Problems? Call Mrs. Hulk!

I have a friend who is convinced that the United States is heading down the road to ruin because of all the kids in daycare.  She thinks that if we returned to the "good old days" when Mom stayed home, Dad went to work all day, and the kids didn't watch TV or play video games, then all would be swell again.  Well, according to this recent study, more Moms are staying at home, so we will soon see if that fixes everything.  

http://nyti.ms/1hqcxrx

Let me know what YOU think -

The Drug Cartels Make as Much Money as Microsoft

I just love TED talks!  I have learned so much from them.  Here is one that will truly open your eyes to the problem of illegal drugs in the U.S. and how little our government is doing to stop the flow from Mexico.  Instead of locking up 18 year olds for using, why not attack this enemy just as we would any other business organization that was operating illegally in our country?

Antidote now available

The FDA has approved a device that automatically injects the right dose of an overdose antidote named naloxone.  16,000 people die every year of opioid-related overdoses, and the drug overdoses are now THE LEADING CAUSE OF INJURY DEATH IN THE UNITED STATES SURPASSING MOTOR VEHICLE CRASHES.

Only 17 and He Has Life Figured Out

Silas Shot Will? OMG, Sunday Will Never Be The Same

This is an OP-ED piece by Delia Ephron.  It makes me feel good that someone like Delia likes the same TV show I do, and that she deems it worth writing about.

Spoiler alert: If you are a fan of “The Good Wife” and haven’t watched the last episode, please read something else.

Will Gardner died last Sunday. I was so upset I couldn’t sleep, took half a Valium at 3 a.m., overslept, took the wrong subway the next morning and ended up in Herald Square.

Will Gardner, Alicia Florrick’s former lover and adversary on the CBS series “The Good Wife,” got gunned down when his client (played by Hunter Parrish who played elder son, Silas on “Weeds”) went berserk in a courtroom. Now fans know that what they have been waiting for will never happen. Will and Alicia will never have sex again. Will and Alicia had the best chemistry on television. They were hot. In spite of cable TV’s breaking sexual taboos, it’s still rare to find characters with chemistry. For the last two seasons, however, Will and Alicia had sex only in flashback. And then briefly.
That only made me want it for them more.

For those of you who haven’t encountered this show, now in its fifth season, Alicia is a lawyer, the wife of a politician who slept with prostitutes, the mother of two teenagers. She is smart, cool (as in collected), beautiful but not in an intimidating or depressing way. Her hair does not have extensions. She is a normal-size person. You don’t look at her and think she hasn’t had a carb since 2002 or spends three hours a day at Bikram yoga. She is not bipolar like Carrie Mathison. She is not a pill addict like Nurse Jackie.

Nevertheless she has done some really stupid things.

Most important, she gave up sex with Will Gardner because she’s a mother. I can’t explain it any better than that. Apparently to the creators of the show, this made sense, that motherhood was incompatible with wild sex. (Take it from me, sometimes it is when your children are under the age of 3, but Alicia's kids are teenagers.  Well, maybe having two teenagers might put you off sex, too.)  If memory serves, it was Season 3, and she even threw out her black lace underwear. This upset me in the way that I get upset by stupid moves on favorite TV shows, as if a close friend had stabbed me. Alicia never dated anyone else afterward and no one has ever tried to fix her up. Instead, after giving up sex and Will, she went back to Mr. Big. Truthfully I so resent her husband that I simply think of him as someone who belongs to another show. Occasionally she has sex with him. I’m sure I speak for many viewers when I say I wish she didn’t. (my comment: they have 0 chemistry).

Michelle and Robert King, the show’s creators, posted a note to fans, assuring us that Will Gardner may be dead, but Josh Charles, who plays him, “is very much alive and remains an integral part of our family.” Thank you. I may be obsessed with the show, but I do know the difference between a fictional character and a real person. Josh Charles wants to “move on to other creative endeavors,” they say. He wants to direct, for instance. Who doesn’t? I’m sure if my dog could speak, she would say she wants to direct.

Characters often die because actors want to move on. Personally I think it is extremely selfish of Josh Charles to move on. I don’t understand why he doesn’t care about me. About my lying propped up in bed every Sunday evening wanting to spend time with him, wishing that one day he and Alicia would get it on one more time. That she will finally get rid of her husband. That, as imperfect as they are, she and Will finally realize they belong together. Doesn’t he know that a great show isn’t just something you watch? There is ritual, expectations built up over years. Love.

Alicia, based on Silda Spitzer, the ex-wife of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, represents all the wronged political spouses, including, of course, Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin. After these women were publicly humiliated, Huma could keep herself busy with a job at the State Department and Hillary went on to be a United States senator. Ms. Spitzer became a principal at NewWorld Capital Group, a firm that invests in environmental initiatives. Like Alicia, they had great jobs. But did they have great sex? Great sex with men who haven’t wronged them? That’s a fantasy I want to buy into. That’s why I kept watching “The Good Wife.”

When Matthew Crawley’s car crashed on “Downton Abbey,” I didn’t care. He and Lady Mary together were as dry as toast. (But Matthew was the only character I deemed worth watching, so now I don’t.)  When they killed off Nicholas Brody on “Homeland,” I was glad, because he and Carrie had zero chemistry. Besides, that show had jumped the shark. “The Good Wife” has never jumped the shark. Even killing Will didn’t jump the shark. It only dashed my dreams and broke my heart.

Delia Ephron is the author, most recently, of “Sister Mother Husband Dog (etc.),” a memoir.

But then I read that Josh Charles, in real life, had just married and wants to start a family, so he probably figured that when his kids are toddlers and he and his wife are exhausted, Will won't be up for "wild sex" either.  Oh, well.

Have You Been "Hustled?"

Here are the Oscar picks from the New York Times, and My Choices for some of them.  


Best Picture: ‘12 Years a Slave’

Contender: ‘Gravity’

For the first time in years, even the most seasoned awards watchers are sweating the best-picture race, an unusually tight contest that could end with either Alfonso Cuarón’s space epic, “Gravity,” or Steve McQueen’s period drama, “12 Years a Slave,” as the big winner. Fans of “Gravity” — and there are many — praise its cinematic vision; detractors (plenty of those, too) lampoon its script. “12 Years a Slave” has the weight of history on its side, and lauded performances by its cast, as well as the industry sense that it feels like a movie that the Oscars should reward. But the Academy has rejected hefty biopics before — recall “Lincoln” last year — and many actors, its largest voting bloc, also fell hard for“American Hustle,” the third pony in this race (and the one with the best hair). Will that film, and the six other contenders, each with fervent fans, divide the field? Though the Academy won’t release the tally, in the end the win could come down to an unglamorous, and perhaps unimpassioned, quirk of its complicated preferential balloting system, inching “12 Years a Slave” to a coronation.

