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dweemeister · 4 years

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The Steel Helmet (1951)

Looking through American World War II films made during the war itself, one notices that many have overt strains of bellicose patriotism and propaganda. That war, the final world-consuming crisis for several decades, impacted even civilians living oceans away from the violence. The Korean War cannot be described as such. When North Korea’s Kim Il-sung ordered the invasion of South Korea on June 25, 1950, the U.S. military that countered the invasion was a shadow of what it was five years earlier. What was originally described as a “police action” and nominally pitted United Nations forces (of which the U.S. provided ninety percent of troops) against Communist troops failed to garner much attention from the American public even as it was being fought.

Released a half-year after North Korea’s invasion, The Steel Helmet is one of the first films set during the Korean War. Directed, produced, and written by Samuel Fuller for the independent studio Lippert Pictures, the film was made on the cheap ($104,000; just over $1 million in 2020’s USD) and shot in ten days. The Steel Helmet bears little resemblance to its older cinematic cousins, the WWII films released during that war. Convulsing with bitterness, racism, and post-traumatic fury, this is an attempt to portray life as an American infantry soldier with emotional honesty. The details of battle scenes might not be as accurate as they could be – and certainly not how Korea itself and the film’s Asian characters are portrayed – but The Steel Helmet succeeds in its primary goal.

Surviving a North Korean massacre, Sergeant Zack (Gene Evans) is found by a South Korean boy he will nickname “Short Round” (William Chun; this nickname, also used in 1984’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom for Jonathan Ke Quan’s character, refers to a flaw in a gun’s ammunition). Short Round knows English and begins following Zack – much to the latter’s annoyance. The boy won’t listen to, “beat it, kid”; nor does he appreciate being called a, “gook”. Zack and Short Round soon encounter Corporal Thompson (James Edwards), a black medic who is the last surviving member of his unit. The accidental trio shortly stumble onto a small, battered patrol commanded by Lieutenant Driscoll (Steve Brodie), who immediately suspects Thompson – because of his race – to be a deserter. Just as the trio argue with Driscoll and his unit, the soldiers are ambushed by snipers and take cover in an abandoned Buddhist temple (to the film’s discredit, it resembles nothing like an actual Buddhist temple and the centerpiece statue looks nothing like the Buddha). There is a North Korean soldier hiding in the shadows of the temple. And unbeknownst to the American soldiers, an enormous wave of North Korean soldiers is advancing on their position.

The events and characters of The Steel Helmet are fictional, but they have been adapted from Fuller’s war diaries and adjusted for the difference in setting. The Steel Helmet’s limited budget ensures that the violence is contained to the premises of a soundstage; the hordes of North Korean soldiers appearing in the film’s finale either the product of stock footage or Asian college students from UCLA hired as extras. There are no soldiers in The Steel Helmet who show complete deference to authority or accept the reasons why the United States military is in Korea at all. The encompassing political reasons for the Korean War are of little concern to them – survival becomes their only motivation. As a portrait of an infantry soldier’s mentality in desperate circumstances, The Steel Helmet benefits from Fuller’s military service during World War II. The soldiers’ actions and mindsets always seem realistic.

With his scruffy beard and punctured helmet, Zack is a grunt soldier that has become disillusioned with a war that has not even lasted a year. The anger he feels about the adversity he and his comrades have faced is boiling over. Zack is constantly searching for something or someone to take his emotions out on. His somewhat contemptuous attitude towards Short Round suggests racial resentment (more on the film’s depiction of racism later in this review) and that he has no patience for those who cannot defend themselves when the enemy is near; his initial behavior towards Driscoll’s squad is colored by grief manifesting as antagonism.

Fuller’s attempts to articulate the deranged psychology of battle-hardened infantry soldiers are taken to extremes rarely seen in American films in the 1950s. The most chilling example occurs as the film’s closing act begins. A prisoner of war (POW) is unexpectedly murdered by Zack as North Korean soldiers draw near. Zack carries out this murder with concealed, stone-faced passion. Even without the gruesome images that are allowed in modern cinema, the murder is shocking and, considering the characterizations of those involved, conceivable. It is lawless battlefield “justice” where the executioner is also the judge and jury. For moviegoers accustomed to the mostly propagandistic – intentional or otherwise – World War II films released in the prior decade, the notion that a member of the United States military could commit a war crime must have been unconscionable. Then and now, other American viewers not nearly as critical of the military’s conduct might have seen what is an obvious violation of the Geneva Convention as justified.

Joseph Breen’s office at the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) was tasked with enforcing the Hays Code (censorship guidelines that applied to American films until 1968, when replaced by the present-day ratings system). As one might expect, the Breen Office voiced vehement objections to this scene – especially since Zack is never punished on-screen for his actions. Nevertheless, Fuller campaigned to keep the scene and it remains in the film. The Breen Office’s reasons for backing down on this appear to stem from the fact that Driscoll threatens a court martial immediately after Zack fires his gun – a peculiarly minor concession, it seems. The Breen Office’s ultimate approval of the film’s debate on racial relations are unclear, and I have been unable to find any explicit reason in freely available literature describing that aspect.

The film’s prisoner of war (played by Harold Fong, whose character is credited as “The Red”) is an English-proficient North Korean soldier. Observing the unit that has captured him, the audience will notice that this is a motley bunch. Granted, the notion of a diverse military squad is a war film cliché. But after President Harry Truman desegregated the armed forces in 1948, note that this is one of the first depictions of an integrated U.S. military in film. A decade earlier, Cpl. Thompson would have been bandaging the wounds of black soldiers and might not be allowed near a wounded white comrade. One of Driscoll’s subordinates is Sergeant Tanaka (Richard Loo; a Chinese-American actor who nevertheless made a living playing numerous Japanese antagonists during the 1940s), who served in the 442nd Infantry Regiment – which was composed almost entirely of second-generation Japanese-American (Nisei) soldiers – during WWII.

Under watch by the Americans, the North Korean soldier will attempt to stoke racial divisions among his captors. Speaking to Thompson, he notes the hypocrisy of a black man fighting for a nation that has failed to recognize non-white people as equal under the law. The prisoner notes that, if Thompson ever returns home, there will still be “whites only” services and that he will have to sit in the back of public buses. Thompson keeps his cool, acknowledging the reality of the prisoner’s words. Nevertheless, Thompson reasons, he is assisting the nation he cares for, showing that he can perform as ably as anyone regardless of race. As Thompson implies, perhaps one day the United States will achieve the ideal it is purported to be – in his individual way, he shall serve the best he can.

Then there is the nighttime conversation between the North Korean and Tanaka. The POW begins by remarking that Americans despise Asian eyes, and then – in what is possibly the earliest, non-documentary mention of this in American cinema – evokes the Japanese-American concentration camps that Tanaka and his family almost certainly were forced into. An exhausted Tanaka, with a fatigued but barely annoyed glance, tells the North Korean major that his charade is too transparent:

THE RED: …They call you “dirty Jap rats” and yet you fight for them. Why? TANAKA: I’ve got some hot infantry news for you. I’m not a dirty Jap rat. I’m an American, and if we get pushed around back home… well, that’s our business… knock off before I forget the Articles of War and slap those rabbit teeth of yours out one at a time.

