Popular articles from P.E.R.
•••••Now Muslims demand full Sharia law••••A Senior’s Statement (via video) to Congress on Healthcare BillYou’ll wait a long time to hear me disagree with this one. ~ZZ
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By Sharalyn Hartwell, Relationship expert
It’s OK, you can admit it. We know you don’t always pay attention to everything your girlfriend says (she talks a lot), but there’s one topic you can’t help but notice. She seems to talk a lot — in those nauseating gushing tones no less — about this Edward Cullen guy.
Who is he? You know he’s some dude from that Twilight movie nonsense, but why is your girlfriend acting like a groupie? With the release of the second movie right around the corner (and the consequent two-hour torture you know you’ll be forced to endure right there with it), it’s high time you clued in why women love this dude and why you might want to be a bit more like Edward.
who is edward anyway?
In short, Edward is every woman’s fantasy. He’s handsome, he has a rock-hard body, he’s wealthy, he’s smart, he’s articulate, and he’s kind. He’s perfect — except for one teeny problem. He’s a vampire and desperately desires the blood of his human girlfriend, Bella.
Of course you’re thinking, “So what? I don’t get it. Why do women love him so much?” Everything just described isn’t too far off from the latest Hollywood A-lister and seems more like something your 13-year-old niece would be obsessed over, not a grown intelligent woman. Well, you’re right. The superficial things listed above aren’t really it. The real reasons women love Edward go much deeper, and are things you can do even better than him.
Edward chooses Bella
In the story, the characters are in high school. Edward could have easily had his choice of any of the girls in school, even the ones deemed absolutely perfect by anyone’s standards. Bella is a typical girl and only sees her shortcomings (sound familiar?). She doesn’t think she is in his league, yet for some reason, one she can’t quite figure out, Edward chooses to be with her.
Be even better than Edward: Make sure she knows you chose her. This is not to say you want to flaunt your desirability in her face (chances are she, like Bella, is well aware), but rather ensure she knows you chose her. No girl wants to think you settled with her or that you’re only with her because there’s no one better right now. She wants to feel special, so let her know that even if you were given any option in the world you’d still choose her.
If you want to be more like Edward you’ll want to follow our advice…
Edward sacrifices his own comfort to be with Bella
Vampires drink human blood, Bella is awfully tempting, but he denies his thirst to be with her.
Be even better than Edward: Do a little sacrificing of your own. Women think it’s romantic when you willingly (key word is “willingly”) give up something for her. It can be something as simple as skipping your typical game night ritual with your buddies to run errands with her, or something more significant such as going to visit her family over the holidays.
Edward has impeccable manners
Edward is always polite and shows proper respect to everyone — his family, his teachers, even his enemies, and especially the important people in Bella’s life.
Be even better than Edward: Be a little old-fashioned yourself. Always do the basic chivalrous things your dad taught you: open her doors, help her with her jacket, pull out her chair, walk closest to the street, etc. And don’t do this only for her, but for all women. Show respect not just to your girl, but to the important people in your life and hers.
Edward is a total contradiction
He is a vampire. He should be sadistic and feast on humans. Instead, he is incredibly kind and subsists on the blood of animals to remain humane. Bottom line: he just isn’t what he appears.
Be even better than Edward: Be unpredictable and surprise her. If you’re a manly man who’s into the stereotypical guy things, surprise her by developing a domestic hobby such as cooking, or suggesting (and actually enjoying) the occasional chick flick. If you’re a really athletic guy, be a contradiction by suggesting the two of you take dance classes. If you’re not a man of many words, surprise her by expressing yourself through a heartfelt, handwritten letter. Get it? The point is to illustrate you aren’t all that you seem either.
Meet the Real Belle de Jour
Araminta Wordsworth, National Post; With Files From News Services Published: Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Handout Billie Piper, pictured, starred in the Secret Diary of a Call Girl TV series, which was based on the blog and book by Dr. Brooke Magnanti.
For years she titillated Britons with her witty and erotic despatches from the front lines of the sex trade — but the upmarket call girl, known only by the classy pseudonym of Belle de Jour, was also a canny businesswoman, parlaying her blog into a book deal and a hit TV series starring U.K. actress Billie Piper.
All the while, her true identity remained unknown. Not even her literary agent or her publishers knew.
Now the elusive and seductive Belle has been unmasked as Dr. Brooke Magnanti, 34, a research scientist in a hospital in Bristol, western England, where she specializes in developmental neurotoxicology and cancer epidemiology.
The American-born woman went public over the weekend out of fear a jealous former boyfriend was about to leak the secret. Her bombshell has provoked soul-searching and outrage among many who thought they knew her.
They include the British Army officer who was her boyfriend for seven years. Known as “The Boy” in diary entries about their sex life, he is now having to tell his family and friends the woman he hoped to marry was an escort girl who charged £300 an hour.
“I can’t believe she has done this,” the man, identified only as Owen, told The Daily Telegraph.
“Brooke has outed me to my family and friends without giving me any warning.
“She never asked if she could write about our life together and I feel humiliated.”
Dr. Magnanti, who went to Britain to study for a doctorate at Sheffield University, has said she turned to prostitution after moving to London to finish her studies and finding she did not have enough money to pay the rent.
The woman, who was brought up a Roman Catholic and convent-educated, signed up with an agency and began being paid to have sex.
Explaining her decision to go public, she said she found “keeping up a double life … just too difficult to do long-term.”
“I suppose I always thought that the part of my life I wrote about would fade away, that I could stick it in a box and move on. Totally separate it from the ‘real me,’ ” she wrote.
She said it had taken her years to realize that while her life had moved on, Belle would “always be a part of me.”
“Belle and the person who wrote her had been apart too long. I had to bring them back together.
“So a perfect storm of feelings
and circumstances drew me out of hiding. And do you know what? It feels so much better on this side. Not to have to tell lies, hide things from the people I care about.
“It became important to acknowledge that aspect of my life and my personality to the world at large.
“I am a woman. I lived in London. I was a call girl.
“The people, the places, the actions and feelings are as true now as they were then, and I stand behind every word with pride.”
Nonetheless, her estranged father Paul Magnanti, 61, is appalled.
“This is a complete shock to me. I had no idea, I found out through the press today,” Mr. Magnanti said from Holiday, Fla., where he runs a gardening business.
“It’s broken my heart. No parent wants to hear that. I was very proud when she got her PhD. She is a very intelligent girl and I wish she had become well-known under different circumstances.
Similarly, the all-women team at Dr. Magnanti’s employer, the British Initiative for Child Health,
have rallied round since being told the news about a month ago.
“She’s a researcher. She’s just a member of staff here and what happened in the past doesn’t really bear relevance to what she’s doing now,” said a spokesman.
Rowan Pelling, editor of the erotic magazine Erotic Review, helped Dr. Magnanti get published and said people should not be surprised at a research scientist being a call girl.
“For the past couple of days, interviewers have been asking me breathily what I thought of Belle when I met her, as if my eyes must have been out on stalks at the idea of a PhD student turning tricks,” Ms. Pelling wrote in The Daily Telegraph.
“But the truth is I wasn’t startled at all. Throughout my eight years running the Erotic Review, I met people leading all kinds of extraordinary double lives, most of them outwardly respectable pillars of their middle-class communities.”
