a post by Lizzie Flew for the CPAG blog
Every March the government releases raw data on poverty – called Households Below Average Income. Presented without government spin, we can look at the numerous tables and work out what these numbers – which look so benign on a spreadsheet – mean for actual children. Children growing up worried about money, missing out on things other kids take for granted, and taking the effects of poverty with them into adulthood. What can we learn from the stats this year? Child poverty remains at 4.1 million according to the main measure we focus on (children whose families live below 60% of the median income) – not something to celebrate given this is still half a million more than 2010, but at least it hasn’t risen. But there is a lot to be concerned about beneath this headline figure.
First, despite the continued government rhetoric that work is the best route out of poverty, 70% of children in poverty now live in working families – up from 67% last year. We now have record levels of employment and record levels of families working for their poverty.
Second, the face of child poverty is getting younger – the proportion of children in poverty who are under the age of five has risen from 51% to 53% (over 2 million children) and this is really worrying. Poverty is bad for children at any age, but given what we know about how important the early years are for development, and the recent rise in infant mortality among disadvantaged children, this is of particular concern. Parents with very young children are less likely to be working full time. The benefit cap – which limits benefits for families where no one works more than 16 hours a week or earns more than a certain threshold - disproportionately affects single parents with very young children (who are not expected to work, so might reasonably not be expected to work to avoid the cap), further holding their incomes down.
Third, the risk of poverty for children in families with three or more children has gone up from 32% in 2012 to 43% today. The two-child limit, brought in for babies born after April 2017, may be pulling these families under. They are also hit hard by the freeze on benefits as the cost of essentials has risen, and in some cases by the benefit cap.
Fourth, it’s important to look at how far below the poverty line some children are living. Today’s stats show that there are 200,000 more children in severe poverty (in families on less than 50% of the median income). There are 600,000 more children in severe poverty than five years ago.
Continue reading
Lots of links to the original statistical reports etc.
Sunday, 31 March 2019
10 for today moves from idleness to secrets via a variety of items that should provide something for everyone
Why lolling about is a worthwhile pursuit
via 3 Quarks Daily: Charlotte Salley in The American Scholar
Larissa Leite/Flickr
Patricia Hampl’s new book, The Art of the Wasted Day, is so delightfully nebulous—dangling somewhere between travelogue, literary criticism, memoir, and love letter, with a couple of philosophical deadlifts thrown in—that it’s worth summarizing her argument right from the get-go: reveries and daydreams are not throwaway instances that we should shrug off or snap out of. Times when we are lost in thought, far away from quotidian woes, are moments to seek out and cultivate. The central concern of her book is to show us how to do just that—how to live a life of the mind in a humdrum world.
Continue reading
==============================
What do the first 10 million years of the solar system look like? These diamonds give a clue.
via the Big Think blog by Brandon A. Weber
A little peek into our past reveals tantalizing details.
In 2008, an asteroid exploded 37km above ground across the Nubian desert of northern Sudan. The fragments contained both rock and rough diamonds.
What scientists have figured out since, after gathering about 50 pieces of what was left, is that it came from the first 10 million years of our solar system — from a planet around the size of Mars or Mercury that ultimately was destroyed.
Continue reading
==============================
How armored vehicles stop bullets
via Boing Boing by Andrea James
YouTuber JerryRigEverything had a chance to fire some bullets at a bullet-proof car. The physics are interesting to watch as the energy disperses into the materials in slow motion.
Continue reading [and watch a video]
==============================
A Short Analysis of T. S. Eliot’s ‘Sweeney among the Nightingales’
via Interesting Literature
A commentary on one of Eliot’s classic quatrain poems
‘Sweeney among the Nightingales’ is one of a number of quatrain poems which T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) included in his second collection, Poems (1920). Eliot wrote several poems featuring ‘Sweeney’ – a fictional modern-day knuckle-dragger, a brutish but also smart and dapper man, the twentieth century’s answer to a Neanderthal (if that’s not being too hard on Neanderthals). In the other Sweeney poems, we’ve already seen him frequenting a brothel house and taking a bath. Now, he’s in another house of ill-repute, but it’s Sweeney ‘among the nightingales’. What nightingales? This poem takes even more unravelling and analysis than the other quatrain poems, so this is what we’re going to do now.
Continue reading
==============================
The ingenious cyclewear Victorian women invented to navigate social mores
an article by Kat Jungnickel published in the Guardian
Patents by female inventors from the 1890s reveal the creative ways women made their body mobile through clothing
An advertisement for Stower’s Lime Juice Cordial from around 1898 showing a fashionable Victorian woman relaxing while having a refreshing drink. Photograph: Alamy
Much has been written about the bicycle’s role as a vehicle of women’s liberation. But far less is known about another critical technology women used to forge new mobile and public lives – cyclewear. I have been studying what Victorian women wore when they started cycling. Researching how early cyclists made their bodies mobile through clothing reveals much about the social and physical barriers they were navigating and brings to light fascinating tales of ingenious inventions.
Continue reading
==============================
The Battle of the Hydaspes, Alexander's Invasion of India
via About History by Alcibiades
The Battle of the Hydaspes was between Alexander the Great and the army of King Porus on the river Hydaspes in Punjab in July 326 BC. Macedonian troops defeated the army of King Porus. He was captured, and then became an ally and vassal of Alexander the Great. The battle was the last major battle in Alexander’s life.
Continue reading
==============================
The Heroes of This Novel Are Centuries Old and 300 Feet Tall
via 3 Quarks Daily: Barbara Kingsolver in the New York Times
Olaf Hajek
Trees do most of the things you do, just more slowly. They compete for their livelihoods and take care of their families, sometimes making huge sacrifices for their children. They breathe, eat and have sex. They give gifts, communicate, learn, remember and record the important events of their lives. With relatives and non-kin alike they cooperate, forming neighborhood watch committees — to name one example — with rapid response networks to alert others to a threatening intruder. They manage their resources in bank accounts, using past market trends to predict future needs. They mine and farm the land, and sometimes move their families across great distances for better opportunities. Some of this might take centuries, but for a creature with a life span of hundreds or thousands of years, time must surely have a different feel about it.
Continue reading
==============================
Massive lode of rare-earth metals found in Japanese waters
via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder
The world is dependent on a steady supply of rare-earth elements such as yttrium, europium, terbium, dysprosium. They go into computers, phones, electric cars, solar panels, batteries, and electronic equipment. China is the world's biggest supplier of rare-earth elements, and uses its monopoly position as an effective bargaining chip. But Japan just announced that it has discovered a massive lode of rare earth materials that could satisfy the world's requirements on a "semi-infinite basis" (love that term).
Continue reading
==============================
Large crack in East African Rift is evidence of continent split
via the Big Think blog by Lucia Perez Diaz
A large crack, stretching several kilometres, made a sudden appearance recently in south-western Kenya. The tear, which continues to grow, caused part of the Nairobi-Narok highway to collapse and was accompanied by seismic activity in the area.
Continue reading
==============================
10 of the Best Poems about Secrets
via Interesting Literature
The greatest poems about keeping things hidden
Great poetry should not be a secret, although there is something nice about serendipitously stumbling upon a hidden gem of a poem. The following great poems shouldn’t be secrets, but they are about a secret, or something being kept secret.
Continue reading
via 3 Quarks Daily: Charlotte Salley in The American Scholar
Larissa Leite/Flickr
Patricia Hampl’s new book, The Art of the Wasted Day, is so delightfully nebulous—dangling somewhere between travelogue, literary criticism, memoir, and love letter, with a couple of philosophical deadlifts thrown in—that it’s worth summarizing her argument right from the get-go: reveries and daydreams are not throwaway instances that we should shrug off or snap out of. Times when we are lost in thought, far away from quotidian woes, are moments to seek out and cultivate. The central concern of her book is to show us how to do just that—how to live a life of the mind in a humdrum world.
Continue reading
==============================
via the Big Think blog by Brandon A. Weber
A little peek into our past reveals tantalizing details.
In 2008, an asteroid exploded 37km above ground across the Nubian desert of northern Sudan. The fragments contained both rock and rough diamonds.
What scientists have figured out since, after gathering about 50 pieces of what was left, is that it came from the first 10 million years of our solar system — from a planet around the size of Mars or Mercury that ultimately was destroyed.
Continue reading
==============================
via Boing Boing by Andrea James
YouTuber JerryRigEverything had a chance to fire some bullets at a bullet-proof car. The physics are interesting to watch as the energy disperses into the materials in slow motion.
Continue reading [and watch a video]
==============================
via Interesting Literature
A commentary on one of Eliot’s classic quatrain poems
‘Sweeney among the Nightingales’ is one of a number of quatrain poems which T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) included in his second collection, Poems (1920). Eliot wrote several poems featuring ‘Sweeney’ – a fictional modern-day knuckle-dragger, a brutish but also smart and dapper man, the twentieth century’s answer to a Neanderthal (if that’s not being too hard on Neanderthals). In the other Sweeney poems, we’ve already seen him frequenting a brothel house and taking a bath. Now, he’s in another house of ill-repute, but it’s Sweeney ‘among the nightingales’. What nightingales? This poem takes even more unravelling and analysis than the other quatrain poems, so this is what we’re going to do now.
Continue reading
==============================
an article by Kat Jungnickel published in the Guardian
Patents by female inventors from the 1890s reveal the creative ways women made their body mobile through clothing
An advertisement for Stower’s Lime Juice Cordial from around 1898 showing a fashionable Victorian woman relaxing while having a refreshing drink. Photograph: Alamy
Much has been written about the bicycle’s role as a vehicle of women’s liberation. But far less is known about another critical technology women used to forge new mobile and public lives – cyclewear. I have been studying what Victorian women wore when they started cycling. Researching how early cyclists made their bodies mobile through clothing reveals much about the social and physical barriers they were navigating and brings to light fascinating tales of ingenious inventions.
Continue reading
==============================
via About History by Alcibiades
The Battle of the Hydaspes was between Alexander the Great and the army of King Porus on the river Hydaspes in Punjab in July 326 BC. Macedonian troops defeated the army of King Porus. He was captured, and then became an ally and vassal of Alexander the Great. The battle was the last major battle in Alexander’s life.
Continue reading
==============================
via 3 Quarks Daily: Barbara Kingsolver in the New York Times
Olaf Hajek
Trees do most of the things you do, just more slowly. They compete for their livelihoods and take care of their families, sometimes making huge sacrifices for their children. They breathe, eat and have sex. They give gifts, communicate, learn, remember and record the important events of their lives. With relatives and non-kin alike they cooperate, forming neighborhood watch committees — to name one example — with rapid response networks to alert others to a threatening intruder. They manage their resources in bank accounts, using past market trends to predict future needs. They mine and farm the land, and sometimes move their families across great distances for better opportunities. Some of this might take centuries, but for a creature with a life span of hundreds or thousands of years, time must surely have a different feel about it.
Continue reading
==============================
via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder
The world is dependent on a steady supply of rare-earth elements such as yttrium, europium, terbium, dysprosium. They go into computers, phones, electric cars, solar panels, batteries, and electronic equipment. China is the world's biggest supplier of rare-earth elements, and uses its monopoly position as an effective bargaining chip. But Japan just announced that it has discovered a massive lode of rare earth materials that could satisfy the world's requirements on a "semi-infinite basis" (love that term).
Continue reading
==============================
via the Big Think blog by Lucia Perez Diaz
A large crack, stretching several kilometres, made a sudden appearance recently in south-western Kenya. The tear, which continues to grow, caused part of the Nairobi-Narok highway to collapse and was accompanied by seismic activity in the area.
Continue reading
==============================
via Interesting Literature
The greatest poems about keeping things hidden
Great poetry should not be a secret, although there is something nice about serendipitously stumbling upon a hidden gem of a poem. The following great poems shouldn’t be secrets, but they are about a secret, or something being kept secret.
Continue reading
Saturday, 30 March 2019
10 for today starts with whales and ends with literature not poetry for once! Folklore and history in between.
Why Whales Got So Big (it's probably not what you think)
via 3 Quarks Daily: Ed Yong in The Atlantic
FERNANDO CASTILLO / AFP / GETTY
The first time I came face to face with a sea lion, I nearly screamed. I was snorkeling, and after a long time spent staring down at colorful corals, I looked up to see a gigantic bull, a couple of feet in front of my mask. Its eyes were opalescent. Its long canines hinted at its close evolutionary ties to land-based predators like bears and dogs. And most unnervingly of all, it was huge.
Continue reading
==============================
A Short Analysis of Tennyson’s ‘The Lady of Shalott’
via Interesting Literature
Notes towards a commentary on Tennyson’s allegory
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92) wrote two versions of ‘The Lady of Shalott’. Tennyson’s poem ‘The Lady of Shalott’ exists as both a 20-stanza poem published in 1832, and the revised version of 19 stanzas – which is the one readers are most familiar with – which was published in 1842. The poem, partly inspired by Arthurian legend (hence the presence of the knight, Lancelot) and partly by the epic sixteenth-century poem The Faerie Queene written by Edmund Spenser, remains popular, although the precise meaning of the poem remains elusive. So, a few words of analysis about this enchanting poem may help to clarify things.
Continue reading
==============================
Mystery of The Giant's Causeway in Ireland has been unlocked
via Boing Boing by Seamus Bellamy
Time for a bit of folklore.
Benandonner was a giant from Scotland. He was something of a tool and constantly threatened to lay a beating on Ireland.
Fionn mac Cumhaill was a giant too. He resided in Ireland. Fionn wasn't down with Benandonner's wanting to put a hurt on his homeplace. In fact, Fionn was so bent out of shape about it that he decided to rip up chunks of County Atrim and throw them into the sea in order build a causeway to Scotland. The causeway would make it possible for Fionn to travel and beat Benandonner's ass.
Continue reading
==============================
The mystery of how birds navigate is over, and the answer is so amazing
via the Big Think blog by Philip Perry
It’s the first time magnetoreception has been discovered in animals, researchers claim.
