#its debatable on whether that mental health leave is paid or not

[superpussyking]

I think being a practical researcher at the magnus Institute would suck but bc I imagine it's a whole lot of nothing and then all of a sudden it's phasmophobia. You're now the sole survivor of your expedition and then when you get back Elias is like "a tragic loss of life, truly- here sign this nda and I'll put you on a mental health leave" and Jon is staring at you like you are the last beef and cheese sandwich in a fallout gas station

#.txt post #tma #Elias bouchard #jon sims #jonathan sims #its debatable on whether that mental health leave is paid or not #i need a custom jonah magnus tag

[pub-lius]

A Debunking and, in my Humble Opinion, Superior Version of Weird History’s “Hardcore Facts About Alexander Hamilton”

I haven’t updated my blog in quite some time, and that is due to my schedule being primarily dominated by school. So, I decided my first step into posting semi-regularly once more shall be a more casual, more fun endeavor. 

If you have not heard of the Weird History youtube channel, good for you. It is yet another social media platform that misconstrues history to appeal to the public’s enjoyment of extremes and strangeness. I saw The Historical Fashion Queens make a video responding to their highly misinformed documentary on corsetry on Miss Abby Cox’s youtube channel, which I highly recommend. This intrigued me, and I decided to find a video I could dissect off my expertise, at first only for fun in my own time. This resulted in the production in a very long bullet list in the notes app of my phone. So here is my informal destruction of this godforsaken video.

Disclaimer: I am not at all excusing any of the awful things Alexander Hamilton did during his lifetime. I am absolutely the last person who would even come near to claiming that many of the things he did were justifiable in the slightest. Although, he might be the only historical figure which I have a very strong interest in the life of, as he was incredibly complex, and the part of me with a love of psychology finds him absolutely fascinating. There is also something to be said about the way we consider moral standards of historical figures. We are quite lucky to believe in the time that we do, and not all of our standards can apply to historical figures. This does not mean they should not be held accountable. I find that a way to criticize people while also praising them where it is due is by judging them based upon their intentions. In my opinion, Hamilton’s intentions were not to harm anyone in most situations, so I don’t think he was a terrible person, nor do I think he was a particularly good one. Then again, I don’t think either of those things about a mass majority of people, so let us proceed without further delay. (Note: I will also be referring to the collective Weird History channel as the Narrator to avoid any mental gymnastics, and all of my knowledge is coming from my memory of Hamilton’s writing and some biographies.)

Automatically, the video starts with mention of the musical, but that just reminds me that many use Ron Chernow’s biography of Hamilton as a basis of their statements about him without utilizing much critical thinking, so I am slightly nervous. 

The Narrator then refers to Hammy Ham man as “...one of America’s most undervalued founding fathers...” Now, it is debatable whether or not Mr. Hamilton is undervalued per se, but when it comes to the founding fathers, they are usually undervalued or overvalued. At this point, Hamilton is both.

I shall not subscribe, thank you for the offer though, Mr. Narrator.

Now for the first fact: “Historians don’t know when Hamilton was born.” Yes, this is correct, but I don’t believe this should be labeled as “hardcore”, but perhaps that is just me. One early document indicates that Hamilton was born in 1755, while all later ones point to 1757 as his year of birth. We know Hamilton was not always a completely honest man, so it is possible that he lied.

Also, they show an image of a baby, and I do not know if this is actually Hamilton, but they use a lot of strange imagery, which I found humorous.

“A self-made man born out of wedlock.” Now, this fact could indeed be “hardcore”, if this was not colonial America we are discussing. Hamilton actually wasn’t really special in this regard. Yes, his rise to fame was impressive considering his circumstances, but this wasn’t unheard of.

The Narrator then says that Hamilton’s mother, Rachel Faucette, was “estranged from her husband.” This caused me some confusion as it is a vast understatement. Her ex-husband was absolutely awful to her. 

Additionally, they claim that James Hamilton left his family behind for some reason that I did not write in my notes, but the most likely reason that he actually left was because of his awesome debt. James Hamilton also had a history of ambitious pursuits for money, so it would not be extreme to claim that he moved to another island to attempt to make a fortune in some trading endeavor.

They also cease to mention the Stevens family, who housed young Alexander while he was working for Beekman and Cruger, and had a great influence on him, but I digress.

“A college dropout who joined the Revolution.” Once again, this isn’t special. Many rowdy young Whigs left behind their careers and educations for pursuit of military fame in the Continental Army. They also do not mention anything of Hamilton’s expansive military career, which aside from being indicative of primitive research, but would produce more “hardcore facts.”

Although, they do discuss his application to Princeton college, which is interesting enough I suppose, although everyone who has heard the first two songs of the musical knows this story. His proposal for an “accelerated course of study” was likely inspired by Aaron Burr, as claimed by Chernow and Miranda, or James Madison, as supported by evidence provided by author Noah Feldman in his novel, The Three Lives of James Madison, which is an excellent read. Young Madison, having already completed a course, decided to do so again, but compacting a usually three year course into a shorter period of time. He hardly slept during this period, which was stressful upon his health, making Princeton more disinclined to allow a similar course to be taken.

The Narrator then claims that Hamilton “formed his own militia of 25 men.” Technically, yes? But not exactly. Hamilton joined a paramilitary group called the Hearts of Oak, and they drilled in Trinity Churchyard. This became ironic later. He then became a captain in the New York Artillery Company, and enlisted his own men, which was at one time around thirty or so, if my memory serves me correctly.

“Founded a bank that existed for over two centuries.” Ah, yes, a very hardcore fact indeed. Yes, Hamilton did establish the Bank of America, but Robert Morris was the one who inspired him to do so. Though, I do think the financial plan is a product of his own genius, but I will get into that much later.

I got an ad. :(

The Narrator also says that the misfortunes done to the New York shipping industry by the Articles of Confederation were the most prominent, if not sole, motivation for Hamilton to concoct his financial plan. He first recognized the need for a sound financial plan when he was in the army. You know, when he was watching men die of inadequate supplies because the government couldn’t tax the states.

This video, like Chernow’s biography and Miranda’s musical, claims that Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr were friends when, in actuality, they weren’t really. Yes, they knew each other, and they didn’t hate each other until the end of Hamilton’s life, but they really didn’t think about each other much before the Election of 1800.

“Hamilton authored over half of the Federalist Papers.” Indeed, he did! I enjoy this fact. It isn’t very “hardcore” but it is very impressive. The Federalist Papers were arguably Hamilton’s greatest accomplishment, as he organized the entire thing and, as previously stated, authored much of them. I very much enjoy the Federalist Papers, as they give some insight as to Hamilton’s political and philosophical theories, as well as how he thought of the world. It makes for an interesting read if you have something you’re looking for.

Now, this may be a hot take, but Madison’s essays are by far more effective, as they were better organized. Hamilton and I share a common flaw, and that is the lack of brevity. 

“Involved in America’s first sex scandal.” Yes, we all know. I’ll get into the Reynold’s affair later because it’s its own beast to conquer. Basically what you need to understand information I shall provide later in this post is that James Reynolds extorted money from Hamilton, and if Hamilton failed to pay, Reynolds would expose the affair Hamilton was having with his wife, Maria. Hamilton paid, but when Reynolds was arrested for something else, he exposed Hamilton anyway.

“He worked with Aaron Burr to defend a man.” Once again, this isn’t very surprising. They were both capable lawyers in the same area, so it was basically inevitable. Though there was this one instance where Hamilton and Burr were working on a case together and Hamilton, being himself, insisted upon having the last word. Well, Burr was tired of him, and I can’t say I blame him, so he made every possible argument in his finishing speech, leaving Hamilton with virtually nothing. 

The Narrator also mentions Hamilton’s opposition to slavery, but he didn’t really outwardly oppose it as much as you would think listening to the musical or reading Chernow’s biography. Far from being the “fervent abolitionist” Chernow and Miranda glorify, Hamilton didn’t really do much for the enslaved. He helped John Laurens in his Black Plan and joined the Manumission Society, but other than that, he never made any attempt to progress the abolition of slavery. He also “purchased” slaves for his in-laws, and some argue that he “owned” some himself, but there is no contemporary evidence to support this that I have seen. The enslaved and servants that were in his household likely belonged to his wife.

“Founded a newspaper that still exists.” Ok.

“Died by duel.” I swear, this fact is by far the most unnecessary. They mention the duel so many times that it is already redundant. I completely skipped over this part, and the video ended, so I was thoroughly underwhelmed.

Well, seeing as this post is already longer than my attention span, I shall save you the pains of having to read any more in just one post. I shall make a follow-up to this where I give my own facts, which I believe are far more hardcore than “he founded a newspaper.” I hope you have enjoyed and this isn’t too terribly boring. I hope to get back to posting soon.

#alexander hamilton #eliza hamilton #hamilton #hamilton the musical #hamilton the movie #lin manuel miranda #ron chernow #aaron burr #maria reynolds #james reynolds #james madison #thomas jefferson #john jay #weird history #abby cox #American Revolution #amrev #amrev history #american history #american colonies #america #the american revolution #The American War of Independence #colonial america #hamilton burr duel #duel #omg im so tired of planning and writing this but im pushing through for the sake of accurate portrayals of real people #im carrying the weight of the world all of you should be thanking me #is it awkward if i listen to how stands the glass around while i write this

[a-robin-among-thorns]

In The Shadows Of The Rising Sun Chp 11

Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 

Once again thank you for your patience and for reading this story :)

Chapter 11: A Girl’s Best Friend

Word Count: 2,028

Their first week in the strange situation they found themselves in came and went. New routines became established, waking early to assure mutual chances at breakfast, scouring the library for any books related to the magical customs of japan. Evening snacks, and homework in the forest, followed by lessons in magic and language respectively. 

As Chise had suspected, Reina was unconcerned if she returned late and even seemed somewhat pleased she didn’t have to share dinner company. Even her teachers had reluctantly admitted that her assignments were improving. And to top it off Reina would once again be gone this weekend while she visited a friend from college. 

Not to say they were no hiccups. One such hiccup greeted her that Sunday morning in the form of Elias’ nose hovered worriedly over her stomach. 

Sleep covered her like a film of moss that stretched and cracked as she forced her eyes open. She had no reason to feel this lethargic, she thought, their day yesterday had been spent leisurely reading through tomes of Japanese folklore.   

Concerned wuffles whined through Elias’ nose as he looked her over again. “Elias,” She groaned, “what's wrong?” 

“Chise, are you injured?” 

She blinked. “What?”

“I smell blood.” Troubled pants racked his frame never ceasing his frantic inspection. “I don’t understand, I was here all night… I should have known... what could have…” he muttered in increasing frustration. 

“Blood? I’m not…” realization crashed into her like a tidal wave. She sat up quickly forcing her knees together in frantic damage control. The sporadic movement served only to further worry Elias, as he froze eyes flitting from her face to his claws and back again. Her hands came up in placating motions. “It’s ok! Just... please help me to the bathroom.”

Smoky shadow dissipated and reformed just as quickly as his arms gripped her back and under her knees. As he lifted her in smooth bridal carry Chise quickly inspected where she had laid on the futon thankful for the uninterrupted color that signaled her fear was unwarranted. His strong legs crossed the apartment in hurried steps till the pads of his feet hit linoleum. She wriggled slightly and Elias relented to let her stand.

“Thank you, now just wait out here for a moment.” He made to protest briefly before nodding as she closed the door. 

A brief search in the under-sink cupboard yielded exactly one product. Delightful. 

To say Chise’s cycle was irregular was a gross understatement. There were occasions where entire seasons would pass between the end of one and the beginning of another. As such, she rarely requested sanitary products and that morning happened upon the bad luck of Reina’s supply being all but empty. Her head fell back and her eyes winced shut in a grimace. Not only would she have to devise a way to calm Elias, who had almost certainly melted into a puddle of anxiety by now, but also they would have to run to town and buy more pads. 

So much for our nice day, she thought dejectedly. She supposed in a strange way she should have been grateful for this undeniable sign that her health had improved ever so slightly thanks to the steady influx of food she had enjoyed since Elias’ arrival. Gratitude was difficult to muster however, as her organs decided they had stood idle long enough in the form ripping spasms across her abdomen. She grunted as she strained off the floor. There was work to do. 

The door opened to the scene of Elias nervously fidgeting before fixing his eyes on her. 

She breathed deeply before exhaling an explanation. “Its Ok Elias, I’m not hurt. It’s perfectly normal for girls to bleed every so often.” She prayed silently that she would not have to explain menstrual cycles to him in detail.

His fingers flexed anxiously, making unclear whether this explanation had calmed him or worried him further. “You are...not in pain then?”

“Well I wouldn’t say that.” she blurted as immediately as she regretted. Elias’ entire posture stood on end ready to jump the second she showed discomfort. “I mean, it's uncomfortable but not unbearable. We’ll just need to run to town to grab a few things.” 

Through a truly herculean effort, Chise somehow managed to get dressed while keeping Elias stable as they headed out to town. A grueling trek later found Chise staring at a convenience store racks. She scratched her head in genuine confusion as to which size and amount she needed.  

She finally chose and mentally ran over any possible necessities. Her figurative and literal coin purse was slightly heavier as of late thanks to Elias’ habit of swiping free change off the ground. Thankfully he did refrain from the paper money as asked. As she was mentally debating the cost of painkillers, her attention was drawn to a pair of girls arguing across at the candy aisle. 

“Oni-Chan?" the younger girl whined, "Can we get chocolate for Haru?”

“No,” Her sister scoffed, “mom only gave me enough for dad and nii-san.” 

The little sister's tiny fists shot down spiking her shoulders in a heated attempt to appear larger. “But you have money!”

“Yeah, but I’m not paying for chocolates for your little crush.” The older sister continued unaffected. “You should have thought of it before the day of.”

“Pleaaase? I’ll do your chores for the week?” The younger one pleaded quickly changing tactics.

“...Make it two weeks and you have a deal.” 

Chise absorbed the meaning of her accidental eavesdropping as the sisters loudly made their way to the checkout. Why had they made such a fuss over candy? And more importantly, why did she feel it was so important to her right now? 

Shouldn’t have waited till the day of...the day of what? She mulled to herself. It couldn’t have been three separate birthdays...oh. Well, that made two glaringly obvious surprises before lunch. 

Chise was passingly familiar with holidays that forced family participation to at least acknowledge her as an occupant of the household. But a purely social holiday, Valentine's Day, was as foreign a concept to her as what it felt like to stand under the Eiffel tower. She had heard about, seen it on tv, even observed chocolate-coated rendezvous at school. But actual active participation? Well, that required several things, money, time, a recipient. All things she didn’t have. 

Didn’t have until…

Her eyes flitted down to her feet. To the passing observer, the odd branching patterns of her pale shadow cast in the artificial storefront light would be attributed to the irregular shapes of the snack aisle. That same snack aisle she quickly found herself striding towards where the sisters had stood arguing not a minute earlier. 

The electronic doorbell of the convenience store blared in her ears as Chise left feeling like a thief seconds away from apprehension. Despite having paid for the entire expense without dipping into the last of their food money. Her shopping bag’s weight felt as though it belonged to someone else but she strode forward. 

She was all but running by the time they reached the apartment and took the stairs two at a time. The door opened, shut and locked all in one motion. In the same second that her back thudded in emotional exhaustion against the door a wave of shadow surrounded her. His face formed first clearly desperate to see and speak to her before all else. His arms and legs took a full second longer to form as he scanned her for discomfort.

Summoning all her courage she plunged her hand into the grocery bag, fishing furiously. “Chise, what are-”

“Here!” she exclaimed louder than intended. But she knew that without considerable force neither the words nor the present would reach their destination.  

He was taken aback for several silent seconds, staring slack-jawed at the small package thrust forward in her palms. He shook his head and delicately plucked the present from her hands. “What is…”

“It’s a chocolate bar, for Valentine's day...for you.” She blushed fiercely.

“You were supposed to acquire provisions for yourself.” He accused in a surprisingly serious tone. 

“I know! And I did. I just...i-in Japan girls give chocolates to b-boys.” An odd thought questioned whether he considered himself to be gendered in any way. But that was for another time. “It’s how we celebrate Valentine's day. It's nothing special, but I... wanted to…” Her explanation had devolved into rambling and she forced herself to breathe. 

“I’m sorry…” I knew I shouldn't have done this she chastised. The warmth of his hand on her shoulder distracted her from his nose leaning forward. "Don't apologize," He breathed directly into her ear. He nuzzled her temple before pulling away, an odd heaviness settling in his expression. 

“I...wasn't expecting this,” he finally uttered. “Thank you for the gift.” He gasped. “Is there something I need to do for Valentine's Day?” 

Relief flooded Chise in a rush leaving her feeling giddy at the strange and adorable situation. “No, not until White Day. It's custom to give flowers to the person who gave you chocolates. You don’t have to though.”

“No, I want to!" He exclaimed, his jaw opening frantically, "When is White Day?” 

“It's not for a month or so.”

“Oh, please let me know when it comes.”

His eager desire to please caused a happy little smile to rest on Chise’s lips. A smile that was quickly broken apart as her ears rang and her stomach dropped. Her blood sugar and body fell in tandem, the later cushioned in Elias’ lightspeed grip. A miasma of terror permeated his being as he struggled to find words. 

“Sorry, I should have eaten before we left.” Chise offered feebly as she fought the pounding against her temporal lobe. Against his chest, she could feel him swallow forcibly as he brought her back to the futon. Any protest she had was stifled by gentle comfort as he laid her tenderly and covered her with their blanket. There wasn’t any harm in resting her eyes was there?

In the background, she heard clanking about the kitchenette but her sudden onslaught of fatigue made discerning meaning from the noise an impossibility. It wasn’t until Elias set the coffee table upright that Chise’s full attention was brought back to the present. The sound of cheap ceramic hitting wood followed by a light sloshing caused her to sit upright cautiously. 

“I...was unsure I could work the microwave.” Elias sheepishly offered as Chise took in the sight before her. The plastic cup she preferred to use had been filled halfway and beside it was a haphazardly filled bowl of cereal. She smiled. “Thank you...were is yours?”

“I don’t need any until you eat.” 

“Elias-“

“I am not the one collapsing. I can last a few minutes.” He argued pointedly.

Chise sighed at her foolishness and diligently began forcing down spoonfuls. Midway during her meal Elias rose and retrieved cereal for himself. Chise watched him intently between gulps. She chuckled to herself when he accidentally spilled milk on the counter. As he was looking for a rag to clean with, Chise spotted his candy had been placed on the counter. 