Some in the media have been less supportive of Dr. Magnanti’s description of call-girl life.
“Hers was an extraordinary experience of prostitution; she was lucky, because prostitution ordinarily is, simply put, a condition that kills women,” wrote Tanya Gold in Britain’s Guardian.
“I am glad you were not battered, Belle, but prostitution is a poisoned solution; a solution to nothing.”
Bel Mooney, in the Daily Mail, said the worst aspect of the “whole sorry story” is that such an intelligent woman, with all the privileges of a good background and education, should make “such a low-down choice.”
The use of the moniker Belle de Jour might have given a clue that Dr. Magnanti was above the usual run of sex-trade workers.
It refers to the classic Luis Bunuel movie in which Catherine Deneuve (clothed enviably by Yves St. Laurent) plays a bored housewife who turns to sadomasochistic sessions in a brothel to liven up her afternoons.
But in fact Belle’s antecedents are closer to the courtesans of Georgian and Regency England, women such as Dorothea Jordan or Harriette Wilson, whose racy memoirs were a best-seller — among her lovers were the Prince of Wales, later George IV, and four prime ministers, including the Duke of Wellington.
Many of us aren’t what we seem. A guide to frequently misunderstood types.
The Shy Extrovert
When someone’s shy, we often assume they’re introverted. Shyness often does go along with introversion–but not always. Some people who get anxious among strangers actually love being around others–whereas true introverts find people exhausting. Like other shy people, shy introverts are routinely
misunderstood as cold, aloof, or stuck-up. They’re particularly likely to be judged negatively if they’re also attra
ctive, says Bernie Carducci, a psychologist at Indiana University.
The Fix: Directly challenge the mistakes you know people make, saying, “If I seem unfriendly, it’s not because I don’t like you, it’s because I’m shy,” or, “I had a great time hanging out with you.” If that’s too much for you, say it via email.
The Bubbly Introvert
When people come across as vivacious, exuberant, and cheerful, we assume they’re extroverts. But some lively people are actually gasping for time to themselves. Having good social skills isn’t the same thing as wanting to be around people all the time. “These things go together a lot,” says Sanjay Srivastava, a psychologist at the University of Oregon. “But they’re not perfect correlations.”
The Fix: Like other introverts, bubbly introverts have to be vigilant about guarding their alone time. Try saying, “I’d love to, but I need some downtime. How’s Tuesday?”
The Accidental Flirt
Some people are so naturally flirtatious that they send the wrong signals, inadvertently communicating “I want to sleep with you” when what they really mean is “I’m friendly.”
The Fix: Dial back the touching and eye gaze. If you think your conversation partner is getting the wrong idea, slip in a reference to a significant other.
The Effeminate Heterosexual
Just because a man is skinny, dresses neatly, and has a fey voice doesn’t mean he’s gay. Many feminine men are completely straight, and some of the most masculine-seeming men are gay.
The Fix: If you’re interested in a woman, put out signs of attraction that are hard to mistake–more aggressive body language such as straight-on stance, a mischievous grin, and occasional touching. Say something like, “That reminds me of something funny my ex-girlfriend once said.” She’ll get it.
Journalist and author William Langewiesche speaks during a seminar at the Holden School in Turin, Italy Marco Di Lauro / Getty
By now, the story of U.S. Airways Flight 1549 is practically an American folktale: a miraculous emergency landing into the Hudson river, with Captain Chesley Sullenberger the hero in the cockpit. But journalist William Langewiesche takes a different view of the aborted Jan. 15 flight, which Sullenberger guided safely into the water after the Airbus 320 struck a flock of geese near LaGuardia Airport and lost all power. A Vanity Fair correspondent and former professional pilot, Langewiesche has written the most detailed account yet of the short flight, Fly by Wire: The Geese, the Glide, the Miracle on the Hudson. He spoke with TIME about the near disaster, the media’s role in shaping perceptions of the incident and the forgotten star of the fateful flight.
From the start, the popular shorthand for the safe landing of Flight 1549 has been “the miracle on the Hudson.” But that’s not the way you see it.
Miracle? Absolutely not. It’s a catchy, superficial media term. It’s almost an insult to Sullenberger: God was not his co-pilot, [First Officer Jeffrey] Skiles was. These were two very competent pilots who did a great job of flying, and they were flying an extremely capable airplane. Sullenberger and Skiles did not in any sense think of this as a miracle. They thought of this as a job they did.
(Read Chuck Yeager’s tribute to Chesley Sullenberger, one of this year’s TIME 100.)
O.K., but even if it wasn’t a miracle, surely it was still extraordinary?
In some ways it was extraordinary simply because of positioning: the airplane happened to be above a smooth river — an unlimited landing space — in good weather. It wasn’t in some nightmarish situation one can easily imagine: over the mountains at night, [for instance]. This could have been beyond the possibility of recovery.
The other exceptional thing was Sullenberger’s power of concentration during the descent. He was flying largely instinctively: a highly experienced pilot completely in tune with his airplane. It wasn’t just what he did, it’s what he chose not to do — when he chose not to talk on the radio, [for example]. He wasn’t bothering with formalities.
Right, though you also say other pilots could have pulled off that landing as well.
I think the general feeling in flying circles is that most airline pilots who live and breathe airplanes would have been able, more or less, to do the same thing. To think this was way out of the ordinary would be kind of an insult to other airline pilots. I know that Skiles and Sullenberger believe the same.
So the idea of Sullenberger being a hero …
Please. I think we’re “heroed out” right now in the United States. Hero is a term that is almost always misapplied in modern America. I don’t know if there’s a genuine demand in the public [for heroes], or if it’s a creation of headline writers and television people.
You write about aviation in more detail than almost anyone in the country. Did anything about this event really surprise you as you conducted your research?
I was deeply impressed by the Airbus 320 and its flight-control system. What Bernard Ziegler did is still surprising to me. [Ziegler, a French engineer, developed the plane's fly-by-wire technology that uses computers to help stabilize and guide the aircraft.] I don’t want to imply that the pilots would not have been able to land successfully if the plane didn’t have [that technology.] They probably would have pulled off the same success. But this was a particularly easy airplane to fly — it stays where you put it, automatically, in terms of attitude and bank. They were in a magic-carpet machine.
It seemed odd to you that, in all their public appearances, the crew never acknowledged Ziegler or the plane’s design.
Having been around aviation all my life, I was struck by that. After a close call, the normal reaction is to say, “God, what a machine!” It didn’t happen in this case. I know the people at Airbus were very aware of this and were peeved by it. [The lack of credit] did not happen in a void; it happened in a historical context of the advent of fly by wire and … the larger decline of the airline profession. That’s why the airplane was controversial — it represented a threat to the myth that flying requires some kind of heroic intervention by pilots to keep an airplane in the air. This was deeply threatening to pilots.
You also take issue with Sullenbeger’s testimony to Congress that air safety may decline unless pilots are better paid.
His presumption is that if you don’t pay pilots well you’re going to get lower-caliber people coming in. I doubt that very much. What drives people to fly airplanes doesn’t have much to do with money: they’ll do it at a low price, they’ll do it at a high price. And despite the terrible loss of income and prestige that pilots have suffered over the last 30 years, they are still making a middle-class income.
You detail some other harrowing encounters between airplanes and birds, though you note that most bird strikes don’t cause serious damage. How concerned should the flying public be?