My Choice: Her

Academy Awards have been given to films illuminating history, foreseeing the future, and revealing the present in all its human frailty and heroism.  But the film, "Her," is an inventive look at the future as if it is the present.  The idea is truly imaginative, and yet, you barely have to use your imagination to identify with the characters or the plot.  All the actors are amazing, but Scarlett Johannson deserves a nomination even thought we never see her on screen.  This film requires that we stretch our notions about what criteria we use to award prizes to those who bring films to us.  I would have liked to see more attention paid to this ground-breaking film by Spike Jonze and his collaborators.

Best Director: Alfonso Cuarón, ‘Gravity’

Contender: Steve McQueen, ‘12 Years a Slave’ 

My Choice: Spike Jonze

Wouldn't it be nice if Steve McQueen had been nominated for something that was not a "black" issue?  And what if the NY Times writer didn't even mention that McQueen would be the first black director to win?  That's when we will be able to say the Academy is color blind.  And, though I admire the skill it took to make "Gravity," I feel that the award for best director should go to someone who can pull performances out of actors that they, and we, had no idea they had in them.  Working with real-life humans is more difficult that any difficult technological effect.

After Alfonso Cuarón won the top honor from his peers in the Directors Guild of America, the Oscar is his to lose. But he won’t: His four-and-a-half-year odyssey to make “Gravity,” a feat of groundbreaking technical and visual storytelling, had many other filmmakers, even those skilled in effects work, asking, “How’d he do that?” Their votes of confidence, along with the support of other technically minded factions, will be more than enough to put him over the top.

Steve McQueen would make history, if the Academy rewarded him, as the first black director to win this prize. (Only two others, John Singleton and Lee Daniels, have even been nominated.) Mr. McQueen’s “12 Years a Slave” has its fans, but a best picture-best director split (with “12 Years a Slave” getting the big prize) is more likely. And the Academy could still make history if the Mexican-born Mr. Cuarón makes the trip to the stage.

Best Actor: Matthew McConaughey, “Dallas Buyers Club”

Contender: Leonardo DiCaprio, “The Wolf of Wall Street”

My Choice: Tom Hanks

I am a sucker for "based on a true story" movies, and Captain Phillips was riveting.  Tom Hanks is like Meryl Streep - can do anything anyone asks of him, but he showed me what that man thought, what he felt, his fear, his concern for his men and his ship, and his compassion for those Somali pirates.  I know that the actors in "Dallas Buyers Club" did a great job, but we don't give awards to people who are able to lose weight except on "The Biggest Loser."  I must admit that as of this writing I haven't seen "Dallas," but my daughter says it's amazing.  Still, I think it would be a toss-up.

Matthew McConaughey lost 40 pounds to play an AIDS patient in “Dallas Buyers Club,” but it was his career transformation, from rom-com pretty boy to versatile dramatic actor, that really stunned. In the last year he’s turned in one stellar performance after another — in the indie “Mud,” as the memorably vocalizing trader in “The Wolf of Wall Street” and, not incidentally, in the HBO series “True Detective.” Hollywood, the Academy — everyone, really — loves a showcase for reinvention. It’s his year, all right (all right, all right).

Leonardo DiCaprio has been working hard to charm Academy voters, too. “Wolf” divided viewers, but nearly everyone agreed that Mr. DiCaprio’s showy acting was a standout. Alas, there’s already a heartthrob-turned-thespian in the running this year.

Best Actress: Cate Blanchett, “Blue Jasmine”

Contender: Amy Adams, “American Hustle”

My Choice: Scarlett Johannsen

In "Her" Scarlett portrays a being that we have yet to meet - an iOS intelligence that is capable of responding to its owner in such a human way as to make us all believe "she" is really human.  I saw "Blue Jasmine," and, as usual, I found I couldn't relate to any of those characters.  I just can't imagine the people Woody Allen knows, because I have yet to meet another human who bears any resemblance to any of his characters.  I always thought that was one of the prime criteria for making judgments about the worth and value of any film - are the characters believable?  Well, not if you are Mr. Allen.  He gets away with stuff that no other director could.  So, how do you judge an Academy Award performance? Is it Oscar-worthy if the film has no other redeeming qualities?  How about an award for an actress who delivers an outstanding performance in a movie that is also nominated for Best Picture?  Hmmm?

In “Blue Jasmine,” Cate Blanchett offers a bravura portrait of a meltdown, in the form of a wealthy socialite brought low by her philandering husband’s financial fraud. Every close-up and throwaway line is a master class in acting, and she’s been the front-runner from the start, recent news concerning the film’s writer-director, Woody Allen, notwithstanding.

Sandra Bullock is the undisputable center of attention in “Gravity” — except for all those glorious shots of outer space — but she won her leading-lady Oscar only a few years ago. So her contender spot goes to the perennial nominee Amy Adams, as the multiaccented grifter with the plunging necklines in “American Hustle.” But Ms. Adams will probably have to wait for another year, or another David O. Russell film, to take home the golden guy.

Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto, “Dallas Buyers Club”

Contender: Barkhad Abdi, “Captain Phillips”

My Choice:  Might have to go along with this one.  Barkhad was great, great, great, but since I haven't seen "Dallas" I can't compare.  

Jared Leto’s narrative is some combination of ingénue and turnaround-veteran. After a nearly six-year absence from the screen, he returned to play a transgender AIDS patient in “Dallas Buyers Club,” which required him to lose weight and tackle sensitive issues like homophobia. He did it deftly, judging by all the precursor awards he’s racked up.

Barkhad Abdi is a true newcomer, earning his role as a Somali pirate in “Captain Phillips” in an open casting call in Minneapolis. But though he held his own against Tom Hanks and delivered one of the last year’s few memorable movie lines (“I am the captain now”), his momentum will probably not match Mr. Leto’s.

Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, “American Hustle”

Contender: Lupita Nyong’o, “12 Years a Slave”

My Choice:  Lupita - Jen was amazing, as always, but she won last year and the Academy doesn't usually award the same contender two years running.

An extremely tight race. The Academy can’t resist an ingénue, perhaps even two years running. As the frantically emotional and frankly funny wife with the bouncing updo in “American Hustle,” Jennifer Lawrence — a previous season’s ingénue — received near-universal praise, but she just won an Oscar last year, for another David O. Russell movie.

Ms. Nyong’o, making her feature debut in “12 Years a Slave” straight out of drama school, fits this season’s bill perfectly. Her off-screen glamour is a testament to her skill in playing the traumatized slave Patsey, and it might be the only way voters get to reward the finely tuned performances in this Steve McQueen drama.

