Category: Opinion

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Addiction and identity

“A leading expert on addictions says there still remains a ‘tremendous misunderstanding’ about the problem in our society,” reports the Chatham Daily News in a story about psychiatrist Gabor Mate.

“People see addictions as some lifestyle choice that somebody makes,” but  “Nobody wakes up and says, ‘My ambition is to become an addict,'” say Mate. A keynote speaker this week at the Chatham-Kent Addictions Awareness Conference, Mate said “addiction is a response to suffering and most people who are severely addicted were traumatized as children. As a result, he said, people in this situation have pain they try to soothe with drugs.”

Continue reading “Addiction and identity”

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Educators nationwide respond to Emory arts closure

Arts educators were stunned by the news in September that Emory University would eliminate its Visual Arts Department as part of a cost-cutting effort favoring science and engineering programs. Many observers cited the move as further evidence of a creeping corporatization of the American university. As reported by the College Art Association (CAA),  “Since the economic downturn in 2008, liberal arts colleges and universities across the country have reshaped their curriculums. They have narrowed the fields of study to prepare students for vocational work quantified by employment and statistical analysis, shearing the visual arts––in part or whole––from the intellectual mold that has underpinned students’ critical thinking in the United States over the past century.”

In response to the Emory decision, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) noted the authoritarian and anti-democratic character of Emory’s actions in suspending a range of programs in art, education, journalism, and Spanish––all with out faculty consultation. An excerpt of “An Open Letter from AAUP” appears below.

“On Sept. 14, 2012, Dean Robin Forman announced a number of changes to the curriculum, including the closing of the Department of Visual Arts, the Division of Educational Studies, the Program in Journalism and the Department of Physical Education (the last already in progress at the time of his letter). He also announced the suspension of admissions to the graduate programs in economics, Spanish, and the Institute of Liberal Arts (ILA). The ILA, he wrote, will be restructured as an “institute without permanent faculty.”

“Owing to these cuts, a number of lecture track faculty will not have their contracts renewed, two tenure-track assistant professors hired in educational studies last spring will be let go in advance of any formal review of their work and a number of tenured faculty will be relocated to other departments. Dean Forman has made it clear, in his letter and elsewhere, that he made the decisions in consultation with what he called the “Faculty Financial Advisory Committee,” a small (seven-to-eight person) group of appointed faculty; Lisa Tedesco, the dean of the Laney Graduate School; and Earl Lewis, the provost.

“On behalf of the Emory Chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), we want to remind the deans, the provost, the president, the Board of Trustees and, most importantly, Emory’s faculty and students of AAUP guidelines. These state that primary responsibility for decision-making concerning curriculum resides in the hands of the faculty. AAUP guidelines make it clear that this responsibility covers not only the determination of those areas of study to be offered by a college or university, but extends to “appointments, reappointments, decisions not to reappoint, promotions, the granting of tenure, and dismissal” (from Section five of AAUP’s “Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities”).

“We understand that restructurings and reallocation of funds are sometimes necessary to ensure that an institution remains strong. In this instance, however, the University failed to undertake that process of reallocation through properly constituted faculty deliberative bodies and to understand that important decisions having to do with these matters must come from those bodies to the deans, provost, president and Board of Trustees.

“Moreover, we are dismayed that a small committee, initially appointed to advise Dean Robert Paul informally on financial matters in the wake of the economic crisis of 2008, became a subcommittee of the College Governance Committee that advised the dean on curricular matters. Given the impact of the dean’s decisions on graduate education, we are also concerned that the Executive Council of the Laney Graduate School (LGS) — an elected body of faculty representatives — was not consulted in advance about these changes in accordance with stated practices. The LGS website states that “[t]he Executive Council reviews proposals … for changes in existing courses and programs on a rolling basis.” No proposals in this matter were brought before this council for deliberation. The fact that a College subcommittee seems to have issued recommendations to close programs in another unit, the Graduate School, also raises questions of purview.”

For the complete text of the letter, see “An Open Letter from AAUP”

 

http://www.emorywheel.com/an-open-letter-from-the-aaup/

 

http://www.artandeducation.net/paper/emory-university-eradicates-its-visual-arts-department-portending-an-ominous-trend-in-university-education/

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Why women are driven from academic research

“The number of women studying science and engineering at undergraduate and postgraduate levels has increased markedly in recent decades.” says the webiste Oikos. ” However females have lower retention rates than males in these fields, and perform worse on average than men in terms of promotion and common research metrics. Two key differences between men and women are the larger role that women play in childcare and house work in most families, and the narrower window for female fertility. Here we explore how these two factors affect research output by applying a common ecological model to research performance, incorporating part-time work and the duration of career prior to the onset of part-time work. The model parameterizes the positive feedback between historical research Continue reading “Why women are driven from academic research”

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Swan song of English accents

In the days of the British Empire, both the English language and English accents of that language were spread around the globe. But ever since World War II and the rise of U.S. media, things changed.

