#but my computer is like from at least 2010 and is water damaged

[mephone4kisser]

my computer had an entire seizure because i accidentally moved tumblr to a new window

it's clearly telling me something

[chloemill]

On what I’ve been up to the last nine years

I have always been obsessed with food. It seems silly, honestly, to be obsessed with something that’s a basic human necessity. Food, water, shelter. Too bad there aren’t water disorders or I’d be all over that. Alcoholism, I guess, is a liquid-based disorder? This is getting dark quickly but I guess we should all know what we’re getting into with this one, shouldn’t we.

So, yeah, I’ve always been obsessed with food. I have alarmingly clear memories of food from childhood, and the sad(dest) part is most of it’s not even real fucking food, it’s like, cartoon food. I could probably describe every illustration from the Berenstain Bears installment where the dad bear and the kid bears randomly decide to go balls to the fucking wall and just mainline junk food until the mom bear is like “what the fuck is going on here” and gives them all apples or some shit and then everyone chills the fuck out. The pizza in A Goofy Movie when Goofy and Max randomly stop at a themed motel and the kids eat pizza while Goofy and Pete share what I remember to be a vaguely sexual moment in the hot tub? (There was definitely at LEAST a questionable power dynamic at play.) The kid at school whose weird helicopter mom came at lunch and hand-delivered her McDonald’s nuggets to the playground. Bake sales in the second grade - the cookies and brownies and “nachos” that were just round Tostitos with that terrifying and delicious fake cheese sauce that still honestly casts a spell twenty years later. It wasn’t quite normal, but as a kid, I didn’t think twice. When your parents are feeding you and your brain is the size of a baseball, you just kind of roll with the punches and settle for buying as much crap as possible at the bake sale with the two bucks your mom gave you. Shortly after I finished elementary school, actually, I think they stopped having bake sales as fundraisers because the school was trying to promote healthy eating. Go figure.

In high school we were allowed to go off campus for lunch and once or twice a week my sainted mother would give me money to buy lunch. It very rapidly became the bi-weekly Let’s See How Much Shit We Can Stuff In Our Body For Ten Dollars Challenge, but that’s not at all uncommon for high schoolers. At home we ate healthily, and I have a pretty fast metabolism thanks to my Slenderman of a father so I was more or less the size of a pencil for first few years of school. We’re talking, like, size double zero at Hollister. I actually used to peel the 00 size stickers off my low rise (!!!) jeans whenever I’d get a new pair and stick them on the side of my desk in my bedroom, which, as I became a normal-sized adult with not-normal-sized body image problems, morphed into a very creative form of self-inflicted psychological torment. I have some journal entries from the first few years of high school with “diet and workout plans”, but in teenage girl fashion, most of them were quickly forgotten about or amended with “forgot and ate mac and cheese today - whoops!” Stupid teenage shit. It’s actually kind of hilarious reading it back now until I remember how spectacularly fucked up everything got. ANYWAY!

My first real memory of hating my body was on a school trip to Scotland my junior year. I was fully indoctrinated into the cult of high school musical theatre and we were performing at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, which was an incredibly cool experience that I absolutely did NOT take full advantage of and instead did shit like drink way too much rum (fucking RUM because apparently I was a character in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise), try to climb out the window of the dorms we were staying in to go see my boyfriend in his building, quickly remember I was on like the fucking fourth floor, throw up all over the carpet of my room and then pass out. My room smelled like puke the rest of the trip but that, though tragic in its own right, is not the point of this anecdote. Being both across the pond and left to my own devices, I was eating nothing but beige-colored fried food to the point that I’m certain ketchup and fruit juice used solely as a mixer for alcohol were the only things saving me from full-blown scurvy. My clothes felt tight, and not in the 2010s way that everything was tight, but bad tight. My stomach poked out of my jeans in a way that my stomach wasn’t supposed to poke out of my jeans. Keep in mind - I was probably a size 0 instead of 00 at this point, and most of this change was just a product of being sixteen instead of fourteen and growing, but to me it felt ominous in a way I didn’t know how to explain. During a group trip to some Scottish landmark or another (see how much attention I paid to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity my parents spent their hard-earned money to give me?) I remember sitting next to my close friend on the bus as we pulled over to stop for food. I was having relationship trouble with the aforementioned boyfriend, one of the first of many Musical Theatre Straight Boys™ that I would lose my fucking mind over, and I was getting emotional - more emotional than I expected. I realized something else was bothering me, and I turned to her and said “On top of everything else, I just feel… fat. I know I’m not fat, but I’m fat, like, for me.”

Two things here: first and foremost, yes, for that I know I am now the recipient of the Most Annoying Sentence Ever Spoken Aloud award and will provide the mailing address for my trophy at a later date. Second, I said that over ten years ago, and I remember it so clearly that I’m entirely sure that’s exactly what I said, verbatim. We got off the bus, and I walked into the restaurant and, after scanning the menu desperately trying to convince myself I should order something “healthy”, I ordered large steak fries and got back on the bus. I think this was the first time I ever really, consciously used food as a coping mechanism - the first time something small but powerful snapped in my head that told me fuck it - who the fuck cares? You’ve done enough damage already, what’s the point of stopping now?

High school ended, I graduated and we sang “Journey On” from Ragtime at the ceremony (baffling choice but the school was doing Ragtime next year and wanted to squeeze a promo out), I got into several of my top-choice musical theatre colleges and was so excited to go to the one I picked, which, you’ll be charmed to hear, was the absolute worst choice I could’ve made. I was 18 and a little bigger now, firmly in size 0/2 instead of 00 territory, had maybe graduated to a 32B bra instead of A, but still very thin by most standards. This was my first summer as a Very Online Person - I would stay up tlil probably 3 or 4 AM most nights blogging and watching Harry Potter movies for the umpteenth time. Because the rest of my family was, how do I put it, fucking normal, they’d go to bed at 11 or whenever and I’d be up alone for hours on the  computer. This is when I started bingeing. We didn’t really keep junk food in my house, nothing legit like Cheetos or Ben and Jerry’s or whatever, but we did have sugar cereal and reduced-fat Oreos and cheese and the occasional box of Triscuts. It became a nightly ritual for me - I’d wait for everyone to go to bed, then tiptoe in to the kitchen and, though I’d eaten dinner hours earlier, start eating again. Stacks of Oreos, multiple bowls of cereal, shredded cheese out of the bag. After a while my mom heard me banging around in the kitchen and told me (in so many words) to shut the fuck up, so my methods changed. I’d bring the box of cereal - Rice Krispies or Cocoa Puffs or whatever - a bowl, and a carton of milk into the bathroom with me. I’d run the sink and open the box and pour the cereal with the water running so no one would hear, and then I’d creep back out to the couch and eat it. Box of Oreos into the bathroom, water on, peel open the plastic, take out the biggest stack I thought I could with no one noticing, eat. Three or four granola bars into the bathroom, water on, wrappers off and hidden behind my bed or the couch or wherever, eat. Rinse and repeat.

I didn’t really know what binge eating was at this point, and some tiny, dark part of my brain buried way in the back told me that this wasn’t normal and it wasn’t good, but I pushed it away because of course I did. I did a few Google searches about it and came across the term “binge eating disorder” but was convinced that could never be me. This was just a thing, just a thing I was doing, and it would go away at the end of the summer when I went away to college because that’s when life was actually starting and it was going to be awesome and I wasn’t going to let this - whatever this was - fuck that up.

But I did, in fact, fuck it up. I fucked it up fast and hard (that’s what she said, ok back to being depressing) and college was not awesome, it was difficult and painful and I was drowning in something I had absolutely no chance of controlling on my own. I accepted very quickly that this thing I was doing had a name, and it was binge eating disorder, and I was all in. I gained weight - not a ton, maybe twenty pounds, and I was never actually overweight, but to me that didn’t matter. I hated how I looked. I overdrew my bank account spending money my mom gave me for groceries on binge food. I spent hours alone in the dining hall eating till I felt physically ill and sometimes threw up involuntarily because my body couldn’t handle what I was doing. One time I stood in the bathroom of my dorm and drank mustard mixed with warm water because I read online that makes you puke and I was so full I wanted to die (it didn’t work, please for the love of GOD don’t drink mustard water or, for that matter, anything else for the express purpose of making yourself vomit). I cancelled plans with friends and skipped classes to stay in and binge, or because I’d binged already that day and could barely move. I stole food from roommates, convincing myself no one would notice, even though of course they fucking noticed. I hid food and packaging and wrappers under my bed, in my closet, in my backpack, wherever I could because I didn’t want anyone to catch on. Lied about why I needed money so my parents would send me some and I could buy more shit. I ate stale food, food from the trash, once I literally ate straight up chocolate sauce (mustard water and chocolate sauce: 10 out of 10 doctors recommend!) because I had nothing else. Waking up for 8 AM ballet classes and seeing my body in a leotard under fluorescent lighting felt like a form of torture Dick Cheney might think was a little too harsh. I saw a therapist over the summers and ate with my parents at home, and things got better, and then I’d go back to school and everything would unravel again. I’m still kind of shocked I made it through.

I’ve been done with school and living in the city for five years now, and I can honestly say that things are better. I mean, not “better”, in the sense that this chapter of the book is still pretty fucking open. But I’m better at dealing with it. The majority of the time now, I eat normally. I still binge, sometimes a lot and sometimes a little, but I carry on and try again the next day. I don’t really restrict to make up for binges anymore. I can eat some foods now that used to send me straight into Eatin’ Town USA, like cheese and bread and maybe even Oreos sometimes. I started enjoying working out, not just logging time on the treadmill as a punishment and feeling like Jean Valjean in the opening number of Les Mis (look down look down you’RE HERE UNTIL YOU DI-IE). 

To be honest, I think I’m writing this mostly because the last couple months have been hard. I’ve fallen into some old stupid shitty habits, and I’ve been plugging along like normal and trying to claw myself out. But it’s not quite working like it normally does, and I don’t know why. I know I’ll make it through, because I always have, and what other option is there? But some days lately, I feel like twenty-year-old me, sobbing (very theatrically, natch) on the floor of my apartment because I should be over this by now - how am I not over this by now? This is my ninth year as a binge eater. Almost a decade! Far and away my longest and most committed relationship. When I hit 10 years strong, I should take myself out to a fancy restaurant or something but I don’t know what I’d order.

When I tell people this, I usually get some kind of “I had no idea”/“I’m sorry I didn’t notice”/“I would’ve never guessed” and the truth is that I didn’t, and still don’t, want anyone to notice. Of course I don’t. You don’t hide candy wrappers and empty pizza boxes in your closet with your winter boots because you want people to notice. It’s a very strange and secretive brand of shame that binge eating disorder brings and no one really get it unless they get it, and that’s not something I’d wish on anyone. (Okay, honestly, I’d wish it on some people, like it’s hard as hell but some people suck ass and probably deserve it? Anyway.) As I’ve grown up, I’ve started talking about this more and more. The first time I went public with all of this shit - I think I made a dramatic Instagram post a few years ago whilst day drunk during National Eating Disorder Awareness Week (absolutely incredible and Very Me start to a sentence) - I was shocked at how many people reached out to me privately and were like, hey, me too, and thank you for saying something. I’m still ashamed, but I’m trying not to be, and the more I talk about it the less alone I feel. “There are dozens of us! DOZENS!”

I guess one nice thing about this whole stupid nightmare is it’s kind of a reason why I am who I am. Not the only reason, but still. I started using jokes to cope with this while I was in school, and my sense of humor, whatever the fuck it is today, grew out of that. Except now I don’t joke about this stupid shit because I’m in denial, I do it because it’s real and I’m staring it in the face and it’s not going away, and the absurdity of something so excruciatingly difficult yet so entirely in my control gets fucking terrifying. I guess laughing at it makes it seem small.

[gameting]

“If you haven’t heard of this game already then that’s okay, but if there’s room under that rock what’s the rent like?”

Minecraft Review - Perfectly crafted

Originally created by Markus Persson in 2009, published by his own company funded by the game's huge success Mojang in 2011, and bought out by Microsoft in 2014, the original Minecraft is a far cry from the most current release. Having been in constant development for a decade it's safe to say that Minecraft has only grown mightier as the years have gone by.

The charming pixelated sandbox has gained a following akin to other gargantuan franchises like Star Wars or Disney, striking a flame with the first Minecraft convention dubbed 'Minecon' in 2010. The game itself is very much a love child of the now billionaire Markus' favourite games of the time, and what started out as a passion project has since become a staple of the gaming world.

Story: As a completely open world experience the 'story' of Minecraft is entirely in the players hands; Want to spend the next three weeks farming? Go for it! Want to focus on finding that sweet spot to build your next house? Build away! Wanna murder some tall purple-black dudes who steal your stuff and then use their eyes to find and jump into a portal to then fight a massive dragon? Yeah, me too! The story of Minecraft is non-existent; it's a truly open 'sandbox' experience where the player has total freedom.

As time has gone by however there have been updates that add end goals, such as the aforementioned dragon, but there's no “Nice one for completing the game!” screen so to speak. So what is there to do in Minceraft if there's no story, no tension, no drama or purpose? Well...

Gameplay: The gameplay can be stripped down to four basic functions: kill, eat, build, sleep. At least that's what the alpha version could have been described as. Now, however, you can ride pigs, plant wheat, breed animals, fly, enchant weapons, fish, that's right I did say fly, kill under water zombie dudes, ride horses, keep cats, ride carts, and of course mine AND craft.

It isn't very telling from the list, but there is a lot to do in Minecraft that I haven't even mentioned. So much so that if you leave the game for a few months you could come back to entirely new items and features that seemed inconceivable in the past. I mean the fact that you can fly now? I don't even know how to do that I just saw a friend do it and I've already poured the last week into trying to find out how.

I mentioned that you can enchant weapons, but you can also enchant yourself, albeit temporarily, through the use of potions. Get some glass, make a bottle, and you're one step closer to being able to see better in the dark, jump really high, do more damage or even swim faster under water. The amount of stuff to do in Minecraft can be dizzying, but part of the fun is trying to figure out how to do everything as hard as you can before turning to the wiki.

There are of course baddies in the game outside of dragons and block stealing weirdos; zombies, creepers (the green thing that go boom), skeleton archers, drowned (wet zombies), slimes, blazes (hot shooty boys), spiders, baby zombies and drowned (the worst), Ghast (big white screamy memey shooty boys) and of course other players, the latter of which is one of the best ways to experience the game.

