Tuesday, June 14, 2016
Monday, June 13, 2016
What Are the Odds We Are Living in a Computer Simulation?
Last week, Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla Motors, SpaceX, and other cutting-edge companies, took a surprising question at the Code Conference, a technology event in California. What, a man in the audience asked, did Musk make of the idea that we are living not in the real world, but in an elaborate computer simulation? Musk exhibited a surprising familiarity with this concept. “I’ve had so many simulation discussions it’s crazy,” Musk said. Citing the speed with which video games are improving, he suggested that the development of simulations “indistinguishable from reality” was inevitable. The likelihood that we are living in “base reality,” he concluded, was just “one in billions.”
Musk, it seems, has been persuaded by what philosophers call the “simulation argument,” an idea given its definitive form in a 2003 paper by the Oxford philosopher and futurologist Nick Bostrom. (Raffi Khatchadourian profiled Bostrom for this magazine last year.) The simulation argument begins by noticing several present-day trends in technology, such as the development of virtual reality and the mapping of the human brain. (One such mapping effort, the brain Initiative, has been funded by the Obama Administration.) The argument ends by proposing that we are, in fact, digital beings living in a vast computer simulation created by our far-future descendants. Many people have imagined this scenario over the years, of course, usually while high. But recently, a number of philosophers, futurists, science-fiction writers, and technologists—people who share a near-religious faith in technological progress—have come to believe that the simulation argument is not just plausible, but inescapable.
The argument is based on two premises, both of which can be disputed but neither of which are unreasonable. The first is that consciousness can be simulated in a computer, with logic gates standing in for the brain’s synapses and neurotransmitters. (If self-awareness can arise in a lump of neurons, it seems likely that it can thrive in silicon, too.) The second is that advanced civilizations will have access to truly stupendous amounts of computing power. Bostrom speculates, for example, that, thousands of years from now, our space-travelling descendants might use nanomachines to transform moons or planets into giant “planetary computers.” It stands to reason that such an advanced civilization might use that computing power to run an “ancestor simulation”—essentially, a high-powered version of the video game “The Sims,” focussed on their evolutionary history. The creation of just one such simulated world might strike us as extraordinary, but Bostrom figures that thousands or even millions of ancestor simulations could be run by a single computer in the future. If that’s true, then simulated human consciousnesses could vastly outnumber non-simulated ones, in which case we are far more likely to be living inside a simulation right now than to be living outside of one.
Superficially, the simulation argument bears some resemblance to the one made by René Descartes, in the seventeenth century, that there could be an undetectable “evil demon” shaping our perceptions. But, where Descartes’s argument was essentially about skepticism—How do you know you’re not living in the Matrix?—the simulation argument is about how we envision the future. For more than a century, futurists and sci-fi writers have imagined that, someday, human beings will use technology to become “posthuman,” transcending the limits of the human condition. They picture a time when people cheat death by uploading their minds into computers, augment or replace themselves with artificial intelligences, or map the uncharted frontiers of physics, biology, and engineering to colonize the stars. It’s possible to discern, in today’s world, the roots of this emerging posthuman future: the computer Watson has won “Jeopardy!”; virtual reality has arrived; a group of researchers has succeeded in simulating the nervous system of a roundworm in a body made of Legos; and, in September, Musk plans to announce his detailed plan for colonizing Mars.
The posthuman future has never been easier to imagine—especially for those, like Musk, who work at the forefront of technology. Yet the idea that we are living in a kind of time loop adds a wrinkle to this dream. Maybe we’ll never reach the posthuman stage; at some point, technological development will cease. Perhaps our posthuman descendants simply won’t want to make simulations (although, given our own interest in doing so, that seems unlikely). Or perhaps our species will go extinct before we learn how to simulate ourselves. “Maybe we should be hopeful that this is a simulation,” Musk concluded, last week, since “either we’re going to create simulations that are indistinguishable from reality or civilization will cease to exist. Those are the two options.” If you hope that humanity will survive into the far future, growing in power and knowledge all the while, then you must accept the possibility that we are being simulated today.
Musk, it seems, has been persuaded by what philosophers call the “simulation argument,” an idea given its definitive form in a 2003 paper by the Oxford philosopher and futurologist Nick Bostrom. (Raffi Khatchadourian profiled Bostrom for this magazine last year.) The simulation argument begins by noticing several present-day trends in technology, such as the development of virtual reality and the mapping of the human brain. (One such mapping effort, the brain Initiative, has been funded by the Obama Administration.) The argument ends by proposing that we are, in fact, digital beings living in a vast computer simulation created by our far-future descendants. Many people have imagined this scenario over the years, of course, usually while high. But recently, a number of philosophers, futurists, science-fiction writers, and technologists—people who share a near-religious faith in technological progress—have come to believe that the simulation argument is not just plausible, but inescapable.The argument is based on two premises, both of which can be disputed but neither of which are unreasonable. The first is that consciousness can be simulated in a computer, with logic gates standing in for the brain’s synapses and neurotransmitters. (If self-awareness can arise in a lump of neurons, it seems likely that it can thrive in silicon, too.) The second is that advanced civilizations will have access to truly stupendous amounts of computing power. Bostrom speculates, for example, that, thousands of years from now, our space-travelling descendants might use nanomachines to transform moons or planets into giant “planetary computers.” It stands to reason that such an advanced civilization might use that computing power to run an “ancestor simulation”—essentially, a high-powered version of the video game “The Sims,” focussed on their evolutionary history. The creation of just one such simulated world might strike us as extraordinary, but Bostrom figures that thousands or even millions of ancestor simulations could be run by a single computer in the future. If that’s true, then simulated human consciousnesses could vastly outnumber non-simulated ones, in which case we are far more likely to be living inside a simulation right now than to be living outside of one.
Superficially, the simulation argument bears some resemblance to the one made by René Descartes, in the seventeenth century, that there could be an undetectable “evil demon” shaping our perceptions. But, where Descartes’s argument was essentially about skepticism—How do you know you’re not living in the Matrix?—the simulation argument is about how we envision the future. For more than a century, futurists and sci-fi writers have imagined that, someday, human beings will use technology to become “posthuman,” transcending the limits of the human condition. They picture a time when people cheat death by uploading their minds into computers, augment or replace themselves with artificial intelligences, or map the uncharted frontiers of physics, biology, and engineering to colonize the stars. It’s possible to discern, in today’s world, the roots of this emerging posthuman future: the computer Watson has won “Jeopardy!”; virtual reality has arrived; a group of researchers has succeeded in simulating the nervous system of a roundworm in a body made of Legos; and, in September, Musk plans to announce his detailed plan for colonizing Mars.
The posthuman future has never been easier to imagine—especially for those, like Musk, who work at the forefront of technology. Yet the idea that we are living in a kind of time loop adds a wrinkle to this dream. Maybe we’ll never reach the posthuman stage; at some point, technological development will cease. Perhaps our posthuman descendants simply won’t want to make simulations (although, given our own interest in doing so, that seems unlikely). Or perhaps our species will go extinct before we learn how to simulate ourselves. “Maybe we should be hopeful that this is a simulation,” Musk concluded, last week, since “either we’re going to create simulations that are indistinguishable from reality or civilization will cease to exist. Those are the two options.” If you hope that humanity will survive into the far future, growing in power and knowledge all the while, then you must accept the possibility that we are being simulated today.
by Joshua Rothman, NewYorker | Read more:
Image: Janus Films
Did Led Zeppelin steal a riff for 'Stairway to Heaven'?
[ed. Listen to the Taurus version, it's pretty clear. That said, music is an evolving culture. How many times did the Bo Diddley beat get get ripped off...umm, I mean riffed off? (or maybe, re-imagined)]
Who really created one of the most famous riffs in all of rock ’n’ roll?
That question is at the heart of a trial scheduled to begin Tuesday in Los Angeles, where members of Led Zeppelin are expected to appear in federal court to defend their 1971 rock epic “Stairway to Heaven” against claims that they stole it from another band.
At issue is whether Zeppelin nicked “Stairway’s” famous opening passage, which evokes centuries-old Renaissance folk music, from L.A. rock band Spirit, which shared some concert billings with the iconic British band when it was in its infancy.