“Would you like to eat your chocolate?” She called gaining his attention. He nodded bringing the package along with him as he sat across from her. “How...do you eat it?” He asked.

She extended her hand to which he placed the candy, watching intently as she tore the plastic and returned it to his hands. “You just take a bite.” He delicately closed his jaws on the corner of the chocolate and bit down. The bar crumbled slightly leading Elias to worriedly struggle to catch the crumbs. Chise stifled a giggle. His jaw moved in an odd semblance to chewing with his teeth barely opening before he swallowed. 

“Well?” Chise questioned.

“It is,” his tongue flicked out swiping a spot of chocolate flecked on his incisors, “very sweet.” He broke off a piece offering it to her. She accepted, popping it into her mouth.

Chise smiled, “Yeah...it is.” The pain in her abdomen was present but considerably dulled. Very sweet indeed.  

#The Ancient Magus Bride #mahou tsukai no yome #chise hatori #elias ainsworth #robinthorn #elias x chise #chise x elias #fan fic #fan fiction #stormy writes #a bit early for the holiday but I hadn't posted a new chapter in forever so I wanted to get this out

[popscenery]

Passion Pit, »Take a Walk«

by Jessica Doyle

In the summer of 2010, when I took a leave of absence from my PhD program, my dissertation was a helpless non-thing without a subject. In December 2018, I officially got my PhD, because my dissertation was done: written, revised, defended, revised again, approved, copied, formatted, distributed, carefully archived, accepted as an actual work of scholarship. It is arguably my most important professional accomplishment of the decade, and also arguably entirely inconsequential. The claim that 90 percent of academic papers go uncited is mostly untrue, but it is true for my dissertation, and I have the gaping void of a Google Scholar search return to prove it.

Trust me: as bitter and self-deprecating post-graduate students might be about their research (see previous paragraph), none of us start out planning to write something inconsequential. Certainly the subject of my dissertation was not inconsequential at all. “Take a Walk” is not my favorite song of the past decade, but it is the song that kept reminding me that the topic was worth writing about.

My dissertation examined what makes starting and maintaining a business easier or harder for Latino entrepreneurs in different American cities. Take Miami as an example, where 47% of all businesses are Latino-owned. That’s much higher than the national average (12 percent) and higher than the percentage in other cities with large Latino populations: New York, Los Angeles, Houston. So what’s so special about Miami? Is it because the Cuban population that arrived in the 1960s were often landowners or merchants fleeing Castro, and made wealth-building a priority in their new city? Is it the geographic proximity to Latin America and the Caribbean? Is starting a business in Miami easier than elsewhere? Is it something about Miami’s economy in general, or Florida’s? Finally (and more to the point), if policy-makers in another city wanted to put in policies that would help local Latino entrepreneurs flourish, what would Miami’s example offer as guidance?

To make a 295-page story short: it is much easier to turn immigrants into successful business owners if they come to the country with business experience and/or capital already at hand; and if the local immigrant population doesn’t start with those advantages, then policy-makers should focus on providing business education and access to financing, especially the latter. Latino immigrants in the United States who want to start businesses are more likely than native-born white entrepreneurs to use their own cash (which takes a while to accumulate), credit cards (which charge higher interest rates than do bank loans), or loans from family or friends (which means that loved ones, rather than banks with larger cushions, bear the risks). I’d say read the whole dissertation, but in all frankness you’d be better off checking out the research being published by the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative, including this report. (It’s more concise and their data is more robust than mine was.)

This all assumes, of course, that you want to encourage Latinos, or other immigrants, or anyone at all, to start their own business. A lot of us--including me; including Michael Angelakos, the artist behind Passion Pit--have immigrant entrepreneurs in our family lineage. In interviews to promote the album Gossamer, Angelakos described “Take a Walk,” the lead single, as about different members of his family. The first verse’s portrait is a classic rags-to-riches, grateful-to-be-in-America immigrant story: I love this country dearly / I can feel the ladder clearly. But in the second verse, the story shifts to a new narrator, and so does the tone: I watch my little children / Play some board game in the kitchen / And I sit and pray they never feel my strife. The final narrator is eventually undone...

I think I borrowed just too much We had taxes, we had bills We had a lifestyle to front

...yet still insists on his participation in the American dream:

Tomorrow you'll cook dinner For the neighbors and their kids We can rip apart those socialists And all their damn taxes You see, I am no criminal I'm down on both bad knees I'm just too much a coward To admit when I'm in need

Apparently at one point a Fox News reporter failed to hear the irony, and asked Angelakos if the song was anti-socialist. But Angelakos told MTV News, “It's about very specific family members, the male hierarchy, and how the men in my family have always dealt with money.... All these men were very conservative; socially very liberal but for some reason, they all came here for capitalism, and they all ended up kind of being prey to capitalism.” He told a different interviewer, “These are all true stories; this is my grandfather and so on.”

Angelakos’s ambivalence is understandable. (Several of the pieces that greeted “Take a Walk” identified it as a direct reponse to the 2008 financial crisis, an interpretation he rejected.) The idea that anyone can come to the United States, start a business, and work their way to financial security and political freedom is an old one--the history of immigrants employing at higher rates than native-born Americans goes as far back as the Census Bureau has been keeping track of such things. But even for the successful it has its costs. The narrators of “Take a Walk” are estranged from their families, anxious about their ability to keep wealth. The theme of risk runs through the song. No one worries about getting fired; they have market investments, business partners, endless complaints about taxes (as one might if one has to pay both ends of the Social Security and Medicare taxes single-handedly.) The risk allows the narrators to make comfortable lives for themselves and their family, and yet Angelakos isn’t convinced, looking back, that they were better off.

Historically, if you were running for any sort of higher political office in the United States and were from a major party, you made sure to say nice things about small businesses and entrepreneurship, especially the immigrant kind. To some degree this is still true: Elizabeth Warren’s campaign platform includes a Small Business Equity Fund that would give grants to minority entrepreneurs. That said, I’m not sure the current dominant political energy on either the American left or right favors small businesses, who tend to hate tariffs. If you read the Green New Deal resolution, though it calls for a more equitable distribution of available financing to such smaller-scale lenders as community banks and credit unions, a lot of what it wants it can only get at a certain scale. It’s easier for a larger company to retool its supply chains to lower environmental costs than it is for ten small businesses to do the same. It’s easier for a firm with a thousand employees to absorb the cost of any one employee needing a higher wage to make rent, or a longer maternity leave, or extended absences due to illness, than it is for a firm with five.

And Music Tumblr in particular can be forgiven for not thinking highly of entrepreneurship. Most creative people--artists, musicians, writers--end up as entrepreneurs simply because decent-paying employment in those fields has never been easy to find. (In 2017, Angelakos spoke of dealing with venture capitalists and deciding to run his mental-health-focused initiative, Wishart, as a combination of for-profit and non-profit.) But no loan officer with a nickel’s worth of sense would approve a loan to enter a market so saturated that marginal revenue is typically zero or close enough, or where thousands if not millions of people seem thoroughly committed to proving themselves, in Samuel Johnson’s eyes, blockheads. Upon hearing, “You can do what you love, but the market won’t reward you,” a lot of people will reply, “To hell with markets, then.”

It all comes down to how you feel about risk. For a long time the dominant American thinking was that higher risk was the price entrepreneurs paid to have the chance to succeed on their own terms. (There’s an ongoing debate in the immigrant-entrepreneurship academic literature about whether any one particular group of entrepreneurs is “pushed” into entrepreneurship--as in, they only start businesses as the best of a bad set of money-making options--or “pulled,” starting businesses because they want to.) More recently has emerged the critique that not all experiences of risk are created equal, and that in championing immigrant or minority entrepreneurship we offload risk onto those people with smaller financial or even emotional cushions. The heightened experience of risk, and its attendant anxiety and feeling of constant scarcity, may be what Angelakos meant when he described his relatives as “kind of being prey to capitalism.”

I personally agree with that critique, and would throw in that the general perception of Latino immigrants as not-entrepreneurial denies them a road to acceptance (or bourgeois respectability, if you prefer) that their Swedish, German, Jewish, Italian, and more recently Korean predecessors have been able to walk. That was why I wanted to write about Latino entrepreneurship in the first place, and why I ended up writing about North Carolina’s Latino Community Credit Union and associated initiatives as a promising case study. But I would caution against crossing the line from wanting to reduce risk for vulnerable minorities to regarding asking them to bear any kind of risk as imperialist and offensive. Risk can’t be eliminated altogether, and there are costs to scaling risk to higher levels of human activity and trying to diffuse it. A small business committed to a bad idea does a lot less damage than a government policy committed to a bad idea, even if the latter is more equitable in the range and number of people it effects.

Writing a dissertation is a humbling process. I’ve never written and recorded a song, but I imagine that process humbles too. (When “Take a Walk” came out Angelakos was not shy about disliking it, though he seems to have grown fonder of it as time goes on: “I like that it’s so uncharacteristic of me,” he said in 2017.) You work and work and work, all the while knowing you have no control over how your audience will hear your message, or if there will even be an audience. You can never be sure that you read enough, or chose the right method of analysis, or treated your subjects with sufficient respect. You’ll never know if you’re actually on the side of the angels. If the “angels” are metaphorical--if you don’t actually believe in a god, or God, whose love is greater than your human tendency to error and self-deception and treachery--then the risk is even higher. And yet, without that risk, how would you ever be able to say anything worth saying?

#songs of the decade #passion pit #longreads #music writing

[iantojack]

What’s the problem with Robron? Just started watching the show so doesn’t really know their history. Why are they bad (aside from being kinda boring)?

oh  BOY ,,

short story

robert has abused aaron extensively throughout their relationship

the Really long story

roberts a general piece of absolute shit. has been since he was a teenager. the homphobia is Rife, he outed lawrence (a gay man traumatised by conversion therapy) in front of his whole family, called him homophobic slurs. paid someone to pretend to be a victim of homophobic violence and assault to try and con more money out of lawrence. this list could go on forever so i wont start

they started as an affair. robert was married to a woman, chrissie, and no one knew he was bi. aaron was a single gay guy. 

robert treated aaron like shit from the start but the main first bad thing he did was push katie through the floor to her death. she had found out abt the affair and aaron was sick of hiding and told her to come at that time and then she had a pic and was gonna tell chrissie so he was arguing w her and pushing her about and the floor gave way and she lit snapped her neck. he called aaron, lied to him about what happened exactly and got him to cover it up with him even though aaron wasnt there. he told him it was his fault katie died bc he called her there and that if they told the truth he’d go down for it, that it was because he was selfish and jealous. aaron literally APOLOGISED at this point and robert was like “if ur sorry u will help me :)”

Also relevant if u just started watching aaron has lots of mental health issues, self harmed on and off since like.. 2011? he is a survivor of childhood abuse and has lots of self esteem/trust/abandonment issues

the guilt from katies death caused a several month long deterioration in his mental health, he relapsed and self harmed. he contemplated suicide. in the end he was literally hospitalised bc of self harm. robert let all that happen and cared more abt him staying quiet than anything else

just b4 that happened robert picked up a rock when alone in the forest w chas and debated smashing her round the head with it

and then after aaron ended up in hospital she said she were gonna tell chrissie so robert HIRED A HITMAN to KILL HER. he ended up running down the street w a bag of cash trying to find the dude to pay him off and tell him not to bc chas took it back 

paddy had also found out about the affair and was threatening to tell chrissie abt it so robert tried to kill him lol casual. he fell in a grain pit and robert turned it on and tried to drown him in grain. someone saves him and robert goes to the hospital and threatens to kill LEO, tiny child leo. 

aaron found out that robert had tried to kill paddy and they go to this lodge and aaron tries to record him confessing to killing katie and shit. robert finds the hidden phone and they fight and robert ends up knocking aaron out by smashing a bottle over his head. he then ties him up to a radiator and leaves him there for overnight. he ends up coming back with a gun and holds aaron at gunpoint. paddy bursts in last second and robert turns around and ends up shooting paddy. they promise not to say anything and robert lets them go

but straight away aaron just goes and tells roberts wife scream legendary and boom roberts marriage is over :)

hes mocked aarons self harm on Many occasions. he called him a “girl” for cutting himself, he called him a failure for not dying when he attempted suicide, called him weak. called him a murderer for helping his paralysed boyfriend to die, said he got a “perverted kick” out of cutting himself. all real fucking bad stuff.

ross shoots robert and aaron literally goes into hospital when roberts in a coma and told him to hurry up and die. was very iconic 

robert and aaron end up getting back together when aarons dad who abused him comes to the village and aaron ends up self harming again and robert was the one who found him and took him to hospital so robert ends up being the person he tells about the abuse.

during this sl about the abuse -> robert talks to gordon when aaron told him not to, believes gordons lies and suggests to aaron he might be making up the memories, paid a false witness to say gordon abused him too

when gordon is in jail he writes a letter to aaron. robert got this letter before aaron and burns it and doesnt tell aaron abt it until he finds out from someone else and by that point gordon has killed himself

aaron inherited money from gordon and didnt want it but robert pressured him into using it to buy the mill

uhh they got engaged?? and around then is when robert starts with his cheating lol!! chrissies sister rebecca moves to the village and robert had history w her and had cheated on chrissie in the past with bex. 

he kisses her like twice?? aaron is suspicious but robert makes out like hes crazy, he calls him a “jealous queen”, “this is never gonna work if u dont trust me” etc etc robert actually ends up taking off his engagement ring like “well if its not this, it’ll be something else bc u screw everything up because u dont want to be happy”

aaron has another sl where he ends up beating up finns ex-boyfriend kasim and goes to prison, robron get married just before he goes

like 3 weeks after aaron goes to prison, robert sleeps with rebecca. also has a good chunk of a scene before he sleeps with her where he just slags aaron off. 

rebecca gets pregnant, classic. robert threatens her into getting an abortion. she refuses and he threatens her even more. we find out he did the exact same thing to her before when he was with chrissie. and i mean he literally tries to sleep with her again to stop her telling aaron

he has to tell aaron in the end but they dont break up. but it ruins aaron mentally and he starts cutting himself again. eventually he breaks up with robert bc of his mental health and says his marriage is making him miserable etc etc. robert comes out with some nasty manipulative bullshit, literally held glass and was telling aaron to cut him rather than himself [x] (ran out of allowed embedded videos rip)

robert spends his time drugging lawrence now! :-) he is lacing his brandy with sleeping pills for revenge and getting him to sign over the business and shit like that. he also undresses him and puts him in bed and convinces him they slept together which Yikes. actually not even SLeeps together he literally tries to convince him that lawrence raped him. aaron finds the sleeping pills at work and robert lies to him and says hes having trouble sleeping and all this shit bc they broke up, guilting him Again. liv ends up drinking the spiked brandy and ends up in hospital aaron is NOT happy [x]

aaron gets a new boyfriend. robert is GROSS. they have a date in the woolpack and robert literally pulls a chair up to the table and sits there. he keeps calling aaron his husband. its bad. [x] and generally pushes himself into their relationship on multiple occasions 

like 6 months after aaron broke up with robert they have these scenes where aaron speaks to him about how he doesnt want to get back with him and how hes happy moving on. and robert came out w this absolute bullshit about “letting him go” like he was in control of their relationship and he had the final say over whether they broke up or not was Fucked [x]

after a few months aaron breaks up with his boyfriend and gets back with robert and since then its just been what ur seeing right now to be honest

#i get asked this question a lot so ive put EFFORT into this so i can refer to it in future #i know u didnt wanna know all this but i need a Reference Post #i may have missed important stuff but im tired #Anonymous #abuse / #self harm / #robron is bad

[ericka-writes]

broken bones (shredded soul) // one

Summary: It's been seven hundred and sixty five days and Eddie Kaspbrak can't help but think if he's going to die in this room.

It's been one thousand and one hundred forty seven days since he saw Richie Tozier and he still loves him just the same.

Pairing/s: Reddie, side Stanlon and Benverly 

Word Count: 2,658

Read it on Ao3

It was cold and dark. He was laying in a bed that was unfamiliar yet it made him feel so uneasy. The place was eerily silent that it was as if the air in this tiny room was suffocating him. He wanted to sit up but he couldn't move his body. He can feel his heart beating rapidly against his chest. He shut his eyes tightly, trying his best to calm down. A heavy weight dropped itself on his chest, making it harder for him a breathe. Suddenly, a shriek filled the atmosphere. The voice made his blood run cold, he didn't know what to do. He was trapped, caged inside his own body. He yelled and yelled but no sound came out of his mouth.

"What do you think you're doing, Eddie?" the voice slurred, "Thinking of going back to that rascal? No. You're going to stay here, with me."

Eddie. That was his name.

"He's bad influence, Edward. He infected you with his disease. Not to worry, The doctors will fix you."

Eddie. No, that's not his name.

"You know what will happen if you go back to those miscreants, Eddie-bear. Listen to me."

No No No No No

"Don't worry, Eddie. When I come back, you'll be good as new. Its okay, you'll be okay."

His eyes were already open when the loud buzzing interrupted the silence he was surrounded by. A few minutes after that, keys jingling to open the door was the noise that occupied his ears. His eyes slowly trailed towards the door, meeting the eyes of the nurse he had ever since he can remember. Dianne was her name, she had dark curly that she likes to tie into a messy bun. She's thirty two years old; twelve years older than him and she insists on treating him like a baby.

"Hey, Stranger." she greeted him with a smile, something he didn't return. It made Dianne's warm grin fall, making him feel guilty. With a sigh, she placed the tray of food she was holding on his bedside table and sat by the foot of the small bed. She gave him a small smirk and asked, "How about a little game, yeah?"

He was silent for a moment, then he nodded. Knowing his competitive side, it made her smile as she counted it as a success on getting him to do something productive for the day. Starting with something easy, she asked "How about you tell me what you remember?"

He was still, not knowing what to say. He racked his brain for anything that he could remember before finally saying, "My name is Eddie, I'm twenty years old."

Dianne hummed before asking "Is that all?" Eddie wanted to say no; he wanted to tell her about his dreams, the shrill voice, the feeling of drowning but instead, he settled with "I remember strawberries and cigarettes." making her smile widely.

