Just finished reading your article on David Arndt "What went wrong?" As a practicing psychiatrist with long time experience with treatment of addictions, I could not stop asking myself why nobody involved in his case apparently considered whether David has bipolar disorder. His life pattern so well described by you is very typical. His escalating drug abuse along with deteriorating professional functional are indicative as well. It seems to me that drug dependence as well as all other doings came secondary to underlying mental illness.
Narcissistic PD patients never get so self-destructive. At no point of their life they are liked by anybody.
Bela Bochkarev, MD, Uxbridge
The determination of the date of Easter is governed by a computation based
on the vernal equinox and the phase of the moon. According to the ruling of
the First Ecumenical Synod in 325, Easter Sunday should fall on the Sunday
which follows the first full moon after the vernal equinox. If the full moon
happens to fall on a Sunday, Easter is observed the following Sunday. The
day taken to be the invariable date of the vernal equinox is March 21.
Herein lies the first difference in the determination of Easter between the
Orthodox Church and the other Christian Churches. The Orthodox Church
continues to base its calculations for the date of Easter on the Julian
Calendar, which was in use at the time of the First Ecumenical Synod. As
such, it does not take into consideration the number of days which have
since then accrued due to the progressive inaccuracy of the Julian Calendar...
The average length of a year in the Julian Calendar is 365.25 days (one additional day being added every four years). This is significantly different from the "real" length of the solar year... this error accumulates so that after about 131 years the calendar is out of sync with the equinoxes and solstices by one day. Thus as the centuries passed the Julian Calendar became increasingly inaccurate with respect to the seasons. This was especially troubling to the Roman Catholic Church because it affected the determination of the date of Easter, which, by the 16th Century, was well on the way to slipping into Summer...
When Pope Gregory XIII was elected he found various proposals for calendar reform before him, and decided in favor of that of Clavius. On 1582-02-24 he issued a papal bull, Inter Gravissimas, establishing what is now called the Gregorian Calendar reform...
- Ten days were omitted from the calendar, and it was decreed that the day following (Thursday) October 4, 1582 (which is October 5, 1582, in the old calendar) would thenceforth be known as (Friday) October 15, 1582.
- The rule for leap years was changed. In the Julian Calendar a year is a leap year if it is divisible by 4. In the Gregorian Calendar a year is a leap year if either (i) it is divisible by 4 but not by 100 or (ii) it is divisible by 400. In other words, a year which is divisible by 4 is a leap year unless it is divisible by 100 but not by 400 (in which case it is not a leap year). Thus the years 1600 and 2000 are leap years, but 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100 are not.
- New rules for the determination of the date of Easter were adopted.
- The position of the extra day in a leap year was moved from the day before February 25th to the day following February 28th.
The Gregorian Calendar was adopted in Britain (and in the British colonies) in 1752, with (Wednesday) September 2, 1752, being followed immediately by (Thursday) September 14, 1752...
In many countries the Julian Calendar was used by the general population long after the official introduction of the Gregorian Calendar. Thus events were recorded in the 16th to 18th Centuries with various dates, depending on which calendar was used. Dates recorded in the Julian Calendar were marked "O.S." for "Old Style", and those in the Gregorian Calendar were marked "N.S." for "New Style"... Sweden adopted the Gregorian Calendar in 1753, Japan in 1873, Egypt in 1875, Eastern Europe during 1912 to 1919 and Turkey in 1927. Following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia it was decreed that thirteen days would be omitted from the calendar, the day following January 31, 1918, O.S. becoming February 14, 1918, N.S.
The need for correction of
the Julian Calendar was well understood in the East and had even led some to
devise a new calendar themselves. Nevertheless, the Julian Calendar remained
in use throughout the Byzantine period and beyond. Despite the efforts of
the emissaries of Pope Gregory to convince the Orthodox to accept the New
(Gregorian) Calendar, the Orthodox Church rejected it. The main reason for
its rejection was that the celebration of Easter would be altered: contrary
to the injunctions of canon 7 of the Holy Apostles, the decree of the First
Ecumenical Synod, and canon 1 of Ancyra, Easter would sometimes coincide
with the Jewish Passover in the Gregorian calendar.