If The Steel Helmet had been made a few years, perhaps a few months, earlier, these disapproving mentions about the United States’ terrible record on racial equality might never have appeared in the film. The legitimate concern that black Americans would not support the United States military resulted in films like The Negro Soldier (1944). In World War II, the then-segregated military was viewed unfavorably by a substantial minority of African-Americans, so the government (and a cooperating American film industry) reasoned that directly addressing the nation’s painful racial history might be counterproductive. And so soon after World War II’s end, the “yellow peril” that was the Japanese was substituted for another anxiety: communists. Still, the prevailing attitude among American narrative media in the early 1950s was to celebrate the “patriotic” Japanese-Americans and those who served in the 442nd – erasing almost entirely the unconstitutional and inexcusable internment of Japanese-Americans.

As Fuller realizes as he dons his Cold War glasses, the likes of North Korea, the Soviet Union, and the People’s Republic of China could easily use the United States’ racism to undermine its message. Those nations did exactly that and continue to do so (the Soviet Union succeeded by the Russian Federation). America’s idealized self-perception as democracy’s champion collapses quickly even at a cursory glance of its racial relations. The Steel Helmet should be applauded for including this dialogue in the film, but these scenes are brief and never fully adopt Thompson or Tanaka’s point of view. Both are portrayed as intelligent, composed soldiers. But beyond their soldiering, we learn little else – The Steel Helmet is Zack’s movie, with everyone else not nearly as developed as Gene Evans’ central character.

Fuller avoids glamorizing military service and war. Despite Korea as his setting, Fuller makes little constructive use of it and his Korean characters. Fuller might have found his own wartime mentality analogous to Zack’s, but the film becomes one-dimensional as it cannot branch out to detail the other American soldiers’ personal responses to the war they are fighting. The Steel Helmet is homiletic, so be warned if you are not seeking a war film that is unafraid to moralize – sometimes without artistry. But given the restricted budget and the film’s abbreviated 85-minute runtime, I found myself forgiving the film for most of these flaws.

Communist and far-left commentators accused The Steel Helmet of being pro-American propaganda; the far-right, Breen Office, and the Pentagon were horrified by the film and blasted it as anti-American. J. Edgar Hoover, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), even launched an investigation into Fuller for suspected Communist sympathies. Such reception must have allowed Fuller a strange satisfaction, if one accounts his future reputation for addressing controversial themes with heavy-handed metaphors and allegories.

Moderately popular when first released, The Steel Helmet languished in obscurity in the decades after. That is unsurprising – the film was made and distributed by an independent studio. Thanks to the Criterion Collection and their special relationship with Turner Classic Movies (TCM), The Steel Helmet has found renewed attention thanks to its home media availability and the occasional TCM broadcast (it is regularly scheduled around Memorial Day and/or Veterans Day, in addition to the odd showing outside May and November). It is a fascinating addition to the lengthy list of American war films, supplying an era known for its propaganda-heavy elements with a forceful rebuke.

My rating: 7.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

#The Steel Helmet #Samuel Fuller #Gene Evans #Robert Hutton #James Edwards #Steve Brodie #Richard Loo #Sid Melton #William Chun #TCM #My Movie Odyssey

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shiftyskip · 5 years

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Desmond Thomas Doss

The Real Desmond Doss:

Desmond Thomas Doss was born on February 17, 1919 in Lynchburg, Virginia. He was the middle child of William Thomas and Bertha Oliver Doss. His older sister, Audrey, was born in 1916 and his younger brother, Harold, was born in 1922.

His mother was a Seventh-day Adventist, a Protestant Christian denomination, and she passed her beliefs onto her children, which included not working on Saturdays (the Sabbath) and not eating meat. Desmond was devoted to the Ten Commandments, of which “Thou Shall Not Kill” played a pivotal role in his life.

The film based on Desmond Doss and his bravery, Hacksaw Ridge, takes certain liberties with his childhood. But his father, like seen in the movie, had an alcohol problem. His heavy drinking led to a brawl with the youngest of the children, Harold, and almost ended in tragedy when his father pulled a gun on Harold. Luckily, his father did not fire the gun but the event still affected Desmond heavily.

After he completed one year of high school, he became a carpenter. He later worked at Newport News Shipyard as a ship joiner. Although this job would allow him to not enlist or be drafted, he decided it was his duty to enlist. He enlisted on April 1, 1942 and he was quickly sent to Camp Lee.

Desmond refused to carry arms. He was a conscientious objector. Which caused great unease and suspicion around him. There were many reasons for an army man to fear a CO. Some men claimed the status simply to avoid combat. They had to have religious reasons to be a CO and not simply a hatred of the war. Most of these COs trained like the rest of the men, but not pick up a gun or weapon. Many COs, like Desmond, became medics. There were 43,000 COs during World War II. 25,000 of them were medics/noncombatants.

He wouldn’t pick up a gun or fire one. He refused to carry a single weapon. He requested to become a medic instead. "I specifically requested medical duty," Doss said, "because I felt that while I could not kill, I could help save human life."

Much like the movie shows, Desmond and his fellow soldiers did not get along. His unit was the 77th Infantry, which consisted of older, New Yorkers. Desmond was a young, soft-spoken Virginia boy. These combinations did not mix fairly well. But Desmond’s status as a conscientious objector caused a lot more problems for him. His unit originally had 4 COs, but by the time they were sent overseas, only Desmond was left.

Desmond faced tremendous harassment. This came from his superiors, his officers, and his fellow enlisted men. They threw shoes at him during his nightly prayers, insulted him to his face, and one told Desmond that if he went into combat that the soldier would shoot Desmond.

His objection to carry a gun or train on Saturdays, the Sabbath, resulted in an effort to get him discharged from the Army. Those trying to remove him claimed he deserved to be removed under the section that declared “inaptness or undesirable habits or traits of character.” This was more fit for people with mental illnesses. People went so far to try to prove Desmond had a mental illness. Desmond defended his faith, saying it was not a mental illness.

They even went so far to try to court-martial him. Which is shown in the movie but it did not go as far as it did during the movie. In real life, it was only a threat. While he was later denied furloughs to see his wife and brother, Desmond didn’t miss his wedding day, he was already married by then.

In the fall of 1942, Desmond got married to Dorothy Schutte. They were married August 17, 1942 in Richmond, Virginia. They had met in church one day, when Dorothy was selling adventist books in his town. The movie shows she was a nurse and they met when Desmond went in after rescuing a boy in a car accident. This isn’t entirely accurate because she only got her nursing degree after the war.

Dorothy gave him a Bible that he carried throughout combat. When he lost it at Okinawa, his company put together a search to find it in the battlefield and they miraculously found it.

The movie fast forwards through time, ignoring combat at Guam and Leyte. Once the men hit combat, their perspectives of Desmond began to change. He was a damn good medic and the men began to put their trust in him. One such occasion was when Desmond found a man who’d been hit in the head and had blood rushing down his face. Desmond washed his face, clearing the man’s eyes of the mess and restoring the man’s sight. To which the man responded, “I can see, I can see. I thought I was blind.” This is instead moved to Okinawa in the movie.

In Leyte, Desmond lost a close friend. After his loss, he refused to look any at any of his patient’s faces, unless their face was the part wounded, in case they were a friend of his. He would treat the wounded without meeting their eyes.

Desmond earned the Bronze Star for his actions on Leyte. By the time he reached Okinawa, the men and replacements trusted him completely due to his skills as a combat medic. He was a valuable asset to morale within his regiment.

Desmond was not oblivious to the risks he was taking during combat. He was completely aware that he was risking his life to save the wounded men, but he repeatedly made that choice. Even when he wasn’t required to risk it or go on patrols, he continued to do so. There was only one time he rejected going on patrol. The patrol had left a while earlier, leaving Desmond behind. When he was ordered to go on patrol, to go catch up, Desmond refused to go. He explained to the man in command that Japanese could have come up behind the patrol and he would charge into them. He also explained that these replacements were skittishly new and were very likely to accidentally fire on him.