"Strawberries and cigarettes, huh? Think you used to smoke?" Dianne lightly teased him before standing up, taking the tray of food and settling it on his lap. The tray consisted of a banana, a small packet of bread, some eggs, a water bottle and the small cup that had his medicines. Eddie sighed, "I highly doubt that."

"Come on, cheer up a little. Dr. Green told me he has something important to tell you." she said, trying to lighten the mood.

"Who?" he mumbled as he sat up, rubbing the exhaustion out of his eyes. Dianne eyed him before sighing , "Dr. Green, honey. He's in charge of the whole hospital."

"Wash up afterwards then head on to his office, okay?" she called out as she walked out the door, leaving Eddie alone.

With him all alone, it gave him the time to think about what could Dr. Green possibly want from him. He was a quiet patient, not like the others who would cause such a ruckus. He can be trusted to take him medicines and be left alone, so Eddie was just confused why would the head of the hospital want to see him. The only time he ever saw the doctor was seven months ago, when Eddie had woken up from a therapy they tried out. From what he could gather, his old doctor was an asshole and did the method wrong so as a result, he fell into a coma and woke up with no memory of his life before that day. Sometimes, he wonders why he's even in this hospital. He doesn't look like a lunatic nor does he act or think like one but then again, that is what a crazy person would say.

After his breakfast, he cleaned himself up and walked towards Dr. Green's office. He knocked softly on the door, opening it when he heard a 'come in'. He peaked in before entering the room, walking towards the doctor. He wasn't alone. A woman was seated on the chair beside him, She looked well put together; her hair in a neat ponytail and a briefcase right beside her. The doctor stood up, " Eddie, this is Mrs. Gomez. Mrs. Gomez, this is Eddie Kaspbrak."

Eddie reached forward to shake the woman's hand. He sat down as Dr. Green pointed on the chair behind him.

Green looked at him and said, "Do you remember when you woke up from your therapy seven months ago? We told you that the doctor assigned to you did the procedure wrong causing your body to react so badly that you fell into a coma." when he nodded, the doctor continued "And you lost all of your memories because of it, yes?" he nodded again "Eddie, the truth is you've been checked into this facility three years ago. Your mother insisted that you needed proper treatment because you've been infected by some kids back in your hometown. A doctor named Henrik Weltch checked on you" He handed him a picture of the man, "Do you remember him?"

"Stay still, you little faggot. Your mother paid me good money and I intend on getting more of it."

"No." Eddie said, shaking his head hastily.

With a sigh, the doctor continued "Well, your mother and Weltch happen to be friends with the same mind, she paid him a lot of money and in return, he would do these methods on you, treatments, shock therapy to be exact, and medicines that weren't prescribed for you to take." the knowledge made him touch the scars on both his temples.

Eddie shook his head, "My mother insisted that I get treatment even when there isn't anything wrong with me? Why?"

Doctor Green looked at him with sympathy in his eyes, "We don't know for sure but we think its because she thought with the treatments she made Weltch do, you can convert back to your 'true-self' as your mother had put it. She thought with the medicine, you wouldn't be infected."

Eddie took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose "Correct me if I'm wrong but did my mother payed that man to torture me into turning straight?"

"Unfortunately, yes. Its a good thing we found out what he's been doing to you. We caught him and sent him to jail, where he deserves to be. And you would have been released seven months ago but we didn't want to risk your mother sending you into another facility. Not to worry now, It's not a problem anymore. Mrs. Gomez?" the doctor turned to the woman beside him.

"Hi, Eddie. I'm your mother's lawyer. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you but your mother died last week because of a heart attack."

He had a mother, and now she's dead. Eddie doesn't know if he should be happy or sad because his mother is dead. From what he's been hearing so far, his mother checked him into a mental health facility even though he's perfectly fine, she paid money for a guy to torture him and she wouldn't give a shit that the doctor was in jail already, she would willingly check him in another asylum. So, yeah, his mother sounds like a bitch and he doesn't know what to feel about that.

"This means everything she owns, according to her will, will be given to you. That means the house in Derry, Maine and everything that she owns; money, jewelry, everything. And I checked in with Doctor Green and he says that you do have G.A.D. but you don’t really have any major mental illnesses that we could consider you mentally incapable of deciding what's best for you so it would be okay for you to sign these." she finished handing him the documents and a pen to use. So, his mother is bitch but a rich bitch?

Eddie didnt know what to do, to say or to think but he knows one thing; he wanted to get the hell out of this place. So, He took the papers and signed.

He was packing up the very little things that he had when Dianne walked into his room.

"So, you're really leaving, huh?" she said with a sad smile on her lips "Im happy for you, really."

He sighed, "I don't even know where I'm going, Dianne. I don't know anything or anyone. I don't even know where I'm going to live. I'll probably be living in the streets after I leave." That's not exactly true, his mother did leave him a ton of money according to the Mrs. Gomez.

"Wait."she said before digging into his suitcase. She stopped when she saw a small green handbook, opening it and looking for something. "Aha!" she said, pointing at a page "Mike Hanlon, sounds legit. Come on, lets call him up." she tease, bumping her shoulder with his. He may hate this place, but he will surely miss Dianne. He stood up, closing his suitcase, and walking out of the room he occupied for three years.

They walked to the front desk, picking up his papers and calling 'Mike'. Dianne told him he should be the one to call the guy but he insisted that she talked to him instead. He felt uncomfortable talking to a guy he didn't know. As he anxiously waited for Dianne, he began to have a debate whether she should hang up on him or not.

Good Morning, this is Dianne from The Sisters of Merciful Angels. Is this Mr. Mike Hanlon?

Yeah Hi, This is him. How can i help you?

Sir, Do you know anyone named Eddie Kaspbrak?

um Eddie? yeah why?

Well, sir Would it be okay for you to pick him up? He's being released today and he doesn't really have a place to go.

.....

Sir?

What kind of game are you playing? Do you not have any respect?

I'm sorry, sir? i don't understand.

Eddie's been dead for three years. We know that, we had our peace with that. What do you think you'll get from this?

Sir, Im so sorry if i offended you on any sort but Mr. Kaspbrak is alive. He's been with us for the past three years. I don't know who told you that he's dead but he's alive and well. Would you like to talk to him?

Can I talk to him?

Of course, sir. Please keep in mind that he's gone through a lot and he doesn't remember anything from the last twenty years. He doesn't remember you as well.

Okay.

Dianne turned to him, "He wants to talk to you" his eyes widened, slowly talking the phone with his shaky hands. He cleared his throat before saying "Hello?"

Eddie?

Um, Mr. Hanlon, I would understand if you don't wa-

Oh my god, Eddie, It is you.

Um, yeah, its me.

I don't understand, Sonia said you were dead. She said you had cancer or some shit?

Who's Sonia? Oh wait, my mother. Right.

Yeah. Where are you? Ill pick you up.

Uh, talk to Dianne

And with that, he gave the phone to Dianne. As it turns out, Mike was four hours away, being in New York.

Dianne told me that they were in Boston, How in the hell did he end up in Boston?

Hours have passed, Dianne did her best to check up on him but she had to work or else she'll get fired. The girl at the front desk turned on the radio at some point. After a hurricane of high pitched pop songs, the soft tune of an acoustic guitar filled the waiting room Eddie was sitting in. The voice was deep and a little rugged, it felt so familiar. He can feel his heart wanting to burst out of his chest. The song continued on, he can feel himself slip into oblivion.

Laughter; the atmosphere was filled with laughter and joy. It was new for Eddie to feel this way. It was odd because for the last seven months, all he dreamed about was that shrill voice and the emptiness he feels in his heart. He felt free, like he could fly along with the birds on the sky. He can move, feel the grass and dirt beneath his feet.

"Come on, Eds! Stop being a pussy!" A voice screamed at him, the voice was followed by a group of laughter. He turned towards the noise, wanting to see who was talking to him.

"Oh my fuck, Kaspbrak! Hurry up and jump already!" "Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump!" "Come on! What a chicken!"

"Alright, you fuckers!" he took a deep breath and jump off the cliff, landing on the murky green water. He swam towards the surface, gasping for air. Arms wrapped around his waist and a wet kiss was placed on his cheek. "I knew you could do it, Eds!"

His vision was blurry, he couldn't see the boy in front of him. He squeezed his eyes shut before opening them again, desperate to see who was calling him that.

Eds. That was his name, not his real name of course but he wanted it to be. He didn't want to be Eddie, he didn't want complicated and pain. He didn't want the emptiness and demons that came with Eddie. He just wanted to stay there, in the arms of the boy who calls him Eds. He wanted the blissful feeling of peace and love. He just wanted to be Eds.

He woke up to a new song; it was loud and obnoxious, he feels like an old man for saying that. To pass some time, he decided to read the magazines placed on the coffee table in front of him. Halfway through his third magazine, the doors busted open causing Eddie to look up from his paper. A guy with dark skin and dark shrivelled hair came in with a curly headed guy right behind him. Their eyes searched the room until it landed on Eddie. It made him feel nervous but when the two of them came running towards him, he couldn't help himself from standing up to meet them halfway.

Arms were suddenly around him, hugging him so tight that he couldn't breathe but he did nothing to stop them. Both of the their smell hit him in the face, it made him smile. Tears streamed down his face, he didn't know why but he doesn't mind, they're crying as well. The guy with dark hair was the first to pull away, kissing his forehead again and again before hugging him tightly, he couldn't help but laugh.

He may not know these two, nor does he know the name of this guy that has kissed him so many times on his forehead but he couldn't bring himself to mind so much because with the pair of them crying softly against each his shoulder, he thinks that there might be a chance that he belongs perfectly with them.

He never felt more at home.

#reddie #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #it au #reddie fanfic #my writing #stanlon #benverly #broken bones

[arcticdementor]

U.S. public health experts increasingly urge the reopening of schools, and yet much of the country still seems unable to do so. This is the most visible and, perhaps, most tragic consequence of the toxic environment surrounding discussions of how to respond to the pandemic that has been driven by a technocratic elite harboring a dim view of the public’s role in important discussions. Yet it is not the failure of the public, but rather of these self-appointed guardians of public discourse to glimpse their own shortcomings, that has crippled our national debate.

The simple, elite explanation for all our problems during the pandemic has been that the public failed to trust the experts and didn’t “follow the science.” This, they argue, is the result of tolerating too much skepticism, which is an ordinary feature of scientific debate. Instead, elites have openly embraced the notion that the public is better served by exaggeration, downplaying uncertainty, or even deception (such as in official estimates of herd immunity).

This disdain for healthy skepticism, a normal part of functioning science and democracy, is corrosive to public trust and impedes the accumulation of knowledge. A climate of overconfidence makes it both more likely that we will adopt bad policy and harder to fix our missteps. Reversals of conventional wisdom are, for better or worse, inevitable in science. We have had many reversals of official positions on COVID-19—from the usefulness of masks to which medications work to guidance about school openings—and will likely see more as evidence continues to come in. The problem is that our current climate locks us into polarized mindsets, which makes it harder to recategorize “misinformation” that winds up being correct.

…

Central to the elite claim is that they “follow the science,” a mantra that falsely suggests all science is settled, and implies that science alone should decide complex public policy tradeoffs. When we drive out uncertainty and debate, and falsely or prematurely declare consensus or that a decision is “settled,” we make it more likely that the mistaken policy will be widely adopted in its most extreme form. We also make it far less likely that research will be done to evaluate whether a given policy decision was correct.

America’s schoolchildren have been one of the primary victims of this toxic climate. Today, scientific consensus, including Dr. Anthony Fauci and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, increasingly favors reopening schools, whose closures were more severe and more unfair in the U.S. than in almost any other country. A growing chorus holds that our early, flawed decision to impose sweeping, extended closures of public schools was a mistake all along.

Worse, our patchwork of closures has not been tied to the local prevalence of the pandemic. These closures reflect polarized politics, not public health. Studies have repeatedly concluded that there was no relationship between reopening decisions and COVID-19 case counts. Instead, it appeared to be based on whether the locals were pro- or anti-Trump; schools in Democratic-leaning locations were more likely to close. Partly as a result, school closures also demonstrate a strong racial gap, with white students more likely to have the option of in-person schooling than Black or brown students. Meanwhile, nearly all private schools—95%, by one count—stayed open for in-person learning, compared with 40% for public schools in the fall. As others have noted, many of the most vocal advocates for school closures have in fact had their own children in private school all along, just one of the many ways elites bought their way out of pandemic restrictions.

Many opponents of reopening questioned the motives of those advocating it, rather than their actual arguments. Supporters of reopening were labeled “conservative,” or more commonly, “Trumpian,” an ad hominem attack that has a corrosive impact within the liberal orthodoxy of academia. Those who paid the price for this kind of self-righteous name-calling and politically driven accusation were children.

Warning signs of this toxic climate emerged as early as March 2020, when Jeff Flier, the former dean of Harvard Medical School, and Vinay Prasad, a well-known commentator on evidence-based medicine, first published a piece expressing alarm that scientists with dissenting views were being “demonized” and subjected to ad hominem attacks. In what suggests an unprecedented moment within scientific discourse, concerns about incivility have been repeated again and again in editorials in top medical journals, calling attention to silencing caused by a “climate of fear” and “personal attacks.” These attacks distorted scientific communication: Some chose to cast their public statements to fit partisan narratives, while other scientists stayed silent so as not to be accused of “Trumpian” motives.

In contemporary discourse, labels like “right wing,” “Trumper,” and “anti-science” are sticky, and often terminal, in elite institutions, regardless of their veracity. By contrast, you can rarely if ever go wrong parroting the partisan consensus, even when it causes widespread damage to the actual human beings in whose name the consensus claims to speak. It is very difficult to defend a reasonable position about school reopening when one is being accused of murderous intent, or playing “Russian roulette” with respect to children or teachers.

…

Blaming teachers unions has now become commonplace among people who want to reopen schools, including progressives who normally defend them. Yet in many ways, the inflexible positions of teachers unions are a symptom of elite overconfidence, and a year of doom and gloom with little counterbalance. This has resulted in locked-in positions that are tough to unwind: Even if union leadership believes the science has changed, how does it admit to its members that it had been wrong all along?

Although misinformation can be a problem, the elite mentality toward it during the pandemic has been far too simplistic. The line between misinformation and views one disagrees with is, in many cases that matter, a hard one to draw. There are some views that clearly deserve little audience—those that deny the existence of COVID-19, or that believe vaccines contain 5G chips. But it’s often hard or impossible to make a clear distinction. The WHO, for instance, continues to express strong concerns about mask wearing for children between the ages of 2 and 5, while the CDC recommends masks starting at age 2. Which position constitutes “misinformation”—and who decides?

Tech companies have, indeed, censored some ludicrous content. But at the same time, they have repeatedly labeled posts by prominent scientists on complex issues as false or misleading, which even scientists who disagree with the underlying positions have pointed out is a dangerous, unaccountable form of censorship. Misusing the accusation of misinformation has now become a common tactic for scientists to express disagreement. Some regularly quoted scientists who oppose school reopening have taken to repeatedly terming anyone they disagree with “ignorant and sociopathic” or purveyors of “dangerous misinformation.” The result is that an important term has devolved into meaningless, partisan name-calling intended to shut down necessary debate while stigmatizing one’s opponents.

As a result, many Americans have an overexaggerated view of certain aspects of the pandemic. One of these may well bear on school reopenings: According to polling, Americans massively overestimate the number of children who have died from the disease. Per the CDC, in the United States, children represent less than 0.1% of total pandemic-related deaths. While each individual death is a tragedy, the statistics remind us of a crucial, well-established feature of this virus: It is far less risky for children, with Americans above age 65 constituting 81% of the share of deaths.

In the same polling, Americans also massively overestimate the likelihood that a COVID-19 infection will lead to hospitalization. Forty-one percent of Democrats hold the completely implausible view that more than half of infections result in hospitalization. Ironically, despite the widespread assumption that Republicans underplay the disease, 26% of Republicans get the rate of hospitalization correct, compared with 10% of Democrats, according to the same study.

Marking all pandemic-related questions off-limits except to “science” has clearly confused many people about who can contribute to the debate and how. For instance, it has been commonplace to suggest that Emily Oster, an early data-driven advocate for school reopenings, should not be listened to in these debates because she is an economist, not a “public health expert.” Yet Oster’s published work and expertise is actually mostly in public health policy, which is an interdisciplinary field. And the truth is that mainstream scientific discourse displays a much wider range of views than the public is led to believe.

The point is not about whether any particular scientist is right. Rather, it is simply not a healthy sign when good-faith discussion and uncertainty within the scientific community are labeled in media articles as a “dangerous distraction” or the result, as other scientists have charged, of a “hidden agenda.” Aside from driving out debate, this miscalibration is precisely what leads to an incredulous public unable to make sense of contradictory public health guidance. It leaves us in an epistemic vacuum where no one appears trustworthy.

Some may reassure themselves that this is a temporary phenomenon, the result either of the high stakes drama of the pandemic, or a unique result of Trump’s presidency. Unfortunately, we think this is rooted in a much deeper syndrome: technocratic elites who disdain the public, and who believe their access to greater expertise entitles them to decide important issues themselves.

#jacob hale russell #dennis patterson #tablet magazine

[progressiveparty]

Yes, America Is Rigged Against Workers

No other industrial country treats its working class so badly. And there’s one big reason for that.

The United States is the only advanced industrial nation that doesn’t have national laws guaranteeing paid maternity leave. It is also the only advanced economy that doesn’t guarantee workers any vacation, paid or unpaid, and the only highly developed country (other than South Korea) that doesn’t guarantee paid sick days. In contrast, the European Union’s 28 nations guarantee workers at least four weeks’ paid vacation. Among the three dozen industrial countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States has the lowest minimum wage as a percentage of the median wage — just 34 percent of the typical wage, compared with 62 percent in France and 54 percent in Britain. It also has the second-highest percentage of low-wage workers among that group, exceeded only by Latvia. All this means the United States suffers from what I call “anti-worker exceptionalism.” Academics debate why American workers are in many ways worse off than their counterparts elsewhere, but there is overriding agreement on one reason: Labor unions are weaker in the United States than in other industrial nations. Just one in 16 private-sector American workers is in a union, largely because corporations are so adept and aggressive at beating back unionization. In no other industrial nation do corporations fight so hard to keep out unions. The consequences are enormous, not only for wages and income inequality, but also for our politics and policy-making and for the many Americans who are mistreated at work.