Many aspects of life today would be literally turned upside down, both for humans, given our dependence on magnets for navigation, and for migrating animals which use an inner compass.
We would also be more exposed to deadly busts of solar radiation, from which we are normally protected by Earth's magnetic field. And the loss of that shield would cause solar particles to smash into the upper atmosphere, warming it and potentially causing wrenching climate change.
Surgeons Who Play Video Games Err Less
All those years on the couch playing Nintendo and PlayStation appear to be paying off for surgeons. Researchers found that doctors who spent at least three hours a week playing video games made about 37 percent fewer mistakes in laparoscopic surgery and performed the task 27 percent faster than their counterparts who did not play video games.
Beth Israel is now experimenting with applying the findings. Rosser has developed a course called Top Gun, in which surgical trainees warm up their coordination, agility and accuracy with a video game before entering the operating room.
"It's like a good football player," Rosser said, "you have to warm up first."
''Would dulling our memory of terrible things make us too comfortable with the world, unmoved by suffering, wrongdoing or cruelty?'' asks the bioethics council in its report. ''Does not the experience of hard truths -- of the unchosen, the inexplicable, the tragic -- remind us that we can never be fully at home in the world, especially if we are to take seriously the reality of human evil?'' The council also asked whether the blunting of our recollections of ''shameful, fearful and hateful things'' might also blunt our memories of the most wondrous parts of our lives. ''Can we become numb to life's sharpest arrows without becoming numb to its greatest joys?''
Still, to scientists who study memory, there is nothing beneficial, for either individuals or for society, about debilitating, unbidden memories of combat, rape or acts of terrorism. ''Going through difficult experiences is what life is all about; it's not all honey and roses,'' said Eric Kandel, a professor of psychiatry and physiology at Columbia University. ''But some experiences are different. When society asks a soldier to go through battle to protect our country, for instance, then society has a responsibility to help that soldier get through the aftermath of having seen the horrors of war.''
Of course, post-battlefield remorse serves as a check on our militaristic tendencies. Vietnam veterans haunted by memories of combat were among the most forceful opponents of the war after their return home. But have we the right to buy a surrogate conscience at the cost of thousands of ruined lives? If we have the responsibility to treat veterans' physical wounds, don't we also have a responsibility to ease their psychic suffering?
...Without witnessing the torment of unremitting post-traumatic stress disorder, it is easy to exaggerate the benefits of holding on to bitter memories. But a person crippled by memories is a diminished person; there is nothing ennobling about it. If we as a society decide it's better to keep people locked in their anguish because of some idealized view of what it means to be human, we might be revealing ourselves to be a society with a twisted notion of what being human really means.
While this is outrageous in itself, it would seemingly put the lie to the notion that the purpose of such laws is for public safety, since it's no "safer" for a police officer's wife to speed than it is for anyone else. It's a tacit admission that it's all about revenue generation, and just as government workers shouldn't necessarily have to pay taxes (since they're paid from taxes), they shouldn't be subject to this revenue device either. Remember this the next time you hear a lecture from a cop about how dangerous it is to exceed the speed limit.
Yes police officers go through special training for driving: vehicle dynamics, skid control, braking control, accident avoidance. Basically what is talked about in most drivers educations courses but they actually get to do some of it. Anybody can sign up with a specialized driving school or race car school to practice the same things, Skip Barber Dodge driving school is a good example. Some detectives will get sent off to other specialized training workshops where they learn how to set spike strips, how to ram cars off the road, and best ways to coodinate road blocks, shoot tires out, etc. Thats why you will see a car chase on the news and several cop cars will be following behind the getaway car for a while, just hanging back. Then, the detective will appear and you will see them zoom out ahead of everything and actually do something to try and stop the getaway car. Alas, I'm quite certain they feel entitled and above everyone else cause of all this 'top notch' training they've received. It sounds like a lot of training but most of it only takes a day or two to go over.
The injury/death rate is higher at slower speeds (less than 60) than at higher speeds (greater than 80.) Anybody can make an unchallenged statement like you did because we have been indoctrinated with "speed kills." It ain't so! Speed limits, for the most part are revenue sources and have nothing to do with public safety.
