"The World Is Better Than It Has Ever Been"

Twenty years ago, I was staunchly a member of Team Steve, and thought that members of Team Bill were evil, wicked, dishonest, thieves, and greedy, self-centered monopolists.  Much to my surprise, Bill and Melinda Gates have established a foundation to address many of the world's most pressing problems, and, because they are not government operated, they have had tremendous success.  I am publicly congratulating Bill and Melinda for their work to make the world a better place, and for their "Giving Project."  This letter should be mandatory reading for every American, especially for those pessimists who think the world is getting worse all the time.  Read this and read P.J. O'Rourke's new book, The Baby Boom, and go to bed happy because you are living at a time when the world is better off than it's ever been.

Introduction to the Annual Letter of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation:

"By almost any measure, the world is better than it has ever been. People are living longer, healthier lives. Many nations that were aid recipients are now self-sufficient. You might think that such striking progress would be widely celebrated, but in fact, Melinda and I are struck by how many people think the world is getting worse. The belief that the world can’t solve extreme poverty and disease isn’t just mistaken. It is harmful. That’s why in this year’s letter we take apart some of the myths that slow down the work. The next time you hear these myths, we hope you will do the same. 

- Bill Gates"

Read the entire letter

Fail Better

Congratulations to Stan Wawrinka for persevering and finally winning against Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open.  You can say you don't believe in affirmations or in visualization, but everyone is talking about Stan's "code."

This is what is tattooed on his left arm (right where he can see it at a glance):

                      "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail Better."

                                                                            Samuel Becket

It's Just Common Sense

If you pay attention to the posts that show up on Facebook and in other media, it seems there are three issues that beg for government attention, but that don't seem to get any.  First is gun violence, of course.  The second is the heroin epidemic.  And third, increasing income inequality.  And it's not for lack of solutions.  There are solutions that work - in other places.  This writer specifies one way to address the heroin problem, but so far, it's not widespread.  Is it that there is too much money in treating addicts as criminals?  What do you think?


To the Editor NYTimes:
Re “In Annual Speech, Vermont Governor Shifts Focus to Drug Abuse” (news article, Jan. 9):

Gov. Peter Shumlin’s State of the State Message about addiction brought deserved attention to this national public health crisis. We agree that greater access to treatment, instead of criminal penalties, will save lives and money.

The most effective treatment for opioid addiction entails the use of medications, specifically, methadone or buprenorphine. While New York City has many methadone programs and buprenorphine prescribers, medication-assisted treatment remains stigmatized and is still not at the scale needed.
Furthermore, because opioid painkillers most frequently originate with prescriptions, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s safe opioid prescribing guidelines help prescribers prevent new cases of addiction.

The crisis of opioid addiction and overdose is one we can address. Effective addiction treatment that is integrated into mainstream health care, along with policies that promote treatment and not punishment, can reverse the problem in New York City and across the country.

THOMAS FARLEY
New York, Jan. 17, 2014

The writer is the departing health commissioner for New York City.

Love those Beekman Boys!

A Contrarian's Non-Lessons for Life | Chicago Ideas Week

Drug Abuse is Bad; The Drug War is Worse

The Feds Have Failed; Help the States Instead

Glenn E. Martin

Recently, Attorney General Eric Holder announced major shifts in federal sentencing policy, including limiting the use of mandatory minimum sentencing for low level drug cases and allowing more drug cases to be processed in state courts. The federal government should go even further and get out of the business of drug law enforcement altogether. Instead they should provide incentives for states to focus sensible drug policies and scarce public safety resources on prevention and treatment.

Encourage states to focus drug policies and scarce public safety resources on prevention and treatment, not punishment.

After 40 years, $1 trillion and 45 million arrests, the United States remains embroiled in a war that costs more than all the rest combined: the drug war. With the federal government helping to set the pace, this decades-old war has failed practically, morally and economically, with drugs more widely available and inexpensive than ever before. Moreover, even though racial groups use drugs at approximately equal rates, black people are 10 times more likely to be sent to prison for drug offenses. Today, black Americans represent 56 percent of those incarcerated for drug crimes, even though they comprise only 13 percent of the U.S. population.

Yet, while even conservative states are increasingly adopting evidence-based approaches to drug addiction, with many trending away from incarceration and repealing mandatory minimums, the Obama administration recently requested $25.6 billion in federal spending for drug law enforcement. The result of this repeated investment in heavy-handed drug law enforcement is that over half of the federal prison population was already incarcerated for drug offenses in 2010, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Perhaps the rehabilitative outcomes justify the investment? No such luck! No other industry would continue to operate with the failure rate experienced by our Federal Bureau of Prisons, with 60 percent of people released returning to prison within three years. The bureau has produced these abysmal outcomes for decades, but has continued to operate without meaningful course correction and has even grown unabated.

Why? Because our federal domestic drug control policy, launched decades ago and heavily focused on law enforcement, continues to operate on full throttle, ignoring the mounting public health evidence that strongly recommends alternative approaches.

Getting the federal government out of the domestic drug law enforcement business is not a solution to our country’s addiction to mass incarceration, but it would signal a major shift in policy. It could also encourage states to continue to create more humane, cost-effective approaches to drug use, including reducing inflexible mandatory minimum penalties for drug offenses and giving judges discretion to avoid harsh sentences. 

