they physically push
him. But all the while, they are operating on the premise, or carrying
on the pretense, that he is making them unsafe.
It is as if they’ve weaponized the concept of “safe spaces.”
“I support people creating ‘safe spaces’ as a shield by exercising their freedom of association to organize themselves into mutually supporting communities,” Ken White wrote prior to this controversy.
“But not everyone imagines ‘safe spaces’ like that. Some use the
concept of ‘safe spaces’ as a sword, wielded to annex public spaces and
demand that people within those spaces conform to their private norms.”
Yesterday,
I wrote about Yale students who decided, in the name of creating a
“safe space” on compass, to spit on people as they left a talk with
which they disagreed. “In their muddled ideology,” I wrote, “the Yale activists had to destroy the safe space to save it.”
thenation | Too often, those sympathetic with college athletes define them by their hardships instead of by their dazzling, inescapable strengths. We rightfully look at their absence of due process, their lack of access to an income, their hellacious practice and travel schedules, their inability to take the classes of their choosing, and their year-to-year scholarships that consign them to being more “athlete students” than “student athletes.”
Yet they also have a power that if exercised can bring the powerful to their knees. So much of the political and social economy of state universities is tied to football, especially in big-money conferences like Southeastern Conference, where Mizzou plays. The multibillion-dollar college football playoff contracts, the multimillion-dollar coaching salaries, and the small fortunes that pour into small towns on game day don’t happen without a group of young men willing to take the field. The system is entirely based on their acceptance of their own powerlessness as the gears of this machine. If they choose to exercise their power, the machine not only stops moving: It becomes dramatically reshaped.
The emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement threatens the operating of this machinery like nothing since the black athletic revolt of the 1960s and 1970s. These conferences, particularly the Southeastern Conference, field teams that, in the words of sports sociologist Harry Edwards, “look like Ghana on the field and Sweden in the stands.” In other words, black football players in particular have a social power often unseen and not commented upon. It’s there all the same.
These athletes are a sleeping giant. At a school like Mizzou, where just 7 percent of the students are black but a whopping 69 percent of the football players are, one can see how their entry in the struggle had a ripple effect that tore through Columbia and into the college football–crazed national consciousness.
When was it, exactly, that the African-American football players at the University of Missouritweeted
that they were going on strike until “President Tim Wolfe resigns or is
removed” from office? It was Saturday night, around 9 p.m. Eastern
time.
In
other words, nearly two months had gone by before the football players
decided to get involved. Once they did, Wolfe lasted all of 36 hours.
Later in the day, Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin said he would resign as
well, effective at the end of the year.
In announcing his resignation
Monday morning, Wolfe said he was motivated by his “love” for his alma
mater. No doubt he was sincere. But it is hard to believe that his
calculations didn’t include money as well: the $1 million
that Missouri would be contractually obliged to pay Brigham Young
University if the Tigers failed to play Saturday’s game; and the mess it
would create for itself — and the Southeastern Conference, which it
joined only four years ago — if a players’ strike lasted to the end of
the season. Missouri’s final SEC game in late November, against
Arkansas, is scheduled to be televised by CBS, which pays the conference
$55 million a year for television rights.
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As Andy Schwarz, an economist who has been deeply involved in a series of antitrust lawsuits against the N.C.A.A.,
put it, “the issues at Missouri are far more important than college
football, but the Missouri athletes showed that the color that matters
most is green.”
themaneater |MU’s chapter resumed in 2003, according to Theta Nu Epsilon’s website. From 2004 until 2007 there are reports of new initiates in the fall and spring semesters. Anywhere from five to 11 members per semester have been inducted, according to the website. Fall initiation occurs in November and spring initiation is in April, though there are discrepancies and inconsistencies concerning these dates on the website.
Rather than participating in Tap Day, Theta Nu Epsilon marks initiation through banquets, according to the national website. ΘΝΕ has never participated in Tap Day ceremonies.
The founder of MU’s Theta Nu Epsilon chapter might have also played a role in the creation of QEBH, a senior class society and the oldest recognized secret society on campus. Dr. Royall Hill Switzler founded the organization in 1898, three years after the establishment of Theta Nu Epsilon.
Defoe reportedly held an advisory position for QEBH, according to the chapter website of Theta Nu Epsilon at MU. From 1900-1902, six students were listed in The Savitar as having membership in both Theta Nu Epsilon and QEBH. Today, prominent inductees of QEBH include Chancellor Brady Deaton and Vice Chancellor Cathy Scroggs.
The most recent connection between the two societies was in 2007. MU’s ΘΝΕ website listed MU graduate Dustin Barker as the president of the society that year. Barker was inducted into QEBH in 2007. In a phone interview, he acknowledged the website but said he has not had contact with Theta Nu Epsilon recently. Barker described the organization as having an on-and-off presence on campus.
Current QEBH members were not familiar with Theta Nu Epsilon or the connection between the two organizations’ histories.