The Maeda Escarpment was a ridge, that rose 400 feet high, with a vertical, jagged cliff that led up to the hiding Japanese troops. This is known as Hacksaw Ridge. Before the soldiers led the challenge of a thirty-fifty foot jagged cliff the American troops would have to climb before they could even start their fight.

For nine days, the American troops fought the Japanese for the ridge. Not much land was gained, whenever the Americans gained a bit, the Japanese overwhelmed them and threw them back. This carried on, back and forth.

Doss, ever faithful to his beliefs, did not hold a weapon throughout the battle. He passed one box of grenades forward, after much debate, but did not touch anything with the intent to harm.

But his true acts of heroics and self sacrifice happened from April 29-May 21, 1945. He served as a medic with his company. When under heavy fire he refused to fall back or hide and instead, risking his own life, carried the wounded men back to the edge of the 400 foot ridge one-by-one to the bottom with rope. “When the survivors gathered at the bottom of the cliff, they noted a wounded man on a stretcher being lowered down the escarpment. Looking up, they saw Doss maneuvering the stretcher, but Doss quickly realized that a stretcher was hard to handle alone without endangering the wounded, so he remembered a training exercise where he had accidently converted a bowline into large double loops of rope. The loops would not slip and would serve perfectly for securing the legs of a wounded man. Doss took the running end of the rope and passed it around the wounded man’s chest and secured it with another bow- line knot. He carefully slid the man over the cliff edge and then lowered him using the friction of the line around a tree to steady him,” claims Booton Herndon, in the article The Unlikeliest Hero: The Story of Desmond T. Doss, Conscientious Objector Who Won His Nation’s Highest Military Honor.(Mountain View: Pacific Press, 1967.)

He lowered 75 men down off of the Ridge. Doss argued that he had only saved 50 men. The men always believed he’d lowered closer to 100. So they compromised on 75.

On May 2, he risked his life under fire again, rescuing a wounded man 200 yards forward of the lines. Two days later, he treated four men who had been wounded, advancing through a shower of grenades, where he tended to them, and made four separate trips under fire to return them to safety.

On May 5, The final assault to take the Maeda Escarpment happened on the morning of the Saturday, the Sabbath. Doss held on to the Sabbath as a day of prayer, being the only Medic left in his company, he agreed to go but requested that he first be given time to read his Bible. The delay was approved and the the assault was put on hold until Desmond finished his devotions. May 5, he suffered under enemy shelling and gun fire to assist an artillery officer. He applied bandages, moved his patient to a spot that offered slight more safety, under artillery and mortar fire, he admitted Ed plasma. Later that day, Later that day, when an American was severely wounded, Doss crawled to him where he had fallen 25 feet from the enemy position, tended to his injuries, and carried him 100 yards to safety while continually exposed to enemy fire.

The company suffered enormous amounts of casualities. They had started this battle with 800 men, when they finished fighting, they had 324 men.

May 21, during a night attack on high ground, when everyone else took cover, Doss refused and aided to the injured men. This exposed him to the risk of being exposed not only to enemy fire but also friendly fire, in case he was mistaken as a Japanese soldier and shot on the spot.

He was severely wounded in his legs that night by a grenade. He tended to his own injuries, rather than risk another medic’s life. He waited 5 hours for a stretcher to reach him. When he was being carried back, he was caught in Japanese tank attack. Doss noticed another man more severely wounded, a severe head wounded, than he was and he crawled off his stretcher. He directed them to tend to the other man, and to leave him until they could return to him. At one point, 17 pieces of shrapnel were in him.

He was once again wounded. His left arm suffered a compound fracture due to a sniper. Desperate, Doss turned to the gun for the first time. But only to use the stock as a makeshift splint for his arm. He then crawled 300 yards in rough land to an aid station.

He was evacuated May 21, 1945. On the hospital ship back, he realized that the Bible his wife Dorothy had given him had been lost in the battlefield. He had carried it throughout combat with him. Doss’ company searched for it. As a way to honor him, even thought they had once wanted him gone. Surprisingly, they found it. General Bruce himself came to visit Doss during his recovery. During his recovery, he was promoted to Corporal and learned he was to be awarded the Medal of Honor - the first conscientious objector to be awarded such an honor

On October 12, 1945, Desmond Thomas Doss was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Truman.

The war had ended, and Doss was to be discharged. But, an exam revealed he suffered from tuberculosis, which is believed he had gotten on Leyte. Eventually, he lost a lung and 5 ribs. He was was not released from the hospital until 1951. His son, Desmond “Tommy” Doss Jr. was born during his time in the hospital in 1946. Doss could not see his son due to the tuberculosis.

He continued to receive treatment for tuberculosis, but in 1976, he suffered an overdose of medicine that made him completely deaf. Dorothy began writing messages to him so they could communicate, jokingly calling herself his “hearing ear dog”. He would eventually regain some of his hearing in 1988, due to receiving a cochlear implant.

Dorothy and Desmond had only one child. Dorothy raises their son Tommy almost completely alone for the first five years of his life. After the war they lived out their years in Rising Fawn, Georgia on a small farm. Later in life, Dorothy developed breast cancer. She died on November 17, 1991, from injuries sustained in a car accident while Desmond and her were driving to a hospital, crashing less than a mile away from their house.

Desmond remarried in 1993 to Frances Duman in 1993. They were together until his death in 2006. He adopted her three children: Thomas Duman, Michael Duman, and Marilyn Shadduck.

Desmond, after being hospitalized due to trouble breathing, passed away in his home in Piedmont, Alabama in March 23, 2006. He was buried in the national cemetery at Chattanooga, Tennessee. Frances died 3 years later. The three are buried next to each other in the cemetery.

Doss’ legacy was captured in the movie Hacksaw Ridge, directed by Mel Gibson. Desmond is portrayed by Andrew Garfield. It won two Oscars, out of the 6 it was nominated for.

#medal of honor #desmond doss #hacksaw ridge #medal of honor profiles

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ellymackay · 4 years

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Why My Dental Practice Treats Only TMD and Sleep

Why My Dental Practice Treats Only TMD and Sleep Find more on: www.ellymackay.com

Michael L. Gelb, DDS, MS, is all about the airway.

By Greg Thompson | Photography by Jane La Motta Photography

Michael L. Gelb, DDS, MS, learned early on that the dental profession could encompass far more than teeth. With his father, Harold Gelb, DMD, pioneering treatments for the temporomandibular joint (TMJ), the young Gelb saw a commitment to total wellness.

“He treated headaches, neck pain, and back pain,” remembers Gelb, owner of The Gelb Center with offices in New York City and White Plains, NY. “He’d put heel lifts into people’s shoes and give injections to the neck, back, and shoulder. He’d be doing stuff that no other dentist in the United States was doing.”

The elder Gelb opened a 4,500-sq-ft office in the heart of Manhattan in the early 1970s, and Michael Gelb now practices in that same office, splitting time between The Big Apple and the White Plains location 45 minutes away.

“From the beginning, my practice was 50% TMJ,” says Gelb, who received his DDS from Columbia University College of Dental Medicine and his MS from SUNY at Buffalo School of Dental Medicine. “I never went into dentistry to fill teeth.”

