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GOD WAITS
On bad days He sits alone
At Starbucks, watches the rain.
He knows it won't get better.
How could it?
He can do anything
but nothing will change
What He feels. The boredom.
Once He thought
it would be different.
Back before men.
When the dinosaurs
were still around.
Their colors were
The miracle He always
Hoped for.
The reds that bled to blue.
The yellows so pure
They were almost translucent.
Killing all those beautiful clowns
Was the greatest mistake
He ever made.
What a fool He was.
~ John Guzlowski
Sinosauropteryx prima
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FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH ZADIE SMITH
On imagining the Victorian era as a time of less freedom
There's something about that argument which is very flattering to us, right? It always assumes that there is an era that arcs towards progress, and we are the final and most perfected result of that system. And I don't feel that. ... Freedom works both ways, you know what I mean? You gain freedoms, but you also lose things that might also have been of value. …
I have a young daughter, and when I hear people speak of, "We've gone through so many waves of feminism, and so it should be that we're in some kind of ideal state where a 13-year-old girl is happier than she's ever been" — but anyone listening to this who has a 13-year-old girl: Do you find that to be true?
I'm just not convinced that all liberating arcs create existential personal happiness the way we might hope them to. ... New problems arise. So that, again, makes you question this, to me, kind of neoliberal idea of continual progress. I don't see human life like that. I think it's a continued struggle. And every generation throws up new repressions, new forces of oppression, new things that are hard for women. ... I don't feel that I look back on the Victorian period with a sense of superiority.
On the fight over critical race theory in U.S. schools
It's like a prepackaged binary that has nothing to do with the way I think about history. I don't believe in witchcraft. So when I'm thinking about history, I'm not thinking that the students in front of me are in any way the magical carriers of the arguments [or] ideas of 300 years ago. I don't think of history that way. It's not a thing in conflict in that way.
So if I were teaching, for example, Pride and Prejudice, nothing could be more natural or normal to me to hold multiple ideas simultaneously. I adore that book. I can teach it at a level of rhetoric, a level of character, as a history of the middle classes in England. I know exactly where Darcy's money comes from: It comes from the Caribbean. I can speak in that class about plantations in Jamaica, about the class struggle in England, about the characters themselves, about what a good sentence is, about Jane Austen. To me, that is all part of the same class, same lesson. And nobody in my classroom in that lesson needs to feel particularly weighted or freighted with some intimate personal guilt.
What we're here to do is to interrogate history together. That is not a complicated idea, in my mind. What's going on in America is a long-term consequence of a kind of binary argument that happens online, and that is the opposite of thought, in my view. The opposite of history, the opposite of understanding. It's like a childish football game. You win, I lose. You did this, you did that. History is something we participate in together. We are all involved in history, and all have something to gain from understanding what happened – exactly what happened. …
I live in a place of mixed feelings. They don't agonize me. I just experience them as fact. ...
Adults can have two thoughts at the same time. Children can't. Children find it very hard. They need one idea. But we're adults and we can contain more than one idea.
On money and the ways it does and doesn't change us
I'm not working class anymore. It's not some identity that I carry around forever because I was born into it and I can't wave it like a flag whenever I want to. It's just not true. I don't find these things like personal identities. To me, the structural situations and my situations change. I think, as anyone will tell you, when it changes, there's a long afterlife.
For years and years, every time I went to a cash machine, I'd still have the anxiety of thinking, is it going to be there? And in the shopping queue still thinking, is there enough to pay for the groceries? It lingered a long time. But it does go. ... It is impossible to always keep it in mind because poverty is not a cosplay thing. It's something that happens to you and it gets deep into your bones. And when it's over, it's over. And when you're in it, you're really in it.
So it's ridiculous to claim that you can stay in the same mental space. I can't. But it is always on my mind. ... I'm always trying to remind myself of my biases. That's the best way I can put it.