A loss for Led Zeppelin could mean millions of dollars in royalties going to the estate of Spirit guitarist and songwriter Randy Craig Wolfe, aka Randy California, for one of the most recognized and played recordings of the rock era.
It’s the highest profile infringement case to make it to the courtroom since last year’s suit in which R&B-soul singer Marvin Gaye’s family was awarded $7.4 million by a jury that decided pop stars Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams’ monster hit “Blurred Lines” had infringed on Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up.”
It’s also the latest in a long line of plagiarism cases involving some of pop music’s biggest acts and most iconic songs, among them the Beach Boys’ “Surfin’ USA,” the Beatles’ “Come Together,” George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” and even the ubiquitous “Happy Birthday to You.” Just last week, Richard Busch, the lawyer who represented Gaye’s family, filed a new infringement suit in Los Angeles against English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran, saying his 2015 hit “Photograph” bears a “striking similarity” to the song “Amazing” by Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard.
The common ground between “Stairway to Heaven” and “Taurus” largely comes down to a 10-second musical theme that appears 45 seconds into “Taurus,” an instrumental from the band’s 1968 debut album, which is similar to the opening acoustic guitar pattern on “Stairway.” That song was released three years before “Stairway to Heaven” surfaced on Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album, commonly referred to as “Led Zeppelin IV.”
Zeppelin surviving members Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones and their legal team are expected to argue that the similarity is nothing more than coincidence between musicians working in a field rooted in commonly used and re-used musical ideas. Or they may attempt to cite earlier precursors to both songs from the public domain, which could render moot the Wolfe estate’s copyright claim.
“It’s a tough one to call,” says singer-songwriter Richard Thompson, whose 1960s band Fairport Convention helped pioneer the merger of traditional British folk music with the amplified energy of rock ’n’ roll that Led Zeppelin took to its apotheosis in the 1970s.
“They were on the same bill together before [Zeppelin guitarist] Jimmy Page wrote ‘Stairway,’ there’s that,” Thompson said, referring to the Wolfe estate’s claiming that because the two bands played shows together in the late 1960s, and that Spirit often included “Taurus” in those shows, Zeppelin’s members at least had the opportunity to have heard the song.
“On the other hand,” Thompson said, “it’s not an uncommon riff, and the melody not that unusual.”
Guitarist Laurence Juber, who used to play with Paul McCartney’s band Wings, noted that the opening progression can be heard in a 16th century sonata for guitar, violin and strings by Italian composer Giovanni Battista Granata.
“The reality is that to have a descending bass line with an A minor chord on top of it is a common musical device.”
Francis Malofiy, the lawyer representing Wolfe’s estate, cleared a major hurdle in April when U.S. District Court Judge R. Gary Klausner allowed the case to proceed to trial, rejecting a bid by Led Zeppelin’s legal team to have the case tossed out.
In his ruling, Klausner found that Malofiy had failed to establish that “Stairway to Heaven” bears a “striking similarity” to “Taurus” – a high legal standard in copyright cases.
Klausner, however, decided there was enough substance to Malofiy’s claims that a jury should decide the case on slightly different legal grounds: whether members of Led Zeppelin had sufficient access to “Taurus” – that is, they heard the song played enough times – to conceivably rip it off, and whether the two songs meet a lesser infringement threshold of “substantial similarity.”
Led Zeppelin’s lawyers said both bands simply relied on a “centuries-old, common musical element” that is not protected by copyright law. Klausner disagreed, saying he found that “the similarities here transcend this core structure.”
For jurors, it will not be as easy as simply listening to full recordings of the two songs. Because copyright law protects only the composition that a songwriter submits in writing to the country’s copyright office, jurors will hear a stripped-down version of “Taurus” that is likely to make parallels between the two songs less pronounced.
by Randy Lewis and Joel Rubin, LA Times | Read more:
Image: Andy Rain
Who really created one of the most famous riffs in all of rock ’n’ roll?
That question is at the heart of a trial scheduled to begin Tuesday in Los Angeles, where members of Led Zeppelin are expected to appear in federal court to defend their 1971 rock epic “Stairway to Heaven” against claims that they stole it from another band.
At issue is whether Zeppelin nicked “Stairway’s” famous opening passage, which evokes centuries-old Renaissance folk music, from L.A. rock band Spirit, which shared some concert billings with the iconic British band when it was in its infancy.A loss for Led Zeppelin could mean millions of dollars in royalties going to the estate of Spirit guitarist and songwriter Randy Craig Wolfe, aka Randy California, for one of the most recognized and played recordings of the rock era.
It’s the highest profile infringement case to make it to the courtroom since last year’s suit in which R&B-soul singer Marvin Gaye’s family was awarded $7.4 million by a jury that decided pop stars Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams’ monster hit “Blurred Lines” had infringed on Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up.”
It’s also the latest in a long line of plagiarism cases involving some of pop music’s biggest acts and most iconic songs, among them the Beach Boys’ “Surfin’ USA,” the Beatles’ “Come Together,” George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” and even the ubiquitous “Happy Birthday to You.” Just last week, Richard Busch, the lawyer who represented Gaye’s family, filed a new infringement suit in Los Angeles against English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran, saying his 2015 hit “Photograph” bears a “striking similarity” to the song “Amazing” by Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard.
The common ground between “Stairway to Heaven” and “Taurus” largely comes down to a 10-second musical theme that appears 45 seconds into “Taurus,” an instrumental from the band’s 1968 debut album, which is similar to the opening acoustic guitar pattern on “Stairway.” That song was released three years before “Stairway to Heaven” surfaced on Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album, commonly referred to as “Led Zeppelin IV.”
Zeppelin surviving members Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones and their legal team are expected to argue that the similarity is nothing more than coincidence between musicians working in a field rooted in commonly used and re-used musical ideas. Or they may attempt to cite earlier precursors to both songs from the public domain, which could render moot the Wolfe estate’s copyright claim.
“It’s a tough one to call,” says singer-songwriter Richard Thompson, whose 1960s band Fairport Convention helped pioneer the merger of traditional British folk music with the amplified energy of rock ’n’ roll that Led Zeppelin took to its apotheosis in the 1970s.
“They were on the same bill together before [Zeppelin guitarist] Jimmy Page wrote ‘Stairway,’ there’s that,” Thompson said, referring to the Wolfe estate’s claiming that because the two bands played shows together in the late 1960s, and that Spirit often included “Taurus” in those shows, Zeppelin’s members at least had the opportunity to have heard the song.
“On the other hand,” Thompson said, “it’s not an uncommon riff, and the melody not that unusual.”
Guitarist Laurence Juber, who used to play with Paul McCartney’s band Wings, noted that the opening progression can be heard in a 16th century sonata for guitar, violin and strings by Italian composer Giovanni Battista Granata.
“The reality is that to have a descending bass line with an A minor chord on top of it is a common musical device.”
Francis Malofiy, the lawyer representing Wolfe’s estate, cleared a major hurdle in April when U.S. District Court Judge R. Gary Klausner allowed the case to proceed to trial, rejecting a bid by Led Zeppelin’s legal team to have the case tossed out.
In his ruling, Klausner found that Malofiy had failed to establish that “Stairway to Heaven” bears a “striking similarity” to “Taurus” – a high legal standard in copyright cases.
Klausner, however, decided there was enough substance to Malofiy’s claims that a jury should decide the case on slightly different legal grounds: whether members of Led Zeppelin had sufficient access to “Taurus” – that is, they heard the song played enough times – to conceivably rip it off, and whether the two songs meet a lesser infringement threshold of “substantial similarity.”
Led Zeppelin’s lawyers said both bands simply relied on a “centuries-old, common musical element” that is not protected by copyright law. Klausner disagreed, saying he found that “the similarities here transcend this core structure.”
For jurors, it will not be as easy as simply listening to full recordings of the two songs. Because copyright law protects only the composition that a songwriter submits in writing to the country’s copyright office, jurors will hear a stripped-down version of “Taurus” that is likely to make parallels between the two songs less pronounced.
by Randy Lewis and Joel Rubin, LA Times | Read more:
Image: Andy Rain
The Price of Player Safety: What Would the NFL Lose by Eliminating Kickoffs?
