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One of the six realms on the Buddhist Wheel of Life is the Hungry Ghost Realm, its inhabitants “creatures with scrawny necks, small mouths, emaciated limbs and large, bloated, empty bellies. This is the domain of addiction.”
A ravaged German-Canadian man is one day quoting the final lines of Goethe’s Faust, the next delivering a drug-fuelled anti-Semitic diatribe; a woman, very pregnant and intent on keeping her baby, is found beaten up on the sidewalk and screaming for drug money: these are among the hungry ghosts Dr. Gabor Maté encounters in his job as resident doctor at the Portland Hotel on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
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TOP STORIES THIS WEEK
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It’s clear that Rahm Emanuel is out for himself and his rich friends, not for Chicagoans. BY RICK PERLSTEIN Anti-fracking forces pushed Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) to pass the ban, and proved conventional wisdom wrong. BY ERIC WELTMAN In order to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we should forget, not dwell in, an ancient past. BY SLAVOJ ZIZEK
Palestinian children are taken from their beds in night raids and not returned to their families for months. BY BETH MASCHINOT
By any other name, it still smells like torture. BY FLINT TAYLOR
The redesigned New York Times Magazine aims for a global outlook, but comes off as elitist. BY SUSAN J. DOUGLAS Public mental healthcare has been gutted in the past 50 years. An innovative Illinois law may provide an answer. BY ANNE-MARIE CUSAC Does a story-sharing program offer a chance at Southern reconciliation? BY THEO ANDERSON
While money poured into the recent elections, voters showed that they are tired of business as usual. BY KARI LYDERSEN
Kent Russell seeks to lay claim to the raw, serious stuff of the American male past. BY CHRIS LEHMANN The city’s progressives should claim no easy victories. BY MARILYN KATZ The victory wouldn’t have been possible without agitation from the grassroots. BY JAY CASSANO |
| WORKING IN THESE TIMES |
| How Chicago’s Grassroots Movements Defeated Rahm Emanuel at the Polls
The progressive swing in Chicago’s recent elections was no coincidence, it came out of years of grassroots organizing. BY AMISHA PATEL |
blurb…
Each generation of artists has to be sensitive to the needs of changing social and cultural structures in order to select the tactics of their practice. Tactics involve shaking off the rigidity of the art system—its productions and value systems—and, ultimately, mobilizing spaces beyond artistic practice. This issue’s cover feature probes into how artists worldwide “strategize”: we examine the art fair, corporatized art production, the urban context, invented and incorporated artist identities, and other tactics that expand the possibilities for contemporary art.
In addition, Leap’s middle section introduces two artists—Liu Wei, a unique Beijing figure, and medium-savvy Taiwanese video artist Kao Chung-Li. Robin Peckham uses diagrams to investigate the material and linguistic features of Liu’s work between 1999 and 2015; while Hsu Fang-Tze analyzes Kao Chung-Li’s video practice by way of his machines (including all sorts of video cameras, projectors and other mechanisms for image circulation propelled by capitalism), and looks at how the artist turns his eye back on the intellectual hegemony of image machines and machine images alike…
March 2015…
… Greece, under fire; Ukraine special report ,can the ceasefire hold? nuclear fuel in question, the territory Russia doesn’t want; US-Iran, time for a nuclear deal? Israel, ‘Bibi’s’ (sic) latest trick; radicalisation, Africa’s jihadist threat, France’s sink estates, mobilising Muslim leaders; North Korea’s new girl power; HSBC, Europe’s taxing problem… and more…
::: click cover to access :::
Panel members said phone data had limited role preventing terrorism in testimony before Senate judiciary committee
- Spencer Ackermanin Washington
- com,Tuesday 14 January 2014 21.44 GMT
excerpt…
The members of president Barack Obama’s surveillance review panel on Tuesday rejected some of the central contentions offered by the National Security Agency for its bulk collection of phone records, including the program’s potential usefulness in preventing the 9/11 attacks.