Will that be enough to beat the national darling JLaw? With “The Hunger Games” franchise, she was 2013’s box office champ; that could be prize enough. Or not — and she could make history as the first 23-year-old double-Oscar-winning blockbuster star.

Best Animated Feature: “Frozen”

Contender: “The Wind Rises

My Choice:  Super movie with an unexpected, but most welcome, ending.  Every family needs to see this movie.  But, please, there are enough You Tube videos of 4-year-olds squeaking out "Let It Go."

This is as sure a lock as there will be on Oscar night. The Disney musical “Frozen,” about the thawing love between two princess sisters, has been a global blockbuster (nearly $1 billion earned) whose momentum shows no signs of slowing. The soundtrack is a hit, too, as is its anthem, “Let It Go.” A few of the Academy’s artier members may vote for “The Wind Rises,” perhaps the last film from the Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki, but the onslaught will be for “Frozen.”

Follow Up on Do You Really Need a Mammogram

By MARIE MYUNG-OK LEEFEB. 14, 2014

I HAVE never had a mammogram. I’m almost 50 — nearly a decade into the age when the screening is recommended by the American Cancer Society. I’m college educated, adequately insured. And I am the bane of my health care providers. Once, my midwife went so far as to request that I never speak of my decision in any space where other patients might hear.

This week, I was vindicated. On Tuesday, a Canadian study, one of the largest ever done on mammograms, was published in the British Medical Journal. The study found that mammograms did not reduce breast cancerdeaths in women around my age compared to physical exams, and that one in five women screened was overdiagnosed, possibly leading to unnecessary surgery or radiation.

It seems astonishing, but it reinforced what smaller studies had told me, as someone with no family history of breast cancer: that getting a mammogram was unlikely to affect my chances of dying from the disease. What it would do is increase the probability of my mistakenly becoming a breast-cancer patient.

When I was in my late 30s, my midwife suggested I get a baseline mammogram, followed by annual screenings. I was ready to do it. I assumed my research into it would be mere due diligence.

This kind of research was a new habit of mine, born of necessity. When our son was 18 months old, he developed a devastating tumor on his spinal cord. We waited for the doctors to tell us what to do, but the diagnoses and suggestions were scattered — it’s cancer, it’s not cancer, it’s half cancerous, we need radiation, we don’t need radiation, it’s life-threatening, it’s benign. We opted for surgery, and it was deemed a success. Doctors waved us out of the hospital with balloons. But a few weeks later, we were urgently summoned back. The oncologists had decided that he needed another operation to make sure they had removed all of the tumor.

It made me realize that, despite the surety with which the medical professionals had presented things, it was all a best guess based on the available information. So I started doing my own research, to try to make the best decisions for our baby. I soon began to wonder why I didn’t study my own health care decisions as thoroughly as I did his.

So I started looking into mammograms. The more I found, the more I doubted. I was stunned by a 2001 Cochrane review — considered to be the gold standard for evidence-based studies — that concluded, “The currently available reliable evidence has not shown a survival benefit of mass screening for breast cancer.” Everywhere, I saw pink ribbons and the message that mammograms save lives. But no matter how many times I read the numbers, I wasn’t convinced that I should get one.

Over the years, my choice has spurred concern from health care practitioners as well as the person who is most worried about my health: my mother, who, in her 80s, is still a religious mammogrammer. She has described how nerve-racking the post-procedure waiting room is — you shiver in the cooled air until you’re sent home or get the ominous “The doctor needs to talk to you.” One day a few years ago, she was the one called to stay. They had found something “suspicious,” and she felt her world falling apart.

When my mother told me this, the first thing I thought of was the high rates of over- and misdiagnoses, and I told her so. But she still spent over a month in a panic — waiting for the follow-up, which then was somehow done incorrectly and had to be repeated one more time. Finally, multiple painful mammograms later, they concluded it had all been a mistake. And oddly, the false urgency has continued: She has been getting notices reminding her to make an appointment for another mammogram in six months because she is now “high-risk.”

Patients want reassurances. We feel we have to test, so we can find out if we’re sick. We rarely consider that the test itself might make us sick — perhaps through repeated exposure to radiation — or that there are health advantages for the nontester like me, who gains time, sheds stress and potentially dodges the harm of a false positive or unnecessary treatment.

This isn’t the answer for everyone. But as parents and patients, we have no choice but to try to become conversant in medicine, even if it makes some doctors bristle. Our medical experts are an invaluable resource, but in the end, it’s up to each of us how we want to proceed.

I now have a new primary care physician who still refers me to the mammography center, but when he hands me the slip, he smiles and says, “But I suspect you won’t do it,” and I get the feeling he respects my reasons. I wonder if, some day in the not too distant future, he’ll say, “This test actually seems to have more risks than rewards,” and stop handing out that slip at all.

Another excellent article found here:

You Can't Have It Both Ways - Oh, Wait, Yes You Can!

Josh Horwitz makes a good point that the "good guys" with guns want to keep the "bad guys" from having guns.  Which are you?  A good guy or a bad guy?  

And I wonder what would happen if one of these guys who thinks it's OK to hit your wife was suddenly face-to-face with the gun held by said wife who was saying, "I'm Standing My Ground, you hypocritical bastard!"

Josh Horwitz in The Huffington Post

The Double Standard of the Pro-Gun Movement

They hit you? Grin and bear it. You hit them? Prepare to die.

It was National Rifle Association (NRA) CEO Wayne LaPierre who famously intoned that "the guys with the guns make the rules" during the 2009 Conservative Political Action Conference. I don't think I had ever fully understood the sheer arrogance and hypocrisy behind this belief, however, until pro-gun activists brought it into sharp relief for me recently.

Late last month, the president of the radical pro-gun group Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL), Philip Van Cleave, made headlines when he told a WVTF reporter on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day that slapping around your wife was no big deal. Van Cleave was commenting on a bill, SB 510, that would prohibit individuals convicted of stalking, sexual battery, or assault/battery of a family member from possessing firearms for a period of five years following their convictions. "A slap?" Van Cleave asked reporter Sandy Hausman. "That's not a violent thing!" Van Cleave later reiterated this opinion during testimony before the Virginia Senate's Courts of Justice Committee. When asked by Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw, "So you think that if you go out and you slap your wife around and all it is is a misdemeanor [conviction], you shouldn't lose your weapon after that. Is that what you're telling me?" "Correct,"responded Van Cleave.

A couple days later, pro-gun activists on Twitter reminded us that George Zimmerman did the right thing by killing unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin because he was (theoretically) being punched at the time. So we decided to put a question to them:

"Do you think the punishment for punching someone should be death?"