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To be sure, unions have their flaws, from corruption to their history of racial and sex discrimination. Still, Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson write of an important, unappreciated feature of unions in “Winner-Take-All Politics”: “While there are many ‘progressive’ groups in the American universe of organized interests, labor is the only major one focused on the broad economic concerns of those with modest incomes.” As workers’ power has waned, many corporations have adopted practices that were far rarer — if not unheard-of — decades ago: hiring hordes of unpaid interns, expecting workers to toil 60 or 70 hours a week, prohibiting employees from suing and instead forcing them into arbitration (which usually favors employers), and hamstringing employees’ mobility by making them sign non-compete clauses. HELP PROGRESSIVES CONTINUE TO WIN CONTRIBUTE NOW

America’s workers have for decades been losing out: year after year of wage stagnation, increased insecurity on the job, waves of downsizing and offshoring, and labor’s share of national income declining to its lowest level in seven decades. Numerous studies have found that an important cause of America’s soaring income inequality is the decline of labor unions — and the concomitant decline in workers’ ability to extract more of the profit and prosperity from the corporations they work for. The only time during the past century when income inequality narrowed substantially was the 1940s through 1970s, when unions were at their peak of power and prominence. Many Americans are understandably frustrated. That’s one reason the percentage who say they want to join a union has risen markedly. According to a 2018 M.I.T. study, 46 percent of nonunion workers say they would like to be in a union, up from 32 percent in 1995. Nonetheless, just 10.5 percent of all American workers, and only 6.4 percent of private-sector workers, are in unions.

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But this desire to unionize faces some daunting challenges. In many corporations, the mentality is that any supervisor, whether a factory manager or retail manager, who fails to keep out a union is an utter failure. That means managers fight hard to quash unions. One study found that 57 percent of employers threatened to close operations when workers sought to unionize, while 47 percent threatened to cut wages or benefits and 34 percent fired union supporters during unionization drives. Corporate executives’ frequent failure to listen to workers’ concerns — along with the intimidation of employees — can have deadly results. On April 5, 2010, a coal dust explosion killed 29 miners at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia. A federal investigation found that the mine’s ventilation system was inadequate and that explosive gases were allowed to build up. Workers at the nonunion mine knew about these dangers. “No one felt they could go to management and express their fears,” Stanley Stewart, an Upper Big Branch miner, told a congressional committee. “We knew we’d be marked men and the management would look for ways to fire us.” The diminished power of unions and workers has skewed American politics, helping give billionaires and corporations inordinate sway over America’s politics and policymaking. In the 2015-16 election cycle, business outspent labor $3.4 billion to $213 million, a ratio of 16 to 1, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. All of the nation’s unions, taken together, spend about $48 million a year for lobbying in Washington, while corporate America spends $3 billion. Little wonder that many lawmakers seem vastly more interested in cutting taxes on corporations than in raising the minimum wage. There were undoubtedly many reasons for Donald Trump’s 2016 victory, but a key one was that many Americans seemed to view him as a protest candidate, promising to shake up “the system” and “drain the swamp.” Many voters embraced Mr. Trump because they believed his statements that the system is rigged — and in many ways it is. When it comes to workers’ power in the workplace and in politics, the pendulum has swung far toward corporations. Reversing that won’t be easy, but it is vital we do so. There are myriad proposals to restore some balance, from having workers elect representatives to corporate boards to making it easier for workers to unionize to expanding public financing of political campaigns to prevent wealthy and corporate donors from often dominating. America’s workers won’t stop thinking the system is rigged until they feel they have an effective voice in the workplace and in policymaking so that they can share in more of the economy’s prosperity to help improve their — and their loved ones’ — lives. This Piece Originally Appeared in www.nytimes.com Read the full article

#Americanworkers #anti-worker #income #inequality #laborunions #politics #wages #work #workers #workingclass

[lydiamooreblog2019-blog]

Initial Research

Mental health/Physical Health

How phone usage is effecting people to be more disconeccted with others and themselves. How can people focus more on themselves?

I chose to look into mental/physical health as my broad topic for now. The past year I’ve had a love-hate relationship with my physical health but over the past 4 months, I’ve had a strong focus and enjoyment for it. I feel as if I’ve learnt so much that I wanted to put my knowledge I gained into a topic that looks further into the mental health side and how we might be disconnecting ourselves from others. I also chose it cause I have a certain amount of knowledge on it but there’s still so much to learn that I’m interested in.

Keep in mind:

-You don’t have to solve a problem but investigate one

-How can you help people with that

Questions to myself

What is the importance of physical activity?

“Physical activity or exercise can improve your health and reduce the risk of developing several diseases like type 2 diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease. Physical activity and exercise can have immediate and long-term health benefits. Most importantly, regular activity can improve your quality of life. A minimum of 30 minutes a day can allow you to enjoy these benefits.” 

Whether it be a 30-minute walk or an hour of sports, everyone should aim for a small amount of physical activity every day. The benefits outway the negatives, study shows that physical activity helps get you in a healthier state of mind. Physical activity helps your wellbeing to be in a better mood, sleep better, more relaxed and have more motivation.

https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/physical-activity-its-important 

How often should you take time away from your phones?

It is an estimate that people are spending around 5 hours on there phone each day, that comes to 35 hours per week. To put that in perspective, you work around 40 hours a week and around 7 hours of sleep each night. A few applications we use that benefit our life are transport apps, food tracking, note-taking, online banking etc. All of those do consume a fraction of our overall time spent on phones but the other big chunk can be from entertainment, games, social media etc. There is no right amount of time that you should spend on your phone each day but there are ways that you can dramatically improve them. Below are some strategies to take that can improve the time spent on your phone.

-Choose one day each weekend to leave your phone at home -Delete mobile social media apps -Disable push notifications -Limit yourself to “fun” phone use only during certain windows of the day -Practice verbalizing a reason why you’re checking your phone (“I’m going to look at my niece’s baby pictures” or “I’m going to take a five-minute Facebook break”) before doing so -Set your phone to grayscale -Store your phone in a different room (or at least out of arm’s reach) when you aren’t using it -A combination of the above

https://freedom.to/blog/what-is-the-right-amount-of-time-to-spend-on-your-phone/

How much time are we spending online?

The USA - 18 years and older

https://au.pcmag.com/why-axis/53622/tech-addiction-by-the-numbers-how-much-time-we-spend-online

This goes to show that the younger generation who grew up when technology was vastly growing and phones were invented. Whereas the older generation grew up without phones so when they now use them they don’t feel the need to have that connection. With both the data collections we can see that everyone uses there phone way more than other devices and most of those people would be aged between 18-34. This was really interesting to put statistics on what I’m researching.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/323922/us-weekly-minutes-smartphone-video-age/

Are mental health apps being advertised well enough?

“Distributing mental-health apps in the developing world presents further challenges. Although mobile technology is spreading rapidly, there are many people who do not have — or cannot afford — smartphones or mobile Internet access. And the content of apps needs to be delivered in local languages and reflect local cultures. “We think this is the way forward for digital health,” says Espie. Mobile-phone-based treatments, he says, “should be tested and judged like any other intervention. We shouldn't treat people's health with any less respect because the treatment is coming through an app.””

After doing a little bit of research I found it quite hard to find anything about how mental health apps are being advertised compared to other kinds of apps. I found an article called “Mental Health: There’s an App for That”. This was a really interesting read because they had lots of data to support what they were saying and it gave me a good understanding that we do need to be careful with what we put out there. Creating mental health apps are a huge positive but unfortunately, many people can’t use that easy access to help, due to not having money to afford a phone or a paid app.  

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mental-health-there-s-an-app-for-that/

The importance of sleep 

If you’ve had a lack of sleep, your mind and body are hugely affected which can also lead to long term problems. This can negatively affect your emotions, how your body functions and processes information as well as your metabolism. Sleep quality can be altered and improved over time by understanding and addressing the problems that might be occurring. Improving sleep can be very challenging depending on each person.

https://www.healthnavigator.org.nz/healthy-living/sleep/why-sleep-is-important/

How can an app that focuses on your mental health and physical activity be any good to you?

“Smartphone-based mental health apps represent a unique opportunity to expand the availability and quality of mental health treatment.”

“Mental health apps target a broad range of psychological disorders and vary in design and functionality.”

“Mobile apps are a good choice for psychological treatment delivery compared to other platforms due to 1: ease of habit, 2: low effort expectancy, 3: high hedonic motivation.”

“Though evidence supports the use of smartphone-based apps as a vehicle for mental health treatment delivery, there remains debate around whether these apps have demonstrated high efficacy. This is due to both the lack of evidence-based mobile apps available on the market, and the lack of studies that bring together the disorder-specific silos of evidence that do exist.”

“Mobile apps have significant potential to deliver high-efficacy mental health interventions. Given the global shortage of psychiatrists and the lack of mental health care access in rural regions, apps have emerged as a viable tool to bridge the mental health treatment gap. Technology is well-poised to transform how mental health treatment is delivered and accessed, but this transformation requires the combined mobilization of science, regulation, and design.” 

Internet‐delivered psychological treatments: from innovation to implementation Gerhard Andersson, Nickolai Titov, Blake F. Dear, Alexander Rozental, Per CarlbringWorld Psychiatry. 2019 Feb; 18(1): 20–28. Published online 2019 Jan 2.

I found this article very useful towards my question and it follows on from the earlier question I answered. I quoted the most interesting, relevant parts but I did find there to be a lot more information through the article that I didn’t cover. They covered what makes a mental health app work as it is very challenging to get an app right.

What makes social media desirable?

Social media is meant to mirror basic human social interactions into a digital setting whether that being sharing, liking, commenting, watching or following. All of these reflect how we live our lives and sometimes we don’t realize how much social media consumes us and our time. Humans like to connect with each other and social media is the perfect way to show that. 

“We are social beings with a need to affiliate — a need to associate with other people — rooted in basic human desires to get and to give approval, support, friendship, and love”   (Coon, 2016, p.546)

Social media is also a way to cover up or show how your feeling, there is a sense of caution we have to take too. Everything we see online is done by algorithms which are meant to make connections to things we like and enjoy which can make us stay on for longer. Overall, humans enjoy social media for the distraction, pleasure, connections, knowledge and entertainment it gives us.

https://medium.com/@eric.esp/the-psychology-of-social-media-2d5d89a887e8

Coon, D. (2016). Introduction to Psychology: Gateways to Mind and Behavior, 14th Edition. [VitalSource]. Retrieved from https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781285227894/ 

[benjaminsmith1999]

Does Film affect People for the Better or for Worst

Benjamin Smith

English 2010

Fish Burton

Does Film affect People for the Better or for Worst

To the Board of The Motion Picture Content:

           I have had 21 years on this beautiful green earth, some of my earliest memories as a child consist of movies and tv shows. What would my parents do when young me was having a nightmare, they would turn on my favorite show, what would we do to make time pass on long car rides turn on a show, what would we do every Friday night growing up, I bet you guessed it, turn on a show. I want to take a shot in the dark and say that this is a similar upbringing to most children, who have this privilege. Film and Cinema have been woven into our society as one of its staples, something that takes our minds off of the real world, something that gives us hope of a new tomorrow, or brings us to tears of laughter, or brings us to tears of sadness. We have been honored with performance and films that have truly moved us, whether it was Robert De Niro and Ray Liotta acting as Italian Gangsters in “Goodfellas”, Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh acting as lovers in “Gone With the Wind”, or Rim Robbins and Morgan Freeman acting as prison mates made friends in “Shawshank Redemption” something all these films have in common, along with thousands of others, is their ability to positively affect and change one’s life. But with all things in life there typically is an opposing side, and though films can bring out the best in people they also the ability to do the opposite. And over the last 16 weeks that is exactly what I have been researching, do films positively or negatively affect certain people.

           So how I got to thinking about this is a question, as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I had the opportunity to live with people who would be considered the “lower class” these people lived in the inner city, and much to my surprise were the nicest and most genuine giving people I have ever met. But they had similar characteristics when it came to how they acted and thought. And as observed that interesting fact for 2 years, it led to wonder what is it that causes people who have similar upbringings to act the same and have a similar thought process. And as I pondered on this question, an additional thought came to mind, “Should movies and films shoulder any of this responsibility”. And that is how I got myself into researching this topic. There has been much debate over the years whether or not, movies have a more positive or more negative affect on people.

Many as I have said, argued that movies have the ability to numb individuals to violence, rape, murder, theft and many other things. And with those heinous God forsaken acts, they to a certain sense can be introduced to this rising generation, and then normalized in different forms of cinema (1). Surveys and tests are showing that younger and younger crowds are being flocked to the latest blockbuster regardless of the ratings and content of the film. And unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, these younger ages are being exposed to content that is not helpful nor healthy for a growing and maturing mind (2). The normalization of murder may single handedly be one of our fastest growing issues here in the USA, especially with cities like Chicago, Kansas City, or LA that have constant deaths from gang related activities. To add onto what has already been discovered, researchers are showing that there are also lasting negative psychological impacts that movies leave on their viewers specifically increased amount of anxiety, violence, and aggression all due to desensitization that happens when one views something that either first, releases endorphins, or normalizes violence (3). So needless to say, those are issues we deal with in our society, and if we know that part of what is causing those things to happen are violent and not uplifting films, why do we continue to make films in that genre. Continuing on, we aren’t here to debate whether or not films are impactful, we all agree that films can carry a message that no words could ever deliver. Some of the evilest men to walk the earth, were aware of the power film could carry. Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin are among 2 of these dictators that used film as propaganda to sway large populations to believe in their ideology (4).

Other argue the negative effects movies have on the physical health of people in our society, we do live in a country of consumerism and capitalism, one of the largest things we consume is food, and the food industry fortunately does very well. And unfortunately, we have paid the price with the highest amount of obese people in the world. Now I only state that because, yes food is the reason a majority of Americans can’t see their toes, but some argue films and media are the reason why people still can’t see their toes, because it’s easy to sit and watch your favorite tv show, while you eat big mac. Some have gone to the extent to call it “Fattertainment” (5). “Sit Time” a study conducted by Harvard University, followed a group of children and a group of adults, and found the more time spend in front of the TV, the higher chances they had of becoming obese. A study followed 50,000 men and women over a six-year period, and those who watched more than 2 hours of TV a day had a 23% higher risk of becoming obese and 14% higher risk of developing diabetes (6). So needless to say, there is exponential evidence showing that there are negative affects media has on our society, and culture.

Now there is obviously the opposing side of it all, and I would say it more of conventional approach to this. Movies and media do have the ability to positively affect and change people’s life’s, and the consensus is that more lives are changed than negatively impacted. I believe there are multiple areas that movies increase our livelihoods, the first being our mental and psychological health. Gary Solomon (Ph.D., MPH, MSW) write about how some therapist will prescribe “Cinema Therapy” it can give the viewer a new way of viewing trials or tribulations, it can give us a new outlook on certain aspects of our lives, and in short help deal with life’s ups and downs (7). Dr. Solomon continued to list off a few other mental benefits film and media can produce

1.     Encourages emotional release

2.     Sad films can make us happier, and more grateful for what we have and the people in our life.

3.     We can make sense of our own life, and clearer direction in where we need to go. Which releases unneeded tension

4.     They bring us a sense of relief from crippling stress or anxiety, due to the releasing of cortisol and dopamine.

(7)

Some other arguments have been put in place stating that some movies can act as a history lesson, and greatly inform us on our past and where we came from. They also help us understand ancient cultures and gain an appreciation for what modern technology we have in our world today (8). Movies also bring in billions to our economy, (well not right now) but typically the movie industry provides hundreds of thousands if not millions of jobs for people. (9) (10).

                       “Watching movies can help us make sense of our own lives. For thousands of years, knowledge and wisdom have been passed down through the art of storytelling. Stories offer us different perspectives and help us understand and make sense of the world. And movies are stories.” (8)

           “Even though it’s called ‘the seventh art’, cinema is surely the most influential art form.” (8)

A study that was conducted at Berkeley University, some researches decided to stop looking for the negative effects but start discovering the good. And they were surprised at what they found. Studies have shown that people who enjoy positive media are more prone to help others be “prosocial”, the researcher said “we’re beginning to understand its potential to spread goodness on a wide scale” Studies are showing that “elevated” media has the potential to shift our perception of the world to a “Kind-world syndrome” (11). So, researchers are obviously realizing the much good that comes from movies and media.

           So, to this point, it seems to that the positive impressions that movies leave behind are in abundance. It seems that it can affect almost every stage and aspect of life. Movies boost the economy, they give thousands of people’s jobs, movies inspire and lift up the oppressed, they can affect our mental and physical health in many ways, they show us that there is a better way to live and inspire others. In short, I believe they affect nearly every aspect and stage of our lives.

Now with nearly 16 weeks of research all jumbled in my head, it’s really obvious to me what effect movies and media have on our societies. My argument and opinion are based off of what I have read and studied but more centered around how I have felt and what I have gained in my lifetime from movies and media. If you recall what I said in the beginning of this paper, I gave experiences as young child in how movies positively influenced my life. And I believe with moderation, and age appropriate entertainment, movies can greatly enhance one’s life. I look back at each stage of my life and there is a movie or TV show that is affiliated with that time. Whether it was Spot the Dog, Tarzan, Brother Bear, Finding Nemo, or more grown up films. Over my twenty years of life I can remember at least 18 of those years being filled moderately with age appropriate movies that have inspired me and assisted in living a more beneficial and generous lifestyle. Now I understand, that I’m symbolically double dipping between the two arguments, and I could see that as an issue, the critics could say “you need to pick one side or the other”. But the reason I stand more on the side of movies being more uplifting, and inspiring is even in the darkest and most violent of movies there typically is underlying message that typically if taken the right way can instill some level of hope for a better tomorrow. Some of these films I am thinking of are John Wick, The Joker, Rambo, The Hateful Eight, or even dare I say Inglorious Bastards. Now I would argue alongside saying that many of these movies are dark, gruesome, maybe even evil. But some of the messages I have gained from these films, is evil will never prevail, there is a need for checks and balances or bad people can get out of hand, or that mental health treatment in our country needs to be readdressed, and those in unfortunate situations need our help. So, yes, I do believe that movies and media regardless of the content inside of them have a message for us, and it’s up to us to find it.