On how she feels in between writing projects
For the first 10 days, it's glorious. I'm feeling very smug and happy and I have more free time. But very soon I become extremely anxious. And I think my children now say to me, because they have the language of mental health, they would say to me, "You're manic depressive or you're bipolar," and I resist. I don't think that's true. I've never been diagnosed. But they're absolutely correct that I get sad without a book and I get energized with a book.
So as I get older, I try to work on an even keel a bit more, to recognize, Oh, when there's not a book, I might be in some emotional trouble, I might feel anxious. And to really enter the world and make up for the things I'm perhaps not doing when I'm writing, to really be involved with people, both people close to me and in the wider world. So I just try and bring it to mind. It's much better than when I was young, where I think I just really didn't realize and people would have to point out to me, "When you don't write, you can be a pain in the ass.” ~
https://www.npr.org/2023/09/05/1197604421/zadie-smith-the-fraud
“WRITING ADVICE” FROM LORD BYRON
~ The very binge-able Lord Byron is having a moment. In 2019, the first two cantos of his great verse epic Don Juan enjoyed their 200th anniversary. On August 8, 2021, cantos III, IV, and V turned 200, as well.
Don Juan is a comic masterpiece. It eavesdrops on the exploits of the title character (stress on the surname’s first syllable: Don JU-an), a young man who gets himself into scrapes—adultery, shipwrecks, and the like. It remains a model for any poet who wants to go long and recount a story in rhyme and meter.
It’s also a work of snarky literary criticism by other means, with occasional shiv-sharp jabs at contemporaries like William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Early in the poem, Byron even offers some “poetical commandments,” a few stanzas designed to edify (and definitely not troll) his 19th-century readers, including lines like:
To mark the 200th anniversary, I present an updated set of “poetical commandments” in Don Juan’s style: iambic lines arranged in octaves that go ABABABCC. These commandments offer sturdy advice that contemporary Byrons-to-be might wish to consider as they pursue literary immortality and ponder the important stuff: aesthetic choices, which workshops to apply for, and whether to follow up by email about the status of a poetry submission.
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Thou shalt not write a line that’s not five feet.
By all means, focus on the epigram—
https://lithub.com/after-lord-byron-poetic-advice-for-the-modern-poet-in-couplets/
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TROTSKY’S MISTAKES AFTER LENIN’S DEATH
Hubris.
Everything else on the list of Trotsky’s mistakes can be derived from this sad fact.
His performance as the Soviet defense minister during the Civil war of 1918–1920 impressed everyone and himself so much that he deemed his role as Lenin’s heir in 1924 as 100% assured.
He had the military in his pocket. "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" is a Mao’s quote that is universally applicable to any radical Socialist project. He was also the acknowledged architect (along with Lenin) of the October revolution in St. Petersburg in 1917.
He was a brilliant speaker and debater, and skilled theorist of Marxism.
Full of this impossible awesomeness, he geared down at the critical moments in the Communist internal power struggle. Hypochondriac as he was, he spent too much time away from his power base. He didn’t put too much effort in courting possible allies. He ignored Stalin’s silent but huge reshuffling of party cadres in order to have his supporters at the right places the day the definitive battle begins.
And he underestimated the degree of hate against his Jewish ancestry that permeated younger Party members from the worker and peasant classes.
As a result, Stalin robbed him of his support in the military through the Communist cells in the troops. From there, the only way for Trotsky as for any fiery radical Socialist was the way to a total destruction. ~ Dima Vorobiev, Quora
In reality, he was more of a proto-Maoist who probably would’ve destroyed the early USSR through unwinnable wars.
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PUTIN’S DEADLY REVENGE
*** The killing of Wagner’s leader, who is presumed dead after his private plane crashed en route to St. Petersburg, won’t address the deeper sources of stress affecting the Russian President’s grip on power. ***
Ever since late June, when Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner Group, carried out a mutiny against Russia’s military leadership, he was thought to be a man on borrowed time. Even if Prigozhin hadn’t intended it as such, Wagner’s rebellion was an affront not merely to Russian generals but to Putin himself, who called the uprising “treason,” “a subversion from within,” and “a stab in the back.” In the aftermath, Prigozhin was allowed to depart for Belarus but soon appeared in St. Petersburg, at a forum for African leaders. On Monday, he released a video from somewhere in Africa, he claimed, dressed in camouflage and holding an assault rifle.
