Georgia O’Keefe: Red Canna, 1925-1928*
LACE FACTORY
O’Keefe’s flowers:
tunnels of flesh,
the dew of devouring throats –
love, magnified
to show how deep
reach the velvet
and rapacious flames.
Could Eros blaze
from the ash of years –
In youth she worked
in a lace factory,
drawing ghost-fine thread –
Blindness shut around her,
threadwork thick with age –
the set of sun and moon,
of the ochre glow
on the rocks,
on the red plateau –
Sangre de Cristo bone-lace light
infinite as the first
morning of the world.
Blessed are they
who can choose
what destroys them.
~ Oriana
*
DICKENS REALLY, REALLY HATED HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
~ Charles Dickens and Hans Christian Andersen first met at a party in the summer of 1847. Andersen was not yet well known in England (his stories were being translated from Danish for the first time), and he was starry-eyed, introducing himself to the much more famous Dickens and calling him “the greatest writer of our time.” Which is nice. A little much, maybe, but definitely nice.
They had a friendly conversation—afterwards, Andersen wrote a letter to his friends in Denmark, ecstatic that Dickens had lived up to his hopes. Andersen apparently made a good impression on Dickens, too, because a few weeks later, Dickens sent him a package containing some of his books, and a personal note.
Perhaps a little too encouraged by this gesture, Andersen sent Dickens regular letters for the next nine years. Annoyed by the correspondence, in 1856 Dickens insincerely and curtly mentioned (in a letter laden with the kind of weird flattery that often conceals petty meanness) that Anderson would be welcome to stay with his family, if he were ever in the neighborhood. Which, he absolutely, definitely did not mean.
But in March of 1857, Andersen earnestly wrote to Dickens to say that he was traveling to England, for no more than a fortnight, to take Dickens up on his offer. And so, in June of that year, Andersen showed up to Gad’s Hill, Dickens’s country estate in Higham, ready to become roommates with his hero. “My visit is for you alone,” he wrote. “Above all, always leave me a small corner in your heart.”
(If it weren’t for the fact that Andersen seems kind of cluelessly sweet, this would sound like horror movie. I’ve definitely seen this horror movie.)
Although the Dickens family was expecting him, in a way, they could have never expected him. Andersen, socially awkward and apparently one of the nineteenth century’s premier literary softbois, was not good at picking up on social cues or maintaining any kind of formal demeanor, demanding in one way or the other that he remain the center of attention. When he arrived, he asked that one of Dickens’s own sons give him a daily shave, explaining that this was a custom for hosting male guests in Denmark. Weirded out, Dickens made him a daily appointment at a nearby barbershop instead.
One night, during a dinner, when Dickens held an arm out to one of the ladies present, Anderson scooted over and grabbed it himself, and walked with Dickens arm-in-arm into the dining room. Which is not even to mention the fact that he stayed for three weeks longer than he had originally proposed.
Now, this was a particularly bad time for Dickens to have any (let alone such an oblivious) houseguest—Little Dorritt was not doing so well critically, and he was attempting to leave his wife for a woman half his age. Plus, he was acting in a play—his friend Wilkie Collins’s play The Frozen Deep. So, he was clearly a busy man, doing many important things.
Then again, Andersen was difficult to be around. At the premiere of The Frozen Deep (with Dickens in the leading role and Queen Victoria in the audience), he loudly burst into tears. Afterwards, he apparently sulked because his presence at the event was not noted more highly. And when he learned that one of his pieces received a negative review, he hurled himself down on the Dickens family lawn and passionately wept. Despite this spectacle, Dickens’s daughter Kate called him “a bony bore.”
It is speculated by some that Dickens may have based his gaunt, obsequious character Uriah Heap on his guest. It is assumed that Anderson based his character of the Ugly Duckling on himself.
Dickens complained about his guest extensively in his letters, nitpicking over all manner of harmless quirks. A country boy, Andersen was suspicious that he would be pick-pocketed in the city, and Dickens caustically wrote that, one time, a cab driver took Andersen on an alternate route through London, leading Andersen to conclude that he was about to be robbed and murdered, so he shoved all of his belongings into his boots (including his watch, money, a train timetable, “a pocket-book, a pair of scissors, a penknife,” and some other items, including, apparently, two small books). He got corns on his feet, Dickens wasted no time in mentioning.
Dickens was also suspicious about Andersen’s love for crafting, complaining “he cut out paper into all sorts of patterns, and gathered the strangest little nosegays in the woods.” He decorated Wilkie Collins’s hat with a daisy chain, which made the unsuspecting Collins a subject for local ridicule.
But the worst mudslinging came about Andersen’s writing and speaking abilities. Dickens told one friend, when inviting him over, “Hans Christian Andersen may perhaps be with us, but you won’t mind him—especially as he speaks no language but his own Danish, and is suspected of not even knowing that.”
He also complained, “He could not pronounce the name of his own book The Improvisatore, in Italian; and his [translator] appears to make out that he can’t speak Danish.” And, “He spoke French like Peter the Wild Boy and English like the Deaf and Dumb School.”
Which is, wow, incredibly mean.
After Andersen left (he sensed he was no longer welcome, and cried upon his departure, too), he sent along an apology note. “Kindly forget,” he pleaded, “the unfavorable aspect which our life together may have shown you of me.” Dickens, himself, wrote a note on the mirror of the guest room in his house: “Hans Andersen slept in this room for five weeks—which seemed to the family AGES!”
Dickens was also suspicious about Andersen’s love for crafting, complaining “he cut out paper into all sorts of patterns, and gathered the strangest little nosegays in the woods.” He decorated Wilkie Collins’s hat with a daisy chain, which made the unsuspecting Collins a subject for local ridicule.
Despite that both men seemed pretty not great in different ways (Andersen was insensitively sensitive, and Dickens was just plain nasty), this interlude does remind us that while, sometimes, you can meet your heroes… maybe just don’t let your fans live with you. In your house. ~
https://lithub.com/charles-dickens-really-really-hated-his-fanboy-hans-christian-andersen/?fbclid=IwAR3Ottf6T7eaJ9z0hWOsvNH5QeLUflGlyi_zknCzUk4kwO7QbuB-iWx8XQI
HITLER’S ANNEXATION OF SUDETENLAND
On October 1, 1938, Hitler annexes Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. “It is the last territorial claim which I have to make in Europe,” he assures the world.
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THE IRON CURTAIN IS FALLING AGAIN
~ Russia is closing its borders, apparently.
Welcome to Iron Curtain Redux.
Back to the USSR.
Except that — and I would never have thought I'd say this — Putin's Russia is worse than the late-stage, post-Stalin USSR. More ferociously lawless, more toxic, even more repugnant.
It took a lot of effort to get to such a surreal shame: fascism of the twenty-first century in the design of the era of Ivan the Terrible. ~ Misha Iossel
(Also Misha, sarcastically: So let's humor Putin and give him what he wants.)
Tom Beck:
In 1981–82, I lived in Moscow and Leningrad. Along with the depth of the cold war and the stagnation of Brezhnev's last years in power, what I noticed was how nobody believed in all the slogans painted and hung everywhere. My entire time there, I did not meet a single Russian who was sincere about "building socialism" and all the other propaganda. The difference now is that the man at the top DOES believe his own filth and has the power to enforce at least silence among everyone else. What a degeneration from even Putin's own pre-2014 system.
Vladimir Klimenko:
The late-stage USSR, for all of its hypocrisy, oppression, corruption and horrible Stalinist legacy, still maintained some thin thread connecting it to the Enlightenment as well as the country's own pre-revolutionary cultural legacy. Moreover the late USSR's more aggressive impulses were becoming exhausted by the 1980s. The post-1991 era has certainly offered a more modern feel and look, reinforced by more individual freedom and prosperity. But this came at the cost of renewed imperial ambition, more shameless greed and corruption, a more energetic revanchism and a degree of official mendacity that exceeds even the most poisonous lies of Pravda and TASS during the final pre-Gorbachev decades. Putin, in essence, has fused the worst elements of the country's past: late Tsarist reactionary ideology with Stalinism, along with an admixture of Third World kleptocracy that would have stirred the envy of Mobutu, Somoza, and Marcos.
*
Misha: PUTIN HAS DECLARED AN OPEN SEASON ON RUSSIAN POPULATION
Local Russian military commander shot at an enlistment office in Ust-Ilimsk, Irkutsk Region.
This likely will be happening with increased frequency in the weeks and months ahead, now that Putin has effectively declared an open season on his own population. ~
Oriana:
Having grown up in the Soviet bloc, what I find striking is that we get to know about what’s happening in Russia. We learn about the corruption, the incompetent army, the tens of thousands of men trying to escape the draft, fleeing even to places like Mongolia. For all of Putin’s attempts to restore the Soviet Union, he doesn’t seem to have the power to prevent the media from reporting bad news.
I remember the Soviet era — the muzzling was complete. Soviet life was idyllic! Now the façade is in ruins. Young people in particular can’t be kept in the dark anymore. They don’t get their news from TV, which they know is pure propaganda.
Totalitarianism is just that: total control. No negative news allowed. Maybe it’s the Internet, providing access to many news sources — in any case, it seems too late in history for the kind of totalitarianism that was practiced by the Soviet Union (especially by Stalin).
But not having total control over the news is poor prognosis for a dictatorship. Long live the internet!
*
THE PROMISED “DECLINE AND FALL OF THE WEST”
~ For as long as I can remember myself, since I was a little Soviet child, I was being told endlessly by the supposedly deathless Kremlin rulers that the historically doomed collective West — Europe and America — was teetering on the brink of inevitable complete collapse and disintegration. All through my childhood and adolescence and young adulthood I was being assured of that.
In the end, of course, it was the mighty, indomitable Soviet Union, the radiant hope of all the progressive humankind, that bit the dust and fell apart in the most ignominious fashion, not with a bang but a whimper.
And now the equally deranged — but markedly more belligerent — former third-tier KGB factotum in the Kremlin is telling the frightened, grimly resentful people of Russia that the very same hateful, historically doomed West is, well... historically doomed and about to be defeated once and for all.
Sure, Putin. Whatever you say. ~ Misha Iossel, Facebook
*
Khrushchev beats the rhythmic shoe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKdo1xwVK7s
PUTIN HAS MOBILIZED THE RUSSIAN POPULATION, BUT NOT IN THE WAY HE INTENDED
~ It was supposed to be a moment of victory and celebration, a repeat of the annexation of Crimea but on a far larger scale. The “referendums” held in the Russian-speaking south and eastern parts of Ukraine were meant to mark the success of Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation”. In the newly conquered territories locals were supposed to be shedding tears of gratitude for their liberation from Ukrainian “fascists” and throwing flowers. At home in Russia, Mr Putin’s subjects were supposed to be cheering the tsar, thanking him for gathering in Russia’s historic lands and making them feel proud—as many genuinely did in 2014 when he brought Crimea back into the fold.
By now Ukraine’s army was supposed to have disintegrated, its government to have collapsed and its president to be in exile. Europe, dependent on Russian energy, was supposed to have bowed to the inevitable, as it had done several times during his 22-year long presidency. All this in time for Mr Putin’s 70th birthday on October 7th.
Instead of strengthening his hand, Mr Putin has revealed his weakness. He has few good options. But by annexing territories that Russia does not even fully control, he risks undermining Russia’s own territorial integrity. Russia could become a country with fluid and internationally unrecognized borders.