Back when people still needed cameras to take pictures, every Super Bowl highlight started the same way. As a line of 11 men ran in unison toward a teed-up football, thousands of flashbulbs exploded on screen, making for a monochromatic light show just before the kicker’s foot swung.
Given the sport’s very nature, every great moment in NFL history has been preceded by a kickoff. For some moments, though, the kickoff has been essential to that greatness. Desmond Howard brought home a Super Bowl MVP award with the Packers on the shoulders of his return work, and the best memory of my football life is still Devin Hester, in Super Bowl XLI, corralling an Adam Vinatieri kick on the 8-yard line and taking it for a touchdown. My euphoria lasted about 10 minutes before Rex Grossman turned into a pumpkin and the Colts started to handle the Bears. But damn, those 10 minutes were sweet.
Hester’s return was the first place my mind went after reading what the Patriots’ Matthew Slater told local reporters after an OTA late last week. Slater, by a wide margin, is the most notable non-kicker, non-returner special teams player in the league; he’s gone to the Pro Bowl in each of the past five years. After being asked about the NFL’s new one-year rule that will place the ball on the 25-yard line following a touchback, he responded with this:
“I’m very disappointed, obviously, in the way we’re discussing the future of the kickoff … The kickoff is a big part of the history of the NFL and the history of football. For us to be sitting here talking about maybe doing away with the kickoff, it’s very disappointing.”
After naming some of the famous return men from his father’s playing days — former Rams great Jackie Slater is his dad! Who knew? — Slater went on.
“The kicking game has meant a lot to the game of football and a lot of players individually and has enabled guys to have careers. You think about [longtime Patriots special teamer] Larry Izzo, you think about myself. Without the kicking game, we don’t have a career. I’m very disappointed with some of the things I hear in regards to getting rid of the kickoff. I surely hope that’s not the case. I hope that’s not the direction we’re moving in, but we’ll see.”
The NFL has been trying to legislate kick returns for a while. From a player-safety perspective, it does make sense: Kickoff returns have been called the most dangerous plays in sports. But the effects of eliminating kickoffs would go beyond making the NFL a safer workplace. It would alter strategic approaches in both game plan and roster construction, all while costing plenty of players their jobs.
The league moved kickoffs from the 30- to the 35-yard line before the 2011 season, and the percentage that resulted in touchbacks jumped from 16.4 percent to 43.5 percent that year before rising steadily to 56 percent in ’15. Still, as ESPN’s Brian Burke and Sharon Katz wrote in March, deeper kicks failed to provide enough of a deterrent. Even with an uptick in touchbacks, the decision to take them wasn’t statistically savvy. According to Burke and Katz, an average kick return yielded an expected .59 points for an offense, while a touchback translated into an expected .29 points. Regardless of whether players were aware of that gap, return men last season still elected to run kickoffs back 46 percent of the time. By giving offenses 5 more yards for taking a knee, the NFL’s hope, clearly, is that this incentive disappears.
When Giants owner and NFL Competition Committee member John Mara was asked about the rule in April, he acknowledged that although the committee was “not at the point where we want to take the kickoff out of the game completely,” it “may be moving in that direction.” Based on Mara’s comments, it feels like the only hang-up preventing the kickoff’s extinction is figuring out how a team, after scoring in the fourth quarter but still trailing, could attempt to get the ball back without an onside kick. If this year’s rule change doesn’t limit the frequency of returns, though, late-game scenarios probably wouldn’t be enough to stop the committee from doing away with kickoffs entirely.
Since this latest rule was passed, there have already been some indicators that the committee might not get the outcome it anticipates. And that starts with teams’ never-ending search for even the slimmest competitive advantage. For the past five years, the ideal kickoff specialist has been someone who could pound the ball out of the end zone and ensure the opposition starts at its own 20-yard line. With touchbacks becoming more punitive, the most valuable kickers may be the ones who can consistently loft high kicks inside the 5 — finding the sweet spot between distance and hang time, and pinning teams inside the 25.
“Every NFL kicker I talked to said he would change to a high, short kick to the goal line,” retired kicker Jay Feely told NFL.com’s Judy Battista in March. “It’s not hard to do at all. The hard part will be the amount of hang time. The best kickers will be able to get 4.4 to 4.6 [second] hang time kicking it to the goal line.”
Given the sport’s very nature, every great moment in NFL history has been preceded by a kickoff. For some moments, though, the kickoff has been essential to that greatness. Desmond Howard brought home a Super Bowl MVP award with the Packers on the shoulders of his return work, and the best memory of my football life is still Devin Hester, in Super Bowl XLI, corralling an Adam Vinatieri kick on the 8-yard line and taking it for a touchdown. My euphoria lasted about 10 minutes before Rex Grossman turned into a pumpkin and the Colts started to handle the Bears. But damn, those 10 minutes were sweet.
Hester’s return was the first place my mind went after reading what the Patriots’ Matthew Slater told local reporters after an OTA late last week. Slater, by a wide margin, is the most notable non-kicker, non-returner special teams player in the league; he’s gone to the Pro Bowl in each of the past five years. After being asked about the NFL’s new one-year rule that will place the ball on the 25-yard line following a touchback, he responded with this:“I’m very disappointed, obviously, in the way we’re discussing the future of the kickoff … The kickoff is a big part of the history of the NFL and the history of football. For us to be sitting here talking about maybe doing away with the kickoff, it’s very disappointing.”
After naming some of the famous return men from his father’s playing days — former Rams great Jackie Slater is his dad! Who knew? — Slater went on.
“The kicking game has meant a lot to the game of football and a lot of players individually and has enabled guys to have careers. You think about [longtime Patriots special teamer] Larry Izzo, you think about myself. Without the kicking game, we don’t have a career. I’m very disappointed with some of the things I hear in regards to getting rid of the kickoff. I surely hope that’s not the case. I hope that’s not the direction we’re moving in, but we’ll see.”
The NFL has been trying to legislate kick returns for a while. From a player-safety perspective, it does make sense: Kickoff returns have been called the most dangerous plays in sports. But the effects of eliminating kickoffs would go beyond making the NFL a safer workplace. It would alter strategic approaches in both game plan and roster construction, all while costing plenty of players their jobs.
The league moved kickoffs from the 30- to the 35-yard line before the 2011 season, and the percentage that resulted in touchbacks jumped from 16.4 percent to 43.5 percent that year before rising steadily to 56 percent in ’15. Still, as ESPN’s Brian Burke and Sharon Katz wrote in March, deeper kicks failed to provide enough of a deterrent. Even with an uptick in touchbacks, the decision to take them wasn’t statistically savvy. According to Burke and Katz, an average kick return yielded an expected .59 points for an offense, while a touchback translated into an expected .29 points. Regardless of whether players were aware of that gap, return men last season still elected to run kickoffs back 46 percent of the time. By giving offenses 5 more yards for taking a knee, the NFL’s hope, clearly, is that this incentive disappears.
When Giants owner and NFL Competition Committee member John Mara was asked about the rule in April, he acknowledged that although the committee was “not at the point where we want to take the kickoff out of the game completely,” it “may be moving in that direction.” Based on Mara’s comments, it feels like the only hang-up preventing the kickoff’s extinction is figuring out how a team, after scoring in the fourth quarter but still trailing, could attempt to get the ball back without an onside kick. If this year’s rule change doesn’t limit the frequency of returns, though, late-game scenarios probably wouldn’t be enough to stop the committee from doing away with kickoffs entirely.
Since this latest rule was passed, there have already been some indicators that the committee might not get the outcome it anticipates. And that starts with teams’ never-ending search for even the slimmest competitive advantage. For the past five years, the ideal kickoff specialist has been someone who could pound the ball out of the end zone and ensure the opposition starts at its own 20-yard line. With touchbacks becoming more punitive, the most valuable kickers may be the ones who can consistently loft high kicks inside the 5 — finding the sweet spot between distance and hang time, and pinning teams inside the 25.