Pick your worries in life. They will continue to happen, but it’s very rare. This U.S. Airways flight swallowed a lot of geese. It’s just not within our technological ability to design engines that can handle that.
There seems to be a lot of fear about flying out there these days. Recently the news media devoted a lot of coverage to the Northwest flight that overshot Minneapolis and the United pilot accused of being drunk in London. Is the danger being overstated?
Of course it’s being overstated. People are not as afraid of things as they’re said to be by the superficialities of the media. People know what it’s like to die; everyone is prepared for it. We’re not such cowards as one might believe from all the hysteria on television.
Read a brief history of black boxes.
by Pamela Slim on November 5, 2009 / Cubicle Nation
I don’t know about you, but I get mighty tired of reading newspaper articles and blog rants about the effectiveness/ineffectiveness of stimulus money on our economy.
What makes me frustrated is that we waste hours a day fighting with each other about things outside of our control, instead of using our own brains to do something about our local economy.
So here is my list of 10 things you can do, right now, to stimulate a small corner of your local economy without spending a dime:
- Mentor a new business owner. If you know how to build an effective website or display goods more effectively on a shelf or close a real estate deal, share your knowledge with someone just starting out. Your input will lead to faster sales.
- Host an event at your local coffee shop. If you have been meaning to gather friends together for a social event, suggest you meet at a favorite local haunt. The dollars spent there will be appreciated. I am sure you all know a place as great as Liberty Market.
- Send an email to friends raving about your favorite business. It could be a dry cleaner, restaurant or babysitter. A personal note will make a big difference in their buying decisions.
- Give feedback to a business owner about something they should fix. We often speed through our day, annoyed at something in a local business that inhibits buying. But we never take the time to tell them. Tell them, and they may make more sales.
- Constantly promote others on your social networks. If you see one of your trusted friends promoting a course or workshop or selling a great product, spread the word.
- Hook up people who should work together. Maybe you know a graphic designer who would work really well with your friend who is a copywriter. Make the connection, and both businesses can grow.
- Host a Laid Off Camp. If you are worried about the amount of people in your local community out of work, host a Laid Off Camp like we did here in Phoenix this summer. Volunteer your time and enlist your friends to help get your workforce supercharged and employed.
- Attend a local Chamber of Commerce meeting. Find out what your local businesses are doing and see if you can support them.
- Rave about your local community, and encourage investment and tourism. I am a proud new member of the Phoenix community, and tell anyone who will listen what a great place it is to live, work and visit. Do the same for your favorite location.
- Use your superpowers for good. This is a favorite expression of my dear friend Marilyn Scott-Waters, otherwise known as The Toymaker. If you walk around being open and friendly and encouraging, everyone will feel better. The better they feel, the more motivated they will be to tackle tough problems and get our economy back on track.
There is a lot that is out of our control. But if we each step up our concern and support for our local businesses, we will make a difference in our economic recovery.
What did I miss?
Nov 17 12:37 PM US/Eastern / Breitbart.com
Viagra pills are seen during the manufacturing process. A drug that failed to fight the blues could be the female answer to the little blue pill Viagra, the lead North American investigator analysing tests of the drug said Tuesday.
A drug that failed to fight the blues could be the female answer to the little blue pill Viagra, the lead North American investigator analysing tests of the drug said Tuesday.
Women who took the drug flibanserin when it was being tested as an anti-depressant said it didn’t help them beat the glums, but did give them “an increase in libido that they liked,” John Thorp, one of the investigators analyzing data from three clinical trials of the drug, told AFP.
Lack of desire is the most common sexual problem in women aged 30 to 60, just as erectile dysfunction, for which Viagra is one of a choice of treatments, is the most common sexual disorder among men in the same age bracket, Thorp said.
“Men remain interested but can’t act or perform properly and women lose interest,” said Thorp.
“So where Viagra and other erectile dysfunction medications work in the blood supply, flibanserin works in the brain,” he said.
In the light of the women’s reactions to flibanserin, the German drug company that had first tested the drug as a treatment for depression, Boehringer Ingelheim, several years ago began exploring the possibilities of it being the active ingredient in the female answer to Viagra.
Clinical trials were held in Canada, Europe and the United States to test the drug’s efficacy in raising the level of sexual desire in women.
Nearly 2,000 pre-menopausal women were given flibanserin or a placebo for 24 weeks and asked to report back to researchers or make diary entries on six variables, including the number of satisfactory sexual encounters they had and their level of sexual desire.
The studies found that 100 milligrams a day of flibanserin resulted in “significant improvements” in the two variables.
Flibanserin is currently an investigational drug and is only available to women taking part in clinical trials.
Does this make you as sick and angry as it makes me? Does it make you wonder how people can laugh while a living thing is suffering? Don’t get me wrong: I don’t cry for ants or crickets and normally do not cry for fish or any animal that has no facial expression, but these people are laughing at the creature’s gasps for air and I cannot stand it. ~P.E.R.
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The article is HERE.
Everything happens for a reason: Simple phrase opens wonder worm-can
It sounds so true. People seem to take such comfort from that phrase’s wisdom. There’s something proudly accepting and resolved in their tone when they declare it, as though they’re sharing a hard-earned profound lesson.
What it means though is very much up in the air. And therein lies a tale of our era’s confusion regarding causality, or what we mean by “a reason.”
Here then is brief history of the confusion.
Aristotle, using house-building as an example developed what he thought was a comprehensive list of the kinds of reasons why anything happens:
Material cause (what a house is made of)
Formal cause (the blueprint or plan for putting the materials together)
Efficient cause (the nail-banging done by the carpenter; the “this-hits-that” kind of cause we think of as cause and effect)
Final cause (the purpose or goal for building the house)
For over a thousand years following Aristotle, people focused primarily on final and efficient cause, thinking everything had its purpose, but also accumulating practical intelligence about the “this-hits-that” of efficient cause. In a way, nothing has changed. We still rely mostly on these two kinds of causal explanations. Both are implied by “everything happens for a reason.” Do things happen today so as to achieve some later purpose? That’s what final cause suggests. Or do things happen today because they are the consequent effect of earlier causes. If so, “a reason” is an appeal to efficient cause.
Think about the two ways you can answer a “Why?” question. Why are the birds flying South? To stay warm in the coming winter is a final cause answer. Because their instincts generated biochemical reactions that switch on migration behavior is an efficient cause answer.
In the West throughout the early middle ages final causes as understood by the Catholic Church were what really mattered. God had purposes and put them into every living and non-living thing. You could explain how anything behaved simply by saying that it was behaving as God intended it to behave.
In the Islamic East, God’s purposes–his final causes–were also very important, but Muslims saw no incompatibility in actively investigating efficient cause too. The Muslims were scientists long before science took off in the West.
Then the eleventh century Al Ghazali, an important Islamic philosopher pointed out that actually, final and efficient cause were fundamentally incompatible. Either God’s purposes (final causes) are inviolable, or nature’s laws (efficient cause) are inviolable. If there’s any difference between God’s final purposes and nature’s efficient laws–for example if God can intervene and miraculously break nature’s laws–then they can’t both be inviolable.One must ultimately trump the other.