Every year, QEBH inducts one sophomore to become president as a senior. Junior Rachel Newman was inducted last year and said she was shocked after learning she would be recognized.
“The common bond between all the societies here is that members seek to preserve the best interest for the university and promote all the university has given them,” Newman said.
Scroggs said these honor societies are meaningful at the university and provide students a chance to alert employers of their success, as they would with an honors diploma or other achievements.
There are similar honors societies on campus such as Mizzou 39, but membership is public. According to the Mizzou Alumni Association website, seniors are “chosen for their academic achievement, leadership and service to Mizzou and the community.”
Scroggs said QEBH recognizes its inductees based on their service, involvement, leadership and academic success on campus. The difference between public and private societies is the time of recognition, she said. Mizzou 39 is a senior award while most of the Tap Day organizations recognize juniors.
“Students take pride in being recognized by other students,” Scroggs said. “The fact that it’s secret makes it that more special.”
QEBH members were hesitant to speak on the record due to the secrecy surrounding their organization.
Despite this, members are publicly recognized on Tap Day and some have even listed QEBH on their LinkedIn profiles. Some members of Mortar Board Society, Mystical Seven and Omicron Delta Kappa have also posted their membership on LinkedIn.
While MU shows no evidence of having a political machine like Alabama, there is a documented concentration of campus-wide power in secret societies.
Of the 61 undergraduates tapped last year, 43 percent belong to a fraternity or sorority. Twenty-six percent of those undergraduates were also awarded Mizzou 39 membership this year. Other popular organizations were Homecoming Steering Committee or Homecoming Court, the Missouri Students Association, Summer Welcome and honor fraternities.
theweek | Hours after University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe resigned Monday morning, R. Bowen Loftin announced he will step down from his position as chancellor of the University of Missouri's Columbia campus.
Loftin will start in his new role as director for research facility development on Jan. 1, 2016, The Columbia Tribune reports.
Hank Foley, the senior vice chancellor for research and graduate
studies, has been appointed interim chancellor. Wolfe resigned from his
position after students and faculty began to protest against his
response to race-related issues at the school. "I take full
responsibility for this frustration and I take full responsibility for
the inaction that has occurred," he said. Donald Cupps, chairman of the
Board of Curators, announced Monday that within the next 90 days, the
University of Missouri system will appoint its first chief diversity,
inclusion, and equity officer; will make extra support available for
students, faculty, and staff who have been discriminated against; and
will make additional efforts to hire and retain diverse faculty and
staff.
The Columbia Tribunereported earlier
in the day that deans from nine different University of Missouri
colleges sent a letter to Wolfe and the Board of Curators, calling for
Loftin's dismissal. In the letter, the deans said they met with Wolfe,
Loftin, and Provost Garnett Stokes on Oct. 13 to express their concerns
over "the multitude of crises on our flagship campus," and said those
issues "have continued to deteriorate into a campus crisis that demands
immediate and decisive action. It is the Chancellor's responsibility as
the Chief Executive Officer of the campus to effectively address these
campus issues." The deans went on to write that Loftin proved he was not
an adequate leader by eliminating and then reinstating health insurance
for graduate assistants and getting rid of the vice chancellor for
health sciences position, and claimed he created a "toxic environment
through threat, fear, and intimidation."
Last week, a similar letter was sent to Wolfe and the Curators from
the Department of English, which stated that 26 faculty members
expressed no confidence in Loftin, with two people abstaining from the
vote.
ISOM | I spoke of my observations and deductions to the people in our group as well as to my various literary friends and others.
I told them that this was the center of gravity of the whole system and of all work on oneself; that now work on oneself was not only empty words but a real fact full of significance thanks to which psychology becomes an exact and at the same time a practical science.
I said that European and Western psychology in general had overlooked a fact of tremendous importance, namely, that we do not remember ourselves; that we live and act and reason in deep sleep, not metaphorically but in absolute reality. And also that, at the same time, we can remember ourselves if we make sufficient efforts, that we can awaken.
I was struck by the difference between the understanding of the people who belonged to our groups and that of people outside them. The people who belonged to our groups understood, though not all at once, that we had come into contact with a "miracle," and that it was something "new," something that had never existed anywhere before.
shenwu | The most basic and important difference between internal and external martial arts is the method of generating power or "jing" (manifest energy). At the root fundamental level, the most important factor which qualifies an art as internal is the use of what the Chinese call "complete," "unified" or "whole body" power (jengjing). This means the entire body is used as a singular unit with the muscles of the body in proper tone according to their function (relaxed, meaning neither too tense nor too slack). Power is generated with the body as a singular unit, and the various types of energies (jing) used are all generated from this unified power source.