I shared an experience in my opinion series essay about an emotional moment I had watching “Just Mercy”, I wrote about a moment when it hit me that there are many African Americans in our justice system that are wrongly convicted just because of the color of their skin, and that caused me to be overcome with emotion. Now I first off have a better grasp on a social issue we struggle with as a country, and second since my eyes are open, I can look for ways and people that can directly affect this issue, and hopefully change It for good. One more personal experience, I was attending the movie “I Still Believe” with my fiancée and in the end the main characters wife passes away from cancer, and in that moment I realized I needed to show more appreciation for my fiancée and show more love towards her. So, my reason why I believe movies are beneficial to our society is because they can cause change and ignite people to live better lives, and create a better tomorrow for all of us, and a better future for the generations to come.  

           As I was saying critics will refute what my stance or argument is, I think moderation is vital if you are going to do anything in this life. But the critics will say regardless of the movie or media, it still is an enabler or reason for millions of Americans to be lazy, and be couch potatoes, and my answer to that would be moderation. Or critics will say that the violence found in movies outweighs any positive message left to be found, and I to certain degree I believe that. But I also believe we as people get out what we want, so if we want to enjoy a good old fashion Rambo movie, just because we love watching people get killed, then that is probably all we will get. But if we go into watching a good old classic Rambo movie with an open mind, we can learn about the Vietnam war, learned about courage, heroism, and also watch some bad guys get cut in half, or watch their hearts get cut out. At the end of the day, we get what we are looking for.

But I believe the best course of action is finding a happy medium, and what I mean by that is, yes, I do agree that some movies lack any uplifting or positive message. I stand by my belief that horror movies should be eradicated, I can’t think of much good they do, other than the pumping of adrenaline and an increased heart rate. But based off of my research I believe that nearly every genre of movie, minus horror, has the ability to positively impact and change people’s lives for the better, and could possibly alter man kind and propel us all to a better world.

Bibliography

1.     https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/television/how-has-rape-become-such-a-common-trope-of-television-drama/article31931181/

2.     https://www.namibian.com.na/134800/archive-read/The-Negative-Influence-of-Movies

3.     https://www.apa.org/action/resources/research-in-action/protect

4.     https://www.ourmovielife.com/2017/01/15/how-do-movies-affect-society/

5.     https://www.obesityaction.org/community/article-library/fattertainment-obesity-in-the-media/

6.     https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-causes/television-and-sedentary-behavior-and-obesity/

7.     https://psychcentral.com/blog/how-watching-movies-can-benefit-our-mental-health/

8.     https://www.ourmovielife.com/2017/01/15/how-do-movies-affect-society/

9.     https://piracyleash.com/jobs-movie-industry-create/

10.  https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-22278100

11.  https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_positive_media_can_make_us_better_people

[dinafbrownil]

Despite A Birth By A Colorado Legislator, Paid Family Leave Bill Feels Labor Pains

DENVER — When Brittany Pettersen, a Colorado state senator, gave birth to a boy in January, she became only the second lawmaker in the state to have a baby during a legislative season.

The first, Sen. Barbara Holme, delivered just two days before lawmakers adjourned nearly 30 years ago. But because she was part of a Democratic minority at the time, no one worried much about the votes Holme was missing, much less her need for paid maternity leave.

“That was the year I was born,” said Pettersen, also a Democrat. “Unfortunately, we haven’t come very far from 1981.”

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Despite the inroads women have made entering the workforce and politics, paid family and medical leave remains a heavy lift in Colorado and across much of the country. For each of the past six years, the Colorado legislature has considered bills to establish a statewide paid leave program, but none have passed. Yet this year, with a Democratic governor, Democratic control of both the state House and Senate, plus more female legislators than ever before, many thought it would be the best chance for a paid leave bill in the 30 years since Holme had her baby.

Pettersen has become something of a poster child — perhaps, a poster mom — for this year’s legislative push. While undoubtedly many male lawmakers have had children while serving, her fellow senators may find Pettersen’s example hard to ignore if a paid leave bill comes to the floor.

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“This is our opportunity to help Coloradans. And we’re going through it, even in our workplace,” said Pettersen, who took one month of paid leave from her legislative work. (Colorado legislators are allowed to take up to 40 days of fully compensated leave, but their salary is reduced if they’re out longer for anything other than a medical illness.)

Still, even after a bipartisan task force came to broad consensus this year for a mandatory paid family leave benefit run by the state and funded through payroll taxes, Coloradans may have to settle for something far less ambitious if anything passes at all. The fight illustrates just how divisive paid family leave can be when determining how to pay for it.

Colorado lawmaker Brittany Pettersen has pledged to bring her son, Davis, to the chamber floor for a crucial vote on paid family and medical leave, a tangible display of what’s at stake.(Courtesy of Brittany Pettersen)

Legislative Hurdles

Under federal law, employers with 50 or more employees are required to grant workers time off to deal with family or medical issues, including the birth of a child or the care of an aging parent. But companies are not required to pay workers for that time off.

Many of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have backed paid leave, and President Donald Trump’s budget envisioned a paid family leave program. Congress is now considering the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act, which would provide workers up to 12 weeks of partial income for family leave regardless of the company’s size, funded through a payroll tax of 2 cents per $10 in wages. Congress passed a bill last year that will grant 12 weeks of paid family leave to federal employees beginning in October.

Some states have sought to fill the gaps and, so far, eight states — California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington — along with the District of Columbia have established paid family leave programs, funded through payroll taxes. For a while, at least, Colorado looked poised to join them.

Colorado Republicans have killed paid leave bills in years past. But last year, when Democrats took control, paid leave looked like a possibility.

“That’s also when all the details really started to matter,” said Kathy White, deputy director of the Colorado Fiscal Institute, a nonprofit research and policy advocacy organization, which backed a paid leave benefit.

As a result, the 2019 paid leave bill was the most lobbied legislation in Colorado that session, according to backers, with more than 200 lobbyists registered as working on it. But, ultimately, lawmakers were unable to come to an agreement and instead established a task force to study the issue.

A Broad Consensus

The 13-member bipartisan panel spent months poring through examples from other states and studies that looked at the costs and benefits of providing family and medical leave. They reviewed more than 1,000 public comments submitted in just 30 days.

In January, the task force issued its final recommendations with broad consensus among its members. It backed what’s called a state-run social insurance model to levy a small payroll tax to cover the paychecks of those taking paid leave.

“This has become a really big issue because the research is becoming so clear,” White said. “We can see the difference between those who have leave and those who don’t have leave or have to take unpaid leave for caregiving needs.”

A state-commissioned review found strong evidence that paid leave decreased infant mortality by 10% to 13%, increased the rate of exclusive breastfeeding at 6 months, increased childhood immunization rates and improved maternal mental health.

But the task force recommendations were met with objections from various lawmakers, as well as Gov. Jared Polis. He had asked the task force to consider paid leave models other than a state-run program.

Some opposed the new payroll taxes, while others were concerned about the state’s potential costs if payroll taxes don’t collect enough. Critics have argued that paid leave mandates offer employers little flexibility to meet an employee’s specific needs — and can create an economic burden for businesses.

When Brittany Pettersen, a Colorado state senator, gave birth to her son, Davis, near the start of her state’s four-month legislative session, it highlighted the lack of comprehensive paid family leave. A bill to add a statewide system that once seemed a sure thing is getting bogged down.(Courtesy of Brittany Pettersen)

By February, bill sponsors had shifted to a compromise that would require companies to offer paid family and medical time off but would leave it up to employers to determine how to provide that.

It’s not nearly the benefit that paid-leave advocates had hoped for.

“I would have preferred a social insurance plan,” said Democratic Sen. Faith Winter, the bill’s lead sponsor. “Ultimately, you could have a perfect bill that doesn’t pass, or you could have a good bill that passes.”

Waning Support

Now it’s unclear whether the compromise bill has given up too much ground to pass. Already, two of Winter’s Democratic co-sponsors have dropped their names from the revised bill, calling into question whether it will have enough votes.

“It’s a big program with lots of details, and it impacts every person in the state,” Winter said. “When you start moving things that affect everyone and every business, that means everyone cares.”

The coalition of nonprofits and advocacy groups pushing for paid family and medical leave does have a backstop. Early this year, proponents registered two paid leave ballot measures for the November elections.

“Colorado families overwhelmingly want and expect the legislature to move forward with a plan to provide family and medical leave this year,” said Lynea Hansen, a spokesperson for Colorado Families First, a nonprofit that has been lobbying in favor of a paid leave bill. “If the legislature is unsuccessful at passing a comprehensive policy, we plan to take this initiative to the voters.”

It’s unknown whether the backers of the ballot measure would continue to press the issue if the legislature passes the compromise bill instead of the full state-run benefit advocates sought.

“What happens if the legislature does do something and it’s still not good enough for the advocates?” asked Loren Furman, senior vice president of state and federal relations for the Colorado Chamber of Commerce, which has been supportive of a paid leave bill. “Are they then going to continue down the path of the ballot initiative?”

If nothing else, the additional time it took to rework the bill has allowed Pettersen to be back from her one-month maternity leave in time for debate on the bill. The Democrats hold a slim 19-16 margin in the Senate and cannot count on a strict party-line vote because some party members are wavering in their support for the new approach.

Pettersen has pledged to bring her infant son, Davis, to the chamber floor for the crucial vote — a tangible display of what’s at stake.

“It’s just another reminder,” she said. “There are numerous moms that have been elected. But absolutely, having the experience of someone going through it right now is going to impact what we’re talking about.”

from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/colorado-maternity-paid-family-leave-bill-feels-labor-pains/

[stephenmccull]

Despite A Birth By A Colorado Legislator, Paid Family Leave Bill Feels Labor Pains

DENVER — When Brittany Pettersen, a Colorado state senator, gave birth to a boy in January, she became only the second lawmaker in the state to have a baby during a legislative season.

The first, Sen. Barbara Holme, delivered just two days before lawmakers adjourned nearly 30 years ago. But because she was part of a Democratic minority at the time, no one worried much about the votes Holme was missing, much less her need for paid maternity leave.

“That was the year I was born,” said Pettersen, also a Democrat. “Unfortunately, we haven’t come very far from 1981.”

More From The Mountain States

View More

Despite the inroads women have made entering the workforce and politics, paid family and medical leave remains a heavy lift in Colorado and across much of the country. For each of the past six years, the Colorado legislature has considered bills to establish a statewide paid leave program, but none have passed. Yet this year, with a Democratic governor, Democratic control of both the state House and Senate, plus more female legislators than ever before, many thought it would be the best chance for a paid leave bill in the 30 years since Holme had her baby.

Pettersen has become something of a poster child — perhaps, a poster mom — for this year’s legislative push. While undoubtedly many male lawmakers have had children while serving, her fellow senators may find Pettersen’s example hard to ignore if a paid leave bill comes to the floor.

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“This is our opportunity to help Coloradans. And we’re going through it, even in our workplace,” said Pettersen, who took one month of paid leave from her legislative work. (Colorado legislators are allowed to take up to 40 days of fully compensated leave, but their salary is reduced if they’re out longer for anything other than a medical illness.)

Still, even after a bipartisan task force came to broad consensus this year for a mandatory paid family leave benefit run by the state and funded through payroll taxes, Coloradans may have to settle for something far less ambitious if anything passes at all. The fight illustrates just how divisive paid family leave can be when determining how to pay for it.

Colorado lawmaker Brittany Pettersen has pledged to bring her son, Davis, to the chamber floor for a crucial vote on paid family and medical leave, a tangible display of what’s at stake.(Courtesy of Brittany Pettersen)

Legislative Hurdles

Under federal law, employers with 50 or more employees are required to grant workers time off to deal with family or medical issues, including the birth of a child or the care of an aging parent. But companies are not required to pay workers for that time off.

Many of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have backed paid leave, and President Donald Trump’s budget envisioned a paid family leave program. Congress is now considering the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act, which would provide workers up to 12 weeks of partial income for family leave regardless of the company’s size, funded through a payroll tax of 2 cents per $10 in wages. Congress passed a bill last year that will grant 12 weeks of paid family leave to federal employees beginning in October.

Some states have sought to fill the gaps and, so far, eight states — California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington — along with the District of Columbia have established paid family leave programs, funded through payroll taxes. For a while, at least, Colorado looked poised to join them.

Colorado Republicans have killed paid leave bills in years past. But last year, when Democrats took control, paid leave looked like a possibility.

“That’s also when all the details really started to matter,” said Kathy White, deputy director of the Colorado Fiscal Institute, a nonprofit research and policy advocacy organization, which backed a paid leave benefit.

As a result, the 2019 paid leave bill was the most lobbied legislation in Colorado that session, according to backers, with more than 200 lobbyists registered as working on it. But, ultimately, lawmakers were unable to come to an agreement and instead established a task force to study the issue.

A Broad Consensus

The 13-member bipartisan panel spent months poring through examples from other states and studies that looked at the costs and benefits of providing family and medical leave. They reviewed more than 1,000 public comments submitted in just 30 days.

In January, the task force issued its final recommendations with broad consensus among its members. It backed what’s called a state-run social insurance model to levy a small payroll tax to cover the paychecks of those taking paid leave.

“This has become a really big issue because the research is becoming so clear,” White said. “We can see the difference between those who have leave and those who don’t have leave or have to take unpaid leave for caregiving needs.”

A state-commissioned review found strong evidence that paid leave decreased infant mortality by 10% to 13%, increased the rate of exclusive breastfeeding at 6 months, increased childhood immunization rates and improved maternal mental health.

But the task force recommendations were met with objections from various lawmakers, as well as Gov. Jared Polis. He had asked the task force to consider paid leave models other than a state-run program.

Some opposed the new payroll taxes, while others were concerned about the state’s potential costs if payroll taxes don’t collect enough. Critics have argued that paid leave mandates offer employers little flexibility to meet an employee’s specific needs — and can create an economic burden for businesses.

When Brittany Pettersen, a Colorado state senator, gave birth to her son, Davis, near the start of her state’s four-month legislative session, it highlighted the lack of comprehensive paid family leave. A bill to add a statewide system that once seemed a sure thing is getting bogged down.(Courtesy of Brittany Pettersen)

By February, bill sponsors had shifted to a compromise that would require companies to offer paid family and medical time off but would leave it up to employers to determine how to provide that.

It’s not nearly the benefit that paid-leave advocates had hoped for.

“I would have preferred a social insurance plan,” said Democratic Sen. Faith Winter, the bill’s lead sponsor. “Ultimately, you could have a perfect bill that doesn’t pass, or you could have a good bill that passes.”

Waning Support

Now it’s unclear whether the compromise bill has given up too much ground to pass. Already, two of Winter’s Democratic co-sponsors have dropped their names from the revised bill, calling into question whether it will have enough votes.

“It’s a big program with lots of details, and it impacts every person in the state,” Winter said. “When you start moving things that affect everyone and every business, that means everyone cares.”

The coalition of nonprofits and advocacy groups pushing for paid family and medical leave does have a backstop. Early this year, proponents registered two paid leave ballot measures for the November elections.

“Colorado families overwhelmingly want and expect the legislature to move forward with a plan to provide family and medical leave this year,” said Lynea Hansen, a spokesperson for Colorado Families First, a nonprofit that has been lobbying in favor of a paid leave bill. “If the legislature is unsuccessful at passing a comprehensive policy, we plan to take this initiative to the voters.”

It’s unknown whether the backers of the ballot measure would continue to press the issue if the legislature passes the compromise bill instead of the full state-run benefit advocates sought.

“What happens if the legislature does do something and it’s still not good enough for the advocates?” asked Loren Furman, senior vice president of state and federal relations for the Colorado Chamber of Commerce, which has been supportive of a paid leave bill. “Are they then going to continue down the path of the ballot initiative?”

If nothing else, the additional time it took to rework the bill has allowed Pettersen to be back from her one-month maternity leave in time for debate on the bill. The Democrats hold a slim 19-16 margin in the Senate and cannot count on a strict party-line vote because some party members are wavering in their support for the new approach.

Pettersen has pledged to bring her infant son, Davis, to the chamber floor for the crucial vote — a tangible display of what’s at stake.

“It’s just another reminder,” she said. “There are numerous moms that have been elected. But absolutely, having the experience of someone going through it right now is going to impact what we’re talking about.”

Despite A Birth By A Colorado Legislator, Paid Family Leave Bill Feels Labor Pains published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

[gordonwilliamsweb]

Despite A Birth By A Colorado Legislator, Paid Family Leave Bill Feels Labor Pains

DENVER — When Brittany Pettersen, a Colorado state senator, gave birth to a boy in January, she became only the second lawmaker in the state to have a baby during a legislative season.

The first, Sen. Barbara Holme, delivered just two days before lawmakers adjourned nearly 30 years ago. But because she was part of a Democratic minority at the time, no one worried much about the votes Holme was missing, much less her need for paid maternity leave.

“That was the year I was born,” said Pettersen, also a Democrat. “Unfortunately, we haven’t come very far from 1981.”

More From The Mountain States

View More

Despite the inroads women have made entering the workforce and politics, paid family and medical leave remains a heavy lift in Colorado and across much of the country. For each of the past six years, the Colorado legislature has considered bills to establish a statewide paid leave program, but none have passed. Yet this year, with a Democratic governor, Democratic control of both the state House and Senate, plus more female legislators than ever before, many thought it would be the best chance for a paid leave bill in the 30 years since Holme had her baby.

Pettersen has become something of a poster child — perhaps, a poster mom — for this year’s legislative push. While undoubtedly many male lawmakers have had children while serving, her fellow senators may find Pettersen’s example hard to ignore if a paid leave bill comes to the floor.

Email Sign-Up

Subscribe to KHN’s free Morning Briefing.

Sign Up

Please confirm your email address below:

Sign Up

“This is our opportunity to help Coloradans. And we’re going through it, even in our workplace,” said Pettersen, who took one month of paid leave from her legislative work. (Colorado legislators are allowed to take up to 40 days of fully compensated leave, but their salary is reduced if they’re out longer for anything other than a medical illness.)

Still, even after a bipartisan task force came to broad consensus this year for a mandatory paid family leave benefit run by the state and funded through payroll taxes, Coloradans may have to settle for something far less ambitious if anything passes at all. The fight illustrates just how divisive paid family leave can be when determining how to pay for it.

Colorado lawmaker Brittany Pettersen has pledged to bring her son, Davis, to the chamber floor for a crucial vote on paid family and medical leave, a tangible display of what’s at stake.(Courtesy of Brittany Pettersen)

Legislative Hurdles

Under federal law, employers with 50 or more employees are required to grant workers time off to deal with family or medical issues, including the birth of a child or the care of an aging parent. But companies are not required to pay workers for that time off.