The world in which you inhabit in any video game is just as important as the baddies you slay. Some games push you down linear corridors, some games even tie you to a single path and all you can really do is aim and shoot, and while some games give you large sprawling maps for you to explore at your leisure, in Minecraft, well, the world is made of “chunks” as we pros call it, and it never ends. No, really, it never ends, the game world is procedurally generated, which means you can pick a direction and keep going until you find the perfect mountain to make your home.

There are also a variety of landscapes in the game: taiga (snowy bois), deserts, giant mushrooms, dark woods, regular woods, birch woods, mountain ranges, swamps, igloos, flat plains, and sometimes it's just a lot of water. Whatever your favourite flavour of the real world is, Minecraft has it, and with the ability to pick your seed (the combination of numbers generated when a world is made) you can customise the world you inhabit.

The following of Minecraft also came with game altering mods that can add new blocks, features, animals, bad dudes, good dudes, currency, heck you can even mod in completely different game modes which have since become easily accessible outside of the modding community.

All of this is wrapped up in an easy to learn control scheme with hit, not hit, jump, other not hit, crouch, move around and change your characters perspective between first and third person.

Graphics: Imagine really cool pixel art. Just loads of squares dude.

Sound: The sound design in Minecraft is just so good. Open a door? Mm chunky door sound. Walking on some snow? Crunchy snow sound. The sound effects for items in the game are top notch, but the game really shines with the sounds of the enemies, specifically the creepers. Casually mining and you hear that hissing sound? Well, you were mining.

The music in the game is, as it always has been, gorgeous. Subtle tones that chime in from time to time, gentle piano as the rain starts to fall, ominous noises that can only be described as “bwam” while exploring the depths of the world, all of it works together to create a cohesive sound scape that peacefully fits to whatever you're mining, crafting or slaying. Every thing sounds as it should, and the music has a mind of it's own so it never feels noisy or excessive.

Personal experience: My first real experience with Minecraft was after I 'legally' downloaded it with 'money' on 'my' computer in my own home with my 'hands' on a 'keyboard.' It was an early alpha build and I remember running away from zombies and the hissy green boys by hiding in a mountain. I figured, y'know, wait until day, hang out, then dig my way back to the real world. Only, I'd forgotten which way was out, I wasn't paying attention and ended up spending half an hour punching my way out of an endless wall of dirt.

Between then and now I'm only slightly better at building a 9x9 wooden house, and the green boys don't scare me (as much) any more. Minecraft has been a game that I've left and returned to multiple times, and now as I write this review I find myself playing online with a friend and more invested than ever; when do we fly I ask, I don't know maybe after the dragon my friend replies, and we continue to routinely murder the same bloodline of cows until we're both wearing pink boots and hats. I'd say play it with friends, but sometimes going it alone is just as fun.

Score /10: To be honest I was going into this review with a number in mind, but now that I've finished it I have to say I'm going to keep the number: it's a 10/10. From the timeless gameplay, to the addictive nature of mining and crafting, and figuring out how the hell to fly, I find myself captivated by the simplistic depth of Minecraft, the allure of dying all my sheep the same colour and making all my tools shiny. Definitely leaving my Minecraft world in my will/10.

[patriotsnet]

Do Any Republicans Believe In Climate Change

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/do-any-republicans-believe-in-climate-change/

Do Any Republicans Believe In Climate Change

Table 1 Partisan Gaps On Various Issues From Multiple 2020 Surveys

Why Do Republicans Deny Climate Change Science?

ABC News/Ipsos. June 1718, 2020. N=727 adults nationwide. Web-based survey. Estimates were computed by the authors. CBS News Poll. May 29June 2, 2020. N=1,309 adults nationwide. Margin of error ± 3.1. Kaiser Family Foundation. May 1318, 2020. N=1189 adults nationwide. Would you support or oppose your state government decreasing spending on Medicaid to deal with a budget shortfall? Estimates were computed by the authors. Quinnipiac University Poll. June 1115, 2020. N=1,332 registered voters nationwide. Margin of error ± 2.7.

Figure 36 Proportion Of Each Group Who Favored The Federal Government Increasing Taxes On Gasoline

Electricity Consumption Taxes. An increase in federal taxes on electricity to cause people to use less of it has never gained majority support. Increased electricity taxes are supported by only 40% of Democrats, 12% of Republicans, and 27% of Independents in 2020, with a partisan gap of 47 percentage pointsan all-time high.

Figure 20 Proportion Of Each Group Who Believed The Worlds Temperature Will Probably Go Up Over The Next 100 Years

Future warming. Since 1997, majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents have believed that the earth will probably be warmer in a century if nothing is done to prevent it. In 2020, 94% of Democrats, 72% of Independents, and 56% of Republicans believe that warming will probably continue in the future. No notable growth has occurred in the partisan gap since 2011.

5°F warmer would be bad. Majorities of Democrats and of Independents have consistently believed that 5°F of global warming would be bad, but the proportion of Republicans expressing that belief has hovered around the midline, peaking at 59% in 1997 and dipping to its lowest points of 47% in 2010 and 2015. The partisan gap in 2020 is the biggest observed since 1997 at 34 percentage points.

You May Like: How Many States Are Controlled By Republicans

Congressman Steve Scalise Republican Of Louisiana

Incoming majority whip

Scalise was a co-sponsor of the 2011 Energy Tax Prevention Act to stop the EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. The Obama administration needs to finally abandon their radical climate change agenda that is killing jobs and increasing costs for American families, he said in an August statement. Four years after the Democratic controlled Congress rejected the presidents cap-and-trade scheme, the White House wants to sidestep Congress and commit the United States to a United Nations agreement which would name and shame countries into adopting higher emissions standards. This just proves that the president is prepared to pursue his job-killing climate agenda at any cost, which the American people and House of Representatives will not stand for.

Arguments And Positions On Global Warming

Some climate change denial groups say that because CO2 is only a trace gas in the atmosphere it can only have a minor effect on the climate. Scientists have known for over a century that even this small proportion has a significant warming effect, and doubling the proportion leads to a large temperature increase. The scientific consensus, as summarized by the IPCC fourth assessment report, the U.S. Geological Survey, and other reports, is that human activity is the leading cause of climate change. The burning of fossil fuels accounts for around 30 billion tons of CO2 each year, which is 130 times the amount produced by volcanoes. Some groups allege that water vapor is a more significant greenhouse gas, and is left out of many climate models. While water vapor is a greenhouse gas, the very short atmospheric lifetime of water vapor compared to that of CO2 means that CO2 is the primary driver of increasing temperatures; water vapour acts as a feedback, not a forcing, mechanism. Water vapor has been incorporated into climate models since their inception in the late 1800s.

Climate denial groups may also argue that global warming stopped recently, a global warming hiatus, or that global temperatures are actually decreasing, leading to global cooling. These arguments are based on short term fluctuations, and ignore the long term pattern of warming.

Recommended Reading: Did Donald Trump Really Say Republicans Are Dumb

Senator Jim Inhofe Republican Of Oklahoma

Incoming chairman of the Senate committee on the environment and public works

Inhofe is the poster boy for Republican climate change denialism, not only for his stridency on the issue but because he is the once and future leader of the key Senate committee on environmental policy. Inhofe will be able to lead the committee for two years before running up against term limits . This time around, Inhofes committee is expected to focus on transportation and infrastructure bills.

But it seems likely that Inhofe will devote some energy to blocking the regulation of carbon emissions. We think this because on 12 November he told the Washington Post: As we enter a new Congress, I will do everything in my power to rein in and shed light on the EPAs unchecked regulations.

Inhofe has climate change the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people, has said God, not humans, controls the weather, and has denied climate change in many other ways.

Amid Extreme Weather A Shift Among Republicans On Climate Change

Many Republicans in Congress no longer deny that Earth is heating because of fossil fuel emissions. But they say abandoning oil, gas and coal will harm the economy.

By Lisa Friedman and Coral Davenport

WASHINGTON After a decade of disputing the existence of climate change, many leading Republicans are shifting their posture amid deadly heat waves, devastating drought and ferocious wildfires that have bludgeoned their districts and unnerved their constituents back home.

Members of Congress who long insisted that the climate is changing due to natural cycles have notably adjusted that view, with many now acknowledging the solid science that emissions from burning oil, gas and coal have raised Earths temperature.

But their growing acceptance of the reality of climate change has not translated into support for the one strategy that scientists said in a major United Nations report this week is imperative to avert an even more harrowing future: stop burning fossil fuels.

Instead, Republicans want to spend billions to prepare communities to cope with extreme weather, but are trying to block efforts by Democrats to cut the emissions that are fueling the disasters in the first place.

Dozens of Republicans in the House and Senate said in recent interviews that quickly switching to wind, solar and other clean energy will damage an economy that has been underpinned by fossil fuels for more than a century.

You May Like: Trump Is A Democrat Or Republican

In 2020 91% Of Democrats 73% Of Republicans And 82% Of Independents Favor Federal Government Efforts To Generate More Electricity Using Water Wind And Solar Power Reflecting A Partisan Gap Of 18 Percentage Points

Increase CAFE Standards. Majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents have consistently favored federal government efforts to cause improvement in the fuel efficiency of cars. In 2020, 86% of Democrats, 52% of Republicans, and 70% of Independents favor this policy option, with a partisan gap of 34 percentage points .

What The World Thinks About Climate Change In 7 Charts

My Republican colleagues dont think we should do anything about climate change. They are dead wrong

On April 22, leaders and representatives from more than 150 countries will gather at the United Nations to sign the global climate change agreement reached in Paris in December. Pew Research Centers spring 2015 survey found that people around the world are concerned about climate change and want their governments to take action. Here are seven key findings from the poll:

1Majorities in all 40 nations polled say climate change is a serious problem, and a global median of 54% believe it is a very serious problem. Still, the intensity of concern varies substantially across regions and nations. Latin Americans and sub-Saharan Africans are particularly worried about climate change. Americans and Chinese, whose countries have the highest overall carbon dioxide emissions, are less concerned.

2People in countries with high per-capita levels of carbon emissions are less intensely concerned about climate change. Among the nations we surveyed, the U.S. has the highest carbon emissions per capita, but it is among the least concerned about climate change and its potential impact. Others in this category are Australia, Canada and Russia. Publics in Africa, Latin America and Asia, many of which have very low emissions per capita, are frequently the most concerned about the negative effects of climate change.

Also Check: How Many Democrats And Republicans Are In The House

Figure 26 Proportion Of Each Group Who Thought That Us Businesses Should Do More About Global Warming

US businesses should do more to deal with global warming. Since 1997, majorities of Democrats and Independents have believe that US business should do more about global warming. In 2020, 92% of Democrats and 69% of Independents believe that businesses should do more. Minorities of Republicans have favored increased action from businesses, with all-time highs of 5859% in 1997 and 1998. The partisan gap is 49 percentage points in 2020.

Average people should do more to deal with global warming. Since 1997, majorities of Democrats and Independents have believed that average people should do more about global warming. In 2020, 90% of Democrats and 70% of Independents think that average people should do more. Smaller proportions of Republicans have also favored increased individual action, with all-time highs of 60% in 1997 and 1998. The partisan gap is 43 percentage points in 2020.

Economic Consequences Of Mitigation Policies

According to some observers, implementing some policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions may increase the cost of American-made goods and services relative to those goods and services produced elsewhere, thus costing consumers and companies alike in the short term. In Climate Insights 2020: Policies and Politics, we saw that very few Americans believe that such undesirable economic side effects result from mitigation efforts. Here, we report how partisans perceive these economic consequences.

Interestingly, majorities of Democrats and of Republicans believe that mitigation policies do not exert ill economic effects, whether at the national level, state level, or their personal levels. Among Democrats, huge majorities believe that the United States doing things to reduce future global warming would not hurt the national economy, their state economy, the number of available jobs, or their own personal finances and job prospects. These sentiments were expressed by majorities of Republicans as well. The partisan gap, averaged over these six measures of economic impacts, was 21 percentage points.

Don’t Miss: Main Differences Between Republicans And Democrats

Figure 16 Trends In The Partisan Gap Using Two Measures Across All Years

These data refute the claim that the gap has grown in recent years amid an increasingly polarized political system in the United States.;

Figure 17 shows the partisan gap using seven measures included in 10 surveys: that global warming has been happening, that, if warming has been happening, it was caused at least in part by human activity, that government should reduce greenhouse gas emissions by power plants, that CAFE standards should be increased, that energy efficiency of buildings should be increased, that energy efficiency of appliances should be increased, and that climate scientists are trustworthy.

Using those measures, the partisan gap was 9 and 11 percentage points on average in 1997 and 1998, grew to 15 to 31 percentage points during 2007-2013, and stabilized between 22 and 29 percentage points in 20152020. In 2020, the gap was 29 percentage points, slightly greater than the previous years of 2018 and 2015 .;

The Republican Party Stands Alone In Climate Denial

Amid internal calls for climate action, a study finds that Republicans are the only climate-denying conservative party in the world

A paper published in the journal Politics and Policy by Sondre Båtstrand at the University of Bergen in Norway compared the climate positions of conservative political parties around the world. Båtstrand examined the platforms or manifestos of the conservative parties from the USA, UK, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Germany. He found that the US Republican Party stands alone in its rejection of the need to tackle climate change and efforts to become the party of climate supervillains.

You May Like: Trump On Oprah Saying Republicans Are Stupid

Farmers And Climate Denial

Seeing positive economic results from efforts at climate-friendly agricultural practices, or becoming involved in intergenerational stewardship of a farm may play a role in turning farmers away from denial. One study of climate change denial among farmers in Australia found that farmers were less likely to take a position of climate denial if they had experienced improved production from climate-friendly practices, or identified a younger person as a successor for their farm.

In the United States, rural climate dialogues sponsored by the Sierra Club have helped neighbors overcome their fears of political polarization and exclusion, and come together to address shared concerns about climate impacts in their communities. Some participants who start out with attitudes of anthropogenic climate change denial have shifted to identifying concerns which they would like to see addressed by local officials.

Also Check: Democrats More Educated Than Republicans

Figure 35 Proportion Of Each Group Who Favored The Federal Government Giving Tax Breaks To Build Nuclear Power Plants

Gasoline Consumption Taxes. An increase in federal taxes on gasoline to cause people to use less of it has almost never gained majority support. Increased gasoline taxes reached and surpassed 50% favoring among Democrats in 2015 and 2018, then gained significant traction in 2020, reaching a peak at 65%. The partisan gap in 2020 was 47 percentage points, an all-time high.