The external martial arts, although engaging the body as a whole in generating power sequentially, do not use the body in a complete unit as do the internal martial arts. The external styles primarily use "sectional power" (ju bu li), which is a primary reason they are classified apart from the internal arts. A variation of this sectional power in the external arts is the special development of one part of the body as a weapon (iron palm, iron broom, etc.). The internal tends to forego these methods in favor of even development of the whole body, which m turn is used as a coherent unit.
Xing Yi Quan, Tai Ji Quan and Ba Gua Zhang all have unified body motion as their root; hence, they are internal styles. However, since each of these styles emphasizes different expressions of this unified power, they are not the same style.
afurtherrecord |
MR. O. Let us return to the question of justice. It is interesting for
language. What is justice?
Q. Something that is fair to two people.
MR. O. Who would be fair? As conditional arrangement it can be
understood. As a general thing, it is fantastic. You forget that
organic life is based on murder. One thing eats another: cats and rats.
What is justice among cats and rats? This is life. It is nothing very
beautiful. So where is justice?
Q. Why do people think that nature is beautiful if this is how it works?
MR. O. What is beautiful? What you like.
Q. How can God be love if He created nature like this?
MR. O. For a certain purpose. Besides, what do you call nature?
Earthquake is also nature. But for the moment we apply the term
'nature' to organic life. Evidently it was created like that because
there was no other means. How can we ask why? It was made so. If we
don't like it, we can study methods to run away. This is the only
possibility. Only we must not try to imagine that it is very beautiful.
We must not pretend that facts are different from what they are.
Q. Are you going to put man on the same footing as the rest of organic
life?
MR. O. There is no difference, only other units are fully developed,
and man is only half developed.
Q. Man can be beyond the law of murder?
MR. O. He has the possibility of escape.
Q. What are ways of escape from murder?
MR. O. Man is under 192 laws. He must escape from some of them.
Q. You said that men are responsible for what they did, and animals not?
MR. O. Men 1, 2 and 3 are less responsible; men No. 4, and so on, are
more responsible; responsibility grows.
Q. What means responsibility?
MR. O. First, an animal has nothing to lose, but man has. Second, man
has to pay for every mistake he makes, if he has started to grow.
Q. That implies justice.
MR. O. No, nobody would call it justice if you had to pay for your
mistakes.
Q. Does not justice mean to get what we deserve?
MR. O. Most people think it is getting what we want and not what we
deserve. Justice must mean some co-ordination between actions and
results of actions. This certainly does not exist, and cannot exist,
under the Law of Accident. When we know the chief laws, we understand
that we live in a very bad place, a really bad place. But, as we cannot
be in any other, we must see what we can do here. Only, we must not
imagine that things are better than they are.
Q. Things will remain as they are unless everyone is conscious?
MR. O. Things will remain as they are, but one can escape. It needs
much knowledge to know what can be escaped and what cannot. But the
first lesson we must learn, the first thing that prevents us from
escaping is that we don't even realize the necessity to know our
position. Who knows it, is already in a better position.
afurtherrecord | Q. You said before that if we can't get of prison in one lifetime, then
one can't get out at all. What do you mean by prison?
MR. O. Prison is prison. Same principles apply for all prisons. Too
late to do anything after you are buried. From another point of
view, if one did nothing in one life, double chance that one will do
nothing in the next. Principle one can always do tomorrow what one
didn't do to-day. Improvement of this principle is to do it day after
to-morrow.
Q. To get out of prison—does that mean to escape some of the laws
men live under?
MR. O. One law only. And if you say 'Which?', I shall say,
'Formatory, formatory!'
Q. Are there more or less than 48 laws governing our world—
organic life?
MR. O. According to the diagram of the Ray of Creation 48 laws
govern earth—gravity, things like that. Many, many laws under
which earth lives—movement, physical laws, chemical laws. Organic
life is governed by 96 laws.
Q. The same as moon?
MR. O. The same number but quite a different manifestation.
Organic life is not similar to moon. Moon is a cosmic body, organic
life is a film on the surface of the earth. The number of laws only
shows the relation of a given unit, but not its being or consistency,
so there is no similarity.
Q. Could you give an example of one law?
MR. O. Many of them you know. Take man: he lives under physical
laws, biological laws, physiological laws peculiar to man, such as
temperature, climate, etc. We know some of these laws, but there
are many laws about which we know nothing at all. For instance,
there are cosmic laws which don't belong to the three laws of earth
itself—they are connected with some bigger sphere and govern
certain things which, from our point of view, appear trivial and
insignificant. For instance, there is a definite law that each class of
living beings can only eat a certain kind of food (from a certain
density to a certain density). Man can eat things from such and
such a density to such and such a density, from such and such a
quality to such and such a quality. And he cannot change this just
as he cannot change the air he breathes or the temperature in
which he can exist. There are many things like that—they are all
laws under which man lives. But there are many things about it we
cannot know; many things we don't know about the conditions in
which we live.
Q. You said as we progressed we should eliminate some of the
laws? You said man lives under 96 laws.
