Quantcast
Channel: Pax on both houses
Viewing all 30150 articles
Browse latest View live
↧

"Creativity: The Psychology Of Discovery/Invention," By Founder Of "Flow Psychology"

November 9, 2014, 7:15 am
$
0
0

"It's About Flow: A Dozen Basic Guidelines For Educators"
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

***

Why "Psychological Androgyny" Is Essential for Creativity

Despite the immense canon of research on creativity – including its four stages, the cognitive science of the ideal creative routine, the role of memory, and the relationship between creativity and mental illness – very little has focused on one of life's few givens that equally few of us can escape: gender and the genderedness of the mind.

In Creativity: The Psychology of Discovery and Invention (public library) – one of the most important, insightful, and influential books on creativity ever written – pioneering psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi examines a curious, under-appreciated yet crucial aspect of the creative mindset: a predisposition to psychological androgyny.
In all cultures, men are brought up to be “masculine” and to disregard and repress those aspects of their temperament that the culture regards as “feminine,” whereas women are expected to do the opposite. Creative individuals to a certain extent escape this rigid gender role stereotyping. When tests of masculinity/femininity are given to young people, over and over one finds that creative and talented girls are more dominant and tough than other girls, and creative boys are more sensitive and less aggressive than their male peers.
Illustration by Yang Liu from Man Meets Woman, a pictogram critique of gender stereotypes

Csikszentmihalyi points out that this psychological tendency toward androgyny shouldn't be confused with homosexuality – it deals not with sexual constitution but with a set of psychoemotional capacities:
Psychological androgyny is a much wider concept, referring to a person’s ability to be at the same time aggressive and nurturant, sensitive and rigid, dominant and submissive, regardless of gender. A psychologically androgynous person in effect doubles his or her repertoire of responses and can interact with the world in terms of a much richer and varied spectrum of opportunities. It is not surprising that creative individuals are more likely to have not only the strengths of their own gender but those of the other one, too.
It was obvious that the women artists and scientists tended to be much more assertive, self-confident, and openly aggressive than women are generally brought up to be in our society. Perhaps the most noticeable evidence for the “femininity” of the men in the sample was their great preoccupation with their family and their sensitivity to subtle aspects of the environment that other men are inclined to dismiss as unimportant. But despite having these traits that are not usual to their gender, they retained the usual gender-specific traits as well.
Illustration from the 1970 satirical book I’m Glad I’m a Boy! I’m Glad I’m a Girl!

Creativity: The Psychology of Discovery and Invention is a revelatory read in its entirety, featuring insights on the ideal conditions for the creative process, the key characteristics of the innovative mindset, how aging influences creativity, and invaluable advice to the young from Csikszentmihalyi's roster of 91 creative luminaries. Complement this particular excerpt with Ursula K. Le Guin on being a man – arguably the most brilliant meditation on gender ever written, by one of the most exuberantly creative minds of our time.


↧
Search

Someone Reading a Book is a Sign of Order in the World: "Madness, Rack, And Honey"

November 9, 2014, 7:18 am
$
0
0

Someone Reading a Book is a Sign of Order in the World

If you're lucky, on a few occasions in your lifetime you will come upon an author in whose writing you experience a rare kind of homecoming, a spiritual embrace. For me, such singular homecomings have taken place in the arms of only a handful of writers – to wit,Virginia Woolf, Ursula K. Le Guin, Italo Calvino, Susan Sontag, Rebecca Solnit, Dani Shapiro, Anne Lamott, E.B White, and, most recently, Mary Ruefle.
It is doubly exulting when one of those rare writers finds the words and rhythms with which to convey what it is, exactly, that transpires in one of those rare moments of homecoming – what reading, at its best, does for the human soul. That's precisely what Ruefle does in the gorgeously titled 2003 piece "Someone Reading a Book is a Sign of Order in the World," found in the altogether unputdownable Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures (public library).

Ruefle – a prolific poet and voracious reader herself, having read an estimated 2,400 books in her life – reflects on "the mirrored erotics of this compulsive activity, reading":
We don't often watch people very closely when they read, though there are many famous paintings of women reading (none that I know of men) in which a kind of quiet eroticism takes place, like that of nursing. Of course, it is we who are being nursed by the books, and then I think of the reader asleep, the open book on his or her chest.
[...]
We are all one question, and the best answer seems to be love – a connection between things. This arcane bit of knowledge is respoken every day into the ears of readers of great books, and also appears to perpetually slip under a carpet, utterly forgotten.
'A Young Woman Reading' by Gustave Courbet, ca. 1866–1868

In one pause-giving anecdote, Ruefle illustrates the way that reading ignites the miraculous alchemy of associations that is the hallmark of the human mind. She recalls encountering on "page 248" of W.G. Sebald'sThe Rings of Saturn an interview with an English farmer who at one point says to Sebald, "I have always kept ducks, even as a child, and the colours of their plumage, in particular the dark green and snow white, seemed to me the only possible answer to the questions that are on my mind."
Ruefle found it "an odd thing to say," but made nothing of it, attributing it to the general quality of Sebald's book as "a long walk of oddities." But a few hours later, as she was perusing the dictionary, she remembered the passage with a jolt as she read the multiple definitions of the wordspeculum – among them, "a medieval compendium of all knowledge" and "a patch of color on the secondary wings of most ducks and some other birds." She marvels at the serendipitous alignment of words and worlds:
Did Sebald know that a compendium of all knowledge and the ducks’ plumage were one and the same? Did Abrams? Or was I the only one for whom the duck passage made perfect, original sense? I sat in my chair, shocked. I am not a scholar, but for the imaginative reader there can be discoveries, connections between books, that explode the day and one’s heart and the long years that have led to the moment.
Imagine my own shock, then, as a mere sentence later I came upon a passage that bears a striking resemblance to Alain de Botton's recent meditation on the value of reading, and predates it by more than a decade. Ruefle:
In one sense, reading is a great waste of time. In another sense, it is a great extension of time, a way for one person to live a thousand and one lives in a single lifespan, to watch the great impersonal universe at work again and again, to watch the great personal psyche spar with it, to suffer affliction and weakness and injury, to die and watch those you love die, until the very dizziness of it all becomes a source of compassion for ourselves, and our language, which we alone created, and without which the letter that slipped under the door could never have been written, or, once in a thousand lives—is that too much to ask?—retrieved, and read.
Then, De Botton:
It looks like it’s wasting time, but literature is actually the ultimate time-saver – because it gives us access to a range of emotions and events that it would take you years, decades, millennia to try to experience directly. Literature is the greatest reality simulator — a machine that puts you through infinitely more situations than you can ever directly witness.
Did De Botton plagiarize the passage, consciously or not, perhaps in a bout of cryptomnesia? Or is this an honest case of the same ideaoccurring independently to two minds unaware of each other's existence? Whatever the case, the very ability to ask such unanswerable questions is a gift granted by the mental cross-connections that books alone make possible.
Painting from My Favorite Things by Maira Kalman