Many of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have backed paid leave, and President Donald Trump’s budget envisioned a paid family leave program. Congress is now considering the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act, which would provide workers up to 12 weeks of partial income for family leave regardless of the company’s size, funded through a payroll tax of 2 cents per $10 in wages. Congress passed a bill last year that will grant 12 weeks of paid family leave to federal employees beginning in October.

Some states have sought to fill the gaps and, so far, eight states — California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington — along with the District of Columbia have established paid family leave programs, funded through payroll taxes. For a while, at least, Colorado looked poised to join them.

Colorado Republicans have killed paid leave bills in years past. But last year, when Democrats took control, paid leave looked like a possibility.

“That’s also when all the details really started to matter,” said Kathy White, deputy director of the Colorado Fiscal Institute, a nonprofit research and policy advocacy organization, which backed a paid leave benefit.

As a result, the 2019 paid leave bill was the most lobbied legislation in Colorado that session, according to backers, with more than 200 lobbyists registered as working on it. But, ultimately, lawmakers were unable to come to an agreement and instead established a task force to study the issue.

A Broad Consensus

The 13-member bipartisan panel spent months poring through examples from other states and studies that looked at the costs and benefits of providing family and medical leave. They reviewed more than 1,000 public comments submitted in just 30 days.

In January, the task force issued its final recommendations with broad consensus among its members. It backed what’s called a state-run social insurance model to levy a small payroll tax to cover the paychecks of those taking paid leave.

“This has become a really big issue because the research is becoming so clear,” White said. “We can see the difference between those who have leave and those who don’t have leave or have to take unpaid leave for caregiving needs.”

A state-commissioned review found strong evidence that paid leave decreased infant mortality by 10% to 13%, increased the rate of exclusive breastfeeding at 6 months, increased childhood immunization rates and improved maternal mental health.

But the task force recommendations were met with objections from various lawmakers, as well as Gov. Jared Polis. He had asked the task force to consider paid leave models other than a state-run program.

Some opposed the new payroll taxes, while others were concerned about the state’s potential costs if payroll taxes don’t collect enough. Critics have argued that paid leave mandates offer employers little flexibility to meet an employee’s specific needs — and can create an economic burden for businesses.

When Brittany Pettersen, a Colorado state senator, gave birth to her son, Davis, near the start of her state’s four-month legislative session, it highlighted the lack of comprehensive paid family leave. A bill to add a statewide system that once seemed a sure thing is getting bogged down.(Courtesy of Brittany Pettersen)

By February, bill sponsors had shifted to a compromise that would require companies to offer paid family and medical time off but would leave it up to employers to determine how to provide that.

It’s not nearly the benefit that paid-leave advocates had hoped for.

“I would have preferred a social insurance plan,” said Democratic Sen. Faith Winter, the bill’s lead sponsor. “Ultimately, you could have a perfect bill that doesn’t pass, or you could have a good bill that passes.”

Waning Support

Now it’s unclear whether the compromise bill has given up too much ground to pass. Already, two of Winter’s Democratic co-sponsors have dropped their names from the revised bill, calling into question whether it will have enough votes.

“It’s a big program with lots of details, and it impacts every person in the state,” Winter said. “When you start moving things that affect everyone and every business, that means everyone cares.”

The coalition of nonprofits and advocacy groups pushing for paid family and medical leave does have a backstop. Early this year, proponents registered two paid leave ballot measures for the November elections.

“Colorado families overwhelmingly want and expect the legislature to move forward with a plan to provide family and medical leave this year,” said Lynea Hansen, a spokesperson for Colorado Families First, a nonprofit that has been lobbying in favor of a paid leave bill. “If the legislature is unsuccessful at passing a comprehensive policy, we plan to take this initiative to the voters.”

It’s unknown whether the backers of the ballot measure would continue to press the issue if the legislature passes the compromise bill instead of the full state-run benefit advocates sought.

“What happens if the legislature does do something and it’s still not good enough for the advocates?” asked Loren Furman, senior vice president of state and federal relations for the Colorado Chamber of Commerce, which has been supportive of a paid leave bill. “Are they then going to continue down the path of the ballot initiative?”

If nothing else, the additional time it took to rework the bill has allowed Pettersen to be back from her one-month maternity leave in time for debate on the bill. The Democrats hold a slim 19-16 margin in the Senate and cannot count on a strict party-line vote because some party members are wavering in their support for the new approach.

Pettersen has pledged to bring her infant son, Davis, to the chamber floor for the crucial vote — a tangible display of what’s at stake.

“It’s just another reminder,” she said. “There are numerous moms that have been elected. But absolutely, having the experience of someone going through it right now is going to impact what we’re talking about.”

Despite A Birth By A Colorado Legislator, Paid Family Leave Bill Feels Labor Pains published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

[mastcomm]

Your Tuesday Briefing – The New York Times

Coronavirus’s toll includes economies

China on Tuesday reported 72,436 total cases of coronavirus infections, while the death toll now stands at 1,868. Here are the latest updates and maps of where the virus has spread.

In Europe, where wealthy Chinese tourists have become mainstays of hotels, shops and cultural destinations, the outbreak has dealt a blow to businesses after Beijing banned overseas group tours and many countries restricted or barred entry to people from China.

Flight and hotel bookings have been canceled over fears of the virus, and there has also been a drop in tourists from other nations who want to avoid crowded spaces. Apple cut its sales forecast Monday, as both production and demand for its products have been slowed in China because of the outbreak.

The latest: Australia, South Korea and other countries are preparing to evacuate their citizens from the cruise ship Diamond Princess, which has been quarantined in Japan for almost two weeks. Fourteen evacuated Americans were found to have the virus shortly before they boarded chartered flights to the U.S.

Political fallout over floods in Britain

Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain came under fire after his office said on Monday that he had no plans to visit areas with severe flooding after a storm that battered the country over the weekend.

Storm Dennis, classified as a “weather bomb” by the national weather service, slammed areas that were still recovering from heavy rains and strong winds brought by another storm last week. At least one person has died, while hundreds of others have been forced to leave their homes.

The response: Despite more rain predicted on Wednesday, Mr. Johnson has not called a meeting of the government’s emergencies committee to discuss the situation.

Background: Britain is experiencing more frequent and serious flooding because of global warming, experts say. Mohammad Heidarzadeh, a coastal engineering academic, said floods that were once seen every 15 to 20 years are now occurring every two to five years and that the country’s flood defense systems are “not fit to address the current climate situation.”

Another angle: The pressure is piling up on Mr. Johnson after his office appointed an aide who once said black people have lower I.Q.s than white people. The adviser, Andrew Sabisky, quit on Monday after the ensuing uproar, complaining of “media hysteria.”

U.S. efforts to thwart Huawei in Europe fall short

Germany appears poised to follow Britain in allowing Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, to build next-generation 5G networks, despite warnings from the United States.

U.S. officials have lobbied their allies to ban the company out of fear that its equipment could be used by China to spy on or control European and American communication networks. But as those countries are forced to choose between the U.S., a key intelligence ally, and China, a critical trading partner, some like Britain have taken the risk and cooperated with Huawei.

Context: The Huawei issue is part of a broader fight between the U.S. and China as they vie to dominate advanced technologies. The U.S. is now shifting its approach by looking to cut off Huawei from access to American technology and trying to build a credible competitor — but its officials have often contradicted each other’s ideas.

Quote of note: “Many of us in Europe agree that there are significant dangers with Huawei, and the U.S. for at least a year has been telling us, do not use Huawei. Are you offering an alternative?” asked Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Estonia’s former president. “What is it that we should do other than not use Huawei?”

How China tracked Xinjiang detainees

Going on religious pilgrimages, praying, attending funerals, wearing a beard, having too many children.

These are all acts, among other signs of piety, that would have been flagged by the Chinese government and warranted monitoring or even detention for Uighurs living in the western Xinjiang region, according to a leaked government document that was shared with several news media organizations, including The Times.

The document, one of numerous files kept on more than one million people who have been detained, illuminates another piece of the Chinese government’s coercive crackdown on ethnic minorities and what Beijing considers to be wayward thinking.

Follow-up: Three-fourths of the detainees listed have been released, according to an expert who studied the document. But it also shows that many of those released were later assigned work in tightly controlled industrial parks.

If you have 5 minutes, this is worth it

Too much of a cute thing?

Adorable characters like Hello Kitty are used to sell everything in Japan, and fading towns have long used mascots to lure visitors and investment. Above, Sanomaru, a dog with a ramen bowl on its head, represents the city of Sano.

But as their tax bases dwindle along with their populations, communities are increasingly questioning whether the whimsy is worth the expense.

Here’s what else is happening

Libya arms: The European Union said it would launch a naval and air mission to stop arms from reaching Libya, currently embroiled in civil war. Austria and Hungary had initially objected out of concern that ships could enable more migrants to reach Europe.

Burkina Faso shooting: A gunman attacked a church during Sunday Mass and killed at least 24 people in the country’s northwest, security sources said. It was not immediately clear who was responsible, but jihadist groups have been seeking control over rural areas of the country.

Caroline Flack: Fans of the “Love Island” host, who died by suicide over the weekend, are calling for a new law to stop British tabloids from publishing articles that reveal “private information that is detrimental to a celebrity, their mental health and those around them.”

Snapshot: Above, Michael Bloomberg on the campaign trail. He has risen in the polls after entering the race for the U.S. Democratic presidential candidacy, raising the pressure on political reporters employed by his news media outlet.

Artificial intelligence: Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, met with European Union officials on Monday as the E.U. prepares to release a draft of an artificial intelligence policy. That will have important consequences for tech giants like Apple, Facebook and Google.

What we’re reading: This collection of letters. “British newspapers’ letters pages are a peculiar sort of joy,” writes Peter Robins, an editor in our London newsroom. “Recently, readers of The Guardian have been debating how old you have to be before it’s eccentric to keep boiling up your annual 18-pound batch of homemade marmalade. Bidding started at 77 and has escalated rapidly.”

Now, a break from the news

Cook: Cheesy baked pasta with sausage and ricotta is faster to make than lasagna. (Our Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter has more recommendations.)

Read: “Apeirogon,” the latest novel from Colum McCann, delves into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the eyes of two grieving fathers. “I think people wouldn’t have trusted it as much if it wasn’t real,” he said.

Watch: It may feel as if Zoë Kravitz has always been famous, but you can now watch her in her first lead role, as the heartbroken Rob in Hulu’s TV adaptation of “High Fidelity.” She spoke with our reporter about her acting and her life.

Smarter Living: We collected a few items that will help you make the most of an off-season getaway.

And now for the Back Story on …

Somalia’s future

Abdi Latif Dahir is The Times’s East Africa correspondent. A Kenyan of Somali descent, he reports in and about some dozen countries. We reached him in Nairobi, to talk about his latest story, about the young Somalis who are filling in the gaps their government can’t.

This is such a powerful story of resilience and hope. How did you find it?

Late last year, there was a big attack in Mogadishu, the worst by Al Shabab in two years. And one thing stood out. Almost all the news stories mentioned that a lot of university students had died, young people who wanted to be doctors or were studying other specialties that would help the country.

On Jan. 1, I flew to Mogadishu, to follow up on the attack and to write about these students and what they mean to Somalia.

My first story was about that, but also on how things had been getting so much better in Mogadishu — and it was all these young people doing it.

What else inspired you?

I went to this crisis center. They were collecting the names of the victims and reaching out to their families. I wanted to sit amongst them and see what it was like. They were checking in, asking the families, how are you today?

And maybe they’d hear that the hospital bill had been paid so that was OK, but the family hadn’t eaten breakfast that day. So they would corral someone to get food over to them.

I wanted to write about the chutzpah to invent these systems, to stay strong with all that was happening.

People could rattle off all these names of people they’ve known who’ve been killed. But then they would say, we want to stay here and be the ones to fix this country. They’re creating tech hubs, and restaurants and delivery services that are thriving. Because of the attacks on hotels and restaurants, it’s safer to stay home, have friends over and order a meal.

How is it being the East Africa correspondent?

I’ve had the job since November. It’s incredible. This is a dynamic, evolving region that’s changing socially, geopolitically, economically. It’s a great place to be a journalist. Honestly, you could write a story every hour.

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Sofia

Thank you To Mark Josephson and Eleanor Stanford for the break from the news. Andrea Kannapell, the briefings editor, wrote today’s Back Story. You can reach the team at [email protected].

P.S. • “The Daily” was off for the U.S. Presidents’ Day holiday. But try our “Modern Love” podcast. This week’s is titled “When Cupid Is a Prying Journalist.” • Here’s today’s Mini Crossword puzzle, and a clue: Sound made with two fingers (four letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • Last week, we told you that our Visual Investigations team would be answering reader questions. Here’s the YouTube video of them doing just that.

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[deniscollins]

Jeffrey Epstein Gave $850,000 to M.I.T., and Administrators Knew

Jeff Epstein donated money to MIT between 2002 and 2008, at which point he was convicted on sex charges involving minors, and then continued to do so, eventually totaling $850,000 with 10 donations. If you were president of MIT and in 2013 found out about these donations what would you do: (1) continue to accept them, (2) refuse any donations after the 2008 conviction, (3) return all donations from him, (4) something else, if so, what? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

Over 15 years, the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein repeatedly donated to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Top administrators knew about the gifts, felt conflicted about them, and accepted them anyway. The university’s president even signed a thank-you note.

But on Friday, months after the campus was roiled by revelations of Mr. Epstein’s financial ties to the school’s prominent Media Lab program, investigators hired by the school absolved M.I.T.’s leadership of breaking any rules.

The law firm Goodwin Procter spent four months compiling a report on M.I.T.’s dealings with Mr. Epstein, who killed himself in his Manhattan jail cell in August while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. The investigation found that Mr. Epstein made 10 donations — totaling $850,000, slightly more than M.I.T. had previously disclosed — from 2002 to 2017. Mr. Epstein also visited campus at least nine times from 2013 to 2017, a period that followed his conviction on sex charges involving a minor in Florida.

The university took action against only one person still connected with the school: Seth Lloyd, a mechanical engineering professor who previously acknowledged accepting money from Mr. Epstein, was placed on paid leave. The report found that Mr. Lloyd had “purposefully failed” to inform M.I.T. of multiple donations from Mr. Epstein, including a $60,000 gift deposited into his personal bank account.

The report concluded that Mr. Epstein’s visits, along with any donations made after his 2008 conviction in Florida, had been enabled by Mr. Lloyd or Joichi Ito, the former director of the Media Lab who stepped down in September. (Mr. Ito also resigned from The New York Times Company’s board.)

The 61-page report, based on dozens of interviews and a review of more than 610,000 emails and documents, cleared others of wrongdoing, including the university’s president, L. Rafael Reif. Mr. Reif acknowledged last year that he had signed a letter thanking Mr. Epstein for a donation in 2012, but the report said he “had no role in approving” the donations.

One current and two former M.I.T. vice presidents who learned of Mr. Epstein’s donations in 2013 and began quietly approving them were rebuked in the report, but not disciplined because it concluded that they had not broken any university policies.

The three vice presidents — R. Gregory Morgan, Jeffrey Newton and Israel Ruiz — made “significant errors in judgment that resulted in serious damage to the M.I.T. community,” according to the report.

Mr. Ruiz is the school’s executive vice president and treasurer, although the university announced last month that he would step down this semester for a career outside of academia. The announcement made no mention of the Epstein scandal.

Mr. Ruiz said in a statement that he was confident that the university’s leadership and broader community would “create an effective and successful path forward.”

Mr. Morgan and Mr. Newton have retired from the university. They did not respond to requests for comment.

According to the report, the men debated whether to accept Mr. Epstein’s money “in the absence of any M.I.T. policy regarding controversial gifts.” They reached a compromise: Under “an informal framework,” the school would accept the donations while insisting that the gifts be small and unpublicized to prevent Mr. Epstein from using them to improve his reputation or gain influence at the university, the report said.

Efforts to reclassify Mr. Epstein’s donations as anonymous “made it impossible for all but a select few to see the number or amount of Epstein donations,” the school’s executive committee said in a statement. The committee called for university employees “to take steps to protect and ensure the integrity and factual accuracy of the donor database.”

Denis A. Bovin, a member of the executive committee, said at a news conference that M.I.T. had not thought it would need a policy concerning gifts from someone with Mr. Epstein’s past.

“We never thought in our history that we’d have this kind of problem,” he said.

Mr. Lloyd, the professor, is now under review in the mechanical engineering department, with proceedings “moving swiftly,” Alan G. Spoon, a member of M.I.T.’s board of trustees, said during a conference call with reporters.

Mr. Lloyd, who was introduced by his book agent to Mr. Epstein in 2004, declined to comment.

The report focused heavily on Mr. Ito, the former Media Lab director, who acknowledged raising $1.7 million from Mr. Epstein for the lab and his own outside investment funds. The disclosure raised an uproar at a program that prides itself on its contrarian culture.

Mr. Ito, a master networker who raised at least $50 million for the Media Lab, met Mr. Epstein in 2013 at a TED conference in California and then “cultivated” the financier as a donor and a link to other wealthy people, according to the report.

Mr. Ito resigned from the Media Lab in September. He also stepped down from several other boards and a visiting professorship at Harvard. He did not respond to a request for comment.

The report found that Mr. Epstein’s presence on campus had disturbed Media Lab staff members — investigators were told that Mr. Epstein was sometimes accompanied by young female assistants — and that Mr. Ito probably sensed their nervousness. In 2013, Mr. Ito expressed concern that a proposed campus visit from Mr. Epstein and the director Woody Allen could result in a public relations headache, investigators found. A Media Lab communications employee distributed photos of one event to other people at the lab, writing in an email that they should “feel free to post on social media — as long as Jeffrey Epstein does not appear in any of the photos!”

News reports about other internal emails previously demonstrated how Media Lab officials had obfuscated Mr. Epstein’s relationship with the program. The emails included references to donations from other wealthy figures that purportedly involved Mr. Epstein.

In one 2014 email, Mr. Ito wrote that a $2 million gift from the Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates had been “directed by Jeffrey Epstein.” In a subsequent email, another lab official wrote that “for gift recording purposes, we will not be mentioning Jeffrey’s name as the impetus for this gift.” In another email exchange, Mr. Ito discussed how Mr. Epstein was helping to connect the lab to Leon Black, the founder of Apollo Global Management, a prominent private equity fund. One email indicated that Mr. Black had given the lab $4 million.