In response, the Islamic East decided God and his purposes trumped efficient cause. Islam backed off of science. In the West, within a few hundred years we took the opposite path, deciding that final cause was not even a rational concept (How can the future cause the present? That would be some inexplicable “backward causality.”) Efficient cause became the one true kind of cause. That’s why Western science attempts to explain everything in terms of the “this-hits-that,” of efficient causes. To most scientists today, there’s no final cause or purposes at all. Everything can and must be explained exclusively in terms of efficient cause’s billiard ball like “this-hits-that” behavior.
So what do we mean when we say “everything happens for a reason”? Do we mean we mean efficient or final cause?
If we mean there’s an efficient cause reason for everything, then all the saying means is that every behavior is a consequence of actions that preceded it. It’s like saying “cause and effect rules.”
That doesn’t seem very profound.
If we mean everything happens for a final cause reason, then every behavior serves some objective, goal or purpose. That’s more profound perhaps but it opens a worm-can of wonder. Good purposes? Bad purposes? Whose purposes? And what are you supposed to do about it since your behavior too, whatever it may be, happens for a reason.
Say “everything happens for a reason,” and people nod knowingly even though some take it to mean everything happens because it was efficiently caused, and others take it to mean everything serves a purpose. Maybe we prefer to keep the concept ambiguous. It makes for polite agreement even if it hides a major disagreement.
Whether reason is taken to mean final or efficient cause, the psychological effect of saying “Everything happens for a reason” is the same. At the emotional level it means surrender, relax, it’s beyond your control. Accept things as they are because they happen for a reason.
It’s natural that we would collect and share sayings that mean surrender. There are others: “It’s God’s will,” for example–that’s definitely an appeal to a final cause. Or how about “Shit happens”? That’s definitely an appeal to efficient cause. Some ways to say “surrender” are appeals to final causes or higher purposes; some to efficient causes or natural laws, and some are ambiguous. “It’s Karma” can mean that a particular behavior is rewarded or punished depending on its contribution higher purpose and final cause. Or it can simply mean that a particular behavior is the cause and effect consequence of what preceded it.
People may be confused about what’s meant by “everything happens for a reason,” but so are scientists. Scientist are committed to the West’s elimination of final cause in explanations. But of course they’re also people. So even though they want to explain everything in terms of efficient cause, they slip and talk about why things are useful, for example how a body part functions serve an organism’s purposes.
Researchers working on the emergence of purpose don’t see this slipping into final-cause talk as slipping at all, but rather as evidence that we’ve got more thinking to do about reasons. Ever since Al Ghazali noticed that you can’t have it both ways, we’ve tried to clarify what is meant by “cause” or “reason” by eliminating one kind of cause or the other. The Islamic East chose God’s final cause; the scientific West chose nature’s efficient cause. And for a while that was fine. Even more than fine in the West because ignoring final cause allowed us to figure out a lot about efficient cause. We’ve made so much progress in figuring out nature’s “this-hits-that” laws of efficient cause that most scientists think it’s only a matter of time before we explain everything in efficient causal terms. But emergence scientists say no, we’re coming up to a hard limit. We’re beginning to fake it, pretending, for example that your behavior is just efficient cause when really, for humans and indeed all living things, final cause is real. Your purposes change your behavior. Your behavior can’t be explained by efficient cause alone.
Not all behavior requires a final cause explanation, but some does, and that, according to emergentists, must be explained. Despite Al Ghazali’s either/or framing, we’re going to have to be able to have it both ways. The universe at its origins really does seem to operating on efficient cause alone. But living things nonetheless present behavior that can’t be explained without reference to purposes. In other words, purpose (final cause) is real even if it doesn’t serve a grand purpose.
If you like to have interesting conversations and debates, next time you hear someone say “Everything happens for a purpose,” ask them what they mean. By “reason” do they mean because something caused it (efficient cause) or do they mean that it is serving some future goal (final cause)? And if they mean everything serves some higher purpose, is it necessarily a good one? Or do they mean that things happen for good and bad reasons?
The reason I bring this all up is that it serves a higher purpose of mine. In a coming article I’ll explain how emergentists, rethinking another of Aristotle’s causes, formal cause, begin to explain how you get final cause out of efficient cause. In other words how final cause could emerge from efficient cause.
Tue, Nov 17, 2009 03:59 PM PST
Michelle Obama, Oprah, Barack Obama
I was never crazy about Oprah Winfrey like so many other women are or have been. For reasons that I cannot fathom, she never had what made me want to catch her shows and in my lifetime I have watched only a choice few of them, but I know her style from the constant coverage she has on air and in ink.
I started actively disliking her when she spoke against beef in a ”Mad Cow Disease“ on her show and was sued by the Texas cattle ranchers. Not that she spoke out against beef, because that is her right, but that she took out the race card and used it there in Texas, referring to herself as a vulnerable, beset-by-thugs Black woman. She, who could have bought all of Texas on the spot. At that point it was goodbye, Wrong Answer, Shut Up, Go Home. This hugely wealthy woman with an empire bigger than a Chinese dynasty trying to win a case using the race card was my definite Last Stop For You, Lady.
Oh, and there’s also the tantrum she threw when Hermès didn’t ler her into the shop simply because it was after store hours. Remember that one? After playing herself as just one of us, nothing special….. until Hèrmes doesn’t open its doors after closing time just for her — and then you see the real Attitude.
Because what’s really bothering me is that Sarah Palin felt it necessary to have a sit-down with Ms. O after being turned down for any kind of exposure during the campaign, when Oprah was making sure that only Obama got all the air and ink from her. Bothers me that people consider her the venue without which you cannot win. Stop it already.
Palin needs nothing from Oprah. Nothing. Zip. Niente. Nada. Nichevo. I wish that she had stayed away from the sorry huge ego that is Winfrey and I hope that she stays away from the Likes of Letterman. Those two overexposed blowhards can get lost and suck the air that blows out of their mouths.
And here is the article that set me off. Still makes me mad that Palin’s advisors are steering her towards the likes of Ms. O.
~ZZ
Sarah and Oprah, Separated at Birth?
Posted: 11/17/09
By Mary C. Curtis / Politics Daily
Sarah Palin and Oprah Winfrey
Sarah Palin and Oprah Winfrey have more in common than you – and they – might think. Both women from modest backgrounds have built success on their “everywoman” appeal. And both have long since become anything but.
Watching them square off on Winfrey’s show Monday was like watching Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots – respectful monarchs keeping their distance. Except, neither lost her head.
It was a curious hour, with both women on their best behavior. When Winfrey “went there” with questions about Levi Johnston, she played it more cute than caustic, throwing in that “invitation to Thanksgiving dinner” comment sure to draw get a laugh without cutting too deep. Even her usual demonstrative audience seemed to hold its breath, waiting for drama that never came.
For her part, Palin didn’t make much of Winfrey’s very public support for candidate Barack Obama. During the election season, Winfrey strayed from her human-interest features and diet and lifestyle tips to take on politics, and some of her female viewers – perhaps feeling solidarity with Palin – resented it. Her ratings dipped slightly, something that hardly slipped the astute Winfrey’s notice. So she’s off to state fairs, consolidating her down-to-earth bona fides, and mending a few fences with the hottest interview on the planet.