But Ruefle's most evocative point has to do with reading's role as a dual gateway to our inner wholeness and our connectedness with the universe:
That is why I read: I want everything to be okay. That's why I read when I was a lonely kid and that's why I read now that I'm a scared adult. It's a sincere desire, but a sincere desire always complicates things – the universe has a peculiar reaction to our sincere desires. Still, I believe the planet on the table, even when wounded and imperfect, fragmented and deprived, is worthy of being called whole. Our minds and the universe – what else is there? Margaret Mead described intellectuals as those who are bored when they don't have the chance to talk interestingly enough. Now a book will talk interestingly to you. George Steiner describes the intellectual as one who can't read without a pencil in her hand. One who wants to talk back to the book, not take notes but make them: one who might write, "The giraffe speaks!" in the margin. In our marginal existence, what else is there but this voice within us, this great weirdness we are always leaning forward to listen to?
From cover to cover, Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures is the kind of book that beckons the pencil to its margins. Complement it with Rebecca Solnit on the shared intimacy of reading and writing, then revisit Kafka – whom Ruefle quotes in the same essay – on what books do for the human spirit.


↧
↧

Bruce Springsteen's Reading List: 28 Favorite Books

November 9, 2014, 7:38 am
$
0
0

Bruce Springsteen's Reading List: 28 Favorite Books That Shaped His Mind and Music

"A book is a heart that only beats in the chest of another," Rebecca Solnit wrote in her beautiful essay on reading and writing. It is also, perhaps, a seed planted in another's garden of consciousness. It is no coincidence that most highly creative people are voracious readers – books, after all,enable us to live multiple lives in oneby giving us access to emotions and experiences impossible to compress into a single lifetime, and creativity is the combinatorial product of all the ideas and experiences floating around our minds. To peek inside a creative icon's lifelong reading list is to glimpse his or her existential library of the mind – the range of ideas and influences and inspirations that were fused together into the work for which that person is known and beloved.



Joining the previously published reading lists of notable luminaries – including those of Leo Tolstoy, Carl Sagan, Alan Turing, Nick Cave, David Bowie, and Brian Eno – is singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen, one of the most influential and celebrated musicians of the twentieth century, and the recipient of twenty Grammy Awards. In a recent New York Timesinterview, marking the release of his charming picture-book Outlaw Pete(public library), Springsteen shares the books that shaped his music and his mind, from poetry to philosophy to children's books – an eclectic reading list spanning numerous genres and sensibilities, life stages and moods. (Favorite childhood book: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; last book that made him laugh: Richard Ford's The Lay of the Land; last book that made him cry: Cormac McCarthy's The Road).
  1. Moby-Dick (free download; public library) by Herman Melville
  2. How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer (public library) by Sarah Bakewell
  3. Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos: The Scientific Quest for the Secret of the Universe (public library) by Dennis Overbye
  4. Love in the Time of Cholera (public library) by Gabriel García Márquez
  5. Anna Karenina (free download; public library) by Leo Tolstoy
  6. Leaves of Grass (public library) by Walt Whitman
  7. The History of Western Philosophy (public library) by Bertrand Russell
  8. Examined Lives (public library) by Jim Miller
  9. American Pastoral (public library) by Philip Roth
  10. I Married a Communist (public library) by Philip Roth
  11. Blood Meridian (public library) by Cormac McCarthy
  12. The Road (public library) by Cormac McCarthy
  13. The Sportswriter (public library) by Richard Ford
  14. The Lay of the Land (public library) by Richard Ford
  15. Independence Day (public library) by Richard Ford
  16. A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories (public library) by Flannery O'Connor
  17. Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music(public library) by Greil Marcus
  18. Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley (public library) by Peter Guralnick
  19. Chronicles (public library) by Bob Dylan
  20. Sonata for Jukebox (public library) by Geoffrey O’Brien
  21. Soul Mining: A Musical Life (public library) by Daniel Lanois
  22. Too Big to Fail (public library) by Andrew Ross Sorkin
  23. Someplace Like America: Tales from the New Great Depression (public library) by Dale Maharidge
  24. The Big Short (public library) by Michael Lewis
  25. The Brothers Karamazov (free download; public library) by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  26. Great Short Works (public library) by Leo Tolstoy
  27. The Adventures of Augie March (public library) by Saul Bellow
  28. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (public library) by L. Frank Baum



↧

"The Perennial Plate: Adventures In Sustainable Eating." Food With Far-Flung Global View

November 9, 2014, 10:22 am
↧

"Leftover Swap" An iPhone App To Build Community And Prevent Wasted Food

November 9, 2014, 10:25 am
↧
↧

Here Are Some Things That Soon-To-Be Iowa Senator Joni Ernst Actually Said

November 9, 2014, 10:35 am
$
0
0
Go ahead. Repeal Obamacare.
It'll be the quickest way to single payer.
(There's not a Republican politician in a hundred who is actually prepared to repeal Obamacare. If they did, they'd have to make a "free market" proposal and the "free market" is intrinsically unable to get the job done.)
Video: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/05/joni-ernst-conspiracies_n_6104820.html

WASHINGTON -- Voters in Iowa elected Republican Joni Ernst to the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, making her the state's first woman senator.