*******************************************************************************
 NYTimes: The Gun Report January 10, 2014

NYTimes: The Weekend Gun Report January 10-12, 2014

NYTimes: The Gun Report January 14, 2014

American Parents Have Got It All Backwards

I watch my children's friends and see them systematically making sure that their own children will not be able to cope with life when they are adults.  These parents intervene in every little squabble so that little Tommy doesn't have to learn how to settle disagreements with another on his own.  I see them deciding what little Susie will order at the restaurant, never paying attention to the fact that in a few short years little Susie will have to decide what to prepare for dinner for her own family.  How is she ever going to learn anything about healthy eating if she never has to choose for herself?

Worse, I see the children of divorced parents being treated like little princes and given big, expensive bribes so that they won't like the other parent better.  Parents are no longer parents - they are just big, rich friends.

We all talk about helicopter Moms, but it's not just Moms.  It's a whole generation of parents who are raising their children to believe the world is a dangerous place, someone is always waiting to grab you if your Mom's not watching, and worse, that you (the child) can't be trusted to make decisions and take the consequences.   When every child gets a trophy, there is no motivation to work hard and win.  Imagine their surprise when they get a job and find out that someone actually expects them to do something!

I want to read Christine Gross-Loh's book on parenting.  I may end up giving it as Christmas presents to a few people.

Christine Gross-Loh

Author, Parenting Without Borders: Surprising Lessons Parents Around
the World Can Teach Us

Have American Parents Got It All Backwards?

The eager new mom offering her insouciant toddler an array of carefully arranged
healthy snacks from an ice cube tray?

That was me.

The always-on-top-of-her-child's-play parent intervening during play dates
at the first sign of discord?

That was me too.

We hold some basic truths as self-evident when it comes to good parenting.
Our job is to keep our children safe, enable them to fulfill their potential
and make sure they're healthy and happy and thriving.

The parent I used to be and the parent I am now both have the same goal:
to raise self-reliant, self-assured, successful children. But 12 years of
parenting, over five years of living on and off in Japan, two years of
research, investigative trips to Europe and Asia and dozens of interviews
with psychologists, child development experts, sociologists, educators,
administrators and parents in Japan, Korea, China, Finland, Germany,
Sweden, France, Spain, Brazil and elsewhere have taught me that though
parents around the world have the same goals, American parents like me
(despite our very best intentions) have gotten it all backwards.

Why?

We need to let 3-year-olds climb trees and 5-year-olds use
knives.

Imagine my surprise when I came across a kindergartener in the German
forest whittling away on a stick with a penknife. His teacher, Wolfgang,
lightheartedly dismissed my concern: "No one's ever lost a finger!"

Similarly, Brittany, an American mom, was stunned when she moved her
young family to Sweden and saw 3- and 4-year-olds with no adult
supervision bicycling down the street, climbing the roofs of playhouses and
scaling tall trees with no adult supervision. The first time she saw a 3-yearold
high up in a tree at preschool, she started searching for the teacher to
let her know. Then she saw another parent stop and chat with one of the
little tree occupants, completely unfazed. It was clear that no one but
Brittany was concerned.

"I think of myself as an open-minded parent," she confided to me, "and yet
here I was, wanting to tell a child to come down from a tree."

Why it's better: Ellen Hansen Sandseter, a Norwegian researcher at
Queen Maud University in Norway, has found in her research that the
relaxed approach to risk-taking and safety actually keeps our children safer
by honing their judgment about what they're capable of. Children are
drawn to the things we parents fear: high places, water, wandering far
away, dangerous sharp tools. Our instinct is to keep them safe by
childproofing their lives. But "the most important safety protection you can
give a child," Sandseter explained when we talked, "is to let them take...
risks."

Consider the facts to back up her assertion: Sweden, where children are
given this kind of ample freedom to explore (while at the same time
benefitting from comprehensive laws that protect their rights and safety),
has the lowest rates of child injury in the world.

Children can go hungry from time-to-time.

In Korea, eating is taught to children as a life skill and as in most cultures,
children are taught it is important to wait out their hunger until it is time
for the whole family to sit down together and eat. Koreans do not believe
it's healthy to graze or eat alone, and they don't tend to excuse bad behavior
(like I do) by blaming it on low blood sugar. Instead, children are taught
that food is best enjoyed as a shared experience. All children eat the same
things that adults do, just like they do in most countries in the world with
robust food cultures. (Ever wonder why ethnic restaurants don't have kids'
menus?). The result? Korean children are incredible eaters. They sit down
to tables filled with vegetables of all sorts, broiled fish, meats, spicy pickled
cabbage and healthy grains and soups at every meal.

Why it's better: In stark contrast to our growing child overweight/obesity
levels, South Koreans enjoy the lowest obesity rates in the developed world.
A closely similar-by-body index country in the world is Japan, where
parents have a similar approach to food.

Instead of keeping children satisfied, we need to fuel their
feelings of frustration.

The French, as well as many others, believe that routinely giving your child
a chance to feel frustration gives him a chance to practice the art of waiting
and developing self-control. Gilles, a French father of two young boys, told
me that frustrating kids is good for them because it teaches them the value
of delaying gratification and not always expecting (or worse, demanding)
that their needs be met right now.