As clinicians increasingly transitioned the abbreviation “TMJ” to a more accurate and descriptive TMD (temporomandibular disorders), so too Gelb’s clinical and academic understanding grew, thanks largely to an eagerness to learn every nuance, along with a willingness to accept new ideas. The exploration inevitably focused in on the importance of the airway, but it wasn’t until 1989 that Gelb began to view the airway’s primacy through the particular lens of sleep.

Right about that time, Gelb had taken over at New York University’s facial pain program as director. Two speakers—dentists Jon Parker, DDS, and Wayne Halstrom, DDS, DABDSM—made a particular impression. “Halstrom would show pictures of his Cadillac, which he had totaled three times after falling asleep at the wheel,” says the 63-year-old Gelb. “This was right at the beginning of testing for sleep apnea, and also the infancy of dental sleep medicine.”

Once again reviving an old debate started in part by his father, Gelb began to explore the effects of jaw positioning and its relation to better sleep. “It was almost heretical to bring the jaw down and forward when all the dogma had been to set the jaw back in the socket, which was actually closing the airway,” he says. “In many ways, I feel like I’m part of the history of dentistry. Students say they read about my dad and the Gelb philosophy. It’s interesting to come from that philosophical approach to dentistry, which I now understand much better 30 years later.”

Friend and colleague Leonard B. Kobren, DDS, says, “Michael began to realize that the need to open the airway meant that the lower jaw needed to be moved downward and forward, which would anatomically open the airway and allow much greater oxygenation and restorative sleep. He wrote about this in the Journal of the California Dental Association,1 where he coined the term AirwayCentric dentistry.” Gelb Technologies LLC was granted a trademark for “AirwayCentric” in April 2014.

Particularly in the early days, Gelb’s approach did not always resonate. “Initially, Michael was frustrated with dentists who were not getting what he was saying,” explains Kobren, who practices at Westchester Prosthodontics in White Plains, NY, and is an immediate past chair of the American College of Prosthodontists Education Foundation. “Our reticence to buy in was often more than he could take.

“In these early days, he was kind of condemning practitioners who were not getting it, and saying, ‘I’m here to tell you that teeth don’t matter. It’s only about the well-being of the patient, controlled by oxygenation and airway. And the second he would say those things, restorative dentists were turned off. I worked with him to find different ways to present the material so that diligent dentists like me would be excited about a new paradigm, as opposed to being told our way was antiquated and ineffective. That was my challenge to Michael.”

Softening the message helped, eventually leading to reliable referrals from practitioners who appreciated the AirwayCentric focus. “You only need one or two ENTs who really get it,” Gelb says. “I have the 80/20 rule. Eighty percent of any profession are not going to get it, but there’s always a number of practitioners who want to work collaboratively and understand and are not afraid to refer out.”

Otolaryngologists can see the airway problems, and they often refer to Gelb prior to trying surgical procedures. “It’s the same with cardiologists,” he says. “They’re treating patients with arrhythmia or high blood pressure, and they now understand that sleep apnea is a very strong contributing factor. Over time, you develop relationships. There’s always one or two sleep docs who appreciate what you do and will refer patients.”

Not all of the affiliated dental disciplines are on board, but Gelb believes that’s only natural for what amounts to a paradigm shift. “Prosthodontists are deathly afraid of changing the bite,” Gelb says. “The patient could be dying, but as long as you don’t change the bite, they’re pretty happy. Dentists have been brainwashed that the bite should be a certain way, much like orthodontists who have been ignoring the airway for years.”

Expanding Understanding

Eventually, Gelb and Howard Hindin, DDS, started an organization called the American Academy of Physiologic Medicine and Dentistry (AAPMD), as well as the Foundation for Airway Health. The effort to expand understanding of the AirwayCentric approach has progressed, but Hindin and Gelb were aware from the start that it would not be easy.

“About 15 years ago, we were sitting in a diner having breakfast, and we talked about how we might change the world, and we wrote our ideas on the back of a placemat,” remembers Hindin, owner of the Hindin Center for Whole Health Dentistry, Suffern, NY. “We said, ‘Let’s start an organization, let’s write a book [which became GASP: Airway Health – The Hidden Path to Wellness], let’s start a foundation, and let’s invent an appliance. We did all of those things in the last 12 to 15 years.”

Also at that time, Gelb took his considerable passion and expertise in the field of dental sleep medicine and made the decision to stop practicing traditional dentistry once and for all. Now the practice at both locations is about 60% TMD and 40% sleep.

[RELATED: Establish Healthy TMJ Prior to Oral Appliance Therapy]

“There comes a time in your life when you look at your schedule and you get that uneasy feeling about certain patients with complicated dental cases,” Gelb says. “The majority of my training was always in TMD/facial pain, and then sleep, so I always gravitated and was probably better at treating these complicated TMJ pain and headache cases. I later found out that most of the patients who had TMJ also had concurrent coexisting sleep conditions.”

Much as he practiced in his earliest days, Gelb continues to rapidly embrace technology to aid in screening and treating sleep disorders. As a self-proclaimed disruptor and early adopter, Gelb says, “I’m on my fifth cone beam CT [computed tomography, also known as CBCT] scan now.”

While some technologies admittedly flamed out, costing time and money, the willingness to explore all possibilities has mainly led to progress. “The thing that has changed this field more than anything else I can think of is the ability to image the airway—to see the airway,” Gelb says. “In the past you’d have to go to an ENT, who would do an endoscopy,” Gelb says. “They’d have to stick a tube down your nose to look at your airway.”

With so much of the medical world embracing the importance of sleep, Gelb is able to reflect on his ongoing career, knowing that his ideas about sleep medicine are catching on throughout the continuum of care. Having once taken the torch passed down from his dad, Gelb takes pride in his own adult children, both of whom are doing well and living in New York.

As for the decision to focus solely on TMD and sleep medicine, Gelb need only ponder the patients he has helped to know he made the right choice. “I had a patient who was afraid to go to sleep,” Gelb says. “She had anxiety and panic attacks. Because I had the cone beam, I noticed this woman had a very small retruded chin and jaw and a very narrow airway.

“We were able to open the airway with a device and create a safe environment where she felt safe to go to sleep. We got rid of her fear, also with the help of a behavioral sleep therapist. It was a radical transformation, and I was never able to do that by treating TMD alone. Treating the airway and sleep has exponentially influenced the transformative process that I now can achieve with my patients. This is far beyond what I ever imagined I’d be able to do.”

“Michael’s level of expertise is extraordinary,” Kobren says. “He had access to all of the earliest champions of TMD and has spent his time distilling that and then being open-minded enough to see the value of sleep and how it affects overall health. I’ll add that he is one of the most quietly competitive amateur athletes you can imagine—a superior tennis player and golfer, a great dad, and a loyal friend.”

Hindin adds, “Michael is an incredible people person, and he’s passionate and excited about what he does. If I opened a restaurant, I’d want Michael to be the maître d’. A lot of the people who come into his practice have probably seen ten other practitioners before they came to him. When people go down that path, they get very discouraged, and they lose hope. He’s very good at giving them hope.”

Greg Thompson is a Loveland, Colo-based freelance writer.

Reference

Gelb ML. Airway Centric TMJ Philosophy. Journal CDA. 2014 Aug;42(8):551-62.