Ernst, a state senator and lieutenant colonel in the Iowa National Guard, catapulted to stardom during the GOP primary with ads featuring her castrating hogs and pulling a handgun from her purse. The spots also helped Ernst win support from prominent Republicans, including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. The woman who branded herself a "mother, soldier, leader” convinced Republicans she was the party's best chance to turn red a Senate seat held by retiring Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin.

While Ernst propelled herself to victory by painting herself as a Midwestern woman who grew up on a farm, Democrats pointed to questionable statements to claim she's a hard-right conservative, if not a conspiracy theorist.

Agenda 21
While campaigning last November, Ernst backed a right-wing theory that the United Nations' sustainable development plan Agenda 21 is a conspiracy that would enable the government to strip Americans of their freedom and eliminate private property rights.
All of us agreed that Agenda 21 is a horrible idea. One of those implications to Americans, again, going back to what did it does do to the individual family here in the state of Iowa, and what I've seen, the implications that it has here is moving people off of their agricultural land and consolidating them into city centers, and then telling them that you don't have property rights anymore. These are all things that the UN is behind, and it's bad for the United States and bad for families here in the state of Iowa.
States Can Nullify Federal Laws
At a forum held by Iowa's Faith & Freedom Coalition in July, Ernst suggested that states can somehow nullify laws passed by the federal government.
You know we have talked about this at the state legislature before, nullification. But, bottom line is, as U.S. senator, why should we be passing laws that the states are considering nullifying? Bottom line: our legislators at the federal level should not be passing those laws. We’re right ... we’ve gone 200-plus years of federal legislators going against the 10th Amendment’s states’ rights. We are way overstepping bounds as federal legislators. So, bottom line, no we should not be passing laws as federal legislators -- as senators or congressman -- that the states would even consider nullifying. Bottom line.
WMDs In Iraq
Ernst told the Des Moines Register's editorial board in May that she believed there were weapons of mass destruction found during the United States' invasion of Iraq. From the Daily Beast:
"We don't know that there were weapons on the ground when we went in," she said, "however, I do have reason to believe there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." When a Register reporter quizzed her on what information she has, Ernst said, "My husband served in Saudi Arabia as the Army Central Command sergeant major for a year and that's a hot-button topic in that area."
Ernst later clarified those comments in a statement conceding that there were no WMDs in Iraq, although the country had used them before.

47 Percent Mentality
Audio recorded by Radio Iowa in 2013 revealed that Ernst, like many conservatives, holds a "makers vs. takers" view toward social welfare programs. But as Greg Sargent reported, her comments went further than former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's infamous "47 percent" video.
We’re looking at Obamacare right now. Once we start with those benefits in January, how are we going to get people off of those? It’s exponentially harder to remove people once they’ve already been on those programs ... we rely on government for absolutely everything. And in the years since I was a small girl up until now into my adulthood with children of my own, we have lost a reliance on not only our own families, but so much of what our churches and private organizations used to do. They used to have wonderful food pantries. They used to provide clothing for those that really needed it. But we have gotten away from that. Now we’re at a point where the government will just give away anything.
Climate Change Skeptic
While hardly unique among Republicans, Ernst has claimed she does not possess thescientific knowhow to weigh in on whether humans are causing climate change. But she did chalk it up to "cyclic changes in the weather" during an interview in May.
Yes, we do see climates change, but I have not seen proven proof that it is entirely man-made. I think we do have cyclic changes in weather, and I think that's been throughout the course of history. What impact is man-made. ... but I do think we can educate people to make good choices.
She Really Likes Her Gun
An ad featuring Ernst shooting at a target that is supposed to represent the federal government isn't the first time she has used such a stark metaphor. Speaking at a 2012 NRA event, Ernst said her firearm would help protect her if the government imposes on her rights.
I have a beautiful little Smith & Wesson, 9 millimeter, and it goes with me virtually everywhere. But I do believe in the right to carry, and I believe in the right to defend myself and my family -- whether it’s from an intruder, or whether it’s from the government, should they decide that my rights are no longer important.
Ernst also has suggested that President Barack Obama should be impeached, expressed openness to privatizing Social Security, called for abortion providers to be punished if a fetal personhood bill were passed, and opposed a federal minimum wage hike.