“Every NFL kicker I talked to said he would change to a high, short kick to the goal line,” retired kicker Jay Feely told NFL.com’s Judy Battista in March. “It’s not hard to do at all. The hard part will be the amount of hang time. The best kickers will be able to get 4.4 to 4.6 [second] hang time kicking it to the goal line.”
by Robert Mays, The Ringer | Read more:
Image: Getty
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Nebraska's Hemp Battle: Farmers Say Officials Are Blocking a Gold Rush
[ ed. Funny story: back in college my girlfriend and I traveled to Minnesota to visit relatives. While we were there we'd sometimes go out trout fishing on the back roads just to get away for a while. One day, standing next to a small stream, I happened to look up and there must have been an acre of weed, just out there, growing on the other side. Beautiful tall plants, flowering stalks, everything you can imagine. We freaked out! Wading into the dense field of greenery felt like some kind of stoner's dream. Anyway, long story short, we stripped as many plants as we could, crammed them into garbage bags and stashed them in the trunk of my little Datsun. We must have scored several pounds. Later, we drove all the way back to Colorado with our "contraband", dreaming all the way about the ton of money we were going to make (and constantly paranoid about being stopped and arrested along the way). We made it back. But after careful drying and processing (dry ice was involved) we lit up and.... nothing. WTF? It never occurred to us it was just hemp. We could have rolled a joint the size of a Cuban Cigar and still not have gotten a buzz. So we ended up throwing it all away (after risking arrest and a criminal record for transporting an illegal drug across numerous state lines). Ahh, the days of youth and stupidity.]
Twenty miles east of his office at the University of Nebraska, plant geneticist Ismail Dweikat finds what he’s looking for at the fringe of a budding cornfield: wild hemp.
Mixed among other roadside weeds, the hemp bears the familiar narrow five-fingered leaves synonymous with marijuana but almost none of pot’s psychoactive component, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).
But hemp is unlikely to be anything more than a ditch weed in the Cornhusker state this year and possibly for years to come. Despite terrain that farmers say is ideal for growing hemp, Nebraskans haven’t been able to cash in on what they believe is a potential gold rush, caught in an epic battle with the government.
“There are so many obstacles,” bemoans Dweikat.
The only permissible means of growing hemp in the state is through university research. But even researchers have faced a series of hurdles that have meant not a single hemp growing operation has launched in Nebraska.
Dweikat was hoping to plant two acres of hemp this spring at a test plot but almost four months after the University of Nebraska sent paperwork seeking to import seeds from Canada to the Drug Enforcement Administration, researchers do not have all the permits necessary to import special seeds from Manitoba, Canada, with THC content certified at less than 0.3%.
If and when the seeds arrive at the university, they will receive the kind of security usually reserved for precious gems. Dweikat says the seeds will be locked in a metal safe inside a locked cage. The university was asked to add metal reinforcement under the safe when DEA agents worried someone could saw the wood beneath the strongbox to get to the seeds, he says.
“There is such a misunderstanding of hemp, it just dumbfounds me,” explains Jon Hanson, an organic farmer in Marquette, who says he’d love to grow hemp on his 480-acre farm.
Unlike neighboring Colorado, where it’s legal to grow such commercial marijuana strains as Purple Haze and Chemdawg, farmers in Nebraska and elsewhere are forbidden by law from planting industrial hemp for prosaic purposes such as fiber and seed oil.
The DEA considers hemp a Schedule I drug – the same as heroin and LSD. The US Farm Bill signed by Barack Obama in 2014 carved out an exception for research and pilot programs, if states pass laws permitting it. Twenty-nine states have done so, according to the Hemp Industries Association.
But in Nebraska, a state bill to allow farmers to apply for this exception was thwarted by senators and police officials who feared hemp would be a gateway crop to recreational marijuana. (...)
“We’re stuck in the mud,” Lupien says. “There are lots and lots of farmers interested in growing an alternative crop in the rotation. It would break the disease and pest cycles and have huge benefits economically and environmentally.”
The Hemp Industries Association estimates some $573m of goods containing hemp were in the United States in 2015, almost all of it imported. These goods included foods, supplements, body care products, clothing, auto parts, insulation and construction materials and medicine. (....)
According to advocates, hemp is as American as apple pie. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams all grew hemp, which was used for paper, rope and cloth. The first flag of the United States, sewn by Betsy Ross, is said to have been made from hemp, and the Declaration of Independence was drafted on hemp paper.
by David Steen Martin, The Guardian | Read more:
Image: David Steen Martin
Twenty miles east of his office at the University of Nebraska, plant geneticist Ismail Dweikat finds what he’s looking for at the fringe of a budding cornfield: wild hemp.
Mixed among other roadside weeds, the hemp bears the familiar narrow five-fingered leaves synonymous with marijuana but almost none of pot’s psychoactive component, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).But hemp is unlikely to be anything more than a ditch weed in the Cornhusker state this year and possibly for years to come. Despite terrain that farmers say is ideal for growing hemp, Nebraskans haven’t been able to cash in on what they believe is a potential gold rush, caught in an epic battle with the government.
“There are so many obstacles,” bemoans Dweikat.
The only permissible means of growing hemp in the state is through university research. But even researchers have faced a series of hurdles that have meant not a single hemp growing operation has launched in Nebraska.
Dweikat was hoping to plant two acres of hemp this spring at a test plot but almost four months after the University of Nebraska sent paperwork seeking to import seeds from Canada to the Drug Enforcement Administration, researchers do not have all the permits necessary to import special seeds from Manitoba, Canada, with THC content certified at less than 0.3%.
If and when the seeds arrive at the university, they will receive the kind of security usually reserved for precious gems. Dweikat says the seeds will be locked in a metal safe inside a locked cage. The university was asked to add metal reinforcement under the safe when DEA agents worried someone could saw the wood beneath the strongbox to get to the seeds, he says.
“There is such a misunderstanding of hemp, it just dumbfounds me,” explains Jon Hanson, an organic farmer in Marquette, who says he’d love to grow hemp on his 480-acre farm.
Unlike neighboring Colorado, where it’s legal to grow such commercial marijuana strains as Purple Haze and Chemdawg, farmers in Nebraska and elsewhere are forbidden by law from planting industrial hemp for prosaic purposes such as fiber and seed oil.
The DEA considers hemp a Schedule I drug – the same as heroin and LSD. The US Farm Bill signed by Barack Obama in 2014 carved out an exception for research and pilot programs, if states pass laws permitting it. Twenty-nine states have done so, according to the Hemp Industries Association.
But in Nebraska, a state bill to allow farmers to apply for this exception was thwarted by senators and police officials who feared hemp would be a gateway crop to recreational marijuana. (...)
“We’re stuck in the mud,” Lupien says. “There are lots and lots of farmers interested in growing an alternative crop in the rotation. It would break the disease and pest cycles and have huge benefits economically and environmentally.”
The Hemp Industries Association estimates some $573m of goods containing hemp were in the United States in 2015, almost all of it imported. These goods included foods, supplements, body care products, clothing, auto parts, insulation and construction materials and medicine. (....)
According to advocates, hemp is as American as apple pie. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams all grew hemp, which was used for paper, rope and cloth. The first flag of the United States, sewn by Betsy Ross, is said to have been made from hemp, and the Declaration of Independence was drafted on hemp paper.
by David Steen Martin, The Guardian | Read more:
Image: David Steen Martin
Saturday, June 11, 2016
Depression-Busting Exercise Tips For People Too Depressed To Exercise
If you’ve struggled with depression at any point in your life, you’ve probably heard some well-meaning soul say “just try to get some exercise, it’s good for your mood!” Annoyingly, they’re right; I don’t think that exercise can single-handedly cure depression or treat its symptoms, but it’s clearly helpful for many people who struggle. In the 10 years I spent in the fitness industry, both as a personal trainer with depressed clients and as the depressed client myself, I’ve seen physical activity provide focus, routine, comfort, and even assistance with physical health when it feels like everything else is going to hell.
But there’s one thing that never, ever helps people who are dealing with situational or clinical depression: telling them that exercise will help.
When it comes to having a mental illness, the G.I. Joe doctrine is meaningless: Knowing what will help you isn’t close to half the battle. It’s a tenth of the battle, at best. Most people with depression are already aware—often too aware—of all the things we could or should be doing to combat our condition. But where the well-meaning mentally healthy person sees a straightforward progression toward improvement, we see the paradox: yes, if we could do those things, it might help our depression, but not being able to do those things is a major part of being depressed.