Editor’s Note: The photos featured here were taken prior to the start of the COVID-19 global pandemic.

from Sleep Review https://www.sleepreviewmag.com/sleep-treatments/therapy-devices/oral-appliances/dental-practice-tmd-gelb/

from Elly Mackay - Feed https://www.ellymackay.com/2020/07/08/why-my-dental-practice-treats-only-tmd-and-sleep/

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wreckthelist · 7 years

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at first sight: meeting Rach @ Harold Pinter stage-door

Ask me if I believe in fate, for all I’ve railed against its faults and failings, and I’ll still say yes.

I was browsing tumblr (I’ve been on here far too long, but it’s an asymmetrical symbiotic relationship, if you’ll pardon the expression.)—and came across a post on the ongoing run of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf at the Harold Pinter. It’s here, I thought. Just right here. And Luke Treadaway too at that. For how long I’ve loved his twin, Harry, I’ve been meaning to watch him live in action. Not to mention Edward Albee and I go way, way back. Oh sir, way back.

This is only one of the three sources I used comprehensively (or, more accurately, obsessively) for my IB English Higher Level Paper 1. The running themes of fiction vs. reality, illusions vs. real life, which unite Albee’s celebrated work, Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman—those I can (sprinkling present tense for extra emphasis and dramatic effect, no less) never get enough of and those which has stayed with me through these formative years, seeping themselves into my thoughts, my fiction framing, and the way I approach stories and character-writing. They’re my forefathers, those that came before, those that have stayed, and those that would always be with me.

Open up Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and you’ll hear me go on long monologues back to those days when I drudged through daily timed (Ready. Get set. Go! And you thought English’s a breeze. It isn’t.) open-ended essay questions in class, scouring my brain for text extracts, juicy quotes, and relevant themes—all the more better if present in the three texts. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf was, and still is, my cup of tea. The dysfunctional relationships—the Dean’s daughter and the wimpy History university professor; the pretend gentleman of a Math (sorry, Nick—Biology!) university professor and his blond mousy wife—juxtaposed against each other, the young and the old, made fascinating, animated, and alive, when seen actually acted out in engrossing and hypnotic fashion by Imelda, Conleth, Luke, and Imogen. It’s alcohol numbing senses and humans playing psychological mind games and stimulating the worst in each other. It’s wordplay and emotional manipulation of the cruelest kinds and secrets spilled without second thoughts for consequences. It’s blood and gore and scars without physical, bodily harms and long, twisted monologues on the eternal battle between the young and the old, and history and science. It’s debates and confessions and lies on love and what it means to be by each other’s side as husband and wife in a relationship. It’s self-aware illusions masqueraded as truths, story-telling to its most sordid effects, reality warped as fantasies and words told and retold so often they became real. It’s manifestations of two joined minds of history that never did exist and a person, a glue to the relationship, that they wished (fervently) would exist.

“Martha: Truth or illusion, George; you don't know the difference.

George: No, but we must carry on as though we did.”

Martha: ’tis the refuge we take when the unreality of the world weighs too heavy on our tiny heads.

God, I loved it. I still do. I swallowed all that up. Mix it in with a hint of time in Willy’s fantasy escapades and we’ve got my favourite (and signature) approach to writing—in episodes and through a nonlinear timeline.

What’s true. What’s not. Why must we continually fool ourselves, despite knowing so, to go on living? What’s escapism and believing, investing so heavily in a fantasy?

Then there’s the talk of academics. University professors. Drinking. Oh, god. I know. I know. It’s all in there. It’s all in there.

I’d never been to (or in) Harold Pinter before that Monday, when I got that fateful email about [REDACTED] which, looking back, would be one of the great regrets of my life—but how could I? When you had to choose between flying home and [REDACTED]—out of my homesick heart, what would you have done????

To this day, I still feel like I turned down [REDACTED].

But whatever. This is not about [REDACTED] [REDACTED].

This is about the play, about the actors, about that fateful stagedoor, about the conversations that ensued afterwards, and about one particular UCL girl.

The production design was impressive—that compressed, tight-knit set (which Rach’s already described as inducing that very innate claustrophobic sense the play was supposed to instill in its audience. Oh yea, you’re not there for comfort. No. These aren’t your friendly neighborhood parlor games.) of George and Martha’s house. From the door (I still remember the details. That, or because I snuck in a last-minute photo before I left, out of sheer awe that I finally got a chance to watch that play that became my life—overstatement? Hyperbole? I think not.—live and brilliantly acted.) to the books adorning the walls-as-shelves on the left and right of the stage, the couch in the middle of the way between the door and the rug , the art pieces, the rug (later Nick’s and Martha’s sensual dancefloor, to George’s numbed dismay and Honey’s dizzy drunk mind). There’s even a fireplace, stage left. And a workdesk, stage right.

Lamps worked, as actors turned them on and off throughout. Music flew in and scenes happened before you, with no escapes of the yard outside or the bar as offered by the film (We did watch the film in English class. Bless. I do realise I have to thank Mrs. McCarthy for changing my life.)

After the play, came the stagedoor. My first ever (imagine that. In March. How far I’ve come.) I wasn’t sure. But it was Luke Treadaway, and I had to.

There’s a few (too few) of us crowded around that stagedoor, shivering in the cold. Rachel was the one Asian, another familiar face I saw. Luke came out, beanie and checkerboard/lumberjack jacket, passable as an ordinary Brit wandering the streets. No one would’ve spotted him. He said ‘yes,’ to requests, and tried signing again when my pen didn’t work the first time (I didn’t even bring my Sharpie—what an amateur. And I had them—him and the others—sign the programme. I should’ve asked for the ticket, keeping in mind how much I travel. Then again, amateur hour. A mistake not to be made twice.) I asked for a selfie, and the picture turned out damn adorable (because he was pointing at me and smiling, and I treasure it to this day). Rach asked for a selfie. Afterwards he lingered around and asked, “Anybody else?” We all said, “No,” and “Thank you,” and he left, another figure rounding the street corner.

It’s those little things an actor does that stays with you. Luke is incredibly sweet for having done that, just as Jack O’Connell was for turning my ticket the right side up before signing (ugh. You have to love him.) and taking the time to ask me, “You mind if I use your pen for a bit?” and returning me the pen.

Later Imelda came out, signing everything with a flourish and voicing (loudly) her refusal to understand social media hype.

“Why’d you do this play?” some girl asked her, and, one’d have to give her credit for that frankness (we’re not going for interview quality answers here), because she answered simply, “Someone asked me to,” before disappearing into her car and into the night.

Conlenth came and signed and went. There was nothing much there, except us telling him how great he was.

Imogen was one of the major reasons I came, aside from the play itself. My alternate tag for her is ‘sunshine,’ because her smile to me is exactly that, so you could imagine my disappointed surprise when she did not show.

Rach and I gushed about Luke, about his sweetness. We talked and talked. I’ve no idea—it has indeed been awhile—how I got the conversation started. But I did remember talking first. Maybe it was about asking her if she’d read the play before. If you’d read her side of this story, I too am not one to start conversations, but that moment just felt right.

(Like when I caught eyes with the Korean girl at the Sons gig.)

It’s hard to explain. It’s serendipity. It’s fate. It’s just something that happens. Something that just is. Something that you just know.

And with her, my hunch turned out to be for good.

We exchanged Facebook, I think—or was it Instagram too, on our walk back to the horses at the Haymarket streetlights (oh, how I’ll miss it. Good ol’ Londontown. I’m further away from you every second now.) And somehow I found her on Instagram.

And we hit it off, we did.

We made plans. Got to her place and binged on Sainsbury’s discounted Ben & Jerry’s (was it Phish Food?) and chocolate lava cake (good times.) and watched Branaugh (that 1993 version) and a bit of the Joss Whedon one (me having too many pieces of Rach’s delicious fudge in the process—mhm.)