↧

2 Pastors, 90-Year-Old Man Charged With Feeding Homeless

November 9, 2014, 10:43 am
$
0
0
Arnold Abbott

AUTO START: ON | OFF
To Arnold Abbott, feeding the homeless in a public park in South Florida was an act of charity. To the city of Fort Lauderdale, the 90-year-old man in white chef's apron serving up gourmet-styled meals was committing a crime.
For more than two decades, the man many call "Chef Arnold" has proudly fired up his ovens to serve up four-course meals for the downtrodden who wander the palm tree-lined beaches and parks of this sunny tourist destination.
Now a face-off over a new ordinance restricting public feedings of the homeless has pitted Abbott and others with compassionate aims against some officials, residents and businesses who say the growing homeless population has overrun local parks and that public spaces merit greater oversight.
Abbott and two South Florida ministers were arrested last weekend as they served up food. They were charged with breaking an ordinance restricting public feeding of the homeless. Each faces up to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine.
"One of the police officers said, 'Drop that plate right now,' as if I were carrying a weapon," Abbott recalled.
The arrests haven't deterred Abbott, and pastors Dwayne Black and Mark Sims.
In fact, on Wednesday evening, Abbott and Black went back out for a feeding along Fort Lauderdale beach as police videotaped them serving up fresh-cooked entrees: a chicken-and-vegetable dish with broccoli sauce and a cubed ham-and-pasta dish Abbott said he topped with a "beautiful white onion celery sauce."
Nearly 100 mostly homeless people and volunteers cheered his arrival in the park.
"God bless you, Arnold!" some in the crowd shouted.
 "Thank God for Chef Arnold. I haven't eaten all day. He feeds a lot of people from the heart," said 56-year-old Eddie Hidalgo, who described himself as living on the streets since losing his job two years ago.
At one point, an Associated Press staffer said she watched as Abbott was called over beside a police car by officers where an officer wrote up something and handed Abbott a copy as he stood by.
Police spokeswoman DeAnna Greenlaw late told The Associated Press by email that Abbott was issued a citation on a charge of breaking the ordinance. She said no one else was cited and police had no further comment.
"I'm grateful that they allowed us to feed the people before they gave us the citation," Abbott said afterward. He has said feeding the homeless is his life's mission.
Fort Lauderdale is the latest U.S. city to pass restrictions on feeding homeless people in public places. Advocates for the homeless say that the cities are fighting to control increasing homeless populations but that simply passing ordinances doesn't work.
In the past two years, more than 30 cities have tried to introduce laws similar to Fort Lauderdale's, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless. The efforts come as more veterans face homelessness and after two harsh winters drove homeless people southward, especially to Florida.
Mayor Jack Seiler said he thinks Abbott and the two pastors have good intentions, but that the city can't discriminate in enforcing the ordinance. He said it was passed recently to ensure that public places are open to everyone and stressed that the city was working with local charities to help with the root causes of homelessness.
"The parks have just been overrun and were inaccessible to locals and businesses," Seiler said.  
Black, a local pastor, noted that the ordinance passed after a long meeting after midnight, when many people had gone home. But he said he's willing to stand up to the measure, even at the risk of arrest.
Fort Lauderdale's ordinance took effect Friday, and the city passed a slew of other laws addressing homelessness in recent months. They ban people from leaving their belongings unattended, outlaw panhandling at medians, and strengthen defecation and urination laws, according to Michael Stoops, director of community organizing for the National Coalition for the Homeless.
"I think cities have grown tired of the homeless situation, and businesses and residents complain about the homeless population," Stoops said, citing the conflict between business needs and the needs of the homeless.
Fort Lauderdale police have said that the men were not taken into custody last weekend and that they were given notices to appear in court from that encounter, adding the matter will ultimately be decided by a judge. The police spokeswoman Greenlaw said those charged "were well aware of the changes to the ordinance and its effective date."
Other cities are conducting routine homeless sweeps while some have launched anti-panhandling campaigns, according to the coalition. And many laws continue to target public feedings.
In Houston, groups need written consent to feed the homeless in public, or they face a $2,000 fine. Organizations in Columbia, South Carolina, must pay $150 for a permit more than two weeks in advance to feed the homeless in city parks.
In Orlando, an ordinance requires groups to get a permit to feed 25 or more people in parks in a downtown district. Groups are limited to two permits per year for each park. Since then, numerous activists have been arrested for violating the law. The arrests have drawn national attention, with some focusing on the contrast between the vacation destination of the Orlando area and the poverty in some surrounding areas.

↧

TED Radio Hour: Due To A Bad Value Judgment, "The Law" Is Making Us Less Free

November 9, 2014, 10:58 am
$
0
0

More From This Episode

"We need to find ways to embrace these challenges ... because ultimately, our humanity depends on everyone's humanity." —Bryan Stevenson

Solving It

Part 1 of the TED Radio Hour episode Solving It.
About Philip K. Howard's TED Talk
Lawyer Philip K. Howard says the U.S. has become a legal minefield — especially for teachers and doctors, whose work has been paralyzed by fear of lawsuits.
About Philip K. Howard
Attorney Philip K. Howard is a leading voice for legal reform in the U.S. In 2002, he formed the nonpartisan group Common Good to advocate for an overhaul of American law and government. Among Common Good's suggestions: specialized health care courts, which would give lower but smarter awards, and a project with the NYC Board of Education and the teachers union to change the disciplinary system in New York public schools. His forthcoming book is called The Rule Of Nobody.

↧
Search

TED Radio Hour: Toxic Effect Of Money On Politics. CT Demonstrates Legal Solution

November 9, 2014, 11:01 am
$
0
0

More From This Episode

"We need to find ways to embrace these challenges ... because ultimately, our humanity depends on everyone's humanity." —Bryan Stevenson

Solving It


Part 2 of the TED Radio Hour episode Solving It.
About Lawrence Lessig's TED Talk
Legal scholar Lawrence Lessig says corruption is at the heart of American politics. He says the campaign funding process weakens democracy and he issues a bipartisan call for change.
About Lawrence Lessig
Lawyer and activist Lawrence Lessig has spent years arguing for sensible intellectual property law for the digital age. He was a founding board member ofCreative Commons, an organization that builds better copyright practices through open source principles.
In 2007, Lessig turned his attention to what he calls a fundamental problem that blocks all types of sensible policy — the corrupting influence of money in American politics. In 2011, Lessig founded Rootstrikers, an organization dedicated to changing the influence of money in Congress.
↧
↧

TED Radio Hour: How To Remedy Race-Based Injustice

November 9, 2014, 11:05 am
$
0
0

"Bad Black People." Why Bill O'Reilly Is Wrong Even When He's Right"

Jon Stewart Interviews Bryan Stevenson On "Black Failure"  http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/10/jon-stewart-interviews-bryan-stevenson.html

More From This Episode

"We need to find ways to embrace these challenges ... because ultimately, our humanity depends on everyone's humanity." —Bryan Stevenson

Solving It

Part 4 of the TED Radio Hour episode Solving It.
About Bryan Stevenson's TED Talk
Lawyer Bryan Stevenson shares some hard truths about how America's criminal justice system works against the poor and people of color. He argues that these issues are wrapped up in America's unexamined history.
About Bryan Stevenson
Lawyer Bryan Stevenson has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned. He's the founder and executive director of theEqual Justice Initiative, an Alabama-based group that has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent prisoners on death row, and confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill.
Stevenson's work fighting poverty and challenging racial discrimination in the criminal justice system has won him numerous awards, including a MacArthur fellowship and 14 honorary doctorate degrees.
↧

"TET Offensive." Vietnam Loss Films. The Face Of War When Reporters Were There

November 9, 2014, 11:18 am
↧

The Borowitz Report: "Country on Wrong Track, Say People Who Did Not Vote"

November 9, 2014, 11:27 am
$
0
0
American consumer units rehearsing for late-life obesity

***

"32.7% Of Eligible Citizens Voted In 2014 Mid-Term Elections"

***

"Mandatory Voting Would Focus Candidates On All Citizens, Not Just Their Rabid Base"

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—The United States of America is on the wrong track and no one is taking action to fix it, says a broad majority of registered voters who did not vote last Tuesday.
According to a new survey, anger, frustration, and a pervasive view that the nation is moving in a fatal direction dominated the mood of those who were doing something other than voting on Election Day.