"If you attack someone, you deal with what they choose to make you deal with," answered pro-gun activist Jordan of Atlanta, Georgia. "Yes."

"Yes I do!" replied pro-gun activist Dale Shroud of Boise, Idaho. "A punch hard enough in the head CAN KILL YOU ! I will STAND MY GROUND."

Hold on a second, I thought. Let me get this straight... It's OK for pro-gun activists to slap their wives around without losing their rights to own and purchase firearms, but if someone punches them, they have a right to execute that person on the spot -- no judge, no jury, no due process under the law?

What a sickening double-standard that is.

And lest you think it's merely a matter of a few isolated pro-gun activists engaging in such hypocrisy, let me assure you that that's not the case. The NRA practices what it preaches when it comes to its "the guys with the guns make the rules" philosophy. It was NRA Board Member and Congressman Don Young (R-AK) who took the lead in attempting to repeal the 1996 Lautenberg Amendment, which prohibits those convicted of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence from owning and purchasing firearms. And who can forget these two classic quotes from NRA Board Member Wayne Anthony Ross: "If a guy can't rape his wife...who's he gonna rape?" and "There wouldn't be an issue with domestic violence if women would learn to keep their mouth shut." Finally, the NRA described the protections codified under "Stand Your Ground" laws as a "fundamental human right" after Zimmerman was acquitted of murder charges.

The opinion of the pro-gun movement seems to be that the guy with the gun is always right, no matter what the facts of the case are; that gun possession makes you a super-citizen with enhanced rights to take life, avoid prosecution, and use lethal force in response to non-lethal force. Somehow, gun ownership increases your judgment and makes you smarter than other citizens.

But here's the reality. There are some really smart gun owners with excellent judgment who don't display their weapons in a prideful and dangerous manner, and there are also some slow-witted gun owners with terrible judgment who want to show off that they have the power to put you six feet under (think Michael David Dunn). The reason we need meaningful firearms regulation is not to stop truly law-abiding people with excellent judgment from getting guns, but rather to stop the reckless, dangerous individuals that exist in every society. The mere fact that you own a gun does not make you a "Good Guy." A good guy is someone who by measure of skill and temperament has been weeded out from the bad guys. That title is earned, not given.

I am not pointing out the pro-gun movement's double standard regarding the use of force merely to play a game of "gotcha." I am highlighting their hypocrisy because it has lethal consequences. The pro-gun movement is teaching young Americans that it is morally virtuous to shoot and kill someone who punches you. Is that really a message we want to be sending in an era of school shootings? One landmark study of school shootings found, "Almost three-quarters of [school shooters] felt persecuted, bullied, threatened, attacked or injured by others prior to the incident. In several cases, individual attackers had experienced bullying and harassment that was long-standing and severe." There are legitimate avenues to address this problem, but telling bullied kids that they are justified in opening fire? That's a recipe for disaster.

I am haunted by a quote from Sandy Hook Elementary shooter Adam Lanza that was recently unearthed by author Matthew Lysiak. Posting at the website Shocked Beyond Belief just a year before the shooting, Lanza wrote:

It goes without saying that an AK-47 and enough ammunition could do more good than a thousand "teachers," if one is truly interested in reforming the system. In short time the children will be brainwashed, pumped full of Xanax and told to conform, until they have been turned into the oppressors.

A clearer declaration of "the guys with the guns make the rules" has never been heard. It should be a wake-up call to all of us -- including gun owners -- to champion non-violent solutions to conflicts, rather than the use of deadly force. The preservation of human life should always be our highest priority in settling disputes, both personal and political.

Do You Really Need a Mammogram?

There are a number of news articles today that merit your time.  The first is an opinion piece from the NY Times by Charles Blow, who says, "the dreadful monotony and morbidity of the gun control discussion in this country has left me dispirited."  That's how I feel.  Read the entire article here:  

The second is an article by the editorial board of the NY Times, discussing the out-of-date practice of not allowing anyone who has commited a felony to vote ever again in their whole life.  Attorney General Eric Holder says this is a ridiculous plot devised years ago to keep newly freed blacks from voting.  Arizona was not a slave state during the Civil War, yet the laws here prevent any young person who makes a bad decision (and a lot of them do!) but serves his time, pays his fines, and does what is required of him, doesn't get reinstated to his pre-conviction status.  The Attorney General is urging legislatures to change these outdated laws and allow every citizen who has paid his debt to society to again be allowed to participate in this most basic privilege.  Here is the entire article. 

The longer I live the more studies show that a lot of previous studies turn out to be wrong.  I remember when doctors encouraged every menopausal woman to use "hormone replacement therapy."  I, too, tried it for a little while, but then I thought it through and came to the conclusion that Mother Nature probably knew what she was doing.  Females are meant to stop having babies when their bodies are growing old and not as capable of recovering from a pregnancy, or when biologically speaking they are approaching the end of life.  So, believing that millions of years on this planet counted for more than a few years of studies by people who were making millions of dollars on selling this idea, I stopped.  And guess what?  Soon thereafter, the longitudinal studies began to show the harmful side of HRT.  More cancer, more heart problems.  Now a recent study is claiming that all these millions of mammograms aren't having any effect on the mortality rate of women with cancer.  So if you skipped your last mammo, don't worry about it.  Do a self-exam.
Are Mammograms a Waste of Money?

Word of the Day: CONSEQUENCES

Word of the day:

CONSEQUENCES

This hasn't been my best week.  Maybe it's the phase of the moon, or something, but I have been feeling "marginalized," if that's the correct word. It sounds sort of ridiculous to say that different people in my life have made it clear that they believe they matter more than I do.  Should I say they want the upper hand, they want the power in the relationship?   That sounds so academic, but I don't know how else to describe how it makes me feel.  

The first instance was a repeat performance of a conversation that has taken place at least four times in the past two years between me and someone I have known for more than fifteen years.  We met in New Jersey when I owned a small consignment shop around the corner from her house.  She made a habit of coming by the store several times a week to pour her heart out about her abusive husband.  Eventually she divorced the abusive husband and began a relationship with another man.

Fourteen years ago, we moved from New Jersey to Arizona where our son and his family lived.  Our elder daughter and her young son moved with us.  Later on, the younger daughter with her husband and two babies joined the rest of us.  I am sure that my friend is right when she says I encouraged her to move to Arizona.  I was very happy with our brand-new house, my little grandchildren, and my job at the community college.  My enthusiasm must have been contagious.

After a failed attempt to relocate to Florida, she and her partner visited Arizona, liked it, bought a house 40 minutes from us, and went home to pack.  I had no idea what she was expecting when she made these decisions.

Now it is 14 years later, and I have gone from being 58 to being 72. My husband and I have both retired and are living on a greatly-reduced income, and we now baby-sit 4 days a week.