One of the longest running mysteries is exactly how birds navigate when they fly south for the winter or back come spring. For forty years, scientists have known that birds can somehow sense the magnetic field and navigate by it. But they’ve been unable to figure out how, until now. Two teams have recently identified that birds can actually visualize the magnetosphere.
Continue reading
==============================
Silk Road – Connection between the East and West
via About History by Alcibiades
The Great Silk Road was a caravan road connecting East Asia to the Mediterranean from Ancient times into the Middle Ages. It was used for exporting silk from China, hence its name. The term was introduced by the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877.
Continue reading
==============================
A plump, Victorian gentleman who was so very pleasant to know
via Arts & Letters Daily: Michael Dirda in The Washington Post
Edward Lear is the other great master of Victorian nonsense. Admittedly, Lear (1812-1888) lacks the universal appeal of his contemporary Lewis Carroll, but his longer poems — such as “The Jumblies” (“Their heads are green, and their hands are blue”), “The Pobble Who Has No Toes” and “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat” — have been favorites for generations among children and adults alike. A multitalented man, Lear also composed scores of four-line, non-obscene limericks, coined immortal phrases such as “runcible spoon” and dashed off spindly, surreally cartoonish drawings to accompany virtually everything he wrote.
Jenny Uglow calls her capacious and astute new biography “Mr. Lear,” which is certainly straightforward. Still, I wonder if she means us to think, if only for a flickering moment, of yet another great English writer and artist for children, the celebrated “Miss Potter.” Like Lear, Beatrix Potter was equally accomplished with pen or brush and, like him, too, much of her life was characterized by hard work, melancholy and the search for love.
Continue reading
==============================
The Elvis we forgot: film shows star as driven young man
via The Observer by Edward Helmore
Elvis performing on the ’68 Elvis Comeback Special. Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives
More than 40 years after Elvis Presley’s death, a documentary backed by his former wife, Priscilla, will chart the singer’s early life as a young man from Tupelo, Mississippi.
A two-part, three-hour HBO documentary, Elvis Presley: The Searcher, will be broadcast in the US this month [April 2018]. It has been backed by the Presley estate, in the hope that it will re-focus attention on Presley’s captivating music and presence, as opposed to his sad physical decline. The Searcher portrays the young Elvis as an “eclectic” music lover who, before making his first recordings at Sun Studio, was slipping into the black clubs on Beale Street in Memphis, or into the black gospel churches, to assemble “his version of himself”.
Continue reading
==============================
Fancy new geoglyphs discovered in Peru
via Boing Boing by Seamus Bellamy
Those thousands of drawings in the desert of southern Peru that we call the Nazca Lines? They're so yesterday. According to National Geographic, all of the cool kids know that the geoglyphs worth paying attention to are those new ground etchings that archaeologists recently grokked in Peru's Palpa province.
Continue reading
==============================
Giant dinosaur tracks found in Scotland reveal the secrets of the Jurassic period
via the Big Think blog by Paul Ratner
Scientists in Scotland find tracks of the largest animal that walked on Earth during the Middle Jurassic Period.
Over 50 dinosaur tracks were found by researchers on the Scottish Isle of Skye. The footprints date back to 174 million to 164 million years ago and help us understand the Middle Jurassic period. Not many fossil sites have been found from that time so far and the new discovery is being seen as very significant.
Continue reading
==============================
Anthony Trollope’s The Fixed Period: Victorian Dystopia
via Interesting Literature
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle examines a most unTrollopian Trollope novel
Anthony Trollope was a prolific writer. He wrote 47 novels, as well as numerous works of non-fiction including autobiography and travel writing. And he did much of this while holding down a job at the Post Office, by getting up at 5.30 every morning and writing 250 words every 15 minutes, pacing himself with a watch. (Clearly such industriousness ran in the family: Trollope’s mother, Frances Trollope, woke at 4 o’clock every morning and got her day’s writing finished in time to serve breakfast.) Not everyone was a fan of his work, which was considered too workmanlike for such an artful writer as Henry James. In response to the title of one of Trollope’s novels, Can You Forgive Her?, James is said to have quipped: ‘Yes, and forget her, too.’ Yet his novels of provincial life, British politics, and ecclesiastical scheming remain in print, with his Chronicles of Barsetshire and his Palliser novels still firm favourites with many readers.
Continue reading
via 3 Quarks Daily: Ed Yong in The Atlantic
FERNANDO CASTILLO / AFP / GETTY
The first time I came face to face with a sea lion, I nearly screamed. I was snorkeling, and after a long time spent staring down at colorful corals, I looked up to see a gigantic bull, a couple of feet in front of my mask. Its eyes were opalescent. Its long canines hinted at its close evolutionary ties to land-based predators like bears and dogs. And most unnervingly of all, it was huge.
Continue reading
==============================
via Interesting Literature
Notes towards a commentary on Tennyson’s allegory
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92) wrote two versions of ‘The Lady of Shalott’. Tennyson’s poem ‘The Lady of Shalott’ exists as both a 20-stanza poem published in 1832, and the revised version of 19 stanzas – which is the one readers are most familiar with – which was published in 1842. The poem, partly inspired by Arthurian legend (hence the presence of the knight, Lancelot) and partly by the epic sixteenth-century poem The Faerie Queene written by Edmund Spenser, remains popular, although the precise meaning of the poem remains elusive. So, a few words of analysis about this enchanting poem may help to clarify things.
Continue reading
==============================
via Boing Boing by Seamus Bellamy
Time for a bit of folklore.
Benandonner was a giant from Scotland. He was something of a tool and constantly threatened to lay a beating on Ireland.
Fionn mac Cumhaill was a giant too. He resided in Ireland. Fionn wasn't down with Benandonner's wanting to put a hurt on his homeplace. In fact, Fionn was so bent out of shape about it that he decided to rip up chunks of County Atrim and throw them into the sea in order build a causeway to Scotland. The causeway would make it possible for Fionn to travel and beat Benandonner's ass.
Continue reading
==============================
via the Big Think blog by Philip Perry
It’s the first time magnetoreception has been discovered in animals, researchers claim.
One of the longest running mysteries is exactly how birds navigate when they fly south for the winter or back come spring. For forty years, scientists have known that birds can somehow sense the magnetic field and navigate by it. But they’ve been unable to figure out how, until now. Two teams have recently identified that birds can actually visualize the magnetosphere.
Continue reading
==============================
via About History by Alcibiades
The Great Silk Road was a caravan road connecting East Asia to the Mediterranean from Ancient times into the Middle Ages. It was used for exporting silk from China, hence its name. The term was introduced by the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877.
Continue reading
==============================
via Arts & Letters Daily: Michael Dirda in The Washington Post
Edward Lear is the other great master of Victorian nonsense. Admittedly, Lear (1812-1888) lacks the universal appeal of his contemporary Lewis Carroll, but his longer poems — such as “The Jumblies” (“Their heads are green, and their hands are blue”), “The Pobble Who Has No Toes” and “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat” — have been favorites for generations among children and adults alike. A multitalented man, Lear also composed scores of four-line, non-obscene limericks, coined immortal phrases such as “runcible spoon” and dashed off spindly, surreally cartoonish drawings to accompany virtually everything he wrote.
Jenny Uglow calls her capacious and astute new biography “Mr. Lear,” which is certainly straightforward. Still, I wonder if she means us to think, if only for a flickering moment, of yet another great English writer and artist for children, the celebrated “Miss Potter.” Like Lear, Beatrix Potter was equally accomplished with pen or brush and, like him, too, much of her life was characterized by hard work, melancholy and the search for love.
Continue reading
==============================
via The Observer by Edward Helmore
Elvis performing on the ’68 Elvis Comeback Special. Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives
More than 40 years after Elvis Presley’s death, a documentary backed by his former wife, Priscilla, will chart the singer’s early life as a young man from Tupelo, Mississippi.
A two-part, three-hour HBO documentary, Elvis Presley: The Searcher, will be broadcast in the US this month [April 2018]. It has been backed by the Presley estate, in the hope that it will re-focus attention on Presley’s captivating music and presence, as opposed to his sad physical decline. The Searcher portrays the young Elvis as an “eclectic” music lover who, before making his first recordings at Sun Studio, was slipping into the black clubs on Beale Street in Memphis, or into the black gospel churches, to assemble “his version of himself”.
Continue reading
==============================
via Boing Boing by Seamus Bellamy
Those thousands of drawings in the desert of southern Peru that we call the Nazca Lines? They're so yesterday. According to National Geographic, all of the cool kids know that the geoglyphs worth paying attention to are those new ground etchings that archaeologists recently grokked in Peru's Palpa province.
Continue reading
==============================
via the Big Think blog by Paul Ratner
Scientists in Scotland find tracks of the largest animal that walked on Earth during the Middle Jurassic Period.
Over 50 dinosaur tracks were found by researchers on the Scottish Isle of Skye. The footprints date back to 174 million to 164 million years ago and help us understand the Middle Jurassic period. Not many fossil sites have been found from that time so far and the new discovery is being seen as very significant.
Continue reading
==============================
via Interesting Literature
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle examines a most unTrollopian Trollope novel
Anthony Trollope was a prolific writer. He wrote 47 novels, as well as numerous works of non-fiction including autobiography and travel writing. And he did much of this while holding down a job at the Post Office, by getting up at 5.30 every morning and writing 250 words every 15 minutes, pacing himself with a watch. (Clearly such industriousness ran in the family: Trollope’s mother, Frances Trollope, woke at 4 o’clock every morning and got her day’s writing finished in time to serve breakfast.) Not everyone was a fan of his work, which was considered too workmanlike for such an artful writer as Henry James. In response to the title of one of Trollope’s novels, Can You Forgive Her?, James is said to have quipped: ‘Yes, and forget her, too.’ Yet his novels of provincial life, British politics, and ecclesiastical scheming remain in print, with his Chronicles of Barsetshire and his Palliser novels still firm favourites with many readers.
Continue reading
Friday, 29 March 2019
'Am I depressed?': How teens can find mental health help online
an article by Rebecca Ruiz for Mashable [brought to us by ResearchBuzz: Firehose]
Teens don't need to read the headlines to know that they and too many of their peers are feeling lonely, sad, anxious, and suicidal. Recent headlines, however, confirm what's happening in their lives.
This week, a Pediatrics study documented a 28 percent increase in psychiatric visits to the emergency room for American youth. The research, which looked at survey data collected between 2011 and 2015, found even higher rates of increased visits for adolescents and African American and Hispanic youth. The rate of suicide-related visits more than doubled.
"This study unmistakably reveals that adolescents are a population with urgent mental health needs," the study's authors wrote.
Continue reading [whilst being aware that the study was conducted in the USA and most of the recommendations are US-centric.]
Teens don't need to read the headlines to know that they and too many of their peers are feeling lonely, sad, anxious, and suicidal. Recent headlines, however, confirm what's happening in their lives.
This week, a Pediatrics study documented a 28 percent increase in psychiatric visits to the emergency room for American youth. The research, which looked at survey data collected between 2011 and 2015, found even higher rates of increased visits for adolescents and African American and Hispanic youth. The rate of suicide-related visits more than doubled.
"This study unmistakably reveals that adolescents are a population with urgent mental health needs," the study's authors wrote.
Continue reading [whilst being aware that the study was conducted in the USA and most of the recommendations are US-centric.]
What It Means to Be a Mental Health Advocate—And How to Become One
a post by Margarita Tartakovsky for the World of Psychology blog
Over the years, the stigma surrounding mental illness has significantly decreased. One of the biggest reasons?
Mental health advocates.
These are the individuals who tirelessly share their stories in all sorts of ways. They remind us that we’re not alone in our struggles—and there is real, tangible hope and healing. They shatter stereotypes and myths about mental illness, helping the public see that people with mental illness are just people.
As Jennifer Marshall said, “By showing the world that we’re your neighbor, your family members, your friends, and we are not only surviving with these conditions, but thriving, we’re educating the world and changing the world for the better.”
If you’re thinking about becoming a mental health advocate, you might be wondering what advocates actually do, and how to get started. We asked advocates who are doing all kinds of incredible work to share their insights.
Continue reading
Over the years, the stigma surrounding mental illness has significantly decreased. One of the biggest reasons?
Mental health advocates.
These are the individuals who tirelessly share their stories in all sorts of ways. They remind us that we’re not alone in our struggles—and there is real, tangible hope and healing. They shatter stereotypes and myths about mental illness, helping the public see that people with mental illness are just people.
As Jennifer Marshall said, “By showing the world that we’re your neighbor, your family members, your friends, and we are not only surviving with these conditions, but thriving, we’re educating the world and changing the world for the better.”
If you’re thinking about becoming a mental health advocate, you might be wondering what advocates actually do, and how to get started. We asked advocates who are doing all kinds of incredible work to share their insights.
Continue reading
From sustainable urbanism to climate urbanism
an article by Joshua Long (Southwestern University, USA) and Jennifer L Rice (University of Georgia, USA) published in Urban Studies Volume 56 Issue 5 (April 2019)
Abstract
As the negative impacts of climate change become increasingly apparent, many city leaders and policymakers have begun to regard climate action as both a fiscal challenge and strategic economic opportunity. However, addressing the increasingly evident threats of climate change in the neoliberal, post-financial-crisis city raises several questions about its equitable implementation.
This paper suggests that the prioritisation of a specific mode of climate resilient urban development represents a departure from the previous decades’ movement toward sustainable urbanism.
We refer to this new development paradigm as ‘climate urbanism’, a policy orientation that
We argue that the potential social justice impacts of climate urbanism have not been fully interrogated. Certainly, cities are appropriate sites for addressing climate change, but in the current neoliberal context, the transition from policy rhetoric to climate action presents a potentially problematic landscape of inequality and injustice.
With that in mind, this paper offers a critical lens to evaluate the merits of climate urbanism and to interrogate its potential outcomes.