His posturing made Putin look weak, humiliated, and betrayed—and, for Putin, traitors are worse than foreign enemies, and should be dealt with demonstrably and mercilessly.
Something would have to give: Putin would either try to reassert his authority or see it erode further. Earlier this month, Christo Grozev, the lead Russia investigator at Bellingcat, made a pithy wager in an interview with the Financial Times. “In six months,” he said, “Prigozhin will either be dead or there will be a second coup.”
Part of the broken wing of Prigozhin's jetIt didn’t take that long. On August 23rd, an explosion brought down Prigozhin’s private jet as it was flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Speculation and conspiracy theories immediately circulated about whether Prigozhin was in fact on board, but, a day later, it appears that he and nine others, including Dmitry Utkin, Wagner’s top military commander, were indeed killed.
Exactly two months had passed since Prigozhin launched his “march for justice,” as he dubbed the mutiny in which Wagner units captured an important military headquarters in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and set off in an armored convoy toward Moscow. Now he was apparently dead, and the question of how Putin would treat his fit of impudence was answered. Even all of Prigozhin’s service to the Kremlin and to Putin personally—in Syria, Africa, and most notably, Ukraine—was not enough to save him from the fate of those who challenge the primacy of Putin’s authority.
Prigozhin’s arc was the stuff of legend even before his death. He turned a criminal past and a venture as a St. Petersburg caterer and restaurateur into huge state contracts. He was a hustler, crude and ambitious. When the Kremlin needed online trolls, he created the Internet Research Agency, which hired young people to spread disinformation and make mischief across social-media sites, including in the run-up to the 2016 Presidential election in the U.S. And, when the Russian state needed a deniable shadow force of mercenaries, Wagner was born. Prigozhin’s rise and fall contains a certain gangland banality: a killer on the make, hired by other, more powerful killers to commit more of the same, at larger scale, is ultimately offed by those same killers. This is a story in which all the parts are played by bad guys.
Wagner proved to have a certain effectiveness: it helped to expel ISIS from the Syrian city of Palmyra in 2016, for example, and captured Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, in late May—after having effectively leveled the city and lost as many as twenty thousand of its own fighters, many of whom were recruited from Russian prisons. Prigozhin referred to the campaign as the Bakhmut “meat grinder.” “Our task is not Bakhmut itself,” he said, “but the destruction of the Ukrainian Army and the reduction of its combat potential.”
Over the past year, I spent considerable time reporting on Prigozhin and Wagner for a piece published in the magazine earlier this month. I described how Wagner, relying on expendable cannon fodder and tactics such as obnuleniye, or “zeroing out,” slang for execution as punishment for desertion or retreat, managed to push forward at a time when the regular Russian Army had largely stalled. At the same time, Prigozhin deepened his rivalry with Russian military leaders, whom he accused of undermining Wagner in the field, and became more outspoken, challenging the unwritten rules of Putin-era politics in ways that often felt shocking and unprecedented.
Prigozhin may have believed his own hype when he decided to launch his rebellion. He presumed that he could shock Putin into taking his complaints and arguments seriously, and would emerge with the upper hand in his power struggle with the Russian military. Instead he turned himself from a useful loose cannon into a direct threat that, it now appears, could not be tolerated. In the wake of the Wagner uprising, a former Russian military official told me Prigozhin’s actions were “an act of desperation” and “pure fantasy.”
Various social-media accounts linked to Wagner suggest that acts of revenge will follow the deaths of Prigozhin and Utkin and other Wagner members, but this seems unlikely. For all the distrust and even contempt of the way that the Russian military has prosecuted the war in Ukraine—a complaint that became Prigozhin’s signal issue and has now spread throughout the armed forces, security services, and even society at large—Prigozhin never managed to turn his profile and burgeoning popularity into a coherent movement. The public won’t mourn him, and the remaining Wagner commanders will likely understand the lesson of Prigozhin’s killing clearly enough.