Why it's better: Studies show that children who exhibit self-control and
the ability to delay gratification enjoy greater future success. Anecdotally,
we know that children who don't think they're the center of the universe are
a pleasure to be around. Alice Sedar, Ph.D., a former journalist for Le
Figaro and a professor of French Culture at Northeastern University,
agrees. "Living in a group is a skill," she declares, and it's one that the
French assiduously cultivate in their kids.

Children should spend less time in school.

Children in Finland go outside to play frequently all day long. "How can you
teach when the children are going outside every 45 minutes?" a recent
American Fulbright grant recipient in Finland, who was astonished by how
little time the Finns were spending in school, inquired curiously of a
teacher at one of the schools she visited. The teacher in turn was astonished
by the question. "I could not teach unless the children went outside every
45 minutes!"

The Finnish model of education includes a late start to academics (children
do not begin any formal academics until they are 7 years old), frequent
breaks for outdoor time, shorter school hours and more variety of classes
than in the US. Equity, not high achievement, is the guiding principle of the
Finnish education system.

While we in America preach the mantra of early intervention, shave time off
recess to teach more formal academics and cut funding to non-academic
subjects like art and music, Finnish educators emphasize that learning art,
music, home economics and life skills is essential.

Why it's better: American school children score in the middle of the heap
on international measures of achievement, especially in science and
mathematics. Finnish children, with their truncated time in school,
frequently rank among the best in the world.

Thou shalt spoil thy baby.

Tomo, a 10-year-old boy in our neighborhood in Japan, was incredibly
independent. He had walked to school on his own since he was 6 years old,
just like all Japanese 6-year-olds do. He always took meticulous care of his
belongings when he came to visit us, arranging his shoes just so when he
took them off, and he taught my son how to ride the city bus. Tomo was so
helpful and responsible that when he'd come over for dinner, he offered to
run out to fetch ingredients I needed, helped make the salad and stir-fried
noodles. Yet every night this competent, self-reliant child went home, took
his bath and fell asleep next to his aunt, who was helping raise him.

In Japan, where co-sleeping with babies and kids is common, people are
incredulous that there are countries where parents routinely put their
newborns to sleep in a separate room. The Japanese respond to their babies
immediately and hold them constantly.

While we think of this as spoiling, the Japanese think that when babies get
their needs met and are loved unconditionally as infants, they more easily
become independent and self-assured as they grow.

Why it's better: Meret Keller, a professor at UC Irvine, agrees that there
is an intriguing connection between co sleeping and independent behavior.
"Many people throw the word "independence" around without thinking
conceptually about what it actually means," she explained.

We're anxious for our babies to become independent and hurry them along,
starting with independent sleep, but Keller's research has found that cosleeping
children later became more independent and self-reliant than
solitary sleepers, dressing themselves or working out problems with their
playmates on their own.

Children need to feel obligated.

In America, as our kids become adolescents, we believe it's time to start
letting them go and giving them their freedom. We want to help them be
out in the world more and we don't want to burden them with family
responsibilities. In China, parents do the opposite: the older children get,
the more parents remind them of their obligations.

Eva Pomerantz of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign has found
through multiple studies that in China, the cultural ideal of not letting
adolescents go but of reminding them of their responsibility to the family
and the expectation that their hard work in school is one way to pay back a
little for all they have received, helps their motivation and their
achievement.

Even more surprising: She's found that the same holds for Western
students here in the US: adolescents who feel responsible to their families
tend to do better in school.

The lesson for us: if you want to help your adolescent do well in school
make them feel obligated.

I parent differently than I used to. I'm still an American mom -- we struggle
with all-day snacking, and the kids could use more practice being patient.
But 3-year-old Anna stands on a stool next to me in the kitchen using a
knife to cut apples. I am not even in earshot when 6-year-old Mia scales as
high in the beech in our yard as she feels comfortable. And I trust now that
my boys (Daniel, 10, and Benjamin, 12) learn as much out of school as they
do in the classroom.

Courageous Americans!

The Travis County Commissioners Court took a stand for background checks at the gun show being held at the county Expo center.  Hooray for them!  More actions like this at the local level will force action on the federal level.

Go to Facebook and look up Travis County, Texas and see the comments - many more in favor than against their actions.

Governor Stands Up To Heroin

MONTPELIER, Vt. — In a sign of how drastic the epidemic of drug addiction here has become, Gov. Peter Shumlin on Wednesday devoted his entire State of the State Message to what he said was “a full-blown heroin crisis” gripping Vermont.

“In every corner of our state, heroin and opiate drug addiction threatens us,” he said. He said he wanted to reframe the public debate to encourage officials to respond to addiction as a chronic disease, with treatment and support, rather than with only punishment and incarceration.

“The time has come for us to stop quietly averting our eyes from the growing heroin addiction in our front yards,” Governor Shumlin said, “while we fear and fight treatment facilities in our backyards.”

Last year, he said, nearly twice as many people here died from heroin overdoses as the year before. Since 2000, Vermont has seen an increase of more than 770 percent in treatment for opiate addictions, up to 4,300 people in 2012.

Addiction Blogs

Governor Shumlin, a Democrat now in his second term, used his State of the State Message last year to focus almost entirely on education. This year, he appears to be one of the first, if not the only, governor to use his message, all 34 minutes of it, to focus exclusively on drug addiction and detail its costs, in dollars and lives.  More about Peter Shumlin

Law enforcement officers were among those in the audience for Gov. Peter Shumlin’s address on Wednesday. He urged treating addiction as a disease needing treatment, not just punishment.