The fitness industry talks a lot about “exercise lifehacks for depression!!!”, but it seems to be coming from a place of ignorance about the cold war going on in the average depressed person’s head. Most of these training tips and listicles read like they came from people who have faced very little adversity in their lives, and who think that their own health is entirely the product of their own hard work. Even if that’s not true, these pieces are certainly written by people who haven’t let their hardships add any nuance to their argument. The introductions talk about how great exercise is for you, and then they jump straight to tips on motivation, routine, and the physical activity itself. Those tips aren’t necessarily wrong, but when you’re actually suffering, they sound about as realistic as South Park’s underwear-thieving gnomes. Step 1. Realize that you should exercise. Step 2 ? Step 3. HEALTH!
When you’re depressed, that question mark can be a barely navigable labyrinth of garbage fires fueled by physical and mental exhaustion, self-loathing, defeat, and frustration. The last time I found myself trying to hack through that mess during a particularly dark period, I started to come up with my own list of bare-bones, practical tips to help me face the idea of moving again. Now I’m sharing them, in case they might help someone else in a similar position. I stress the word “might.” If you’re depressed, the last thing you need is another a-hole telling you what you should do. But if you’re looking for somewhere to start, I’ve been there too.
But there’s one thing that never, ever helps people who are dealing with situational or clinical depression: telling them that exercise will help.
When it comes to having a mental illness, the G.I. Joe doctrine is meaningless: Knowing what will help you isn’t close to half the battle. It’s a tenth of the battle, at best. Most people with depression are already aware—often too aware—of all the things we could or should be doing to combat our condition. But where the well-meaning mentally healthy person sees a straightforward progression toward improvement, we see the paradox: yes, if we could do those things, it might help our depression, but not being able to do those things is a major part of being depressed.The fitness industry talks a lot about “exercise lifehacks for depression!!!”, but it seems to be coming from a place of ignorance about the cold war going on in the average depressed person’s head. Most of these training tips and listicles read like they came from people who have faced very little adversity in their lives, and who think that their own health is entirely the product of their own hard work. Even if that’s not true, these pieces are certainly written by people who haven’t let their hardships add any nuance to their argument. The introductions talk about how great exercise is for you, and then they jump straight to tips on motivation, routine, and the physical activity itself. Those tips aren’t necessarily wrong, but when you’re actually suffering, they sound about as realistic as South Park’s underwear-thieving gnomes. Step 1. Realize that you should exercise. Step 2 ? Step 3. HEALTH!
When you’re depressed, that question mark can be a barely navigable labyrinth of garbage fires fueled by physical and mental exhaustion, self-loathing, defeat, and frustration. The last time I found myself trying to hack through that mess during a particularly dark period, I started to come up with my own list of bare-bones, practical tips to help me face the idea of moving again. Now I’m sharing them, in case they might help someone else in a similar position. I stress the word “might.” If you’re depressed, the last thing you need is another a-hole telling you what you should do. But if you’re looking for somewhere to start, I’ve been there too.
by Sarah Kurchak, The Establishment | Read more:
Image: uncredited
An E.R. Kicks the Habit of Opioids for Pain
Since Jan. 4, St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center’s emergency department, one of the country’s busiest, has been using opioids only as a last resort. For patients with common types of acute pain — migraines, kidney stones, sciatica, fractures — doctors first try alternative regimens that include nonnarcotic infusions and injections, ultrasound guided nerve blocks, laughing gas, even “energy healing” and a wandering harpist.
Scattered E.R.s around the country have been working to reduce opioids as a first-line treatment, but St. Joe’s, as it is known locally, has taken the efforts to a new level.
by Jan Hoffman, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Mark Makela for The New York Times
Tiny Home Test Drive
Last week, the first tenants moved into the city’s first micro apartment development on East 27th Street. I did, too, for one night.
Tucked into a New York City Housing Authority site, on a spot between First and Second Avenues that was once a parking lot, and flanked by linden and honeylocust trees and a small plaza lined with park benches, the nine-story building, with 55 apartments between 260 and 360 square feet, is an elegant design by nArchitects, and built by Monadnock Development and the Lower East Side People’s Mutual Housing Association.
It’s also adorable, a compressed vision of the city in both ethos and mien. Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang, nArchitects’ founding principals, imagined it as four slender stepped towers, like a mini skyline.
On that hot evening, the benches outside were full of kibitzing men of a certain age; the playground across Mount Carmel Place, the two-block street that bisects the site, had largely emptied out but for a few stragglers. Knots of pedestrians wafted by. The ghost of Jane Jacobs hovered.
Carmel Place, formerly known as My Micro NY, was the winner of the small space/tiny home competition sponsored by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development in 2013. For the last three years, its flourishes and features — the modular units prefabricated in a factory in the old Brooklyn Navy Yard and stacked like Legos on site; its capacious common areas and windowed hallways; the humane and lovely elements of the apartments, like 8-foot windows and nearly 10-foot ceilings — have been on display, at first in renderings, and finally, in a model apartment that was tricked out last winter.
For housing advocates, the architectural community and urban policy makers, the building is a trial balloon for a medley of themes: the changing demographic of a city with inadequate housing (according to the NYU Furman Center, a third of the city’s households are single people); a culture eager to make a smaller environmental footprint by paring down belongings and sharing resources; and what has become a unicorn in this city, affordable housing.
Carmel Place is no affordable housing utopia, but it’s a start. While the lion’s share — 32 — of the units are market rate, with monthly rents ranging from $2,446 to $3,195, eight have been set aside for formerly homeless veterans, and 14 units are designated affordable, with monthly rents from $914 to $1,873, and for which 60,000 people applied in a lottery. One apartment has been set aside for the superintendent. Fifty percent of the building is already leased.
It’s a nice place for a sleepover. The 302-square-foot unit I stayed in rents for $2,670 a month, furnished, which includes convertible and small-space objects from Resource Furniture. That company’s sofa-wall bed combination called Penelope (my destiny?), made in Italy by Clei, is the linchpin of the space: a Murphy-style bed, surrounded by deep cabinets, that unfolds over a diminutive charcoal-gray sofa. (...)
Perhaps this apartment is too good, too soft, for the demographic it purports to address. How will they mature in a friction-free environment? It irritated me that a 25-year-old would soon be lolling in my bed, or in the lounge chairs on the roof deck, after having fired up the commercial grill there, and after a long day of networking in some shared work space, or returning home from a day’s surfing in the Rockaways, tucking his surfboard into the space Mr. Bunge and Ms. Hoang designed for it.
Carmel Place’s rent includes not just internet and Wi-Fi, but a weekly tidying service and a monthly deep clean, along with dog walking, dry cleaning pickup and any number of customized errands through an app called Hello Alfred, all organized by Ollie.
Ms. Schmidt said her company is about to announce more building alliances that will allow Carmel Place residents to avail themselves of more and more thermal pools, yoga studios and barbecue pits all over town. “You will meet with your home manager to say what you want for your home experience,” Ms. Schmidt said. “Maybe you want your slippers by the door, or your towels folded a certain way.”
Tucked into a New York City Housing Authority site, on a spot between First and Second Avenues that was once a parking lot, and flanked by linden and honeylocust trees and a small plaza lined with park benches, the nine-story building, with 55 apartments between 260 and 360 square feet, is an elegant design by nArchitects, and built by Monadnock Development and the Lower East Side People’s Mutual Housing Association.
It’s also adorable, a compressed vision of the city in both ethos and mien. Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang, nArchitects’ founding principals, imagined it as four slender stepped towers, like a mini skyline.On that hot evening, the benches outside were full of kibitzing men of a certain age; the playground across Mount Carmel Place, the two-block street that bisects the site, had largely emptied out but for a few stragglers. Knots of pedestrians wafted by. The ghost of Jane Jacobs hovered.
Carmel Place, formerly known as My Micro NY, was the winner of the small space/tiny home competition sponsored by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development in 2013. For the last three years, its flourishes and features — the modular units prefabricated in a factory in the old Brooklyn Navy Yard and stacked like Legos on site; its capacious common areas and windowed hallways; the humane and lovely elements of the apartments, like 8-foot windows and nearly 10-foot ceilings — have been on display, at first in renderings, and finally, in a model apartment that was tricked out last winter.