In any case, Wagner turned over much of its heavy weaponry to the defense ministry, and its fighters are now scattered across Belarus, Russia, and a handful of African countries. Its operations will be absorbed by Russian oligarchs eager to get into the mercenary business and by various arms of the Russian military and intelligence services. In short, a mutiny 2.0 is unlikely, at least not yet, and not because of Prigozhin’s death alone.
I reached Marat Gabidullin, a former Wagner commander who fought in a number of campaigns with the group in Syria and later wrote a book about his experiences. He left Wagner several years ago, before the Ukraine war, but retains connections with some of its fighters. “They are confused, at a loss,” he said of his conversations with his contacts in the wake of Prigozhin’s and Utkin’s apparent deaths. He didn’t expect major protests or discontent from within Wagner’s ranks. “They will serve the one who pays them,” he said.
But, he added, the future of the company’s missions abroad may soon come under pressure. If Wagner has been largely absent from the Ukrainian front in recent months, in Africa, its mercenaries represent the largest and most influential Russian presence. “Without the tandem of Prigozhin and Utkin,” Gabidullin said, “how dedicated will everyone else remain?”
Even still, Putin has seemingly emerged with the upper hand. Prigozhin could have met his end in a murky assassination or a strange, never-to-be-solved accident on one of his Africa trips. Instead his plane exploded as it was flying over Russian territory, making the message unambiguous. On the very same day, Sergey Surovikin, a high-ranking Russian general who was seen as close to Prigozhin and may even have aided the mutiny, was removed from his post. Surovikin has disappeared from public view since the rebellion and, according to the Moscow rumor mill, is either detained, under investigation, or both. The rest of the Russian élite, whether in government, military, or business, can’t help but notice that it’s neither profitable nor safe to challenge the Putin system’s official hierarchy.
But Prigozhin’s fate is ultimately of limited significance to Putin’s political survival. It was a settling of scores that may work to keep people in line for a bit, but doesn’t address the deeper sources of stress to the system. For starters, demoting top generals and blowing mercenary leaders on whom you’ve long depended out of the sky, all in the middle of an ongoing war, are not the actions of a confident, efficient, stable autocracy. A longer-term rot has set in, which, over time, will need ever more dramatic, and risky, action to try to cover over. Once the spiral is set in motion, it can only intensify in one direction. That is not to say the Putin system awaits great weakness or catastrophe; these dynamics can play out over years, if not decades.
Most decisive will be the war itself. For the moment, Russian defenses have held up better than expected against the Ukrainian counter-offensive. If that continues, and this summer’s Ukrainian campaign fizzles without taking back considerable chunks of Russian-occupied territory, Putin’s authority and sway over the élite will likely remain. But if that changes, and Russian lines collapse or are considerably weakened anywhere along the front, especially in striking distance of Crimea, then suddenly Putin’s legitimacy would weaken in ways that could quickly surpass the challenge posed by Prigozhin.
The Prigozhin affair contains a further lesson. He made two miscalculations, you might say: one was launching the rebellion in the first place, but, having done so, the real error was ending it prematurely. Putin may have frightened the élite into obedience, but now they all know, once and for all, that any supposed claims of a pardon or forgiveness can’t be trusted.
That leaves only the most extreme option. On the night of Prigozhin’s death, a Telegram channel run by a far-right unit linked to Wagner published a post that was quickly shared widely: “Let this be a lesson to all,” it read. “Always go all the way.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/postscript/putins-deadly-revenge-on-prigozhin?utm_source=pocket_collection_story
Joseph Milosch:
Is there anything to learn from Prigozhin’s death? Primarily, we know what he revealed in Ukraine. He was a big-mouth bully who knew little about military strategy. Although the core of his army, The Wagner Group, are able fighters who are successful against ill-equipped opponents such as the rebels in the Central African Republic, Libya, Mali, or Sudden. Fighting Ukraine, an adequately equipped army, they sustained over 50 percent casualties in their one major victory. Prigozhin needed to flood the battlefield with prison recruits to achieve his victory.