Exit polls involving election non-participants took place as they left malls, nail salons, gyms, and other locations where no voting occurred on Tuesday.
“The system is broken,” said Carol Foyler, thirty-one, a democracy abstainer from Akron, Ohio. “We need to come up with some way that ordinary citizens can make their voices heard and have some impact on who is running things in Washington.”
The economy, jobs, and terrorism topped the list of worries that are preying on the minds of the non-voting electorate.
“I find it difficult to sleep at night worrying about the kind of country we are leaving to our children and our children’s children,” said Mark Gardziak, forty-seven, who spent Election Day shopping for a phone.
While pessimism about the future dominated the comments of the 67.3% of American voters who elected not to exercise their democratic rights on Tuesday, some expressed a glimmer of hope.
“The one way things could get better is if we all get together and throw out the crooked politicians,” offered Tess Shardin, thirty-eight, who said she was unlikely to vote in 2016.

↧

Carl Jung: What if "I" Am The Enemy Who Must Be Loved?

November 9, 2014, 11:34 am
↧
↧

Meet Your New Craziest Republicans

November 9, 2014, 2:26 pm
$
0
0
Jody Hice wearing camo, holding rifle
Rep. Jody Hice, the face of New Republicanism. He'll be defending his Georgia district from the Gays,
Muslims, and women who enter politics without their husbands' permission.
Tuesday's elections brought both a rout of Democrats and a new standard for just who can be a national Republican these days. That's not good, but let's have a quick look at the new House and Senate conservatives most likely to rise to (unintended) prominence in the next two years. It's time for Meet Your New Craziest Republicans.
Jody Hice, GA-10: Another beneficiary of a hard-right conservative district, Georgia's Jody Hice can't be considered a gaffe machine. He's just plain mean. A tea party Republican right out of central casting, Hice is a preacher, a conservative radio host, a gun-toter, and the district's replacement for Paul "Evolution and embryology and the big bang theory are lies from the pit of Hell" Broun. Hice's most recent hit has been the assertion that Muslim-Americans are not protected by the First Amendment because Islam is not a true religion; he also is frothingly anti-gay and is for women entering politics only if it is "within the authority of her husband." Look for Hice to be a loudmouth Steve King type; not dumb, but meaner than a bag of rattlesnakes and a whole lot louder.
Glenn Grothman, WI-06: Any list has to start with new Wisconsin Representative Glenn Grothman. Grothman is a finely tuned gaffe machine, if by "gaffe" we mean "saying the things Republicans are not supposed to say out loud." He is a fervent believer in stopping The Gay Agenda, which he believes exists in our nation's classrooms, but it's the full scope of Grothman's bizarre statements that have led us to predict that he will quickly rise to challenge Texas Republican Louie Gohmert for the title of America's Dumbest Congressman. Does he have the stuff? We'll soon know.
Mark Walker, NC-06: An also-ran compared to the more reliably soon-to-be-infamous Grothman and Rice, Mark Walker will nonetheless make a solid addition to the members of Congress that you will shudder to think have actual power. His highlight reel is topped by the time he proposed "we go laser or blitz" Mexico in order to teach them a lesson about immigrants crossing our southern border. He's yet another tea partier that sallied into Congress while Republicans were proudly proclaiming they had tamped down on all that nonsense this time around. He also says he'd vote to impeach Obama.
Honorable Mention: Mia Love, UT-04: A female black Republican, Love has been a party darling groomed for success. She'll go to Congress this year to prove that she's got what it takes to move on to even higher office. She sports the endorsement of ultra-right anti-abortion extremists, but her unimpressive win even amidst an otherwise-solid Republican wave may have given her GOP poster child status a bit of a hit. Like Bobby Jindal, she's an ambitious state Republican who will either make a big splash in the party or look very silly trying.
Joni Ernst, IA-Sen: When it comes to the Senate, all connoisseurs of train wrecks in the making are expecting great things from the Sarah Palinesque Joni Ernst. A far-right conspiracy theorist who coasted through the election on reporter fluff pieces and stories of pig castration, Ernst will join—and perhaps top—the Senate contingent of Republican believers in all things conspiratorial and insane. Think Michele Bachmann, but in the Senate. Think your crazy grandpa and his forwarded chain letters, but in the Senate. Think that person who accosts you at lunch one day with their theories of how Agenda 21 will be allowing cows to vote and forcing humans into tent cities—but in the actual Senate. Think Ted Cruz, but—well, think Ted Cruz. Ernst's campaign showed two and only two settings, either ducking the press like a hunted submarine or engaging in word salads that rival the best Palinisms. We expect greatthings from her.


"The Republican Party Is A Satanic Cult"

"American Conservatives And Oppositional-Defiant Disorder"

Jindal Criticizes The Stupid Party: "Simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys"

"Bank On It: The South Is Always Wrong"

"Red State Moocher Links"

"Why The Bible Belt Is Its Own Worst Enemy"
  1. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/why-bible-belt-is-christianitys-enemy.html

"The Reign of Morons Is Here," Charles P. Pierce, The Atlantic

"A Southerner Explains Tea Party Radicalism: The Civil War Is Not Over"

"People Who Watch Only Fox News 
Know Less Than People Who Watch No News"

Bill Maher: The Zombie Life Cycle Of Republican Lies. They Never - Ever - Die

George McGovern: "The Case For Liberalism, A Defense Of The Future Against The Past"


↧

Is It Safe To Eat Tuna Every Day? For Non-Pregnant Adults, Maybe, But Don't Bet On It.