If he declares the annexation of the entire Donbas region, he will in effect be saying that parts of Russia are occupied by Ukrainian troops—and he will look feeble if he cannot drive them out, which he probably cannot. If he were to annex only the Ukrainian territory he held before the invasion on February 24th, that would be an admission that his huge, bloody war has achieved nothing. Putin had hoped to make Russia greater. Instead he has made it much grimmer. It will not be much of a 70th birthday. ~
https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/09/27/vladimir-putin-stages-four-fake-referendums-in-occupied-ukraine?fbclid=IwAR26n6eZmx7UOXZhhOeqtSq2YyU-Ii5uszdyhueyjjq60d-BwG-cN5dmMK0
*
NEW CONSCRIPTS SENT TO THE FRONT LINES WITHOUT TRAINING
~ A few days after Putin's announcement of partial recruitment in Russia for the war in Ukraine, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Army reports that Russia is sending thousands of conscripts to the front without even minimal training. The New York Times reports that Russia is trying to force Ukrainian soldiers in the occupied territories to fight for it: "People here are scared, some are running away from the city, others are hiding in basements.”
In the protests taking place in Russia against the fighting, around 2,000 people have been arrested so far.
The Russian opposition website Medusa reports that this Wednesday, the day after the referendums for the annexation of Kherson, Zaporizhia, and the separatist republics of Lugansk and Donetsk — Russia will officially ban all men of conscription age from leaving the country's borders.
Against the background of the recruitment in Russia, a shooting took place in one of the recruitment bureaus of a 25-year-old man who entered the place — and started shooting while shouting: "No one is going anywhere!” An officer who was there was seriously injured.
According to the report, he was upset after his friend was called up to join the army. Before leaving the house, he told his mother that he was going to volunteer.
Russia is trying to forcibly recruit Ukrainian soldiers to fight for it in the occupied territories. Residents report that some Ukrainian soldiers are throwing away their weapons in the hope that they will not be forced to fight for Russia, some are hiding in basements — and others are fleeing the city even though they are forbidden to leave. ~ Johanan ben Jacob
Philip Matsikoudis:
Apparently, Putin believes that training for combat isn’t necessary for victory. Just throw a lot of targets out there until the enemy runs out of ammunition.
Mike Thomas:
My neighbor is Russian and she tells me there is real panic, her brother and cousin who is just 17 have been dragged off the streets and forcibly taken to the barracks and given a uniform and a rusty rifle and are being shipped direct to Luhansk today. The anti-Putin rhetoric is growing especially in the poorer regions who are taking a much bigger share in casualties than the elite in Moscow or St Petersburg. 
a rusty Kalashnikov
*
RUSSIA’S NUCLEAR WEAPONS
~ It's clear that Putin is under severe pressure. His forces have withdrawn from large territories in Ukraine [most recently from the city of Lyman]. The Ukraine fighting forces are progressing using western weapons and being assisted with real-time data during battles by American satellites intelligence, and they are winning.
In the aftermath of the Russian President's statements, according to which he will not hesitate to do "whatever is necessary" in order to win the war, the American Scientists Organization revealed how many nuclear weapons the Russian President possesses.
According to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), Russia has 5,977 nuclear warheads, the largest nuclear stockpile in the world. By comparison, the US has 5,428 while France has 290 and the UK has 225. This means that about 90% of all nuclear warheads are owned by Russia and the US.
According to the Atomic Scientists Bulletin, the Russian arsenal includes 4,447 warheads of which 1,588 are mounted on ballistic missiles and deployed in heavy bomber bases. On top of that, "approximately 977 additional strategic warheads, along with 1,912 non-strategic warheads" are held in reserve, according to the Bitown. However, experts clarify that the exact number of warheads and weapons is unknown, due to the shroud of secrecy that surrounds security matters.
The Russians are continuing a comprehensive modernization program for their nuclear arsenal, in which most of the weapons inherited from the Soviet era will be replaced. Hans Christensen and Matt Korda, writing for the Atomic Scientists Bytown, stated: "As of the beginning of 2022, we estimate that Russia has a stockpile of approximately 4,477 nuclear warheads intended for use by long-range strategic launchers and shorter-range tactical launchers. This is a slight decrease from last year.”
The two also note that "of the stored warheads, about 1,588 strategic warheads are deployed: about 812 on land-based ballistic missiles, about 576 on submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and perhaps 200 deployed on heavy bomber bases.”
Another point presented in Bytown is that as of February 23, "some of the Russian delivery vehicles deployed near Ukraine are considered to have a dual capability, meaning they can be used to launch conventional weapons but also to launch nuclear weapons.”
Russia's intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) can reach as far as cities like London and even Washington. Missiles of this type can reach maximum speed after about 10 minutes after launch, and this means an arrival time of about 20 minutes from Russia to the UK, for example.
Putin is ramping up his war in Ukraine. A day after he was attacked by the President of the United States Joe Biden on the stage of the United Nations, and in the background of the demonstrations against him in Russia after he ordered the mobilization of 300,000 reserve soldiers, the Russian President ordered his army to begin promoting additional forces in order to "protect all Russian territory " and to use "all available means" in order to complete the war.
Putin's recent statements have raised quite a few speculations in the world that the Russian president is aiming to use nuclear weapons against the population of Ukraine. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) revealed that the Russians have almost 6,000 nuclear warheads in their possession, with only about 1,500 of them scheduled to be dismantled after being assembled years ago and are not operational. ~ Yohanan Ben Jacob, Quora
In response to the increased threat, NATO planes have turned off their transponders, making them in effect stealth planes. Now this is something that Putin should worry about.
Claes Andersson:
Russia is probably rattling their nukes because that’s what they’re primarily good for. That’s my guess. They haven’t tested any since 1989, and then it was the Soviet Union.
I think we all know what statements like “The Russians are continuing a comprehensive modernization program for their nuclear arsenal” mean in reality.
Let me illustrate by stating that the same thing has been done for the army and not least the air force. Except it hasn’t. It has been written that it has happened, but it hasn’t actually happened.
Or, well, what HAS happened is the oligarchs have lined their pockets with gigantic sums of money and delivered things that can make it through a parade or do something in a very controlled environment on an “exercise.”
Nearly 50% of their missiles have been found to fail, and those are missiles with conventional warheads that can be tested as much as you please.
Philip Matsikoudis:
The difference between WWII and now is that Russia would get a retaliatory strike that will be suited to not ending the war, but Russia itself, at least wherever the West believes Putin will possibly be.
Joey Willis:
Why do you not mention the number of nukes that China, Pakistan, India, North Korea, and Israel have????
In your opinion will the Russian Generals implement Putin's eventual order to fire nuclear weapon? They are educated people they understand that a nuclear war will be a loss for all parties. Putin also know that but he is like Hitler on his last days : he does not care.
Robert Surface:
[Maintenance of nuclear weapons] costs tens of billions of dollars every year, and continually takes about half your warheads out of commission at all times. And that assumes you actually have technicians capable of doing this work, which seems unlikely as Russia has not commissioned a new warhead since 1990 at the latest.
That's my point. And you can't tell if this is done by inspecting them. A rebuilt one looks just like a decrepit one — and opening it to measure it means stripping it down anyway, which means you might was well refurb it then and there.
And they almost certainly were not doing that.
I am very intimately familiar with modern weapons technology. The question is: has Russia actually been doing what they need to do, or faking the records and pocketing the cash (or at least oligarchs pocketing the cash)?
Going by the state of their tanks with reactive armor replaced with blocks of wood, and 40 year old MREs [army meals], I'm inclined to think the answer is no.
*
“IN NUCLEAR WAR, ALL MEN ARE CREMATED EQUAL”
~ To put the current Putin Missile Crises into perspective, my friend Yevgeny and I visited the abandoned site of the Soviet military launch field of the A35 missile defense system. Its function was to intercept US nuke had they been launched at the USSR.
I did a little cosplay dressed up like rusky muzhik with ushanka hat and vatnik strictly in the spirit of good fun. I’m pointing at one of the giant concrete balls that contained radars.
The code name of the military base was "Tobol". It consisted of 4 channel control radars, and two target control radars.
Functional enormity where people labored day and night to safeguard lives of their families from the nuclear annihilation that cost the state half of the budget which resulted in the breakup of the Soviet empire.
It reminded me of Aztec civilization whose priests sacrificed prisoners of war to the sun to avoid famine and drought.
The base was closed because Americans developed missiles that were divided into many warheads, while these radars could only target two targets at the same time, therefore rendering this huge construction project that probably cost like two Disneylands to build obsolescent.
There was beautiful wall art inside the largest of the concrete ball things. I observed that artists were inspired by religious themes.
A philosopher scribbled detailed Russia-centered metaphysical insights with a felt tip marker, while a poet wrote cavalierly over it : “You wait, Russia, you wait Moscow/ Estonian battalion heads your way/ to kick your butt.”
Wires, metal, copper - everything of value have been stripped for reselling.
On the books, this is probably a fully functional military base with hundreds of military men and equipment.
Post-Soviet Russia is an exercise in make belief. Pretend like it used to be and falsify it so nobody would notice that it ain’t.
Yair M:
“The Zone wants to be respected. Otherwise it will punish.”
(from The Stalker, a movie by Andrei Tarkovsky).
Raluca:
“Happiness for free, for everyone and let no one be forgotten!” - the last line from Roadside Picnic ( the novel upon which Stalker was based) echoes in a eerie way the words shouted by Ruslan Zinin: ““No one is going to fight. Now we will all go home!”
New Russian conscripts. My heart breaks when I look at this photo. I'd like to send them all back home.
*
PUTIN STARTED OUT AS A HERO, TURNED INTO A VILLAIN
~ He sadly missed the chance of stepping aside in 2008 after his two completed terms as President, as he promised at the outset. If he did, he would have been remembered singularly as the man who miraculously assured Russia a stability and wealth we haven’t experienced for a 1000 years.
Instead of becoming a living saint, he went on ruling. Now, if no big, hairy, Russia-friendly Black swans arrive, he’ll just be digging himself deeper and deeper in the hole. ~
(This post was written by Dima Vorobiev four years ago, and has turned out to be prophetic.)
Mohammad Rafee:
Power is probably the most addictive drug ever.
Luke Wood:
Sure, he missed his chance to be the hero; but he gained the chance to become the richest man in the world. Which he is.
US$200 billion is a pretty good consolation prize.
Klodi Caci:
I think the Russian Orthodox Church likes the 2022 Putin, but it’s in the nature of national Orthodox churches to glorify the villains.
Chris Pearce:
He is dying and seeks to enshrine his ego status as a great Russian leader before he passes . But in reality, because he is removed from reality, he is destroying his country and his people. I hope the Russian people can find some way to remove him before it’s too late.
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A BIT OF HISTORY: KYIV AND MOSCOW
~ Kyiv was founded by the Rus, a Norse tribe, originating mainly from what is now Sweden.
They settled along the river routes between the Baltic and Black Seas between the 8th and 11th centuries. They eventually formed a city state empire known as the Kievan Rus. Kyiv was their capitol. It should be noted Moscow at this time was a small trading post on the River Moskva also founded by Kievan Rus.