Fast forward to 2102 and the release of the new James Bond thriller Skyfall, and it’s title song recorded English singer Adele. As discussed this week in Slate, “Though Adele speaks with a strong London accent, her singing voice sounds more American than British. Why do British vocalists often sound American when they sing?”

“Because that’s the way everyone expects pop and rock musicians to sound. British pop singers have been imitating American pronunciations since Cliff Richards, the Beatles, and Continue reading “Swan song of English accents”

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Facebook habits could keep you out of college

Celebrity internet affairs and embarassed government officials may be all the news is talking about, but what if your Facebook habits could keep you out of college? In a story today from CNN called “Does Facebook hurt your college chances?”

“This fall, a Kaplan Test Prep survey showed that an increasing number of college admissions officers were discovering information on Facebook and Google that hurt a student’s acceptance chances.

“According to the Kaplan survey, 27% of admissions officers checked Google and 26% looked on Facebook as part of their applicant-review process. Thirty-five percent of those doing so — compared with 12% in 2011 — found material that negatively impacted their view of a student.

“The results of the survey would, I thought, cause college-bound students and their parents to lash out in anger. Students are under so much stress. College costs are up, and winning the admissions race seems harder than ever.”

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War and Infidelity

“Spectators will try to make this scandal about many things: the arrogance of powerful men; conniving mistresses; the silent epidemic of sexual assault in the armed services. But these explanations obscure an underlying problem: the devastating influence of an open-ended war — now in its 11th year — on the families of U.S. service members.” This, from military spouse Rebecca Sinclair in today’s Washington Post. The story entitled “When the Strains of War Lead to Infidelity” continues:

“Rebecca Sinclair is married to Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair, a former deputy commander of the 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan, who is being tried at Fort Bragg, N.C., on charges including adultery and sexual misconduct.

“Like most Americans, I’ve been unable to escape the current news cycle regarding several high-ranking military generals entangled in sex scandals. Unlike most Americans, however, for me the topic is personal. My husband, Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair, is one of the officers.

“Let me first address the elephant in the room. My husband had an affair. He violated our marriage vows and hurt me tremendously. Jeff and I are working on our marriage, but that’s our business.

“Jeff also needs to answer to the Army. That is his business, not mine, and he accepts that. I believe in and support him as much as ever.

“I wish I could say that my husband was the only officer or soldier who has been unfaithful. Since 2001, the stress of war has led many service members to engage in tremendously self-destructive behavior. The officer corps is plagued by leaders abandoning their families and forging new beginnings with other men and women. And many wives know about their husbands’ infidelity but stay silent.”

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The measure of a man

In a new essay, David Brooks explores the role early childhood nurturance in forging masculine personalities, as well as the abilities of some men to evolve and change later in life.

In seeking explanations for why so many men have trouble with intimacy, empathy, and sometimes even friendship itself, Brooks draws in part on what is termed “attachment” theory. Reproduced below are the opening paragraphs of “The Heart Grows Smarter,” which can be found in full at the New York Times.

“First, many more families suffered the loss of a child, which had a devastating and historically underappreciated impact on their overall worldviews. Second, and maybe related, many more children grew up in cold and emotionally distant homes, where fathers, in particular, barely knew their children and found it impossible to express their love for them. It wasn’t only parents who were emotionally diffident; it was the people who studied them. In 1938, a group of researchers began an intensive study of 268 students at Harvard University. The plan was to track them through their entire lives, measuring, testing and interviewing them every few years to see how lives develop.

“In the 1930s and 1940s, the researchers didn’t pay much attention to the men’s relationships. Instead, following the intellectual fashions of the day, they paid a lot of attention to the men’s physiognomy. Did they have a “masculine” body type? Did they show signs of vigorous genetic endowments? But as this study — the Grant Study — progressed, the power of relationships became clear. The men who grew up in homes with warm parents were much more likely to become first lieutenants and majors in World War II. The men who grew up in cold, barren homes were much more likely to finish the war as privates.