Abstract
As the negative impacts of climate change become increasingly apparent, many city leaders and policymakers have begun to regard climate action as both a fiscal challenge and strategic economic opportunity. However, addressing the increasingly evident threats of climate change in the neoliberal, post-financial-crisis city raises several questions about its equitable implementation.
This paper suggests that the prioritisation of a specific mode of climate resilient urban development represents a departure from the previous decades’ movement toward sustainable urbanism.
We refer to this new development paradigm as ‘climate urbanism’, a policy orientation that
- promotes cities as the most viable and appropriate sites of climate action and
- prioritises efforts to protect the physical and digital infrastructures of urban economies from the hazards associated with climate change.
We argue that the potential social justice impacts of climate urbanism have not been fully interrogated. Certainly, cities are appropriate sites for addressing climate change, but in the current neoliberal context, the transition from policy rhetoric to climate action presents a potentially problematic landscape of inequality and injustice.
With that in mind, this paper offers a critical lens to evaluate the merits of climate urbanism and to interrogate its potential outcomes.
The missing link: Monetary policy and the labour share
a column by Cristiano Cantore, Filippo Ferroni and Miguel León-Ledesma for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
Despite its importance, there is no systematic empirical evidence on the effect of monetary policy shocks on the share of output allocated to wages.
Using data for five developed economies, this column finds that standard models generate the ‘wrong sign’ for the effect when compared to the empirical results, and that the labour share temporarily increases following a positive shock to the interest rate. Using the standard models to analyse the distributional effects of monetary shocks could be misleading.
Continue reading
Despite its importance, there is no systematic empirical evidence on the effect of monetary policy shocks on the share of output allocated to wages.
Using data for five developed economies, this column finds that standard models generate the ‘wrong sign’ for the effect when compared to the empirical results, and that the labour share temporarily increases following a positive shock to the interest rate. Using the standard models to analyse the distributional effects of monetary shocks could be misleading.
Continue reading
Just because the map says so, doesn't mean it's true
Thirty years after 1989, from an island perspective
an article by Owen Hatherley published in Eurozine (March 2019)
The workings of western capitalism were almost as unknown in the Eastern Bloc as the everyday realities of ‘real socialism’ were among western Trotskyists. Then, after ’89, eastern Europe disappeared off the political map of the left. Nowhere was this more so than in Britain, writes Owen Hatherley.
I can remember three particular moments of realising there was a distinct thing called ‘Eastern Europe’ which was different from ‘Western Europe’, and both of them date me as being just about old enough to remember the Soviet Union. One is at Christmas 1989, in my grandmother’s flat on the Isle of Wight, an appropriately plush location to watch, on BBC News, the uprising in Romania and the subsequent televised execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu, and learn several new words, like ‘dictator’ and ‘firing squad’. Also often said was the word ‘Communism’, but my Trotskyist parents referred to themselves as ‘socialists’ rather than communists, so that wasn’t concerning. What was, was looking in the Children’s Atlas that my mother bought for me in the late 1980s and finding the existence of a very, very large country called the ‘Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’. Being that sort of obnoxiously inquisitive child, I asked her ‘but we’re socialists, aren’t we? Isn’t this our country?’ ‘They’re not socialists. It’s very complicated’, she replied and refused to explain further. The next memory comes a few years later and concerns a Lufthansa map that my dad had brought back from work, where that space had suddenly been filled with over a dozen new countries, all with incredibly evocative names. Belarus! Azerbaijan! Kyrgyzstan!
Full text (PDF 6pp)
an article by Owen Hatherley published in Eurozine (March 2019)
The workings of western capitalism were almost as unknown in the Eastern Bloc as the everyday realities of ‘real socialism’ were among western Trotskyists. Then, after ’89, eastern Europe disappeared off the political map of the left. Nowhere was this more so than in Britain, writes Owen Hatherley.
I can remember three particular moments of realising there was a distinct thing called ‘Eastern Europe’ which was different from ‘Western Europe’, and both of them date me as being just about old enough to remember the Soviet Union. One is at Christmas 1989, in my grandmother’s flat on the Isle of Wight, an appropriately plush location to watch, on BBC News, the uprising in Romania and the subsequent televised execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu, and learn several new words, like ‘dictator’ and ‘firing squad’. Also often said was the word ‘Communism’, but my Trotskyist parents referred to themselves as ‘socialists’ rather than communists, so that wasn’t concerning. What was, was looking in the Children’s Atlas that my mother bought for me in the late 1980s and finding the existence of a very, very large country called the ‘Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’. Being that sort of obnoxiously inquisitive child, I asked her ‘but we’re socialists, aren’t we? Isn’t this our country?’ ‘They’re not socialists. It’s very complicated’, she replied and refused to explain further. The next memory comes a few years later and concerns a Lufthansa map that my dad had brought back from work, where that space had suddenly been filled with over a dozen new countries, all with incredibly evocative names. Belarus! Azerbaijan! Kyrgyzstan!
Full text (PDF 6pp)
7 Practical Ways to Change Your Thinking and Change Your Life
a post by Akina Chargualaf for the Lifehack blog
Changing your mindset is no easy task, but having an open and positive mindset is a game changer. Your personal growth is what propels the choices you make for your physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Just something as simple as changing your thinking can change your life.
Importance of Mindset Work
There’s great importance in spending time doing mindset work. Within this period, we begin to understand ourselves, and through that understanding, we become more compassionate and patient with ourselves.
Our society and culture thrive on the busyness that life brings not only into our lives but even to our dinner table. With that comes some consequences of using “band-aid” solutions and quick remedies to get through particular blocks in our lives. Those solutions never last long and it’s about committing the time and effort to slow down, ground ourselves, and reshift our focus.
Changing your thinking is not only to be more optimistic but giving your mind the breathing room it needs to grow and expand. It’s about looking at everything that hasn’t worked for you and being open to other ways that might.
Continue reading
Hazel’s comment:
Whilst I read (skim through) all of Lifehack’s blog posts I rarely provide a link to them because of the habit that seems to prevail of having an “if this then that” mentality which does not go down well with me.
This particular post seems very different, however, so I commend it to you.
Changing your mindset is no easy task, but having an open and positive mindset is a game changer. Your personal growth is what propels the choices you make for your physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Just something as simple as changing your thinking can change your life.
Importance of Mindset Work
There’s great importance in spending time doing mindset work. Within this period, we begin to understand ourselves, and through that understanding, we become more compassionate and patient with ourselves.
Our society and culture thrive on the busyness that life brings not only into our lives but even to our dinner table. With that comes some consequences of using “band-aid” solutions and quick remedies to get through particular blocks in our lives. Those solutions never last long and it’s about committing the time and effort to slow down, ground ourselves, and reshift our focus.
Changing your thinking is not only to be more optimistic but giving your mind the breathing room it needs to grow and expand. It’s about looking at everything that hasn’t worked for you and being open to other ways that might.
Continue reading
Hazel’s comment:
Whilst I read (skim through) all of Lifehack’s blog posts I rarely provide a link to them because of the habit that seems to prevail of having an “if this then that” mentality which does not go down well with me.
This particular post seems very different, however, so I commend it to you.
Thursday, 28 March 2019
Storytelling in troubled times: what is the role for educators in the deep crises of the 21st century?
an article by Keri Facer (University of Bristol Graduate School of Education, UK) published in Literacy Volume 53 Issue 1 (January 2019)
Abstract
This essay examines the role of educators in the tangled economic, social, environmental and technological crises of the present time. It argues that a central purpose of education in this period is to support students to imagine and make liveable futures on their own terms.
To do this, the paper proposes that the colonizing, optimizing and catastrophic stories that dominate accounts of the relationship between education and the future should be replaced by a recognition of students and worlds as co‐emerging.
It introduces resources from the fields of anticipation, temporality and decolonial studies that gesture towards a new educational practice.
It concludes by arguing that supporting students to make, tell and listen to stories has a critical role to play in enabling students to identify and articulate desires, hopes, fears and dreams for the future and to engage with the rich complexities of the present.
Full text (PDF 21pp)
Abstract
This essay examines the role of educators in the tangled economic, social, environmental and technological crises of the present time. It argues that a central purpose of education in this period is to support students to imagine and make liveable futures on their own terms.
To do this, the paper proposes that the colonizing, optimizing and catastrophic stories that dominate accounts of the relationship between education and the future should be replaced by a recognition of students and worlds as co‐emerging.
It introduces resources from the fields of anticipation, temporality and decolonial studies that gesture towards a new educational practice.
It concludes by arguing that supporting students to make, tell and listen to stories has a critical role to play in enabling students to identify and articulate desires, hopes, fears and dreams for the future and to engage with the rich complexities of the present.
Full text (PDF 21pp)
We’re working like it’s 1975, but the jobs boom isn’t all it seems. Here’s why
an article by Larry Elliott published in the Guardian
Harold Wilson with James Callaghan at the Labour party conference in Blackpool in 1975. Photograph: Frank Barratt/Getty Images
Britain’s recent jobs record has been remarkable. The economy is chugging along but the last time the unemployment rate was as low as it is today was in the winter of 1974-75. Harold Wilson was prime minister, Derby County were on course to win the old first division, David Bowie was about to release Young Americans.
Back then things were about to take a turn for the worse. Prices were rising fast, and later in 1975 inflation would hit a postwar peak of more than 25%. Unemployment also rose, leading to the coining of a new term – stagflation. In 1976, there was the mother and father of a sterling crisis that ended with spending cuts being imposed by the International Monetary Fund.
The 1970s are still seen as the fright decade, even though they are as distant in time for today’s young adults as the early 1930s were for those who came of age when Wilson became prime minister for a second time in 1974. A regular barb aimed at Jeremy Corbyn is that he wants to return Britain to the “dark days” of the 1970s.
In some ways, attempts to draw comparisons between now and the 1970s are ridiculous. The lights have not gone out. Industry has not been put on a three-day week. Ministers no longer live in fear of the National Union of Mineworkers. An unemployment rate of 3.9% sits alongside an inflation rate below 2%, not one heading for 20%-plus. Those were the days before mobile phones and social media. Bowie fans didn’t stream Young Americans; they bought it on vinyl.
Continue reading
Harold Wilson with James Callaghan at the Labour party conference in Blackpool in 1975. Photograph: Frank Barratt/Getty Images
Britain’s recent jobs record has been remarkable. The economy is chugging along but the last time the unemployment rate was as low as it is today was in the winter of 1974-75. Harold Wilson was prime minister, Derby County were on course to win the old first division, David Bowie was about to release Young Americans.
Back then things were about to take a turn for the worse. Prices were rising fast, and later in 1975 inflation would hit a postwar peak of more than 25%. Unemployment also rose, leading to the coining of a new term – stagflation. In 1976, there was the mother and father of a sterling crisis that ended with spending cuts being imposed by the International Monetary Fund.
The 1970s are still seen as the fright decade, even though they are as distant in time for today’s young adults as the early 1930s were for those who came of age when Wilson became prime minister for a second time in 1974. A regular barb aimed at Jeremy Corbyn is that he wants to return Britain to the “dark days” of the 1970s.
In some ways, attempts to draw comparisons between now and the 1970s are ridiculous. The lights have not gone out. Industry has not been put on a three-day week. Ministers no longer live in fear of the National Union of Mineworkers. An unemployment rate of 3.9% sits alongside an inflation rate below 2%, not one heading for 20%-plus. Those were the days before mobile phones and social media. Bowie fans didn’t stream Young Americans; they bought it on vinyl.
Continue reading
Learn How to Resolve and Release Emotional Pain
a post by Jill Leigh for the World of Psychology blog
How can empathetic people let loose the burden of other people’s emotions?
When your body has disease, illness or painful conditions, suppressed (somatized) emotion can exacerbate symptoms and escalate deterioration or decline. In my last article, I shared a practice for identifying and acknowledging emotional energy to avoid suppressing it into the energy system of the physical body.
Validating and embracing emotions that you may have been taught are unacceptable or inappropriate for you, and taking ownership for clearing and releasing the energetic backlog empowers you to experience your life more wholly and holistically.
Your emotions offer context and meaning for your in-the-moment experience; allowing them to inform you minimizes the derailment or inhibition of your conscious awareness.
Continue reading
How can empathetic people let loose the burden of other people’s emotions?
When your body has disease, illness or painful conditions, suppressed (somatized) emotion can exacerbate symptoms and escalate deterioration or decline. In my last article, I shared a practice for identifying and acknowledging emotional energy to avoid suppressing it into the energy system of the physical body.
Validating and embracing emotions that you may have been taught are unacceptable or inappropriate for you, and taking ownership for clearing and releasing the energetic backlog empowers you to experience your life more wholly and holistically.
Your emotions offer context and meaning for your in-the-moment experience; allowing them to inform you minimizes the derailment or inhibition of your conscious awareness.
Continue reading
Social capitalism: Incorporating sustainability factors into macroeconomic analysis
a column by Yashaswini Dunga, Nancy Hardie, Stephanie Kelly and Jeremy Lawson for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
As climate change worsens and the forces of populism gather, there is a strong argument for moving beyond narrow economic measures of national progress.
This column presents a new indicator of progress that integrates environmental, social, and governance factors into growth analysis. Results show that the countries that have been able to blend economic dynamism with environmental, social, and governance dynamism are mostly developing economies. These countries often fly under the radar of traditional macroeconomic analyses.
Continue reading
As climate change worsens and the forces of populism gather, there is a strong argument for moving beyond narrow economic measures of national progress.
This column presents a new indicator of progress that integrates environmental, social, and governance factors into growth analysis. Results show that the countries that have been able to blend economic dynamism with environmental, social, and governance dynamism are mostly developing economies. These countries often fly under the radar of traditional macroeconomic analyses.