Palin’s smart enough to know what’s at stake. The most successful authors still go through Winfrey’s empire. On the show, Palin felt close enough to Winfrey to do a little Katie Couric-bashing, peevishly blaming the CBS anchor for the crime of asking follow-up questions. (By the way, how can Palin now insist she didn’t want to be treated differently because of her gender, then imply Couric promised a just-between-us-girls chat instead of a serious interview?)
Because both Palin and Winfrey trail strong personalities and a power aura, there wasn’t any room for spontaneity, and that’s too bad. I was waiting for Winfrey to ask Palin why she didn’t rebuke the more raucous and racist chanters at campaign rallies. Instead, viewers got some video of Palin in the gym and hanging out with the kids. As the interview ended, when Winfrey playfully asked Palin if she craves a talk show and Palin demurred, calling her questioner the “queen,” it was clear that there would be no heat and little light.
What you got was what you’d expect – two pros who know how to protect their brands and can recognize a fellow survivor when they see one.
Matthew Hutson
Existentialism (at least atheistic existentialism) does not argue that meaning does not exist, only that it does not exist out there in the real world. All meaning is human-constructed. You have complete freedom to interpret events however you like (a freedom that some find nauseating.)
CBT similarly places interpretive control in the hands of the individual. The premise is that thoughts lead to emotions (which lead to behaviors), and we can learn to control our thoughts–even if they’ve become habit. We’re not at the mercy of an emotional system automatically placing valuation on experiences.
I suppose my connection between CBT and existentialism comes from a conversation I had several years ago with a girlfriend who was studying philosophy. I’d said that because of my depression I was an existentialist–I had trouble finding meaning in things. On the contrary, she said, I was *too* depressed to an existentialist. I was fatalistic. I instinctively saw everything as bad.
In high school I gave a talk to my school about my battle with depression. Toward the end I said:
“One of the most important tactics I have learned in my fight for control over my life is the power of optimism. Yes, this sounds trite, and even I flinch when I hear the O word, but it’s not as much of a joke as I thought. Basically, I’ve learned that nothing in the world — nothing that happens around us, no piece of news, no event — is inherently bad or good. They just are. I have an incredible amount of control over my reactions to the world. As a result of depression, I’m used to judging nearly everything as bad, and it’s gonna take a lot of work to change thinking habits that I’ve been using for my entire life. But now, instead of letting myself become a victim, I fight these habits, and I try to let myself believe that things can go my way.”
Looking back, I had stumbled across the grounding for CBT. I was not quite adept at following through, however, judging by my later conversation with my ex. And I’m still not there. I have a hard enough time putting a positive spin on burning my toast. I don’t know how I would deal with something much more absurd and tragic like the sudden death of someone close.
But at least I’m past the point of repeating the mantra “If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”
IN STAGES Sara Davis Buechner, who used to be David Buechner, and now lives in Vancouver.
IN September 1998, David Buechner, then 39, a prominent classical pianist, came out as a transgender woman, explaining that from then on, she would live and perform as Sara Davis Buechner. The pianist had been accustomed to rave reviews (at 24, David, in his New York City concert debut, was called “an extraordinary young artist” by a New York Times critic). But the debut as Sara, reported in a Times magazine article, was not so well received, even by loved ones.
Elizabeth and Anthony Buechner, the parents, as well as Matthew, the older brother, all expressed their opposition. In a recent interview, Matthew Buechner, a professor of molecular biosciences at the University of Kansas, said he had counseled David to remain a man publicly and cross-dress in private. “A lot of people live that kind of dichotomy,” Matthew said. “I saw the switch as something that would destroy a career. Classical audiences are very conservative.”
But Sara Buechner was determined to be. She said that from when she first took lessons at age 3, she knew she’d be a pianist, and not long after, realized she was meant to be a girl. (“On the playground, boys yelled ‘David’s a girl’ and I’d think, ‘You got that right.’ ”) She believed that bouts of heavy drinking and depression during her years as David stemmed from not being true to herself.
In the next years, Ms. Buechner largely disappeared from public view, though not by choice. David had done 50 concerts a year — performing with philharmonic orchestras in New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland and San Francisco — but as Sara, she couldn’t get bookings. “Apart from local gigs, from 1998 to 2003, I did three to five concerts a year,” she said. David taught as an adjunct professor at Manhattan School of Music and New York University, but as Sara, seeking a full-time professorship, “I applied 35 places and wouldn’t even get a response. Behind my back, I’d hear, ‘Is it safe to leave him in a room with undergrads?’ ”
What you don’t know can harm your child.
November 15, 2009
by Susan Newman / Psychology Today
You may be surprised.
Last week twenty-year-old Jim told his mother that he has always been leery of his younger, but larger brother, Andrew. Jim’s cautiousness around Andrew dates back to the time Andrew shoved him off a dump truck breaking both of Jim’s wrists. The boys were six and five-years-old. The brothers have rarely seen eye-to-eye and as young adults tolerate each other, are cordial, but nothing more. Their mother had hoped they would be best friends at this point in their lives.
The story was related to me by the boys’ mother who is upset by her sons’ current relationship, but understands it better after Jim’s explanation of the dump truck incident. This was the first she learned that what she had believed to have been an accident might have been intentional-as Jim thinks. “They fought frequently as kids, but I chalked their behavior up to typical sibling rivalry,” she told me. “Now I wonder. I never heard of sibling abuse. It would explain why Jim doesn’t trust Andrew.” In retrospect, she looks at her boys’ childhoods in a different light.
Linda Mills points out in her post that “Sibling rivalry can and often does, however, slide into sibling abuse, with the potential to cause serious lifelong trauma and suffering.” Jim and Andrew’s mother labeled their frequent fighting sibling rivalry, but it might well have been ongoing abuse. “Sibling abuse” would explain Jim’s persistence in keeping his distance from Andrew and the caution he displays around him. Jim keeps a keen eye on his brother’s location whenever they are together. “I look over my shoulder to check where Andrew is. I try not to let him be too close behind me,” he told his mother.
Jim’s story and his lifelong wariness are not so unusual. There’s a fine line between an accident and intentional abuse. Parents have difficulty recognizing when that line has been crossed. As I point out in my post, The Dark Side of Siblings, there is far more sibling abuse going on than parents know. According to a report in The Journal of Counseling and Development the percent of children using physical aggression against siblings ranges from a low of 35 percent to a high of 80 percent.
These findings are in marked contrast to the percentages of abuse by parents against children: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families reports one percent of parents severely abuse their children. A different national study found that 2.3 percent of parents displayed abuse toward their children. That is a huge difference from the average (among available studies) of between 35 and 60 percent of brothers and sisters who physically abuse a sibling. Most sibling abuse is neither acknowledged by parents, nor, if recognized, reported to authorities.
The high instance of sibling abuse (hitting with rocks, baseball bats, shoving hard enough to cause injury) led Murray Straus and Richard Gelles, authors of Behind Closed Doors: Violence in the American Family to conclude that “children are the most violent persons in American families.” You may not agree, but hopefully all parents will pay closer attention.
Joe Cada poses after winning the 2009 World Series of Poker at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas Isaac Brekken / AP
This time last year, Joseph Cada couldn’t legally order a cocktail. But today, the Shelby Township, Mich., native sits on top of the poker world as the champion of the World Series of Poker’s “Main Event.” Cada, who turns 22 next week, took home $8.5 million early Nov. 10 when he outlasted Maryland logger Darvin Moon (and 6,492 other competitors) at No-Limit Texas Hold ‘Em to win the sport’s biggest prize. TIME contributor Matt Villano caught up with Cada in Las Vegas to talk about preparing for the final table, what he’s learned by playing poker online and what’s next for history’s youngest champ. (Read “21-Year-Old Wins World Series of Poker.”)