Recommended Reading: Trump Democrats

Florida Could Be Underwater In A Few Decades Can Republicans Win The Battleground State If They Refuse To Heed Environmental Warnings

Molly OTooleKeith JohnsonForeign Policy

MIAMI Florida is waging a quixotic battle against climate change that becomes immediately and aggravatingly apparent when driving anywhere in Miami. Endless orange traffic cones, flashing detour signs, and car-swallowing pits clog the streets as the city tries to rebuild overloaded sewer systems and literally raise roads above the encroaching flood waters.

Sitting in his cramped, cluttered office at the University of Miami, geophysics professor Chris Harrison squints at a rising red line on his computer monitor. It shows sea levels in Key West, which have risen 2 mm per year on average in the last hundred years or so. No longer: Now theyre rising by 3 mm each year bad news for a place where the highest elevation is 345 feet. So is Miami eventually doomed to a watery death?

Well, yes, he said.

MIAMI Florida is waging a quixotic battle against climate change that becomes immediately and aggravatingly apparent when driving anywhere in Miami. Endless orange traffic cones, flashing detour signs, and car-swallowing pits clog the streets as the city tries to rebuild overloaded sewer systems and literally raise roads above the encroaching flood waters.

Well, yes, he said.

I dont have a plan to influence the weather, he dismissively answered a question about climate change at a town hall in New Hampshire.

Fundamental Beliefs And Attitudes

Has Marco Rubio flip-flopped on climate change?

For 14 out of 21 survey questions posed to American respondents about fundamental beliefs and attitudes regarding global warming, majorities of Democrats and Republicans alike hold green opinions in 2020.

For example, 94% of Democrats believe global warming has been happening, as do 67% of Republicans. 94% of Democrats and 56% of Republicans think warming will continue in the future if nothing is done to address it. 94% of Democrats and 69% of Republicans believe that if warming has been happening, human actions have been responsible for causing it.

Majorities of Democrats and of Republicans also agree about the likely effects of global warming98% of Democrats and 54% of Republicans believe global warming will be a very or somewhat serious problem for the US if nothing is done to address it. Some 97% of Democrats and 60% of Republicans believe that global warming will be a very or somewhat serious problem for the world if nothing is done to address it.

However, the partisans diverge on whether specific temperature changes have been or will be bad. Whereas 88% of Democrats believe that the warming that has happened over the past 100 years was bad, only 40% of Republicans believe that. And whereas 84% of Democrats believe that a 5-degree Fahrenheit increase in world temperature over the next 75 years would be bad, only 50% of Republicans agree.

Read Also: Trump 1998 Peoples Magazine Quote

Taxonomy Of Climate Change Denial

In 2004, Stefan Rahmstorf described how the media give the misleading impression that climate change was still disputed within the scientific community, attributing this impression to PR efforts of climate change skeptics. He identified different positions argued by climate skeptics, which he used as a taxonomy of climate change skepticism: Later the model was also applied on denial.

Trend sceptics or deniers , argue that no significant climate warming is taking place at all, claiming that the warming trend measured by weather stations is an artefact due to urbanisation around those stations .

Attribution sceptics or deniers , doubt that human activities are responsible for the observed trends. A few of them even deny that the rise in the atmospheric CO2 content is anthropogenic additional CO2 does not lead to discernible warming that there must be othernaturalcauses for warming.

Impact sceptics or deniers .

This taxonomy has been used in social science for analysis of publications, and to categorize climate change skepticism and climate change denial. Sometimes, a fourth category called “consensus denial” is added, which describes people who question the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming.

Journalists and newspaper columnists including George Monbiot and Ellen Goodman, among others, have described climate change denial as a form of denialism.

Logical fallacies.

[orbemnews]

Private Equity’s Favorite Tax Break May Be in Danger Closing loopholes President Biden is expected to unveil a $1.5 trillion “human infrastructure” plan next week that will focus on education, child care and paid leave for workers, among other things. It would be paid for in part by new taxes on the rich, including the end of a tax break that lawmakers have tried to eliminate for years. The White House will propose a major change to capital gains taxes, with people earning more than $1 million per year paying the top marginal tax rate on their investment gains. Mr. Biden wants to raise that rate to 39.6 percent. The carried interest loophole might finally disappear. Profits earned from funds owned by real estate investors and managers of private equity and venture capital firms are taxed as capital gains at about 20 percent, instead of as regular income, which is taxed at more than double that rate when state levies and other taxes are taken into account. Financial industry executives and their lobbyists have long asserted that carried interest merely represents a return on investment, not income, an argument that survived challenges as recently as 2017. (Here’s Andrew back in 2007 writing about how lawmakers were trying, unsuccessfully, to end the “longstanding, but little understood, practice.”) In a 2015 DealBook Op-Ed, the law professor Victor Fleischer, a top proponent for raising taxes on carried interest, estimated that such a move could raise $180 billion. In a 2011 Times Op-Ed, Warren Buffett decried the treatment of carried interest, which allowed him to report a lower tax rate than his secretary. A minimum tax on millionaires was proposed shortly thereafter and dubbed the “Buffett rule.” JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon has been a regular critic of carried interest, even though it benefits many of the bank’s clients. In his latest letter to shareholders, he said it could be seen as “another example of institutional bias and favoritism toward special interest groups.” Other changes to the tax code could be in the works, including to the estate tax. Private equity executives are also worried that the Biden administration may limit the tax deductibility of corporate interest payments, which would be another hit to their business model. Stocks fell on news of the potential capital gains tax change, but futures are up today. Some in Washington believe any tax proposals will get watered down, particularly given Democrats’ slim margin of control in Congress. And the potential changes to the capital gains tax would affect only the 0.3 percent of Americans who reported annual incomes of $1 million or more, according to the latest IRS data. Several Republican senators suggested they may be on board with eliminating some business tax loopholes. The White House wants that tax revenue to fund the infrastructure bill it unveiled last month. But another group of Republican senators yesterday proposed a much smaller infrastructure bill — $568 billion, versus Mr. Biden’s $2.3 trillion — that would do away with any corporate tax increases. HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING U.S. health officials may soon lift the pause on Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine. A committee of outside experts will meet today to discuss whether to resume giving the shot; they’re expected to vote in favor. But the damage may be done: The Biden administration has reportedly written off the J&J shot’s importance to U.S. vaccination efforts. President Biden sets a new climate goal. At the first day of a climate summit that the U.S. convened, he pledged to cut America’s emissions in half by 2030, compared with 2005 levels, and offered more funding for developing countries to help them meet their targets. Swiss Re estimated that climate change could cost the global economy as much as $23 trillion in the coming decades. Airlines see clearer skies ahead. Carriers expect travel to return almost to normal levels by the summer, with the largest airlines expected to offer as many seats this July as they did in July 2019, by one estimate. The industry plans to call back thousands of employees and hire hundreds of pilots. Scrutiny over a fatal Tesla crash intensifies. Two senators asked regulators to create recommendations for autonomous vehicle software, following the deaths of two men in a Tesla, in which police said no one was behind the wheel. Consumer Reports said it was able to trick Tesla’s Autopilot into operating without anyone in the driver’s seat. AT&T gains ground in the streaming race. The company added 2.7 million subscribers to HBO and HBO Max in the first quarter. Also worth noting: AT&T collects nearly three times more revenue per streaming user than Disney, and trails only Netflix by that measure. Proxy-season politics The riot at the Capitol in January prompted a reckoning on corporate political donations that will be a prominent feature of proxy season, with many shareholder proposals demanding greater disclosure of company spending. Today in Business Updated  April 23, 2021, 7:30 a.m. ET “Companies are reading the writing on the wall,” Thomas DiNapoli, New York State’s comptroller and trustee for the state’s public pension fund, told DealBook. “Political and social polarization are bad for their business, and they need to decide if political donations are worth the risk.” “Time will tell if their increased attention to these issues is lip service or if it represents a sincere change in corporate culture,” Mr. DiNapoli said. “At a minimum, investors need disclosure of this spending.” New York’s public pension fund is the third-largest in the U.S. and since 2010 it has filed more than 155 shareholder proposals on political spending, winning more than 40 adoptions or agreements, including from Bank of America, Delta Air Lines and Pepsi. Three of five resolutions it has advanced this year have already been withdrawn, with the companies agreeing to make changes without putting them to a vote. That’s a 60 percent hit rate, and companies that wouldn’t engage before are now at least responsive, a spokesperson for the fund said. The fund got CMS Energy, a Michigan public utility, to agree to be more transparent about political spending, DealBook is first to report; First Energy, an Ohio utility, and the multinational brewer Molson Coors also agreed to more disclosure. “Companies are now expected to have core values — almost personalities,” said Bruce Freed, the president of the Center for Political Accountability, a nonprofit that partners with shareholders on proposals. Recent agreements, like the ones brokered by Mr. DiNapoli, are a “strong indication” that corporations are feeling “real pressure,” he said. Nine of 30 companies (including those noted above) have agreed this year to provide more disclosure on political donations. Last year, eight of 40 companies facing similar proposals agreed to act instead of putting the question to shareholders in a vote. The Capitol riot “raised the stakes,” Mr. Freed said, and the pressure on companies has not relented since. “We clearly misjudged how this deal would be viewed by the wider football community and how it might impact them in the future. We will learn from this.” — A JPMorgan Chase spokesman, on the bank’s proposed financing of the European Super League. For more on the short-lived plan for a multibillion-dollar continental soccer competition, read this comprehensive account by The Times’s Tariq Panja and Rory Smith. Tallying the damage of a global chip shortage A dearth of computer chips is roiling supply chains around the world. It has especially wreaked havoc on carmakers, many of whom have been forced to shut down plants for lack of chips integral to modern cars. Ford said it is continuing to idle plants in Chicago, Flat Rock, Mich., and Kansas City, Mo., through the first two weeks of May. The Kansas City factory makes the F-150 pickup, Ford’s most profitable model. G.M. has kept its factory in Kansas City, Kan. — which makes the Chevy Malibu sedan — closed since February, and has cut production at other plants. Daimler has temporarily halted production at two plants in Germany that produce lower-cost C-class vehicles. Jaguar Land Rover, Britain’s biggest carmaker, will temporarily shut two of its factories there starting next week. Renault scrapped production forecasts, and said it was prioritizing the manufacturing of its most profitable models. The shortage is unlikely to end anytime soon, according to Intel’s C.E.O., Pat Gelsinger: “This will take a while until people can put more capacity in the ground,” he told The Wall Street Journal. In the papers Some of the academic research that caught our eye this week, summarized in one sentence: Exclusive: Master P to invest in racial equity Percy Miller, better known to hip-hop fans as Master P, plans to invest $10 million in companies led by or serving people who are Black, Indigenous and people of color, DealBook is first to report. He sees ownership and equity as keys to bridging racial wealth gaps, and wants other investors to follow his lead. “This is all about economic empowerment,” Mr. Miller told DealBook. Early in his career, Mr. Miller opened a record store from which he launched No Limit Records, once one of the largest independent labels. More recent projects have been aimed at social entrepreneurship, like an “Uncle P” line of food products to replace Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben’s (both have since been renamed) that would dedicate a portion of profits to supporting Black communities. Mr. Miller wants to invest in an array of industries, with education, including financial literacy, a priority. “I always tell people, product outweighs talent — at the same time, education and wisdom are so important,” he said. “That’s the longevity of my success.” UBS will help connect him to potential prospects. “Our DNA is around entrepreneurship, and our DNA is around facilitating capitalism, and that’s exactly what we’re talking about here,” said Mark Wilkins, a private wealth manager at the bank. The two are treating the initiative as an investment, on which they’re planning to make a return. THE SPEED READ Deals Blackstone reported $1.75 billion in profit in its latest quarter, setting a record and swinging from a $1 billion loss a year ago. (WSJ) L Brands may seek as much as $5 billion in a sale of Victoria’s Secret, far more than the failed deal with Sycamore Partners last year. (Bloomberg) Politics and policy The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously limited the F.T.C.’s ability to seek financial relief for consumers wronged by deceptive business practices. (CNBC) Union officials reportedly told Senate Democrats to back legislation strengthening protections for organizing efforts — or risk losing their political support. (Politico) Tech Norway has led the world in going cashless. Now its central bank is testing out a digital currency. (Insider) Is Europe’s approach to tech regulation visionary, or misguided? (NYT On Tech) Best of the rest Inside Elon Musk’s $150 million philanthropy blitz. (Recode) The Hamptons property market is on fire: A summer rental went for $2 million, while a 42-acre estate sold for over $100 million. (CNBC) Do you need to wear a mask outside? (NYT) We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com. Source link Orbem News #break #Danger #Equitys #favorite #Private #Tax

[marcjampole]

Double-speak in proposed new U.S. nuclear policy masks fact that it makes it much more likely that America or someone else will drop the big one

The draft of the Pentagon’s proposed plan to “update” the United States’ nuclear weapon strategy is a masterpiece of double-speak.

The plan, titled the “Nuclear Posture Review” proposes that we modernize our nuclear weaponry, which is euphemistic phrasing for building more nuclear weapons and more efficient ways to deliver them accurately. The call for spending more than a trillion dollars on new nuclear bombs continues the unfortunate policy of the Obama administration to increase our nuclear capabilities even while calling for total dismantling of the world’s nuclear force at some future date.

More significantly, the document also proposes to expand the number of reasons that the United States would strike first. In 2010, the Obama administration significantly narrowed the scenarios in which the United States would drop nuclear weapons without first enduring a nuclear attack. Obama ruled out attacking any country that did not have a nuclear capability, and limited our use of nuclear as a response to large-scale conventional, chemical or biological attacks. But of course, that’s not how the documents put the conditions under which we’re willing to drop the bomb. In both 2010 and 2018, the Pentagon talks abstractly about nuclear weapons “playing a role” or making “essential contributions to the deterrence of nuclear and non-nuclear aggression.” Nowhere do these documents ever use explicit language to describe our willingness under certain conditions to poison the Earth’s atmosphere and water.