November 9, 2014, 2:47 pm
$
0
0

Tuna is one of the most convenient protein sources that exists, so it can easily become a go-to lunch. 

But is it safe to eat it every day?

Cans of tuna fish
Tim Boyle / Getty Images
Nearly all seafood contains traces of mercury, according to the Food and Drug Administration. So the question is: At what level does mercury become poisonous?
The short answer: Probably. But if you're wrong, you could end up with mercury poisoning, which can cause weird symptoms like tingling sensations and loss of balance, says Michael Gochfeld, M.D., Ph.D., a researcher with the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute.

"It would likely be safe for many men to eat tuna every day, while some men could experience symptoms of mercury toxicity from eating the same amount," says Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman Lauren Sucher.

Here's why it's so complicated: You have to balance the benefits of eating fish with the risk from mercury, while taking into account a person's weight, their sensitivity to mercury, the type of tuna, and how much risk you're willing to take, says Dr. Gochfeld.
Nearly all seafood contains traces of mercury, according to the FDA. So the question is: At what level does mercury become poisonous?

That's where it gets even more confusing. No one knows exactly where mercury goes from being harmless to toxic, because you'd have to poison people to find out, says Men's Health nutrition advisor Alan Aragon, M.S.

Most experts can agree on at least two facts, though.

1. Fish is good for you. 
Research has shown that it may lower your risk of heart disease, stroke, obesity, cognitive decline, depression, cancer, inflammatory disorders, and asthma, says Dariush Mozaffarian, M.D., Dr.P.H., dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. Restricting your fish intake could make you miss out on all those benefits.

2. The risks from mercury have been overhyped. 
Mercury can harm the developing nervous systems of fetuses and young children, according to the FDA. But when the agency warned pregnant women to limit consumption of high-mercury fish in 2004, it set off unnecessary panic for everyone else, Dr. Mozaffarian says.


The truth is, those warnings never applied to the general public. However, it is possible for adults to get mercury poisoning. You just have to eat a lot of high-mercury fish for that to happen.

Our advice: Almost all guys will be perfectly fine eating a can of light tuna four times a week. 
If you want to eat more tuna, or different types of tuna, you can calculate your weekly limit by following the instructions below. And if you do experience symptoms of mercury poisoning, you can usually reverse them by eating less fish or eating only low-mercury fish, says Dr. Gochfeld.

1. Pick your tuna.
An average 5-ounce serving (1 can) of light tuna contains 18.11 micrograms of mercury. An average 5-ounce serving (1 can) of albacore tuna contains 49.53 micrograms of mercury.An average 5-ounce serving of tuna steak or tuna sushi could contain up to 97.49 micrograms.

2. Convert your weight to kilograms by dividing your weight in pounds by 2.2.

3. Divide the amount of mercury from Step 1 by your weight in kilograms from Step 2. The result is your mercury dose (in micrograms) per kilogram for a 5-ounce serving.

4. Pick a mercury dose limit from the two main federal recommendations. One is very conservative, the other is less so. You could go with the Environmental Protection Agency dose, which is safe enough for the most vulnerable people--including pregnant women. That dose is .1 microgram per kilogram per day.Or go with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which says consuming .3 micrograms per kilogram per day of mercury poses minimal risk.

5. Multiply your chosen daily limit by 7 to find your weekly limit. (For the EPA it's .7; for the CDC it's 2.1.)

6. Divide your weekly limit from Step 5 by your dose from Step 3 to find how many 5-ounce servings you can have per week. If you're a 180-pound guy eating light tuna, you could safely eat 9.5 five-ounce cans according to the CDC, or 3.2 five-ounce cans according to the EPA.


↧
Search

The Moth Radio Hour: Marine Searches For Meaning After Failure To Find WMD In Iraq

November 9, 2014, 3:28 pm
$
0
0

Defector Who Triggered War On Iraq Admits: "I Lied About WMD"


Alan: All my friends knew there were no WMD in Iraq and that Bush was rushing to war be fore U.N. weapons inspector completed his fruitless search.

"Hans Blix Fruitless Search For WMD And Bush/Cheney's Rush To War In Iraq"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/08/hans-blix-fruitless-search-for-wmd-and.html

***
"Bush's Toxic Legacy In Iraq"


Veterans Day Special 2014

Audio File: 
http://themoth.org/posts/episodes/veterans-day-special-2014

Scotti Mike

A Sort of Homecoming

Nov 4, 2014

After returning from active duty in the Middle East, a marine searches for new meaning.


Dawn Seymour

The Boundless Sky

Nov 4, 2014
A 97 year old woman describes training young men for WWII combat as a WASP.


Bill Kieger

Just a Little Bit

Nov 4, 2014
A father being deployed to Iraq must find a way to explain it to his children.


William Cole

The 93rd

Nov 4, 2014
A WWII soldier from Wisconsin serves with the segregated 93rd Infantry Division in the South Pacific.


Dawn Seymour

Dawn Seymour talks with The Moth’s Catherine McCarthy


↧

The Dime-A-Dozen Liar Who Pimped Uncle Sam To Invade Iraq

November 9, 2014, 4:52 pm
$
0
0

The Common Thief And Half-Assed Liar 
Whose Crock Of Shit Started The Iraq War

Imagine the "truths"Curveball would have told if tortured by people wanting to hear lies. 

Why is there NO discussion about preventing such tragic nonsense in future?!?

As a nation, are we so belligerent - so irrepressibly horny to ejaculate fire, shrapnel and lead -- that we resort to nonsensical lies to propel our headlong rush to war?

As a nation, are we so belligerent - so irrepressibly horny to ejaculate fire, shrapnel and lead -that we insist on nonsensical lies to complete our headlong rush to war.