First off, how did you celebrate your monumental win last night?
Right after the match [at the Penn & Teller Theater inside the Rio Las Vegas] ended, there were like 2½ or 3 hours of interviews, photos, autographs and stuff like that. Then a bunch of us went back to our suite at the Palazzo. My family had come out to be with me, and I had about 100 friends who came out from Michigan to cheer me on too. We were up pretty late.
Starting today, how do you plan to represent poker as the new champion?
At this point, all I can say is that I’ll do my best. Poker has been my life for a while now, so obviously I want to see it grow. Whatever the community needs me to do, I’ll do. I’m psyched about the responsibility.
You’ve been playing professionally for six years. At what point in your career did you start thinking you could win the Main Event?
I had dreamed about it — I think every poker player does. But I always knew winning the Main Event was a big long shot. I mean, coming out on top of a field of 6,500 players is pretty rare. This summer [when the first eight days of the Main Event were played], once it got down to about 180 people, I started thinking that I might actually be able to do it. Then, when I made the final nine, I knew it was within reach.
With three months off before the final nine resumed play this weekend, how did you prepare?
I didn’t really do anything special. I just continued the same lifestyle that had gotten me into the final nine. I played a lot of live events, both in person and online. I went out with friends — stuff a typical 21-year-old would do. I also traveled a lot and visited London and Barcelona.
Any regrets from the final table?
I’m pretty critical of how I play, and I’m not afraid to admit when I think I’ve played badly. When it got down to two of us, I had $135 million in chips, but I think Darvin definitely outplayed me at first. There was a point where he had me down to $40 million in chips. Thankfully, I came back. I knew if I just made good decisions, I could turn things around.
You shared final-table felt with poker legend Phil Ivey. Which longtime pros do you consider to be your mentors? And after whom would you say you’ve modeled your game?
Definitely Ivey. Tom Dwan. Both of these guys are so unpredictable that it’s hard to put them on certain hands. What I’ve learned from them is that you have to play solid poker and keep people guessing at the same time. It’s a powerful combination.
Peter Eastgate, then age 22, won this tournament last year, and you’ve taken the bracelet this year. To what extent do you think the “old guard” has been displaced by young guns?
I wouldn’t say we’ve displaced them, but the Internet has certainly leveled the playing field. Playing cards is all about experience. Online, you can see 40 times as many hands in one hour as you would in a live game. Because of that, a 21-year-old could gain more experience in one year than someone who has been playing live for 25 years. You also don’t need to go to a physical place to play — you can wake up and open up your laptop.
Legislators have made online poker illegal in the U.S. As someone who’s played online for years, how do you see this issue being resolved?
I support the right to play poker online. Poker isn’t gambling. It’s a hobby, an activity, a game. It’s not about luck — it’s about logic, decision-making, math. We all should be able to play poker on the Web if we want to, and I believe that making it illegal strips us of our rights. This is an important issue, and hopefully we’ll see it resolved soon.
$8.5 million is a lot of money. Short of going to Disneyland, what do you plan to do with it?
I haven’t really thought about it yet. Since Saturday [when the field was winnowed down to two], I didn’t want to look past the heads-up match with Darvin. I’m sure at least some of those winnings will go back into my bankroll, though. There’s always another tournament to play.
HOW THE GAME WENT
In the end, the amateur who had been catching every card he needed since last July couldn’t catch one more — and the $8.5 million first-place prize in the World Series of Poker’s main event went to a pro who became the youngest winner ever of this Texas-hold-’em showcase.
On the final hand, Darvin Moon, 45, called an all-in bet from Joe Cada, 21, and with $150 million in chips in the pot — 70% of the chips in play — none of the last five cards paired Moon’s queen-jack; Cada’s pair of nines held up, and he had outlasted 6,494 participants who began play more than four months ago at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. (See 10 things to do in Las Vegas.)
Moon, of Oakland, Md., was one of two closely watched amateurs to make the final table; the other was investment banker Steven Begleiter, 47, of Chappaqua, N.Y., who went out of this tournament early Sunday in sixth place. Both came to Las Vegas with a compelling backstory and made it to Saturday’s “November Nine” final table with commanding chip stacks.
Moon is a real-life logger and self-described hillbilly who’s never owned a computer or carried a credit card. Before his flight to Las Vegas last July, he had never flown, and his 1,100-sq.-ft. complimentary suite at the Rio was larger than his home. Begleiter’s longtime employer, the investment house Bear Stearns, collapsed in the financial panic last year. He embodies a new breed of recreational player with keen math and risk skills honed at day jobs and attracted by poker’s rising stakes. (See how to plan for retirement at any age.)
No one argues that this game isn’t part luck and part skill — only how much of each is involved. So the heads-up play that started at 1 a.m. E.T. on Tuesday and pitted the unassuming Moon against the calculating Cada was apropos. Cada, from the Detroit area, risked alienation from his parents to participate. He cut his poker teeth in online play as a teenager; against his parents’ will, he quit college to play cards for a living. But he soon won enough to pay cash for his house and managed to reconcile with Mom and Dad, who were in Las Vegas to cheer him on. (Read “Are People Gambling Less?”)
This was Cada’s first full year being age eligible in Vegas, and he ended up bringing a mountain of chips to the heads-up finale in front of a large and raucous crowd that had waited in line up to six hours: $136 million in chips to Moon’s $59 million. He had survived numerous flings with elimination to get that far, at one point running dead last at the table of nine. “He looked like he was about to cry,” says Jonathan Little, a poker pro who had a table-side seat. But Cada inched back with a series of unchallenged bets, then doubled his stack with a dramatic all-in showdown in which he showed three threes, and he was on his way. (Watch the video “Poker Comes to China.”)
Moon made it to the heads-up finale with a string of improbable TKOs, including one of highly touted pro Phil Ivey, who went out in seventh place, and then Begleiter. Those two knockouts came in rapid succession, and both times Moon held ace-queen, was behind at the start and then got just the card he needed. In Ivey’s case, Moon faced an ace-king but won when he paired his queen. In Begleiter’s case, Moon faced a pair of queens and won when he paired his ace. Says Little: “He was getting better-than-average distribution throughout the tournament,” which is pro-speak for landing killer cards.
Moon’s run of good cards may have unnerved some at the table. Bloggers reported bad blood after the logger eliminated Begleiter, who seemed to be a marked man at the table of nine the way his raises were consistently met with big reraises that prompted him to fold. But Begleiter says he has no issues with Moon: “He’s a gentlemen and very good poker player. I shook his hand before the flop on the last hand and again after he knocked me out.” You never know: they may meet again next year.
Dan is co-author of With Purpose: Going from Success to Significance in Work and Life (HarperCollins, spring 2009). He writes “The Boom Years” column for Money magazine and is a regular contributor to TIME magazine and Time.com. Visit his website, dankadlec.com, to view his latest work and see what he’s up to next.