Chatted about my romantic misfortunes (I give up. It wasn’t even romance.), obsessions, and life. She’s the most receptive, reassuring listener and I turned into my extroverted, fast-talking self so quickly around her. It’s like we’ve known each other longer than we did.

Now we’re in touch via Facebook, and Tumblr. And I can say, with guarantee, that while long-distance relationships may not work, long-distance friendships can last. I’ve carried on the same lines with my other Malaysian friend for 4 years (and met up with her twice in the UK), and this one with Rach, I truly believe and hope it could and would last.

Because we get each other. Because she understands. She’s there for me, and I promise with all my heart I would always be there for her.

And if it’s any proof of fate, I’ve been writing and am publishing this a day after Luke Treadaway’s birthday.

#theatre outing #personal #who's afraid of virginia woolf?#Luke Treadaway #imelda staunton

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jadhavmj · 5 years

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Artificial intelligence good or bad

Artificial Intelligence is a subject of Computer Science designed for building machines and computers that can enhance logical processes. AI systems have that much ability to execute tasks naturally associated with human intelligence, like speech recognition, it can take decisions, and this can translat languages.

the process of doing manual work has been decreased because of computers to a great extent.

We are totally surrounded by machines and computer technologies, this gave humans a general thought like “Can a machine think and behave like humans ? “.

Now that computers are being used nearly in every sector, humans are very dependent on them.

Brief History of Artificial Intelligence:

In 1923 – The term ‘robot‘ was used for the first time in English by a Karel Capek play called “Rossum’s Universal Robots (RUR)

1945 – The invention of the term ‘robotics‘ by Isaac Asimov, a Columbia University scholar

1950 – The introduction of ‘Turing test’ by ‘Alan Turing‘ for the analysis of intelligence. Also, a seminal paper was published named “computing machinery and intelligence“.

1956 – The term “artificial intelligence” was first originated by John McCarthy. A demo of AI program at Carnegie Mellon University was attempted.

1958– The innovation of LISP programming language for AI by John McCarthy

1964 – A thesis by Danny Bobrow at MIT proved that computers can apprehend normal language to solve algebra word problems accurately.

1973 – The invention of popular Scottish robot ‘Freddy‘which is efficient enough to locate, collect and build models using vision was developed by Edinburgh University’s Assembly Robotics group.

1979 – Origination of first computer-controlled autonomous vehicle, Stanford Cart

1985– Harold Cohen designed and developed ‘Aaron’ a drawing program

1990 – Important breakthroughs in the AI sector was noticed in this year, some of them are

A remarkable development in machine learning

Multi-agent planning

Data mining

Intelligent Robots:

Robots are one of the greatest creation by humans. They can do multiple tasks within no time. Though they cannot be alternate to humans no chance but are very efficient when doing any tasks.

1) What is artificial intelligence

Artificial Intelligence it is a subject of Computer Science which is aimed for building machines and computers that can enhance logical operations. AI systems have the ability to execute any tasks naturally associated with human intelligence, it is like speech recognition, decision-making, visual perception, and translating of languages.

The Artificial Intelligence is the machines which are designed and programmed in such a way that they think and act like a human.

Artificial Intelligence becomes the important part of our day to day life. Our life is changed by Artificial Intelligence because this technology is used in a wide area of day to day services.

These technologies reduce human effort. Now in many industries, people are using this technology to develop machine slaves to perform the different activity easily. Using the machine for the work speed up your procedure of doing work and give you an accurate result.

The introduction of Artificial Intelligence brings the idea of error free world. This technology will now slowly introduce in all the sector to reduce human effort and give accurate and faster result.

Through this article, I will show you the importance of Artificial Intelligence in our daily life.

Error Reduction:

By using Artificial intelligence we can reduce the rate of error and it also help to reach accuracy with great precision. It is very useful for research department inteligents robots are fed with information and we send them to explore space

Since they are machines with metal bodies, they are more resistant and have a greater ability to endure the space and hostile atmosphere. They are created and accumulated like they canot be modified or get disfigured or breakdown in a strange environment, but creation of artificial intelligence requires a lot of cost as they are very complicated machines. Their maintenance are very costly. Their softwere programs need up to date frequently.

And when server breakdowns, then the procedure too recover lost codes might require huge time and cost.

2. Difficult Exploration:

AI and the science of robotics both can be put to use in mining and other fuel exploration processes. Not only that, these complex the machines can be used for exploring the ocean floor and hence to overcome the human limitations.

Due to the programming of the robots, they can perform most laborious and hard work with greater responsibility. Moreover, they do not wear out easily.

No Replicating Humans:

Intelligence is supposed to be a gift of nature. An moral debate continues, whether human intelligence is to be replece with robot or not.

Those Machines don’t have any emotions and moral ethics. They just perform what they have programmed for and cannot make the decision situation wise and they don’t understand right or wrong. Even they cannot take own decisions if they meet a situation unfamiliar to them. They weather perform wrongly or breakdown in such situations.

Daily Application:

Artificial inteligets bots paly very important role in factories it reduces the time and makes any job very perfectly and very smatly but the fact is they are the machines and they do that job only for which they are programme for. They have no improvement with experience

Repetitive jobs : Now a days so many manufacturing company started to replace the human workers by AI bots it is very seriuse thing for all employees or for every single persron who drives their family. We know that bots can do any type work very easily than human. but don’t forget that robot is robot. We all know when a super robot stat to think then u imagin the results, it can be similar like we in movies like robot

That can be the end of humans.

Conclusion

We know that Artificial intelligence technology is important for all sector now and we are using it in all sectors also, but while using replacing any human worker think about his contribution to that company, think about his family that wheather he is the only persen how is earning and if you will fire him then the condition may be very serious for him

#digitalmarketing #marketing #online marketing #smart marketing #best quotes #letest marketing #artificialinteligence #technology #robots

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junker-town · 5 years

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What will the end of the LeBron James era look like?

The end of LeBron’s career will either be graceful or a complete mess — the choice is his.

Every pro basketball career is either on its way up or on its way out. Each day is either a step towards improvement and reinvention, or a stumble towards decay. LeBron James has spent the bulk of his career enjoying that first stage, rabidly discovering new ways to stretch his domination longer than anyone before him ever has.

In so many ways James molded the NBA to his liking, from one stylistic era to the next. But now at the age of 35, LeBron’s authority will soon be a folk tale. Irreversible decline comes for every athlete, and so much about LeBron’s future — particularly how he embraces it — is unknown.

When will LeBron’s undoing occur? Will he face it with iron-willed stubbornness in an attempt to delay the inevitable as long as he possibly can? How will it diminish his magnetism in an NBA that’s less prestigious and appealing without him? Endings are always messy, so what will it be like for perhaps the greatest player ever?

This isn’t a crisis, yet, even though the passage of time can sometimes feel that way. Last year was deflating, but LeBron maintained his numbers while surrounded by a suboptimal supporting cast, all without being selfish. Before Christmas he was an MVP candidate, as eerily consistent as ever, and there are reasons to believe he can still be the best player in the world — especially coming off the longest vacation of his career with Anthony Davis as a teammate.

His game, based on intellectual excellence, was built for old age. But fading gracefully isn’t easy. When a strained groin cast doubt on his legendary physical fitness, he responded by cradling a glass of wine and insecurely reflecting on the GOAT debate. His move to Hollywood was catnip for cynics and critics, who were eager to portray him as someone more satisfied than humbled. To their credit, it’s hard not to feel like LeBron is betraying his younger, more insatiable self when he retweets Space Jam 2 casting news and Blaze Pizza promotions.