Hear this. 

There is NO difference between the asshole above and any other under-performing thief trying to save his skin by telling ideological bamboozlers "the lies they need" to perp their scam.

Read Curveball's Wikipedia account... and weep.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, aka "Curveball"

Teach your children that Uncle Sam is a bloody warmonger and - judging from his experience in Vietnam and Iraq -- should be presumed guilty until proven innocent. 


Excerpt:"Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995... "I tell you something when I hear anybody – not just in Iraq but in any war – [is] killed, I am very sad. But give me another solution. Can you give me another solution? Believe me, there was no other way to bring about freedom to Iraq. There were no other possibilities.""

***

Defector Admits To Lies That Triggered Iraq 
War
February 11, 2011
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/15/defector-admits-wmd-lies-iraq-war

The defector who convinced the White House that Iraq had a secret biological weapons programme has admitted for the first time that he lied about his story, then watched in shock as it was used to justify the war.
Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995.
"Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right," he said. "They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy."
The admission comes just after the eighth anniversary of Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations in which the then-US secretary of state relied heavily on lies that Janabi had told the German secret service, the BND. It also follows the release of former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld's memoirs, in which he admitted Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction programme, 
The careers of both men were seriously damaged by their use of Janabi's claims, which he now says could have been – and were – discredited well before Powell's landmark speech to the UN on 5 February 2003.
The former CIA chief in Europe Tyler Drumheller describes Janabi's admission as "fascinating", and said the emergence of the truth "makes me feel better". "I think there are still a number of people who still thought there was something in that. Even now," said Drumheller.
In the only other at length interview Janabi has given he denied all knowledge of his supposed role in helping the US build a case for invading Saddam's Iraq.
In a series of meetings with the Guardian in Germany where he has been granted asylum, he said he had told a German official, who he identified as Dr Paul, about mobile bioweapons trucks throughout 2000. He said the BND had identified him as a Baghdad-trained chemical engineer and approached him shortly after 13 March of that year, looking for inside information about Saddam's Iraq.
"I had a problem with the Saddam regime," he said. "I wanted to get rid of him and now I had this chance."
He portrays the BND as gullible and so eager to tease details from him that they gave him a Perry's Chemical Engineering Handbook to help communicate. He still has the book in his small, rented flat in Karlsruhe, south-west Germany.
"They were asking me about pumps for filtration, how to make detergent after the reaction," he said. "Any engineer who studied in this field can explain or answer any question they asked."
Janabi claimed he was first exposed as a liar as early as mid-2000, when the BND travelled to a Gulf city, believed to be Dubai, to speak with his former boss at the Military Industries Commission in Iraq, Dr Bassil Latif.
The Guardian has learned separately that British intelligence officials were at that meeting, investigating a claim made by Janabi that Latif's son, who was studying in Britain, was procuring weapons for Saddam.
That claim was proven false, and Latif strongly denied Janabi's claim of mobile bioweapons trucks and another allegation that 12 people had died during an accident at a secret bioweapons facility in south-east Baghdad.
The German officials returned to confront him with Latif's version. "He says, 'There are no trucks,' and I say, 'OK, when [Latif says] there no trucks then [there are none],'" Janabi recalled.
He said the BND did not contact him again until the end of May 2002. But he said it soon became clear that he was still being taken seriously.
He claimed the officials gave him an incentive to speak by implying that his then pregnant Moroccan-born wife may not be able to travel from Spain to join him in Germany if he did not co-operate with them. "He says, you work with us or your wife and child go to Morocco."
The meetings continued throughout 2002 and it became apparent to Janabi that a case for war was being constructed. He said he was not asked again about the bioweapons trucks until a month before Powell's speech.
After the speech, Janabi said he called his handler at the BND and accused the secret service of breaking an agreement that they would not share anything he had told them with another country. He said he was told not to speak and placed in confinement for around 90 days.
With the US now leaving Iraq, Janabi said he was comfortable with what he did, despite the chaos of the past eight years and the civilian death toll in Iraq, which stands at more than 100,000.
"I tell you something when I hear anybody – not just in Iraq but in any war – [is] killed, I am very sad. But give me another solution. Can you give me another solution?
"Believe me, there was no other way to bring about freedom to Iraq. There were no other possibilities."



↧
↧

Top Ten Good Things About American Conservatives

November 9, 2014, 5:25 pm
$
0
0


"The Republican Party Is A Satanic Cult"

"American Conservatives And Oppositional-Defiant Disorder"

Jindal Criticizes The Stupid Party: "Simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys"

"Bank On It: The South Is Always Wrong"

"Red State Moocher Links"

"Why The Bible Belt Is Its Own Worst Enemy"
  1. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/why-bible-belt-is-christianitys-enemy.html

"The Reign of Morons Is Here," Charles P. Pierce, The Atlantic

"A Southerner Explains Tea Party Radicalism: The Civil War Is Not Over"

"People Who Watch Only Fox News 
Know Less Than People Who Watch No News"

Bill Maher: The Zombie Life Cycle Of Republican Lies. They Never - Ever - Die

George McGovern: "The Case For Liberalism, A Defense Of The Future Against The Past"



↧

Ralph Nader Reviews The Republican Romp And Tells How The Tide Could Have Turned

November 9, 2014, 5:52 pm
$
0
0
d
No peace without justice.
No justice without conceiving "The Economy" as The National Patrimony.

Oddly, socialist superstar Sarah Palin understands this.