Behavioural economist Dan Ariely explains his experiment in which wearing sunglasses perceived as designer counterfeits led people to cheat in an economic game. Amusing, nicely produced DIY video, featuring a great wardrobe. Check out more of his vids on Ariely’s YouTube channel (a very funny intro to his work: The Dan Ariely Show), and watch a lecture on irrational behaviour in the archives.
Nicole Kidman gets a sex change for Gwyneth Paltrow in ‘The Danish Girl.’ From what to what?
Am I the only person on earth who does not find these two women at all attractive?
~ZZ
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Nicole Kidman, Gwyneth Paltrow
In a questionable bit of casting, Nicole Kidman will play Gwyneth Paltrow’s husband/wife in a strange romantic film, “The Danish Girl.”
Two of the coldest and least sexy actresses in Hollywood? (Make that on the planet.)
Whose idea was this?
Ice queen Paltrow has replaced uber-hottie Charlize Theron in “Girl,” an adaptation of the real-life story about two Danish artists, Einar (Nicole) and Greta (Gwyneth) Wegener, who achieved artistic success after Einar stood in for the female models Greta painted
As their work became more and more popular, Greta encouraged her husband to dress like a woman all the time. See, that’s how it always starts. (Kidding!)
Einar had several surgeries and a full-on sex-change operation in 1931, and later died after an unsuccessful uterus implantation.
If it’s hard to imagine Nicole playing this role, keep in mind that she was quoted as saying — probably without hint of a facial expression — that she has tried strange sexual fetish things.
Frankly, if there are gonna be hot Danish lesbian sex scenes, we’d have preferred Charlize to Gwyneth.
And wouldn’t Gwynnie make a better man than porcelain-skinned Nicole?
Photos: Nicole Kidman and Gwyneth Paltrow. Credit: WireImage
This is one reason why eyewitnesses have little credibility in a court of law. ~ZZ
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
by Jesse Galef
Can you tell the difference between Aliens and Demons? If you were visited in the night by an intelligent, non-human entity, could you really distinguish between them? (In a sidenote I’m not addressing right now, how would you know the voice in your head is God and not a tricky demon? How do you know devils can’t impersonate voices?)
Although nobody would know it in an age with laptops and cell phones, I’m in New York City right now. I hopped on a bus to go see my sister Julia Galef give a presentation on rationality – my first post was written while on the BoltBus, actually. The talk was entitled “Aliens, Psychics and Ghosts, Oh My! Or, How Our Brains Fool Us Into Believing Strange Things.” I thoroughly enjoyed it.
John Henry Fuseli’s 1781 painting “The Nightmare” is now seen as a classic account of sleep paralysis accredited to a demon
One interesting point was that while reports of alien abductions are a relatively new phenomenon, the psychological reasons behind such hallucinations are not. However, instead of blaming aliens, people used to blame the bad boys of the supernatural world: Demons.
In “alien abductions”, people tend to report waking up, feeling pinned down and unable to move, seeing visions of visitors, and often experiencing sexual stimulation. These are the familiar symptoms of sleep paralysis and hypnopompic hallucinations.
During sleep, the brain stops controlling the muscles – that’s why we don’t flail around in our sleep as we act out our dreams. Sometimes when woken from a deep sleep, the brain doesn’t immediately retake control, leaving the poor person both awake and unable to move (This has happened to me, and I was lucid enough to recognize what was happening. It was a fascinating experience.) It can be particularly difficult to breathe. When woken up from a deep sleep, a person is also prone to vivid hallucinations. This combination explains the commonly heard reports of alien abductions.
But before aliens, people interpreted those perceptions as demons – same symptoms, different supernatural explanation. Online Etymology says the term “Nightmare” originally meant “an evil female spirit afflicting sleepers with a feeling of suffocation”. Sound familiar?
John Henry Fuseli’s painting “The Nightmare” shows an evil-looking imp sitting on a woman’s chest while she lies in bed. Psychologists now believe it to be an early representation of sleep paralysis. It’s telling that the same evidence can fit seamlessly into countless supernatural theories.
How cool is it that we can look at ancient experiences people thought were supernatural and explain them in scientific ways? Epilepsy, schizophrenia, sleep paralysis, oxygen/sensory/nutritional deprivation… The gaps keep getting smaller and there’s less and less room for God.
November 12, 2009 at 6:05 pm – 3 News / BreitbartTV
Dateline: Melbourne, Australia
“This is actually growing large pieces of tissue, which has never been done before. It is very exciting. We are very chuffed,”
Thu, 12 Nov 2009 5:24p.m.
Australian scientists are about to start human trials of world first technology that could help cancer victims re-grow their breasts.
The new technique, developed in Melbourne, will allow breast cancer victims to re-grow breasts within six months – eliminating the need for implants or cosmetic surgery.
“This is actually growing large pieces of tissue, which has never been done before. It is very exciting. We are very chuffed,” says Professor Wayne Morrison of the Bernard O’Brien Institute.
The technique has already been proven in pigs – which grew new breasts in just six weeks.
In Australia, 36 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every day, and the scientists claim their revolutionary procedure will have physical and emotional benefits.
“These are young people with a very strong sense of body image,” says Mr O’Brien.
“This is a totally mutilating thing. Breast is a very worthwhile and noble pursuit.”
The trial could also change the cosmetic surgery industry.
“The exciting thing is that we are not using anyone else’s tissue – we are not using foreign silicone implants. We are evoking our own tissues to reproduce the embryo.”
Five women will undergo the experimental surgery within weeks ahead of a three-year-trial.
If successful, the technology could become widely available.
The experimental stem cell breast-growing technique is called Neopec.
Scientists will implant a synthetic breast-shaped chamber beneath the skin – effectively a scaffold for the breast to grow in. A blood vessel will be redirected to fat inside the chamber – special gel will stimulate tissue production.
The breast will grow over four to six months, and the chamber will then dissolve naturally.
But not everyone is convinced.
“When you put anything else in your body, especially fat cells that supposedly contain estrogen – in my case my cancer was estrogen positive. It’s just crazy,” says breast cancer survivor Tracey Dalton.
Sentiments echoed by Valerie Pennick of the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation.
“To put fat cell in a breast, which clearly contains the female hormone estrogene, and breast cancer loves to feed estrogen – it just does not make total sense,” she says.
But the Melbourned scientists are not deterred and believe the breast replacement technique is just the beginning.
By Jane Goodall Thursday, Sep. 10, 2009 / Time.com
Jane Goodall Attila Kisbenedek / AFP / Getty
Jane Goodall Attila Kisbenedek / AFP / Getty
What characteristics make chimpanzees seem most like human beings? Chip Clark, ST. JOHN’S, NFLD.
Dr. Jane Goodall today
How can you be so empathetic with chimps? Kantesh Guttal, PUNE, INDIA
We are all part of the animal kingdom. The kind of empathy that I feel for people is the kind of empathy I feel for chimpanzees. Do they have a dark, brutal side to their nature? Yes. So do people.
How do you work with so many animals and not get overly attached to them? Specialist McKinzie Baker CAMP TAJI, IRAQ
I’ve always been very attached to the animals I work with, and although a scientist is supposed to be subjective and lack empathy, I’ve always thought this is wrong. It’s the empathy you feel with a living, individual being that really helps you understand. Then you can use your scientific training to find out if your intuition is correct.