Mr. Gates has denied that Mr. Epstein directed grant-making on his behalf. A representative for Mr. Black said he could not immediately be reached for comment.

Roberto Braceras, a Goodwin Procter partner who led the investigation, said on the conference call that his team spoke with representatives of Mr. Gates, who “deny that any Gates donation had any relationship to anything regarding Epstein.” He said Mr. Black’s representatives could not be reached, but added that “there’s no evidence that Black’s donations were the result of Epstein’s encouragement.”

The university has already set up two faculty-led committees to work on new policies for gifts and the vetting of donors. Those committees are expected to deliver their recommendations in the spring, and the executive committee said administrators should work closely with them to put such policies in place as soon as possible.

Crystal Lee, a graduate student at M.I.T., said she was relieved that Mr. Lloyd was no longer teaching students. But she said the report did not answer all the questions she had.

“I am still troubled by many of the specific details of the case that will go unresolved with the report’s air of finality,” she said.

For example, she said, the university offers only “woefully inadequate” support for mental health, despite the circumstances of the scandal.

“I am optimistic that M.I.T. can and should change, if only because of my fellow students, who have done so much work to make this campus a better place,” she said.

#MIT #Jeff Epstein

[parentingguide8-blog]

How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endanger Us All

New Post has been published on https://parentinguideto.com/must-see/how-panicked-parents-skipping-shots-endanger-us-all/

How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endanger Us All

The debate over childhood vaccination has been in the news on and off for nearly a decade. In 2009 WIRED published a comprehensive cover story on the subject—An Epidemic of Fear—laying out the debate and analyzing how unjustified and unscientific thinking was fueling a growing anti-vaccine moment. As another wave of stories about vaccination dominate the media, we thought it was time to revisit our earlier coverage.

To hear his enemies talk, you might think Paul Offit is the most hated man in America. A pediatrician in Philadelphia, he is the coinventor of a rotavirus vaccine that could save tens of thousands of lives every year. Yet environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. slams Offit as a “biostitute” who whores for the pharmaceutical industry. Actor Jim Carrey calls him a profiteer and distills the doctor’s attitude toward childhood vaccination down to this chilling mantra: “Grab ’em and stab ’em.” Recently, Carrey and his girlfriend, Jenny McCarthy, went on CNN’s Larry King Live and singled out Offit’s vaccine, RotaTeq, as one of many unnecessary vaccines, all administered, they said, for just one reason: “Greed.”

Thousands of people revile Offit publicly at rallies, on Web sites, and in books. Type pauloffit.com into your browser and you’ll find not Offit’s official site but an anti-Offit screed “dedicated to exposing the truth about the vaccine industry’s most well-paid spokesperson.” Go to Wikipedia to read his bio and, as often as not, someone will have tampered with the page. The section on Offit’s education was once altered to say that he’d studied on a pig farm in Toad Suck, Arkansas. (He’s a graduate of Tufts University and the University of Maryland School of Medicine).

Then there are the threats. Offit once got an email from a Seattle man that read, “I will hang you by your neck until you are dead!” Other bracing messages include “You have blood on your hands” and “Your day of reckoning will come.” A few years ago, a man on the phone ominously told Offit he knew where the doctor’s two children went to school. At a meeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an anti-vaccine protester emerged from a crowd of people holding signs that featured Offit’s face emblazoned with the word terrorist and grabbed the unsuspecting, 6-foot-tall physician by the jacket.

“I don’t think he wanted to hurt me,” Offit recalls. “He was just excited to be close to the personification of such evil.” Still, whenever Offit gets a letter with an unfamiliar return address, he holds the envelope at arm’s length before gingerly tearing it open. “I think about it,” he admits. “Anthrax.”

This isnt a religious dispute, like the debate over creationism and intelligent design. Its a challenge to traditional science that crosses party, class, and religious lines.

So what has this award-winning 58-year-old scientist done to elicit such venom? He boldly states — in speeches, in journal articles, and in his 2008 book Autism’s False Prophets — that vaccines do not cause autism or autoimmune disease or any of the other chronic conditions that have been blamed on them. He supports this assertion with meticulous evidence. And he calls to account those who promote bogus treatments for autism — treatments that he says not only don’t work but often cause harm.

As a result, Offit has become the main target of a grassroots movement that opposes the systematic vaccination of children and the laws that require it. McCarthy, an actress and a former Playboy centerfold whose son has been diagnosed with autism, is the best-known leader of the movement, but she is joined by legions of well-organized supporters and sympathizers.

This isn’t a religious dispute, like the debate over creationism and intelligent design. It’s a challenge to traditional science that crosses party, class, and religious lines. It is partly a reaction to Big Pharma’s blunders and PR missteps, from Vioxx to illegal marketing ploys, which have encouraged a distrust of experts. It is also, ironically, a product of the era of instant communication and easy access to information. The doubters and deniers are empowered by the Internet (online, nobody knows you’re not a doctor) and helped by the mainstream media, which has an interest in pumping up bad science to create a “debate” where there should be none.

In the center of the fray is Paul Offit. “People describe me as a vaccine advocate,” he says. “I see myself as a science advocate.” But in this battle — and make no mistake, he says, it’s a pitched and heated battle — “science alone isn’t enough … People are getting hurt. The parent who reads what Jenny McCarthy says and thinks, ‘Well, maybe I shouldn’t get this vaccine,’ and their child dies of Hib meningitis,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s such a fundamental failure on our part that we haven’t convinced that parent.”

Consider: In certain parts of the US, vaccination rates have dropped so low that occurrences of some children’s diseases are approaching pre-vaccine levels for the first time ever. And the number of people who choose not to vaccinate their children (so-called philosophical exemptions are available in about 20 states, including Pennsylvania, Texas, and much of the West) continues to rise. In states where such opting out is allowed, 2.6 percent of parents did so last year, up from 1 percent in 1991, according to the CDC. In some communities, like California’s affluent Marin County, just north of San Francisco, non-vaccination rates are approaching 6 percent (counterintuitively, higher rates of non-vaccination often correspond with higher levels of education and wealth).

Science loses ground to pseudo-science because the latter seems to offer more comfort.

That may not sound like much, but a recent study by the Los Angeles Times indicates that the impact can be devastating. The Times found that even though only about 2 percent of California’s kindergartners are unvaccinated (10,000 kids, or about twice the number as in 1997), they tend to be clustered, disproportionately increasing the risk of an outbreak of such largely eradicated diseases as measles, mumps, and pertussis (whooping cough). The clustering means almost 10 percent of elementary schools statewide may already be at risk.

In May, The New England Journal of Medicine laid the blame for clusters of disease outbreaks throughout the US squarely at the feet of declining vaccination rates, while nonprofit health care provider Kaiser Permanente reported that unvaccinated children were 23 times more likely to get pertussis, a highly contagious bacterial disease that causes violent coughing and is potentially lethal to infants. In the June issue of the journal Pediatrics, Jason Glanz, an epidemiologist at Kaiser’s Institute for Health Research, revealed that the number of reported pertussis cases jumped from 1,000 in 1976 to 26,000 in 2004. A disease that vaccines made rare, in other words, is making a comeback. “This study helps dispel one of the commonly held beliefs among vaccine-refusing parents: that their children are not at risk for vaccine-preventable diseases,” Glanz says.

“I used to say that the tide would turn when children started to die. Well, children have started to die,” Offit says, frowning as he ticks off recent fatal cases of meningitis in unvaccinated children in Pennsylvania and Minnesota. “So now I’ve changed it to ‘when enough children start to die.’ Because obviously, we’re not there yet.”

The rejection of hard-won knowledge is by no means a new phenomenon. In 1905, French mathematician and scientist Henri Poincaré said that the willingness to embrace pseudo-science flourished because people “know how cruel the truth often is, and we wonder whether illusion is not more consoling.” Decades later, the astronomer Carl Sagan reached a similar conclusion: Science loses ground to pseudo-science because the latter seems to offer more comfort. “A great many of these belief systems address real human needs that are not being met by our society,” Sagan wrote of certain Americans’ embrace of reincarnation, channeling, and extraterrestrials. “There are unsatisfied medical needs, spiritual needs, and needs for communion with the rest of the human community.”

Looking back over human history, rationality has been the anomaly. Being rational takes work, education, and a sober determination to avoid making hasty inferences, even when they appear to make perfect sense. Much like infectious diseases themselves — beaten back by decades of effort to vaccinate the populace — the irrational lingers just below the surface, waiting for us to let down our guard.

Before smallpox was eradicated with a vaccine, it killed an estimated 500 million people. And just 60 years ago, polio paralyzed 16,000 Americans every year, while rubella caused birth defects and mental retardation in as many as 20,000 newborns. Measles infected 4 million children, killing 3,000 annually, and a bacterium called Haemophilus influenzae type b caused Hib meningitis in more than 15,000 children, leaving many with permanent brain damage. Infant mortality and abbreviated life spans — now regarded as a third world problem — were a first world reality.

Peter Yang

Today, because the looming risk of childhood death is out of sight, it is also largely out of mind, leading a growing number of Americans to worry about what is in fact a much lesser risk: the ill effects of vaccines. If your newborn gets pertussis, for example, there is a 1 percent chance that the baby will die of pulmonary hypertension or other complications. The risk of dying from the pertussis vaccine, by contrast, is practically nonexistent — in fact, no study has linked DTaP (the three-in-one immunization that protects against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis) to death in children. Nobody in the pro-vaccine camp asserts that vaccines are risk-free, but the risks are minute in comparison to the alternative.

Still, despite peer-reviewed evidence, many parents ignore the math and agonize about whether to vaccinate. Why? For starters, the human brain has a natural tendency to pattern-match — to ignore the old dictum “correlation does not imply causation” and stubbornly persist in associating proximate phenomena. If two things coexist, the brain often tells us, they must be related. Some parents of autistic children noticed that their child’s condition began to appear shortly after a vaccination. The conclusion: “The vaccine must have caused the autism.” Sounds reasonable, even though, as many scientists have noted, it has long been known that autism and other neurological impairments often become evident at or around the age of 18 to 24 months, which just happens to be the same time children receive multiple vaccinations. Correlation, perhaps. But not causation, as studies have shown.

And if you need a new factoid to support your belief system, it has never been easier to find one. The Internet offers a treasure trove of undifferentiated information, data, research, speculation, half-truths, anecdotes, and conjecture about health and medicine. It is also a democratizing force that tends to undermine authority, cut out the middleman, and empower individuals. In a world where anyone can attend what McCarthy calls the “University of Google,” boning up on immunology before getting your child vaccinated seems like good, responsible parenting. Thanks to the Internet, everyone can be their own medical investigator.

There are anti-vaccine Web sites, Facebook groups, email alerts, and lobbying organizations. Politicians ignore the movement at their peril, and, unlike in the debates over creationism and global warming, Democrats have proved just as likely as Republicans to share misinformation and fuel anxiety.

US senators John Kerry of Massachusetts and Chris Dodd of Connecticut have both curried favor with constituents by trumpeting the notion that vaccines cause autism. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a scion of the most famous Democratic family of all, authored a deeply flawed 2005 Rolling Stone piece called “Deadly Immunity.” In it, he accused the government of protecting drug companies from litigation by concealing evidence that mercury in vaccines may have caused autism in thousands of kids. The article was roundly discredited for, among other things, overestimating the amount of mercury in childhood vaccines by more than 100-fold, causing Rolling Stone to issue not one but a prolonged series of corrections and clarifications. But that did little to unring the bell.

The bottom line: Pseudo-science preys on well-intentioned people who, motivated by love for their kids, become vulnerable to one of the world’s oldest professions. Enter the snake-oil salesman.

When a child is ill, parents will do anything to make it right. If you doubt that, just spend a day or two at the annual conference of the nonprofit organization Autism One, a group built around the conviction that autism is caused by vaccines. It shares its agenda with other advocacy groups like the National Autism Association, the Coalition for SafeMinds, and McCarthy’s Generation Rescue. All these organizations cite similar anecdotes — children who appear to shut down and exhibit signs of autistic behavior immediately after being vaccinated — as proof. Autism One, like others, also points to rising rates of autism — what many parents call an epidemic — as evidence that vaccines are to blame. Finally, Autism One asserts that the condition is preventable and treatable, and that it is the toxins in vaccines and the sheer number of childhood vaccines (the CDC recommends 10 vaccines, in 26 doses, by the age of 2 — up from four vaccines in 1983) that combine to cause disease in certain sensitive children.

Their rhetoric often undergoes subtle shifts, especially when the scientific evidence becomes too overwhelming on one front or another. After all, saying you’re against all vaccines does start to sound crazy, even to a parent in distress over a child’s autism. Until recently, Autism One’s Web site flatly blamed “too many vaccines given too soon.” Lately, the language has gotten more vague, citing “environmental triggers.”

But the underlying argument has not changed: Vaccines harm America’s children, and doctors like Paul Offit are paid shills of the drug industry.

To be clear, there is no credible evidence to indicate that any of this is true. None. Twelve epidemiological studies have found no data that links the MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) vaccine to autism; six studies have found no trace of an association between thimerosal (a preservative containing ethylmercury that has largely been removed from vaccines since 20011) and autism, and three other studies have found no indication that thimerosal causes even subtle neurological problems. The so-called epidemic, researchers assert, is the result of improved diagnosis, which has identified as autistic many kids who once might have been labeled mentally retarded or just plain slow. In fact, the growing body of science indicates that the autistic spectrum — which may well turn out to encompass several discrete conditions — may largely be genetic in origin. In April, the journal Nature published two studies that analyzed the genes of almost 10,000 people and identified a common genetic variant present in approximately 65 percent of autistic children.

But that hasn’t stopped as many as one in four Americans from believing vaccines can poison kids, according to a 2008 survey. And outreach by grassroots organizations like Autism One is a big reason why.

Researchers, alas, cant respond with the same forceful certainty that the doubters are able to deploy not if theyre going to follow the rules of science.

At this year’s Autism One conference in Chicago, I flashed more than once on Carl Sagan’s idea of the power of an “unsatisfied medical need.” Because a massive research effort has yet to reveal the precise causes of autism, pseudo-science has stepped aggressively into the void. In the hallways of the Westin O’Hare hotel, helpful salespeople strove to catch my eye as I walked past a long line of booths pitching everything from vitamins and supplements to gluten-free cookies (some believe a gluten-free diet alleviates the symptoms of autism), hyperbaric chambers, and neuro-feedback machines.

To a one, the speakers told parents not to despair. Vitamin D would help, said one doctor and supplement salesman who projected the equation “No vaccines + more vitamin d = no autism” onto a huge screen during his presentation. (If only it were that simple.) Others talked of the powers of enzymes, enemas, infrared saunas, glutathione drips, chelation therapy (the controversial — and risky — administration of certain chemicals that leech metals from the body), and Lupron (a medicine that shuts down testosterone synthesis).

Offit calls this stuff, much of which is unproven, ineffectual, or downright dangerous, “a cottage industry of false hope.” He didn’t attend the Autism One conference, though his name was frequently invoked. A California woman with an 11-year-old autistic son told me, aghast, that she’d personally heard Offit say you could safely give a child 10,000 vaccines (in fact, the number he came up with was 100,000 — more on that later). A mom from Arizona, who introduced me to her 10-year-old “recovered” autistic son — a bright, blue-eyed, towheaded boy who hit his head on walls, she said, before he started getting B-12 injections — told me that she’d read Offit had made $50 million from the RotaTeq vaccine. In her view, he was in the pocket of Big Pharma.

The central message at these conferences boils down to this: “The medical establishment doesn’t care, but we do.” Every vendor I talked to echoed this theme. And every parent expressed a frustrated, even desperate belief that no one in traditional science gives a hoot about easing their pain or addressing their theories — based on day-to-day parental experience — about autism’s causes.

Actually, scientists have chased down some of these theories. In August, for example, Pediatrics published an investigation of a popular hypothesis that children with autism have a higher incidence of gastrointestinal problems, which some allege are caused by injected viruses traveling to the intestines. Jenny McCarthy’s foundation posits that autism stems from these bacteria, as well as heavy metals and live viruses present in some vaccines. Healing your child, therefore, is a matter of clearing out the “environmental toxins” with, among other things, special diets. The Pediatrics paper found that while autistic kids suffered more from constipation, the cause was likely behavioral, not organic; there was no significant association between autism and GI symptoms. Moreover, gluten- and dairy-free diets did not appear to improve autism and sometimes caused nutritional deficiencies.

But researchers, alas, can’t respond with the same forceful certainty that the doubters are able to deploy — not if they’re going to follow the rules of science. Those tenets allow them to claim only that there is no evidence of a link between autism and vaccines. But that phrasing — what sounds like equivocation — is just enough to allow doubts to not only remain but to fester. Meanwhile, in the eight years since thimerosal was removed from vaccines (a public relations mistake, in Offit’s view, because it seemed to indicate to the public that thimerosal was toxic), the incidences of autism continue to rise.

The battle we are waging will determine what both health and freedom will look like in America. — Barbara Loe Fisher

In the wake of the latest thimerosal studies, most of the anti-vaccination crowd — even Autism One, despite the ever-changing rhetoric on its Web site — has shifted their aim away from any particular vaccine to a broader, fuzzier target: the sheer number of vaccines that are recommended. It sounds, after all, like common sense. There must be something risky about giving too many vaccines to very young children in too short a time. Opponents argue that for some children the current vaccine schedule creates a “toxic overload.”

“I’m not anti-vaccine,” McCarthy says. “I’m anti-toxin.” She stops just short of calling for an outright ban. McCarthy delivered the keynote address at the Autism One conference this year, just as she had in 2008. She drew a standing-room-only crowd, many of whom know her not from her acting but from her frequent appearances on TV talk shows, Oprah Winfrey’s Web site, and Twitter (@JennyfromMTV). McCarthy has authored two best-selling books on “healing” autism and is on the board of the advocacy group Generation Rescue (motto: “Autism is reversible”). With her stream-of-consciousness rants (“Too many toxins in the body cause neurological problems — look at Ozzy Osbourne, for Christ’s sake!”) and celebrity allure, she is the anti-vaccine movement’s most popular pitchman and prettiest face.