Things progressed reasonably well until 1240 when Kyiv was sacked by Mongols of the Golden Horde. Of 50,000 inhabitants only 2,000 survived. In the end most Kievan principalities and territories were conquered by the Golden Horde. Tribute and slaves for trade with the Ottoman Empire were extracted for the next 240 years until the Mongols were forced into ignoble retreat in a non-battle known as The Great Stand on the Ugra River in 1480.
[The Great Stand on the Ugra River was a standoff between the forces of Akhmat Khan of the Great Horde, and the Grand Prince Ivan III of Muscovy in 1480 on the banks of the Ugra River, which ended when the Tatars departed without conflict. It is seen in Russian historiography as the end of the vassalage of Muscovy. ~ Wikipedia]
However, during this same period of time, Moscow had grown into a small city with enough influence to cut a deal with the Mongols in exchange for northern and eastern portions of Kievan Rus lands. Without getting into a lot of detail, a Rus Prince (Ivan I of Moscow) betrayed another Rus Prince by switching sides to the Mongols to help them defeat the resisting Prince. For his betrayal Prince Ivan was made Grand Prince of Moscow by the Mongols.
Ivan then moved the Rus Orthodox Church out of Kyiv to Moscow. In return the Church was only too happy to declare Ivan the legitimate ruler of the Rus and Moscow the new Rus capital. What little remained of Kyiv was unable to oppose Ivan's ambition or transfer of power due to having been reduced to a pile of rubble by the Mongols. The grand old city took centuries to rebuild and repopulate.
And that is the basis for Putin’s claim that Ukraine belongs to Russia. Because Kyiv was destroyed and all political and liturgical authority moved to Moscow with the official blessing of the Rus Orthodox Church.
That’s it in a tiny nutshell. Kyiv is the original homeland and spiritual center of the Rus. Moscow came to dominance through an act of betrayal after Kyiv was destroyed. Does Ukraine belong to the Muscovite Rus or do the Kievan Rus still have a legitimate right to exist as a distinct people and nation? It’s an ironic debate when considering Moscow and all of western Russia sits on land formerly belonging to the Kievan Rus.
Regardless, one fact is irrefutable. Moscow has been stealing territory for the entirety of its existence. ~ Izzy Luggs, Quora
Oriana:
It was actually only this year that I learned that Kyiv was founded by the Vikings. What led me to it was suddenly noting that Igor doesn’t sound like a Slavic name, and discovering that it was Old Norse. Then my suspicion fell on Oleg — sure enough, it too is derived from Old Norse “helge,” meaning holy or blessed (cf German heilig).
European people are so intermingled, and the Vikings were one of the important agents of that intermingling. And aside from that, they gave us Normandy and ancient Kievan Rus. As this article points out, “Rus” was the name of a Norse tribe. Imagine, Russia is actually named after a Norse (i.e. Scandinavian) tribe!
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THE LAST TZAR, NICHOLAS THE SECOND, AND PUTIN (Misha Firer)
~ Shortly before his death, Mikhail Gorbachev spoke with Alexey ‘Venik’ Venediktov, journalist, foreign agent and state security agent (double spy maskirovka to infiltrate liberals).
Venik asked Gorby what had he regretted the most as the first and last president of the Soviet Union.
“I was too sure of myself and I trusted people more than I should've,” he replied.
I will translate from Russian into English.
“Absolute power with no checks and balances made me feel like Almighty God. I surrounded myself with inept and stupid yes men that stroked my ego. Whatever I said and did they’d tell me I’m a genius. And so I made a whole bunch of mistakes and didn’t even realize that I’d lost touch with reality until it was too late.”
Putin’s acolytes and supporters did not take into account that the longer Putin would stay in power, the greater would be chances that he would think himself as God, surround himself with yes men and ultimately lose touch with objective reality.
In 2014, Putin was still cogent about the fact that the launch of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine would be suicidal; eight years later, his omnipotence had grown to the dangerous levels and he sent the country spinning out of control towards self-destruction.
Putin’s propaganda machine has been promoting the Cult of War. Come May, Russian men would don military uniforms to reenact capturing of Reichstag. Like little boys, they believed it’s all fun and games, while the malevolent state had been secretly grooming them for a real war.
Reichstag replica in Russia
The men who cosplayed Red Army became Nazis and bombed peaceful town killing more than 20,000 people feeling no remorse, absolutely indifferent to the evil they have committed. To add insult to injury, survivors who have lost their homes were asked to participate in a referendum for annexation from Ukraine.
Against common sense and human dignity, 98.69% of Mariyupol residents allegedly voted to join the country that flattened their town with 92.6% turnout. I see the crowds of happy people hurrying to cast their vote to join Mother Russia whose wonderful artillery shelled them day in day out disregarding that they were hitting residential buildings, schools, hospitals, concert halls.
If there was one noun in the Russian language that warranted the definite article it was The Pipe (troobah). To Straddle the Pipe meant to have access to the bank accounts that were credited with the gas contract payments from Europe.
Oil and gas pipes that snaked under the ground and over the seabed pumped oil twenty four seven to its customers in Europe. As long as The Pipes were in operation, the money flew to bank accounts and from there into offshores. Approximately 1,000 families Straddled the Pipe, directly benefiting from the cash flow.
Their passive income didn’t have to be invested for profits. Nor did it have to be saved. For as long as the gas and oil flowed down the pipes from Mother Russia to the West, money concurrently flew into their pockets, and they could spend it in the West on luxuries.
The system seemed perfect however frozen in the moment — Russian crooks took it for granted there would be no changes in technologies, and no alterations in the head of the tsar who guaranteed the perpetuity of the Pipe. The tsar became psychotic and delusional, and the West came up with the new digital money.
Suddenly their Pipe became a Pipe Dream when Putin closed the valves off to punish the West for opposing him to invade Ukraine.
The last accord happened when the North Stream One and Two pipes were blown up. It does not matter if it was done on Putin’s order or somebody else’s. There are now physically no Pipes left. They have gone up in bubbles.
No more straddling the Pipe. No more super-yachts and super mansions and parties with champagne flowing all night long.
Perhaps some of the Pipe Money should’ve been invested and saved after all.
But no matter. The next generation of Russian elites will come up with the new pipe dream and rally around it and place the tsar at the center of things to be its high priest and arbiter until he too will lose his mind and destroy it all.
The Russian spirit stumbles in the forest darkly. ~
Albina Grinute:
Germany should take a long, good look at those bubbles in the Baltic sea. This is what their tango with the devil finally came to — a big fart.
Kathy Spacey:
Another pipe dream down the drain. Never let it be said that Putin won’t cut off his nose to spite his face. One day maybe the Russians will have a leader subject to term limits.
Vera Smith:
The weaker Russia is, the more dangerous it gets. The decadent thieves in the Kremlin who aren't ready to die in a war will be replaced by hardcore nationalists and WWIII comes closer -- just as the fullfillers of biblical prophecy want it.
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WHO DESTROYED THE NORDSTREAM PIPELINES?
~ After admitting that, “at first glance it seems as if the Russians have no incentive to destroy their ability to tempt Europe with surrendering Ukraine in exchange for turning the gas taps back on this winter,” Mark Wright laid out the case for believing that Russia sabotaged it. He argues it could be “a capability demonstration and a threat to Western energy infrastructure.” Or that it could be a message from Putin to the Russian deep state that the old economic model is dead and gone, and that ending the war in Ukraine won’t bring back normal relations with Europe anyway.
In response, Jim Geraghty writes about all the upsides for the United States, and for retaining Germany in its pro-NATO position. “Those pipelines running from Russia to Germany are a symbol of the German government and its energy policies effectively being purchased by Vladimir Putin,” he writes. And:
— There were a whole bunch of elite Europeans, in both the public and private sectors, who had staked their literal and metaphorical fortunes on Russia being a long-term source for European energy needs, and who were likely still holding out hope that within a year or two, the war on Ukraine would end and the continent’s policies could start creeping toward the pre-war status. Those hopes are now going glub-glub-glub. —
Russia’s coercive diplomacy strategy was built upon these pipelines functioning, allowing Putin to turn off the taps and then turn them back on again when he gets what he wants. The EU — Germany in particular — was already showing signs of being tired of the energy war. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz continuously declines to send weapons his government has already promised to Ukraine. Arguably, EU’s wartime sanctions on Russia were already weakening. The European Union has already lifted its restrictions on Russian fertilizer coming into the EU, and Russia was asking them to lift the restrictions on Russian fertilizer being shipped to developing nations.
The first glance turns out to be sensible still. Russia is in the midst of an energy war with Europe. Why would it blow up its weapon in the months before it would have its greatest effect? When you want to demonstrate your capabilities, you don’t deliberately bomb and sabotage yourself.
Mark asks: Who benefits? If it weakens Russia, Ukraine benefits.
But does Ukraine have the capacity to carry out attacks in the Baltic on critical infrastructure?
Poland benefits, somewhat. Nord Stream was built precisely to cut Poland out of transfer fees and to diminish their power over energy flowing through its territory into Europe.
Wright thinks that if the U.S. has its fingerprints on such an operation, it would mean the end of NATO itself. No German government could withstand the anger of the German public at the subterfuge of the United States. Maybe that’s true. But maybe it’s not. What is the German response? The sensible one would be to rebuild as a nuclear-powered grid. I think the even larger and more immediate downside of U.S. involvement in the explosion is that it may force an already desperate Putin to begin treating the United States as a full belligerent and to begin attacking our infrastructure.
That’s all to say: I don’t know. ~
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/who-blew-up-the-nord-stream-pipelines/
Joseph Milosch:
“The sensible one would be to rebuild as a nuclear-powered grid. I think the even large and more immediate downside of U.S. involvement in the explosion is that it may force an already desperate Putin to begin treating the United States as a full belligerent and to begin attacking our infrastructure.”
After eighty years and billions in governmental subsidies, the nuclear energy industry has not developed a safe and economically affordable method to store and dispose of nuclear waste. We can store nuclear waste for a brief period, fifty years, then the storage containers begin to break down centuries before the nuclear waste becomes safe to discard.
Those who have followed Ukraine’s war with Russia know that Putin has continually threatened to bomb nuclear plants. He regularly shells the area surrounding the nuclear plants. The bombs have come within yards of the plant’s perimeter. The devastation that would happen if a standard missile or a bomb directly hit the plant is a nightmare scenario.
The nuclear power plant located in San Onofre, California, is no longer in use. However, it is still a nuclear bomb. Today, it operates at a minimal level to cool its core and prevent a meltdown. If a non-nuclear missile hit San Onofre, it would create an explosion like a nuclear bomb, destroying everything within three to six miles in the initial blast.
In an explosion, the waste stored at the plant would turn to dust, and the air currents would carry it. The initial column of smoke would rise in the air 8,000 feet. The mountains east of San Onofre are 4500 feet high, and winds would carry the nuclear debris inland, contaminating the drinking water stored in man-made lakes as far north as Los Angeles.
Civilians within a ten-mile radius would suffer from burns and other physical harm. Those within a fifty-mile radius would suffer radiation illness. Every nuclear plant is a sleeping atomic bomb. Disposing of nuclear waste is the most expensive cost in manufacturing energy. Russia has demonstrated that be free from extortion requires a sustainable energy source.
California converted its federal and state parking lots to solar panels. During the last extensive heat wave, the solar energy generated at those locations provided 50% of the electrical demands and prevented rolling blackouts in the state, which is why sustainable energy is the logical choice for our future.