Testifying before the Senate judiciary committee, members of the panel said that restricting the NSA is necessary in order to rebalance the competing values of liberty and security.
Richard Clarke, who was the White House’s counter-terrorism czar on 9/11, echoed the 9/11 Commission in saying that the biggest obstacle to preventing the terrorist attack was not the NSA collecting an insufficient amount of data, but a failure to share information already collected.
“If the information that the federal agencies had at the time…
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Here’s an extract from the report of the National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention, Australian Human Rights Commission, 2014…
9.3.1 Torture and trauma prior to arrival in Australia
Since more than 90 per cent of children in immigration detention over the period of the Inquiry have been found to be refugees, it follows that many children in immigration detention are likely to have been affected by prior experiences of trauma.(46)
The Inquiry commissioned a literature review to consider factors affecting the psychological well-being of child and adolescent refugees and asylum seekers.(47)The paper concludes that:
research clearly demonstrates that refugee children and adolescents are vulnerable to the effects of pre-migration, most notably exposure to trauma. It is also apparent that particular groups in this population constitute higher psychological risk than others, namely those with extended trauma experience, unaccompanied or separated children and adolescents and…
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Asbestos Bishop – The Real News Channel | Facebook
Asbestos Bishop. … It just so happens that Julie… Bishop was also a Lawyer, but worked for … Edo Voloder Julie Bishop was a solicitor for ASBESTOS MINERS!
Bishop’s lawyer work a source of shame | Herald Sun
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/…/bishops–lawyer…/story-e6frf7kf-1226525303…Nov 27, 2012 – … attack on deputy opposition leader Julie Bishop for her work as a lead lawyer … compensation claims from workers dying of asbestos diseases.Powerhouse | Asbestos: Dust Settles On The Low Moral Ground
powerhouse.theglobalmail.org/dust-settles-on-the-low-moral-ground/Jun 3, 2013 – And guess which former lawyer-turned-federal-politician counted James …That would be the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, Julie Bishop.
Julie Bishop’s legal past: Clayton Utz work in wake of AWU scandal …
http://www.crikey.com.au/…/julie–bishop-on-her-own-legal-past-the-interview-…Nov 30, 2012 – I wouldn’t…
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Current issue: January 2015
… Cuba in from the cold; drugs companies’ hard sell special report; rise and rise of Boko Haram;Darfur: the trouble with UN sanctions; Turkey: farewell to post-Ottoman dreams, Romaopening; Central Asia’s shifting plates; US special report: the meaning of Ferguson, is Iraq the new Vietnam? Australia courts the Chinese dragon; India’s car workers fight for rights… and more…
“I detest what you write, but I would give my life
to make it possible for you to continue to write…”
Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire, Letters, 1770.
Rupert Murdoch Maybe most Moslems peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible. (07/01/15)
Big jihadist danger looming everywhere from Philippines to Africa to Europe to US. Political correctness makes for denial and hypocrisy. (10/01/15)
Saudi Arabia lashes a liberal blogger 50 times in public, despite widespread international outrage and calls for clemency from human right groups…
Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch, said on twitter that blogger and activist, Raif Badawi, was lashed outside a mosque in the Red Sea coastal city of Jeddah on Friday, (09/01/15).
Badawi is due to undergo 50 lashes every week after Friday prayers, which will continue for 20 weeks until his punishment is complete.
Amnesty International says Badawi, who started the “Free Saudi Liberals” website, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes on charges related to accusations he insulted Islam on the online forum.
He was also ordered by Jeddah’s Criminal Court to pay a fine of $266,000.
Synthesis Report (2014) – IPCC
The Synthesis Report distils and integrates the findings of the three working group contributions to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Fifth Assessment Report — the most comprehensive assessment of climate change yet undertaken, produced by hundreds of scientists — as well as the two Special Reports produced during this cycle.