Such speeches mark the opening of a legislative session and traditionally feature some pomp and back-patting as governors lay out their broad agendas for the year to come. Here, the mood in the packed House chamber of the Statehouse was somber as lawmakers considered the scope of the drug problem.

While it may be acute in Vermont, it is not isolated. In the past few years, officials have reported a surge in the use of heroin in New England, with a sharp rise in overdoses and deaths, as well as robberies and other crimes common among addicts. Those same statistics are being replicated across the country. Lawmakers in virtually every state are introducing legislation in response to what is rapidly being perceived as a public health crisis.

“The Centers for Disease Control and most national experts agree there’s an epidemic of drug overdose deaths in America,” Dr. Harry L. Chen, Vermont’s health commissioner, said in an interview. He said the rate of overdose deaths across the country had tripled since 1990.  CDC Statistics on Drug Overdose

“Nationwide, more people die of drug overdoses than from motor vehicle crashes,” he said.
Dr. Chen said the highest rates of substance abuse were found in New England and the Northeast. No one really knows why, he said, except that the region is a wide-open market for dealers with easy access from New York, Boston and Philadelphia. Law enforcement can be spotty in the rural areas up here, and users are willing to pay top prices.

A $6 bag of heroin in New York City fetches $10 in southern New England and up to $30 or $40 in northern New England, law enforcement officials said. The dealer gets a tremendous profit margin, while the addict pays half of what he might have to pay for prescription painkillers, which have become harder to obtain.

Democrats, who control both houses of the Legislature, lauded the governor’s single-minded focus.  “He hit it absolutely right,” said Senator Richard Sears, chairman of the Judiciary Committee. “I’ve been dealing with addicted folks for years and have seen the increase in crime related to this addiction problem.”

Republicans were not impressed, saying that Governor Shumlin should have made room for other big issues confronting the state, especially problems with the rollout of its health care exchange.

She said that the governor’s proposal for what would be the nation’s first single-payer health insurance plan had also caused considerable confusion and controversy and that the speech was both “a missed opportunity” to address it and “a way to change the subject.”

Regardless, the picture Mr. Shumlin painted was grim. Every week, he said, more than $2 million worth of heroin and other opiates are trafficked into Vermont. And nearly 80 percent of inmates in the state are jailed on drug-related charges.

The governor made a plea for more money for treatment programs, noting that incarcerating a person for a week costs the state $1,120, while a week of treatment at a state-financed center costs $123. He asked for money to expand treatment centers, where more than 500 addicts are on waiting lists. He also called for rapid intervention programs so that addicts could be directed to treatment as soon as they see the blue lights flashing from police cars — supposedly the moment when they are most likely to accept help. To discourage high-volume dealers from coming into the state, he is seeking tougher laws.

Mr. Shumlin also wants to encourage discussions on ways to prevent addiction in the first place. He is providing a grant for an entourage from “The Hungry Heart” to visit every high school in the state.

The group will include Skip Gates of Skowhegan, Me., whose son Will, a science major at the University of Vermont and a ski racer, died of a heroin overdose in 2009. “I never knew any human being could feel this much pain,” Mr. Gates says in the movie of his son’s death. “It has redefined the rest of my life.”

Courage? You Want To See Courage?

My elder daughter works in a rehab hospital and primarily with head trauma patients.  She knows, clinically, what Gabby Giffords has been going through these past three years.  It isn't pretty.  It takes a tremendous amount of courage to keep working, to keep fighting, with the rewards are sometimes so terribly small.  It's too bad for our country that those we have elected to Congress don't have an ounce of the courage Gabby has.  Here is her statement today, the 3rd anniversary of the mass shooting in Tucson.

Three years ago today, a gunman walked up to one of my Congress on Your Corner events, shot me in the head, killed six of my constituents, and wounded twelve others.

I've spent the last three years learning how to talk again, how to walk again, and how to sign my name with my left hand. It's gritty, painful and frustrating work, every day. It's never easy because once you've mastered some movement or action, you move on to the next. There is no rest. Read more about head trauma caused by gunshot.

Along the way, I’ve learned that our campaign to change our gun laws has a lot in common with my difficult rehab.

Every day, we must wake up resolved and determined. We pay attention to the details, looking for opportunities for progress, even when the pace is slow. And every day we recruit a few more allies, talk to a few more people, and convince a few more voters. Some days it comes easy, and we feel the wind at our backs. Other times, we tire of the burden.  See Americans for Responsible Solutions

I know this feeling … but I know that we’ll persist.

The road is long and difficult, but I need to know that I can continue to count on you in this fight. Let me know at the link below that you're in for 2014, and tell me why changing our gun laws is important to you.

Since the shooting, eight days into the new year is when I mark my own new beginnings and make my annual resolutions.

One year ago today, Mark (husband, Mark Kelly) and I started Americans for Responsible Solutions and made it our mission to reduce gun violence in a way that was consistent with being gun owners ourselves.

This year, I resolve to draw strength from the Americans who have joined our fight, and cede no ground to those who would convince us the path is too steep, or we too weak.

Over the last few months, I have achieved something big that I’ve not spoken about until now. Countless hours of physical therapy - and the talents of the medical community - have brought me new movement in my right arm. It’s fractional progress, and it took a long time, but my arm moves when I tell it.