MR. O. I said organic life is under 96 laws. Man lives under many,
many more laws. Some are biological, physical and so on; then,
coming to quite simple laws—ignorance, for instance. We do not
know ourselves—this is a law. If we begin to know ourselves, we
get rid of a law. We cannot learn 'this is one law, this is another
law, this is a third law'. For many of them we have no names. All
people live under the law of identification. This is a law. Those who
begin to remember themselves can get rid of the law of identification.
In that way we can know these laws. It is necessary to know, to
understand little by little, the nature of laws from which one can
become free. Then it is necessary to try to get free from one law, then
from another. This is the practical way to study them.
Q. What are we to get rid of?
MR. O. You can get rid of identifying, negative emotions, imagination. .. .
Q. Aren't these habits?
MR. O. Habits are smaller divisions. Laws govern us, control us, direct us. Habits are not laws.
Q. You mean we must be subject to these laws on earth?
MR. O. We cannot fall under them or not fall under them. They don't ask us—we are chained.
Q. But can we get free?
MR. O. We can—on conditions. Ways enter here—the four ways are ways of
liberation from unnecessary laws. Without schools one cannot know from
which laws one can get free, or find means of getting free from them.
The idea is that we are under many mechanical laws. Eventually we can
get rid of some of these laws by becoming subject to other laws. There
is no other way. To get out of the power of one law, you must put
yourself under another law. This is the general idea. You can be shown
the way—but you must work yourselves.
Q. Any personal attainment is the result of effort against fate?
MR. O. Fate may be favourable or not. It is necessary to know what
one's fate is. But it cannot liberate us. Ways enter here. The four
ways are ways to liberate us from laws. But each way has its own
characteristics. In the three traditional ways the first step is the
most difficult. In the Fourth Way man remains in the same conditions,
and he must change in these conditions. These conditions are the best
for him, because they are the most difficult.
wsws | The Senate hearing on cybersecurity touched briefly on the internal
challenge to American militarism. The lead witness, retired Gen. Keith
Alexander, former director of the National Security Agency and former
head of the Pentagon’s CyberCommand, bemoaned the effect of leaks by NSA
contractor Edward Snowden and Army private Chelsea Manning, declaring
that “insider attacks” were one of the most serious threats facing the
US military.
Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia asked him directly,
referring to Snowden, “Should we treat him as a traitor?” Alexander
responded, “He should be treated as a traitor and tried as such.”
Manchin nodded heartily, in evident agreement.
While the witnesses and senators chose to use the names of Snowden
and Manning to personify the “enemy within,” they were clearly conscious
that the domestic opposition to war is far broader than a few
individual whistleblowers.
This is not a matter simply of the deep-seated revulsion among
working people in response to 14 years of bloody imperialist
interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Yemen and
across North Africa, important as that is.
A war between the United States and a major power like China or
Russia, even if it were possible to prevent its escalation into an
all-out nuclear exchange, would involve a colossal mobilization of the
resources of American society, both economic and human. It would mean
further dramatic reductions in the living standards of the American
people, combined with a huge blood toll that would inevitably fall
mainly on the children of the working class.
Ever since the Vietnam War, the US military has operated as an
all-volunteer force, avoiding conscription, which provoked widespread
opposition and direct defiance in the 1960s and early 1970s. A
non-nuclear war with China or Russia would mean the restoration of the
draft and bring the human cost of war home to every family in America.
Under those conditions, no matter how great the buildup of police
powers and the resort to repressive measures against antiwar sentiments,
the stability of American society would be put to the test. The US
ruling elite is deeply afraid of the political consequences. And it
should be.
Interestingly, as The Washington Times reports,
Rep. Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services
Committee, echoed McCain's comments, demanding that, The White House be
"more inclusive in the decision-making process," rather than 'icing' The
Pentagon out
"People who have spoken truth to power get retired," ranted McCain, "all
you have to do is look at a map of the Middle East in 2009 and then
compare it to a map of today," to see an utterly failed strategy.
Mr. McCain argued that the frustration on Capitol Hill and at the Pentagon stems from the administration’s “complete lack of any kind of coherent strategy, much less a strategy that would have any success on the battlefield” against Islamic State and the Assad regime.
“We’re
sending 50 — count them, 50 — special operations soldiers to Syria, and
they will have ‘no combat role,’ the president says,” said Mr. McCain. “Well, what are they being sent there for? To be recreation officers? You’re in a combat zone, and to say they’re not in combat is absurd.”
But the White House, he argued, has effectively blinded itself to
such absurdities by promoting a system over the past seven years that
suppresses dissenting voices.
"Compliant and easily led military leaders get promoted,” he said.
When it comes to actual policy, Mr. McCain lamented, the administration pursues half-measures and decisions, “when they are made, consistently disregard recommendations from the uniformed military.”