Summary for Policymakers
SPM + Longer Report
Headline Statements
Factsheets
Video
Quick link to report PDFs
DID YOU MISS IT…
excerpt…
“…Earlier this month, the British Broadcasting Corporation, which sees itself as still the best broadcaster in the world, gave a well-bred expression of fear. Peter Horrocks, who has just stepped down as head of the BBC World Service, said “we are being financially outgunned by Russia and the Chinese (broadcasters) … the role we need to play is an even handed one. We shouldn’t be pro one side or the other, we need to provide something people can trust.”
Horrocks was saying that people could trust the BBC; they couldn’t trust the Russians and the Chinese; but that the latter were now real competition.
The Russian broadcaster, Russian Today (RT) found that offensive. In a bad tempered exchange with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, RT’s presenter Anissa Naouai (who is American) said that her channel’s job was “closing the holes” in mainstream Western channels’ coverage — holes of misrepresentation, unchecked assertion and bias. She admitted – indeed proclaimed – that the Kremlin funded the channel: but it’s reason for doing so is that President Vladimir Putin “wants … Russia to be respected, mutually respected on an equal playing base, and he wants dialogue to prevail.”
RT has denied that it gets more funding than the BBC, and in a feisty reply to the charge, the broadcaster said that money did not account for its growing popularity; that is “happening because audiences around the world, including in the UK, have become inundated with the same talking points from the mainstream media and are looking for something fresh.”
But money isn’t the point. The Russian and Chinese English-language channels – RT and CCTV News – are provided by state broadcasters of the world’s two leading authoritarian states. The news and analyses they give to their own populations cannot do other than conform closely to the policies and priorities of the rulers of these states…”
John Lloyd co-founded the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, where he is Director of Journalism. Lloyd has written several books, including “What the Media Are Doing to Our Politics” (2004). He is also a contributing editor at FT and the founder of FT Magazine.
Gaza City – Since this summer’s devastating war in the Gaza Strip, the number of patients seeking help from the Gaza Community Centre’s mental health programme has jumped by close to 50 percent.
The centre, which previously handled about 15 patients daily, is now seeing up to 25, administrators say – and the Gaza City centre is just one of three branches of Gaza’s mental health network. The NGO’s psychiatry, social work and physiotherapy services are available for free to residents, but social stigma still prevents an untold number from seeking help.
Psychologist Hasan Zeyada spoke with Al Jazeera about the challenges facing Gazans in the wake of a war that killed 2,200 Palestinians, and amid an ongoing, crippling siege.
Al Jazeera: How has your patient load changed since the summer war?
Hasan Zeyada: We have more cases that are referred to our centres. It’s the immediate reaction after war. A lot of people had psychological and behavioural consequences because of the trauma during the military Israeli aggression. A lot of people, they are in need of consultation, they are in need of intervention. We started to do our intervention immediately through field visits for the families who lost their homes and lost their family members, and for the injured people…
“The war was brutal and it was for a long time, and it’s the third experience for the children here in Gaza, so a lot of people have already developed acute stress disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. They are in need of intervention.”
::: click on through to piece in full @ Al Jazeera :::
This is not your sanitized, Hollywood version of Dr. King.As “Selma” opens in a number of cities this week and expands to nationwide release in a couple of weeks, the country is given a chance to assess the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement. Doing so is particularly relevant right now, in light of boisterous protests against police brutality that have been going on since the summer…
…just click image for piece in full @ AlterNet…
Doubts as water from giant China South North Water Diversion Project reaches capital
http://t.co/0xjqZvJcRWhttp://t.co/gGIeKsj6kZ
Prayer vigil held in New York for slain police officer
http://t.co/jzOcfZ2HKchttp://t.co/jiMBTQnhFn
Malaysia’s worst flooding in decades has forced some 118,000 people to flee their homes http://t.co/lx2IeJhDPGhttp://t.co/dAX4MGDm7n
Swedish protesters denounce mosque arson attack
Orphaned by 2004 tsunami, UK flip-flop kings repay Sri Lankan kindness
Chief UN investigator of North Korean human rights abuses, Michael Kirby, discusses the allegations of crimes against humanity:
North Korea is truly a totalitarian state … It is not content to take control of the physical lives of the citizens, it has to intrude into their way of thinking, into their attitudes to government … [It implements] the system of characterising citizens according to their loyalty to the government and the party. This is truly a state without any real equivalent in the modern world.