And maybe that’s what it will take to change our gun laws — determination, teamwork, and incremental progress.

But I know we’ll get there, and I am thankful we’re in it together.

Gabby Giffords

Gun Report for 1/7/2014

Gun Report for January 7th, 2014

If more citizens were armed, criminals would think twice about attacking them, Detroit Police Chief James Craig said in a press conference last week. 

Craig, who served in the L.A.P.D. for 28 years, attributes a lack of confidence in his police department to the likelihood that someone with a concealed weapons permit will open fire, The Detroit News reported.

Urban police chiefs are typically in favor of gun control, but Craig said he changed his mind. Five years ago, he became police chief of Portland, Maine, where many concealed weapons permits are granted. “Maine is one of the safest places in America. Clearly, suspects knew that good Americans were armed,” he concluded.

“Studies have shown more guns don’t deter crime,” argued Robyn Thomas, director of the the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in San Francisco. “The more guns in any situation, the higher the likelihood of them harming either the owner, or people who have access to them.”

But Craig is not alone. Some sheriffs associations across the country reject gun control, citing individual rights. But urban officers would like to be able to access gun trace data, something prevented by the Tiahrt Amendment.

Detroit police have reported 73 justifiable homicides in the city since 2011. Here is today’s report.

—Jennifer Mascia writing for the Joe Nocera blog

Read entire report to see your city and/or state

Cancel Your Subscription to Guns & Ammo!

On January 5th, I posted about the firing of Dick Metcalf for writing an article in Guns & Ammo suggesting that it is time for some reasonable limits on guns.  For expressing his opinion as a respected journalist, he lost his job.  Even though the firing of a respected journalist is worrisome, the fact that a magazine would abdicate their journalistic responsibility and refuse to take a stand for fair discourse is really scary.  How many other magazines are letting their advertisers have the final say over their content?  Now, the NY Times has published letters to the editor responding to the Metcalf story.  I have copied the first one, but there are others you can read by clicking on the link.  

To the Editor:

Re “Banished for Questioning the Gospel of Guns” (front page, Jan. 5):

I read Dick Metcalf’s column, “Let’s Talk Limits,” in Guns & Ammo magazine and found nothing to cause the extreme overreaction that has come his way.

A more constructive response would have been a well-reasoned rebuttal, but that’s the whole point here. What I find disturbing is that this is no longer a conversation between dissenting sides.

As a responsible gun owner, I have never seen so many of these activists claim that the government wants to take away their guns. Registration is not confiscation. Limiting certain types of guns to law enforcement and military use is common sense. Gun restrictions have been part of American law since the 1800s.

This tyranny of the gun is being driven by a vocal few, aided by publications that abdicate their journalistic responsibility to weapons manufacturers and refuse to take a stand for fear of loss of revenue.

The issue is not the gun but the owner. Even the most rabid gun enthusiast has to have nagging doubts about a gun in the hands of an unstable person. Clearly, the conversation about sensible gun laws will resume only when gun manufacturers take the lead and support the proper use and responsible ownership of their products.

MARTIN J. PERRY
Massapequa, N.Y., Jan. 6, 2014

More letters

I'll Show You My Brain If You'll Show Me Yours

If I could go back in time and decide on a career, I would be a neuroscientist.  I am fascinated with the brain and how every human being has the same basic brain structure, but think differently, behave differently, believe different things and actually are as unique as their fingerprints.  No other part of the body is capable of such variety - my femur works like your femur, my ears and yours hear the same music, our lungs breathe in oxygen and expel carbon dioxide.  But the brain?  Wow, can it ever be different from person to person.   I would love to have Dr. Deanna Barch's job! 

Myelin-coated nerve fibers are very important in connectivity. Areas in red and yellow have high myelin content; darker areas have lower content. M. F. Glasser and D.C. Van Essen for the WU-Minn HCP Consortium

Deanna Barch is a psychologist by training and inclination who has concentrated on neuroscience because of the desire to understand severe mental illness.  She and her colleagues are working on the first interactive wiring diagram of the living, working human brain.  She and the others working on the project hope that the data they gather will help us understand how disorders of connectivity, or disorders of wiring, contribute to or cause neurological problems and psychiatric problems.

The Human Connectome Project is one of a growing number of large, collaborative information-gathering efforts that signal a new level of excitement in neuroscience, as rapid technological advances seem to be bringing the dream of figuring out the human brain into the realm of reality.

Read Entire Article

"Food" for Thought

I have a 10-year old granddaughter.  She will be 36 in 2050, and probably will be wondering what to prepare for dinner for her husband and 1.8 kids.  (Or maybe her husband will be the one preparing the meal?)  In that year there will be 9 billion people on the planet - all of whom need to eat every day.  How are we going to feed that many people?  One of the ways is by creating foods, mainly grains, that are disease and pest resistant.  More info So far it hasn't increased yields to any significant degree, but we are in the early days.

But there is another school of thought that claims we can use technology and smarter growing methods to produce enough food for everyone without genetically modifying food.  They also suspect, and not without good reason, that GMO's are just another way of making us all dependent on "big Ag."