I called my one-time friend the other day to check in and see how she was doing.  The partner she was with dumped her in a suburb miles away from anything, moved her two sons out to live with her, went back to Jersey and has been lying to her for the past 8 years.  She made some really bad decisions because she believed his lies, and is now facing, guess what? - the CONSEQUENCES.

So, I called to say Hi.  After a few minutes, she announced in a flat voice, "I don't want to talk to you on the telephone."  This was after announcing a few weeks ago that she "doesn't do email and doesn't know how to text," so don't do that either.  She wants only face-to-face encounters.  She made it clear that she doesn't need another “acquaintance.”  She wants a "more intimate" relationship, like the one we had in New Jersey.  She remembers these heart-to-heart talks, visiting over tea and cookies, and the one time she was invited to my grandson’s birthday party.  She tells me that she thought she was moving to Arizona to be “near her best friend.”  That things have not turned out the way she imagined is just life, isn’t it?  

Now, I know what you're thinking.  Why should I get upset by someone basically saying she wants to see me more often?  Do people understand that if you want someone to like spending time with you, you have to have something to offer?  Both people should feel better after being together, not drained and glad to be leaving, which is how I always feel after being with her.  She is so negative, and has nothing to talk about except her latest catastrophe, her ungrateful kids, the man who betrayed her, and her failing business.  She is jealous of the time I spend with my family, because her two sons have no social life and never spend time with her.  Hummm? Wonder why?  She claims she is alone.  She's not.  She has her two children (30 and 23) living with her.  And even if she were alone, how is that my responsibility?

I finally ended up hanging up on her because the attack just wouldn't stop.  I find it difficult to tell her the truth - that she is a lot of work!  She drains every ounce of energy from me.  I told her that I thought she has Asperger’s Syndrome (which would explain why it’s so frustrating for everyone to deal with her) which she wouldn’t even consider.  Just went back to the old refrain - basically, I am not a “good enough” friend.

All I expect from people is the recognition that there are consequences from our behavior.  If she wants to be mean to me, attack me, and tell me how disappointed she is in me, there are consequences.  She expects the world to operate on her terms, or else what?   She will just see her world shrink smaller and smaller because she won't adapt.  Consequences.

Gun Report One Year Later

Joe Nocera of the New York Times began working with Jennifer Mascia right after the Newtown shootings last year.  What a grueling task they set themselves!  It must be difficult to read day after day of deaths that occur all over our country.  No state is exempt.  And yet, after all these numbers have been compiled, evidence that cannot be contradicted, absolutely nothing has been done by our Congress.  Years from now, when history looks back at this time in America, I cannot imagine what people will think of our Barbarian society.


Joe Nocera   FEB. 3, 2014
It has been a year since my assistant, Jennifer Mascia, and I started publishing The Gun Report, an effort to use my blog to aggregate daily gun violence in America. Our methodology is pretty simple: We do a Google News search each weekday morning for the previous day’s shootings and then list them. Most days, we have been finding between 20 and 30 shootings; on Mondays, when we also add the weekend’s violence, the number is usually well over 100.

From the start, we knew we were missing a lot more incidents than we found. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, after all, says that nearly 32,000 people are killed by guns each year. Slate, the online magazine, which tried to tally every gun death in the year after the tragedy in Newtown, Conn., arrived at a number of 12,042, far higher than ours. (We include gun injuries as well as gun deaths.)

Part of the issue, as Slate has noted, is that it is impossible to track suicides using news media accounts — and suicides, according to the C.D.C., account for some 60 percent of gun deaths. But it was also obvious that a Google News search was bound to miss plenty of examples; that’s just the nature of the beast. Comprehensiveness was never really the point, though. Mostly we were trying to get a feel for the scale and scope of gun violence in America. A year later, it seems like a good time to take stock.

First, the biggest surprise, especially early on, was how frequently either a child accidentally shot another child — using a loaded gun that happened to be lying around — or an adult accidentally shot a child while handling a loaded gun. I have written about this before, mainly because these incidents seem so preventable. Gun owners simply need to keep their guns locked away. Indeed, one pro-gun reader, Malcolm Smith, told me that after reading “about the death toll, especially to children” in The Gun Report, he had come to believe that some gun regulation was necessary. He now thinks gun owners should be licensed and “should have to learn how to store guns safely.” No doubt he’ll be drummed out of the National Rifle Association for expressing such thoughts.

Second, the N.R.A. shibboleth that having a gun in one’s house makes you safer is demonstrably untrue. After The Gun Report had been up and running for a while, several Second Amendment advocates complained that we rarely published items that showed how guns were used to prevent a crime. The reason was not that we were biased against crime prevention; it was that it didn’t happen very often. (When we found such examples, we put them in The Gun Report.) More to the point, there are an increasing number of gun deaths that are the result of an argument — often fueled by alcohol — among friends, neighbors and family members. Sadly, cases like the recent shooting in a Florida movie theater — when one man killed someone who was texting during the previews — are not all that uncommon.

Third, gang shootings are everywhere. You see it in the big cities, like Chicago, Detroit and Miami, and you see it in smaller cities in economic decline like Flint, Mich., and Fort Wayne, Ind. Drive-by shootings are prevalent in California, especially Los Angeles and Fresno. As often as gang members shoot each other, they kill innocent victims, often children who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Among the readers who post daily comments to The Gun Report are a number of gun rights advocates. What has been astonishing to me is the degree to which they tend to dismiss inner-city violence, as if to say that such killings are unavoidable. The code word they often use is “demographics.”

It is unquestionably true that the most gun homicides occur in the inner cities — the anecdotes we collect in The Gun Report are confirmed by such studies as a May 2013 Bureau of Justice Statistics report. And, yes, plenty of them are the result of gang violence. But why should that make them any less lamentable, or preventable?

There are an estimated 300 million guns in America, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. But to read The Gun Report is to be struck anew at the reality that most of the people who die from guns would still be alive if we just had fewer of them. The guys in the movie theater would have had a fistfight instead of a shooting. The momentary flush of anger would pass. The suicidal person might have taken a pause if taking one’s life were more difficult. And on, and on. The idea that guns, on balance, save lives — which is one of the most common sentiments expressed in the pro-gun comments posted to The Gun Report — is ludicrous.

On the contrary: The clearest message The Gun Report sends is the most obvious. Guns make killing way too easy.

CDC Classifies Overdoses From Opiates and Heroin As An Epidemic

It is amazing to me that in the President's State of the Union address, in Jon Stewart's interview with Nancy Pelosi, or in any of the other political coverage recently, not one mention has been made of what I consider to be two of the greatest challenges facing our country today: the number of children and adults who are killed by guns every day, and the heroin epidemic sweeping the country.  I can't understand how our elected officials can keep arguing about everything else and ignore this.