When David Griffin, LeBron’s former general manager, said “I don’t think he’s the same animal anymore about winning,” it amplified what so many are thinking. That desire to spread his wings and be “more than an athlete” is, of course, his right and totally OK! Priorities change as we grow old, and LeBron deserves the praise he’ll receive for the rest of his life. But if perception is reality, this pill is tough to swallow for those who spent the past 15 years watching him fulfill his destiny. Nobody wants to see a lion take a nap during hunting season.

But if LeBron does still see himself as someone who’s driven by championships, his psychological struggle may be just as arduous as the physical one. This idea is tied to something I came across while reading Maria Konnikova’s splendid The Confidence Game. Just like every other well-adjusted human being who read this book, I thought about how it relates to LeBron’s current predicament.

In 1958, an Austrian psychologist named Marie Jahoda defined a healthy psyche “as one that can perceive the self as it is in reality, without skewing it to fit a certain image or desire.” Nine years later, her contemporary Harold Kelley added that an accurate perception of ourselves allows people to effectively function. But in the 1970s, “that emphasis on accuracy started to shift.”

Further research uncovered the extent that people are incapable of seeing themselves, and that those who actually do see themselves for who they are often fixate on the bad. “We want to affirm our best, most deserving self ... not the unvarnished original. And so we systematically represent ourselves and our reality in a way that favors our preferred version.”

In other words, all of LeBron’s accomplishments may prevent him from conducting a realistic assessment of where he is, and how difficult the road ahead will be. His childhood was steeped in hardship, including the difficulties of being black in the United States of America. But, for the most part, his adult life has deftly avoided obstacles. That will soon change when he’s confronted by signs of the same end that comes for all NBA stars.

If LeBron wants to continue as an NBA Goliath, desperation may very well be his best source of motivation. To channel it, he first must acknowledge where he stands in a league that employs other alpha predators who are impervious to his intimidation. Supreme confidence is a requirement to stay on top, but James will also need to accept a future when he isn’t consistently the best player on the floor.

This truth was shoved in front of our faces when the Los Angeles Lakers tried to sign Kawhi Leonard, and failed. The aftermath of that rejection yielded a tension. Instead of teaming up with LeBron, the two-time Finals MVP decided to challenge him for top-of-the-food-chain distinction. One reason why? James needed Kawhi — a 28-year-old smack dab in the midst of his prime — more than the other way around. In persuading Paul George to move from Oklahoma City to Los Angeles, Leonard added insult to injury by doing exactly what LeBron could not last summer.

Beside Kawhi stands Giannis Antetokounmpo, a metaphysical triumph who is more obsessed with annihilation than allyship. Those two — and more — are fighting for the stature James has enjoyed for so long. An argument can be made that they might have already passed him.

As age eats away at LeBron’s physical advantage, will he recognize that he may never get it back, or continue to see himself as a historical marvel? Nobody has averaged 35 minutes per game by their 35th birthday and still been so good. But I am not nobody. Will he feel the walls closing in and act accordingly, or will his self-belief block them from view? His body control, craft, and patience were magic acts even after he returned from last year’s injury (LeBron’s 21 games were a middle finger to Father Time). Even if those parts of his game are evergreen, are they enough to keep LeBron playing like LeBron when his first step is half a second slower and he’s no longer able to lift his chin over a 10-foot rim?

For the past 20 years, James was either at the top of basketball or destined to get there. In the public consciousness, he has only ever been the King. Now, just holding on as the NBA’s most important and powerful figure, the uncertainty around his transition towards something else is palpable.

Regardless of how the next two or three years play out, no narrative deserves more attention from an audience that has invested so much in his mythology. LeBron’s time with us is fleeting and should not be taken for granted. Whatever happens next probably won’t impact his legacy, but the opportunity to further expand it — if that’s what he wants to do — exists. If anyone can make a fall from the throne look smooth, it’s LeBron James. And until the day he retires, we are witnesses.

Still.

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jaketapper · 7 years

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Remarks to the Canadian Journalism Foundation

Last night I was honored with the Tribute at the Canadian Journalism Foundation awards in Toronto, Canada. Below are my prepared remarks; I deviated from the text slightly and tried to make edits below to better reflect what I said.

I want to thank the CJF and more specifically the Gala Committee - David Walmsley, Maureen Shaughnessy Kitts and Natalie Turvey - for selecting me for this tribute.

I would also like to thank Peter Mansbridge for those lovely remarks and more importantly for his decades at the CBC, serving as a beacon for anchors across the continent, speaking truth to power, and calm to panic. I know this nation has come to depend on you to guide it through times of difficulty and joy, and I know she will miss your nightly presence.

It is such an honor to receive this award, especially as someone who isn’t Canadian, someone born in New York and raised in Philadelphia. I was seven during the American Bicentennial in Philadelphia, the heart of American democracy, so it was interesting when a few years ago i began doing some genealogical research and discovered that many of my ancestors, the Huffs, fought in the Revolutionary War. The surprise was that they fought for the British and then fled to Canada. They continued to fight on your side in the war of 1812. This was of course something of a rude awakening for a Philly boy.

Of course i knew of my Canadian roots -- My mother was born in Ottawa, and came to the U.S. with her family when she was 7. My grandfather Everett Palmatier fought with the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II serving on the HMCS Cobalt, a Flower-class corvette that participated in escorting convoys in the Atlantic. My grandmother Helen worked as a confidential secretary for the Canadian government. My great uncle Edwin Palmatier, a tailgunner, was shot down and killed by the Luftwaffe in that war. There is a lake named after him in this country. In January 1917, one hundred years ago, my great great grandfather David Dyson, a pickle and vinegar merchant was the mayor of Winnipeg -- for four days. He lost the recount.

Now, if I were Tom I would make a joke about how Peter Mansbridge covered that recount. But I am not so I will not.

Grammie and Grampie and Uncle Edwin and David Dyson are no longer with us, but i brought my mother here tonight and I want to take a moment to honor her for not only having been a loving and selfless mother but for having instilled in me concepts of compassion and decency that i hope have shaped the way i live and also how i perceive my responsibility as a journalist. Thank you, Mom. I love you.

I would also be remiss if i did not take a moment to thank another great son of Canada, a mentor to so many of us who had the pleasure of working with him, my former boss at ABC news, the late great Peter Jennings. Peter was a tireless and fearless and obstinate boss. And he taught me so much and the world, and the world of journalism, is lesser for his passing.

As for this award...just looking at the list of prior honorees -- Tina Brown and Sir Harold Evans, Malcolm Gladwell, Robert MacNeill, Morley Safer and Graydon Carter -- that is pretty august company. Though the ones who mean the most to me are the 2012 posthumous tribute to Jennings and the man who did more to make me a journalist than anyone else, the late great David Carr, honored in 2013. I like to think somewhere David and Peter are watching this presentation, frustrated that they can’t break through and criticize me and make sure that i’m not letting anything go to my head. Don’t worry guys, I got the lesson. You taught me well.

And of course as well all know, people like Peter and myself get the attention, but journalism is truly a team effort. From the lowest level intern to the highest executive, I couldn’t do what I do without everyone at CNN. Everyone in this room knows what a team effort journalism is. Three from my team are here -- Jessica Stanton, John Robinson, and Lauren Pratapas -- and without them and without the leadership of my boss Jeff Zucker, as well as John Martin and Jeff Bewkes, none of this would be possible.