The new Pentagon report calls for widening the circumstances in which we would unleash the fury of our nuclear arsenal to include cyber threats and terrorism, or as the current draft puts it, “violent non-state actors.”That’s right—the new strategy would consider letting a U.S. president drop an atomic bomb on a country harboring terrorists, killing tens if not hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and spewing deadly radiation throughout the planet. Interestingly enough, most stories about the updated nuclear strategy fail to mention the expansion of reasons for dropping the big one. Those that do, like the New York Times, focus exclusively on using nuclear weapons to deter “attempts to destroy wide-reaching infrastructure, like a country’s power grid or communications, that would be most vulnerable to cyberweapons.” No one mentions that the U.S. would now consider the nuclear option to fight terrorism, a far scarier change since the definition of terrorism and who is a terrorist is so amorphous and subject to manipulation. As with the past nuclear strategy documents, the 2018 draft also covers about 30 countries we consider allies, which means that at least theoretically, if a country dismantled Great Britain’s electrical distribution capability using a computer virus, the United States might literally go nuclear!

Double-speak is everywhere in the report. Consider this clever bit of logical twisting: “In no way does this approach ‘lower the nuclear threshold.’ Rather, by convincing adversaries that even limited use of nuclear weapons will be more costly than they can countenance, it raises the threshold.” In other words, the report claims that being willing to use nuclear weapons in more scenarios lowers the possibility of using them. It sounds as if the same propaganda machine that belches out the nonsense that allowing more guns will make people safer from gun violence is advising the Pentagon. And in fact, it might be, seeing that a number of companies manufacturing weaponry for the United States and the dozens of countries to which we sell arms also have divisions which sell firearms to individuals.

My favorite instance of twisted logic in the Nuclear Posture Review is the oft-quoted statement: ”We must look reality in the eye and see the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.” Those of us who have watched the current administration develop and implement immigration, tax, trade, environmental and education policies that fly in the face of reality find an enormous amount of chutzpah in the ostensibly sober admonishment to “look reality in the eye.”

But beyond the irony of the Trump Pentagon invoking reality to justify expanding the possibility of a first use of nuclear bombs is the rhetorical slipperiness of the statement. The Pentagon says it looked at reality, but it really only considered that part of reality that helped to justify the decision to spend a trillion dollars on new weapons of mass destruction and loosen first-use standards.

It didn’t look at the interconnectedness of the world through trade, treaties and computerization that makes it much more dangerous to all countries to launch any kind of attack on a big power like the United States—interconnectedness providing the same kind of deterrence that nuclear advocates claim the possession of atomic bombs does. It ignores the great progress we have made in quelling disturbances through negotiations, economic sanctions and treaties. It doesn’t take into account the fact that with non-nuclear weaponry we have managed to reduce the threat of ISIS and that the number of terrorist episodes in the United States is down significantly over the past four decades. It doesn’t look at the reality of limited resources that could better be put to use in strengthening the American economy and helping lift up the poor and inflicted in the United States and throughout the world.

Finally, and most importantly, the Pentagon does not consider the awful reality of nuclear weapons: that they kill so many with one explosion and that the damage is not limited to the bomb site, but affects the entire globe. The writers of this proposal—which will likely soon become the official policy of the United States—should take a hard look at the reality portrayed in the thousands of photographs of the damage to humans wrought at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Maybe then they would understand that the reality is that no first-use of our nuclear capability is defensible or justifiable. Nor is retaliation against someone dropping a bomb on us, for that matter. The only realistic policy to follow is to stop developing all nuclear weapons and start decommissioning the weapons we have. Our standing army and economic power in a tightly interconnected world should be deterrence enough to prevent others from exploding nuclear weapons and therefore to follow suit by eradicating their weapons.

[artdjgblog]

​Innerview: Effie Lin / ​DPI Magazine (Taiwan)  

November 2009 - January 2010

Photo: DJG (2009) by Cayla Kennedy (Age 5)​

Note: Interview for a magazine feature.

0​1) What is your philosophy in your art world? I have to be a human first and a maker of things second. Sometimes the two court together really well. Sometimes they pick fights and choose sides. I sort of have a get up and go method and plan to always be working on my life and work, and to my best ability, given the resources at hand. It’s not that I have a complete lack of care, responsibility or feel disenfranchised or on the outskirts. Though, I do have my moments. Even in bad moments, when it’s probably not a good idea for me to be around me, I try to eventually spin a positive from that experience. They can be the most crucial moments as I learn a great deal once I get beyond their borders. I think that’s part of the process. Process is a big deal and we’re all a part of it. And there is such a thing as bad process equaling a positive in life and work. All I know is that I need to be honest and pure with how I speak inside and outside of the work I am putting on and off the table. Anyway, I’m not really a grouch or a slouch in both areas of life and art, but it is a constant work in progress. I think that thinking too much about it, or the idea of it in the larger spectrum, can become damaging, unhealthy and grow bean stocks further from the truth. Though, I might add that I understand how hard it can be to keep from big ideas and big thinking, it is. I like where it is that I’m at right now and it all stacks up to here. I just need to be making things until I move on to something else. And that something else will probably involve making things too. I love what I do. There is a bigger component to the little pictures that I’m here presenting. I just need to keep up and in the know of the tip toes and perhaps leave some behind in the only way I can try, that means being something like me. ​0​2) What is your favorite medium and why? I feel that maintaining and manhandling a single medium would be quite overwhelming. I admire those that can do it, and do it skillfully. Not that I’m a special breed, but I don’t understand how some people can milk the same cow every day, for years. Every day is a little different inside and out and that fuels my mood of operation. I think that I suppose there is a definition when one looks at the work I’m doing, and the way I go about it, to easily pin me to a favorite medium. I like to use my hands and things around me to tell my stories. But, I don’t know much other than the day-to-day as my mind and energy wanders much on the map. I wake up and see what weather we’ve got. I believe much of it comes from growing up on a farm and spending a lot of time alone. A lot of people think that time is at a stand-still on the country clock. It wasn’t for me as there wasn’t really a cap on the kind of external culture and entertainment I could in-take and fuse with country living inside and out. Everything was a big pot of soup for me and it still is. I was always doing something and I still am. I also watched my Grandma make a lot of things by hand, and although not really an “artist”, she’s been a big influence on the work I’m doing. Another thing, I can’t be as involved with my work when there is a computer screen barrier involved. I can use a computer, but it is only like a nail gun to me. In my college studies while struggling with the introductory marriage of technology and design, I almost quit completely. Funny, before even getting on a computer I naively claimed to tech-savvy peers, “I am going to take the route that doesn’t employ computers.” Anyway, computers are cool and all but it is not how I like to really play. It didn’t help that around this time in my early 20s, I also had doubts about my artistic talent and identity. I also never felt comfortable visiting the design firms of my possible “future”. Some people find a home in them, but I couldn’t and wanted to be in a sense, a stay at home mother to my art. So, these factors led me to re-learn and go back to being a kid locked up inside and/or getting that kid to come back out…becoming an adult can be crippling. I started putting my identity back in the work at this time by leaving my human elements and story behind. I was also exposed to new kinds of external stimulus with art and culture and that helped me see things better too. I eventually had a calling to do my own thing completely, dropped out of school, moved to a big city and mixed it all together. Cities are big cooking pots anyway. But, on a personal level, I’m not done cooking yet. I’m kind of “mild” right now compared to most. I’m just one more guy carving a name on the cinder block and trying to pay the bills. ​0​3) Could you talk about the exhibition post of “Showing My Sheep”? Could you talk about your creating concept? I was born and raised on a farm. We raised sheep and showed sheep at county fairs. I used to have a basketball court shared with the sheep lot. As a youngster I spent some time wanting to be a farmer and in many ways now I kind of am. I’d like to live on a farm again someday, mostly for quiet space, to have more animals and to have a big barn I can work in. I did my first retrospective art exhibition called “Showing My Sheep” after five years of working on my art odyssey. Yeah, that’s not a long time for a life or career overview, but it was important for me to show my whole flock of work together like that and up to that point. And in truth, a 5 year old sheep is middle age. The image on the exhibition poster is a quick scribble of me (or something like me) in sheep’s carcass/dress. I’ve always wondered silly about sheep walking upright and maybe a bit of my love of Gary Larson “The Far Side” comics is shining through just a bit too? But, there is more to this one as it is a tribute to my upbringing as it represents my sheepish nature and approach mixed with the “wolf in dress” image that I think we all catch and can’t catch up with, at least every now and again (notice the front legs and how they are also a wolf snout?). Another idea in this sheep image is how zombie-like an artist, anyone for that matter, slaves to their nature. I rummage a lot of thrift shops for unique papers and board game “play cards” to print on. Paper can add another dimension to something like a poster, in this case adding to the idea of the game of life and art I play. The board game this paper came from is called “Facts in Five: The Game of Knowledge”, thus adding to all the pieces of art and life that added up to the making of my 5 year retrospective. There is also the handwriting element of an anonymous other’s involvement that I find fascinating. Plus, there is the “grid” pattern that reflects a panel fence to keep the sheep in and out…breaking fences, doing my own thing, so to speak. If you squint you might even see sheep pellets, or what I used to refer to as M&M’s, as they would make for an interesting game of basketball. Did you get all that? There are lots going on in this one. Almost another 5 years after that exhibition and I wonder if I’m nearing the end…hmmm. You never know. ​0​4) Which one of your work is your favorite? Or which one made you spend the most time and effort? What’s message you would like to convey through this work?? Favorite Work: My favorite piece of personal art was stolen at an exhibition in late 2004. It is the only thing of mine that wasn’t/isn’t documented (scanned, photographed) and I can’t recreate it. It is a simple little broken pen scribble drawing of a mentally handicapped water bison. His name is Mortimer. I made him in a couple minutes while on hold on the phone with the phone company. I busted a pen and let the ink spill. I’ve tried other drawings like it, but they turn out different. I have a lot of favorite works, but that one is the winner and loser. Time & Effort: I don’t think you really need “time” or “effort” to make something stick or feel, or even get something done. In fact, once I’m in the creative moment there is no such thing as “time” and “effort”. If you do something enough and love it, then it becomes another extension and you’re a paint brush for something bigger. Though, the words do become tangible when “life” stuff is thrown into the mix. This can’t be denied. Due to my so far 8 year schedule of day jobs, night jobs, marriage and the general day-to-day, I’ve always worked fairly fast and in small slots of time and many things at once, lots of things. It’s as much mental and military discipline as it is anything else and I just go for it. If it ever starts to feel like a chore, I try to take a short break or study up in other areas. If it ever becomes a chore out of my grasp, I’ll find something else to do completely. It can be struggling at times, but there is something good about the “life” stuff that I feed from. It can add fuel to the fire and makes me realize that I’m not always first in line. Sometimes it can be rough sitting on my hands while at the day job, but I’ll make up for it. In truth, there are never enough resources for the things I’d like to leave behind before I’m called quits. But, I sure try to make the best of “time” and “effort” while I’m here. I’ve made many posters and I love the fact that the poster has a shorter shelf live than something like the CD. I like experimenting with posters because if it gets swatted down, it only lived for a couple weeks and another will come along. They are kind of like flies. At three to five sessions, I try to court CD packages a lot longer. There are instances when an image instantly clicks in my mind when I’m told of an upcoming CD and that’s the final product, but most of the time I have to make them incubate and mature. I’ve always been fascinated with productivity and the human mind and mood, at least in my path. I often look at my timeline of work, wondering how different some of the things would have turned out had I did them on another day or even a minute later than I did them. The past few years, my music design output has shrunk some. I reached a certain point after 2006 to where I realized I needed to step back. I still do a few music projects here and there, but mostly just make a lot of visual art for myself. Which, I’ve always teetered on visual art. Maybe I’m trying to make up for Mortimer? I did start something different for me and in a medium that I’d love to pursue more. It wasn’t until this year (2009) that something really consumed me and that was a music video. It has been a great thing for me to be more patient with a project. Now, that’s a whole different extra innings of “time” and “effort”. ​0​5) Which one of CD cover/album artwork is your favorite or make you really proud of? What is the concept? Could you talk about your creating process? Did you listening to the music when you working? I’ve been asked this question a lot. I always answer with: “Whatever Makes You Happy” by The Elevator Division. It’s something to feel proud when you accomplish anything, but even more when it is all done and duplicated by hand in one night. 250 CD packages were made out of hand-cut cardboard, spray paint, stencils, rubber stamps and glued inserts. The concept is a hand shooting off a missile finger. The music themes revolve around relationships on and off the battlefields of life and war and the cover image relays the idea of shooting off one’s options, as in, “Whatever Makes You Happy”. Conceptually (design-wise), it might be the best thing I’ve got in me and inspiration came at the last minute before production and during a great Midwest thunderstorm. Upon the last spray of paint in my basement (yes, I was stupid enough then to spray paint in an unventilated basement), there was a crack of lightning and I flew upstairs and out the door of my home and slid down the well-watered front lawn and into the gutter of the street with red spray paint all over me. The squatters on the porch at the supposed drug house across the street got a kick out it. It was a massive affair and I swore I wouldn’t do it again and then I did a near repeat 4 years later for another band, but not all in one night. I swore I wouldn’t do that again-again and then I kind of did it again two years later. So, I must be due up for another one soon. In the case of The Elevator Division, the band lived with me and practiced nearly every day directly outside my basement studio door at our home. There were several bands that this happened with. I usually don’t listen to albums that I’m designing very much and I rarely listen to them after they are a finished product. This is especially so when it is blasted in the flesh right next to me. ​0​6) Why is sound/music important to our life? What is the most important for designing the album/CD cover? I’m not a fan of a lot of “noise”, but I like sound and I love music and I like some noise music. I love the idea and image of the album cover and making an album “feel” on the outside and giving it an identity. I find I have a detachment from the music and the memories when it is fused in our current in-between stage right now of technology and mp3 land. Even if they have a digital image shroud, they lack a hard identity to me as they float out in space and it makes me a little sad. I prefer a physical collection/body of music, with identity. I don’t want to get too far into this topic and I’ll add that both formats have their good and bad. And I love walking to and from work with a pocket overflowing with Bruce Springsteen songs (I have the records at home too). Along the same lines, I think that the idea of “cover art” or something physical isn’t going to die 100%, at least not in my lifetime. I do hope it doesn’t get even more eclectic-expensive like it kind of is looking. I love album art and I can’t really afford it. I just remember one of my earliest memories being the apple on records by The Beatles. That was/is important to me. I bit that apple and it has been good to me for 30 years now. ​0​7) What had been the most challenging thing to you in art world, and how did you overcome it? I think I have challenges and things to overcome and then I tune into the news or watch certain documentary films. I realize there is nothing for me to complain about after that. Of course there are some personal issues that challenge me and my little world. A major one of is overcoming some of my social phobia. It’s made me who I am and probably factors to why I make the way I make, but it has kept me from getting in the ball game as much as I probably should have. Though, what is “probably should have”? Technology makes great networking devices, and is “the now”, but at the same time I always feel so exhausted and behind with it. I also don’t have resources to keep up with it (money, time and mind) but I’m trying bit by bit. Another thing I’ve always carried a heavy lump with is a day job. But, it’s the only way for me to stay afloat. Every year I spend more money than I make with art (currently, I have 24 cents in my DJG Pay Pal account). One way to overcome this is to stop entering high-cost art and design competitions, which was one way of being social with a lot of people. Well, from a global publishing stand point. Competition fees are rising so much these days. Another challenge is the business end of the art. I stink at business. Though, a lot of that has to do with not having enough time and not being the best at problem solving and math, plus always being broke. And I would rather just make more art. I’m a happy camper though and constantly doing my thing. ​0​8) What are your future goals in the art world? Naturally, anyone who feels they’re sitting on something at home is going to set their sights on doing their own thing full-time and for full-time income. But, even if I never get there, I will be punching my own time card in some form or another. I’ll find peace. I’ll always be working on something and working on myself. I could easily keep my head down all day, dragging my wagon (and I kind of do), but I love the idea of sharing my work on a larger, global scale too. It is global on the internet, yet I easily butt heads with technology as it can get quite beastly. But, I appreciate it greatly as even a decade ago you probably wouldn’t have found out about me to get an interview like this. Thank you! I’ve met a lot of my initial goals and it’s easy to sit here and think about tomorrow but I need to work out today to make it there. I’d love to eventually put out an officially published book or lots of them (any bidders?). I plan to start with some handmade ones very soon. I’ll also finally be selling things on my web site soon. I’m currently working towards a 10 year retrospective show of my time in Kansas City, MO USA. I plan to show everything. Also, I will be working on more and more visual art in the coming year. I’d love to exhibit my physical work in more nooks and crannies of the world. I’ve been fortunate to do this a little bit, but nothing on a massive scale. I love the idea of ideas and imagery inspiring people. I also love the idea of relaying an interpretation of the world, while we’re all down here in this together. It’s kind of neat to think I’m leaving a little trail behind in this way and sharing that. Though, I’m not so confident art can change the world on a large platform, I do think it can help a little bit. Even if that means muscling up a smile that you can say was honestly spent. -djg