The failure to break Islamic State’s hold on Syria and Iraq, and its spread into North Africa, have resulted in “very poisoned relations that now exist between many in both houses of Congress and the president,” said Mr. McCain.
“There’s a total lack of confidence in the president’s leadership,” he said.
Daniel Zwerdling and Michael De Yoanna havean extensive reporton the investigations done by NPR and Colorado Public Radio. (Audio will be available at 7:00pm EST) One of the key elements in breaking the story was 20 hours of recordings made secretly by a soldier who had been targeted for discharge, despite plenty of evidence he had serious medical issues. Fort Carson is the main subject of the investigation, but the practice has also been found at other posts. From the NPR story:
...an investigation, based on hours of secret recordings from James, hundreds of pages of confidential documents from Fort Carson, and interviews with dozens of sources both inside and outside the base. And that evidence suggests the Army failed to pursue key evidence in its investigation, ruling out claims of mistreatment from nine other war veterans without ever interviewing or even contacting the men.
And according to figures acquired by NPR and CPR under the Freedom of Information Act, the Army has been pushing out soldiers diagnosed with mental health problems not just at Fort Carson but at bases across the country.
The figures show that since January 2009, the Army has "separated" 22,000 soldiers for "misconduct" after they came back from Iraq and Afghanistan and were diagnosed with mental health problems or TBI. As a result, many of the dismissed soldiers have not received crucial retirement and health care benefits that soldiers receive with an honorable discharge.
Read the whole report; listen to the audio. This is damnable stuff. The Army generals continue to whitewash the problem; until heads roll in the upper ranks, this is likely to continue. This is the kind of thing a functioning Congress should be investigating. It will be interesting to see how far this story goes, and if any of the presidential campaigners will pick up on it.
theantimedia |“If an addict comes into the Gloucester Police Department and asks
for help, an officer will take them to the Addison Gilbert Hospital,
where they will be paired with a volunteer ‘ANGEL’ who will help guide
them through the process. We have partnered with more than a dozen
additional treatment centers to ensure that our patients receive the care and treatment they deserve — not in days or weeks, but immediately.
“If you have drugs or drug paraphernalia on you, we will
dispose of it for you. You will not be arrested. You will not be charged
with a crime. You will not be jailed.
“All you have to do is come to the police station and ask for help. We are here to do just that.”
Five months since the program launched, Campanello reports positive
results: over 260 addicts have been placed in treatment. This summer,
shoplifting, breaking and entering, and larceny dropped 23% from the
same period last year. “We are seeing real people get the lives back,” he said. “And if we see a reduction in crime and cost savings that is a great bonus.”
Other police officers are following suit. John Rosenthal is the co-founder of Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative,
a nonprofit that helps police departments around the country adopt
programs similar to Gloucester’s. Rosenthal says almost 40 departments
in nine states (Connecticut, Ohio, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Missouri,
New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont) have adopted at least some aspects
of the program, and 90 more departments want to get involved.
Though the specifics of the programs vary, they all aim to treat
addicts. Police are even participating through Veterans Affairs, as opiate addiction is high among veterans.
The program, which Campanello has funded with money seized during
drug arrests, has been well-received by departments that implement
similar strategies. John Gill, a police officer in Scarborough, Maine, said his local police station saw a “profound” change. He credits Gloucester with the courage to go through with it: “It
was the Gloucester ANGEL project which showed us that a relatively
modest-sized police agency could have a real impact. And like
Gloucester, we couldn’t afford to wait until the perfect solution came
along.”
monbiot | What have governments learnt from the financial crisis? I could write
a column spelling it out. Or I could do the same job with one word.
Nothing.
Actually, that’s too generous. The lessons learned are
counter-lessons, anti-knowledge, new policies that could scarcely be
better designed to ensure the crisis recurs, this time with added
momentum and fewer remedies. And the financial crisis is just one of
multiple crises – in tax collection, public spending, public health,
above all ecology – that the same counter-lessons accelerate.
Step back a pace and you see that all these crises arise from the
same cause. Players with huge power and global reach are released from
democratic restraint. This happens because of a fundamental corruption
at the core of politics. In almost every nation, the interests of
economic elites tend to weigh more heavily with governments than those
of the electorate. Banks, corporations and land owners wield an
unaccountable power, that works with a nod and a wink within the
political class. Global governance is beginning to look like a
never-ending Bilderburg meeting.
As a paper by the law professor Joel Bakan in the Cornell International Law Journal
argues, two dire shifts have been happening simultaneously. On one
hand, governments have been removing the laws that restrict banks and
corporations, arguing that globalisation makes states weak and effective
legislation impossible. Instead, they say, we should trust those who
wield economic power to regulate themselves.
On the other hand, the same governments devise draconian new laws to
reinforce elite power. Corporations are given the rights of legal
persons. Their property rights are enhanced. Those who protest against
them are subject to policing and surveillance of the kind that’s more
appropriate to dictatorships than democracies. Oh, state power still
exists all right – when it’s wanted.