Continue reading
Toward understanding the relationship between personality and well‐being states and traits
an article by Carly Magee and Jeremy C. Biesanz (University of British Columbia, Canada) published in Journal of Personality Volume 87 Issue 2 (April 2019)
Abstract
Objective
Although there is a robust connection between dispositional personality traits and well‐being, relatively little research has comprehensively examined the ways in which all Big Five personality states are associated with short‐term experiences of well‐being within individuals. We address three central questions about the nature of the relationship between personality and well‐being states:
First, to what extent do personality and well‐being states covary within individuals?
Second, to what extent do personality and well‐being states influence one another within individuals?
Finally, are these within‐person relationships moderated by dispositional personality traits and well‐being?
Method
Two experience sampling studies (N = 161 and N = 146) were conducted over 2 weeks.
Results
Across both studies, all Big Five personality states were correlated with short‐term experiences of well‐being within individuals. Individuals were more extraverted, emotionally stable, conscientious, agreeable, and open in moments when they experienced higher well‐being (greater self‐esteem, life satisfaction and positive affect, and less negative affect). Moreover, personality and well‐being states dynamically influenced one another over time within individuals, and these associations were not generally moderated by dispositional traits or well‐being.
Conclusions
Behavior and well‐being are interconnected within the context of the Big Five model of personality.
Abstract
Objective
Although there is a robust connection between dispositional personality traits and well‐being, relatively little research has comprehensively examined the ways in which all Big Five personality states are associated with short‐term experiences of well‐being within individuals. We address three central questions about the nature of the relationship between personality and well‐being states:
First, to what extent do personality and well‐being states covary within individuals?
Second, to what extent do personality and well‐being states influence one another within individuals?
Finally, are these within‐person relationships moderated by dispositional personality traits and well‐being?
Method
Two experience sampling studies (N = 161 and N = 146) were conducted over 2 weeks.
Results
Across both studies, all Big Five personality states were correlated with short‐term experiences of well‐being within individuals. Individuals were more extraverted, emotionally stable, conscientious, agreeable, and open in moments when they experienced higher well‐being (greater self‐esteem, life satisfaction and positive affect, and less negative affect). Moreover, personality and well‐being states dynamically influenced one another over time within individuals, and these associations were not generally moderated by dispositional traits or well‐being.
Conclusions
Behavior and well‐being are interconnected within the context of the Big Five model of personality.
Evaluation of a new recovery college: delivering health outcomes and cost efficiencies via an educational approach
an article by Katie Kay and George Edgley (Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust, Ashton-under-Lyne, UK) published in Mental Health and Social Inclusion Volume 23 Issue 1 (2019)
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate cost efficiencies and health outcomes after one academic year of course delivery, in a recovery college.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper used service evaluation and review of data.
Findings
There is significant impact on health outcomes when standardised measures of Patient Activation Measure and Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale were completed pre- and post-intervention, with indications of possible financial efficiencies identified within secondary care mental health pathways.
Research limitations/implications
The current evaluation sample is only representative of community mental health populations rather than broader communities. However, indications are that the model is effective from a wider public health perspective (early intervention/prevention) in producing significant health outcomes in terms of improved wellbeing and increased levels of activation/self-management. More in-depth research collaboration with an academic institution is now required.
Practical implications
There is an implication that the recovery college needs to be fully embedded within the mental health pathway as part of the core offer. This would require significant service redesign and culture change within the organisation.
Social implications
There is a need to continue to work with other statutory service providers, key stakeholders, voluntary and community sectors to embed the college with wider public health services and ensure a holistic approach across local communities and the whole health pathway.
Originality/value
Although the model is based on the widely recognised national recovery college model, it has moved away from the usual boundaries of access only being for those attached to secondary care mental health services to a more holistic and integrative approach of offering access to the whole population. Social value is indicated in the ownership and co-production of the model by the collaboration of student expertise, experts by experience and experts by expertise. The co-produced integrated volunteering and work pathway offers positive and cost-efficient health outcomes from a co-designed and co-delivered educational approach.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate cost efficiencies and health outcomes after one academic year of course delivery, in a recovery college.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper used service evaluation and review of data.
Findings
There is significant impact on health outcomes when standardised measures of Patient Activation Measure and Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale were completed pre- and post-intervention, with indications of possible financial efficiencies identified within secondary care mental health pathways.
Research limitations/implications
The current evaluation sample is only representative of community mental health populations rather than broader communities. However, indications are that the model is effective from a wider public health perspective (early intervention/prevention) in producing significant health outcomes in terms of improved wellbeing and increased levels of activation/self-management. More in-depth research collaboration with an academic institution is now required.
Practical implications
There is an implication that the recovery college needs to be fully embedded within the mental health pathway as part of the core offer. This would require significant service redesign and culture change within the organisation.
Social implications
There is a need to continue to work with other statutory service providers, key stakeholders, voluntary and community sectors to embed the college with wider public health services and ensure a holistic approach across local communities and the whole health pathway.
Originality/value
Although the model is based on the widely recognised national recovery college model, it has moved away from the usual boundaries of access only being for those attached to secondary care mental health services to a more holistic and integrative approach of offering access to the whole population. Social value is indicated in the ownership and co-production of the model by the collaboration of student expertise, experts by experience and experts by expertise. The co-produced integrated volunteering and work pathway offers positive and cost-efficient health outcomes from a co-designed and co-delivered educational approach.
Sustainable growth in the UK
Paper No CEPCP550 published in CentrePiece 24 (1) Spring 2019
The government could place the UK’s long-term economic prosperity at risk if it does not put action on climate change and sustainability at the heart of its growth strategy. That is the central message of a special report for the LSE Growth Commission, summarised by lead authors James Rydge, Ralf Martin and Anna Valero.
Full text (PDF 4pp)
The government could place the UK’s long-term economic prosperity at risk if it does not put action on climate change and sustainability at the heart of its growth strategy. That is the central message of a special report for the LSE Growth Commission, summarised by lead authors James Rydge, Ralf Martin and Anna Valero.
Full text (PDF 4pp)
Wednesday, 27 March 2019
Better detection of concussions using vital signs
a post by Ryan CN D'Arcy for the OUP blog
“SFU Ph.D student and brain researcher Shaun Fickling uses ‘brain vital signs’ to monitor brain function” by Simon Fraser University. Used with permission.
As a father of a young ice hockey player, I’m all too familiar with every parent’s concern about concussions. As a neuroscientist, I chose not to accept that it was okay to rely on subjective and error-prone tests to understand how best to care for our brains after concussion. We dared ourselves to think bigger, and to devise a solution that was larger than concussions – to ask the question: “Why don’t we have objective vital signs for brain function?”
We have vital signs for our body like heart rate, body temperature, respiratory rate, and blood pressure. Why not for our brain? You can’t treat what you can’t measure, bottom line. Therefore, we must first know if brain injuries, like concussions, have significantly affected brain function. We must also know whether our treatments are helping to promote improved recovery. In essence, we must have an objective measuring stick for brain function.
Continue reading
“SFU Ph.D student and brain researcher Shaun Fickling uses ‘brain vital signs’ to monitor brain function” by Simon Fraser University. Used with permission.
As a father of a young ice hockey player, I’m all too familiar with every parent’s concern about concussions. As a neuroscientist, I chose not to accept that it was okay to rely on subjective and error-prone tests to understand how best to care for our brains after concussion. We dared ourselves to think bigger, and to devise a solution that was larger than concussions – to ask the question: “Why don’t we have objective vital signs for brain function?”
We have vital signs for our body like heart rate, body temperature, respiratory rate, and blood pressure. Why not for our brain? You can’t treat what you can’t measure, bottom line. Therefore, we must first know if brain injuries, like concussions, have significantly affected brain function. We must also know whether our treatments are helping to promote improved recovery. In essence, we must have an objective measuring stick for brain function.
Continue reading
Sleepwalking into lock-in? Avoiding wrongs to future people in the governance of solar radiation management research
an article by Catriona McKinnon (University of Reading, UK) published in Environmental PoliticsVolume 28 Issue 3 (2019)
Abstract
Arguments are advanced for two ways in which we can avoid the reckless endangerment of future people in the governance of solar radiation management (SRM) research, which could happen through lock-in to SRM deployment from research.
SRM research is at an early stage, one at which the mechanisms of lock-in could start to operate.
However, lock-in fit to endanger future people could be slowed or stopped through targeted governance. Governance of SRM research that does not include provisions to detect, slow, or stop lock-in fails the test of an intergenerationally adequate precautionary principle, and research governed without these provisions cannot itself be justified as a precaution against the impacts of climate change.
Abstract
Arguments are advanced for two ways in which we can avoid the reckless endangerment of future people in the governance of solar radiation management (SRM) research, which could happen through lock-in to SRM deployment from research.
SRM research is at an early stage, one at which the mechanisms of lock-in could start to operate.
However, lock-in fit to endanger future people could be slowed or stopped through targeted governance. Governance of SRM research that does not include provisions to detect, slow, or stop lock-in fails the test of an intergenerationally adequate precautionary principle, and research governed without these provisions cannot itself be justified as a precaution against the impacts of climate change.
7 Gaslighting Phrases Malignant Narcissists, Sociopaths and Psychopaths Use To Silence You, Translated
a post by Shahida Arabi for the World of Psychology
Gaslighting is an insidious erosion of your sense of reality; it creates a mental fog of epic proportions in the twisted “funhouse” of smoke, mirrors, and distortions that is an abusive relationship. When a malignant narcissist gaslights you, they engage in crazymaking discussions and character assassinations where they challenge and invalidate your thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and sanity. Gaslighting enables narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths to exhaust you to the point where you are unable to fight back. Rather than finding ways to healthily detach from this toxic person, you are sabotaged in your efforts to find a sense of certainty and validation in what you’ve experienced.
The term “gaslighting” originated in Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play, Gas Light, where a manipulative husband drove his wife to insanity by causing her to question what she experienced. It was further popularized in the 1944 film adaptation, Gaslight, a psychological thriller about a man named Gregory Anton who murders a famous opera singer. He later marries her niece, Paula to convince her she is going crazy to the point of being institutionalized, with the agenda of stealing the rest of her family jewels. According to Dr. George Simon, victims of chronic gaslighting can suffer from a wide array of side effects, including flashbacks, heightened anxiety, intrusive thoughts, a low sense of self-worth, and mental confusion. In cases of severe manipulation and abuse, gaslighting can even lead to suicidal ideation, self-harm, and self-sabotage.
Gaslighting can take many forms – from questioning the status of your mental health to outright challenging your lived experiences. The most dangerous culprits of gaslighting? Malignant narcissists, who, by default, use gaslighting as a strategy to undermine the perception of their victims in order to evade accountability for their abuse. These perpetrators can use gaslighting callously and sadistically because they lack the remorse, empathy, or conscience to have any limits when they terrorize you or covertly provoke you. Gaslighting by a malignant narcissist is covert murder with clean hands, allowing the perpetrator to get away with their mistreatment while depicting the victims as the abusers.
I’ve spoken to thousands of survivors of malignant narcissists who have shared their stories of gaslighting, and below I include the most commonly used phrases malignant narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths employ to terrorize and deplete you, translated into what they really mean.
Continue reading
Gaslighting is an insidious erosion of your sense of reality; it creates a mental fog of epic proportions in the twisted “funhouse” of smoke, mirrors, and distortions that is an abusive relationship. When a malignant narcissist gaslights you, they engage in crazymaking discussions and character assassinations where they challenge and invalidate your thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and sanity. Gaslighting enables narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths to exhaust you to the point where you are unable to fight back. Rather than finding ways to healthily detach from this toxic person, you are sabotaged in your efforts to find a sense of certainty and validation in what you’ve experienced.
The term “gaslighting” originated in Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play, Gas Light, where a manipulative husband drove his wife to insanity by causing her to question what she experienced. It was further popularized in the 1944 film adaptation, Gaslight, a psychological thriller about a man named Gregory Anton who murders a famous opera singer. He later marries her niece, Paula to convince her she is going crazy to the point of being institutionalized, with the agenda of stealing the rest of her family jewels. According to Dr. George Simon, victims of chronic gaslighting can suffer from a wide array of side effects, including flashbacks, heightened anxiety, intrusive thoughts, a low sense of self-worth, and mental confusion. In cases of severe manipulation and abuse, gaslighting can even lead to suicidal ideation, self-harm, and self-sabotage.
Gaslighting can take many forms – from questioning the status of your mental health to outright challenging your lived experiences. The most dangerous culprits of gaslighting? Malignant narcissists, who, by default, use gaslighting as a strategy to undermine the perception of their victims in order to evade accountability for their abuse. These perpetrators can use gaslighting callously and sadistically because they lack the remorse, empathy, or conscience to have any limits when they terrorize you or covertly provoke you. Gaslighting by a malignant narcissist is covert murder with clean hands, allowing the perpetrator to get away with their mistreatment while depicting the victims as the abusers.
I’ve spoken to thousands of survivors of malignant narcissists who have shared their stories of gaslighting, and below I include the most commonly used phrases malignant narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths employ to terrorize and deplete you, translated into what they really mean.
Continue reading
Policy Practitioners’ Accounts of Evidence-Based Policy Making: The Case of Universal Credit
an article by Mark Monaghan (Loughborough University, UK) and Jo Ingold (University of Leeds, UK) published in Journal of Social Policy Volume 48 Issue 2 (April 2019)
Abstract
This paper draws on insider accounts from UK Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) officials to analyse the relationship between evidence and policy making at a time of rapid policy development relating to Universal Credit (UC).
The paper argues, firstly, that evidence selection within the DWP was constrained by the overarching austerity paradigm, which constituted a Zeitgeist and had a significant bearing on the evidence selection and translation process, sharpening the focus of policy officials and analysts on the primacy of quantitative evidence when advising Ministers.
Secondly, while methodological preferences (or an ‘evidence hierarchy’) impacted on evidence selection, this was not as significant as practitioners’ perceived capabilities to handle and develop evidence for policy. These capabilities were linked to departmental structures and constrained by political feasibility.
Together, these dimensions constituted a significant filtration mechanism determining the kinds of evidence that were selected for policy development and those omitted, particularly in relation to UC. The paper contributes to debates about the contemporary role of evidence in policy-making and the potential of the relationship between future evidence production and use.