Which do you like better, chimps or humans? Michael Boshears PALMER, ALASKA
I like some chimpanzees much better than some humans and some humans much better than some chimpanzees.
What’s your position on people who have chimps as pets? Siobhan Laurino, LYNN, MASS.
When they are little, they are cute, but by the time they reach early adolescence, they are already as strong as a human, and you cannot predict what will trigger a sudden anger or rage. The Jane Goodall Institute is fighting very hard for legislation that will prohibit people from owning other primates as pets. Very rarely can they give them a good life.
I’m conflicted about the use of primates in research for human illnesses. What’s your opinion? Idalia Roberts, ATLANTA
Primatologist Jane Goodall
The more that we learn about these animals, the more we realize that from the animals’ point of view, such experiments amount to torture. In many instances, it’s immoral to be thinking about animals as living test tubes. So let’s get our brilliant brains together and come up with alternatives as quickly as we can.
Why don’t you approve of zoos? Don’t they educate the public about the environment and endangered species? Hari Venkatesh CHENNAI, INDIA
Some zoos are O.K. The problem is, there are so many zoos where animals don’t have a proper social group. They don’t have things to do, and an animal like that can’t educate anyone, because it’s not behaving normally at all. You might just as well look at a photo or a stuffed example in a museum, because you won’t see any natural behavior.
I would like to work with orangutans when I grow up. Any tips about how to get started? Lauren Webb, LAYTON, UTAH
I would urge you to look up our Roots and Shoots programs for young people who have the same kind of passion as you. If we don’t protect these orangutans, there won’t be any left for you to study.
Do you feel that in your lifetime you will have achieved what is necessary for the permanent protection of chimpanzees? Dan Quigley HOPKINTON, MASS.
Unfortunately not. We’ve got an awful long way to go.
Do you think there is still hope for this planet despite all the bad things we have done to our environment? Elsie Wong, HONG KONG
When I was doing the research for this book, I met so many extraordinary people who rescued species from the brink of extinction when everybody else laughed at them. One example is the California condor. At one time, there were just 12 of these birds left in the wild and one in captivity. Now there are 300. This bird would have gone but for a small group of people who would not give up. As long as we have people like that, there’s hope for the future.
November 13, 2009 By STUART VINCENT Special to Newsday
Questions about spirituality and faith become more intense as for many people as they enter their 40s and 50s
Photo credit: Mahala Gaylord | Sara Weiss, of Garden City, was introduced to Judaism in her mid-50s and is now a member of the Community Synagogue of Port Washington. (Sept. 19, 2009)
Sara Weiss was raised as an atheist in a small Michigan town. She raised her children as atheists as well. As a college anthropology instructor in Florida, she taught her students about God as an anthropomorphic concept.
But after a painful divorce, a stressful move to New York and the loss of a promised job, Weiss, 68, of Garden City, found herself searching for answers. “I was scared to death,” she said of her situation at the time. That’s when a friend invited her to the synagogue he attended in Forest Hills. “I was so unhappy, miserable and really broken from the divorce that I began to think that maybe there’s something here,” she said. “The Torah portions we read and the sermons the rabbi gave were just fantastic, and that’s what got me to think about affiliating with organized religion.”
After 25 years in corporate finance, Jim Van Schaick walked into a United Methodist Church in Manhattan and decided he was home. Raised in the church, he had married a Roman Catholic woman and attended Catholic mass all through his marriage. After his divorce and a move from Ridgefield, Conn., to Manhattan, he began passing a local Methodist church on his way to work each day. “I had walked by the church for three years, and I always said, ‘One day I’m going to go to that church.’ I woke up one morning, and I knew that was the day I was going back.”
In 2003, at the age of 50, Van Schaick entered a seminary. He’s now pastor of First Church Baldwin, United Methodist.
The decision to return to a religious community, to search for a new one, or to simply become more deeply involved varies from person to person. But for many people, questions about their spirituality and faith become more intense as they enter their 40s and 50s.
“One reason is simply about time, available time. People who are into their 50s, generally the kids are gone, they have more time, they have more freedom,” said Rabbi Meir Feldman of Temple Beth-El in Great Neck. Feldman undertook a re-examination of his own spirituality when he was 38 and, after a career as an attorney, entered a seminary. “Another issue is they begin to see their mortality in a much clearer way. They have seen friends who are ill or who have passed. And sometimes there is just curiosity, and now that there is more time and space in their lives, people have time to feed their curiosity.”
Searching after a loss
Psychologist Richard Schaub, who runs the Huntington Meditation and Imagery Center, counsels clients searching for spiritual answers. The author of several books on the subject, Schaub said there are two main triggers for a spiritual search later in life. “They suffer a loss that changes their world or shakes up their perspective of how things were going to be. Some revisit their traditional religion . . . others begin a search to seek out a way of looking at things. It’s basically a way to balance the mind, to bring solace and balance to the mind to take in the reality of loss. And really what’s underneath that is they become aware of their own limited time.
The other reason is less defined, Schaub said. “Something creeps up on them and they start to ask classic midlife questions: ‘Is this all there is? Isn’t there more to life? Am I wasting my life the way I’m living my life now?’ Basic questions about values begin to crop up. What happens along with that, they begin to feel more discontent, more listless. They go into a quiet crisis, and it can be quite extensive.”
Donna Vacca, 66, owner of Estate Jewels in Huntington, was looking for a deeper sense of spirituality and came to Schaub’s center for meditation. Raised in a strict Italian Catholic household, she attended Catholic schools and felt a deep connection to her religion early on. “There was an aura of spirituality in the house, and I found my spirituality probably at 8 years old,” she said.
As she grew into adulthood, Vacca said she found her faith morphing into a spirituality with a deep connection to the church but not necessarily to church dogma or its stand on social issues. “The spirituality became more intense as I’ve gotten older,” she said. “When I’m in church, especially if it’s a church that looks like what I think a church should look like and the priest is right and hymns are right, I’m transported to a deep connection to God or higher being.”
Like many Baby Boomers exploring their spirituality, Vacca said she needed all the experience of her years to allow her to appreciate the importance and meaning of her spirituality. “As you get older, you get wiser, and then you can admit you know nothing,” she said.
Doing what matters
Van Schaick began reconnecting to his spirituality at the same time he was becoming disenchanted with the business world. “I lacked the sense that I was doing anything that mattered,” he said. Now remarried with two children, he appreciates how his maturity has helped him relate to his congregation. “My life experience, a sense of myself, level of maturity- there are so many days I just thank God for every bit of experience I bring to this job.”
For Sara Weiss, it was about finding a sense of spirituality and community at the Forest Hills synagogue. “I really believe that having found that faith was the reason I’m still alive,” she said. “I don’t think I would have survived without it. And here I am a nice Jewish girl working for a bunch of Christian ministers.” Weiss is director of development for the Long Island Council of Churches, helping to raise funds to feed 26,000 Long Islanders a year. “I know what it’s like to be destitute,” she said. “It’s been 20 years, but you never forget that, so I really have a heart for this.”
Now a member of Community Synagogue of Port Washington, Weiss had her bat mitzvah at the age of 53. As she studied the Torah, there were certain themes that called out to her, particularly in the story of Joseph. “That’s what I identify with,” she said, “the suffering and the redemption motif, a rescuing and a lifting up and establishing a relationship with God.”
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