Michael Kirby
The UN-mandated inquiry team says the country’s leadership should be hauled before at the International Criminal Court:
…the inquiry found that pregnant women are starved, while their babies are fed rats and snakes; more than 100,000 people are in gulags; there is systematic torture; everyone is forced to inform on each other; entire communities are denied adequate food; and the bodies of the dead…
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In “First Class,” LEAP takes a look at at contemporary art education from the bottom up, thinking in terms of learning rather than teaching; we invite educators, curators, and artists—especially those who have recently left school—to share their experiences of self-education, and to discuss the possibilities of a hidden curriculum.
McKenzie Wark introduces a perfect example of interdisciplinary thinking—Joseph Needham. According to Needham, the processes of thought and movement would dominate the his future plans, not only for understanding biological systems or the social structure of China’s past, but to infer the outcome of current and future social systems. Karen Archey explores German artist Isa Genzken’s practice, demonstrating her unique sense of artistic “fun.” Through an interpretation of Yu Cheng-Ta’s new work “Practicing LIVE,” Rikey Cheng expands on the alienation of the piece’s creation, improvisational structures, imitation, irony, and self-referentiality.
In our regular column “My Miles,” we interview Korean artist Haegue Yang, exploring how her practice is tied to her cultural and linguistic backgrounds, travels, and other abstract narratives; “Shop Talk” analyzes the ways in which Liu Xinyi’s work is grounded in political histories of text and image; in “On Canvas,” Song Yi attempts to decipher Liu Chuanhong’s Memoir in Southern Anhui, in which every possible medium is brought into play to convey Liu’s dreamscape; and “New Directions” brings in two young artists, Wang Xin and Austin Lee. In addition, you’ll also read about Guccivuitton, an artist-run gallery in Miami Beach, in “Institutional Critique”; the architectural exhibition “Modernism Revisited,” which stresses an exploration of modernism neglected by mainstream purview; the excavation of “Exhibition and Expediency” in Huang Sun Quan’s new solo exhibition; and a semi-fictional piece from Indonesia by Adam Bobbette.
As Australia picked up its shameful fourth Fossil of the Day award at the Lima climate talks Thursday (11/12/14), Climate Action Tracker (CAT) released a new analysis showing that creative accounting and years of diplomatic manoeuvring are allowing Australia to increase emissions while still meeting its minimum five per cent reduction commitment. CAT says in real terms Australia’s emissions are likely to be 26 per cent above 2000 levels by 2020, and a huge 47-59 per cent above its original Kyoto pledge.
Yet while its actual emissions are soaring, Australia can still meet its already lax commitments with barely any action thanks to being selective on baseline emission sources, and its creative approach to accounting for land use change and forestry. Australia has now taken to making threats if it is not allowed to use these favourable rules, which would allow it to emit a further six per cent more carbon on top of its already worst-in-show per capita emissions.
abstract…
In slapstick comedy, the worst thing that could happen usually does: The person with a sore toe manages to stub it, sometimes twice. Such errors also arise in daily life, and research traces the tendency to do precisely the worst thing to ironic processes of mental control. These monitoring processes keep us watchful for errors of thought, speech, and action and enable us to avoid the worst thing in most situations, but they also increase the likelihood of such errors when we attempt to exert control under mental load (stress, time pressure, or distraction).
Ironic errors in attention and memory occur with identifiable brain activity and prompt recurrent unwanted thoughts;…piece in full pdf below…
| Author: | Wegner, Daniel M. |
| Citation: | Wegner, Daniel M. 2009. How to think, say, or do precisely the worst thing for any occasion. Science 325(5936): 48-50. |
| Full Text & Related Files: | Worst_Thing.pdf (229.5Kb; PDF) |
the interpretOr 