For housing advocates, the architectural community and urban policy makers, the building is a trial balloon for a medley of themes: the changing demographic of a city with inadequate housing (according to the NYU Furman Center, a third of the city’s households are single people); a culture eager to make a smaller environmental footprint by paring down belongings and sharing resources; and what has become a unicorn in this city, affordable housing.
Carmel Place is no affordable housing utopia, but it’s a start. While the lion’s share — 32 — of the units are market rate, with monthly rents ranging from $2,446 to $3,195, eight have been set aside for formerly homeless veterans, and 14 units are designated affordable, with monthly rents from $914 to $1,873, and for which 60,000 people applied in a lottery. One apartment has been set aside for the superintendent. Fifty percent of the building is already leased.
It’s a nice place for a sleepover. The 302-square-foot unit I stayed in rents for $2,670 a month, furnished, which includes convertible and small-space objects from Resource Furniture. That company’s sofa-wall bed combination called Penelope (my destiny?), made in Italy by Clei, is the linchpin of the space: a Murphy-style bed, surrounded by deep cabinets, that unfolds over a diminutive charcoal-gray sofa. (...)
Perhaps this apartment is too good, too soft, for the demographic it purports to address. How will they mature in a friction-free environment? It irritated me that a 25-year-old would soon be lolling in my bed, or in the lounge chairs on the roof deck, after having fired up the commercial grill there, and after a long day of networking in some shared work space, or returning home from a day’s surfing in the Rockaways, tucking his surfboard into the space Mr. Bunge and Ms. Hoang designed for it.
Carmel Place’s rent includes not just internet and Wi-Fi, but a weekly tidying service and a monthly deep clean, along with dog walking, dry cleaning pickup and any number of customized errands through an app called Hello Alfred, all organized by Ollie.
Ms. Schmidt said her company is about to announce more building alliances that will allow Carmel Place residents to avail themselves of more and more thermal pools, yoga studios and barbecue pits all over town. “You will meet with your home manager to say what you want for your home experience,” Ms. Schmidt said. “Maybe you want your slippers by the door, or your towels folded a certain way.”
by Penelope Greene, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
Friday, June 10, 2016
Stop Making Everything Perfect For Your Kid
There was a kid running at the neighborhood pool the other day. The pool attendant asked him to walk — as pool attendants have done since pools existed. The boy’s dad — a big-chested, serious kind of guy — came over to the attendant and told him (I swear I’m not making this up), that as the child’s father, he’s the only one to tell his kid what to do, and that if the attendant has something to say, it should be directed at him, don’t talk to his kid; he’ll decide if his kid needs direction.
The attendant kept his cool (I would have rolled my eyes or worse) and replied — carefully — that it was his job to make sure that people follow the pool rules, and “no running” is pretty much the universal pool rule. The dad pushed back and added some aggressive posturing to intimidate the pool guy, saying that he didn’t see anything wrong with what his kid was doing, so, as far as he was concerned, the pool guy needs to back off. In summary: The kid was free to run at the pool because the dad said so, fuck the pool rules, (this is America!) nobody tells my kid what to do except me.
Uh, ok.
There’s a weird sort of fear spreading amongst reasonable grownups. My sister’s family had some friends over. Or, maybe my sister’s family went over to their place. I don’t remember, doesn’t really matter. Anyway, one of the adults gave one of my sister’s kids some polite direction about sharing or something basic like that, you know, stuff people tell kids. Then the grownup realized the grave error in 21st century feedback rules concerning kids who aren’t yours, and apologized to my sister for shamefully overstepping. “Are you KIDDING?” my sister said. “I absolutely want you to tell my kids if they’re doing something you don’t think they should be doing! In fact, do more of it! They need to learn to hear things from people other than me.”
If I’m the only one who can tell my kids what to do, I’ve failed them in every possible way by making sure they have completely unrealistic expectations of the world. Also, I can’t ever die, because my kids won’t be able to take care of themselves. Following Big-Chested Dad at the Pool’s logic, a lifeguard can’t lifeguard, teachers can’t teach, coaches can’t coach and, later in life, managers can’t manage... you see where this is going, right?
Is cushiony perfection for our kids a new national obsession? We all know That Mom in the neighborhood, who is literally at the school every day, escalating everything to make sure her kid gets an A, is chosen for Student Council, or gets placed in the gifted program. Later, when her kid is in college, professors will hang up on her and laugh behind her back because she’ll call about something that’s none of her business.
My middle schooler and his project partner failed to turn an assignment in on time, after many reminders of the deadline. The other kid’s mom (who I met once, briefly) came to my house and wouldn’t leave until I talked with her for nearly an hour about the Injustice. She was heartbroken for the disappointment her kid must be feeling at the failure, and wanted to fix it somehow. She left, but I think it was only because I told her I had no idea how to reverse the course of what happened and suggested she escalate to a school administrator if she believed the teacher could be convinced to reverse his decision. I haven’t heard back from her.
I don’t mean to brag, but my high schooler fails at quite a few things. None of them too epic, but there’s still time. We talked about it recently. I told him it’s my job to let him fail while he’s still at home with me, because he needs to learn how to lose his shit and then pick it up and move forward. That’s like the most major of life skills — in my experience, anyway — and I’ll be damned if any kid of mine is going to fall to pieces his first semester in college because I’m not there to fix life for him. You remember that person from your dorm days precisely because that person became an utterly forgettable shadow.
The attendant kept his cool (I would have rolled my eyes or worse) and replied — carefully — that it was his job to make sure that people follow the pool rules, and “no running” is pretty much the universal pool rule. The dad pushed back and added some aggressive posturing to intimidate the pool guy, saying that he didn’t see anything wrong with what his kid was doing, so, as far as he was concerned, the pool guy needs to back off. In summary: The kid was free to run at the pool because the dad said so, fuck the pool rules, (this is America!) nobody tells my kid what to do except me.Uh, ok.
There’s a weird sort of fear spreading amongst reasonable grownups. My sister’s family had some friends over. Or, maybe my sister’s family went over to their place. I don’t remember, doesn’t really matter. Anyway, one of the adults gave one of my sister’s kids some polite direction about sharing or something basic like that, you know, stuff people tell kids. Then the grownup realized the grave error in 21st century feedback rules concerning kids who aren’t yours, and apologized to my sister for shamefully overstepping. “Are you KIDDING?” my sister said. “I absolutely want you to tell my kids if they’re doing something you don’t think they should be doing! In fact, do more of it! They need to learn to hear things from people other than me.”
If I’m the only one who can tell my kids what to do, I’ve failed them in every possible way by making sure they have completely unrealistic expectations of the world. Also, I can’t ever die, because my kids won’t be able to take care of themselves. Following Big-Chested Dad at the Pool’s logic, a lifeguard can’t lifeguard, teachers can’t teach, coaches can’t coach and, later in life, managers can’t manage... you see where this is going, right?
Is cushiony perfection for our kids a new national obsession? We all know That Mom in the neighborhood, who is literally at the school every day, escalating everything to make sure her kid gets an A, is chosen for Student Council, or gets placed in the gifted program. Later, when her kid is in college, professors will hang up on her and laugh behind her back because she’ll call about something that’s none of her business.
My middle schooler and his project partner failed to turn an assignment in on time, after many reminders of the deadline. The other kid’s mom (who I met once, briefly) came to my house and wouldn’t leave until I talked with her for nearly an hour about the Injustice. She was heartbroken for the disappointment her kid must be feeling at the failure, and wanted to fix it somehow. She left, but I think it was only because I told her I had no idea how to reverse the course of what happened and suggested she escalate to a school administrator if she believed the teacher could be convinced to reverse his decision. I haven’t heard back from her.
I don’t mean to brag, but my high schooler fails at quite a few things. None of them too epic, but there’s still time. We talked about it recently. I told him it’s my job to let him fail while he’s still at home with me, because he needs to learn how to lose his shit and then pick it up and move forward. That’s like the most major of life skills — in my experience, anyway — and I’ll be damned if any kid of mine is going to fall to pieces his first semester in college because I’m not there to fix life for him. You remember that person from your dorm days precisely because that person became an utterly forgettable shadow.
by Susan Speer, Medium | Read more:
Image: Susan Speer
Thursday, June 9, 2016
Dump the G.O.P. for a Grand New Party
If a party could declare moral bankruptcy, today’s Republican Party would be in Chapter 11.