[chatting-leaves]

Maggie (or “Don’t lose hope, someday you’ll need it!)

November 2002, Poughkeepsie, New York

For most people, the period of life immediately following high school is one of great exploration in life, a way to wade the waters of the so-called "real world" before launching fully into adulthood. For many, it is a chance to go away to continue their education away from home, getting a taste of life somewhat on their own while building friendships and memories that would last a lifetime. Others take the route of a trade or a skill, while some others end up realizing that college wasn't their calling and fall into the workforce if they were so able. Then there was myself, an odd person stuck between all of these places.

Mom, ever the fearful person prone to fall in line with what empirical evidence she was confronted with, wanted me to go to community college first to "see how I would do" before transferring to a four-year college. Her reasoning was heavily influenced by the fact that every friend of hers who sent a child away to college, had them withdraw by the end of their freshman year and she wasn't going to shield such a risk given the debts it might incur. While in hindsight I will say I gained quite a bit and the typical "I don't know what to do" degree of an Associates in Arts in Humanities, my social life wasn't there as I had erected walls around myself after some early incidents where unsettled conflicts from one high school still stood while me running away from my past at another shooed away potential rebuilt friendships. My life could be distilled to classes and the work study job I had two days a week doing Human Resources work at a nonprofit. 

One Friday night in November, I was killing time in a chat room for teenagers; while I was 20, I was only a couple of months removed from my teens and related a lot better downward. In the background, I notice a person we'll refer to "goaliegal" and I make a beeline knowing that there is a probable chance that they could be good people. As a child, I wanted to be a hockey goalie badly until I figured out that balancing on skates was just not my thing and to say I didn't have a crush on at least one field hockey goalie in high school was a lie. I give the standard "a/s/l" greeting of the day and get something promising: "19/f/NY". This person was in my state! Rather than pollute the room with an awkward first conversation, we ended up going into a conversation of direct messages, away from a room probably teeming with middle aged men posing as twentysomethings preying on thirteen year olds.

As we talked, I got a feel for who "goaliegal" was. She grew up in a rural town south of Rochester, an area that might as well have been on another planet for my borderline Downstate self as I had never been west of Utica. She was a freshman at Buffalo State but already was plotting her way out as she was feeling a bit homesick. In her spare time, she was a goalie on the club team there but was itching for ice time which was in short supply. She then sent a picture and I was immediately smitten: long red hair flowed down an oval face adorned with glasses as she was otherwise in full goalie gear. We then swapped names, I complimented that her name of Maggie fit her well even if it seemed a bit unconventional for a person taking slap shots at up to 100mph.

I should say that at this point, I was the epitome of romantic desperation. My most recent date, a pair of arranged meetings with the younger sister of a sobriety sponsee that Mom had, went nowhere and I had not had a date of any sort in three years let alone a kiss or any contact. Any sort of positive attention from anyone of the opposite gender was something I hopped on like white on rice. Soon enough, the conversations between Maggie and I began getting very detailed with myself having a somewhat unhealthy obsession over certain things such as what she was wearing. If I couldn't be there, at least I could sigh in what I was missing had we been in the same room, clearly heading towards a heated makeout session.

As 2002 came to a close, Maggie's life path was shifting as she was transferring from Buffalo State to a college in the Rochester area in order to be closer to home. As my time at community college was one semester from its end, I was looking at other schools in the state university system to transfer to and one caught my eye: Geneseo, located right outside Rochester. If I was accepted there, I would be relatively close to Maggie and what existed online could exist in real life. We both felt that we were the one for each other going into the new year, clearly fate would help accelerate things.

Three days into the new year, things came crashing down. While on a two and a half hour plane ride to visit Dad, something in Maggie snapped and when I went to check things once I got to Dad's house a sobering bit of news came up: Maggie had a boyfriend, a local boyfriend, someone who would actually be able to do things with her. My trip which would have been a respite from Mom and her ways instead became me marinating in my own self-pity, trying to find a means to move on now that The One faded away. Nevertheless, I persevered until several weeks later when Maggie came back out of the blue. Instantly I forgave her and soon put in my application for five different SUNY campuses: Geneseo (for her), Stony Brook (Mom's family was nearby), New Paltz (the nearest to home), Albany (close yet far enough), and Plattsburgh (practically Canada). I got into four of those five, the one rejection coming from the most obvious of these five. At least in Albany, my eventual choice, she'd be the shortest drive away?

As Spring sprung, Maggie entertained the idea of inviting me out to visit her for the Fourth of July, my being inserted in the typical family events of fireworks and fish fries enjoyed by herself, her siblings, her parents, and the other new arrival of her baby nephew. I was elated at the idea of being able to share a holiday with someone I had grown increasingly infatuated with who I would be able to share a wide assortment of experiences with. Right as I was about to book the train tickets from Poughkeepsie to Rochester, something happened and things once again were off. Lather, rinse, repeat. I still held out hope in her, that perhaps someday things could work out. Eventually she became a background person in my life though if she came back wanting to be with me and only me I would have pushed away any local person to be with her especially as my emotionally damaged self was unsuccessfully navigating the minefield of romantic relationships.

The next year, fate and circumstances started to push us back into each other's path. I was seemingly certain that this time, unlike all the others, things would work. Needless to say I was in for a rude awakening when out of the blue one November day she hit me with the news that she was dating an old friend who lived across the border in Canada, a fellow hockey player going to university over in St. Catherine's. To say I was devastated would be a massive understatement in itself as by that point I felt I had no other options. I was socially inept on that front, gaslit from the past actions of my parents, bitter, jealous, angry, and just at the point of sheer hopelessness. Maggie tried to assure me but I was having no point of anything at all. Over the next few years she'd drop in from time to time but in my mind the damage was already done. Why string me along that much and then do an about face?

Going through the cobwebs of some old zip files archiving the contents of former computers, I found some old logs from the dearly departed AOL Instant Messenger from the above period that made me cringe at the pathetic desperation that I embodied with Maggie and overall, however that state is for another day. I also discovered some awkward late 2000's chats from a period where she was regularly commuting transborder to visit her boyfriend while I had settled down in the Washington, DC area. Analyzing these over a decade later, I can see an air of unresolved frustration, deep down inside yearning for Maggie or at least the idealized concept of her my mind had built up. We'd drift in and out, I do remember her congratulating me for finally finding someone who I was compatible with when I began dating my now-wife in 2010 but after that point I felt that I could close the book on Maggie. I finally had someone, why would I need to have her around?

Three years later, I end up getting curious about certain people and end up running a search on Maggie. In the years since, she ended up moving across the border - having a Canadian parent and dual citizenship from birth helped - and had recently married the man she pushed me aside for all those years earlier. She also had little social media presence, no publicly findable Facebook, no Twitter, nothing I could send a request on outside of all things Pinterest. Naturally, wanting to make a lowkey reintroduction into her life, I shot her a friend request on Pinterest. Within an hour, I got a request on AOL Instant Messenger from one of Maggie's old screen names. I accept only to find her complaining at how dare I track her down on Pinterest of all places and for the who-knows time to leave her alone.

This is probably the only time in recorded human history in which AIM was used in regards to Pinterest, two mediums at different eras of the internet interacting with one another. I moved on and did all I could to forget her, for once I thought I had really moved on.

By 2017, I had moved on, a difficult task for me to undertake especially for someone who never gives up on anybody when lo and behold one afternoon I find a request in my New Message Requests folder on Facebook Messenger. It was Maggie, the previously unfindable Maggie, apologizing for her past actions. Being a pushover, I accept and save some fits and starts we've spoken ever since. Soon enough, I realized that years of marriage behind me that in some ways, we wouldn't have meshed that well as a couple, my naiveness and desperation would've eaten me whole had I done so. Save for some fits and starts, it's gone relatively well and Maggie is the sort of person I know who will usually reach out by default, a stark change from years ago. This would be the end of the story, only it isn't.

July 2019, Scarborough, Ontario

My wife and I had been planning a trip up to Toronto for years and soon as our new passports came in I was given a litany of ideas from Maggie of what we should do during our trip there, scheduled coming out of Canada Day while enveloping Independence Day in the United States while also straddling a baseball series between the Blue Jays and Red Sox. Originally, we were to meet Maggie before a game one of those nights, then that got jostled around. She invited us to the museum she supervised volunteers at the time, that would've been too much of a headache. Then an idea came up: the zoo.

For those not familiar with Toronto, the Toronto Zoo is as far east in Toronto as you can get. It's halfway to the farther out suburb where Maggie and her husband made their home. As our trip there was via several modes of transit and Maggie was headed into Toronto anyway, she volunteered to pick us up. Only issue: my wife didn't know the circumstances of how I knew Maggie.

Our trip came as Toronto was under a heat wave, the humidity quite oppressive with the ever-Canadian Humidex pushing 40 degrees Celsius. Trekking through the zoo left us exhausted, worn, and all-around tired, the heat taking a toll on our bodies. Waiting in the little zoo cafe, I got the question I was waiting for my wife to ask.

"So, how do you know this 'friend'? Is she some old girlfriend?," she sarcastically tailed off. It had become a bit of a running joke between us that anyone I listened to in the past was automatically a "girlfriend", a sign of my desperate nature then mixed with my ability to listen that never will leave. I then spilled the beans, finishing right in time to see a black pickup truck make it to a dropoff area. After sixteen years, what 20 year old me wanted was finally happening at age 36.

Maggie and I hugged instantly and it felt all worthwhile. Had I not fallen head over heels with her as a desperate younger me, she would've been the great female friend I really needed, the close-in-age sister I wanted to a degree, yet I blew it. As we worked our way into Toronto on local roads, dodging the mess of Highway 401, Maggie quizzed my wife about who she was, what she did, how dealing with me in person on a day to day basis went. Somewhere underneath the scaffolding holding Toronto's aging Gardiner Expressway up, I realized something: Maggie and my wife are largely one and the same. Similar personalities peppered with heavy sarcasm poking out of introversion, same height, same attitudes, similar likes and dislikes. Perhaps awkward younger me had gotten the happy ending they sought. Even how Maggie spoke of her husband made me realize that he and I had a lot more in common than I had thought, especially given how much more put together he came off to my hurt mind a decade and a half earlier. 

While our time together was short, less an attempt to meet for dessert after said baseball game when both of us were tired and achy, it was one of the best memories I had that year. My only regret is not getting a picture of us three, a reminder to be brought up for the rest of my life that sometimes hopes and dreams do come true!

[ocdaniel]

KILL THE NOISE (WIP)

Concept I’m playing with of something I’ve been thinking about a lot these days. Here are the first few pages:

SOCIAL MEDIA EPIDEMIC

Socrates believed that written word would harm memory. What has the emergence of social media done to our minds and memories? If the mind acts as a hard drive, keeping what is necessary and deleting what is not… What is it doing to those memories that we document with photos and videos? If Socrates believed written word would damage your memory, what would he think about the effects of new media documentation?

I’ve been working in the digital media space for almost 20 years now and have seen the evolution from geocities web pages, xanga, friendster, myspace, facebook, instagram, snapchat, and now tiktok. Since 2003 i’ve had to stay on top of various platforms as they emerged to capitalize on the online trends for my business. I’ve built websites and online marketing campaigns in the entertainment industry for half of my life now and it’s provided quite the incubator for understanding online human behavior. I started as an intern at Interscope records in their new media division. It was the smallest division for that record label at that time. In just a few years, it took over as the main division and ultimately became the go to department for the future of music. I still remember encoding cd’s into mp3’s and sending them off to Apple Computers in Cupertino in 2003 curious why we were mailing these compressed files over to them. A week later, iTunes was launched and the way we consumed music was forever changed. A complete adoption from analog to digital was under way.

I ended up starting my own digital agency while at Interscope Records and built out a ton of web campaigns for them. I built Lady Gaga’s first website, Gwen Stefani’s first website, Pharell Williams first website, and the list goes on. I probably built all these “first websites” because i entered at a time when websites started to explode. Websites became the digital storefront and the main source of content during those years. All of a sudden, Myspace pages became popular and we started developing social media pages for these entertainers. It was still very new at the time but the engagement was incredible. Next came YouTube, then Facebook and the story continues. I got to see how entertainment and social media collided and had front row seats to the show.