Their leader’s inability to improvise in battle hamstrung the Wagner Group’s progress. Comparing Prigozhin to General Grant, the Russian’s lack of military strategy is apparent.
Before an attack, Grant and his staff made several battle plans and prioritized them. If one failed, he moved to another until his troops won. Grant’s victory at Vicksburg exemplifies his pre-planning and willingness to adapt and defeat his opponent. Prigozhin made one plan. If it failed, he threw more soldiers into the fray. Many Russians died, and in the end, their death meant nothing because they lost the city they fought and died for.
Evaluating Prigozhin with General Patton, we find the Russian leader lacked knowledge of military history. Patton often recited the winning and losing strategies for the foremost historical battles. He applied his understanding during the planning stage and in the fight. Then, he adjusted accordingly. Prigozhin charged ahead and blamed his losses on the Russian generals and Putin. His plan for mutiny depended on the Russian army and air force deserting Putin. When they remained loyal, he requested sanctuary in Belarus.
Western experts wondered what Prigozhin was thinking when he abandoned his attack as the objective came within reach. Yet, it seems that he achieved success under Putin because he was a bully with a streak of cruelty. He wasted his advantage because he was ignorant of Marcus Aurelius’ formula for success. As an astute statesman and courageous in battle, the Roman General believed that a successful leader needed self-restraint and respect for duty and others. Prigozhin combined his megalomania with his lack of military strategy and history, proving his inadequacy as a general, which ended up costing him his life.
Some journalists wrote that Putin used the mutiny to uncover generals who were disloyal to him. Others reported that the Russian command promised Prigozhin support and withdrew it at the last moment, hoping to expose Prigozhin to Putin’s wrath and remove him from power. Perhaps the only thing we learn from the death of Prigozhin is that the Russian high command is full of deadly objects. They distrust each other more than they dislike Putin, and their distrust permeates everywhere like a spider cancer. Therefore, the military infighting will lose the war in small pieces over many years.
Oriana:
At first I was quite excited about Prigozhin’s mutiny — but that feeling didn’t last long. Suddenly Lukashenko seemed to emerge as a voice of reason, a calm, protective peace-maker, and a kind of Big Daddy, even physically, compared to the quarreling boys (perhaps “juvenile delinquents” or “gangsters” would be a more accurate term). That very day I also read about Prigozhin’s criminal background, and found it hair-raising.
And then General Surovikin mysteriously disappeared. The “Butcher of Syria” was apparently being interrogated — more thugs, more brutality. There are no “good guys” in this story. Yes, it seems that the in-fighting, corruption, and alcoholism are bound to lead to defeat — though it may take years, and endless suffering and many deaths. “No lives matter” seems an apt if horrible motto.
Still, Prigozhin at least spoke the truth about Putin's reasons for invading Ukraine. "All lies," he said. "It's about greed and ambition." Russia, a mafia empire run by thieves and killers. Its best and brightest left a long time ago.
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HISTORIAN TIMOTHY SNYDER ON UKRAINE
~ The voiced concern is that Russia could “escalate.” This argument is a triumph of Russian propaganda. None of Ukraine’s strikes across borders has done anything except reduce Russian capacity. None has led Russia to do things it was not already doing. The notion of “escalation” in this setting is a misunderstanding. In trying to undo Russian logistics, Ukraine is trying to end the war.
Ukraine will not do in Russia most of the things Russia has done in Ukraine. It will not occupy or seize territory, it will not execute civilians, it will not build concentration camps and torture chambers. What it must be allowed to do, to have some chance of stopping those Russian practices in Ukraine, is to have the capacity to win the war. With every village that Ukraine takes back, we see the most important de-escalation: away from war crimes and genocide, towards something more like a normal life.