This party needs to just shut itself down and start over — now. Seriously, someone please start a New Republican Party!
America needs a healthy two-party system. America needs a healthy center-right party to ensure that the Democrats remain a healthy center-left party. America needs a center-right party ready to offer market-based solutions to issues like climate change. America needs a center-right party that will support common-sense gun laws. America needs a center-right party that will support common-sense fiscal policy. America needs a center-right party to support both free trade and aid to workers impacted by it. America needs a center-right party that appreciates how much more complicated foreign policy is today, when you have to manage weak and collapsing nations, not just muscle strong ones.
But this Republican Party is none of those things. Today’s G.O.P. is to governing what Trump University is to education — an ethically challenged enterprise that enriches and perpetuates itself by shedding all pretense of standing for real principles, or a truly relevant value proposition, and instead plays on the ignorance and fears of the public.
It is just an empty shell, selling pieces of itself to the highest bidders, — policy by policy — a little to the Tea Party over here, a little to Big Oil over there, a little to the gun lobby, to antitax zealots, to climate-change deniers. And before you know it, the party stands for an incoherent mess of ideas unrelated to any theory of where the world is going or how America actually becomes great again in the 21st century.
It becomes instead a coalition of men and women who sell pieces of their brand to whoever can most energize their base in order for them to get re-elected in order for them to sell more pieces of their brand in order to get re-elected.
And we know just how little they are attached to any principles, because today’s Republican Party’s elders have told us so by (with a few notable exceptions) being so willing to throw their support behind a presidential candidate who they know is utterly ignorant of policy, has done no homework, has engaged in racist attacks on a sitting judge, has mocked a disabled reporter, has impugned an entire religious community, and has tossed off ignorant proposals for walls, for letting allies go it alone and go nuclear and for overturning trade treaties, rules of war and nuclear agreements in ways that would be wildly destabilizing if he took office.
Despite that, all top G.O.P. leaders say they will still support Donald Trump — even if he’s dabbled in a “textbook definition” of racism, as House Speaker Paul Ryan described it — because he will sign off on their agenda and can do only limited damage given our checks and balances.
Really? Mr. Speaker, your agenda is a mess, Trump will pay even less attention to you if he is president and, as Senator Lindsey Graham rightly put it, there has to be a time “when the love of country will trump hatred of Hillary.”
Will it ever be that time with this version of the G.O.P.?
Et tu, John McCain? You didn’t break under torture from the North Vietnamese, but your hunger for re-election is so great that you don’t dare raise your voice against Trump? I hope you lose. You deserve to. Marco Rubio? You called Trump “a con man,” he insults your very being and you still endorse him? Good riddance.
Chris Christie, have you not an ounce of self-respect? You’re serving as the valet to a man who claimed, falsely, that on 9/11, in Jersey City, home to many Arab-Americans, “thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down.” Christie is backing a man who made up a baldfaced lie about residents of his own state so that maybe he can be his vice president. Contemptible.
This is exactly why so many Republican voters opted for Trump in the first place. They intuited that the only thing these G.O.P. politicians were interested in was holding onto their seats in office — and they were right. It made voters so utterly cynical that many figured, Why not inflict Trump on them? It’s all just a con game anyway. And at least Trump sticks it to all of those politically correct liberals. And anyway, governing doesn’t matter — only attitude.
And who taught them that?
by Thomas L. Friedman, NY Times | Read more:
This party needs to just shut itself down and start over — now. Seriously, someone please start a New Republican Party!
America needs a healthy two-party system. America needs a healthy center-right party to ensure that the Democrats remain a healthy center-left party. America needs a center-right party ready to offer market-based solutions to issues like climate change. America needs a center-right party that will support common-sense gun laws. America needs a center-right party that will support common-sense fiscal policy. America needs a center-right party to support both free trade and aid to workers impacted by it. America needs a center-right party that appreciates how much more complicated foreign policy is today, when you have to manage weak and collapsing nations, not just muscle strong ones.
But this Republican Party is none of those things. Today’s G.O.P. is to governing what Trump University is to education — an ethically challenged enterprise that enriches and perpetuates itself by shedding all pretense of standing for real principles, or a truly relevant value proposition, and instead plays on the ignorance and fears of the public.
It is just an empty shell, selling pieces of itself to the highest bidders, — policy by policy — a little to the Tea Party over here, a little to Big Oil over there, a little to the gun lobby, to antitax zealots, to climate-change deniers. And before you know it, the party stands for an incoherent mess of ideas unrelated to any theory of where the world is going or how America actually becomes great again in the 21st century.
It becomes instead a coalition of men and women who sell pieces of their brand to whoever can most energize their base in order for them to get re-elected in order for them to sell more pieces of their brand in order to get re-elected.
And we know just how little they are attached to any principles, because today’s Republican Party’s elders have told us so by (with a few notable exceptions) being so willing to throw their support behind a presidential candidate who they know is utterly ignorant of policy, has done no homework, has engaged in racist attacks on a sitting judge, has mocked a disabled reporter, has impugned an entire religious community, and has tossed off ignorant proposals for walls, for letting allies go it alone and go nuclear and for overturning trade treaties, rules of war and nuclear agreements in ways that would be wildly destabilizing if he took office.
Despite that, all top G.O.P. leaders say they will still support Donald Trump — even if he’s dabbled in a “textbook definition” of racism, as House Speaker Paul Ryan described it — because he will sign off on their agenda and can do only limited damage given our checks and balances.
Really? Mr. Speaker, your agenda is a mess, Trump will pay even less attention to you if he is president and, as Senator Lindsey Graham rightly put it, there has to be a time “when the love of country will trump hatred of Hillary.”
Will it ever be that time with this version of the G.O.P.?
Et tu, John McCain? You didn’t break under torture from the North Vietnamese, but your hunger for re-election is so great that you don’t dare raise your voice against Trump? I hope you lose. You deserve to. Marco Rubio? You called Trump “a con man,” he insults your very being and you still endorse him? Good riddance.
Chris Christie, have you not an ounce of self-respect? You’re serving as the valet to a man who claimed, falsely, that on 9/11, in Jersey City, home to many Arab-Americans, “thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down.” Christie is backing a man who made up a baldfaced lie about residents of his own state so that maybe he can be his vice president. Contemptible.
This is exactly why so many Republican voters opted for Trump in the first place. They intuited that the only thing these G.O.P. politicians were interested in was holding onto their seats in office — and they were right. It made voters so utterly cynical that many figured, Why not inflict Trump on them? It’s all just a con game anyway. And at least Trump sticks it to all of those politically correct liberals. And anyway, governing doesn’t matter — only attitude.
And who taught them that?
by Thomas L. Friedman, NY Times | Read more:
Why Do the Poor Make Such Poor Decisions?
On November 13, 1997, a new casino opened its doors just south of North Carolina’s Great Smoky Mountains. Despite the dismal weather, a long line had formed at the entrance, and as people continued to arrive by the hundreds, the casino boss began advising folks to stay at home.
The widespread interest was hardly surprising. Harrah’s Cherokee was and still is a massive luxury casino owned and operated by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and its opening marked the end of a ten-year-long political tug of war. One tribal leader had even predicted that “gambling would be the Cherokee’s damnation,” and North Carolina’s governor had tried to block the project at every turn.
Soon after the opening, it became apparent that the casino would bring the tribe not damnation, but relief. The profits — amounting to $150 million in 2004 and growing to nearly $400 million in 2010 — enabled the tribe to build a new school, hospital, and fire station. However, the lion’s share of the takings went directly into the pockets of the 8,000 men, women, and children of the Eastern Band Cherokee tribe. From $500 a year at the outset, their earnings from the casino quickly mounted to $6,000 in 2001, constituting a quarter to a third of the average family income.
As coincidence would have it, a Duke University professor by the name of Jane Costello had been researching the mental health of youngsters south of the Great Smoky Mountains since 1993. Every year, the 1,420 kids enrolled in her study took a psychiatric test. The cumulative results had already shown that those growing up in poverty were much more prone to behavioral problems than other children.