Even though i was building all these digital campaigns, i personally didn’t really get involved with marketing myself. I had a myspace page, xanga blog and accounts to the other platforms but it was really just used for personal use. I never viewed it as a resource to market myself or my business. It was just a way to communicate with close friends and keep in touch online. Fast forward to today, and life as we know it is synonymous with social media.

I saw the rise of YouTube stars and eventually started partnering with them very early on and building online businesses for them. Several of them doing millions of dollars in ecommerce sales with us. Business was great and we got in at a time when the era of social influencers started becoming a trend. Looking back, my interest in the social influencer space was probably just a result of working in the entertainment industry and absorbing the trends that were emerging. I don’t think it was a real thought out process but an eventual evolution to the path i was already on.

“Eventual evolution to the path i was already on….” To me that’s an interesting concept. I kinda feel like life is just a sequence of paths that we initiate or transfer onto. A series of choices to put us on a path that will eventually evolve into a new reality for us. Depending on the choices you make, the output will result accordingly. My path had social media written all over it. I just didn’t know it at the time.

I remember in 2010 right after i had my son, a new platform instagram came out. I had a feeling this platform would do well and i remember having a conversation with my wife and i said “I think i gotta really figure this social media thing out for myself. I’m going to force myself to post once per day and see what happens.” That was the beginning of my personal journey into the “Digital Noise.”

I did just that. I posted at least once every day. I thought perhaps i’d do it for a month and see where it would go from there. One month turned into two, two to six, six to a year and kept going and going. I was posting more content than anyone else i knew that was on social media. There were moms using social media as a way to document their kids and family activities but i was documenting EVERYTHING. Because i forced myself to try and post at least once a day, I developed a thought pattern to capture anything that my mind felt interesting. If i saw a cool sticker on the street, i’d take a picture of that. If my son was spacing out on some patterns, i’d snap a photo. It was literally like i was trying to capture what my brain was thinking. “Oooh, my food looks good, imma take a photo of this!” This was before taking pictures of photos was a thing. I literally forced myself to do social media experiments and started making a habit of making consistent posts on social media.

As i would meet people, they would add my on social and engage for a while but i think after a bit, they would stop because i posted so frequently. I think because i wasn’t a celebrity, it would be a bit creepy if someone i met liked EVERY SINGLE posts i made for a month lol. The funny thing is that i wouldn’t see any engagement for years from someone but i’d run into them IRL (In Real Life) and they would know everything i’ve done for the past few years because they were following my social media account. I’d run into people after not seeing them since college and they would see my son for the first time and say “oh man, i feel like i’ve seen you grow up and i finally get to meet you! I’ve seen you on instagram and facebook for years!” If this isn’t a cultural phenomenon, i don’t know what is. I think this particular example of modern engagement is a transformative shift in the way humans are now living. It’s not a small thing nor should it be looked at as casually.

Over the last few years, i’ve seen way more studies talking about the effects of social media and the increasing need for digital detoxing. As i said earlier, i was at the forefront of all this emerging so to me, social media is equivalent as living in smog my whole life. You just get used to it. Apple released screen time to help you see how much time your spending on your phone. Viral memes would showcase artists drawing social media logos as drug usage showing the addictive natures of these platforms. Awareness of the habit addiction of social media was starting to get more traction. The problem is that people still couldn’t get off the platforms. It was too late. Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and the other platforms successfully recruited the world’s top talent pool of creative minds and built the most addictive platforms on the planet. If you want to see the most consumed products, just look at the stock market for the highest valuations. Money comes in, talent comes in, brainpower is used to make their products more addictive resulting in a larger customer base and ultimately a change in culture behavior.

Behavior shifts any time culture adopts new norms. Today, new norms are dictated by money. Follow the money and it will lead you to where new norms are being developed. Today, technology dominates the global marketplace with companies like Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google (FANG) leading the charge. The problem is because these companies are focused on increasing revenue and increasing stock prices, their motivation is singular focused. “How can we get more users and get them spending more time with our product.” Drug dealers ask the exact same question.

DIGITAL ADDICTION

Like and hearts. Today that is our culture. I work with hundreds of social media influencers and one of the questions i like asking is… “Does it get depressing?” I’m shooting 100% with answers of YES! Even though social media influencers are making careers of broadcasting their lives online, the consequence is almost always a loss of self identity. They have to constantly keep up to date with their followers and are no longer on their own schedules. If they miss a day or two posting, followers get impatient and start up a ruckus. I’ve heard influencers tell me, “It’s like i’m not really living my own life anymore because i have to be something my audience wants.” Their social accounts may have started innocent and authentic at the beginning but over time, the pressures to continue momentum takes a toll. I’m not a social influencer and i even had those feelings. I’d get a ton of likes on one post, then another wouldn’t engage. It was make me question, why would one type of post get hearts and likes while the others wouldn’t. It’s human behavior to want to be accepted and held in esteem. Maslow’s third and fourth rung right after your primal survival needs of living and safety.

Physiological needs - food, water, warmth, rest

Safety needs - security, safety, health

Belonging needs - relationships, friends, community

Esteem needs - respect, status, accomplishment

Self actualization - fulfillment of one’s potential

It’s no wonder that as a culture, we’ve flocked to these social platforms to fulfill our belonging and esteem needs. At what cost though?

As a human species, if we’ve sorted out our primal needs to survive by figuring out resources to eat and have shelter, the next eventual stage would be to make friends and get respect among our colleagues. In the past, we would need to go to events, functions and meet with people to do this but with the emergence of online communities, online gaming and general online engagement, we can get the same feeling of fulfillment with social media. While i feel that social media was intended for something very positive and useful, it’s really taken on a new shape with the amount of content that is now being released.

See, social media has now successfully created an online ecosystem of users that engage on a daily basis. This is now a common habit for a majority of the world today. I’m not sure if the originators of the social media platforms had any idea that their creations would have as much content on them as it is today. With more content, comes more moderation, with more moderation come more control and so on. The funny thing is, human behavior has patterns and they continue to emerge over the history of man kind. We love getting more of the things we love. You put a kid in a candy shop and he’ll eat until he gets sick. The good thing for kids is that we have parents and lack of funds that will cut off our supply of candy. Social media is free. You can consume all you want. The genius minds creating these companies are also paid very well to make sure you consume all you want and not only that… they try to make the content even more addictive.

A few years back, i started working on a new mobile app called “Binge Mix” with someone from the entertainment industry. The idea was that finding things on Netflix to watch has become so time consuming that we wanted to make it more “efficient” to binge with your significant other. Looking back on this concept, i’m glad it didn’t work because i don’t know how i would feel today knowing i made binge watching more accessible. Binge watching… when did that become a thing? We have so much disposable time now that we sit and watch addictive shows 4-8 hours at a time now? I’m guilty of this phenomenon myself. When my wife got into the show “Lost” our common phrase was.. “Just one more and then we will sleep.” If you really think about it, the days when we had 13 channels on a tv box to now thousands of shows at your finger tips is a result of blitzscaling media companies that have tapped into an addictive human behavior. Legalized media drugs.

Humans can’t help themselves. It’s our nature to consume more of what we want if it’s available to us. There is a dopamine hit in the brain that rewards us like a pavlovian dog every time it gets a treat. You might feel you have free will but every time you watch another video, click another link, or start another show…. You throw your freedom out the window and have become a slave to that platform. I don’t use that word lightly either. A SLAVE TO THE BINGE. To “binge” is synonymous with “addiction” and that is now the culture we live in today. The era of digital addiction. The question i have, is WHAT IS ALL THIS DOING TO OUR BRAINS?!?!?!

DIGITAL DETOX

Noise. Too much noise.

A few years back, i started a new experiment with my company. My wife would probably consider me a workaholic and i really have a hard time shutting my mind off from work. I get obsessive about things that catch my interest and it’s my nature to work hard. It would be really hard for me to leave my company operations for more than a few days for any time of vacation or time off. Even when i’d leave on vacation, i’d be on my phone checking things, writing new ideas down, taking down pages of notes on strategy and just not being able to relax. I started making it a point to intentionally power down my phone when i’d take a break at a certain point. It would suck going on a vacation, then working on vacation only to come back the same as i left. The hard part was trusting that the business wouldn’t crash and burn without me being there.

I started realizing that it would take me about a week to really disconnect from work. I considered the first week just a work detox to get my brain to settle. So i did my first 2 week vacation and turned my phone off for a week at a time. I would throw my phone into the hotel safe or dresser drawer and shut it off for a week. That to me was insane but i figured, if it takes me a week to decompress.. Perhaps turning it off completely will speed the process up. It did!

It was like a magical antidote for my workaholic pace of entrepreneurship. Turn the phone off, the brain starts forming back into a natural state. It freaked me out a bit but at the end of the week, i’d check in and see what was going on. I’m not going to lie and say everything was perfect. I had several fire drills and tons of anxiety doing this but i kept trying. After doing a week no phone, i tried 2 weeks. I would try these breaks over the next few years and would eventually get to 3-4 weeks without using my phone. Sounds almost impossible with the way the world works today but I was so desperate to recover from my overthinking at work that i made it happen. Well, actually my wife probably made it happen for me! hahah. I think she was getting tired of our vacations getting ruined with emotions and phone calls from work.

I know this isn’t possible for everyone to do right away but to me it was a goal. How long can i be without my phone and just connect with nature. In the 80’s we didn’t have smartphones and survived, we could probably do it today…. It’s just not “normal” anymore. The thing i started realizing when i’d do these digital detoxes, my brain would change. The noise would start to fade and my thoughts would get clearer. My ideas didn’t seem so cluttered and i was able to THINK!

The brain is supposed to be able to retain 7 numbers at a time as our working memory capacity. If this holds true with numbers, what is going on with our brains as we are saturating it with content? Is it deleting old files? Getting rid of old memories? I personally want to keep a lot of good memories and hopefully keep my brain running at top performance for the rest of my life. My instinct tells me that binge watching 4 hours of a Netflix show is definitely going to alter the way my brain works. It’s going to tell my brain… “If your focusing on this for 4 hours of your waking day, it must be important and i need to use processing power for this.” Even though we feel that binge watching helps us to disconnect and zone out, i’m pretty sure the opposite is happening. We are filling our brain hard drive with more stuff to process and it’s probably not good for our overall production as a human being. 

More content makes for more noise. More noise makes it harder to focus. Focus is what helps us achieve great results. Perhaps the reason why we are not getting the progress in life we want is because there has been a massive influx of content that has become way to easy to become addicted to. I think of it like trying to play basketball while drunk. The more you drink, the less effective your body functions perform and the more horrible choices you make on the court. Think of digital content as the alcohol and life as the basketball game. If you want to live more effectively, reduce the noise.

[marilynngmesalo]

Swedish coder busted in alleged blackmail plot of Ecuadoran president over WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s arrest

Swedish coder busted in alleged blackmail plot of Ecuadoran president over WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s arrest Swedish coder busted in alleged blackmail plot of Ecuadoran president over WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s arrest http://bit.ly/2UA2YR1

CARACAS, Venezuela — An ace Swedish programmer who was an early, ardent supporter of WikiLeaks has been arrested in Ecuador in an alleged plot to blackmail the country’s president over his abandonment of Julian Assange.

But friends of Ola Bini say the soft-spoken encryption expert is being unfairly targeted for his activism on behalf of digital privacy.

This frame grab image made from APTN footage provided by Teleamazonas, shows a tweet by Swedish software developer Ola Bini, who was arrested preparing to board a flight to Japan, in Quito, Ecuador, Thursday, April 11, 2019.

Bini, 36, was arrested Thursday at the airport in the Ecuadorian capital of Quito as he prepared to board a flight to Japan. The arrest came just hours after Assange was evicted from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Bini was carrying at least 30 electronic storage devices.

His lawyers said they have not been notified whether he’s been charged. Authorities said the plot hatched with two unidentified Russian hackers living in Ecuador involved threatening to release compromising documents about President Lenin Moreno as he toughened his stance against the WikiLeaks founder.

“It’s up to the justice system to determine if he committed a crime,” Interior Minister Maria Paula Romo said Friday. “But we can’t allow Ecuador to become a centre for piracy and spying. That period in our history is over.”

Romo said Bini had travelled at least 12 times to meet with Assange at the London embassy. She said he was also in Venezuela earlier this year around the same time as a close aide to Moreno’s ex-mentor turned arch enemy, Rafael Correa. The former president granted Assange asylum in 2012 and has been leading a campaign cheered on by WikiLeaks to expose alleged corruption by Moreno that has included the release of damaging personal documents and photos, including several that showed him eating lobster in bed.

Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno speaks during the inauguration of the “Agua Para Todos” or “Water for Everyone” government program, in Latacunga, Ecuador, Thursday, April 11, 2019.

While the extent of Bini’s relationship with Assange is unclear, the Swede has defended the WikiLeaks founder’s free speech rights in an online blog he’s kept over the years.

“Any official who has called for Assange to be treated as a terrorist or enemy combatant should be seriously considering stepping down from office,” he wrote in December 2010.

In the same blog, Bini condemned Amazon for knocking WikiLeaks off its hosting services and credit card companies and PayPal for refusing to process payments to the secret-spilling site. He also described working on a January 2011 panel about WikiLeaks put on by his then-employer, global software firm Thoughtworks, and including Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame.

//<![CDATA[ ( function() { pnLoadVideo( "videos", "__Qx3TlsMkk", "pn_video_279778", "", "", {"controls":1,"autoplay":0,"is_mobile":""} ); } )(); //]]>

An expert on secure communications, Bini arrived in Quito in 2013 after being transferred from Chicago to the Ecuador office of Thoughtworks, which has guiding principles that stress social activism. Around the same time, he started to rethink his online habits and at one point gave up his Gmail account in favour of self-hosted email.

“I am not a huge fan of having all my electronic life hosted under the auspices of U.S. legislation, especially not in light of recent events,” he wrote in a 2013 post.

Pressure mounts on U.K. officials to send Julian Assange to Sweden

Pamela Anderson blasts Brits over Julian Assange's arrest

Assange arrested in London; U.S. charge unveiled

Friends and loved ones describe Bini as a computer geek who felt most at ease solving complex programming problem for days at a time. At the time of his arrest, he was travelling to Japan, his former wife Malin Sandell told The Associated Press, for two weeks of jujitsu training — one of the few hobbies he indulged in outside of his all-consuming work as a code developer.