Abstract
This paper draws on insider accounts from UK Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) officials to analyse the relationship between evidence and policy making at a time of rapid policy development relating to Universal Credit (UC).
The paper argues, firstly, that evidence selection within the DWP was constrained by the overarching austerity paradigm, which constituted a Zeitgeist and had a significant bearing on the evidence selection and translation process, sharpening the focus of policy officials and analysts on the primacy of quantitative evidence when advising Ministers.
Secondly, while methodological preferences (or an ‘evidence hierarchy’) impacted on evidence selection, this was not as significant as practitioners’ perceived capabilities to handle and develop evidence for policy. These capabilities were linked to departmental structures and constrained by political feasibility.
Together, these dimensions constituted a significant filtration mechanism determining the kinds of evidence that were selected for policy development and those omitted, particularly in relation to UC. The paper contributes to debates about the contemporary role of evidence in policy-making and the potential of the relationship between future evidence production and use.
Environmental Justice and Public Beach Access
an article by Jinwon Kim (University of Florida), Seong Ok Lyu (Korea University) and HakJun Song (Pai Chai University) published in City & Community Volume 18 Issue 1 (March 2019)
Abstract
Beaches are an important recreational setting due to their provision of ideal open spaces for diverse water‐ and land‐based recreation opportunities. Despite the importance of assessing the environmental justice of public beach access, few empirical studies have been conducted in community recreation.
Using an environmental justice framework, this study examined whether inequities exist for certain racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups with respect to the distribution of public beach access in the Detroit Metropolitan Area.
Results indicated that inequitable public beach access is associated with population density, median housing value, elderly population, and nonvehicle ownership. Such findings can help public leisure agencies to assess environmental justice, a first step in developing more effective community recreation planning and management policies. Study implications, limitations, and recommendations for further research are also discussed.
Full text (PDF 22pp)
Abstract
Beaches are an important recreational setting due to their provision of ideal open spaces for diverse water‐ and land‐based recreation opportunities. Despite the importance of assessing the environmental justice of public beach access, few empirical studies have been conducted in community recreation.
Using an environmental justice framework, this study examined whether inequities exist for certain racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups with respect to the distribution of public beach access in the Detroit Metropolitan Area.
Results indicated that inequitable public beach access is associated with population density, median housing value, elderly population, and nonvehicle ownership. Such findings can help public leisure agencies to assess environmental justice, a first step in developing more effective community recreation planning and management policies. Study implications, limitations, and recommendations for further research are also discussed.
Full text (PDF 22pp)
England’s post-16 qualifications to be streamlined
an article by Sally Weale Education correspondent published in the Guardian
Education secretary to launch consultation to check courses are fit for purpose
The government is planning to streamline post-16 qualifications in England, scrapping funding for what it sees as poor-quality courses that fail to equip young people adequately for further education or employment.
In addition to A-levels and the new T-level vocational qualifications, there are 12,000 post-16 qualifications available, many of which overlap in the same subject areas, causing confusion among students and employers.
The education secretary, Damian Hinds, is to launch a consultation reviewing the post-16 qualification landscape – excluding A-levels and T-levels – looking at applied general qualifications and technical certificates among others to check they are fit for purpose.
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Education secretary to launch consultation to check courses are fit for purpose
The government is planning to streamline post-16 qualifications in England, scrapping funding for what it sees as poor-quality courses that fail to equip young people adequately for further education or employment.
In addition to A-levels and the new T-level vocational qualifications, there are 12,000 post-16 qualifications available, many of which overlap in the same subject areas, causing confusion among students and employers.
The education secretary, Damian Hinds, is to launch a consultation reviewing the post-16 qualification landscape – excluding A-levels and T-levels – looking at applied general qualifications and technical certificates among others to check they are fit for purpose.
Continue reading
Gender disparities in European labour markets: A comparison of conditions for men and women in paid employment
an article by Rosalia Castellano and Antonella Rocca (Parthenope University of Naples, Italy) published in International Labour Review Volume 157 Number 4 (December 2018)
Abstract
Although the dramatic increase in female labour force participation in recent decades has been connected to significant changes in economic opportunities for women, gender disparities in the labour market persist in many forms.
This article seeks to assess whether higher gender differentials in European labour markets are directly related to poor economic conditions.
To this end, the results of a composite indicator designed and developed by the authors in a previous study are updated and three new composite indicators are constructed for a separate analysis of female and male labour market conditions and gender gap for paid employment.
Full text (PDF 20pp)
Abstract
Although the dramatic increase in female labour force participation in recent decades has been connected to significant changes in economic opportunities for women, gender disparities in the labour market persist in many forms.
This article seeks to assess whether higher gender differentials in European labour markets are directly related to poor economic conditions.
To this end, the results of a composite indicator designed and developed by the authors in a previous study are updated and three new composite indicators are constructed for a separate analysis of female and male labour market conditions and gender gap for paid employment.
Full text (PDF 20pp)
Tuesday, 26 March 2019
int lit ready
‘Now fades the last long streak of snow’: A Poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
via Interesting LIterature
‘Now fades the last long streak of snow’: this canto, Canto CXV from Alfred, Lord Tennyson‘s long elegy In Memoriam A. H. H. (1850) – written in memory of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam – offers a bittersweet take on the arrival of spring. What grows in the speaker’s breast as spring comes into blossom is regret – regret that his dear friend is gone, that spring is a reminder that the world continues to turn and life carries on, but Tennyson’s friend does not return. One of the best poems in a great long poetic sequence.
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via Interesting LIterature
‘Now fades the last long streak of snow’: this canto, Canto CXV from Alfred, Lord Tennyson‘s long elegy In Memoriam A. H. H. (1850) – written in memory of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam – offers a bittersweet take on the arrival of spring. What grows in the speaker’s breast as spring comes into blossom is regret – regret that his dear friend is gone, that spring is a reminder that the world continues to turn and life carries on, but Tennyson’s friend does not return. One of the best poems in a great long poetic sequence.
Continue reading
How Getting Hit by a Bus Taught Me to Stop Worrying and Start Living
a post by Jay Liew for the Tiny Buddha blog
“Sometimes it takes a good fall to really know where you stand.” – Hayley Williams
How often do you appreciate the pleasure of taking a deep breath? Have you stopped worrying about what the world can do to you, and instead focused on what you can do in the world? Do you actively appreciate your life, as a part of your daily routine?
Odds are you do not. I know I certainly didn’t, until it was nearly taken from me.
I’ve been riding bicycles around New York City since I was a child. While cycling in the city used to be considered something of an extreme sport, in the last couple of years the city built bike paths on many streets and avenues, making it safer.
It was during this expansion that I was hit by a bus.
In 2009 I would ride my bicycle to and from work every day, using bike lanes whenever possible.
Nights were a different story. I avoided certain roads because the prevalence of bicyclists who would travel the wrong way without using any lights raised the spectre of a crash, and falling out of the bike lane and into traffic.
Continue reading
“Sometimes it takes a good fall to really know where you stand.” – Hayley Williams
How often do you appreciate the pleasure of taking a deep breath? Have you stopped worrying about what the world can do to you, and instead focused on what you can do in the world? Do you actively appreciate your life, as a part of your daily routine?
Odds are you do not. I know I certainly didn’t, until it was nearly taken from me.
I’ve been riding bicycles around New York City since I was a child. While cycling in the city used to be considered something of an extreme sport, in the last couple of years the city built bike paths on many streets and avenues, making it safer.
It was during this expansion that I was hit by a bus.
In 2009 I would ride my bicycle to and from work every day, using bike lanes whenever possible.
Nights were a different story. I avoided certain roads because the prevalence of bicyclists who would travel the wrong way without using any lights raised the spectre of a crash, and falling out of the bike lane and into traffic.
Continue reading
Anxious Europe
an article by Florian Bieber published in Eurozine
Mostar bridge Bosnia and Herzegovina (2017). Photo source: Photo by Faruk Kaymak on Unsplash
The perpetual transition in eastern Europe has led to the spread of an angst-ridden politics. While the derailing of imported western institutions calls into question the project of Europeanization, transnational solidarity remains possible and necessary.
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Mostar bridge Bosnia and Herzegovina (2017). Photo source: Photo by Faruk Kaymak on Unsplash
The perpetual transition in eastern Europe has led to the spread of an angst-ridden politics. While the derailing of imported western institutions calls into question the project of Europeanization, transnational solidarity remains possible and necessary.
Continue reading
Incarceration can be rehabilitative
a column by Manudeep Bhuller, Gordon Dahl, Katrine V. Løken and Magne Mogstad for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
Incarceration rates have tripled in the US and almost doubled in Western Europe over the past 50 years.
This column uses data on the criminal behaviour and labour market outcomes of every Norwegian to show that in contrast to the US, where incarceration appears to encourage reoffending and damages labour prospects, the Norwegian prison system is successful in increasing participation in job training programmes, encouraging employment, and discouraging crime.
It argues that Norway’s high rehabilitation expenditures are more than offset by the corresponding benefits to society.
Continue reading
Incarceration rates have tripled in the US and almost doubled in Western Europe over the past 50 years.
This column uses data on the criminal behaviour and labour market outcomes of every Norwegian to show that in contrast to the US, where incarceration appears to encourage reoffending and damages labour prospects, the Norwegian prison system is successful in increasing participation in job training programmes, encouraging employment, and discouraging crime.
It argues that Norway’s high rehabilitation expenditures are more than offset by the corresponding benefits to society.
Continue reading
5 Mental Shifts to Stop Caring What People Think of You
a post by Sandy Woznicki for the World of Psychology blog
“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.” – Lao Tzu
We carefully pick out what we wear to the gym to make sure we look good in the eyes of the other gym goers.
We beat ourselves up after meetings running through everything we said (or didn’t say), worried that coworkers will think we aren’t smart or talented enough.
We post only the best picture out of the twenty-seven selfies we took and add a flattering filter to get the most likes to prove to ourselves that we are pretty and likable.
We live in other people’s heads.
And all it does is make us judge ourselves more harshly. It makes us uncomfortable in our own bodies. It makes us feel apologetic for being ourselves. It makes us live according to our perception of other people’s standards.
It makes us feel inauthentic. Anxious. Judgmental. Not good enough. Not likable enough. Not smart enough. Not pretty enough.
Continue reading
“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.” – Lao Tzu
We carefully pick out what we wear to the gym to make sure we look good in the eyes of the other gym goers.
We beat ourselves up after meetings running through everything we said (or didn’t say), worried that coworkers will think we aren’t smart or talented enough.
We post only the best picture out of the twenty-seven selfies we took and add a flattering filter to get the most likes to prove to ourselves that we are pretty and likable.
We live in other people’s heads.
And all it does is make us judge ourselves more harshly. It makes us uncomfortable in our own bodies. It makes us feel apologetic for being ourselves. It makes us live according to our perception of other people’s standards.
It makes us feel inauthentic. Anxious. Judgmental. Not good enough. Not likable enough. Not smart enough. Not pretty enough.
Continue reading
Diversity, economic development and new migrant entrepreneurs
an article by Trevor Jones and Monder Ram (University of Birmingham, UK) and Maria Villares-Varela (University of Southatmpton, UK) published in Urban Studies Volume 56 Issue 5 (April 2019)
Abstract
How do migrant entrepreneurs contribute to economic development? The growing attention to the contribution that migrants make tends to be skewed towards their economic role.
Drawing on interviews with 49 new migrant business owners and 60 workers in the West Midlands, UK, we argue that benefits of diversity should be explored beyond the economic dividend. We engage with key theoretical developments in the fields of migrant entrepreneurship and diversity economics, and show that migrant entrepreneurs are characterised by the polarisation of their performance between high fliers and survival entrepreneurs.
Despite their overall resource poverty, migrant entrepreneurs on the lower level create employment for their locality, cater to community needs and cushion the social incorporation of new communities in British society.
We argue that debates around the benefits of diversity should incorporate not only economic growth, but also its impact on social processes.
Abstract
How do migrant entrepreneurs contribute to economic development? The growing attention to the contribution that migrants make tends to be skewed towards their economic role.
Drawing on interviews with 49 new migrant business owners and 60 workers in the West Midlands, UK, we argue that benefits of diversity should be explored beyond the economic dividend. We engage with key theoretical developments in the fields of migrant entrepreneurship and diversity economics, and show that migrant entrepreneurs are characterised by the polarisation of their performance between high fliers and survival entrepreneurs.
Despite their overall resource poverty, migrant entrepreneurs on the lower level create employment for their locality, cater to community needs and cushion the social incorporation of new communities in British society.
We argue that debates around the benefits of diversity should incorporate not only economic growth, but also its impact on social processes.
The changing nature and role of vocational education and training in Europe. Volume 6
This publication is the sixth in a series produced as part of the Cedefop project The changing nature and role of VET (2016-18).
Based on analysis of developments over the past two decades (1995-2015), the report provides important insights into developments and change processes related to vocationally oriented education and training at higher levels (levels 5 to 8 of the European qualifications framework).
Building on detailed national case studies, the report demonstrates the expansion and diversification of vocationally oriented education and training offered at higher levels in European countries and the variations in how countries use the higher levels: there is evidence for strengthening vocational principles at higher levels in various ways as well as for strengthening academic principles.
It also covers current debates and potential future challenges, including juggling labour market demands and wider societal values, finding the right balance between academic and vocational principles, and achieving parity of esteem between academically oriented and vocationally oriented qualifications at higher levels, by improving awareness and visibility of the latter.
Full text (PDF 162pp)
Based on analysis of developments over the past two decades (1995-2015), the report provides important insights into developments and change processes related to vocationally oriented education and training at higher levels (levels 5 to 8 of the European qualifications framework).
Building on detailed national case studies, the report demonstrates the expansion and diversification of vocationally oriented education and training offered at higher levels in European countries and the variations in how countries use the higher levels: there is evidence for strengthening vocational principles at higher levels in various ways as well as for strengthening academic principles.