Oriana:
Thank you, Joe, for an eye-opening response. I didn’t realize that a former nuclear plant is still a nuclear bomb. Given that we are subject to earthquakes, we are indeed looking at a potential mega-disaster.
The standard object to solar energy is that many states don’t get enough sunshine, especially in winter, to satisfy their energy needs. California, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona, however, have vast areas of desert — and, indeed, those huge parking lots that could be covered with roofs for shade and for solar panel placement. I can imagine enough energy could be produced by the “sunshine states” to supply it to other states.
Yes, it would be a huge and expensive project. And maybe yet another sustainable energy technology will be developed in the coming decades. It’s a matter of political will.
And it's such a shame that because of Putin huge resources are now being spent on warfare, just at a time when we badly need to concentrate on more sustainable energy solutions.
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CAN MASS SHOOTINGS BE PREVENTED?
~ Prosecutors in a high-profile US school shooting case have argued that the gunman should get the death penalty. While each mass shooting in the US is its own tragedy, experts say the killers share many things in common. Could identifying these traits help stop the next attack?
In the days and months leading up to the attack in Parkland, Florida, the killer listened to the same song on repeat: "Pumped up kicks," by Foster the People.
The song's plucky, whistle-tuned melody clashes with lyrics about a bullied teen who seeks revenge by shooting up his school.
In a note on his phone, in which the 19-year-old wrote about his plans to attack, he complained of being "agitated" and said he felt his life was “unfair".
"Everything and everyone is happy except for me," he wrote.
On Valentine's Day 2018, Nikolas Cruz opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where he had once been a student, killing 17 people and injuring 17 others.
After his arrest, he pleaded guilty 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder.
A jury is deciding whether the now 23-year-old should be sentenced to death. The case is the deadliest mass shooting to reach a jury trial in US history.
Lead prosecutor Mike Satz described the gunman as "cold, calculated, manipulative and deadly", and said the brutality of his crimes far outweighs any mitigating factors, which makes the death penalty warranted.
"Life in prison is a life, and he deserves nothing more than the death penalty," said Gena Hoyer, mother of Luke, one of the victims.
Cruz's attorneys hope to spare him the death penalty by portraying a young man in crisis — his mother had died just before his crime — and who was denied the support he desperately needed.
Whatever the jury's decision, the trial has raised questions from many about what could have been done to prevent the tragedy. Among them, are researchers and analysts who say that Cruz's trajectory towards violence is not unique — but rather part of a common pattern often seen in the lead-up to mass shootings.
IS THERE A PATHWAY TO VIOLENCE?
Mark Foster, lead singer of the band that the Parkland gunman was listening to on repeat, once said that he wrote "Pumped Up Kicks" as an attempt to understand the link between the rise in teenage mental illness and gun violence.
"I was scared to see where the pattern was headed if we didn't start changing the way we were bringing up the next generation," he told CNN in 2012. He said he is considering retiring the song.
In the five years since the Parkland massacre, there have been more than two dozen mass shootings in the United States. In the aftermath, shock and grief often give way to divisive arguments over gun laws.
But experts say the psychological and social factors of mass shootings are just as important. They have been asking: What drives someone to commit a mass shooting?
Mass shooters traits
"There's a pathway to this type of violence," said James Densley, a sociologist and co-founder of the Violence Project, a non-profit research program aimed at better understanding mass shootings.
The Violence Project has collected data from police reports, online manifestos and interviews with those closest to the gunmen in over 180 attacks, dating back to the 1960s.
It has found an eerily similar trajectory among these, from childhood trauma, to run-ins with the law, a desire to end the life of the subject and then, finally, a tragic desire to end the lives of others.
A "switch" clicked in his brain, said the sister of a gunman studied by the project. "What is wrong with me?" became "What is wrong with them?”
The reason gunmen are almost exclusively male, Mr Densley added, is likely due to the fact that men are more prone to externalize their feelings, and take out their anger on others.
"It's a way of saying, 'Hey, look, world, this is what you made me do,'" he said.
Mr Densley said one could look at mass shootings as organized "deaths of despair", a term sociologists often use to describe suicides and overdoses. All three have been on the rise over the past 20 years.
He doesn't believe that's a coincidence, but a consequence of society where it's all too easy to fall through the cracks. And these feelings of despair and isolation can be easily weaponized online.
CHRISTCHURCH AND ONLINE RADICALIZATION
In 2019, a gunman opened fire on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing more than 50 people in an attack that shocked the world.
The gunman posted his intent and live-streamed the massacre on an online forum.
"There's a goldfish bowl effect where if you have a bunch of people online, and they're not doing well, they will reinforce all the worst things about their behavior," said Dale Beran, a writer who specializes in reporting on the darker corners of the internet.
Mr Beran has charted how anonymous image boards that champion unfettered free speech went from online spaces where people shared memes and perfected the art of trolling to breeding grounds for several political movements, from the hacktivist collective known as Anonymous, to the groups who stormed the US Capitol.
The nihilistic, antisocial culture of these websites also made them the perfect incubators for disaffected and radicalized young men to graduate from posting violent fantasies online to enacting terror in real life.
Perpetrators of shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand; Charleston, South Carolina; and El Paso, Texas all frequented these forums.
"They are a bunch of powerless men, idolizing violent power fantasies. After years of talking about how angry they are, how powerless they are, and how they should get revenge on society which didn't accept them — one of them will go out and do it," Mr Beran said.
Research has shown, Mr Beran says, that one of the best ways to interrupt this cycle of violence is by stopping people from going too far down the internet rabbit hole to begin with.
THE REDIRECT METHOD
Five days before the Parkland massacre, Cruz's phone history shows he took a screenshot of a psychology article about "homicidal thoughts and urges", and searched for a therapist.
According to Moonshot, an organization founded to study and interrupt online threats, Americans who are "consuming extremist or violent content online are 47% more likely than the general public to take up offers of mental health services online”.
These statistics provide insight into how to reach those considering violence as a way out, Moonshot has said. Vidhya Ramalingam, its chief executive, said that it has got more than 150 people at risk of domestic violent extremism in the US into text-message counseling sessions.
"'Any kind of intervention directed at a shooter, needs to take an approach of, 'We're here to help you cope with everyday life'. Because that's really the driving force behind the shooters," said Chris Simmonds, a manager at Moonshot.
He cautioned this doesn't mean people with mental health problems are more likely to commit acts of violence, but it does indicate how receptive those considering violence are to getting help.
The company has also worked with Google Jigsaw and other tech giants to launch "The Redirect Method", which returns alternative, de-escalating search results when people look for harmful content online.
Moonshot believes these kinds of technological interventions, coupled with mental health resources, and a nationwide push for bystanders to report troubling behavior before it escalates to violence, can help reduce the frequency of these attacks.
"There's like a whole host of other things people need to be doing — governments and organizations — at a much bigger scale to in good faith say we're doing everything we can to prevent senseless acts of violence," Mr Simmonds said.
SEEING GHOSTS
In hindsight, people often describe perpetrators of mass violence as "ghosts" — they went to school, attended classes, but they had no connections to anyone, no meaningful relationships with the larger community.
The Center for Targeted Violence Prevention (CTVP), a non-profit research institute, has been studying data from averted school shootings since 2016. Its research has shown that there are clear warning signs when someone is getting ready to commit violence, according to its director Frank Straub, a forensic psychologist.
In school shootings specifically, would-be perpetrators might suddenly withdraw from their family and friends. They may start to fantasize in their diary or sketchbook about violence, and they may start searching for violent videos online.
In data from the Violence Project, which looked at mass shootings in all settings, 80% of attacks were preceded by a crisis of some kind.
As soon as these warning signs appear, it's imperative that parents, teachers or other people close to the person take action, Mr Straub said.
"We have to look at it as an emergency situation just like we would somebody who's exhibiting the signs and symptoms of cardiac arrest, we need to, in essence, dial 911," he said.
That's not possible if people in the community fall through the cracks.
In partnership with Michigan State University, CTVP is running a pilot program in five communities in the state to provide intensive support to high-risk/high-need adolescents and their caregivers. These youths have already been identified by law enforcement for making threats, but have yet to commit an act of mass violence.
Mr Straub said it's important that at-risk youth aren't stigmatized, and aren't treated as merely criminals, but are provided long-term care and support.
"We've heard shooters [say]: 'If somebody had just recognized me, and somebody had just reached out to me, if somebody had just talked to me, if somebody had shown me that they cared, things may have been different'," he said.
"We see so many people that are struggling with loneliness and hopelessness, feelings of helplessness… maybe we just need to extend the hand.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62683094
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IS ADDICTION A DISEASE?
Addiction, clinically referred to as a substance use disorder, is a complex disease of the brain and body that involves compulsive use of one or more substances despite serious health and social consequences. Addiction disrupts regions of the brain that are responsible for reward, motivation, learning, judgment and memory.
THE DISEASE MODEL OF ADDICTION
Addiction is defined as a disease by most medical associations, including the American Medical Association and the American Society of Addiction Medicine.
Like diabetes, cancer and heart disease, addiction is caused by a combination of behavioral, psychological, environmental and biological factors. Genetic risk factors account for about half of the likelihood that an individual will develop addiction.
Addiction involves changes in the functioning of the brain and body due to persistent use of nicotine, alcohol and/or other substances.
The consequences of untreated addiction often include other physical and mental health disorders that require medical attention. If left untreated over time, addiction becomes more severe, disabling and life-threatening.
HOW SUBSTANCE ABUSE CHANGES THE BRAIN
People feel pleasure when basic needs such as hunger, thirst and sex are satisfied. In most cases, these feelings of pleasure are caused by the release of certain chemicals in the brain, which reinforce these life-sustaining functions by incentivizing the individual to repeat the behaviors that produce those rewarding feelings (eating, drinking and procreating). Most addictive substances cause the brain to release high levels of these same chemicals that are associated with natural pleasure or reward.
Over time, continued release of these chemicals causes changes in the brain systems involved in reward, motivation and memory. The brain tries to get back to a balanced state by minimizing its reaction to those rewarding chemicals or releasing stress hormones. As a result, a person may need to use increasing amounts of the substance just to feel closer to normal. The individual may experience intense desires or cravings for the substance and will continue to use it despite harmful or dangerous consequences. The person may also prefer the substance to other healthy pleasures and may lose interest in normal life activities. In the most chronic form of the disease, a severe substance use disorder can cause a person to stop caring about their own or others’ well-being or survival.
These changes in the brain can remain for a long time, even after the person stops using substances. It is believed that these changes may leave those with addiction vulnerable to physical and environmental cues that they associate with substance use, also known as triggers, which can increase their risk of relapse.
WHY IS WILL POWER NOT ENOUGH?
The initial and early decisions to use substances are based in large part on a person’s free or conscious choice, often influenced by their culture and environment. Certain factors, such as a family history of addiction, trauma or inadequately treated mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety, may make some people more susceptible to substance use disorders than others. Once the brain has been changed by addiction, that choice or willpower becomes impaired. Perhaps the most defining symptom of addiction is a loss of control over substance use.
ARE PEOPLE WITH ADDICTION RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS?
People do not choose how their brain and body respond to substances, which is why people with addiction cannot control their use while others can. People with addiction can still stop using substances — it’s just much harder than it is for someone who has not become addicted. People with addiction should not be blamed for having a disease, but rather be able to get quality, evidence-based care to address it.