To the Editor:

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s tragic death puts a very public face on an epidemic health condition that is ravaging families across New York and the United States (“Actor’s Heroin Points to Surge in Grim Trade,” front page, Feb. 4).

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has classified overdoses associated with prescription opiates and heroin as an epidemic. The loss of life and the impact on communities across the country have been front-page news. There is little debate that there is a significant cause for alarm.

Unfortunately, state legislatures and policy makers have failed to address this public health crisis with prevention, treatment and recovery supports adequate to reverse its impact.

We will make progress only when there is increased prevention and education targeting at-risk populations, widespread availability of Naloxone to reverse the symptoms of an overdose, treatment on demand and services to help people in recovery to stay in recovery. Gov. Peter Shumlin of Vermont is to be praised for his leadership on this issue. We need others to join him.

JOHN J. COPPOLA
Executive Director
Alcoholism and Substance Abuse
Providers of New York State
Albany, Feb. 4, 2014

Can We Genetically Modify Poppies?

Within 48 hours of Philip Seymour Hoffman's death, the police arrested four people with more than 350 bags of heroin.  Is it probable that, prior to Hoffman's death, the police knew nothing about this dealer a mile away from Hoffman's apartment? If a dealer with this much heroin can operate without the police's knowledge, then we are doing a poor job of trying to find and put away drug dealers.  If authorities find the dealer than sold the heroin to Hoffman, he/she should be tried for first-degree murder.  I am so sick of the cops locking up the 19-year-old victim for being caught with a piece of tin foil, and not doing anything about the dealer that is selling to multiple victims. 

Perhaps scientists can develop a genetically-modified poppy seed that will destroy the plant's ability to destroy our children! 

By J. DAVID GOODMAN and EMMA G. FITZSIMMONSFEB. 4, 2014

Four people were arrested in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday evening with more than 350 bags of heroin as part of the investigation into the death of the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, a law enforcement official said.

Narcotics investigators executed search warrants in three apartments in a building at 302 Mott Street on Tuesday evening, the official said. Three men and a woman were arrested, and the investigators recovered the bags of heroin inside the apartments.

Information stemming from the investigation into Mr. Hoffman’s death led them to the building, the official said. Mr. Hoffman, widely considered one of the best actors of his generation, died on Sunday in an apparent heroin overdose.

He was found dead with a needle in his arm in a West Village apartment, about a mile from where the arrests took place. Near Mr. Hoffman’s body, the police found dozens of packages of heroin, some branded with the label “Ace of Spades” or with an ace of hearts.

 

The bags that were found during the arrests on Tuesday did not have those types of labels, the official said. The investigation was continuing, police officials said.

Earlier Tuesday, police officials said that the heroin found in Mr. Hoffman’s apartment did not contain fentanyl, a powerful additive that has been tied to 22 recent fatal overdoses in Pennsylvania. The city medical examiner had not yet reached a definitive cause of death for the actor.

Preliminary tests of the heroin found “no traces of fentanyl,” said Stephen Davis, the department’s top spokesman, adding that investigators had taken a representative sample of the substances found in the apartment in reaching that conclusion.

As the investigation into the actor’s death continued, Mr. Hoffman’s family released a statement outlining plans for a private funeral service for “the family and close friends.”

The statement said “plans were also underway for a memorial service later in the month also to be held in New York,” though no details were provided.

When Are We Going to Start Doing Something About This Epidemic?

By J. DAVID GOODMANFEB. 3, 2014

Detectives found dozens of small packages in the West Village apartment where Philip Seymour Hoffman, the actor, died on Sunday. Most were branded, some with purple letters spelling out Ace of Spades, others bearing the mark of an ace of hearts. At least five were empty, and in the trash.

Each of the packages, which can sell for as little as $6 on the street, offered a grim window into Mr. Hoffman’s personal struggle with a resurgent addiction that ultimately, the police said, proved fatal. And the names and logos reflect a fevered underground marketing effort in a city that is awash in cheap heroin.

 

Heroin seizures in New York State are up 67 percent over the last four years, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration said. Last year, the agency’s New York office seized 144 kilograms of heroin, nearly 20 percent of its seizures nationwide, valued at roughly $43 million. One recent raid, in the Bronx last week, netted 33 pounds of heroin and hundreds of thousands of branded bags, some stamped “N.F.L.,” a timely nod to the Super Bowl.

From 2010 to 2012, after several years of decline, heroin-related overdose deaths increased 84 percent in New York City to 382, according to the Health Department statistics. Staten Island, where prescription drug addiction has been especially virulent, has the city’s highest rate of heroin overdoses, though a connection has not been established.

Bags bearing different stamps turn up in raids of large-scale heroin mills around the city.

They are named for popular celebrities or luxury products, or the very thoroughfares along which the drugs travel: Lady Gaga. Gucci. I-95. They reflect an increasingly young and middle-class clientele, who often move from prescription pills to needles: Twilight. MySpace. And they often indicate little about the quality or purity of the product, which is diluted with baking soda or, in some cases, infant laxatives, officials said.

To be sure, there is variety, especially in potency and reliability. Recently, 22 people died in and around Pittsburgh after overdosing from a batch of heroin mixed with fentanyl, a powerful opiate usually found in patches given to cancer patients. Heroin containing fentanyl, which gives a more intense but potentially more dangerous high, has begun to appear in New York City, said Kati Cornell, a spokeswoman for Bridget G. Brennan, the special narcotics prosecutor for the city. An undercover officer bought fentanyl-laced heroin on Jan. 14 from a dealer in the Bronx, she said. The dealer did not warn of the mixture, which is not apparent to the user; subsequent testing revealed it. (The patches themselves had turned up in drug seizures in the city before, she said.)

Ultimately, users have no way to be sure what they’re buying. “There’s no F.D.A. approval; it’s made however they decide to make it that day,” Ms. Brennan said. The same shipment of heroin may be packaged under several different labels, she said. “At the big mills, we’ll seize 20 stamps. It’s all the same.”

Far from plaguing only big cities, heroin has emerged as a grave concern in places like Vermont, where last month the governor devoted his entire State of the State message to what he said was “a full-blown heroin crisis”there.

But almost as long as there has been heroin in the United States, New York City has been its hub. Certainly much has changed since the 1970s, when addicts flooded shooting galleries and flashy drug traffickers like Nicky Barnes, known as Mr. Untouchable, became household names. The drug is still smuggled into the country from faraway poppy fields, still cut from kilo-size quantities in hothouse operations secreted around the city, still diluted in coffee grinders and still sold to needy consumers.