The Ukrainians are defending the legal order established after the Second World War. They have performed the entire NATO mission of absorbing and reversing an attack by Russia with a tiny percentage of NATO military budgets and zero losses from NATO members. Ukrainians are making a war in the Pacific much less likely by demonstrating to China that offensive operations are harder than they seem. They have made nuclear war less likely by demonstrating that nuclear blackmail need not work. Ukraine is also fighting to restore its grain exports to Africa and Asia, where millions of people have been put at risk by Russia’s attack on the Ukrainian economy. Last but not least, Ukrainians are demonstrating that a democracy can defend itself.
This war will not end because of one sudden event, but neither will it go on indefinitely. When and how it ends depends largely on us, on what we do, on how much we help. Even if we did not care at all about Ukrainians (and we should), getting this war to end with a Ukrainian victory would be by far the best thing Americans could do for themselves.
Indeed, I do not think that, in the history of US foreign relations, there has ever been a chance to secure so much for Americans with so little effort by Americans. I do hope we take that chance. ~ Timothy Snyder, author of Bloodlands and Black Earth (Ukraine came to be called the “bread basket of Europe” because of its famously fertile soil, or “black earth”)
(source: from a post in Facebook, M. Iossel’s page)
THE “RUSSIAN WORLD”: AN ATTEMPT AT A POST-COMMUNIST IDEOLOGY OR JUST PLAIN OLD COLONIALISM?
“The Russian World” is the doctrine of foreign relations proliferated by Russia, aimed at (please don’t laugh, they are totally serious) world domination.
Russia believes that the USA (unfairly) is the only dominant force in the world that dictates what to do to all other less powerful countries.
This is why Russia is issuing a challenge to the USA and plans, via its “Russian World” doctrine, to gather allies — and thus create a mighty force that can challenge the USA world dominance, and eventually cause the destruction of the USA and the EU (the collective West).
To gather allies, Russia is promoting the idea of a “multipolar world” under the flag of anti-imperialism — which is particularly satirical, as Russia is geographically the largest empire in the world, having captured an enormous territory since the little principality of Muscovy got rid of the Mongol Yoke in 1380.
Russia is actually — right now! — fighting a colonial war, trying to subdue a sovereign state of Ukraine, and claiming that it’s a fair game, since “we are the same people and these are historical Russian lands” — which, in essence, much like the USA would attack Britain under the claim, “We are the same people and its our historical Motherland”.
The logical fallacy of Russia’s proclamation of the “multipolar world” is that Russia openly calls for demise of Euro and US Dollar, and Russian officials (Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chief of Russia’s Security Council) constantly predicts that Euro and U.S. Dollar won’t exist within 12 months — yes, he’s moving the goal post forward on the timeline, but still announces it as the goal.
Another proponent of “The Russian World”, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, openly said that “by 2024, there won’t be elections in America, because there won’t be America”.
Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Zhirinovsky
So, in fact, Russia isn’t aspiring for a “multipolar world” — Russia is dreaming about the world where the USA and the European Union do not exist, and the Great Russia reins supreme.
”The Russian world is: slaves and masters, violence of the strong over the weak, total lawlessness and impunity of the caste of the masters and zero rights for the lower caste, unbridled robbery of natural resources, reprisals against political opponents and dissidents, external aggression for the purpose of robbery and enslavement of neighboring countries.”
That’s the concept of “the Russian World” at a glance. ~ Elena Gold, Quora
Gee Cheng:
Professor Madden wrote about it in Empires of Trust. If threatened, subdue them (Germany and Japan), then let them go and be free to develop. It’s much easier to manage a world where members don’t need to be constantly coerced into obedience by an overlord. USSR version 2 would be the Big Brother overlord type. USSR domination of its satellite states failed and they broke apart. USA and its free NATO membership (Empire of Trust) got larger and stronger.
Elena Gold:
Russia wants the “USSR: version 2”, only the new USSR will be spread all the way “from Lisbon to Vladivostok”, plus Russia also wants Alaska (which used to be Russian) as well as Texas and California — Russians claim these were their “historical lands”.