It also covers current debates and potential future challenges, including juggling labour market demands and wider societal values, finding the right balance between academic and vocational principles, and achieving parity of esteem between academically oriented and vocationally oriented qualifications at higher levels, by improving awareness and visibility of the latter.
Full text (PDF 162pp)
Monday, 25 March 2019
Whatever happened to digital democracy?
an article by Joe Mitchell (Democracy Club) published in IPPR Progressive Review Volume 25 Issue 4 (Spring 2019)
Introduction
In his 1932 novel, Brave New World, Aldous Huxley imagined a society utterly changed by technology: a utopia or dystopia, depending on your point of view. It is not uncommon to see commentators compare it with George Orwell's 1984 and suggest that Huxley more accurately ‘predicted’ today.
Has technology and modern consumer capitalism left us unthinking, uncritical beings blissfully and blindly stumbling through life? Are we living in a utopia or a dystopia as a result of terrific technological advance over the last decades? Or is this to overstate the case for the level of change so far wrought by technology?
“Over the last few years, the narrative of opportunity for a better democracy has faltered in the face of reality”
This debate has gone on in the domain of democracy for decades, where conflicting visions of ‘digital democracy’ abound. Over the last few years, the narrative of opportunity for a better democracy has faltered in the face of reality. Dystopian visions are in the ascendant. But if we can remain cognisant of, yet not bowed by, the risks presented by digital technology, there remains a case for cautious optimism.
Full text (PDF 8pp)
Introduction
In his 1932 novel, Brave New World, Aldous Huxley imagined a society utterly changed by technology: a utopia or dystopia, depending on your point of view. It is not uncommon to see commentators compare it with George Orwell's 1984 and suggest that Huxley more accurately ‘predicted’ today.
Has technology and modern consumer capitalism left us unthinking, uncritical beings blissfully and blindly stumbling through life? Are we living in a utopia or a dystopia as a result of terrific technological advance over the last decades? Or is this to overstate the case for the level of change so far wrought by technology?
“Over the last few years, the narrative of opportunity for a better democracy has faltered in the face of reality”
This debate has gone on in the domain of democracy for decades, where conflicting visions of ‘digital democracy’ abound. Over the last few years, the narrative of opportunity for a better democracy has faltered in the face of reality. Dystopian visions are in the ascendant. But if we can remain cognisant of, yet not bowed by, the risks presented by digital technology, there remains a case for cautious optimism.
Full text (PDF 8pp)
How Embracing and Loving My "Negative" Emotions Helped Heal My Pain
a post by Kelly Martin for the Tiny Buddha blog
“Do not fight against pain; do not fight against irritation or jealousy. Embrace them with great tenderness, as though you were embracing a little baby. Your anger is yourself, and you should not be violent toward it. The same thing goes for all your emotions.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
For a long time, heaviness and dark feelings were very familiar to me. In a strange way they were comforting; I felt safe in darkness. The light felt more painful to me, but I also wanted to change because I wanted to free myself from the limitations of staying in the dark.
I first started struggling with depression when I was young. From an early age my mother told me there was something wrong with me, particularly when I dared to express “negative” feelings, like anger. It became a mantra that filled my mind all the time. This one statement pervaded my entire life and dramatically affected the choices I made and didn’t make, well into adulthood.
In my early forties, after much searching, I hit rock bottom. I was lying in bed, wanting to die, my thoughts telling me how wrong I was as a human being, when another thought popped into my mind: “What if depression is a gift?”
Continue reading
“Do not fight against pain; do not fight against irritation or jealousy. Embrace them with great tenderness, as though you were embracing a little baby. Your anger is yourself, and you should not be violent toward it. The same thing goes for all your emotions.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
For a long time, heaviness and dark feelings were very familiar to me. In a strange way they were comforting; I felt safe in darkness. The light felt more painful to me, but I also wanted to change because I wanted to free myself from the limitations of staying in the dark.
I first started struggling with depression when I was young. From an early age my mother told me there was something wrong with me, particularly when I dared to express “negative” feelings, like anger. It became a mantra that filled my mind all the time. This one statement pervaded my entire life and dramatically affected the choices I made and didn’t make, well into adulthood.
In my early forties, after much searching, I hit rock bottom. I was lying in bed, wanting to die, my thoughts telling me how wrong I was as a human being, when another thought popped into my mind: “What if depression is a gift?”
Continue reading
Warning: music therapy comes with risks
a post by James Hiller and Susan C. Gardstrom published in the OUP blog
“a group of musical instruments including a guitar, drum, and keyboard” by Brian Goodman. Royalty free via Shutterstock
Bob Marley sings, “One good thing about music—when it hits you, you feel no pain.” Although this may be the case for some people and in some circumstances, we dispute this statement as a global truth. After all, couldn’t any phenomenon commanding enough to alleviate human pain (ostensibly instantaneously) also harbor the potential to catalyze undesirable, even injurious, effects? And couldn’t this influence then logically extend to music employed within the context of a therapeutic process?
As music therapist and Concordia University Associate Professor Dr. Laurel Young writes, “the ‘miraculous’ effects of music as featured in popular media along with the widely accepted notion that music is a ‘universal’ medium can lead to false generalizations and over-simplification of how music can and should be used in healthcare or other psychosocial contexts.” One possible manifestation of this oversimplification is to view music as a noninvasive and wholly-positive cure-all, and thus disregard the potential risks associated with music engagement.
Continue reading
“a group of musical instruments including a guitar, drum, and keyboard” by Brian Goodman. Royalty free via Shutterstock
Bob Marley sings, “One good thing about music—when it hits you, you feel no pain.” Although this may be the case for some people and in some circumstances, we dispute this statement as a global truth. After all, couldn’t any phenomenon commanding enough to alleviate human pain (ostensibly instantaneously) also harbor the potential to catalyze undesirable, even injurious, effects? And couldn’t this influence then logically extend to music employed within the context of a therapeutic process?
As music therapist and Concordia University Associate Professor Dr. Laurel Young writes, “the ‘miraculous’ effects of music as featured in popular media along with the widely accepted notion that music is a ‘universal’ medium can lead to false generalizations and over-simplification of how music can and should be used in healthcare or other psychosocial contexts.” One possible manifestation of this oversimplification is to view music as a noninvasive and wholly-positive cure-all, and thus disregard the potential risks associated with music engagement.
Continue reading
6 Good Reasons to Laugh More
a post by Therese J. Borchard for the World of Psychology blog
It’s been 40 years since Norman Cousins published his classic An Anatomy of an Illness, in which he documents curing himself with a high dose of vitamin C and a continuous stream of humorous films. Since then research has further established the medicinal benefits of laughter, helping everything from Alzheimer’s disease and allergies to backaches and muscle cramping.
Following one of his studies on the benefits of laughter, Dr. Michael Miller said he envisioned a time when physicians might recommend that everyone get 15 to 20 minutes of laughter in a day much like physicians recommend regular exercise. Noted laughter researcher Robert Provine commented in the documentary Laugh Out Loud, “Until the scientists work out all the details, get in all the laughter that you can!”
Continue reading
It’s been 40 years since Norman Cousins published his classic An Anatomy of an Illness, in which he documents curing himself with a high dose of vitamin C and a continuous stream of humorous films. Since then research has further established the medicinal benefits of laughter, helping everything from Alzheimer’s disease and allergies to backaches and muscle cramping.
Following one of his studies on the benefits of laughter, Dr. Michael Miller said he envisioned a time when physicians might recommend that everyone get 15 to 20 minutes of laughter in a day much like physicians recommend regular exercise. Noted laughter researcher Robert Provine commented in the documentary Laugh Out Loud, “Until the scientists work out all the details, get in all the laughter that you can!”
Continue reading
Engendering inclusive e-government use through citizen IT training programs
an article by Jae Bok Lee (Korea Institute of Public Administration, South Korea) and Gregory A.Porumbescu (Rutgers University, Newark, USA) published in Government Information Quarterly Volume 36 Issue 1 (January 2019)
Highlights
Abstract
Around the world, governments turn to information technology (IT) training programs to enhance equitable delivery of online public services to citizens.
However, the effectiveness of these citizen training programs has gone unexplored.
This study is motivated by two objectives:
We use data from South Korean to examine these objectives. Findings indicate citizen participation in government IT training programs is positively associated with e-government use and that this relationship is stronger for citizens who are elderly or disabled.
These findings highlight the potential of government IT training programs to mitigate the digital divide. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
Full text (HTML)
Highlights
- Citizen participation in IT training is positively associated with e-government use.
- This relationship is strongest for citizens who are elderly or disabled.
- These findings indicate IT training helps mitigate the digital divide.
Abstract
Around the world, governments turn to information technology (IT) training programs to enhance equitable delivery of online public services to citizens.
However, the effectiveness of these citizen training programs has gone unexplored.
This study is motivated by two objectives:
- To evaluate whether citizen participation in government training programs is associated with greater e-government use among participants, and
- To assess whether the strength of this relationship varies according to whether a citizen is elderly, disabled, or not – those who are elderly or disabled tend to use e-government the least.
We use data from South Korean to examine these objectives. Findings indicate citizen participation in government IT training programs is positively associated with e-government use and that this relationship is stronger for citizens who are elderly or disabled.
These findings highlight the potential of government IT training programs to mitigate the digital divide. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
Full text (HTML)
Taxing the rich: Compliance and fairness in community-based taxation – lessons from Paris in the middle ages
a column by Al Slivinski and Nathan Sussman for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
The problem of tax compliance is as old as the levying of taxes. Innovations in tax administration that induce high compliance rates at reasonable cost are extremely important to governments.
This column demonstrates how the taille, a tax collection mechanism from medieval Paris, raised compliance by turning the social cost of tax evasion into a private one. It offers a tax collection model that is still relevant to governments today.
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The problem of tax compliance is as old as the levying of taxes. Innovations in tax administration that induce high compliance rates at reasonable cost are extremely important to governments.
This column demonstrates how the taille, a tax collection mechanism from medieval Paris, raised compliance by turning the social cost of tax evasion into a private one. It offers a tax collection model that is still relevant to governments today.
Continue reading
It was frightening to struggle with antidepressants, but now I know there is another way
an article by Rachel Kelly for the New Statesman
PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
My argument is not to ignore medication in treating depression, but I would have rather avoided the side effects and the feeling I had to rely on pills over a long period.
Some use scissors. Others prefer a sharp knife. My own weapon of choice was a nail clipper.
Over the six months or so that I took to come off antidepressants, I found that the easiest way to halve and then quarter the pills was to raid the bathroom cabinet. My bedside table became a small pharmaceutical workshop. Eventually, there was nothing but white powder, which I would suck up with a straw when no one was around to avoid looking like a drug addict.
Ironically, I used other drugs, chiefly tranquillisers, to ease the process and reduce the anxiety of withdrawing from antidepressants. Using drugs to come off other pills was not ideal, but it was the way I managed a frightening period. I was terrified that I might fall ill again without medication.
Continue reading
PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
My argument is not to ignore medication in treating depression, but I would have rather avoided the side effects and the feeling I had to rely on pills over a long period.
Some use scissors. Others prefer a sharp knife. My own weapon of choice was a nail clipper.
Over the six months or so that I took to come off antidepressants, I found that the easiest way to halve and then quarter the pills was to raid the bathroom cabinet. My bedside table became a small pharmaceutical workshop. Eventually, there was nothing but white powder, which I would suck up with a straw when no one was around to avoid looking like a drug addict.
Ironically, I used other drugs, chiefly tranquillisers, to ease the process and reduce the anxiety of withdrawing from antidepressants. Using drugs to come off other pills was not ideal, but it was the way I managed a frightening period. I was terrified that I might fall ill again without medication.
Continue reading
Sunday, 24 March 2019
10 for today starts with a fascinating story about wasps, there's Roman roads and the guillotine as well as poetry. Something for everyone I hope
An Inordinate Fondness for Wasps
There are probably more species of them than any other animal group
via 3 Quarks Daily: Ed Yong in the Atlantic
LOVE NATURE / GETTY IMAGES
When talking about whether theology has anything to learn from science, the British biologist J. B. S. Haldane used to quip that God must have “an inordinate fondness for beetles.”
He had a point. Around 380,000 species of beetle have been described, which accounts for a quarter of all known animal species. There are more species of ladybugs than mammals, of longhorn beetles than birds, of weevils than fish. Textbooks and scientific papers regularly state that beetles are the most speciose group of animals; that is, there are more of them than there are of anything else.
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Slavic Paganism and Slavic Gods
via About History by Alcibiades
The pre-Christian religion of the Slavs is based on three primary sources. The first are written sources, which include classical writings, Arab travel accounts, Christian teachings discouraging the pagan religion, and medieval chronicles. The second source is the archeological finds, but debates continue over the identification of Slavic and none-Slavic cultures, the extent of migration and diffusion as opposed to autochthonous development . The third source is from folklore and ethnography, folk traditions, epic poems fairytales, ritual songs and dances. Many of these traditions are thought to have continued in modified and fragmentary forms as late as the beginning of the 20th century.
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Public goods are REALLY good: thousands of years later, the Roman roads are still paying dividends
via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow
Social scientists often promote the value of public provision of infrastructure as a sound, long-term investment in development and prosperity, pushing back against the neoliberal tendency to abandon public goods in favor of private development.
Researchers at the Centre for Economic Policy Research examined the amount of light emitted in territories adjacent to network of roads built millennia ago to service the Roman Empire, using light as a proxy for development and prosperity, comparing the light levels to light emitted by other parts of Europe, both those that were never part of the Roman Empire, and parts that the Empire conquered but did not extend their road network to.