“Body type was useless as a predictor of how the men would fare in life. So was birth order or political affiliation. Even social class had a limited effect. But having a warm childhood was powerful. As George Vaillant, the study director, sums it up in ‘Triumphs of Experience,’ his most recent summary of the research, ‘It was the capacity for intimate relationships that predicted flourishing in all aspects of these men’s lives.’ Of the 31 men in the study incapable of establishing intimate bonds, only four are still alive. Of those who were better at forming relationships, more than a third are living. It’s not that the men who flourished had perfect childhoods. Rather, as Vaillant puts it, “What goes right is more important than what goes wrong.” The positive effect of one loving relative, mentor or friend can overwhelm the negative effects of the bad things that happen.

“In case after case, the magic formula is capacity for intimacy combined with persistence, discipline, order and dependability. The men who could be affectionate about people and organized about things had very enjoyable lives.”

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A game that questions body image norms

“Have you ever done something uncomfortable in the name of perceived beauty?” This is the provocative question asked by a new computer game aimed at exploring conceptions of body image and gender norms. Games for Change discusses “Gone from an Age: A Fitting” in the following excerpt from an article entitled “’Fitting’ Game to Explore Body Image.”

“At one point in your life, you may have tried chemically altering your hair, tried on a pair of pants that were way too tight, or focused more on fashion over function. All for the goal of achieving a specific look.

“Many of us partake in these practices to achieve a standard of beauty in modern society. Too often, we do so without considering why, the social costs if we don’t, or what physical and mental harm these activities are causing every day. Some would argue that beauty is purely for the benefit of those who are gazing upon it, disregarding the discomfort of the ones who have to achieve it.

“To give others this distinct understanding, game designers Amanda Dittami and Blair Kuhlman teamed up to create “Gone From an Age: A Fitting“, a motion controlled game that asks players to contort and perform for an audience, in what Kuhlman calls “a cross between a game of Twister and Vogue magazine.”

Currently, Dittami and Kuhlman are working hard on tweaking the game with a design team, local dancers, and fashion designers to get the game ready for “Off The Beaten Path“, a traveling art exhibition that aims create a dialogue about violence against women through various forms of art. To fully participate in a powerful way, the team has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds.”

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More reasons to hate bankers

“In the 2012 edition of Occupy Money released this month, Professor Margrit Kennedy writes that a stunning 35% to 40% of everything we buy goes to interest. This interest goes to bankers, financiers, and bondholders, who take a 35% to 40% cut of our gross domestic product.” So says an article in today’s Asia Times by Ellen Brown, entitled  “Why Bankers Rule the World.”

As Brown continues, “That helps explain how wealth is systematically transferred from Main Street to Wall Street. The rich get progressively richer at the expense of the poor, not just because of “Wall Street greed” but because of the inexorable mathematics of our private banking system.

“This hidden tribute to the banks will come as a surprise to most people, who think that if they pay their credit card bills on time and don’t take out loans, they aren’t paying interest. This, says Kennedy, is not true. Tradesmen, suppliers, wholesalers and retailers all along the chain of production rely on credit to pay their bills. They must pay for labor and materials before they have a product to sell and before the end buyer pays for the product 90 days later. Each supplier in the chain adds interest to its production costs, which are passed on to the ultimate consumer.

“By 2010, 1% of the population owned 42% of financial wealth, while 80% of the population owned only 5% of financial wealth. Dr Kennedy observes that the bottom 80% pay the hidden interest charges that the top 10% collect, making interest a strongly regressive tax that the poor pay to the rich.

“People generally assume that if they pay their bills on time, they aren’t paying compound interest; but again, this isn’t true. Compound interest is baked into the formula for most mortgages, which compose 80% of US loans. And if credit cards aren’t paid within the one-month grace period, interest charges are compounded daily.

For more, see “Why Bankers Rule the World.”

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Now we can talk about mental illness

This doesn’t get talked about much, but the Affordable Care Act guarantees coverage for people with mental health problems – care that would have been eliminated if the republicans had their way. Psychiatric illnesses are surprisingly common, yet receive little attention because they are stigmatized, misunderstood, and definitely not especially photogenic.

Think about this:  20 percent of American adults suffer from a diagnosable mental illness. That’s more than 40 million potential voters. So when you think about it, things like depression, bi-polar disorder, PTSD,  or addiction are not issues that affect anonymous strangers. These conditions face many around us at work, school and  home, even though those who struggle with mental illness often do so in silence.