Part of the confusion is because the phrase Daylight Saving Time is inaccurate, since no daylight is actually saved. Daylight Shifting Time would be better, but it is not as politically desirable. In fact, scientifically misguided politicians sometimes misunderstand. In 1995, the British Time (Extra Daylight) Bill was introduced by John Butterfill, attempting the impossible -- to legislate extra daylight. The bill did not pass...
Daylight Saving Time "makes" the sun "set" one hour later and therefore reduces the period between sunset and bedtime by one hour. This means that less electricity would be used for lighting and appliances late in the day.
...Following the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, Congress put most of the nation on extended Daylight Saving Time for two years in hopes of saving additional energy. This experiment worked, but Congress did not continue the experiment in 1975 because of opposition -- mostly from the farming states.
In 1974, Daylight Saving Time lasted ten months and lasted for eight months in 1975, rather than the normal six months (then, May to October). The U.S. Department of Transportation -- which has jurisdiction over Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. -- studied the results of the experiment. It concluded:
Daylight Saving Time saves energy. Based on consumption figures for 1974 and 1975, The Department of Transportation says observing Daylight Saving Time in March and April saved the equivalent in energy of 10,000 barrels of oil each day -- a total of 600,000 barrels in each of those two years.
Daylight Saving Time saves lives and prevents traffic injuries. The earlier Daylight Saving Time allowed more people to travel home from work and school in daylight, which is much safer than darkness. And except for the months of November through February, Daylight Saving Time does not increase the morning hazard for those going to school and work.
Daylight Saving Time prevents crime. Because people get home from work and school and complete more errands and chores in daylight, Daylight Saving Time also seems to reduce people's exposure to various crimes, which are more common in darkness than in light.
The Department of Transportation estimated that 50 lives were saved and about 2,000 injuries were prevented in March and April of the study years. The department also estimated that $28 million was saved in traffic accident costs.
Lawmakers and activists on both sides of the issue suggest that Romney may be weighing several options, including an executive order to block the issuance of licenses to gay couples; proposing a law to prevent issuance of those licenses; or backing another bill, being pushed this week, that would abolish marriage entirely and create civil unions for heterosexual couples, as well as gay couples.
..."It's absolutely radical, but it's consistent," Loscocco said. "In my view, this is something the Legislature has to weigh..."
This is a free country (for human beings), and the American meat eater doesn't need to consider anything he doesn't want to. Try forcing him, and he will only conclude ... that the whole exercise has more to do with punishment than persuasion.
That Masson has grasped this is evident right from the start of his book, in an anecdotal preface devoted to the singing pig of the title. It's not much of a story, at least not as it's told, but it's a happy one, and its context establishes the sixty-two-year-old author as a relaxed and amiable family man. "A nice person like you can't possibly know what wonderful, sensitive creatures farm animals are," Masson seems to be saying to us throughout, "or you wouldn't be paying people to brutalize them, would you?" This approach keeps things positive despite the sad notes struck on every page. It's possible that Masson is consciously using an old child-rearing ploy to appeal to our better natures ("What you don't realize when you pull your sister's hair is that it hurts her"), but I doubt it. He seems genuinely excited about being able to tell us that pigs prefer to be clean, and that a mother hen is as protective of her young as, well, a mother hen. The familiarity of these revelations is both touching and humbling, as is Masson's belief that "in general, the more we know about something, the more we care." Who's to say that this simple faith in human understanding and compassion won't induce some readers to justify it?
The ethological thrust of Masson's book is therefore no more likely to change our behavior than the other arguments he tosses in for good measure—philosophical and moral arguments that the animal-rights movement has spent decades preaching to a world that can barely be bothered to look up from its plate. As the heroine of J. M. Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello (2003) concludes in one of her lectures, our hearts are closed to animals; we have the capacity to imagine their suffering, "but choose not to exercise it."
Meg Hourihan, Kinja's project director and a founder of the blog publishing service Blogger, said she was ambivalent about the trend toward smaller and smaller scraps of information: "If you read 500 snippets, you can seem really up to speed at a cocktail party, but are you really prepared to make good decisions about the world?" At least with Kinja, she said, gathering those snippets is a more efficient process.