Socialist Super Star Sarah Palin Demands Oil Companies Be Stripped Of $6 Billion


***

Excerpt:"President Obama could have traveled the country saying:
“Give me a Democratic Congress, and I’ll sign legislation that will create millions of jobs repairing and upgrading the public works of our neglected land. There will be non-exportable, good paying jobs restoring our water sewage systems, our highways and bridges, our public transit systems and our crumbling schools, ports and public buildings. We’ll pay for these critical public investments by shrinking crony capitalism (taxpayer subsidies, handouts, giveaways and bailouts) and by making hugely profitable companies like General Electric, Verizon and Apple pay their fair share of taxes rather than shifting the tax burden onto the backs of middle-class taxpayers. And we’ll impose a tiny sales tax, far less than you pay on your necessities of life, on Wall Street stock transactions to raise about $300 billion a year. Every American can benefit from these community and policy improvements, strictly monitored as they develop with honesty and efficiency. Every local chamber of commerce, every union, every worker, supplier, and every civic organization will support our programs which I am going to call ‘Come Home America.’ ”"
If you don’t think these grand initiatives would have brought voters out and won elections for the Democrats, I have another idea. Even with the Republicans controlling Congress, a group of progressive Democrats could unite to create a major bottom-up and top-down initiative demanding for public works programs that would itemize projects in every community to reverse the costly deterioration of our country’s public infrastructure. Such action would even gain the support of money from those on the other side of the aisle and create a Left-Right coalition in the new Congress, even if it required those on the Right to defy their Wall Street-indentured leaders, Senator Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner.

In the Public Interest by Ralph Nader

Democrats Not Knowing What They Stand For—Lose
Ralph Nader

November 7, 2014

Did the Republicans win these mid-term elections? Or did the Democrats lose? The numbers show that in contested Senate races, where the Republicans picked up seven seats and will probably gain two more to take control of the Senate, voters did not support those Democrats who were the most wishy-washy.
In their campaigns, the defeated Democratic senators ran away from President Obama and often bragged about opposing his policies. But where did these senators run to? Certainly not to popular policies that appeal to Americans where they live, work and raise their children.
Getting Senator Mark Pryor to support a minimum wage increase took many months. By the time he saw the popularity of a statewide citizen-driven initiative on the ballot and switched, he appeared more as an opportunist than a leader. Shortly after, his Republican successor, Congressman Tom Cotton switched as well. All four initiatives to raise the minimum wage won in conservative “red states.”
Many defeated senators tried to localize the election by dumping on Obama and the national Democratic Party. They avoided siding with the people on matters such as strong law and order for corporate crimes against consumers, patients, workers, community and environmental health. They avoided talking about revising both the failed war on drugs and the failed war on terror that have resulted in more drugs in our country and created more anti-American groups around the world.
Washington Post columnist, the ever perceptive Steven Pearlstein, wrote just before the election that the “Democratic candidates find themselves caught in a vicious cycle in which their refusal to embrace and defend their party’s brand is discouraging the faithful and turning away the undecided, threatening their election prospects still further.”
Turning out young and minority voters requires candidates to articulate progressive visions of an America that will provide opportunities for improving the livelihoods for millions of lower-income, low-paid, underemployed or employed laborers. Low turnouts of these eligible voters this past Election Day ensured Democratic Party losses (nationwide turnout only reached 33%).
People have to believe that their vote means something. Viewing the billions of dollars of repetitive, negative, insipid political television ads created by both party’s political/corporate consultants doesn’t motivate voters to show up at the polls. Unfortunately, unlikely voters are the majority, outnumbering by about six to four those who voted this year.
The Mark Pryor senatorial campaign in Arkansas provides a teaching moment regarding political cowardliness. He had everything going for him—plenty of money and a father who was a popular former Senator and was visible in his campaign. Bill Clinton even came back to his native Arkansas six times and traveled to many communities in the state to lavish praise on Senator Pryor.
Yet on Election Day, Pryor lost big. Why? Because he did not speak truth to power; he couldn’t stand on his record in the Senate because he didn’t have one. As Chairman of the Senate Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Insurance Subcommittee for some time, he was asleep at the switch; he did not return calls from civic leaders to strengthen his network and did not have high profile public hearings on the myriad of corporate abuses involving cheating, stealing and injuring consumers.
President Obama, by not barnstorming the country, reinforced the stereotype that he is a liability to his party. Mr. Obama could have united the nation behind a minimum wage raise (a restoration of purchasing power) for thirty million workers who today make less than workers made in 1968, adjusted for inflation. This long-overdue correction is supported by seventy to eighty percent of the American people—a Left-Right alliance—for reasons of need, fairness, and economic stimulus, while reducing the burdens on public assistance programs.
At the same time, President Obama could have traveled the country saying:
“Give me a Democratic Congress, and I’ll sign legislation that will create millions of jobs repairing and upgrading the public works of our neglected land. There will be non-exportable, good paying jobs restoring our water sewage systems, our highways and bridges, our public transit systems and our crumbling schools, ports and public buildings. We’ll pay for these critical public investments by shrinking crony capitalism (taxpayer subsidies, handouts, giveaways and bailouts) and by making hugely profitable companies like General Electric, Verizon and Apple pay their fair share of taxes rather than shifting the tax burden onto the backs of middle-class taxpayers. And we’ll impose a tiny sales tax, far less than you pay on your necessities of life, on Wall Street stock transactions to raise about $300 billion a year.
Every American can benefit from these community and policy improvements, strictly monitored as they develop with honesty and efficiency. Every local chamber of commerce, every union, every worker, supplier, and every civic organization will support our programs which I am going to call ‘Come Home America.’ ”
If you don’t think these grand initiatives would have brought voters out and won elections for the Democrats, I have another idea. Even with the Republicans controlling Congress, a group of progressive Democrats could unite to create a major bottom-up and top-down initiative demanding for public works programs that would itemize projects in every community to reverse the costly deterioration of our country’s public infrastructure. Such action would even gain the support of money from those on the other side of the aisle and create a Left-Right coalition in the new Congress, even if it required those on the Right to defy their Wall Street-indentured leaders, Senator Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner.
Instead, how did President Obama spend his six weeks before November 4? He flew to the salons of very wealthy campaign donors or went to support specific candidates mostly in safe states for Democrats. His presidential presence did not resound with “hope and change.”

Ralph Nader


↧

Jobim's "Inutil Paisagem" ("Useless Landscape") Performed By Spalding And Parlato

November 9, 2014, 6:33 pm
↧
Viewing all 30150 articles
Browse latest View live
Search