Many of you have heard of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). These are supposed to be trade treaties, but they have little to do with trade, and much to do with power.
They enhance the power of corporations while reducing the power of
parliaments and the rule of law. They could scarcely be better designed
to exacerbate and universalise our multiple crises: financial, social
and environmental. But something even worse is coming, the result of
negotiations conducted, once more, in secret: a Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), covering North America, the EU, Japan, Australia and many other nations.
Only through WikiLeaks do we have any idea of what is being planned. It could be used to force nations to accept
new financial products and services, to approve the privatisation of
public services and to reduce the standards of care and provision. It
looks like the greatest international assault on democracy devised in
the past two decades. Which is saying quite a lot.
theconversation | A sustainable Australia is possible – but we have to choose it. That’s the finding of a paper published today in Nature.
The paper is the result of a larger project to deliver the first Australian National Outlook report, more than two years in the making, which CSIRO is also releasing today.
As part of this analysis we looked at whether achieving
sustainability will require a shift in our values, such as rejecting
consumerism. We also looked at the contributions of choices made by
individuals (such as consuming less water or energy) and of choices made
collectively by society (such as policies to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions).
We found that collective policy choices are crucial, and that
Australia could make great progress to sustainability without any
changes in social values.
Competing views
Few topics generate more heat, and less light, than debates over economic growth and sustainability.
At one end of the spectrum, “technological optimists”
suggest that the marvellous invisible hand will take care of
everything, with market-driven improvements in technology automatically
protecting essential natural resources while also improving living
standards.
Unfortunately, there is no real evidence to back this, particularly
in protecting unpriced natural resources such as ocean fisheries, or the
services provided by a stable climate. Instead the evidence suggests we
are already crossing important planetary boundaries.
Other the other end of the spectrum, people argue that achieving sustainability will require a rejection of economic growth,
or a shift in values away from consumerism and towards a more
ecologically attuned lifestyles. We refer to this group as advocating
“communitarian limits”.
A third “institutional reform” approach argues that policy reform can
reconcile economic and ecological goals – and is attacked from one side
as anti-business alarmism, and from the other as indulging in
pro-growth greenwash.
WaPo | It took years for the Internet to reach its first 100 computers. Today,
100 new ones join each second. And running deep within the silicon
souls of most of these machines is the work of a technical wizard of
remarkable power, a man described as a genius and a bully, a spiritual
leader and a benevolent dictator.
Linus Torvalds — who in person could be mistaken for just another
paunchy, middle-aged suburban dad who happens to have a curiously large
collection of stuffed penguin dolls — looms over the future of
computing much as Bill Gates and the late Steve Jobs loom over its past
and present. For Linux, the operating system that Torvalds created and
named after himself, has come to dominate the exploding online world,
making it more popular overall than rivals from Microsoft and Apple.
But while Linux is fast, flexible and free, a growing chorus of critics
warn that it has security weaknesses that could be fixed but haven’t
been. Worse, as Internet security has surged as a subject of
international concern, Torvalds has engaged in an occasionally profane
standoff with experts on the subject. One group he has dismissed as
“masturbating monkeys.” In blasting the security features produced by
another group, he said in a public post, “Please just kill yourself
now. The world would be a better place.”
There are legitimate philosophical differences amid the harsh words.
Linux has thrived in part because of Torvalds’s relentless focus on
performance and reliability, both of which could suffer if more
security features were added. Linux works on almost any chip in the
world and is famously stable as it manages the demands of many programs
at once, allowing computers to hum along for years at a time without
rebooting.
Yet even among Linux’s many fans there is growing unease about
vulnerabilities in the operating system’s most basic, foundational
elements — housed in something called “the kernel,” which Torvalds has
personally managed since its creation in 1991. Even more so, there is
concern that Torvalds’s approach to security is too passive, bordering
on indifferent.
gizmodo | Security researchers have come across a new kind
of Android malware, which purports to be a well-known app but then
exposes your phone to root attacks—and is virtually impossible to
remove.
The new malware has been found
in software available on third-party app stores. The apps in question
use code from official software that you can download from Google Play
like Facebook and Twitter, reports Ars Technica, so they initially seem innocuous and even provide the exact same functionality.
But in fact they’re injected with malicious code, which allows them
to gain root access to the OS. In turn, a series of exploits are
installed on the device as system applications, which makes them
incredibly hard—for most people, impossible—to remove. Fist tap Big Don.