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A Short Analysis of Matthew Arnold’s ‘Growing Old’
via Interesting Literature
On Arnold’s little-known meditation on growing older
‘Growing old’s like being increasingly penalised for a crime you haven’t committed.’ So said the great novelist Anthony Powell, summing up the sense of injustice that accompanies the onset of old age. There’s even a word for a fear of growing old: gerascophobia. In one of his less famous poems, the Victorian poet and critic Matthew Arnold (1822-88) wondered what it means to grow old.
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The Bloody Family History of the Guillotine
via 3 Quarks Daily: Edward White at The Paris Review
Killing was in the Sanson blood. The first of the family to act as the royal executioner was Charles-Henri’s great-grandfather, who was coerced into taking the position once his father-in-law had passed away. Over the next century, three other Sanson men inherited the role, before Charles-Henri succeeded in 1778. He was thirty-nine at the time, but already a capital punishment veteran. When his father had succumbed to a debilitating illness in 1754, Charles-Henri had taken over his duties on the scaffold, at the age of just fifteen. The boy exhibited astonishing qualities: a wisdom way beyond his years, and a stomach strong enough to see him through the strangulations, beheadings, and burnings that were his workaday life. While still a teenager, he conducted the last hanging, drawing and quartering in French history, inflicted upon Robert-François Damiens for an attempt on the King’s life. Sanson would later look back on this as a simpler time, when the worst sin imaginable was killing a king.
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From Tripoli to Timbuktu
via The National Archives Blog by Dr Juliette Desplat
Laing’s sketch of the ruins at Ghadames, 1825 (catalogue reference CO 2/15)
One hundred and ninety years ago, in April 1828, French explorer René Caillé became the first European to reach Timbuktu, in present-day Mali, and return alive. He was awarded 10,000 francs by the Société de Géographie, the French geographical society, and the book he published was funded by the French government. Caillé, however, had been preceded in Timbuktu by an Englishman, Major Alexander Gordon Laing.
In January 1825, Laing was instructed by Lord Bathurst, the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, to ‘proceed from Tripoli to Timbuctoo’ to gather information on the Niger basin and determine the exact location of this city (CO 392/3).
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4 ways making beer is all about science
via the Big Think blog by Robby Berman
Brewing beer is as much science as art, and here are four reasons why.
April 7th is National Beer Day, an ideal time to have a cold one. It commemorates the signing of 1933 Cullen-Harrison act, which made it legal — for the first time since Prohibition began in 1920 — for states to pass laws allowing people to buy, sell, and drink beer.
People have loved drinking beer a long time, possibly as far back as 10,000 BCE in the Godin Tepe settlement of what’s now Iran. There was certainly beer, called kui, being brewed in China by 7,000 BCE.
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An elegy for handwriting?
via Arts & Letters Daily: David Rundle in the Times Literary Supplement
Benedictional of St Aethelwold, ninth century © The British Library Board
Is it time to compose an elegy for handwriting? Anne Trubek thinks so – indeed, hopes so. She deems the ability to form a cursive script “merely emblematic”, and dreams of a future in which the school curriculum will include it only for art classes. It will remain solely the domain of calligraphers such as Patricia Lovett, who is herself probably Britain’s best-known practitioner, teacher and advocate. Lovett’s latest book is a gorgeously presented survey of the work of masterly scribes from the third century AD to the twenty-first, culminating, appropriately (and with no false modesty), with her own work. Though Lovett would undoubtedly baulk at such a description, her volume constitutes, in Trubek’s logic, an alluring swansong of an “antiquated” skill.
If script is dying, it cannot complain that its day has been short. Its solitary reign may have been ended by the printing press, but it lived on as a citizen in the new republic of letters: official records, account books, botanical drawings, not to mention works for private circulation and personal epistles, continued to be produced by hand for centuries. Then came the typewriter, but even its keys could not strike the death knell of handwriting. Perhaps that machine’s close descendants, the keyboards of our computers and their avatars on our screens, are administering the coup de grâce. Perhaps.
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The Short Lived Serbo-Greek Empire
via About History by Alcibiades
The Serbo-Greek Empire is the name of a medieval Serb state that significantly expanded its territory and took most of Byzantine Balkan possessions in 1250-1355. It reached its end in 1355-1356.
Stephen Dushan, who took Adrianople, died suddenly. An important feature of the creation of the Serbian-Greek Empire was that the Serbian units created it virtually bloodlessly, that is, without a single historically important battle: the former Byzantine cities either voluntarily surrendered to the Serbian army that besieged them, or defected to the side of the Serbs during the chaotic Byzantine civil war, or were occupied by the Serbs after their population was devastated by a plague.
Continue reading
==============================
10 of the Best Comic Poems Everyone Should Read
via Interesting Literature
Are these the greatest funny poems?
What are the funniest comic poems in the English language? What makes for a successfully humorous poem? The following post offers a selection of ten of the best and funniest comic poems in English literature, from the Middle Ages to the present day (or almost). As we’ve confined ourselves to ten poems, we’ve tended to focus on English (or British) poetry, and so have left out a few notable writers of light verse, such as Ogden Nash. Perhaps a follow-up post will have to atone for this, but in the meantime, we hope you enjoy these celebrated comic poems.
Continue reading and discover that Edward Lear is missing from the "best 10".
There are probably more species of them than any other animal group
via 3 Quarks Daily: Ed Yong in the Atlantic
LOVE NATURE / GETTY IMAGES
When talking about whether theology has anything to learn from science, the British biologist J. B. S. Haldane used to quip that God must have “an inordinate fondness for beetles.”
He had a point. Around 380,000 species of beetle have been described, which accounts for a quarter of all known animal species. There are more species of ladybugs than mammals, of longhorn beetles than birds, of weevils than fish. Textbooks and scientific papers regularly state that beetles are the most speciose group of animals; that is, there are more of them than there are of anything else.
Continue reading
==============================
via About History by Alcibiades
The pre-Christian religion of the Slavs is based on three primary sources. The first are written sources, which include classical writings, Arab travel accounts, Christian teachings discouraging the pagan religion, and medieval chronicles. The second source is the archeological finds, but debates continue over the identification of Slavic and none-Slavic cultures, the extent of migration and diffusion as opposed to autochthonous development . The third source is from folklore and ethnography, folk traditions, epic poems fairytales, ritual songs and dances. Many of these traditions are thought to have continued in modified and fragmentary forms as late as the beginning of the 20th century.
Continue reading
==============================
via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow
Social scientists often promote the value of public provision of infrastructure as a sound, long-term investment in development and prosperity, pushing back against the neoliberal tendency to abandon public goods in favor of private development.
Researchers at the Centre for Economic Policy Research examined the amount of light emitted in territories adjacent to network of roads built millennia ago to service the Roman Empire, using light as a proxy for development and prosperity, comparing the light levels to light emitted by other parts of Europe, both those that were never part of the Roman Empire, and parts that the Empire conquered but did not extend their road network to.
Continue reading
==============================
via Interesting Literature
On Arnold’s little-known meditation on growing older
‘Growing old’s like being increasingly penalised for a crime you haven’t committed.’ So said the great novelist Anthony Powell, summing up the sense of injustice that accompanies the onset of old age. There’s even a word for a fear of growing old: gerascophobia. In one of his less famous poems, the Victorian poet and critic Matthew Arnold (1822-88) wondered what it means to grow old.
Continue reading
==============================
via 3 Quarks Daily: Edward White at The Paris Review
Killing was in the Sanson blood. The first of the family to act as the royal executioner was Charles-Henri’s great-grandfather, who was coerced into taking the position once his father-in-law had passed away. Over the next century, three other Sanson men inherited the role, before Charles-Henri succeeded in 1778. He was thirty-nine at the time, but already a capital punishment veteran. When his father had succumbed to a debilitating illness in 1754, Charles-Henri had taken over his duties on the scaffold, at the age of just fifteen. The boy exhibited astonishing qualities: a wisdom way beyond his years, and a stomach strong enough to see him through the strangulations, beheadings, and burnings that were his workaday life. While still a teenager, he conducted the last hanging, drawing and quartering in French history, inflicted upon Robert-François Damiens for an attempt on the King’s life. Sanson would later look back on this as a simpler time, when the worst sin imaginable was killing a king.
Continue reading
==============================
via The National Archives Blog by Dr Juliette Desplat
Laing’s sketch of the ruins at Ghadames, 1825 (catalogue reference CO 2/15)
One hundred and ninety years ago, in April 1828, French explorer René Caillé became the first European to reach Timbuktu, in present-day Mali, and return alive. He was awarded 10,000 francs by the Société de Géographie, the French geographical society, and the book he published was funded by the French government. Caillé, however, had been preceded in Timbuktu by an Englishman, Major Alexander Gordon Laing.
In January 1825, Laing was instructed by Lord Bathurst, the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, to ‘proceed from Tripoli to Timbuctoo’ to gather information on the Niger basin and determine the exact location of this city (CO 392/3).
Continue reading
==============================
via the Big Think blog by Robby Berman
Brewing beer is as much science as art, and here are four reasons why.
April 7th is National Beer Day, an ideal time to have a cold one. It commemorates the signing of 1933 Cullen-Harrison act, which made it legal — for the first time since Prohibition began in 1920 — for states to pass laws allowing people to buy, sell, and drink beer.
People have loved drinking beer a long time, possibly as far back as 10,000 BCE in the Godin Tepe settlement of what’s now Iran. There was certainly beer, called kui, being brewed in China by 7,000 BCE.
Continue reading
==============================
via Arts & Letters Daily: David Rundle in the Times Literary Supplement
Benedictional of St Aethelwold, ninth century © The British Library Board
Is it time to compose an elegy for handwriting? Anne Trubek thinks so – indeed, hopes so. She deems the ability to form a cursive script “merely emblematic”, and dreams of a future in which the school curriculum will include it only for art classes. It will remain solely the domain of calligraphers such as Patricia Lovett, who is herself probably Britain’s best-known practitioner, teacher and advocate. Lovett’s latest book is a gorgeously presented survey of the work of masterly scribes from the third century AD to the twenty-first, culminating, appropriately (and with no false modesty), with her own work. Though Lovett would undoubtedly baulk at such a description, her volume constitutes, in Trubek’s logic, an alluring swansong of an “antiquated” skill.
If script is dying, it cannot complain that its day has been short. Its solitary reign may have been ended by the printing press, but it lived on as a citizen in the new republic of letters: official records, account books, botanical drawings, not to mention works for private circulation and personal epistles, continued to be produced by hand for centuries. Then came the typewriter, but even its keys could not strike the death knell of handwriting. Perhaps that machine’s close descendants, the keyboards of our computers and their avatars on our screens, are administering the coup de grâce. Perhaps.
Continue reading
==============================
via About History by Alcibiades
The Serbo-Greek Empire is the name of a medieval Serb state that significantly expanded its territory and took most of Byzantine Balkan possessions in 1250-1355. It reached its end in 1355-1356.
Stephen Dushan, who took Adrianople, died suddenly. An important feature of the creation of the Serbian-Greek Empire was that the Serbian units created it virtually bloodlessly, that is, without a single historically important battle: the former Byzantine cities either voluntarily surrendered to the Serbian army that besieged them, or defected to the side of the Serbs during the chaotic Byzantine civil war, or were occupied by the Serbs after their population was devastated by a plague.
Continue reading
==============================
via Interesting Literature
Are these the greatest funny poems?
What are the funniest comic poems in the English language? What makes for a successfully humorous poem? The following post offers a selection of ten of the best and funniest comic poems in English literature, from the Middle Ages to the present day (or almost). As we’ve confined ourselves to ten poems, we’ve tended to focus on English (or British) poetry, and so have left out a few notable writers of light verse, such as Ogden Nash. Perhaps a follow-up post will have to atone for this, but in the meantime, we hope you enjoy these celebrated comic poems.
Continue reading and discover that Edward Lear is missing from the "best 10".
Saturday, 23 March 2019
10 for today starts in Ancient Rome and ends, as is frequently the case, with poetry
10 Shocking Facts About Ancient Rome
via About History by Alcibiades
1. Surpassing their idols, the ancient Greeks, surgeons following the legions of Rome came up with numerous methods that progressed medicine. The most famous one is the band aid, made from woven cobwebs, honey and vinegar. It made for speedy healing of wounds.
Continue reading
I am not sure I would have used the word “shocking” for this fact but hey, what do I know?
==============================
Why do we have eyebrows? They may be the reason our species survived
via the Big Think blog by Philip Perry
We’ve been taking our eyebrows for granted. They may in fact be the thing that let us become the dominant species on Earth.
Eyebrows. You might not think much about them unless you have to manicure or shape them. Even then, they’re generally an afterthought. But have you ever wondered why in the world we have them to begin with? After all, our primate ancestors had hair all over their face. Why did it recede everywhere but at these two curvy places just above our eyes?
The initial response—one that your first-grade teacher may have given you—is they helped keep dirt and crud out of our eyes. But is that all? According to a recent study published in journal Nature: Ecology & Evolution, it’s our ability to communicate with these furry accent marks that gave our species an evolutionary advantage.
Continue reading
==============================
A Short Analysis of A. E. Housman’s ‘Because I Liked You Better’
via Interesting Literature
A poem about hopeless love
A. E. Housman (1859-1936) remains a popular poet with many readers not least because he so poignantly captures the feelings of heartbreak and hopeless love in his work. He is perhaps the unofficial Laureate of the Broken Heart: nobody has said it better. His short poem ‘Because I liked you better’ is about doing the noble thing and agreeing to give up chasing the one we love, because we know they can never return our love.
Continue reading
==============================
Wonder, love, and praise
via the OUP blog by D. Bruce Hindmarsh
“Full Moon photograph taken 10-22-2010 from Madison, Alabama, USA” by Gregory H. Revera. CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
T.S. Eliot admired the way seventeenth-century poets could bring diverse materials together into harmony, and for whom thought and feeling were combined in a unified sensibility. However, he famously described a kind of dissociated sensibility that set in at the end of the century with the advent of mechanical philosophy and materialist science. This made it more difficult to hold together the spiritual with the material. What, after all, is the response of a unified sensibility (of thought, feeling, and religious devotion) to particulate matter in void space obeying abstract mathematical laws?