With the help and support of family, friends and peers to stay in treatment, they increase their chances of recovery and survival.
IS IT A CHRONIC DISEASE?
A chronic disease is a long-lasting condition that can be controlled but not cured.
Most people who engage in substance use do not develop addiction. And many people who do so to a problematic extent, such as young people during their high school or college years, tend to reduce their use once they take on more adult responsibilities. Still, about 25-50% of people with a substance use problem develop a severe, chronic disorder. For them, addiction is a progressive, relapsing disease that requires intensive treatments and continuing aftercare, monitoring and family or peer support to manage their recovery.
The good news is that even the most severe, chronic form of the disorder can be manageable, usually with long-term treatment and continued monitoring and support for recovery.
WHY SOME PEOPLE SAY THAT ADDICTION IS NOT A DISEASE
Some people think addiction cannot be a disease because it is caused by the individual’s choice to use substances. While the first use (or early stage use) may be by choice, once the brain has been changed by addiction, most experts believe that the person loses control of their behavior.
Choice does not determine whether something is a disease. Heart disease, diabetes and some forms of cancer involve personal choices like diet, exercise, sun exposure, etc. A disease is what happens in the body as a result of those choices.
Others argue that addiction is not a disease because some people with addiction get better without treatment. People with a mild substance use disorder may recover with little or no treatment. People with the most serious form of addiction usually need intensive treatment followed by lifelong management of the disease.
Some people with severe addiction stop drinking or using other substances without treatment, usually after experiencing a serious family, social, occupational, physical or spiritual crisis. Others achieve recovery by attending self-help (12-step or AA) meetings without receiving much, if any, professional treatment. In all cases, professional treatment and a range of recovery supports should be available and accessible to anybody who develops a substance use disorder. Addiction is a treatable disease. ~
https://drugfree.org/article/is-addiction-a-disease/
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CHILDHOOD TRAUMA AND ADDICTION
~ The relationship between childhood trauma and susceptibility to addiction can be best understood when one knows how experience influences the brain’s development. Although none can deny the importance of biology and genetics in the brain’s development, the human brain has the innate ability to respond and adapt to environmental stimulation, which is called plasticity.
As the brain begins growing and maturing during childhood, it creates, strengthens, and occasionally discards neural connections, which compose a network between neurons that endow the brain with its many functions. One’s experiences affect brain development in a similar manner as learning to speak or walk, causing certain synapses, or connections between neurons, to develop, grow stronger or break.
In short, the growth of the brain and its eventual physical structure are significantly affected by one’s experiences, both the positive and the negative. And while experience often leads to the brain developing in ways that are beneficial, experience can also be negative, which can impede or otherwise alter the brain’s development.
Specifically, the negative experience of childhood maltreatment is believed to be behind certain anomalies in brain structure that result in cognitive, behavioral and social impairments.
Upon an assessment of individuals who had experienced childhood maltreatment, a study found that being mistreated during childhood caused frequent and extremely high levels of stress that impeded normal brain development. Continuous stress from experiencing frequent experienced trauma initiated physiological stress responses that, over time, caused the structural disruptions that were observed in neurological scans and which are likely making victims of childhood traumatic experiences vulnerable to substance abuse disorders.
While a number of studies attribute the relationship between childhood trauma and addiction to disruptions in the brain structure caused by the stress of trauma, there have also been a number of other, simpler explanations proposed. In the Adverse Childhood Experiences study conducted with 17,000 Kaiser Permanente patients, many different stress-inducing experiences (like domestic violence) during childhood have been linked to various forms of substance abuse and impulse control disorders.
Many associate childhood trauma with child abuse, but other stress-inducing and traumatic experiences linked to an elevated vulnerability to addiction include neglect, the loss of a parent, witnessing domestic or other physical violence, and having a family member who suffers from a mental illness.
Those who had experienced such things during childhood have shown an increased tendency to become dependent on alcohol and drugs. They may also develop behavioral addictions such as compulsive eating and compulsive sexual behavior.
In most cases, experiences that are extremely traumatic for children would be much less traumatic for adults. But there are a couple key reasons why such occurrences have a more significant and lasting effect on children. It’s important to remember that children are limited in their ability to make contextual inferences that would likely allow them to process these experiences more effectively. Lacking a frame of reference, it’s difficult to make sense of traumatic experiences, making the effects of trauma more likely to linger.
Additionally, children usually rely on their loved ones for support during times of difficulty. But when a child’s loved ones are the source of abuse, neglect, or other trauma during these experiences, family support is not an option. In many cases, a victim of childhood abuse begins abusing alcohol or drugs as a means of self-medicating, hoping to alleviate the residual effects of being victimized at a young age.
On the other hand, it’s also common for substance abuse behavior in adulthood to be modeled after a loved one’s substance abuse behavior that had been witnessed during childhood. In fact, the tendency to self-medicate can be similarly modeled and passed along.
With about two-thirds of all addicts having previously experienced some type of physical or sexual traumatic experiences during childhood, it’s extremely important to understand how childhood trauma causes increased vulnerability to addiction. Knowing when an individual has experienced some type of trauma during childhood could mark him or her as being at higher risk for addiction when there might not have been any other indicators, allowing the individual to take preventative measures.
Additionally, this knowledge can be used to make addiction treatment more effective for those who have previously experienced traumatic events during childhood. This can happen by offering support groups for victims of childhood abuse or simply by ensuring that such individuals receive counseling in order to make peace with their pasts.
Although many turn to substance abuse as a solution to the pain of the past, becoming addicted to alcohol or drugs can only harm one’s present and future. There’s no question to which substance abuse is the answer; however, anyone who finds himself or herself physically dependent on alcohol, drugs or harmful behaviors should find an effective treatment solution immediately. ~
https://oldvineyardbhs.com/connection-between-childhood-trauma-addiction/
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WHY TRAUMA CAN LEAD TO ADDICTION
~ Numerous research studies confirm the link between traumatic experiences in childhood and addictive behaviors in adulthood. One of the most notable is the original study of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) by Felitti and colleagues (1998). ACEs included traumatic experiences within the first 18 years of life such as physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, neglect, loss of a parent, witnessing intimate partner violence, and living with a family member with a mental illness. The researchers found that as the number of ACEs increased, the risk of alcohol and other drug use in adulthood rose.
After over 20 years of ACEs-related research, the scientific literature presents a robust association between ACE scores and addiction (Zarse et al., 2019). For instance, adults reporting four or more ACEs are three times more likely to experience alcohol problems in adulthood (Dube et al., 2002), and those reporting three or more ACEs are more than three times more likely to engage in problem gambling (Poole et al., 2017).
So, what is the link between early trauma and adult addiction? The answer is more complex than you may think.
Traumatic experiences during childhood can have an array of detrimental effects on an individual depending upon the type of trauma, duration of the traumatic experience, a developmental period in which the trauma occurs, genetic make-up and gender of the individual experiencing the trauma, and the presence or absence of an attuned, supportive caretaker. The specific impact of childhood trauma is nuanced and complex, yet one common outcome is the dysregulation of the stress system (Burke Harris, 2018; Moustafa et al., 2021).
Our stress system is largely governed by the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal [HPA] axis, which prepares us to respond effectively to danger. When a stressor is identified, the HPA axis (in conjunction with other systems) prepares us for “fight or flight” by causing the secretion of stress hormones such as adrenaline and glucocorticoids. When our stress response is activated, we experience hyperarousal, increased blood pressure, rapid heart rate, fast breathing, and a sense of alarm.
Blood and energy are diverted to those brain structures that can offer immediate assistance, rather than the slower prefrontal cortex, which controls executive functioning and self-regulation. These automatic responses help us respond to danger until the threat is resolved.
There are times, however, when the stress system works against us. Consider situations in which traumatic events are persistent, and the threat is never resolved. Chronic stress resulting from prolonged childhood trauma (e.g., repeated emotional abuse) can exacerbate dysregulation of this stress system. Specifically, the HPA axis becomes chronically activated, leading to elevated stress hormones and accompanying hyperarousal. Thus, children who endure prolonged trauma may experience continuous arousal, anxiety, hypervigilance, and alertness (De Bellis & Zisk, 2014).
This dysregulation of the stress system, especially during the developmental years of childhood, can lead to deleterious effects on the immune system, emotion regulation skills, cognitive development, executive functioning and may increase the risk of neurodegenerative diseases. Moreover, early trauma also can disrupt the regulation of oxytocin (a hormone implicated in attachment and emotional intimacy) and serotonin (a neurotransmitter linked to mood), resulting in attachment issues and feelings of depression.
So, what does all of this have to do with addiction?
The primary reason individuals use drugs of abuse is due to their immediate psychological effects. Alcohol and other drugs (in addition to rewarding behaviors) change the way individuals feel by producing pleasure and reducing dysphoria.
For individuals with dysregulated stress systems resulting from trauma, drugs of abuse can offer a reprieve from chronic hyperarousal and anxiety. Alcohol, benzodiazepines, opioids, and cannabis products have calming intoxication effects, some of which even serve to slow down the central nervous system (i.e., depressants). Additionally, gambling (especially with electronic gambling machines) lulls players into a type of trance in which they forget about everything other than the machine.
Individuals with trauma histories may be more vulnerable to addiction as a means of regulating their mood, quieting intrusive thoughts, and suppressing the arousal caused by elevated stress hormones. Drugs of abuse or addictive behaviors can facilitate a state of numbness, albeit temporarily (and while causing neuroadaptations that perpetuate, rather than solve, the original issue).
Individuals with trauma histories may be more vulnerable to addiction as a means of regulating their mood, quieting intrusive thoughts, and suppressing the arousal caused by elevated stress hormones. Drugs of abuse or addictive behaviors can facilitate a state of numbness, albeit temporarily (and while causing neuroadaptations that perpetuate, rather than solve, the original issue).
Other individuals who experience trauma may have a different reaction (again, as a result of the type of trauma, duration of trauma, age of occurrence, and biological characteristics of the individual). Rather than hyperarousal, some individuals protect themselves during prolonged traumatic experiences by dissociating or employing depersonalization strategies. These individuals may feel chronically numb, disengaged, and emotionless.
Cocaine, amphetamines, synthetic drugs, and nicotine have stimulating intoxication effects that produce energy and alertness. Additionally, activities such as nonsuicidal self-injury, sex, and gaming may jolt individuals out of states of numbness and allow them to feel some sensation (albeit temporarily and also exacerbating the original issue).
Thus, individuals with trauma histories may be more vulnerable to addiction because of the mood-modifying properties of drugs of abuse and rewarding behaviors. Indeed, addictive behaviors may be an individual’s best attempt to cope with childhood trauma's biological and neurobiological effects, which could include hyperarousal or depersonalization.
In light of this complex relationship, the conceptualization and treatment of addiction require a trauma-informed perspective to address both the experience of trauma and addictive behaviors concurrently. ~
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/understanding-addiction/202109/why-trauma-can-lead-addiction
Oriana:
I endorse trying to understand addiction not in terms of “what’s wrong with you?” but rather “what happened to you?” — still, I don’t think that talking about the trauma is sufficient. As Gabor Maté, the author of Hungry Ghosts, says, addicts were raised to be incompetent.