Various brands, too, have been around for decades. “There always have been markings going back as far as Nicky Barnes,” said James J. Hunt, the acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s New York office. “Now the difference is that the addicts you see a lot are young suburban kids starting on prescription drugs, and they graduate to heroin.”

The trade has become more organized, officials said, from the top to the bottom. Delivery services abound for those who can afford a dealer who arrives at the door with a grab bag of drugs. Highly organized mills have been found in middle-class city areas like Riverdale, in the Bronx, and Fort Lee, N.J., or, in one case, in a Midtown Manhattan apartment near the Lincoln Tunnel. Such locations draw less scrutiny from potential robbers, and often provide ready access to major roads for deliveries up and down the Eastern corridor.

“It’s like somebody setting up a big production factory in China and the product is going to go out through to the world,” Ms. Brennan said. “That’s how I look at these production mills that we’re seeing in New York. Some will stay here in the city, but it’s mostly intended for distribution.” (A $6 bag in the city could fetch as much as $30 or $40 in parts of New England, authorities have said.)

Some officials fear that efforts to drive down abuse of prescription medications could be contributing to rising heroin use in New York City, as it has in places like Maine.

“What we’re seeing, as pills become more difficult to access, is a shift to the black market and heroin,” said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, the chief medical officer at the Phoenix House Foundation, a drug-treatment center, and president of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing. “It’s not easy to get the opioid genie back into the bottle.”

It is a cycle that friends of Mr. Hoffman, who was 46, said may have recently taken hold in his life as well.

Last year, he checked into a rehabilitation program for about 10 days, a move that came after a reliance on prescription pills led to a return to heroin, after what he said had been a clean period spanning two decades.

The Police Department on Monday said detectives were working to track down the origin of the substances Mr. Hoffman used, though a police official conceded it could be difficult to determine. “Just because it’s a name brand doesn’t mean that anyone has an exclusive on that name,” the official said. “Ace of Spades; I would venture to say that someone else has used that name.”

The ace of hearts logo has appeared in at least one case in the city, the police said.

The Drug Enforcement Administration said it had seen “Ace of Spades” branding in a 2009 drug case on Long Island. It has been seen in photographs of heroin packages at least as far back as 2005.

Investigators will also test the paraphernalia found near Mr. Hoffman, as well as the syringe found in his left arm, to determine whether the mixture he consumed had been adulterated in any way, the official said. Results from those tests were expected sooner than the toxicology tests by the city medical examiner.

For law enforcement officials, Mr. Hoffman’s death was a stark reminder of the dangers inherent in a highly addictive drug that ravaged urban communities in the 1970s.

“People who study drug trends talk about generational amnesia,” said Ms. Brennan, the special narcotics prosecutor. “We’re now 40 years out from our last major heroin epidemic and I think people have lost their memory of that drug’s devastation.”

Indeed, she said, some of the most common heroin brands suggest as much: Grim Reaper; a skull and crossbones; D.O.A.

Acting Can Be Dangerous to Your Health

It was with great sadness that I read about the death of one of my favorite actors, Philip Seymour Hoffman.  His ability to transform himself into other "characters" (people) may have been what lead to his death.  I have long suspected that playing toxic roles poisons an actor's brain, but until now I have never seen any suggestions in the media that my idea might be correct.  Not that I saw anything like this doctor's conclusions in the news reports about Hoffman; I found this blog by Googling "Actors and Reality."  Of course, I don't want to make generalizations.  Not every entertainer who has died from alcohol or drug overdose had performed in dark and/or disturbing roles.  But two others come to mind: James Gandolfini, who played Tony Soprano, and Nancy Marchand, who played his mother.  For six seasons, Gandolfini portrayed Tony Soprano's painful anxiety attacks and very dark depression.  And Marchand's character, Livia, had narcissistic personality disorder - a fancy term for someone who is evil and wicked.  Is it too much of a stretch to believe that playing these roles could have had a real physical effect on the actors?  I don't think so.  

"A source close to the actor revealed that Hoffman was spending $10,000 a month on heroin and the prescription drug, Oxycontin."  (Examiner.com)

Is There a Blir Between Acting and Reality?

Dr. Masha Godkin (Online Therapy with Dr. Masha Blog)

One of the various explanations for why actors often struggle with problems such as anxiety, depression and substance abuse could be connected to the nature of the acting profession. Could there be a confusion between what is reality and what is acting, on  a subconscious level?

Acting ”As If”

There’s a famous expression called “fake it til you make it.” In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), this is called acting “as if.” So for example someone dealing with depression is instructed to act in a cheerful manner ( i.e. pretending to be self-confident by walking with shoulders back, or smiling even when the inclination may be to frown.)

What happens when an actor must dive into a difficult role? Perhaps the character has an addiction or a mental disorder.  A great deal of time is spent filming. During this time, the actor must get into the characters shoes. The actor feels all of the intense emotions of the character. Once filming of the movie finishes, then what?  Is it easy to let go of the emotions accessed for the part? The actor can of course, on a rational level, understand that it was just a role, and not who they are in real life. But what occurs on the subconscious level?  Can the brain become rewired?

Cells That Fire Together Wire Together

Hebb’s rule in neuroscience explains this rewiring. The rule is that cells that fire together, wire together. So if an individual continually tells him or herself that he/she is not a worthwile person,  that will at one point turn into an automatic thought. Or if an individual repeatedly experiences the emotions connected to certain states of minds, those emotions will be felt without conscious awareness eventually.  In other words, act depressed on a consistent basis, feel the emotions of hurt, sadness, etc. time and time again, and a habit can be formed. Those negative emotions will come up without trying. Emotions are a product of thoughts.  An actor may think back to past frustrations, traumas and  disappointments  in order to get into a depressed state of mind. The thoughts that trigger these emotions could include something like : ” I don’t deserve good things, I’m not a lovable person, I’m just going to be abandoned in the end etc.” "What the Bleep Do We Know"

It’s not simple to change thoughts and emotional states.An emotional state can be addictive! It requires consistent effort. I like to use an analogy: an actor may be required to gain a significant amount of weight for a part. Once filming is over, is the weight lost immediately? Or does it require  some effort to lose it with a plan that might include diet and exercise? “Rewiring” brain cells takes just as much hard work.

The Highs and Lows of Being a Perfomer

Performing can be exciting and fulfilling. It can be a great “high” to receive praise for a role well-played. But what happens if it’s not all praise? Or what about when it ends? It isn’t possible to be in the spotlight all the time.  Performers are very creative individuals. They possess a gift. However, with that gift, there frequently comes a price- a level of vulnerability, a sensitvity level that is elevated. A performer may deal with issues related to self-esteem. Being an entertainer involves facing multiple stressors. And for many in the industry, the  maladaptive coping mechanism becomes turning to drugs,alcohol or other addictive behavior.