Impact on Health

Effect on Environment

Policy Questions

If you are even a little bit interested in environmental issues, you might enjoy this blog: Grist

This is the Country We Live In, Folks

I realize that InterMedia Outdoors, the company that publishes Guns & Ammo and co-produced Dick Metcalf's TV show, can censor anything they wish.  They have the right to determine what appears in their magazine.  But, in this case, it appears that the editors are not the ones determining the content for their readers, it is the gun lobby.  It's hard to believe that this is the country we live in.  A country espousing democracy, free speech, divergent opinions, and the right to express one's own opinion.  Dick Metcalf was simply trying to "work across the aisle" as we want our Congress members to do, and try to come to some sort of rational compromise on the issue of guns in America.  For that, he got fired.   

"The byline of Dick Metcalf, one of the country’s pre-eminent gun journalists, has gone missing. It has been removed from Guns & Ammo magazine, where his widely-read column once ran on the back page. He no longer stars on a popular television show about firearms. Gun companies have stopped flying him around the world and sending him the latest weapons to review.

In late October, Mr. Metcalf wrote a column that the magazine titled “Let’s Talk Limits,” which debated gun laws. “The fact is,” wrote Mr. Metcalf, who has taught history at Cornell and Yale, “all constitutional rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be.”

In the column that led to his dismissal, he said that too many gun owners believed that the constitution prohibits any regulation of firearms. He noted that all rights are regulated, like freedom of speech. “You cannot falsely and deliberately shout, ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater,” he wrote.

“The question is, when does regulation become infringement?” he continued. Mr. Metcalf ended the column arguing that requiring 16 hours of training to qualify for a concealed carry license was not an infringement."

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A Medal for Jennifer

I have to admire Jennifer Mascia who compiles and writes the Gun Report for the Joe Nocera blog in the New York Times.  Can you imagine how difficult it is to read about senseless killings day after day after day, and mentally accumulating all that fear, pain, and heartbreak.  She should get a Congressional Medal.  Here is her report for January 3, 2014.

Mass shootings have tripled in recent years, from five a year between 2000 and 2008 to 16 a year from 2009 to 2012, according to a new study obtained by Yahoo! News yesterday. The authors, who are from the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center at Texas State University, define mass shootings as incidents where a gunman opens fire in a public place with the motivation of killing many.

The report, which is set for release in an F.B.I. bulletin next week, also sheds some light on who is committing these shootings. Among the findings:

• 94 percent of the gunmen are men. The youngest was 13 and the oldest was 88.

• Shootings most often take place at businesses (40 percent), followed by schools (29 percent), and outdoors (19 percent).

• Despite the rapid police response time, nearly half the active shootings are over before officers arrive.

• The shootings claim, on average, two lives.

In response to the increased frequency of such events, the F.B.I. is changing protocol. Previously, police officers were instructed to wait for a SWAT team before apprehending active shooters. Now, the F.B.I. is instructing police how to respond themselves.

Here is today’s report.

—Jennifer Mascia

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You Can't Fix It If You'd Don't Know About It - Be Informed

This is the New York Times' Gun Report published on January 2, 2014.  I will just post the introduction and provide a link to the remainder of the report so that you can read the entire, sad, unbelievable report yourself.

Today we return from our holiday break. Here are some notable shootings that occurred while we were gone:

• A 2-month-old girl was shot and killed by a family member in East Lampeter Township, Pa., on Christmas Eve. No one was charged. She was the third child under the age of 2 to be killed in the area in 2013.

• A man in Colorado Springs, Colo., shot and killed his 14-year-old stepdaughter as she crawled into a basement window in the middle of the night, believing she was a burglar, on Dec. 23. No word on charges.

• A man, his wife and her two children, ages 10 and 12, were found dead in a murder-suicide in Fontana, Calif., on Dec. 31. The bodies were discovered by the woman’s 16-year-old son, who was concerned that he hadn’t heard from his mother.

• On Dec. 26, a man in Raceland, La., shot his former in-laws, his wife, and the head of a hospital where he’d worked before killing himself. Three of the victims died, including his wife.

• Xavier Hawkins, who was dressed as Santa Claus, was shot in the back with a pellet gun during a toy giveaway in southeast Washington, D.C., on Christmas Day. Hawkins led the annual gift giveaway for the last seven years.

• A 16-year-old girl was spared possibly fatal injuries after her glasses deflected a bullet that struck her in the face during a drive-by shooting in Seattle, Wash., on Dec. 21.

• A pregnant 17-year-old was fatally shot on in Dolton, Ill., on Christmas Eve. Doctors were able to save her baby.

• Dominique Romero, 19, was sitting on her sofa when an unknown gunman fired up to nine shots on the street outside her home in Richmond, Calif., paralyzing her. “My heart is broken,” her mother said. “I can’t imagine what my baby is going through.”

• Kayo Redd, the younger brother of the rapper Waka Flocka Flame, shot and killed himself near his home in Atlanta, Ga., on Dec. 29.

And on Dec. 26, Adam Weinstein of Gawker compiled a list of every mass shooting in 2013. The F.B.I. classifies mass murder as four fatalities, not including the killer. “The most obscene incidents of gun violence usually do not make the mainstream news at all,” someone posted on Reddit.

Here is today’s report.  Read More

Tell The Truth, Are You Drinking Too Much?

Cold Turkey Isn’t the Only Route

By GABRIELLE GLASER
Published: January 1, 2014 in the New York Times

This New Year’s, a good number of those who struggle to control their drinking will resolve to abstain from alcohol. No halfway measures. Quitting is the only way.