An addicted person often lacks both life skills (e.g. how to cope with stress, especially if you happen to suffer from the chronic overarousal of the sympathetic nervous system) and job skills to be successful, and thus gain access to sources of “natural high.” True, a natural high is often relatively modest — say, getting a compliment for your accomplishments, or going on an interesting trip, or participating in a rewarding activity. Nevertheless, getting multiple reward “hits” can add up to a satisfying life.
Some of these rewarding experiences have to do with human connections. Usually our social skills improve with age — that’s why the beginning of an addiction tends to be in adolescence or early adulthood, when stress is plentiful while our ability to develop resources such as close, supportive friendship or professional counseling (sometimes unaffordable) may be limited.
Fortunately there are 12-step groups, but they seem to work better for those who either already are religious or are capable of becoming religious (call it finding your “higher power”). Otherwise, god-talk can be very alienating.
Intelligence and job skills are of great help because one’s vocational work, for instance, can be seen as a “higher power.”
Nevertheless, here I sit “spouting wisdom,” while all the time knowing that I don’t have the genes that seem to predispose a person to developing an addiction, especially when it comes to substance abuse. True, I may be over-reactive to stress, and I’ve had my share of deeply stressful experience (I’ve been cautioned that the word “trauma” has become overused), but there is no alcoholism or overeating (which seems to involve the same genes) in my immediate family. It’s just genetic luck.
Without the right “wrong” genes, I suspect it’s very difficult to become an alcoholic, for instance. Unlike heroin, alcohol is not all that addictive to about 90% of human population. Without the genes, getting drunk is simply not as rewarding as it is to a person predisposed to alcoholism. While an alcoholic may remember his first drunk with great pleasure (“It was magical!”), "normies" don’t really know what the acoholics are talking about. Not only that, but while some are experiencing “magic,” if you are genetically a normie, you may be throwing up and experiencing other negative physiological consequences — your body gives you a strong warning rather than developing a craving.
Since alcohol doesn’t really “deliver” for you, you are forced to develop other responses to stress. Those responses may also be dysfunctional (e.g. brooding and blaming oneself), but they usually don’t lead to profound crises such as drunken driving or obesity-related diseases. The absence of substance abuse means the brain remains relatively undamaged, which makes it easier to eventually think of ways to extricate oneself from both stress-causing situations and one’s own idiosyncratic response to it. In plain terms, one learns how to cope with life and its unavoidable “arrows of misfortune.”
But this is not anything to feel proud of — mostly it’s genetic luck and perhaps circumstantial luck as well — e.g. not having had really severe trauma in childhood AND not having had an easy access to alcohol and other means of destructive “self-medication.” My guess is that it’s mainly the genetic lottery. I base it on the observation that while alcoholism does indeed run in the family, only some siblings become alcoholics, while others, presumably exposed to the same stress, don’t. There, but for genetic luck, go I.
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By the way, US overdose deaths exceed 100,000 a year.
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HOW THE WORLD COULD END
~ The good news for us is that scientists think the world will be habitable for at least a few hundred million more years. The bad news is there’s a lot that could change that. The risk of the threats highlighted in the report actually causing mass casualties are still small, but that doesn’t mean they’re not important to pay attention to — especially when the worst-case scenario means human extinction.
Here’s what should be keeping you up at night and what, realistically, might cause humans to go the way of dinosaurs.
NUCLEAR WAR
A nuclear detonation from one of today’s more powerful weapons would cause a fatality rate of 80 to 95 percent in the blast zone stretching out to a radius of 4 kilometers — although “severe damage” could reach six times as far.
But it isn’t just the immediate deaths we need to worry about — it’s the nuclear winter. This is when the clouds of dust and smoke released shroud the planet and block out the sun, causing temperatures to drop, possibly for years. If 4,000 nuclear weapons were detonated — a possibility in the event of all-out nuclear war between the US and Russia, which hold the vast majority of the world’s stockpile — an untold number of people would be killed, and temperatures could drop by 8 degrees Celsius over four to five years. Humans wouldn’t be able to grow food; chaos and violence would ensue.
A big worry here is the arsenal of nukes. While numbers have fallen over several decades, the United States and Russia have just under 7,000 warheads each, the largest collections in the world. The UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel all have nuclear weapons.
Hundreds of nuclear weapons are ready to be released within minutes, a troubling fact considering that the biggest threat of nuclear war may be an accident or miscommunication. A few times since the 1960s, Russian officers (and, in 1995, the president) narrowly decided not to launch a nuclear weapon in response to what they’d later find out were false alarms.
BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL WARFARE
Unlike nuclear weapons, which require complex engineering, biological and chemical warfare can be developed at a relatively low cost and with relatively attainable materials.
In the past few years, the Syrian government has used chemical weapons in the civil war that has ravaged the country. These chemical attacks using sarin and chlorine have appalled the international community, and underscored the damage chemical weapons can do. Weaponized toxic chemicals could do tremendous harm to a localized target — say, if the toxins were released into the air or into the water supply.
Biological weapons represent a greater catastrophic threat. Advances in synthetic biology have made very real the possibility of malicious actors creating harmful pathogens for weaponization — or innocent researchers accidentally releasing a lethal infectious bug out into the world. In the event of a fast-moving pandemic, the world would be pretty vulnerable.
CATASTROPHIC CLIMATE CHANGE
A United Nations panel of scientists released a report last week saying that we only have 12 years to keep global warming to moderate levels.
Projections of the effects of climate change vary depending on how much the Earth warms (usually modeled on an increase of 1 to 3 degree Celsius). None of the scenarios look good.
At best, we’re looking at more frequent and severe tropical cyclones. Midrange predictions include the loss of the majority of global agricultural land and freshwater sources, with major coastal cities like New York and Mumbai ending up underwater. At worst, human civilization would come to an end.
Even if current global commitments to reduce carbon emissions are kept, there is a one-third chance of the Earth’s temperature increasing by 3°C, which would cause most of Florida and Bangladesh to drown.
Catastrophic climate change is also not something we’re dedicating nearly enough attention to. The author of this section in the report, Dr. Leena Srivastava, the acting director of general at the Energy and Resources Institute, points out that we’ve put enough time and resources into airplane safety that only 27 planes crash a year. But “if dying in a flight accident was as likely as a 3°C global temperature increase, then the number of people dying in airplanes every year would be 15 [million].”
ECOLOGICAL COLLAPSE
Ecosystems are the delicate community of living organisms, like humans and animals, interacting with their nonliving environment, like air and water. Ecosystems can recover from a certain amount of impact from humans, like temperature increases or habitat loss, but there’s a tipping point at which they can’t — and according to the report, we might be reaching that tipping point.
Lake Chad in West Africa is an example of ecological collapse. Sixty years of drought, overuse of water, and the impacts of climate change have reduced the lake by 90 percent. Its massive reduction has adversely affected the livelihoods of more than 40 million people in Chad, Nigeria, Niger, and Cameroon that depend on it.
Scholars believe this moment in history constitutes a new geological era, called the Anthropocene. In this new era, humans are the primary change agents, rapidly degrading what makes the planet habitable, intensifying greenhouse gas concentration, and damaging the health of marine ecosystems.
Salton LakePANDEMICS
Twice in modern history, plagues have swept across the world, killing an estimated 15 percent of the population in a few decades. They occurred way back in the fifth and 14th centuries — but there is a serious risk that a new infectious disease could cause another outbreak, especially with today’s urban and mobile global population.
Luckily, deadly diseases with the capacity to spread globally are rare. But they do happen — a century ago, the Spanish flu killed more than 50 million people. Outbreaks of SARS and Ebola in recent years also ring alarm bells.
Antibiotics, our greatest defense against disease, are becoming less effective as some strains of bacteria become resistant to them. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are responsible for an estimated 700,000 annual deaths. If we don’t develop new advances against antibiotic resistance, that number is estimated to reach 10 million by 2050.
ASTEROID IMPACT
Asteroids are rocks that revolve around the sun and that occasionally collide with the Earth. An asteroid large enough to cause a global catastrophe hits Earth every 120,000 years, scientists estimate. It’s likely what killed the dinosaurs, and if an asteroid even one-tenth the size of the one that caused their extinction hit Earth today, the results would be devastating. Scientists estimate it could release enough particles to block the sun for months and cause a famine killing hundreds of millions.
NASA announced in 2011 that it had mapped more than 90 percent of objects in space larger than 1 kilometer in diameter, and that none of them are likely to hit Earth. But there’s still a lot we don’t know about smaller objects that, while unlikely to cause a global catastrophe, could have a big enough local impact to disrupt social and economic systems.
SUPERVOLCANIC ERUPTION
A supervolcanic explosion 74,000 years ago ejected so much debris into the atmosphere that scientists believe it caused the Earth to cool by several degrees Celsius. Some experts believe this caused the greatest mass plant and animal extinction in human history, bringing the species to the brink of extinction.
How likely is that to happen today? It’s hard to say since we don’t have much to compare it to, but data suggests a supervolcanic eruption occurs on average every 17,000 years. If that’s true, then we’re overdue — the last one we know of was 26,500 years ago in New Zealand.
We don’t have a way to anticipate eruptions more than a few weeks or months in advance, and we don’t really have any way to reduce the likelihood of eruption right now, but scientists are monitoring several areas of risk, including Yellowstone in the US.
SOLAR GEOENGINEERING
There’s a dramatic option for stopping, or even reversing, rising global temperatures, but it comes with significant possible risk.
Solar geoengineering would reflect light and heat away from Earth and back into space by injecting aerosols into the stratosphere, the second layer of Earth’s atmosphere. For now, it only exists in computer models, but the first experiment is being planned by Harvard researchers.
Solar geoengineering is one of two emerging technologies that could manipulate the atmosphere and reduce climate risk. The other is directly removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which doesn’t currently exist on a big enough scale.
If solar geoengineering were deployed, it would affect the entire atmosphere and be humanity’s largest-ever global endeavor. While it is the only known technique that could stop rising temperatures, there’s still a lot we don’t know, including whether it could destabilize local and global climate or ecosystems. Manipulation on this scale without understanding the effects could turn out to be catastrophic for the human species. The technology could also be cheap enough (as low as $10 billion a year) that it could be wielded by one country or a wealthy individual, introducing the possibility of reckless use.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Artificial intelligence (AI) is progressing rapidly. Surveyed scientists estimate, on average, that there is a 50 percent chance of AI being able to perform most tasks as well as, or better than, humans by 2050, with at least a 5 percent chance of surpassing human intelligence a couple of years after that.
There’s a common misconception that the risk of AI is that it will become malevolent. The bigger concern is that it will become too good at its job. As the report says: “If you ask an obedient, intelligent car to take you to the airport as fast as possible, it might get you there chased by helicopters and covered in vomit, doing not what you wanted but literally what you asked for.”
The implications become much more frightening when you consider AI weapons in the hands of the wrong person, or an AI arms race leading to an AI war.
UNKNOWN RISKS
It wasn’t that long ago that climate change and nuclear warfare were largely unheard of. Today, they’re risks we’ve already seen the devastating effects of — and that we worry could get much worse. Because of this, there’s a possibility that we haven’t even conceived of what is most likely to kill us. ~
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/10/18/17957162/nuclear-war-asteroid-volcano-science-climate-change?fbclid=IwAR08T05XECP51UN7ggCx1ubEKNVIREeoNBp6padx-R3KJkTaAWNVmJVmvbE
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AN OCEAN’S WORTH OF WATER HIDDEN IN EARTH’S MANTLE
~ A beautiful blue flaw in a gem-quality diamond from Botswana is actually a tiny fragment of Earth’s deep interior—and it suggests our planet’s mantle contains oceans’ worth of water.