His Ecuadorian girlfriend said that she did not recall Bini ever expressing strong support for Assange despite the fact that the WikiLeaks founder has deep ties in Sweden and would have been an obvious topic of conversation in the small Ecuadorian programming circles.

“Ola is not a hacker, if by that you mean a criminal, but he is someone trying to understand how computers work and protect people’s privacy,” Sofia Ramos said in an interview from Brussels.

Ramos worked with Bini on a project at the Center for Digital Autonomy for creating a more secure instant-messaging encryption protocol. In its statement Friday, the centre said Computerworld had ranked him in 2010 as Sweden’s No. 6 developer.

This Friday, April 12, 2019 handout photo provided by the State Attorney General’s Office, shows items confiscated from the Ecuadorian residence of Swedish programmer Ola Bini.

The centre is a small non-profit incorporated in Ecuador and Spain dedicated to private, secure and anonymous communication. Its website says it has contributed to well-known projects including Enigmail and the Tor privacy browser.

In the hours before he went to the airport Thursday, Bini sent a tweet warning of a “witch hunt” by Ecuadorian authorities mopping up after Assange’s forced departure from the embassy. Now his friends say that prophecy appears to have been true.

She further said this information soon will be handed over to the Fiscalía for potential prosecution. Very worrisome news – this seems like a witch hunt to me.

— Ola Bini (@olabini) April 11, 2019

“I didn’t realize that knowing somebody is a crime,” said Vijay Prashad, who runs a Marxist publishing house in India and last saw Bini a few months ago in Sao Paulo, Brazil. “He’s the last person who would ever be involved in an attempt to overthrow a government.”

//<![CDATA[ ( function() { pnLoadVideo( "videos", "HbQfRTGSY_4", "pn_video_891418", "", "", {"controls":1,"autoplay":0,"is_mobile":""} ); } )(); //]]>

  Click for update news Bangla news http://bit.ly/2X9H4ke world news

[topmixtrends]

IN HIS CELEBRATED 2005 book-length essay, Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for Literary History, Franco Moretti drew attention to the relevance of diagrams and graphs for understanding the larger forces that shape literature. Such models, Moretti argued, can provide us with quantitatively supported insights into the emergence (and fall) of literary genres across vast expanses of time and space. Consider the rise of the novel — not just Ian Watt’s 18th-century British tradition but the narrative genre in late-18th-century Japan, in mid-19th-century Spain, or in mid-20th-century Nigeria. What might computer-generated models teach us about the historical behavior of a corpus so enormous and diverse that it exceeds the ability of a single reader to navigate it?

As it turns out, quite a lot. For the “rise of the novel” follows a pattern that is at once stunningly predictable and revelatory of the broader market forces shaping literary history. A rapid growth in the number of book publications produces a reorientation of the reading public toward contemporary titles, which in turn gives rise to a balkanization of literature into genre niches (detective novels, sporting novels, school stories, et cetera). That pattern, however, only becomes visible from the panoramic vantage point of computer-generated graphs. Hence the need for “distant reading” — and, with it, the return to structure and form as central preoccupations of literary criticism.

Increasingly, literary fiction and nonfiction have made explicit use of graphs, maps, and diagrams. Jennifer Egan’s 2010 novel A Visit from the Goon Squad includes a chapter in PowerPoint; Paul Beatty’s The Sellout (2016) features a zoning map drawn up by the novel’s main protagonist; Richard Powers’s The Overstory (2018) charts tree rings, nature’s own way of diagramming time. There is, of course, nothing new about this literary interest in maps and diagrams. Authors such as Borges, Joyce, and Faulkner first made maps a central thematic for modern literature, as in the well-known Borges fable of an emperor ordering a map so detailed and precise that it ends up covering the very terrain that it charts. Yet, whereas these modernist writers still presumed a more or less stable reality underpinning their representations of it, the diagrams haunting contemporary writing are, more often than not, born simultaneously with the text.

Such is the case with the diagrams and images in Dustin Parsons’s Exploded View, a volume of essays loosely structured around the theme of fatherhood. If Moretti’s graphs afford an insight into the vast and global, then the diagrams featured in Exploded View constitute something of a dialectical opposite: here, the humdrum reality of domestic life is revealed to be filled with unexpected complexities and life lessons.

The “exploded view” alluded to in the title refers to the diagrams in machinery manuals, where all the parts of a to-be-assembled object are “blown up” into a single image. Parsons’s father, a Kansas oilfield worker, had many such manuals in his shop, and several of the essays in Exploded View are devoted to childhood reminiscences of the author assisting him on the job. As with Seamus Heaney’s father poem “Digging,” Exploded View is driven, in part, by a homology between the manual labor of the father and the writing labor of the son. Throughout the volume, one gets the sense of being inside the author’s shop, complete with rhetorical tools and other such machinery lying about, all as magical as the paternal equipment he describes.

Moreover, by opening each of these essays with “exploded view” diagrams of machinery, Parsons renders visible the fact that so much of our childhood experience exists for us as images. Our personal narratives emerge from the stimulus of a single snapshot, a single scene, a particular visual image, lodged in our brains and just waiting to be seized and (re)assembled. The author’s father, a taciturn man, speaks to him in such images, more so than he does in words. The son, meanwhile, seems to have inherited at least some of that quietude — for, although a man of words, he, too, is taciturn (“[s]ome of my greatest regrets are my ill-advised silences”).

The book features other diagrams as well. A childhood reminiscence of a tornado touchdown in Western Kansas is juxtaposed with an image of a Fujita scale, the metric used to measure tornadoes. This scale, Parsons observes, registers the “force” that a tornado has, not its size or velocity: “The funnel size or speed of the storm does not matter. We measure a tornado by its damage.” One is inclined to use this method to evaluate the author’s own writing: most of these essays owe their appeal not to their breadth or flow but rather to the “damage” they do — that is to say, to their uncanny ability to move readers, leaving us with a lingering impression of a figure, a landscape, an object. None of these essays are very long, and most explore thematic material that is quite ordinary, even mundane in character. Yet by the time you are finished with them, something about that ordinariness has been revealed in a novel way, the components fully laid out, as if in an exploded view.

Take the essay “Harvest,” which describes the planting season in an unnamed rural town. Not until the end does the narrator truly reveal his personal involvement, as he watches in awe, from atop a grain elevator, the field hands’ celebration of the Fourth of July. “It was a first job, and I thought they’d all be like that,” Parsons writes. “Thought they’d all end in such billows.” The point, for the adult writer looking back, seems to be that work, in the present, is all too often a daily grind devoid of such spectacle and show. But to adopt such a nostalgic reading is to miss the fact that this first job, too, is already mired in routine. This, at least, is what the hum of anaphoras steering the essay seems to suggest: “The grain is planted by tractor, tucked in with a prow and a drop and a grating for cover. There is nitrogen. There is water. More than once there are prayers.”

Neither, for that matter, does the Fourth of July spectacle, upon a second reading, carry all that much hallowing weight. Or, better put, the glimmer of the festivities is partially obscured. Along the way, the essay introduces us to two unnamed characters who are briefly lifted above the undifferentiated crowd of field hands: there is “the classmate who is a fuckup” and the “older kid,” who “graduated a few years ago but will never leave town.” When Parsons returns to these two figures later in the essay, it is in the midst of his description of the fireworks finale. “Later,” Parsons writes with a sudden leap in time that gives so many of these essays their volume and depth, “the older kid is convicted of rape, the fuckup is killed on his motorcycle, and there is a realization that their fate wasn’t so clear.”

Exploded View registers, throughout, an awareness of the relative insufficiency — even futility — of words. The proliferation of diagrams seems to suggest that words will somehow always fall short of the image, that — to evoke Keats’s urn — the “unheard melodies” of the image or art object will forever be “sweeter” than what words can articulate. Time and again in these essays, as if to capture that point, the image precedes the text. Before we begin reading the essay “Pumpjack,” for example, we are given the exploded view of an actual pumpjack, with the text skirting the image in numbered sentences as if listing various assembly parts:

This is the doghouse, this is the pipe rack, so on and so forth, and we walked through the field naming things that sounded like the things they were. […] Why suddenly did every signifier sound and look like its signified?

The pumpjack becomes a symbol for childhood itself, a time when there is as yet no dislocation between signifier and signified, when life can still be experienced with an image-like holism, as in the exploded-view diagram that precedes the essay. The very act of naming, the emergence of language, is already what puts us at a remove from things. Such is the burden shouldered by every writer: like Adam naming the animals in Eden, he understands that there is no writing without loss — indeed, that writing itself is the agent of loss.

It is no surprise, then, that death, both symbolic and real, hovers like a shadow over these essays. A coyote is beheaded by the pumpjack’s counterweights (“The enduring image I will always have of the pumpjack is how it takes life”); a street dog appears one day and then disappears for good; the neighbor across the street dies in sweltering India. And, finally, the son faces the mortality of the parent: “My greatest fear for my father is that he never reaches that age where he is able to retire. My greatest fear is that my time to turn over his shop will be postmortem.”

Time and again in these essays, the simultaneity of text and diagram generates a rhetorical and emotional weight. But it is not until the closing essay that we witness the full effect. As the author comments on his relative inability to “see” color, the silhouette of a cardinal is drawn on the opposite page. “Your sons have known their colors for as long as they could talk,” Parsons writes. “Your wife shares their names with the boys: periwinkle, magenta, coral, café au lait.” At first, the reader is unsure what “color” in this context means. Surely, the choice of a bird on the opposite page would suggest something without ties to racial identity and/or politics. There is no “color line” in the natural world, only color. But, as the essay takes you deeper into its subject, and as the cardinal silhouette assumes greater shape, the political and racial stakes become clearer. “Your entire family has an eye for color that you simply don’t have,” Parsons observes. “Obviously it is because it never has had to.” By the time the reader reaches the end of the essay, he understands that the hand-drawn silhouette of the cardinal is not meant to be an illustration at all. Indeed, as a silhouette, it does not even have color. Instead, what Parsons seems to be asking readers — and, indeed, himself — is something like this: Have you ever pictured what it means to be of color? Are you able to draw the fault lines of racism and bigotry? Can you imagine what this does to others?

Such are the explosive questions with which Exploded View ends. It is difficult, upon closing this book, not to feel a sense of sadness when seeing how far the contemporary political climate has drifted away from the kind of empathy Parsons elicits and displays. That he does so with unwavering minimalist precision and a keen sense for the rhythms of everyday life puts him in the tradition of lyrical poets such as Emily Dickinson and William Carlos Williams. As the latter knew, so much depends upon a red wheelbarrow, or a red cardinal for that matter — that is, on our ability to imagine the strain (and pain) of others.

¤

Birger Vanwesenbeeck, a father, will be teaching at Bosporus University in Istanbul in the fall.

The post Charts of Childhood, Maps of Family appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books https://ift.tt/2mvSSgC

[spencerbarela9-blog]

20 Top Trainers' Preference Motivational Quotes.

The archaeologist Howard Carter opened up the burial place from the Pharaoh Tutankhamun for the very first time on 26 November 1922. Jacobson, in an evidently very first quantitative, scientific evaluation of the much debated and demanded energy-solutions", showed that the possibilities we currently look forward to embrace go to least 25 to THOUSAND opportunities" much more contaminating in comparison to the others. We continue to anticipate an acceleration in our profits and also purchases growth in the 2nd fifty percent of the year, which I will definitely provide further insights into later in my opinions and also of course we are actually incredibly pleased to have actually closed the acquisition from Actelion and I want to add my welcome to the Actelion workers participating in Johnson & Johnson. Nakasalang parin ang pumipintig na tarugo nito sa loob ng mainit at masikip na vomit. Nevertheless, some aspects are greatly grounded in substantial data, while others are actually based on speculation of just how lifestyle evolved on the Planet. Iginuguhit ni Alicia ang tarugo sa kanyang hiwa, hanggang sa itutok ito sa mismong bukana. Kaya, kahit natatakpan ng knicker, dinilaan ni Jim ang gitna, lalo na ang nakabakat na hiwa nito. You could have heard of Fargo due to the Emmy-aware winning, eponymous tv program, but there is actually a great deal more to the urban area in comparison to you'll observe on display. NEP considered to get an extra 1,955-3,355 MW of USA wind and also boost their existence in Canada by getting 0-300 MW from Canadian wind in the 2017-2018 period, to take its own wind holdings to 2.4-4.1 GW. This latest acquisition did assist to meet this goal, and also through a good volume for one procurement, yet like I pointed out for photo voltaic watch for news pertaining to further activities making that assistance a reality. Senior high school na ang kuya niya kaya napag pasyahan nila na mangibang-bansa ang ama upang makapag aral sila ng maayos sa pribadong eskuela lalo na sa kolehiyo. 2. Dell - Carbon Neutral, Company headquaters utilizes ONE HUNDRED% Renewable resource, computer system products use 25% much less energy (by 2010). As well as up until the existing style on the market is actually damaged, entrepreneurs are properly served to continuously position for such an end result at some time later on. Remind him carefully that those to which he guides his short-lived righteous anger could be actually Vital People and they could possibly react in a way whch will certainly injure his organisation if he distances all of them. As i created above, sizable company success of any sort of company is actually a cooperations of all the staff members of the provider, as all are actually cooperating and also helping an organization to end up being productive having said that all the owners or even Md's or even Chief Executive Officer's of the providers are taking all effectiveness credit scores, So astrologically you may mention like there are actually too many predictions working together which are actually making a local business owner to a prosperous service tycoon, having said that each employee's likewise have their households which is actually entirely depends on the company, for this reason each employee is actually also an accountability from the firm's manager. Bhai nay mujay apnay application the same level jukiya aur mari ankoon ko chomtay howay mujay kaha Ayesha baat asal principal yeh hai kay us pandemonium tumay ghar major akila pa kar principal apnay upar kaboo nahi raakh paiya. The costs of various other resources like charcoal, oil guys gasoline are enhancing day by day yet meanwhile, power originated from sun has actually ended up being the substitute for all these sources as this is actually less expensive. Organic or plastic solar cells utilize all natural components (carbon-compound based) typically through todaytime4health.info tiny molecules, dendrimers as well as polymers, to change solar power into power electricity. Our blue water planet that harbors (to the best of our knowledge today) the only everyday life in our planetary system, sits in a track that enables water to remain in a liquid condition-- very helpful permanently.

[healthywealthywiselife]

How To Treat Chronic Headaches With Diet & Lifestyle Changes

Annex Naturopathic

I can’t count how many times a patient has come in to our naturopathic doctor clinic with one complaint, and only when asked, they non-chalantly mention they suffer headaches on a daily basis: “but I just take Tylenol and it goes away”, or “it’s normal for me”, or “I’ve had them all my life”.