The cold-turkey approach is deeply rooted in the United States, embraced by doctors, the multibillion-dollar treatment industry and popular culture. For nearly 80 years, our approach to drinking problems has been inspired by the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Developed in the 1930s by men who were “chronic inebriates,” the A.A. program offers a single path to recovery: abstinence, surrendering one’s ego and accepting one’s “powerlessness” over alcohol.

But it’s not the only way to change your drinking habits.

Bankole Johnson, an alcohol researcher and consultant to pharmaceutical companies who is also the chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, puts it this way: “We are wedded to the abstinence model as the goal, despite evidence that there can be many successful outcomes.”

Because of the promise of anonymity, A.A. doesn’t track its members or conduct research. Some studies have found that many members find support for healthier habits from a like-minded group of nondrinkers. But a systematic review found “no conclusive evidence to show that A.A. can help patients to achieve abstinence.”

Research shows that many problem drinkers — those who repeatedly drink more than they intend, sometimes have physical or psychological consequences from overdrinking, and may have difficulty controlling themselves — could benefit from brief interventions and practical advice about how to set better limits and change their drinking by cutting back.

Women increasingly need help, as their drinking has escalated. Women are being stopped more for drunken driving than they were two decades ago. They’re also the biggest consumers of wine, buying the larger share of the 856 million gallons sold in the United States in 2012. These women are drinking partly because alcohol is a socially respectable way to slog through the smartphone-tethered universe of managing demanding careers, aging parents, kids’ activities and relationships at once. And while it’s not healthy to pour yourself a third or fourth glass every night, it doesn’t mean you’re powerless to do anything about it.

Elsewhere in the developed world, doctors treat drinking problems with evidence-based tools that best match the client’s needs. Many are prescribed drugs such as naltrexone, an opioid antagonist approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1994 to treat alcohol use disorders. It blocks the signals released when consuming alcohol.

American doctors typically prescribe drugs with the goal of abstinence. Yet in Finland, the American psychologist John David Sinclair pioneered a radically different protocol for naltrexone: he instructs patients to take the drug — which is available generically — an hour before drinking. Mr. Sinclair calls his method “pharmacological extinction.”

When people drink while taking naltrexone, the drug blocks the rewards produced by drinking and the cravings diminish. In published research, Mr. Sinclair has claimed a 78 percent success rate in reducing drinking. A drug similar to naltrexone, nalmefene, was recently approved in Europe to help heavy drinkers moderate their habits.

In reporting my book on women and drinking, I found that many women were successful in changing their drinking habits by using Moderation Management, a free nonprofit support group for nondependent problem drinkers who want to control their consumption. Using the techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy, M.M. encourages members to take “personal responsibility for choosing and maintaining their own path, whether moderation or abstinence.” It instructs drinkers to abstain for 30 days, reintroduce alcohol while evaluating the effects of drinking, and then stick within limits (for women, that’s nine drinks a week, no more than three on any day).

This approach isn’t for severely dependent drinkers, for whom abstinence might be best. But it’s been empirically shown to work for those on the more moderate end of the spectrum who outnumber dependent drinkers by about four to one — including the majority of women who drink too much. While the ratio of men to women in A.A. is roughly 2:1, that figure is reversed among users of an evidence-based Internet application at moderatedrinking.com. The website helps drinkers set limits, self-monitor while they’re drinking, get feedback on their progress and identify and manage triggers to overdrinking. Reid K. Hester, director of research at Behavior Therapy Associates, which designed the program, says heavy drinkers are more likely to be honest about their consumption when they know they won’t be reproached.

Few master these skills overnight, Mr. Hester says, but most learn healthier habits within six months. And mistakes can be lessons, not failures.

We don’t treat cancer, depression or asthma with the same tools we used in 1935. We need to get away from the one-size-fits-all approach to drinking problems.

Gabrielle Glaser is the author, most recently, of “Her Best-Kept Secret: Why Women Drink — and How They Can Regain Control.”

A Christmas Miracle!

Several years ago, a little calico cat showed up at our front door.  She was very, very shy and wanted nothing from us but food.  I began putting food out for her, and calling, "Come here, baby, baby!"  From wherever she was hiding, she came running.  During the coldest nights of the year, she would somehow manage to climb up on the roof of the house and cuddle down in the crevice above the front door where she was protected from the weather.

Months went by and she gradually got more approachable.  She let me pet her while she was eating, but she hissed every time she caught a glimpse of our two golden retrievers.  She didn't like our other cats, but she didn't fight with them either, probably because she knew she was too little to take on the bigger male cats.  When it became clear that she had adopted us, we caught her and took her to the discount "spay and neuter clinic" to make sure we didn't acquire a litter of kittens.  We were surprised when we went back to pick her up and the vet told us that when they did the procedure, they found that she had already been spayed.  Seems like someone at some time had thought enough to have her spayed, but just not enough to feed her!

A few months ago, my grandson decided to make her his cat.  He brought her in the house after the dogs were in our bedroom for the night and let her sleep on his bed.  Well . . . that changed her forever. Now she feels like she is part of the menagerie and is on her way to being a real domesticated kitty.

Today is Tuesday, and Sunday morning we found her splayed out on the garage floor, unable to stand, barely able to hold her head up.  Of course, we were dismayed and frantically trying to figure out what was wrong with her.  We googled, made phone calls, and examined her thoroughly.  No clue.  We decided that if she lived through the night, I would take her to the vet Monday morning. She still had an appetite, and seemed alert even though she couldn't control her body.