In three days I’ll be giving my first commencement address ever, at my alma mater, Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and Ive been thinking a lot about what then President Eisenhower told students in the 1953 commencement:

He said: “Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. … How will we defeat communism unless we know what it is, and what it teaches, and why does it have such an appeal for men, why are so many people swearing allegiance to it?...And we have got to fight it with something better, not try to conceal the thinking of our own people. They are part of America. And even if they think ideas that are contrary to ours, their right to say them, their right to record them, and their right to have them at places where they are accessible to others is unquestioned, or it isn't America.”

This was Eisenhower talking about communism during the Cold War and the Red Scare -- and he was arguing that the Communists should come out and engage in the battle place of ideas and we should welcome them

That battleplace of ideas is something I think about a lot

Especially when liberals tell me not to put Republicans or Trump supporters on my shows. Using Ike’s words, I ask them, How will you win an election against Trump and Trumpism unless you know what it is, and what it teaches, to paraphrase Ike, and why does it have such an appeal for men, why are so many people swearing allegiance to it?

And for those in journalism who do not understand the appeal of President Trump to 62,979,636 Americans, it is also important to try to understand the phenomenon so many of us failed to see coming. If you strip away the falsehoods and the bigotry and the occasional indecencies -- more on them later -- but if you strip those away there are propositions that are completely legitimate -- fixing a broken system in Washington, making sure the elites and the government do more to protect American jobs and lives and livelihoods. We in the media need to rise to the moment and allow these disrupting debates to happen, and let the best ideas win.

But all that said, I am concerned about the weapons being deployed by the president and forces allegiant to him in this battlefield. I am concerned about the lies and smears, I am concerned about the moments of indecency, and for this audience especially I am referring of course to his calling stories he doesn’t like -- ones that are entirely 100% accurate -- “fake news,” and thus successfully undermining the 4th estate with a large segment of the population.

On January 12, a team of reporters including me, Jim Sciutto, Evan Perez, and Carl Bernstein reported the following: “Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump, multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings tell CNN. The allegations were presented in a two-page synopsis that was appended to a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.” It went on from there.

There is not one word of this story that is not accurate. And yet this is the story President Trump used to first attack CNN as “fake news.” A term that used to refer to actual fake stories -- The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or more recently the such as the nonsense that there was a Satanic pedophilia ring linked to a pizzeria in Washington, D.C. with ties to the Hillary Clinton campaign. Now it stands for stories the president does not like.

And he does not like a lot of them. And while yes there have been some minor media missteps almost all of the stories he’s called fake news have been proven to be true.

Every politician lies. Hillary Clinton falsely claimed FBI “Director Comey said my answers were truthful.” Barack Obama claimed if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.

But the sheer number of falsehoods and factual flip-flops coming from this White House is staggering. NATO is obsolete, now it isn’t. Jobless numbers are bogus, now they’re real.

And what’s worse we have a situation now where prevarications are not only supported by the administration and its allies in the media but by an entire dark Army of twitter trolls and meme creators here and abroad who work to undermine the work and reputations of those who either oppose the president and his policies within the party or Congress or those of us in the media who are attempting to provide basic non partisan guidance on what is going on while trying to uphold basic facts and decency.

The great discomfort here for Americans is we want our leaders to be credible. The great discomfort for journalists is that if a president declares war on truth, those who try to stand by truth and defend her are then labeled partisans, or biased.

We are not supposed to be fighters on the battlefield. We are not the opposition to President Trump, we are not the resistance.

We all are trying to figure out the way to cover this new world where fact and decency often seems to mean so little. And I do think that we as journalists need to defend truth and decency.

But I also think that too many journalists sometimes allow themselves to get swept up and we cannot have that, we cannot have a world where we act like the opposition. We in the 4th estate must rise to the occasion of this challenge. And by that I don’t only mean that we work harder than ever to avoid the kinds of mistakes that undermine our profession by avoiding stories that get key facts wrong, but that we also refrain from sharing every emotion the moment we experience it on twitter. And that we consider the low regard many members of the public have for us, and that we work hard to be fair to all points of view -- even the side whose members are attacking us and attempting to undermine us -- the policies they advocate, not the attacks.

And let me say a word about those attempts to undermine. Tom Friedman writes in his new book Thank You For Being Late about the advances of technology compared to the human ability to adapt to these changes. The chart of technology looks like this…..the chart of our ability to adapt to technology looks like this. We are way behind as a society where technology is -- i recently read that the average smartphone is millions of times more powerful than all of NASA’s combined computing in 1969

So what does that mean? It means that when your Uncle shared a website called the Denver Guardian -- and a story headlined “FBI Agent Suspected in Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead” -- and spreads the story using on Facebook -- he has no idea what’s going on. His sophistication is here on the chart. The technology is here.

I have seen US Senators and US Members of the House -- and I know no one would do this in your Parliament -- but members of the U.S. House and Senate have invoked websites I do not consider to be credible -- not just on the right but on the left. Recently after Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz of Utah announced he would be leaving Congress, Congresswoman Maxine Waters -- a Democrat of California recently lionized by the left -- went on MSNBC and said of him “There are those who think that he in some ways, have some connections to what is going on in the...Ukraine and perhaps in Russia itself, and knows something about all of this. I don’t really know. I can’t say, but he’s strange in the way that he’s conducting himself...Maybe [Chaffetz] thinks that if he rolls out and points to the fact that something is going on with Flynn ... that somehow this will raise [Chaffetz] above maybe what connections he may have with the Kremlin, we need to keep an eye on him.”

This is crazy; it’s madness. And to point out that this is going on on the Left is not to promote a false equivalence with the fact that it is going on at a much greater scale from a much larger platform on the right.

But lies are lies. Irresponsible fact-free speculation does not become less irresponsible because of a conspiracy peddler’s political affiliation or gender or anything else.

I did not become a journalist to be a fact-checker or a truth-squadder, i became a journalist to hold people in power accountable, to try to tell stories other journalists weren’t telling, and to try to have serious discussions about the way policies impact people’s lives. Probably why a lot of people in this room became journalists.

I did not become a journalist to become a meme or to watch a younger far better looking man portray me on Saturday Night Live, although thanks for that. But there is a lot of attention on us today as the fourth estate finds itself trying to stand up for basic standards of decency and truth.

And while it is important that we not take the bait and become the opposition that Trump and Bannon would like to cast us as -- thus de-legitimizing ourselves -- it is also important that we not sway the other direction. We cannot pretend that lies don’t need to be called out. We cannot shrug and talk about how a politician’s supporters don’t care about behavior that empirically is offensive. We cannot lower the standards that we as a society hold just for access to big name interviews. We have to be able to look our children in the eyes. We cannot not lower our standards because of attrition and exhaustion or because colleagues are making other decisions, or because Fox, Breitbart and online trolls will lie about us otherwise.

This is a time for all of us in the 4th estate and indeed all of us in North America s to stand up for what we know is right. Objectivity. Truth. Decency. Facts.

My late grandmother, Helen McDowell Palmatier, born 101 years ago in Winnipeg, was an expert on Sir Winston Churchill, so with your permission I would like to end these remarks by quoting him.

Churchill once said: “A free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny… Under dictatorship the press is bound to languish…But where free institutions are indigenous to the soil and men have the habit of liberty, the press will continue to be the Fourth Estate, the vigilant guardian of the rights of the ordinary citizen.”

Thank you for this honor.

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