Not long ago the Los Angeles Times carried a piece entitled “Mental health care at stake in 2012 vote.” It said that “Just to provide a little context, according to the American Cancer Society’s latest numbers, about 12 million Americans are living with some form of cancer; 400,000 Continue reading “Now we can talk about mental illness”

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Worries over aging global boomer bubble

Around the globe advances in population control have had an unintended consequence, as the numbers of aging baby boomers now far exceed their offspring. This raises the question: Who will care for the elderly, especially in the world’s poorer nations?

“China’s new leadership will soon be confronted by an enormous demographic challenge.” Reports Al Jazeera in a story entitled “Defusing China’s Demographic Timebomb.” According to the story, “The country’s ‘one-child policy’ means not enough babies are being born to support its elderly population. Around 12 years ago, there were six workers for every retiree, but by the year 2030 it is estimated that there will be just two. By 2050, one-third of China’s population is expected to be aged over 60.

Al Jazeera’s Laura Kyle, reporting from Beijing, says: “For generations, elderly Chinese have been looked after at home by their children. The ‘one-child policy’ is breaking that tradition – with the burden of care too great for many young adults to handle on their own. Now increasing numbers of elderly parents are being sent to [hospices].”

According to Kyle, “the United Nations urged countries to address the needs of ageing populations after releasing a report entitled Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing.

“Some of the key findings of the report are:

  • The ageing phenomenon is happening faster in poorer countries
  • By 2050, four out of five elderly people will be in developing nations
  • Only Japan currently has more than 30 per cent of its population aged over 60
  • By 2050, there will be more than 60 countries with the same demographic
  • Forty-seven per cent of the world’s older men and 24 per cent of older women are still in the labour force
  • Only a third of countries have comprehensive social protection scheme

The plan is the only global agreement for improving older people’s lives and it recommends that:

  • Governments should fight any kind of discrimination against older people
  • The elderly should be able to work for as long as they want
  • They should have the same access to preventive and curative care, as well as rehabilitation as other age groups
  • Older people should also have access to decent housing, receive support if they are care-givers and be free from neglect, abuse and violence

For more, see Al Jazeera, “Defusing China’s Demographic Timebomb.”

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Small is powerful

Let’s not forget that the recent election was largely won on the strength of one cell phone and an obscure media outlet. While this hasn’t gotten much retrospective attention, the now-famous “47-percent” video probably would not have been made or widely circulated even a few years ago.

The recent ubiquity of camera-equipped mobile phones is changing political communication through a new popular documentary practice, primarily among young users. For some time it has been known that cell phones have enabled uprisings, flash mobs, and other forms of social activism, just as phones have also helped disaster communication and the containment of disease epidemics around the world.

And let’s not forget Mother Jones, a name unknown to most Americans till this year, which took the 47-percent video to the net and made it go viral. While hardly a tiny magazine, Mother Jones was reaching less than 100,000 readers in the 1990s until it launched an online format. Continue reading “Small is powerful”

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Veterens Day

On this Veterens Day we can say that if recent U.S. involvements have taught us anything, it is that the no one comes back from war unchanged. Gone are the Vietnam days of heckling returnees or earlier beliefs that combat is just another job. Regardless of one’s political beliefs, the undeniable truth is that military service is a serious and often dangerous business––one that frequently takes an unacknowledged toll on those who serve and their families.

FOCUS (Families OverComing Under Stress) is one of a number of notable efforts that have emerged from this new ethos. FOCUS provides resiliency training to military children and families. It teaches practical skills to meet the challenges of deployment and reintegration, to communicate and solve problems effectively, and to successfully set goals together and create a shared family story.

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Giving time, not money

“Writing a check is simply a matter of figuring out an amount you can afford and sending it off. But actually donating your time, which was not counted by the survey toward the dollars people gave, seemed a far greater level of commitment.” This from an insightful story in todays’s New York Times by Paul Sullivan entitled A portion of the text appears below. For the complete story, see “Some Prefer Giving Time, Not Money, to Schools” in the New York Times.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a group that rated charities for their effectiveness but was surprised when one of the group’s young founders said he had stopped supporting groups focused on education. He had a perfectly rational-sounding reason: the problems were daunting and he didn’t feel his donations would have an impact.