The flaw, technically called an inclusion, looks like a fish eye: a deep blue center surrounded by a white haze. But it’s really a pocket of the mineral ringwoodite from 660 kilometers down, at the boundary between the upper and lower mantle. This is just the second time scientists have found this mineral in a chunk of crystal from this zone, and the sample is the only one of its kind currently known to science. The last example was destroyed during an attempt to analyze its chemistry.
“It is incredibly rare to even have a super deep diamond, and then to have inclusions is even rarer,” says Suzette Timmerman, a mantle geochemist and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alberta, who was not involved in the new discovery. Finding a ringwoodite inclusion is even more mind-boggling, she says.
The discovery indicates that this very deep zone of Earth is soggy, with vast amounts of water locked up tight within the minerals there. Though this water is chemically bound to the minerals’ structure and doesn’t flow around like an actual ocean, it does likely play an important role in how the mantle melts. This in turn affects big-picture geology, such as plate tectonics and volcanic activity. For example, water could contribute to the development of areas of mantle upwelling known as plumes, which are hotspots for volcanoes.
The stunning bit of diamond-encased mantle was discovered by Tingting Gu, a mineral physicist now at Purdue University, who was at the time doing research at the Gemological Institute of America. Her job was to study rare inclusions found in diamonds. Inclusions are undesirable for jewelry because they cloud a diamond’s sparkle. But they’re often interesting to scientists because they trap bits of the environment where the diamond formed millennia earlier.
The vast majority of diamonds form between about 150 to 200 km below Earth’s surface. But a handful come from much deeper. It is often difficult to pinpoint exactly how deep, but the new sample was remarkably accommodating on that front, Gu and her colleagues reported on Monday in a study published in Nature Geoscience. Ringwoodite can only form at incredibly high pressures. It is not found in Earth’s crust, but it is sometimes seen trapped in meteorites that underwent major cosmic trauma. In Earth’s mantle, ringwoodite exists at the pressures present down to 660 km. The single other terrestrial ringwoodite sample found, which was discovered in a diamond in 2014, could just be said to have formed within 135 km so of that depth. The two other minerals found in the new inclusion, ferropericlase and enstatite, can only occur together at 660 km and deeper, pinpointing where the diamond formed.
That’s an important depth because it happens to be the boundary between mantle layers— where seismic waves moving through Earth’s interior mysteriously change speeds.
Ringwoodite holds water better than ferropericlase and enstatite, so the mineral probably releases a lot of water as it undergoes changes at this boundary. The change in minerals and the possible water release could explain why the seismic waves travel differently through this region.
The ringwoodite inclusion holds a tiny amount of water bound to the molecules that make up the mineral, as did the 2014 sample. This is important because—though previous lab experiments have suggested the mantle could store massive amounts of water—there has been little direct proof that it actually does. The 2014 ringwoodite discovery was the first hint, but this second sample makes for a much more convincing story, Timmerman says. If the mineral is indeed largely waterlogged in the mantle transition zone, the water stored in the deep Earth could easily surpass the water on the planet’s surface. “If you only have one sample, it could just be a local hydrous region,” she says, “whereas now that we have the second sample, we can already tell it’s not just a single occurrence. It’s likely to be widespread.”
The next step is to figure out where this water comes from, says Oliver Tschauner, a mineralogist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who was part of a team that discovered a high-pressure form of water ice in ultra deep diamonds in 2018 but was not involved in the new study. Researchers know the oceanic plates carry water with them as they are pushed into the mantle by plate tectonics, but they debate how deep this water can travel. It’s also possible that the water has been there since Earth formed. Understanding the way water cycles between Earth’s depths and surface could help explain how it developed into such a hydrated planet over its 4.5 billion-year history.
To learn more, researchers will need to analyze trace elements in the new inclusion, Tschauner says. They can also hope to find more deep-mantle ringwoodite in diamonds in the future. That would be a lucky break—but then again, so was this discovery, Gu says. “If someone proposes to you with a diamond, and you find an inclusion,” she adds, “don’t say no.” ~
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THE OLDEST BIBLE IN THE WORLD
The Ethiopian bible is the oldest, most complete and original one on earth.
Written on goat skin in the early Ethiopian language of Ge’ez, it is also world’s first illustrated Christian Bible. It was composed during the first or second century CE.
The oldest bible in the world, written on goat skin.
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YAHVEH VERSUS CHEMOSH (2 Kings 3:26-27)
~ It is not that Chemosh, chief god of the Moabites, was greater than Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, but that the Israelites believed that Chemosh would come to the aid of the Moabites, making them invincible.
We are told in 2 Kings 3:26 that the Israelites, aided by their allies from Judah and Edom, were close to totally defeating the Moabites. In desperation, the Moabite king sacrificed his oldest son on the city wall, at which the Israelites fell back and departed.
We know the early Israelites and Jews sometimes practiced child sacrifice themselves, so we know they believed in the efficacy of the practice. They knew there was no greater incentive for a god in the Ancient Near East to come to the aid of a supplicant than to receive the sacrifice of an eldest son, and believed that once Chemosh chose to be involved the battle would turn. Chemosh did not really help the Moabites, but the Israelites and their allies believed he would. ~ Dick Harfield, Quora
Moabite Stele depicting Chemosh handing a scepter to a Moabite King. Chemosh may be related to Shamash, the Mesopotamian sun god
THE MEANING OF JERUSALEM — WHAT’S IN A NAME?
~ Jerusalem was a Canaanite town long before it became a Jewish city, so the origin of the name is, naturally enough, Canaanite. The name Jerusalem means ‘City of Salem’. Known from Ugaritic inscriptions, Salem, or Shalim, was the god of dusk. Jenny Kien suggests, in Reinstating the Divine Woman in Judaism, that:
Royal names with the s-l-m root, such as Solomon and Abshalom, suggest that Shalim was still worshipped in the 10th century BCE, and that the early house of David participated in the cult. (Quora)
from Wiki:
~ The name "Jerusalem" is variously etymologized to mean "foundation (Semitic yry' 'to found, to lay a cornerstone') of the god Shalem" the god Shalem was thus the original tutelary deity of the Bronze Age city.
Shalim or Shalem was the name of the god of dusk in the Canaanite religion, whose name is based on the same root S-L-M from which the Hebrew word for "peace" is derived (Shalom in Hebrew, cognate with Arabic Salam). The name thus offered itself to etymologizations such as "The City of Peace", "Abode of Peace","Dwelling of Peace" ("founded in safety"), or "Vision of Peace" in some Christian authors.
The ending -ayim indicates the dual, thus leading to the suggestion that the name Yerushalayim refers to the fact that the city initially sat on two hills. ~ (Wikipedia)
1455 painting of the Holy Land
~ Albright identified Shalim as the god of dusk and Shahar as god of the dawn. In the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, Shalim is also identified as the deity representing Venus or the "Evening Star" and Shahar the "Morning Star". His name derives from the triconsonantal Semitic root Š-L-M. ~ (wiki)
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BRITTANY MULLER COMBINES CHRISTIANITY AND THE CARDS IN ‘THE CONTEMPLATIVE TAROT’
~ Brittany Muller didn’t intend to invite Christianity back into her life when she began using tarot cards as part of her daily spiritual practice nearly a decade ago. As a teenager and a faithful Catholic, she had even been told that using the cards could invite evil spirits.
But after leaving college, where she said her faith had become a casualty of the same doubts people have wrestled with for thousands of years, Muller found in tarot the ritual and reflection she missed in religion. Eventually, she found her way back to Christianity — and Christianity and the cards turned out to be, she writes in her new book “The Contemplative Tarot: A Christian Guide to the Cards,” a “natural pair.”
Muller, now 32, hopes to grant readers the same permission she gave herself to incorporate new spiritual practices into old beliefs.
“I think a lot of Christians and people who grew up in Christianity are interested in new spiritual practices, and I think that tarot can be a little bit scary to people because of its associations with the occult,” she said.
“I hope this book makes people feel like this is a safe thing to explore.”
“The Contemplative Tarot” explains the history of tarot and includes short reflections on the Christian imagery and themes of each of the 78 cards in a tarot deck, accompanied by a Bible verse and questions for further exploration. ~
Oriana:
I guess this was inevitable. There are Christian guides for losing weight, Catholic guides to “clean dating,” so why not a Christian Tarot? I can’t help but wonder, though, if these are the last gasps of a dying religion. If that’s too good to be true, then at least a sign of great weakening and increasing irrelevance.
Dante placed fortune tellers deep in the inner circles of Hell, their heads turned backward so they could see only what is behind them -- as punishment for having tried to see the future.
Giovanni Stradano: Fortune tellers in Dante's Inferno.
Mary: THE CARDS ALWAYS TELL A STORY
My first response on the Christianizing of the Tarot was How??? And Why??? But mythologies are syncretistic and plastic, they assimilate old stories into the new, adopt old gods and saints, borrowing and reshaping rituals to fit. Christianity did this as it spread and consolidated its power, keeping, for instance, all the old holidays, which, though re- named retain much of their pagan flavor. The history of these accommodations is the history of nations and peoples.
For example, Santeria and Voodoo are syncretations of Christianity with West African religions, created by the enslaved people taken from Africa to the West, transforming the Roman Catholic saints and rituals into a more familiar shape, the "magic" of the Catholic sacraments into a different kind of magic. Essentials, like sacrifice and ceremony always retained in these assimilations.
How these assimilations can work is that mythologies all share some basic ideas or "characters," the things Jung named “Archetypes.” The sacrificed god, the god hanging or dying in the tree, the priest, the Mother, the trickster or jester, fool or denier, the lost wanderer, the hermit, magician, wise man, the embodiments of good and evil, angels and devils, guides and tempters. These are found over and over in creation stories, myths, fables, and scriptures from cultures distant in time and place.
We are inveterate and compulsive storytellers, and these archetypes are the heroes and villains of our deepest, oldest and most persistent stories, the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, who we are and where we fit in the whole scheme of things. They instruct and guide us in our life journeys, give comfort, advice and reassurance, as well as warnings.
These archetypes appear in the Tarot, characters of our old stories. They are familiar and recognizable as much as mysterious and arcane. I used to read Tarot and however the cards turned up, they always told a story. I only had to read the story they laid out, and it always made sense. It made sense because sense is what we make of the world, no matter what comes up before us. Deal out some very old and evocative images, and the story almost tells itself.
The story of Christianity has long been in the habit of absorbing other stories, other faiths, other gods, and turning all to its own purpose, no matter how awkward the fit. I think this latest effort to claim the Tarot for Christianity is a response to the new "spiritualism" indulged in by those who have not found traditional religion attractive, and instead gravitated to bits and pieces of many older practices...pagan, occult, spiritualistic, on the fringe..seeking power and meaning in things borrowed from other traditions...magical, alchemical, old...often half remembered and poorly understood, bowdlerized and trendy. The Christian author here is trying to draw these folks into the fold by appropriating the fortune telling cards…something the Church used to condemn, now safe and sound, no longer a danger.