Barbara Loe Fisher, by contrast, is indisputably the movement’s brain. Fisher is the cofounder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center in Vienna, Virginia, the largest, oldest, and most influential of the watchdog groups that oppose universal vaccination. At the Autism One conference, Fisher took the podium with characteristic flair. As she often does, Fisher began with the story of her son Chris, who she believes was damaged by vaccines at the age of two and a half. A short film featuring devastating images of sick kids — some of them seemingly palsied, others with tremors, others catatonic — drove the point home. The film, accompanied by Bryan Adams’ plaintive song “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You,” ended with this message emblazoned on the screen: “All the children in this video were injured or killed by mandatory vaccinations.”

Against this backdrop, Fisher, a skilled debater who often faces down articulate, well-informed scientists on live TV, mentioned Offit frequently. She called him the leading “pro-forced-vaccination proponent” and cast him as a man who walks in lockstep with the pharmaceutical companies and demonizes caring parents. With the likely introduction of a swine flu vaccine later this year, Fisher added, Americans needed to wake up to the “draconian laws” that could force every citizen to either be vaccinated or quarantined. That isn’t true — the swine flu vaccine, like other flu vaccines, will be administered on a voluntary basis. But no matter: Fisher’s argument turns vaccines from a public health issue into one of personal choice, an unwritten bit of the Bill of Rights.

In her speech, Fisher borrowed from the Bible, George Orwell, and the civil rights movement. “The battle we are waging,” she said, “will determine what both health and freedom will look like in America.” She closed by quoting the inscription above the door of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC: “The first to perish were the children.” And then she brought it home: “If we believe in compassion, if we believe in the future, we will do whatever it takes to give our children back the future that is their birthright.” The audience cheered as the words sank in: Whatever it takes. “No forced vaccination,” Fisher concluded. “Not in America.”

Paul Offit has a slightly nasal voice and a forceful delivery that conspire to make him sound remarkably like Hawkeye Pierce, the cantankerous doctor played by Alan Alda on the TV series M*A*S*H. As a young man, Offit was a big fan of the show (though he felt then, and does now, that Hawkeye was “much cooler than me”). Offit is quick-witted, funny, and — despite a generally mild-mannered mien — sometimes so assertive as to seem brash. “Scientists, bound only by reason, are society’s true anarchists,” he has written — and he clearly sees himself as one. “Kaflooey theories” make him crazy, especially if they catch on. Fisher, who has long been the media’s go-to interview for what some in the autism arena call “parents rights,” makes him particularly nuts, as in “You just want to scream.” The reason? “She lies,” he says flatly.

“Barbara Loe Fisher inflames people against me. And wrongly. I’m in this for the same reason she is. I care about kids. Does she think Merck is paying me to speak about vaccines? Is that the logic?” he asks, exasperated. (Merck is doing no such thing). But when it comes to mandating vaccinations, Offit says, Fisher is right about him: He is an adamant supporter.

“We have seat belt rules,” he says. “Seat belts save lives. There was never a question about that. The data was absolutely clear. But people didn’t use them until they were required to use them.” Furthermore, the decision not to buckle up endangers only you. “Unless you fly through the window and hit somebody else,” he adds. “I believe in mandates. I do.”

We are driving north (seat belts on) across Philadelphia in Offit’s gray 2009 Toyota Camry, having just completed a full day of rounds at Children’s Hospital. Over the past eight hours, Offit has directed a team of six residents and med students as they evaluated more than a dozen children with persistent infections. He pulls into the driveway of the comfy four-bedroom Tudor in the suburbs where his family has lived for the past 13 years. It’s a nice enough house, with a leafy green yard and a two-car garage where a second Toyota Camry (this one red, a year older, and belonging to his wife, Bonnie) is already parked. Let’s just say that if Offit has indeed made $50 million from RotaTeq, as his critics love to say, he is hiding it well.

Offit acknowledges that he received a payout — “several million dollars, a lot of money” — when his hospital sold its stake in RotaTeq last year for $182 million. He continues to collect a royalty each year. It’s a fluke, he says — an unexpected outcome. “I’m not embarrassed about it,” he says. “It was the product of a lot of work, although it wasn’t why I did the work, nor was it, frankly, the reward for the work.”

Similarly, the suggestion that pharmaceutical companies make vaccines hoping to pocket huge profits is ludicrous to Offit. Vaccines, after all, are given once or twice or three times in a lifetime. Diabetes drugs, neurological drugs, Lipitor, Viagra, even Rogaine — stuff that a large number of people use every day — that’s where the money is.

That’s not to say vaccines aren’t profitable: RotaTeq costs a little under $4 a dose to make, according to Offit. Merck has sold a total of more than 24 million doses in the US, most for $69.59 a pop — a 17-fold markup. Not bad, but pharmaceutical companies do sell a lot of vaccines at cost to the developing world and in some cases give them away. Merck committed $75 million in 2006 to vaccinate all children born in Nicaragua for three years. In 2008, Merck’s revenue from RotaTeq was $665 million. Meanwhile, a blockbuster drug like Pfizer’s Lipitor is a $12 billion-a-year business.

To understand exactly why Offit became a scientist, you must go back more than half a century, to 1956. That was when doctors in Offit’s hometown of Baltimore operated on one of his legs to correct a club foot, requiring him to spend three weeks recovering in a chronic care facility with 20 other children, all of whom had polio. Parents were allowed to visit just one hour a week, on Sundays. His father, a shirt salesman, came when he could. His mother, who was pregnant with his brother and hospitalized with appendicitis, was unable to visit at all. He was 5 years old. “It was a pretty lonely, isolating experience,” Offit says. “But what was even worse was looking at these other children who were just horribly crippled and disfigured by polio.” That memory, he says, was the first thing that drove him toward a career in pediatric infectious diseases.

There was something else, too. From an early age, Offit embraced the logic and elegance of the scientific method. Science imbued a chaotic world with an order that he found reassuring.

“What I loved about science was its reason. You have data. You stand back and you discuss the strengths and weaknesses of that data. There’s just something very calming about that,” he says. “You formulate a hypothesis, you establish burdens of proof, you subject your hypothesis to rigorous testing. You’ve got 20 pieces of a 1,000-piece puzzle … It’s beautiful, really.”

There were no doctors in the Offit family; he decided to become the first. In 1977, when he was an intern at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, he witnessed the second event that would determine his career path: the death of a little girl from a rotavirus infection (there was, as yet, no vaccine). The child’s mother had been diligent, calling her pediatrician just a few hours after the girl’s fever, vomiting, and diarrhea had begun. Still, by the time the girl was admitted, she was too dehydrated to have an intravenous line inserted. Doctors tried everything to rehydrate her, including sticking a bone marrow needle into her tibia to inject fluids. She died on the table. “I didn’t realize it killed children in the United States,” Offit says, remembering how the girl’s mother, after hearing the terrible news, came into the room and held her daughter’s hand. “That girl’s image was always in my head.”

The choice not to get a vaccine is not a choice to take no risk. Its just a choice to take a different risk, and we need to be better about saying, Heres what that different risk looks like.” — Paul Offit

The third formative moment for Offit came in the late 1980s, when he met Maurice Hilleman, the most brilliant vaccine maker of the 20th century. Hilleman — a notoriously foulmouthed genius who toiled for years in the Philadelphia labs of Merck — invented vaccines to prevent measles, mumps, and rubella (and later came up with the combination of the three, the MMR). He created vaccines for hepatitis A and B, Hib, chicken pox, pneumococcus, and meningococcus. He became Offit’s mentor; Offit later became Hilleman’s biographer.

Offit believes in the power of good storytelling, which is why he writes books, five so far. He dearly wants to pull people into the exciting mysteries that scientists wrestle with every day. He wants us all to understand that vaccines work by introducing a weakened strain of a particular virus into the body — a strain so weak that it cannot make us sick. He wants us to revel in this miracle of inoculation, which causes our immune systems to produce antibodies and develop “memory cells” that mount a defense if we later encounter a live version of that virus.

It’s easy to see why Offit felt a special pride when, after 25 years of research and testing, he and two colleagues, Fred Clark and Stanley Plotkin, joined the ranks of the vaccine inventors. In February 2006, RotaTeq was approved for inclusion in the US vaccination schedule. The vaccine for rotavirus, which each year kills about 600,000 children in poor countries and about 40 children in the US, probably saves hundreds of lives a day.

But in certain circles, RotaTeq is no grand accomplishment. Instead, it is offered as Exhibit A in the case against Offit, proving his irredeemable bias and his corrupted point of view. Using this reasoning, of course, Watson and Crick would be unreliable on genetics because the Nobel Prize winners had a vested interest in genetic research. But despite the illogic, the argument has had some success. Consider the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which reviews new vaccines and administration schedules: Back in the late ’90s and early ’00s, Offit was a member of the panel, along with experts in infectious diseases, virology, microbiology, and immunology. Now the 15-person panel is made up mostly of state epidemiologists and public-health officials.

That’s not by accident. According to science journalist Michael Specter, author of the new book Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet and Threatens Our Lives, the controversy surrounding vaccine safety has made lack of expertise a requirement when choosing members of prominent advisory panels on the issue. “It’s shocking,” Specter says. “We live in a country where it’s actually a detriment to be an expert about something.” When expertise is diminished to such an extent, irrationality and fear can run amok.

Hence the death threats against Paul Offit. Curt Linderman Sr., the host of “Linderman Live!” on AutismOne Radio and the editor of a blog called the Autism File, recently wrote online that it would “be nice” if Offit “was dead.”

I’d met Linderman at Autism One. He’d given his card to me as we stood outside the Westin O’Hare talking about his autistic son. “We live in a very toxic world,” he’d told me, puffing on a cigarette.

It was hard to argue with that.

Despite his reputation, Offit has occasionally met a vaccine he doesn’t like. In 2002, when he was still a member of the CDC’s advisory committee, the Bush administration was lobbying for a program to give the smallpox vaccine to tens of thousands of Americans. Fear of bioterrorism was rampant, and everyone voted in favor — everyone except Offit. The reason: He feared people would die. And he didn’t keep quiet about his reservations, making appearances on 60 Minutes II and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

The problem with the vaccine, he said, is that “one in every million people who gets it dies.” Moreover, he said, because smallpox is visible when its victims are contagious (it is marked by open sores), outbreaks — if there ever were any — could be quickly contained, and there would be plenty of time to begin vaccinations then. A preventive vaccine, he said, “was a greater risk than the risk of smallpox.”

Ah, risk. It is the idea that fuels the anti-vaccine movement — that parents should be allowed to opt out, because it is their right to evaluate risk for their own children. It is also the idea that underlies the CDC’s vaccination schedule — that the risk to public health is too great to allow individuals, one by one, to make decisions that will impact their communities. (The concept of herd immunity is key here: It holds that, in diseases passed from person to person, it is more difficult to maintain a chain of infection when large numbers of a population are immune.)

Risk is also the motivating idea in Offit’s life. This is a man, after all, who opted to give his own two children — now teenagers — the flu vaccine before it was recommended for their age group. Why? Because the risk of harm if his children got sick was too great. Offit, like everyone else, will do anything to protect his children. And he wants Americans to be fully educated about risk and not hoodwinked into thinking that dropping vaccines keeps their children safe. “The choice not to get a vaccine is not a choice to take no risk,” he says. “It’s just a choice to take a different risk, and we need to be better about saying, ‘Here’s what that different risk looks like.’ Dying of Hib meningitis is a horrible, ugly way to die.”

Getting the measles is no walk in the park, either — not for you or those who come near you. In 2005, a 17-year-old Indiana girl got infected on a trip to Bucharest, Romania. On the return flight home, she was congested, coughing, and feverish but had no rash. The next day, without realizing she was contagious, she went to a church gathering of 500 people. She was there just a few hours. Of the 500 people present, about 450 had either been vaccinated or had developed a natural immunity. Two people in that group had vaccination failure and got measles. Thirty-two people who had not been vaccinated and therefore had no resistance to measles also got sick. Did the girl encounter each of these people face-to-face in her brief visit to the picnic? No. All you have to do to get the measles is to inhabit the airspace of a contagious person within two hours of them being there.

The frightening implications of this kind of anecdote were illustrated by a 2002 study published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. Looking at 3,292 cases of measles in the Netherlands, the study found that the risk of contracting the disease was lower if you were completely unvaccinated and living in a highly vaccinated community than if you were completely vaccinated and living in a relatively unvaccinated community. Why? Because vaccines don’t always take. What does that mean? You can’t minimize your individual risk unless your herd, your friends and neighbors, also buy in.

Science must somehow prove a negative that vaccines dont cause autism which is not how science typically works. Until the cause of autism is discovered, scientists can establish only that vaccines are safe and that threshold has already been met.

Perceived risk — our changing relationship to it and our increasing intolerance of it — is at the crux of vaccine safety concerns, not to mention related fears of pesticides, genetically modified food, and cloning. Sharon Kaufman, a medical anthropologist at UC San Francisco, observes that our concept of risk has evolved from an external threat that’s out of our control (think: statistical probability of a plane crash) to something that can be managed and controlled if we just make the right decisions (eat less fat and you’ll live longer). Improved diagnostic tests, a change in consumer awareness, an aging society determined to stay youthful — all have contributed to the growing perception that risk (of death, illness, accident) is our responsibility to reduce or eliminate. In the old order, risk management was in the hands of your doctor — or God. Under the new dispensation, it’s all up to you. What are the odds that your child will be autistic? It’s your job to manage them, so get thee to the Internet, and fast.

The thimerosal debacle exacerbated this tendency, particularly when the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Public Health Service issued a poorly worded statement in 1999 that said “current levels of thimerosal will not hurt children, but reducing those levels will make safe vaccines even safer.” In other words, there’s no scientific evidence whatsoever, but you never know.

“When science came out and said, ‘Uh-oh, there may be a risk,’ the stage was already set,” Kaufman says, noting that many parents felt it was irresponsible not to have doubts. “It was Pandora’s box.”

The result is that science must somehow prove a negative — that vaccines don’t cause autism — which is not how science typically works. Edward Jenner invented vaccination in 1796 with his smallpox inoculation; it would be 100 years before science, such as it was, understood why the vaccine worked, and it would be even longer before the specific cause of smallpox could be singled out. Until the cause of autism is discovered, scientists can establish only that vaccines are safe — and that threshold has already been met.

The government is still considering funding more research trials to look for a connection between vaccines and autism. To Kaufman, there’s some justification for this, given that it may be the only way to address everyone’s doubts. But the thimerosal panic suggests that, if bungled, such trials could make a bad situation worse. To scientists like Offit, further studies are also a waste of precious scientific resources, not to mention taxpayers’ money. They take funding away from more pressing matters, including the search for autism’s real cause.

A while back, Offit was asked to help put together a reference text on vaccines. Specifically, his colleagues wanted him to write a chapter that assessed the capacity of the human immune system. It was a hypothetical exercise: What was the maximum number of vaccines that a person could handle? The point was to arm doctors with information that could reassure parents. Offit set out to determine two factors: how many B cells, which make antibodies, a person has in a milliliter of blood and how many different epitopes, the part of a bacterium or virus that is recognized by the immune system, there are in a vaccine. Then, he came up with a rough estimate: a person could handle 100,000 vaccines — or up to 10,000 vaccines at once. Currently the most vaccines children receive at any one time is five.

He also published his findings in Pediatrics. Soon, the number was attached to Offit like a scarlet letter. “The 100,000 number makes me sound like a madman. Because that’s the image: 100,000 shots sticking out of you. It’s an awful image,” Offit says. “Many people — including people who are on my side — have criticized me for that. But I was naive. In that article, I was being asked the question and that is the answer to the question.”

Still, he hasn’t backed off. He feels that scientists have to work harder at winning over the public. “It’s our responsibility to stand up for good science. Though it’s not what we’re trained to do,” he says, admitting that his one regret about Autism’s False Prophets is that it didn’t hold scientists accountable for letting fear of criticism render them mute. “Get out there. There’s no venue too small. As someone once said, it would be a very quiet forest indeed if the only birds that sang were those that sang best.”

So Offit keeps singing. Isn’t he afraid of those who wish him harm? “I’m not that brave,” he says. “If I really thought my life was at risk or my children’s lives were at risk, I wouldn’t do it. Not for a second.” Maybe, he acknowledges, he’s in denial.

Later, I ask his wife the same question. When it comes to her husband’s welfare, Bonnie Offit is fiercely protective. A pediatrician with a thriving group practice, she still makes time to monitor the blogosphere. (Her husband refuses to read the attacks.) She wants to believe that if you “keep your finger on the pulse,” as she puts it, you can keep your loved ones safe.

Still, she worries. On the day I find myself sitting at her dining room table, every front page in the nation features an article about George Tiller, the abortion doctor gunned down at his church in Wichita, Kansas. When her husband leaves the room, Bonnie brings up the killing. “It upsets me,” she says, looking away. “I didn’t even tell him that. But it absolutely upsets me.”

Her husband, meanwhile, still rises every morning at 4 am and heads to his small, tidy study in a spare bedroom. Every morning, he spends a couple of hours working on what will be his sixth book, a history of the anti-vaccine movement. Offit gets excited when he talks about it.

In 19th-century England, he explains, Jenner’s smallpox vaccine was known to be effective. But despite the Compulsory Vaccination Act of 1853, many people still refused to take it, and thousands died unnecessarily. “That was the birth of the anti-vaccine movement,” he says, adding that then — as now — those at the forefront “were great at mass marketing. It was a print-oriented society. They were great pamphleteers. And by the 1890s, they had driven immunization rates down to the 20 percent range.”

Immediately, smallpox took off again in England and Wales, killing 1,455 in 1893. Ireland and Scotland, by contrast, “didn’t have any anti-vaccine movement and had very high immunization rates and very little incidence of smallpox disease and death,” he says, taking a breath. “You’d like to think we would learn.”

Offit wants the book to be cinematic, visually riveting. He believes, fervently, that if he can hook people with a good, truthful story, maybe they will absorb his hopeful message: The human race has faced down this kind of doubt before.

His battle is, in at least one respect, probably a losing one. There will always be more illogic and confusion than science can fend off. Offit’s idea is to inoculate people one by one, until the virus of fear, if not fully erased, at least recedes.

Amy Wallace ([email protected]) has written for GQ, Esquire, and The New Yorker. This is her first article for Wired.

1. An earlier version of this story suggested that no childhood vaccines contain thimerosal; in fact some versions of the influenza vaccine, which is not typically mandated for children’s admission to school, does contain the preservative. Go here for a further explanation.

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