Then, I heard about a recent study of high-net-worth households that found that education was the leading concern among affluent donors, ahead of health care, the economy, poverty and the federal budget deficit. Continue reading “Giving time, not money”

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The opening of the American mind

Anyone paying attention to conservative media in these post-election days has heard this refrain: America has changed, the country’s ideals have been subverted, and something has gone terribly wrong. Of course, it’s possible to write this off as one more set of conservative delusions––one more Romney alternate reality. But this incredulous response runs deeper than that, since it signals a rejection of the very basis of democracy itself and the founding principles so many Republicans claimed to hold dear

These issues are explored in a thoughtful essay by Dinesh Sharma appearing in today’s online edition of Asia Times, entitled “Transformation of the American Mind.”  Sharma writes that “with President Barack Obama’s reelection it is increasingly clear, as I have argued in my book Continue reading “The opening of the American mind”

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Virtual and Real World boundaries blurring

Increasingly artists and scholars are attacking the separation between virtual worlds and real life. A recent paper by Linda Ryan-Bengtsson published in Leonardo Almanac continues the argument, stating that “When digital technology is integrated into our everyday environment, the border between media interfaces and physical environments is being blurred. Traditional division of spaces dissolves and are rearranged, complicating the linkages between private and public spheres. Interactivity intersects these spaces allowing users of mediated content to be affected by the actual and vice versa.”

Entitled “Renegotiating Social Space: Public Art Installations and Interactive Experience,” the paper states that its analysis “has emerged through the need for further research focusing Continue reading “Virtual and Real World boundaries blurring”

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Virtual worlds improve health, fight prejudice

Virtual worlds increasingly are recognized to have a direct effect on what people think and do when they turn off the computer. Journeying into virtual environments, players try on different identities, experience alternate realities, and find themselves in novel social contexts. These experiences allow people to exceed their “real life” settings, seeing both themselves and others in a new light. A new study refutes common-sense assumptions that a firewall separates virtual life and experience in the material world.

“Internet-based interactive games and social media outlets have become intertwined with the physical realities of millions of people around the world.” As reported in an article in LaboratoryEquipment.com, “When an individual strongly identifies with the cyber representation of themselves, known as an avatar, the electronic doppelganger can influence that person’s health and appearance, according to a Univ. of Missouri Continue reading “Virtual worlds improve health, fight prejudice”

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One Nation: Divided or United?

“We live in an era of democratic contradiction. As the Cold War recedes into history and the apparent triumph of liberal democracy spreads around the globethe domestic state of democracy within the United States remains in jeopardy,” writes David Trend in A Culture Divided: America’s Struggle for Unity. Echoing sentiments expressed in last night’s acceptance speech by Barak Obama, an excerpt from A Culture Divided follows below:

Rather than a nation where citizens feel empowered in their common governance, the U.S. has become a land of where growing numbers of citizens feel alienated from the democratic process. Voter turnout for the 2012 U.S. presidential election was nearly 20 percent less than in 2008. Massive anti-incumbency Continue reading “One Nation: Divided or United?”

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War by any other name

You might think America isn’t in the war business any more––what with so much recent talk about troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan, the Colin Powell endorsement of the peace loving Obama, and Romney’s yammering about U.S military decline. But hang on a second. It’s not that the U.S. isn’t fighting. The combat actually continues, but it’s quite different than what most people conceive as “war,” per se. While official wars involving the U.S. are winding down, all sorts of smaller special operations or war-by-proxy campaigns are being undertaken on America’s behalf.

By some accounts the U.S. is currently conducting secret wars in 75 nations. These are explained in a lengthy article by Nick Turse appearing in Le Monde, entitled “A Failed Formula for Worldwide War: How the Empire Changed its Face, But Not its Nature.”

“In one way or another, the U.S. military is now involved with most of the nations on Earth,” Turse writes. Continue reading “War by any other name”

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God withdraws support for christian right

From today’s The Onion:  “THE HEAVENS—Responding to inflammatory remarks made by Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock during a debate Tuesday night, Our Lord God the Almighty Father sought today to distance Himself from both Mourdock and the entire right-wing fundamentalist Christian movement, sources confirmed.

“’I want to make one thing absolutely clear: Mr. Mourdock’s comments from last night in no way reflect my position on this or any other issue,’ said the Divine Creator, speaking at a press conference this afternoon to address Mourdock’s remarks that rape-induced pregnancies were God’s intent. ‘And furthermore, I would like to take this opportunity to say definitively that I, God, do not officially sanction or condone the words or actions of anyone involved in the fanatical, conservative Christian faction that Mr. Mourdock represents.’ Continue reading “God withdraws support for christian right”