Initially developed by Android, Inc., which Google bought in 2005,[13] Android was unveiled in 2007, along with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance – a consortium of hardware, software, and telecommunication companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices.[14] As of July 2013[update], the Google Play store has had over one million Android applications ("apps") published, and over 50 billion applications downloaded.[15] An April–May 2013 survey of mobile application developers found that 71% of developers create applications for Android,[16] and a 2015 survey found that 40% of full-time professional developers see Android as their priority target platform, which is comparable to Apple's iOS on 37% with both platforms far above others.[17] At Google I/O 2014, the company revealed that there were over one billion active monthly Android users, up from 538 million in June 2013.[18]
Android's source code is released by Google under open source licenses, although most Android devices ultimately ship with a combination of open source and proprietary software, including proprietary software required for accessing Google services.[3] Android is popular with technology companies that require a ready-made, low-cost and customizable operating system for high-tech devices.[19] Its open nature has encouraged a large community of developers and enthusiasts to use the open-source code as a foundation for community-driven projects, which add new features for advanced users[20] or bring Android to devices originally shipped with other operating systems. At the same time, as Android has no centralised update system most Android devices fail to receive security updates: research in 2015 concluded that almost 90% of Android phones in use had known but unpatched security vulnerabilities due to lack of updates and support.[21][22] The success of Android has made it a target for patent litigation as part of the so-called "smartphone wars" between technology companies.[23
independent |The
rise of 'chemsex' - sex under the influence of illegal drugs - is
putting people at risk of HIV and other STIs, health experts have
warned.
People
who are taking GHB, GBL and crystal meth to enhance sexual pleasure and
reduce inhibitions are jeopardising their both sexual and mental
health, a study found.
Its
growing popularity, particularly among gay men, has led doctors to warn
that HIV rates and sexually-transmitted diseases cases are rising
rapidly.
Sex
during the illegal drug-fuelled sessions is often unprotected - with
those having chemsex reporting an average five sexual partners per
session, according to the British Medical Journal.
'These
drugs are often used in combination to facilitate sexual sessions
lasting several hours or days with multiple sexual partners,' it
reported.
'Mephedrone
and crystal meth are physiological stimulants, increasing heart rate
and blood pressure, as well as triggering euphoria and sexual arousal.
'GHB (and its precursor GBL) is a powerful psychological disinhibitor and also a mild anaesthetic.'
The experts
said the increase in chemsex was also putting people at risk of serious
mental health problems caused by drug dependencies.>The
authors of the report said there were many barriers for people who want
to get help, including the shame and stigma often associated with drug
use and ignorance of available drug services.
Some
services are now developing specific chemsex and 'party drug' clinics,
with specialist mental health support and help for withdrawing from the
drugs.
But
they warned that users often describe 'losing days' - not sleeping or
eating for up to 72 hours - which 'may harm their general health'.
miamiherald | The drug deaths of the three young men this year shared a common
thread, one that ties them to scores of other overdose, suicide,
accident and even murder victims in Miami-Dade and Broward counties: The
synthetic substances medical examiners found in their bodies most
likely arrived though the China Pipeline, which delivers illegal drugs, sold as bulk research chemicals on the Internet, to stateside dealers through the mail.
Authorities are scrambling to shut down the pipeline but they
acknowledge that it remains the primary source of an array of dangerous
so-called designer drugs flowing into South Florida. The grim result: a
rising number of addicts, emergency room visits and deaths —
particularly related to newer, more potent synthetics like infamous
flakka and the less known —but even more lethal —fentanyl.
“This is Breaking Bad gone wild,” said George Hime,
assistant director of the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s
toxicology lab. “There is no quality control. They don’t even know what
they’ve created. Is it something that can cause pleasure for a short
period of time? Yes. But it could also kill you.”
Flakka has run rampant among the homeless and in poor corners of
Broward, offering a cheap and powerful rush aptly described as “$5
insanity.” Flakka, street slang for a chemical called alpha-PVP, induced
one man up the coast in Brevard County to strip, proclaim himself the
Norse god Thor and try to have sex with a tree. Two other men, suffering
a serious flakka-fueled lapse in judgment, tried to break into Fort
Lauderdale police headquarters.
Fentanyl users haven’t produced such attention-grabbing crazy rages,
but the drug has quietly proven even deadlier in South Florida,
according to a Miami Herald review of medical examiner records in both
Miami-Dade and Broward counties. A fast-acting painkiller 50 times more
potent than heroin, it has been used as a surgical analgesic for
decades.
But investigators believe that underground labs in China fueling the
synthetics pipeline have concocted illegal fentanyl as well as
chemically tweaked “analogs” that are typically sold as heroin or mixed
with it.
“Fentanyl and its analogs are often laced in heroin and are extremely
dangerous, more so than alpha-PVP,” said Diane Boland, director of the
Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s toxicology lab. “People are dying at an
alarming rate, especially those who believe they are using heroin when
it’s in fact fentanyl. A small dose is enough to cause death.”
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article36723141.html#storylink=cpy
theatlantic | Since 1998, people all over the world have been living healthier and
living longer. But middle-aged, white non-Hispanics in the United States
have been getting sicker and dying in greater numbers. The trend is
being driven primarily by people with a high-school degree or less.
That's the sobering takeaway from a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published this week.