Continue reading
==============================
New research sheds light on Neanderthals' distinctive features
via the Guardian by Nicola Davis
Study appears to rule out theory that Neanderthals’ facial shape was adapted for a powerful bite
Reconstructions of a Neanderthal man and woman at the Neanderthal museum in Mettmann, Germany. Photograph: Martin Meissner/AP
With their prominent noses, protruding faces and swept-back cheekbones, Neanderthals were nothing if not striking. Now researchers say they have unpicked why our big-browed cousins had such distinctive features.
Previous research has suggested a number of possible explanations for Neanderthals’ facial shape, including that it enabled a forceful bite with the front teeth – a theory based on their relatively large incisors and signs of tooth wear.
“As well as the processing of food, it looks like they were using their teeth [for] gripping as a third hand, and that of course would put a lot of force on the front of the jawbone,” said Dr Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London and a co-author of the new study.
Continue reading
==============================
Religious and supernatural belief linked with poor understanding of the physical world
via the Big Think blog by Alex Fradera
A study published in Applied Cognitive Psychology suggests that believers struggle to understand the physical world.
The number of people who claim to have “No religious belief” is fast-growing in America and Europe, but the number expressing religious belief is growing faster. What’s more, the irreligious category includes fans of astrology, tarot reading or the paranormal. The tenacity of supernatural belief has prompted scientists to try understand its basis, and so far their answers have mostly implied a defect in believers: the religious have a bias in their visual attention; people with supernatural belief fall for bullshit statements. Now, in a study in Applied Cognitive Psychology, comes the suggestion that believers struggle to understand the physical world.
Continue reading
==============================
Shakespeare’s Worlds of Science
via Arts & Letters Daily: Natalie Eliot in The New Atlantis
New scholarship reveals a Bard brooding over the science of his day. What can we learn from his vision of cosmic upheaval?
In Act V of Hamlet, after Hamlet has killed Polonius, Ophelia has died, and Hamlet has returned to Denmark from his murderous trip to England, he happens upon two gravediggers. It is an odd and puzzling scene, and a noticeable departure from the rising action of the play. At this juncture, we expect Hamlet to clash with his rivals. Instead, we get a deeply philosophical and darkly comic exchange on death, with the gravediggers singing as they toss around bones and Hamlet wondering about the lives of the skeletons before him.
This is one of several versions of the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe’s portrait that appeared as a frontispiece in his books in the 1590s. Among the names of his relatives surrounding the portrait are Rosenkrans and Guldensteren, both on the left side of the image.
Continue reading
==============================
Watch this incredible restoration of an extremely rusty butcher's knife
via Boing Boing by Andrea James
YouTuber Andre Will Do It found a butcher's knife that was coated in rust, with pitting over 2 millimeters deep on both sides. He almost gave up before eventually restoring it to excellent working condition.
Continue reading (and watching)
==============================
The Greatest Battles of the Roman-Persian Wars (Part 1)
via About History by Alexios
Perhaps the longest running rivalry in human history is between the Persians & Romans, and this article aims to give an insight into some of the battles between these two great powers.The battle of Carrhae (May 6th, 53 BCE)
The battle of Carrhae was a battle between the 40k-50k strong Roman force led by popular politician Crassus against the 10k strong Parthian force led by General Surena. the last two century consisted of relatively consistent fighting between the two powers ever since the decline of the Seleucid Empire, with the Seleucid Empire practically eliminated the two new powers of Rome & Parthia met in Mesopotamia and from there began the hostilities.
Crassus was a powerful and influential politician, having attained much wealth over the course of his career, however Crassus lacked one thing, Military glory. Crassus came to the conclusion that a military victory over a Parthian force would give great respect & fame across the Roman world, he assembled an army of over 40k-50k, consisting of roughly 30k Milites & the remainder being Auxiliaries.
Continue reading
==============================
A Short Analysis of William Dunbar’s ‘Done is a battell on the dragon blak’
via Interesting Literature
On one of the earliest Easter poems
As Easter approaches, we’re going to share some of our favourite Easter-themed poems over the next couple of weeks, in the run-up to Easter Day. First up, a wonderful late medieval poem. ‘Done is a battell on the dragon blak’: as opening lines go, it’s one of the most arresting. Sometimes alternately titled ‘On the Resurrection of Our Lord’, the poem is a masterpiece of Scottish medieval poetry. The author of this barn-storming opener was the medieval Scottish poet William Dunbar (c. 1465-c. 1530).
Continue reading
via About History by Alcibiades
1. Surpassing their idols, the ancient Greeks, surgeons following the legions of Rome came up with numerous methods that progressed medicine. The most famous one is the band aid, made from woven cobwebs, honey and vinegar. It made for speedy healing of wounds.
Continue reading
I am not sure I would have used the word “shocking” for this fact but hey, what do I know?
==============================
via the Big Think blog by Philip Perry
We’ve been taking our eyebrows for granted. They may in fact be the thing that let us become the dominant species on Earth.
Eyebrows. You might not think much about them unless you have to manicure or shape them. Even then, they’re generally an afterthought. But have you ever wondered why in the world we have them to begin with? After all, our primate ancestors had hair all over their face. Why did it recede everywhere but at these two curvy places just above our eyes?
The initial response—one that your first-grade teacher may have given you—is they helped keep dirt and crud out of our eyes. But is that all? According to a recent study published in journal Nature: Ecology & Evolution, it’s our ability to communicate with these furry accent marks that gave our species an evolutionary advantage.
Continue reading
==============================
via Interesting Literature
A poem about hopeless love
A. E. Housman (1859-1936) remains a popular poet with many readers not least because he so poignantly captures the feelings of heartbreak and hopeless love in his work. He is perhaps the unofficial Laureate of the Broken Heart: nobody has said it better. His short poem ‘Because I liked you better’ is about doing the noble thing and agreeing to give up chasing the one we love, because we know they can never return our love.
Continue reading
==============================
via the OUP blog by D. Bruce Hindmarsh
“Full Moon photograph taken 10-22-2010 from Madison, Alabama, USA” by Gregory H. Revera. CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
T.S. Eliot admired the way seventeenth-century poets could bring diverse materials together into harmony, and for whom thought and feeling were combined in a unified sensibility. However, he famously described a kind of dissociated sensibility that set in at the end of the century with the advent of mechanical philosophy and materialist science. This made it more difficult to hold together the spiritual with the material. What, after all, is the response of a unified sensibility (of thought, feeling, and religious devotion) to particulate matter in void space obeying abstract mathematical laws?
Continue reading
==============================
via the Guardian by Nicola Davis
Study appears to rule out theory that Neanderthals’ facial shape was adapted for a powerful bite
Reconstructions of a Neanderthal man and woman at the Neanderthal museum in Mettmann, Germany. Photograph: Martin Meissner/AP
With their prominent noses, protruding faces and swept-back cheekbones, Neanderthals were nothing if not striking. Now researchers say they have unpicked why our big-browed cousins had such distinctive features.
Previous research has suggested a number of possible explanations for Neanderthals’ facial shape, including that it enabled a forceful bite with the front teeth – a theory based on their relatively large incisors and signs of tooth wear.
“As well as the processing of food, it looks like they were using their teeth [for] gripping as a third hand, and that of course would put a lot of force on the front of the jawbone,” said Dr Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London and a co-author of the new study.
Continue reading
==============================
via the Big Think blog by Alex Fradera
A study published in Applied Cognitive Psychology suggests that believers struggle to understand the physical world.
The number of people who claim to have “No religious belief” is fast-growing in America and Europe, but the number expressing religious belief is growing faster. What’s more, the irreligious category includes fans of astrology, tarot reading or the paranormal. The tenacity of supernatural belief has prompted scientists to try understand its basis, and so far their answers have mostly implied a defect in believers: the religious have a bias in their visual attention; people with supernatural belief fall for bullshit statements. Now, in a study in Applied Cognitive Psychology, comes the suggestion that believers struggle to understand the physical world.
Continue reading
==============================
via Arts & Letters Daily: Natalie Eliot in The New Atlantis
New scholarship reveals a Bard brooding over the science of his day. What can we learn from his vision of cosmic upheaval?
In Act V of Hamlet, after Hamlet has killed Polonius, Ophelia has died, and Hamlet has returned to Denmark from his murderous trip to England, he happens upon two gravediggers. It is an odd and puzzling scene, and a noticeable departure from the rising action of the play. At this juncture, we expect Hamlet to clash with his rivals. Instead, we get a deeply philosophical and darkly comic exchange on death, with the gravediggers singing as they toss around bones and Hamlet wondering about the lives of the skeletons before him.
This is one of several versions of the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe’s portrait that appeared as a frontispiece in his books in the 1590s. Among the names of his relatives surrounding the portrait are Rosenkrans and Guldensteren, both on the left side of the image.
Continue reading
==============================
via Boing Boing by Andrea James
YouTuber Andre Will Do It found a butcher's knife that was coated in rust, with pitting over 2 millimeters deep on both sides. He almost gave up before eventually restoring it to excellent working condition.
Continue reading (and watching)
==============================
via About History by Alexios
Perhaps the longest running rivalry in human history is between the Persians & Romans, and this article aims to give an insight into some of the battles between these two great powers.The battle of Carrhae (May 6th, 53 BCE)
The battle of Carrhae was a battle between the 40k-50k strong Roman force led by popular politician Crassus against the 10k strong Parthian force led by General Surena. the last two century consisted of relatively consistent fighting between the two powers ever since the decline of the Seleucid Empire, with the Seleucid Empire practically eliminated the two new powers of Rome & Parthia met in Mesopotamia and from there began the hostilities.
Crassus was a powerful and influential politician, having attained much wealth over the course of his career, however Crassus lacked one thing, Military glory. Crassus came to the conclusion that a military victory over a Parthian force would give great respect & fame across the Roman world, he assembled an army of over 40k-50k, consisting of roughly 30k Milites & the remainder being Auxiliaries.
Continue reading
==============================
via Interesting Literature
On one of the earliest Easter poems
As Easter approaches, we’re going to share some of our favourite Easter-themed poems over the next couple of weeks, in the run-up to Easter Day. First up, a wonderful late medieval poem. ‘Done is a battell on the dragon blak’: as opening lines go, it’s one of the most arresting. Sometimes alternately titled ‘On the Resurrection of Our Lord’, the poem is a masterpiece of Scottish medieval poetry. The author of this barn-storming opener was the medieval Scottish poet William Dunbar (c. 1465-c. 1530).
Continue reading
Friday, 22 March 2019
Look at all the dead projects in this Google Graveyard
a post by Mark Frauenfelder for the Boing Boing blog
I use lots of Google products (Chrome, Gmail, Gcal, YouTube, and Google itself) and like them, but I'm wary of using new Google projects because the company has a history of releasing something, allowing a user base to grow, then yanking the rug out from under everyone by killing the project. This site shows 147 dead Google projects. I miss Google Reader, and will miss Google URL Shortener, Inbox, and even Google+.
The death of Google Reader was the one which affected me personally. It was horrible finding an acceptable alternative and then learning to use it!
OK, I now use Feedly but I do pay for the pro version to get features that I got for free on Reader.
I use lots of Google products (Chrome, Gmail, Gcal, YouTube, and Google itself) and like them, but I'm wary of using new Google projects because the company has a history of releasing something, allowing a user base to grow, then yanking the rug out from under everyone by killing the project. This site shows 147 dead Google projects. I miss Google Reader, and will miss Google URL Shortener, Inbox, and even Google+.
The death of Google Reader was the one which affected me personally. It was horrible finding an acceptable alternative and then learning to use it!
OK, I now use Feedly but I do pay for the pro version to get features that I got for free on Reader.
They're out to get you
a post by Lu Hersey for An Awfully Big Blog Adventure
Orwell would probably appreciate the irony...
A pit stop at a motorway service station with a friend the other day got me thinking about advertising and how it’s targeted. On the back of the doors in the women’s toilets were ads for a charity that supplies tampons and basic sanitary items to vulnerable women in refugee camps and other dangerous places. I drive a fair bit, so see this particular ad quite often.
As we bought ourselves a coffee before continuing the journey, my friend started telling me about the ads on the back of the doors in the men’s toilets. They were for flatulence control pants called My Shreddies. Seriously. There’s an entire range of pants and jeans for men that help stop farts polluting the atmosphere.
Interesting that advertising can be targeted so very differently depending on who you are, even in this very basic gender divide – and it’s so clever. But once advertisers start using algorithms to target you online, it gets really up close and personal.
You'll probably have encountered all the age related advertising that comes up on social media platforms. If you’re anything over 45, whether you like it or not, ads will pop up telling you how to pay for your funeral in advance (supposedly this gives you peace of mind – mostly it makes me wonder if they know something I don’t) along with ads about Alzheimer’s care and denture fixadents.
Continue reading
Orwell would probably appreciate the irony...
A pit stop at a motorway service station with a friend the other day got me thinking about advertising and how it’s targeted. On the back of the doors in the women’s toilets were ads for a charity that supplies tampons and basic sanitary items to vulnerable women in refugee camps and other dangerous places. I drive a fair bit, so see this particular ad quite often.
As we bought ourselves a coffee before continuing the journey, my friend started telling me about the ads on the back of the doors in the men’s toilets. They were for flatulence control pants called My Shreddies. Seriously. There’s an entire range of pants and jeans for men that help stop farts polluting the atmosphere.
Interesting that advertising can be targeted so very differently depending on who you are, even in this very basic gender divide – and it’s so clever. But once advertisers start using algorithms to target you online, it gets really up close and personal.
You'll probably have encountered all the age related advertising that comes up on social media platforms. If you’re anything over 45, whether you like it or not, ads will pop up telling you how to pay for your funeral in advance (supposedly this gives you peace of mind – mostly it makes me wonder if they know something I don’t) along with ads about Alzheimer’s care and denture fixadents.
Continue reading
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