But the question still remained: Which was the cause, and which the effect?
At the time Costello was doing her research, it was becoming increasingly popular to attribute mental problems to individual genetic factors. If nature was the root cause, then handing over a sack of money every year would be treating the symptoms, but ignoring the disease. If, on the other hand, people’s psychiatric problems were not the cause but the consequence of poverty, then that $6,000 might genuinely work wonders. The arrival of the casino, Costello realized, presented a unique opportunity to shed new light on this ongoing question since a quarter of the children in her study belonged to the Cherokee tribe, more than half of them living below the poverty line.
Soon after the casino opened, Costello was already noting huge improvements for her subjects. Behavioral problems among children who had been lifted out of poverty went down 40%, putting them in the same range as their peers who had never known privation. Juvenile crime rates among the Cherokee also declined, along with drug and alcohol use, while their school scores improved markedly. At school, the Cherokee kids were now on a par with the study’s non-tribal participants.
Ten years after the casino’s arrival, Costello’s findings showed that the younger the age at which children escaped poverty, the better their teenage mental health. Among her youngest age cohort, Costello observed a “dramatic decrease” in criminal conduct. In fact, the Cherokee children in her study were now better behaved than the control group.
On seeing the data, Costello’s first reaction was disbelief. “The expectation is that social interventions have relatively small effects,” she later said. “This one had quite large effects.” Professor Costello calculated that the extra $4,000 per annum resulted in an additional year of educational attainment by age 21 and reduced the chance of a criminal record at age 16 by 22%.
But the most significant improvement was in how the money helped parents, well, to parent. Before the casino opened its doors, parents worked hard through the summer but were often jobless and stressed over the winter. The new income enabled Cherokee families to put money aside and to pay bills in advance. Parents who were lifted out of poverty now reported having more time for their children.
They weren’t working any less though, Costello discovered. Mothers and fathers alike were putting in just as many hours as before the casino opened. More than anything, says tribe member Vickie L. Bradley, the money helped ease the pressure on families, so the energy they’d spent worrying about money was now freed up for their children. And that “helps parents be better parents,” Bradley explains.
What, then, is the cause of mental health problems among the poor? Nature or culture? Both, was Costello’s conclusion, because the stress of poverty puts people genetically predisposed to develop an illness or disorder at an elevated risk. But there’s a more important takeaway from this study.
Genes can’t be undone. Poverty can.
The widespread interest was hardly surprising. Harrah’s Cherokee was and still is a massive luxury casino owned and operated by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and its opening marked the end of a ten-year-long political tug of war. One tribal leader had even predicted that “gambling would be the Cherokee’s damnation,” and North Carolina’s governor had tried to block the project at every turn.
Soon after the opening, it became apparent that the casino would bring the tribe not damnation, but relief. The profits — amounting to $150 million in 2004 and growing to nearly $400 million in 2010 — enabled the tribe to build a new school, hospital, and fire station. However, the lion’s share of the takings went directly into the pockets of the 8,000 men, women, and children of the Eastern Band Cherokee tribe. From $500 a year at the outset, their earnings from the casino quickly mounted to $6,000 in 2001, constituting a quarter to a third of the average family income.As coincidence would have it, a Duke University professor by the name of Jane Costello had been researching the mental health of youngsters south of the Great Smoky Mountains since 1993. Every year, the 1,420 kids enrolled in her study took a psychiatric test. The cumulative results had already shown that those growing up in poverty were much more prone to behavioral problems than other children.
But the question still remained: Which was the cause, and which the effect?
At the time Costello was doing her research, it was becoming increasingly popular to attribute mental problems to individual genetic factors. If nature was the root cause, then handing over a sack of money every year would be treating the symptoms, but ignoring the disease. If, on the other hand, people’s psychiatric problems were not the cause but the consequence of poverty, then that $6,000 might genuinely work wonders. The arrival of the casino, Costello realized, presented a unique opportunity to shed new light on this ongoing question since a quarter of the children in her study belonged to the Cherokee tribe, more than half of them living below the poverty line.
Soon after the casino opened, Costello was already noting huge improvements for her subjects. Behavioral problems among children who had been lifted out of poverty went down 40%, putting them in the same range as their peers who had never known privation. Juvenile crime rates among the Cherokee also declined, along with drug and alcohol use, while their school scores improved markedly. At school, the Cherokee kids were now on a par with the study’s non-tribal participants.
Ten years after the casino’s arrival, Costello’s findings showed that the younger the age at which children escaped poverty, the better their teenage mental health. Among her youngest age cohort, Costello observed a “dramatic decrease” in criminal conduct. In fact, the Cherokee children in her study were now better behaved than the control group.
On seeing the data, Costello’s first reaction was disbelief. “The expectation is that social interventions have relatively small effects,” she later said. “This one had quite large effects.” Professor Costello calculated that the extra $4,000 per annum resulted in an additional year of educational attainment by age 21 and reduced the chance of a criminal record at age 16 by 22%.
But the most significant improvement was in how the money helped parents, well, to parent. Before the casino opened its doors, parents worked hard through the summer but were often jobless and stressed over the winter. The new income enabled Cherokee families to put money aside and to pay bills in advance. Parents who were lifted out of poverty now reported having more time for their children.
They weren’t working any less though, Costello discovered. Mothers and fathers alike were putting in just as many hours as before the casino opened. More than anything, says tribe member Vickie L. Bradley, the money helped ease the pressure on families, so the energy they’d spent worrying about money was now freed up for their children. And that “helps parents be better parents,” Bradley explains.
What, then, is the cause of mental health problems among the poor? Nature or culture? Both, was Costello’s conclusion, because the stress of poverty puts people genetically predisposed to develop an illness or disorder at an elevated risk. But there’s a more important takeaway from this study.
Genes can’t be undone. Poverty can.
Why Poor People Do Dumb Things
A world without poverty — it might be the oldest utopia around.
But anybody who takes this dream seriously must inevitably face a few tough questions. Why are the poor more likely to commit crimes? Why are they more prone to obesity? Why do they use more alcohol and drugs? In short, why do the poor make so many dumb decisions?
Harsh? Perhaps, but take a look at the statistics: The poor borrow more, save less, smoke more, exercise less, drink more, and eat less healthfully. Offer money management training and the poor are the last to sign up. When responding to job ads, the poor often write the worst applications and show up at interviews in the least professional attire.
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once called poverty a “personality defect.” Though not many politicians would go quite so far, this view that the solution resides with the individual is not exceptional. From Australia to England and from Sweden to the United States there is an entrenched notion that poverty is something people have to overcome on their own. Sure, the government can nudge them in the right direction with incentives — with policies promoting awareness, with penalties, and, above all, with education. In fact, if there’s a perceived “silver bullet” in the fight against poverty, it’s a high school diploma (or even better, a college degree).
But is that all there is to it?
What if the poor aren’t actually able to help themselves? What if all the incentives, all the information and education are like water off a duck’s back? And what if all those well-meant nudges only make the situation worse?
A world without poverty — it might be the oldest utopia around.
But anybody who takes this dream seriously must inevitably face a few tough questions. Why are the poor more likely to commit crimes? Why are they more prone to obesity? Why do they use more alcohol and drugs? In short, why do the poor make so many dumb decisions?
Harsh? Perhaps, but take a look at the statistics: The poor borrow more, save less, smoke more, exercise less, drink more, and eat less healthfully. Offer money management training and the poor are the last to sign up. When responding to job ads, the poor often write the worst applications and show up at interviews in the least professional attire.
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once called poverty a “personality defect.” Though not many politicians would go quite so far, this view that the solution resides with the individual is not exceptional. From Australia to England and from Sweden to the United States there is an entrenched notion that poverty is something people have to overcome on their own. Sure, the government can nudge them in the right direction with incentives — with policies promoting awareness, with penalties, and, above all, with education. In fact, if there’s a perceived “silver bullet” in the fight against poverty, it’s a high school diploma (or even better, a college degree).
But is that all there is to it?
What if the poor aren’t actually able to help themselves? What if all the incentives, all the information and education are like water off a duck’s back? And what if all those well-meant nudges only make the situation worse?
by Rutger Bregman, Medium | Read more:
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