The study authors sum it up:
Between 1978 to 1998, the mortality rate for U.S. whites aged 45 to
54 fell by 2 percent per year on average, which matched the average rate
of decline in the six countries shown, and the average over all other
industrialized countries. After 1998, other rich countries’ mortality
rates continued to decline by 2 percent a year. In contrast, U.S. white
non-Hispanic mortality rose by half a percent a year. No other rich
country saw a similar turnaround.
That means “half a million people are dead who should
not be dead,” Angus Deaton, the 2015 Nobel laureate in economics and
co-author of the paper, told The Washington Post. “About 40 times the Ebola stats. You’re getting up there with HIV-AIDS.”
The
reasons for the increased death rate are not the usual things that kill
Americans, like diabetes and heart disease. Rather, it’s suicide,
alcohol and drug poisonings, and alcohol-related liver disease.
The
least-educated are worst off: All-cause mortality among middle-aged
Americans with a high-school degree or less increased by 134 deaths per
100,000 people between 1999 and 2013, but there was little change in
mortality for people with some college. The death rate for the
college-educated fell slightly.
chicagotribune | Two months and three days after Fox Lake police Lt. Charles Joseph
Gliniewicz's death, authorities announced Wednesday they believe the
veteran officer took his own life in a carefully staged suicide designed
to cover up extensive criminal acts.
Investigators say they believe two others were involved in criminal activity and that investigation remains ongoing.
Though the announcement answers a key question about his death,
authorities continue to look into related matters. Lake County State’s
Attorney Mike Nerheim said the results of the investigation have been
turned over to his office, as well as to the FBI, for investigation and
potential prosecution of alleged crimes that are not related to his
shooting but were uncovered during the investigation into it. Nerheim
declined to go into further detail.
Gliniewicz was under
increasing levels of stress from scrutiny of his management of the Fox
Lake Police Explorers program, George Filenko, commander of the Lake
County Major Crimes Task Force, said Wednesday.
Gliniewicz had been stealing and laundering money from
the Explorers post, spending the money on travel, mortgage payments,
adult websites and unaccounted cash withdrawals, Filenko said.
The
announcement that Gliniewicz’s death was a suicide marks the completion
of a 180-degree turn for an investigation that began with hundreds of
officers, as well as dogs and helicopters, searching for suspects who
apparently never existed. In the weeks that followed, Lake County,
Illinois authorities downplayed the possibility that Gliniewicz had
committed suicide while they followed leads and reviewed forensic test
results.
NYTimes | When
the nation’s long-running war against drugs was defined by the crack
epidemic and based in poor, predominantly black urban areas, the public
response was defined by zero tolerance and stiff prison sentences. But
today’s heroin crisis is different. While heroin use has climbed among
all demographic groups, it has skyrocketed among whites; nearly 90
percent of those who tried heroin for the first time in the last decade were white.
And
the growing army of families of those lost to heroin — many of them in
the suburbs and small towns — are now using their influence, anger and
grief to cushion the country’s approach to drugs, from altering the
language around addiction to prodding government to treat it not as a
crime, but as a disease.
“Because the demographic of people affected are more white, more middle class, these are parents who are empowered,” said Michael Botticelli,
director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy,
better known as the nation’s drug czar. “They know how to call a
legislator, they know how to get angry with their insurance company,
they know how to advocate. They have been so instrumental in changing
the conversation.”
Mr. Botticelli, a recovering alcoholic who has been sober for 26 years, speaks to some of these parents regularly.
Their
efforts also include lobbying statehouses, holding rallies and starting
nonprofit organizations, making these mothers and fathers part of a
growing backlash against the harsh tactics of traditional drug
enforcement. These days, in rare bipartisan or even nonpartisan
agreement, punishment is out and compassion is in.
The
presidential candidates of both parties are now talking about the drug
epidemic, with Hillary Rodham Clinton hosting forums on the issue as Jeb
Bush and Carly Fiorina tell their own stories of loss while calling for
more care and empathy.
A Foundation of Joy
-
Two years and I've lost count of how many times my eye has been operated
on, either beating the fuck out of the tumor, or reattaching that slippery
eel ...
April Three
-
4/3
43
When 1 = A and 26 = Z
March = 43
What day?
4 to the power of 3 is 64
64th day is March 5
My birthday
March also has 5 letters.
4 x 3 = 12
...
Return of the Magi
-
Lately, the Holy Spirit is in the air. Emotional energy is swirling out of
the earth.I can feel it bubbling up, effervescing and evaporating around
us, s...
New Travels
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Haven’t published on the Blog in quite a while. I at least part have been
immersed in the area of writing books. My focus is on Science Fiction an
Historic...
Covid-19 Preys Upon The Elderly And The Obese
-
sciencemag | This spring, after days of flulike symptoms and fever, a man
arrived at the emergency room at the University of Vermont Medical Center.
He ...