I welcome any thoughts you may have on this topic.

12-Step Program or Medications?

I have spoken with various people who have been encouraged to attend AA meetings, and more than a few of them say that they need the support but that they do not believe in "God" and can't sign on to a program that is so fundamentally spiritual.  They believe, as do I, that they are not powerless over their addiction; that, in fact, it is totally in their control, not in some "higher power's" control.  So, for those people, there is no place to turn.  There are few, if any, programs that are not 12-step based.  See what you think after reading this article which appeared on Slate.


Alcoholics Anonymous is, by far, the largest and most venerable addiction recovery group in the world. Founded nearly 80 years ago, AA now boasts 2.1 million worldwide members, many of whom attribute their very survival to the organization. In the United States, where the 12-step program originated, AA is viewed by many as a national treasure of sorts. Social workers send patients to AA meetings. Judges condition people’s freedom on meeting attendance. Desperate spouses condition marriages on it. Everyone loves Alcoholics Anonymous. Or almost everyone.

Many patients and doctors have grumbled for years about the religion inherent in the Alcoholics Anonymous process: Half of the 12 steps involve God or “a Power greater than ourselves.”

In recent years, however, the complaints have turned scientific. Some doctors who specialize in treating alcoholism have leveled a pair of accusations against the organization. First, they claim that AA has obstructed the spread of medications to treat alcoholism. Second, they claim that the group stubbornly resists evidence that some alcoholics are better suited to a life of moderate drinking than to complete abstinence.

Read entire article

Not Quite Ready for College - Here's an Idea

I am fully aware of how much my travel experiences have changed me (and for the better, I might add) and helped me understand so much more about the world.  At home it has helped, too, because I learned that there is not just one way to do things.  I no longer insist that my way is the best way.  I know that those who volunteer with the Peace Corps value that experience for the rest of their lives, and I believe that taking a Gap Year might also be a life-long benefit.  See what you think.  This article appeared in Slate.

This article originally appeared in Inside Higher Ed.

Over the next few weeks, students around the country will receive offers of admission to colleges and universities. But before students jump online and accept an offer, I have one piece of advice for them: They might be better off not going to college next year.

Instead, they should think about taking a gap year, to defer college for a year to live and volunteer in a developing country.

In the traditional sort of gap year, students immerse themselves in a developing community to volunteer with a nonprofit organization by teaching, working with local youth, or assuming some other community role.

Gap years have been rising in popularity in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and elsewhere. I’ve spent the last few years researching what happens to young people when they have such an immersive experience in a community radically different from their own.

The answer, in short, is that gap years can help change students in ways the world needs.

The challenges of our time demand an educational system that can help young people become citizens of the world. We need our students to be smart, critical, and innovative thinkers but also people of character who use their talents to help others. Gap years help young adults understand themselves, their relationships, and the world around them, which deepens capacities and perspectives crucial for effective citizenship. They help students become better thinkers and scholars, filled with passion, purpose, and perspective.

How do people learn from gap years?

One principal lesson is clear: We often develop most when our understandings of ourselves and the world around us are challenged—when we engage with people and ideas that are different. Despite this insight, we often prioritize comfort and self-segregate into groups of sameness. We tend to surround ourselves with people who think, talk, and look similar to us.

The treadmill from high school to college makes it hard for students to see alternative paths.

Taking a gap year speeds our development by upsetting these patterns. Trying to occupy another person's way of life in a different culture—living with a new family, speaking the language, integrating into a community, perhaps working with local youth, for instance—these are valuable experiences that help young people understand themselves, develop empathy and virtue, and expand their capacity to see the world from others' perspectives.

Traditionally, U.S. higher education has championed the idea of liberal arts as a way of getting students to engage with difference, to expand their worldview beyond their known universe by (in the words of a Harvard research committee on education) “questioning assumptions, by inducing self-reflection … by encounters with radically different historical moments and cultural formations.”

However, formal classroom education alone cannot accomplish this aim. The classroom is limited in its ability to engage students with difference and contribute to their development as able citizens. We also need new experiences that inspire critical self-reflection to cultivate the right moral feelings and dispositions.

What’s important here is the productive dissonance that these long-term, immersive gap year experiences provide. It's unlikely that a young person staying in America—or even traveling overseas for a short time—would have assumptions about herself and the world around her challenged with the same intensity, frequency, and breadth as in a gap year in a developing community.

It's interesting that spending time in developing communities can help young people appreciate ways of living that we need more of—such as a more active and intimate sense of community. Going overseas also helps cultivate a type of independence and self-confidence that staying close to home in a familiar environment probably does not.

Furthermore, taking the traditional kind of gap year after high school helps students take full advantage of their time in college. One telling observation is that many students who take gap years end up changing their intended major after returning. During college, their gap year experiences enrich their courses, strengthen co-curricular endeavors, and animate undergraduate research and creative projects.

To be clear: Though these gap year students are working in partnership with a community organization and aim to make some positive impact, the students typically, at least in the short term, gain more than they are able to give. But this empowers them to bring new perspectives to bear in other personal, professional, and civic efforts. Gap years, borrowing a line from the Rhodes Scholarship Trust, can help create leaders for the world’s future.

Despite the benefits of these kinds of gap year experiences, too few Americans take gap years and too few colleges encourage them. The treadmill from high school to college makes it hard for students to see alternative paths. But that is changing. More people and organizations are beginning to see gap years for the formative experiences they can be, given with the proper training, support, and community work. In fact, all the Ivy League universities now endorse gap years for interested students. And they’re right to do so.

Many parents and students are nervous about the idea of spending an extended period in a developing country. But these experiences, especially through structured gap year programs like Global Citizen Year, are generally very safe and supported. Are there some risks? Of course, there are risks with any travel or change—but the risks are worth taking. The investment in taking a gap year will pay dividends throughout one’s college career and beyond as society and one’s life are enriched.

However, one central challenge that remains is how to finance gap years for students from lower-income families. This is also beginning to change. The University of North Carolina and Princeton University, for instance, have both begun to subsidize gap years for incoming students. Other organizations, such as Omprakash, now offer low-cost volunteer placements as well as scholarships to those with need. And with the help of crowdfunding sites, students are able to raise money for these experiences with greater ease. Despite these efforts, if gap years are to really expand, we’ll need more institutions or governments to offset the costs.

Higher education is society’s last mass effort to really shape the character and trajectories of our young people. Let’s help them take more advantage of the precious time in college by taking a gap year beforehand.

Joe O'Shea is the author of Gap Year: How Delaying College Changes People in Ways the World Needs.