Let me just set something straight: Headaches are not normal, and the source should be treated.

What are headaches?

A number of medicine-based websites define "headache" as any pain of the neck and head area.

Simple definitions equals simple treatments right? Pain=painkiller?

If I were to rewrite that definition, I would probably add that “headaches are a symptom of a underlying cause.”

Even reputable medical resources don’t recognize the cause for common headaches, only really delving in to what drugs may suppress the pain.

Finding the cause of any symptom is the essence and root of treatment, and finding and treating cause may enable one to be rid of all these nasty symptoms.

What are the causes of headaches?

We want to make sure that the causes are not life-threatening or serious.

Your healthcare provider will determine this through a thorough intake of the history and character of the headaches,  as well as a physical examination of your neurological system.

If there are any warning signs, you will be referred for blood tests and possibly CT or MRI scans of the head.

If everything is clear, your healthcare practitioner will categorize your headache based on its characteristics.  These include:

Cluster

Tension

Migraine

Chronic daily headache – Types included in this are: chronic migraine, chronic tension-type, new daily persistent, and hemicrania continua, all defined by the type of pain.

Chronic daily headaches are the most common headaches experienced by people and are the focus of this article.

The World Health Organization (WHO) states that 1 out 20 adults suffer from these types of headaches every day.

Its causes can be broken down to the basics: diet, lifestyle and nutrition.  Some causes of common headaches include:

Stress

Poor dietary habits, and conditions associated such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease (high blood pressure)

Smoking

Nutrient deficiency

Dehydration

Muscle tension – posture

Eyesight

Poor sleep

Food allergies

Now does it make sense that popping 4-8 painkillers a day would target these causes?

It may temporarily decrease the pain, but the underlying causes are still there.  Diet provides the basis of the environment by which your body functions, and a poor diet only causes poor bodily function.

Things like coffee, soda, pop, and fast foods are not only dehydrating and lack nutrients, but can spike blood sugar levels after consumption, and consequently cause insulin levels to rise.

When insulin rises, it causes a massive drop in blood sugar, leading to blood flow changes to the brain, causing headaches.

A poor diet also makes one susceptible to high blood pressure (a leading cause of headaches), thereby increasing the risk for cardiovascular disease.

Refined sugars can also cause hormone imbalances (such as cortisol and epinephrine) leading to problems with stress, sleep, and energy.

Stress can also cause tightening of the neck and shoulder muscles, as well as increasing blood pressure, both of which contribute to recurring headaches.

Headaches can be a good indicator that it may be time to improve your dietary habits to prevent chronic disease.

A diet full of junk not only has negative effects on blood sugar, but also causes havoc on your gastrointestinal system.

The intestinal lining is often damaged due to poor nutrition, leading to food sensitivities and decreased nutrient absorption.

Also, the good bacterial flora is often compromised, and the increased sugars feed unwanted microbes such as yeast, allowing them to grow and cause gastrointestinal problems.

Food allergies can manifest in a number of different ways, such as skin conditions, asthma, allergies, and more.

But more often than not, symptoms could be as unclear as fatigue and headaches.

Ways treat headaches

As you can see, these are several reasons why headaches may be a good indicator of your overall health.

A good diet not only prevents and treats all that was mentioned above, but also improves the health of your adrenal glands (and cortisol release) allowing you to cope with stress efficiently, decreasing your future risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Naturopathic doctors are skilled in determining these causes as well as implementing treatments that can reverse these effects, without the use of synthetic pain killers.

Diet and lifestyle modifications are essential to all aspects of health, and while they improve, so do the headaches.  Here are a few tips for preventing headaches during the day:

Keep hydrated – drink AT LEAST 6 cups of water a day

Decrease snacks and drinks loaded with refined sugars (candy, pop/soda, etc)

Make sure to be replenished with proper electrolytes, especially after strenuous exercise

Reduce coffee consumption to 1x/day and replace extra cups with lower-caffeinated teas such as green tea

Get a good night’s sleep

Relieve stress through mediation, exercise, spend time with those whose company you enjoy

Take breaks from your computer during the day to relieve eye strain

Get fresh air

Ensure your digestion is working optimally - weak digestion equals poor absorption of nutrients, where deficiencies can lead to headaches

Naturopathic doctors can also perform treatments that provide symptomatic relief to headaches while we are improving the diet, such as acupuncture, botanicals and homeopathic medicines.

Please contact your healthcare provider if:

If you experience an abrupt, severe headache (feels like a Thunderclap)

If you're present with fever, stiff neck, numbness, tingling, visual disturbances, confusion, trouble speaking

Associated with seizures

Progressive headaches, associated with cough, or exertion

Progressive headaches after a head injury

If you’re curious to learn more about this subject or would like to consult with one of our NDs feel free to book a visit or contact us.

Yours in Health,

Dr. Tanya Lee, N.D

Annex Naturopathic Clinic 572 Bloor St W #201, Toronto, ON M6G 1K1 -https://goo.gl/maps/uVRBvcyoUa62

References:

World Health Organization [homepage on the Internet]: World Health Organization (WHO); c2010 [updated 2004 March; cited 2010 Feb 2].Available from: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs277/en/

The Mayo Clinic [homepage on the Internet]: Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (MFMER); c1998-2010 [updated 2009 June 23; cited 2010 Feb 2]. Available from: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/chronic-daily-headaches/DS00646/DSECTION=symptoms

Beers MH, Porter RS, Jones TV, Kaplan JL, Berkwits M, editors. The Merck manual of diagnosis and therapy. 18th ed. Whitehouse Station (NJ): Merck Research Laboratories; 2006.

Gardner, L. and Reiser, S. "Effects of Dietary Carbohydrate on Fasting Levels of Human Growth Hormone and Cortisol." Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine. 1982;169:36-40.

Wright RJ, Frier BM. Vascular disease and diabetes: is hypoglycaemia an aggravating factor? Diabetes Metab Res Rev. 2008 Jul-Aug;24(5):353-63

To discover additional ways about health, wellness, and alternative medicine, please visit us here: naturopathy toronto

[learnclimate]

FutureLearn Climate Change Course Week 5 Reflections: Toxic Sunscreen

The important themes this week were global warming’s effect on the cryosphere (leading to melting) and the ocean (leading to ocean acidification).

I found learning about the chemistry of ocean acidification to be a little difficult this week. It’s been a long time since I’ve taken a chemistry course, so having to remember the basics (pun intended) of the Ph scale and what ions are and such was a bit of a stretch for my brain.

I found both topics, ice sheets and ocean acidification to be very interesting. I already posted some links related to the ice sheets, so I’ll limit this post to sharing the information that this week’s lesson led me to about ocean acidification.

First the NRDC’s video Acid Test (narrated by Sigourney Weaver) is a great place to start learning about ocean acidification:

There’s also the much shorter and sillier video produced by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority: 

Scientists are concerned that ocean acidification will harm coral reefs, as the the GBR Marine Park Authority explains, 

“Although the chemistry of ocean acidification is simple and well understood, its effect on marine life is much less well-known as the process has only been recognised for less than a decade. Even relatively small increases in ocean acidity decrease the capacity of corals to build skeletons, which in turn decreases their capacity to create habitat for the Reef's marine life.”

Coral bleaching is an increasing problem, but scientists are only just beginning to understand its causes, and it wasn’t what they thought!

Again, the GBR Marine Park Authority is a good place to start for understanding coral bleaching:

“Rising sea surface temperatures from climate change are already affecting the Great Barrier Reef and have the potential for significant effects across the whole ecosystem.

Temperature plays a critical role in determining the distribution and diversity of marine life. It is critical to reef building and controls the rate of coral reef growth.

Like all marine life, corals have evolved over many thousands of years within limited temperature ranges.

When these limits are exceeded, corals are put under thermal stress, causing them to expel the tiny algae that live within their tissues – it's this algae that gives corals their colour and most of their food and energy.

This results in coral bleaching, and if conditions don't ease within weeks, the corals eventually starve and die.”

So what’s the issue? Ocean acidification, rising temperatures, a little bit of both? The scientific research is conflicting.

Take the article “Ocean acidification may be impacting coral reefs in the Florida keys” on the research conducted by the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science. It states very clearly that ocean acidification harms reefs:

“For two years, the researchers collected water samples along the 200-kilometer (124-mile) stretch of the Florida Reef Tract north of Biscayne National Park to the Looe Key National Marine Sanctuary. The data provide a snapshot on the health of the reefs, and establish a baseline from which future changes can be judged.

The results showed that reef dissolution is a significant problem on reefs in the upper Keys with the loss of limestone exceeding the amount the corals are able to produce on an annual basis. As a result these reefs are expected to begin wasting away leaving less habitat for commercial and recreationally important fish species. Florida Keys' reefs have an estimated asset value of $7.6 billion.”

And this article, “Enhanced macroboring and depressed calcification drive net dissolution at high-CO2 coral reefs”. 

From their abstract, to whet your appetite:

“Ocean acidification (OA) impacts the physiology of diverse marine taxa; among them corals that create complex reef framework structures. Biological processes operating on coral reef frameworks remain largely unknown from naturally high-carbon-dioxide (CO2) ecosystems. For the first time, we independently quantified the response of multiple functional groups instrumental in the construction and erosion of these frameworks (accretion, macroboring, microboring, and grazing) along natural OA gradients. We deployed blocks of dead coral skeleton for roughly 2 years at two reefs in Papua New Guinea, each experiencing volcanically enriched CO2, and employed high-resolution micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) to create three-dimensional models of changing skeletal structure. OA conditions were correlated with decreased calcification and increased macroboring, primarily by annelids, representing a group of bioeroders not previously known to respond to OA.”

So ocean acidification is clearly detrimental to coral reefs, but what else is going on? 

There’s this groundbreaking study, Toxicopathological Effects of the Sunscreen UV Filter, Oxybenzone (Benzophenone-3), on Coral Planulae and CulturedPrimary Cells and Its Environmental Contamination in Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands, first published in October 2015, that identifies another threat to coral reefs - sunscreen!

From their abstract:

“Benzophenone-3 (BP-3; oxybenzone) is an ingredient in sunscreen lotions and personal-care products that protects against the damaging effects of ultraviolet light. Oxybenzone is an emerging contaminant of concern in marine environments-produced by swimmers and municipal, residential, and boat/ship wastewater discharges. We examined the effects of oxybenzone on the larval form (planula) of the coral Stylophora pistillata, as well as its toxicity in vitro to coral cells from this and six other coral species. Oxybenzone is a photo-toxicant; adverse effects are exacerbated in the light. Whether in darkness or light, oxybenzone transformed planulae from a motile state to a deformed, sessile condition. Planulae exhibited an increasing rate of coral bleaching in response to increasing concentrations of oxybenzone. Oxybenzone is a genotoxicant to corals, exhibiting a positive relationship between DNA-AP lesions and increasing oxybenzone concentrations. Oxybenzone is a skeletal endocrine disruptor; it induced ossification of the planula, encasing the entire planula in its own skeleton.”

Not only is this chemical harmful to coral reefs,

“In mammals, BP-3is renowned for having estrogenic and anti-androgenic activities, causing activation of estrogen receptor proteins and inhibition of androgen receptors (Morohoshi et al.2005; Suzuki et al. 2005; Kunz et al. 2006; Molina–Molinaet al. 2008; Nashez et al. 2010). Topical application of BP-3 to the skin has been shown to be absorbed and transferred to breast milk, creating risk to breast-fed neonates (Hanyand Nagel 1995). In addition, an association between exposure to benzophenones and an increased occurrence of endometriosis in women was recently found by Kunisueet al. (2012).”

If it’s so harmful, then why the hell is it 

“often... used as an active ingredient in sunscreen lotions and personal-care products, such as body fragrances, hair-sty-ling products, shampoos and conditioners, anti-aging creams, lip balms, mascaras, insect repellants, as well as dishwasher soaps, dish soaps, hand soaps, and bath oils/salts (CIR 2005;http://www.goodguide.com/ingredients/184390-oxybenzone).”

So when 

“Between 6000 and 14,000 tons of sunscreen lotion, many of which contain between 1 and 10 % BP-3, are estimated to be released into coral reef areas each year, putting at least 10 % of the global reefs at risk of exposure, and approximately 40 % of coral reefs located along coastal areas at risk of exposure (Shaath and Shaath 2005;UNWTO2007; Danovaro et al.2008; Wilkinson 2008).”

it’s no wonder the reefs are dying!!!

And imagine how disgusted I was to learn that not only is this chemical an obvious culprit, but that this isn’t the first study putting the blame on suncreens. “Sunscreens Cause Coral Bleaching by Promoting Viral Infections” was published in 2008 (7 years earlier!!!!).

They stated very clearly that, 

“Sunscreens cause the rapid and complete bleaching of hard corals, even at extremely low concentrations. The effect of sunscreens is due to organic ultraviolet filters, which are able to induce the lytic viral cycle in symbiotic zooxanthellae with latent infections.”

and, 

“In all replicates and at all sampling sites, sunscreen addition even in very low quantities (i.e., 10 μL/L) resulted in the release of large amounts of coral mucous (composed of zooxanthellae and coral tissue) within 18–48 hr, and complete bleaching of hard corals within 96 hr (Figure 1; Table 1). Different sunscreen brands, protective factors, and concentrations were compared, and all treatments caused bleaching of hard corals, although the rates of bleaching were faster when larger quantities were used (Table 1). ... Bleaching was faster in systems subjected to higher temperature, suggesting synergistic effects with this variable (Table 1; Figure 2).”

And that’s where the rising temperatures plays a role. So coral reefs are facing a trifold assault: ocean acidification destroying their structures, chemicals in sunscreen leading to bleaching, and rising temperatures making both effects worse.

So what can we do about it? Well, here in Hawaii, they are trying to pass legislation banning the sale of sunscreens containing the harmful ingredients and encouraging people to use the non-toxic alternatives. Unfortunately, the bills face opposition from special interests groups, specifically the companies that SELL the toxic sunscreen, under the guise of “consumer protection.” On the bright side, “some businesses have voluntarily stopped carrying sunscreens that contain oxybenzone, including the concession at Hanauma Bay, the most popular snorkeling site in Hawaii.” And informed consumers always have the option of using their purchasing power! 

I’m committing to switching to non-toxic alternatives and spreading the word!