Monday at 9:00 a.m. I called the vet and made an appointment.  They couldn't get her in until 4:00 that afternoon.  I called my friend in California who has owned cats for 50 years and asked her what her thoughts were.  She said it could be a kidney problem.  I got off the phone and went to get Baby from her box.  I prepared some cat food for her and sat on the couch with her and the food.  She didn't seem interested.  I put the food dish on the floor and put her down next to it.  Suddenly, she stood up and walked drunkenly away from me.  I went over to the sink to get her some water, and when I turned around she was gone.  I went down the hallway toward my daughter's room and lo and behold! there was Baby back up on Kathy's bed.  She had walked from the kitchen to the bedroom and jumped up on the bed.  I couldn't believe it.

She has proceeded to get stronger and less wobbly today, and we are beginning to think she must have had a seizure.

The real point of this post, however, isn't that Baby miraculously recovered.  It is that I am not sure what we would have done had we taken her to the vet.  The bill would have been some where between $200 and $500 depending on what they said they needed to do.  Now, I love this little cat, but, seriously, how can vets expect people to spend that much on a stray that they just fed out of compassion?  I am just happy that she recovered on her own, and I hope it doesn't happen again.

Banning Assault Weapons is Not Unconstitutional Judge Says

If you don't feel safe in your home state, you might want to consider moving to New York.  A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that New York's strict new gun laws were constitutional.

The judge, William M. Skretny of Federal District Court in Buffalo, said bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines were legally sound because they served to "further the state's important interest in public safety."  This is an argument that I thought should have been made long ago.  Who can honestly say that protecting 6-year-olds is not a public safety issue?

The judge further explained that the gun law only affected a subset of firearms which New York State has determined to be particularly dangerous and not necessary for self-defense; it does not totally disarm the state's citizens; and it does not meaningfully jeopardize their right to self-defense.

No doubt the ruling will be appealed, and will probably end up in the Supreme Court.

If you want to read the entire article,click here.

Is American Culture to Blame for Failing Schools?

December 18, 2013

Is American Culture to Blame for Failing Schools?

By DAVID FIRESTONE


“Americans do not support an egalitarian society.”

That was the response of one reader, Jay David of New Mexico, to the final editorial in our series on science and math education, and in many ways it summed up the bitterness that many others expressed when the American school system was compared to those of other countries.

The editorial looked at some of the reasons students in Finland, Canada and Shanghai do much better in science and math than American students, and concluded that those places care more about preparing teachers and elevating the cultural position of education, while ensuring that more resources go to the neediest schools. In this country, teachers are poorly paid, poorly prepared and generally disdained, while the richest schools and students get by far the most money.

Scores of readers blamed that disparity on this country’s more libertarian culture, and on an outlook toward learning that if not overtly anti-intellectual is at least non-intellectual.

“Canadians’ acceptance and indeed pride in their more egalitarian society contrast with Americans’ acceptance of having an underclass,” wrote Blair P., of Palm Desert, Calif. “It’s an Ayn Rand philosophy.”

Several of the biggest Canadian provinces distribute school funds far more equitably than American states, which tend to let school districts fend for themselves based on the wealth of their property-tax base (or lack of it). Equity is a “laughable” idea in a country that lets low-income cancer victims die, wrote Jonathan Broder of New York, and Republicans “would never in a million years allow this type of socialist funds distribution system.”

Allan Dobbins, of Birmingham, Ala., said that he attended a small public high school in a poor working-class Canadian town in the 1970s where there were no frills but solid math, science, and language courses. The school produced a number of Ph.D.’s and physicians. “I believe the situation is quite different in the U.S. and in particular here in the South,” he wrote, “where the broad distribution of funding and quality means some schools have unqualified math and science teachers, or no physics courses at all.”
As Paul Karrer, of Monterey, Calif., put it: “Canada has the gentle hand of government guiding it. The citizens accept and want government. They have a general view of ‘we.’ Not so in the USA.”

The Finnish tradition of strong preparation and respect for teachers was similarly admired by many commenters, who nonetheless remain convinced it cannot be duplicated here.

“Show me a profession that has been vilified more than teaching in the US,” wrote Peter S. of Portland, Ore. “Real-estate agents and used-car dealers have more status and make more money.” He added: “Our best minds in the US go into hedge funds and high finance, where they figure out how de-fund education. No wonder our schools are places no one wants to be.”

David Meyerholz of Virginia Beach, who has taught in a public high school for 33 years, blamed a culture that doesn’t encourage students to strive for knowledge. “We have never been a nation of highly educated people,” he said. “Just because the modern world dictates that we now have to be, doesn’t mean it will happen unless we swim upstream against a current of dumb popular culture.”

Caring about teaching is expensive, but much more than money is involved. Too many lawmakers regard teachers as “a drag on public finances,” as Ole Holsti of Salt Lake City put it, or resent that many are unionized, or disagree even with the idea of a liberal education. The pessimistic tone of many of the comments suggested that few believe the situation is likely to change anytime soon.

“Our backwards system of ‘local’ control and insistence on short-term thinking like keeping costs down will work against this for some time in actual hiring practices,” wrote Tina B. of St. Petersburg, Fla. “It will take at least another generation to make a difference. But it would be worth it.”