Oriana:
I went through a phase of being quite interested in the Tarot. Then I got older . . . and discovered that I no longer enjoyed thinking about the future. Thinking about electric cars, now that's OK, but thinking of myself ten years from now is, to put it mildly, unappealing. This is not the fault of Tarot. It's the human condition. Nothing is as shocking as aging.
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HALF A DRINK A DAY KEEPS DEMENTIA AWAY
~ Emerging evidence suggests that a plethora of metabolites resulting from diet-host-microbe interactions are awaiting to be discovered and could represent a rich source of new bioactive molecules related to our health trajectory to be exploited for preventive purposes. In relation to wine, its phenolic fraction has been suggested to modulate gut microbiota inducing prebiotic-like effects on bacteria (through the stimulation of the growth of beneficial bacteria and the inhibition of pathogen bacteria). On the other hand, intestinal bacteria metabolize wine polyphenols into specific bioavailable metabolites. Actually, the beneficial actions reported for wine have been attributed to these phenolic microbial-derived metabolites rather to the initial precursors contained in wine.
Regarding Alzheimer's Disease (AD), the influence of the gut microbiome in the bidirectional crosstalk between gut and the brain, known as the gut-brain axis, constitutes a research field of growing interest. Particularly, emerging evidence reports putative effects of the gut microbiome-polyphenol interaction on brain function and cognitive decline. On the other hand, polyphenols interaction with the human body starts in the mouth when the food is ingested. In fact, the alimentary tract is a continuous tube from the oral cavity to the anus, and the bacterial composition of the entire tract, including oral microbiota, is also likely to be influenced by diet/wine components. Evidence linking oral bacteria to AD is also increasing in the last years.
Considering the limited efficacy of current therapies, medical or psychological, for neurologic disorders (such as AD), the discovery of new mediators and moderators of these disorders, such as the oral and gut microbiome as well as the interactions with the diet and the lifestyle may open new diagnostic, preventive and nutritional and pharmaceutical therapeutic avenues for mental conditions and, particularly, for AD.
In this paper, we have summarized the current knowledge regarding the influence of diet (in particular, moderate wine consumption) on human microbiota and its potential impact on AD. Three main sections structure the content in a sequential and concatenated way recompiles what is known about the impact of lifestyle and dietary patterns in AD, with special focus on moderate wine consumption as part of the Mediterranean diet, and specifically on polyphenols as wine components.
The gut microbiota as the main determinant of the impact of diet on health, and other important microenvironments of the gastrointestinal tract related to AD as the oral microbiota, are described. Last section addresses the microbiome modulation in AD, and the contribution of wine polyphenols and/or their microbial metabolites to it.
Smoking has been associated with an increased risk of all-cause dementia, as has physical and mental inactivity and social isolation.
A recent meta-analysis of prospective studies involving 73,300 participants and 4586 cases for all-cause dementia reported a nonlinear association between alcohol intake and risk of dementia. The alcohol dose associated with the lowest risk of dementia was confined to a maximum of 12.5 g/day, with the lowest risk observed for 6 g/day (approximately half a drink depending on the type of alcohol) while excessive drinking (≥38 g/day) elevated the risk substantially. ~
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7600228/#B42-nutrients-12-03082
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ULTRA-PROCESSED FOOD MAY INCREASE THE RISK OF COLON CANCER IN MEN
~ For many Americans, the convenience of pre-cooked and instant meals may make it easy to overlook the less-than-ideal nutritional information, but a team led by researchers at Tufts University and Harvard University hope that will change after recently discovering a link between the high consumption of ultra-processed foods and an increased risk of colorectal cancer.
In a study published Aug. 31 in The BMJ, researchers found that men who consumed high rates of ultra-processed foods were at 29% higher risk for developing colorectal cancer -- the third most diagnosed cancer in the United States -- than men who consumed much smaller amounts. They did not find the same association in women.
"We started out thinking that colorectal cancer could be the cancer most impacted by diet compared to other cancer types," said Lu Wang, the study's lead author and a postdoctoral fellow at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts. "Processed meats, most of which fall into the category of ultra-processed foods, are a strong risk factor for colorectal cancer. Ultra-processed foods are also high in added sugars and low in fiber, which contribute to weight gain and obesity, and obesity is an established risk factor for colorectal cancer.”
The study analyzed responses from over 200,000 participants — 159,907 women and 46,341 men — across three large prospective studies which assessed dietary intake and were conducted over more than 25 years. Each participant was provided with a food frequency questionnaire every four years and asked about the frequency of consumption of roughly 130 foods.
For the study in BMJ, participants' intake of ultra-processed foods was then classified into quintiles, ranging in value from the lowest consumption to the highest. Those in the highest quintile were identified as being the most at risk for developing colorectal cancer. Although there was a clear link identified for men, particularly in cases of colorectal cancer in the distal colon, the study did not find an overall increased risk for women who consumed higher amounts of ultra-processed foods.
The Impacts of Ultra-Processed Foods
The analyses revealed differences in the ways that men and women consume ultra-processed foods and the prospective associated cancer risk. Out of the 206,000 participants followed for more than 25 years, the research team documented 1,294 cases of colorectal cancer among men, and 1,922 cases among women.
The team found the strongest association between colorectal cancer and ultra-processed foods among men come from the meat, poultry, or fish-based, ready-to-eat products. "These products include some processed meats like sausages, bacon, ham, and fish cakes. This is consistent with our hypothesis," Wang said.
The team also found higher consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, like soda, fruit-based beverages, and sugary milk-based beverages, is associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer in men.
However, not all ultra-processed foods are equally harmful with regard to colorectal cancer risk. "We found an inverse association between ultra-processed dairy foods like yogurt and colorectal cancer risk among women," said co-senior author Fang Fang Zhang, a cancer epidemiologist and interim chair of the Division of Nutrition Epidemiology and Data Science at the Friedman School.
Overall, there was not a link between ultra-processed food consumption and colorectal cancer risk among women. It's possible that the composition of the ultra-processed foods consumed by women could be different than that from men.
"Foods like yogurt can potentially counteract the harmful impacts of other types of ultra-processed foods in women," Zhang said.
Although ultra-processed foods are often associated with poor diet quality, there could be factors beyond the poor diet quality of ultra-processed foods that impact the risk of developing colorectal cancer.
The potential role of food additives in altering gut microbiota, promoting inflammation, and contaminants formed during food processing or migrated from food packaging may all promote cancer development, Zhang noted.
Analyzing the Data
With more than a 90% follow-up rate from each of the three studies, the research team had ample data to process and review.
The studies included:
The Nurses' Health Study (1986-2014): 121,700 registered female nurses between the ages of 30 and 55; The Nurses' Health Study II (1991-2015): 116,429 female nurses between the ages of 25 and 42; The Health Professional Follow-up Study (1986-2014): 51,529 male health professionals between the ages of 40 and 75.
After an exclusionary process for past diagnoses or incomplete surveys, the researchers were left with prospective data from 159,907 women from both NHS studies and 46,341 men.
The team adjusted for potential confounding factors such as race, family history of cancer, history of endoscopy, physical activity hours per week, smoking status, total alcohol intake and total caloric intake, regular aspirin use, and menopausal status.
Changing Dietary Patterns
Wang and Zhang previously published a study that identified a trend in increased ultra-processed food consumption in U.S. children and adolescents. Both studies underscore the idea that many different groups of people may be dependent on ultra-processed foods in their daily diets.
"Much of the dependence on these foods can come down to factors like food access and convenience," said Zhang, who is also a member of the Tufts Institute for Global Obesity Research. "Chemically processing foods can aid in extending shelf life, but many processed foods are less healthy than unprocessed alternatives. We need to make consumers aware of the risks associated with consuming unhealthy foods in quantity and make the healthier options easier to choose instead.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220831210024.htm
Oriana:
Processed food is here to stay. Still, we should remember that there is a price for convenience, and try, at least some of the time, to prepare a meal from scratch. For one thing, home cooking is associated with less obesity, and obesity correlates with a higher risk of colorectal cancer.
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WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU QUIT ADDED SUGAR
~ There’s a lot of debate regarding the tenets of a healthy diet. Vegans believe forgoing animal products is best, while keto enthusiasts just want to eat all the fat. But there’s one food people of nearly every dietary preference aim to avoid: sugar.
Giving up the sweet stuff is challenging since it's found in unsuspecting places, like veggie burgers, tomato sauce, and crackers. But if you do nix added sugars from your diet, your body will benefit almost immediately, according to Dr. Eric Pham, M.D. at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Orange, California.
Within a week you can expect lower blood pressure as well as healthier levels of fat and insulin levels in the bloodstream, he says.
Of course, how your body reacts to the absence of sugar depends on how much of the white stuff you eat in the first place–and whether you’re eating carbs. Your body breaks down complex carbohydrates, like oatmeal and fruit, into simple sugars to use as energy.
But what if you cut out all high-glycemic foods, as keto enthusiasts and no-carb, no sugar dieters attempt?
Dessert aficionados, beware: "You’re going to have a tough three days," says Dr. Brian Quebbemann, M.D., a bariatric surgeon based in California.
First, you’ll probably day dream about donuts, if you’re the type of person who regularly grabs a muffin in the morning and ends dinner with dessert. He explains this occurs because you don’t have sugar to help stimulate your brain.
You may feel, well, rough, but there’s a lot of good stuff going on inside your body.
Insulin, a hormone that regulates glucose, drops to become more stable. You won’t go through the cycle of sugar highs and crashes, Quebbemann explains. Initially, you'll feel tired and lethargic, but that will pass within a few days. Adrenaline will increase and help break down glycogen, or sugar, stored in your body. This will be released into your bloodstream pretty quickly, says Quebbemann.
“You’ll go through that in less than 24 hours,” he says.
Within three to five days, your liver will make ketones from fat since there’s no more glucose, your body’s main source of energy. That’s when your body enters ketosis, aka fat burning mode.
As a result, you could experience muscle cramps since you’re losing a lot of water when you’re in ketosis after cutting out sugar. Some people experience keto flu, associated with headaches, fatigue and cramps, which lasts about a week.
But once that passes, you’ll feel more energetic, focused, and calm, says Quebbemann.
It’s common for people to cut out sugar and high-glycemic foods to lose weight for short periods of time. However, doctors still aren’t sure whether this is healthy long-term, explains Quebbemann.
That’s why many doctors recommend eating healthy complex carbohydrates. Although they are broken down into sugar, this is an entirely normal and healthy process, says Quebbemann.
In fact, omitting added sugars while eating complex carbs keeps your insulin levels healthy.
“You don’t get the headaches. You don’t get the crashes. You get a consistent level of energy,” he says. ~
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/what-happens-when-you-stop-eating-all-sugar?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Oriana:
This article seemed pretty confusing at first. For one thing, I never heard of a "zero-carb diet." But ultimately the message is simply to avoid foods with added sugar. Complex carbohydrates are fine: beans, peas, purple yams, sweet potatoes, beets, and other starchy vegetables. When it comes to quinoa, I believe Gundry's advice to cook it in a pressure cooker. And then there are leafy vegetables, with their myriad benefits.
Which diet is best? The answer seems to be the pescatarian-vegetarian diet: a seafood-based diet with complex carbohydrates, leafy greens, plenty of olive oil, and a small amount of wine.
Sweet potato with leaves
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ending on beauty:
A BLESSING
~ James Wright
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