That’s why Russia sent the “Russian Ocean Way” expedition, to try to find traces of Russian explorers — the expedition was sent by “the Russian geographic society”, headed by – surprise, surprise! – Sergei Shoigu!
Jeremy Bearimy:
You might be right. The Mongols had the same mindset of having been chosen by the Celestial Powers to rule the world, and everyone that didn’t agree was simply unceremoniously slaughtered.
Jerry Harris:
The pathetic little tsar’s fragile dream of empire has long ago shattered under the boots of his own corruption. Putin is the author of Russia’s downfall. You can’t steal the world in the age of the smartphone.
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Wives of military recruitsRelatives of mobilized Russians say the Ukrainians have inflicted huge casualties in their counter-offensive, with even lightly wounded Russians dying for lack of first aid. Food, water and ammunition is barely available and soldiers are not being rotated for months on end. ~ ChrisO_Wiki, Quora
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Moscow, view from Victory Park. Note that the “Born to Be Famous” sign is written in English, alleged to be a “dead language”
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MEDICINE IN THE SOVIET UNION
"The USSR ranks first in the number of doctors per citizen" — this was true. But instead of focusing on the quality of medicine, Soviet officials increased the number of hospitals and doctors. The government believed that in this way it demonstrated the power of the USSR and was always ready to receive wounded soldiers, if suddenly a war started again.
Soviet doctors didn’t have access to the new achievements of world medicine. They often used ‘folk methods’, mustard seeds, cupping, rubbing patients with alcohol, treatment with antibiotics which had been practiced since the beginning of the century… and others.
The reason for this treatment was outdated equipment, a constant shortage of drugs, and most importantly: the lack of necessary knowledge, and the ‘iron curtain’. Doctors used reusable needles and glass syringes. They were disinfected simply by boiling. The mass production of disposable syringes began in 1950’s/60’s. At the same time, disposable needles and syringes appeared on the territory of the USSR only in the 1990s.
There were also qualified doctors in the USSR who really helped people, but they did it rather against the system, rather than thanks to it.
In addition, doctors received small salaries (still do in comparison). Such a situation encouraged doctors to receive bribes for their work, and after a while it became a common phenomenon. That is, people paid money for private treatment. There were, however, some excellent hospitals in the USSR, but of the closed type for ‘big officials’, where modern equipment and high-quality medicines were imported.
These institutions were unattainable to the majority of people. ~ Neil Hawker. Quora
Zamfir Stefan:
I remember how it was during the communist times: you could die in the hospital if you didn’t pay the right bribe for this “free medicine”.
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DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SOVIET AND CHINESE COMMUNISM
Private property
Soviet Communism was a Marxist project of abolishing private property on the scale of an entire country.
Chinese Communism is a nationalist system that repackaged good old Confucianism in “Marxist” garbs. Private property of the means of production is no longer the culprit.
It doesn’t matter what color the cat is as long as it does its job catching mice, say the Chinese.
Marx must be spinning in his grave.
Let’s call it red
Soviet Communism prided itself on being an authentic, simon-pure, honest-to-goodness Marxism.
The Chinese one is something with “Chinese national characteristics” all over it. New recipe, same great taste, they say.
Conflict-averse
Soviet Communism revered Marx’ dogma that “all history is the history of the struggle between classes.”
To Chinese Communism, the Marxist “struggle” is an abomination. To them, Capitalists and proletarians are partners who must cooperate, not fight. Class struggle is criminalized in China as a subversive activity.
Billionaire socialists
Soviet Communists eradicated rich economic actors. The only people who could be defined as “rich” in the USSR, were intellectuals on the government’s pay.
In China, on the watch of the “Communists”, the number of billionaires shot from zero to 500. Millionaires are counted in hundreds of thousands.
Exploitation? What exploitation?
In the USSR, the exploitation of labor was a criminal offense.
Communist China became a global economic superpower thanks to millions of private entrepreneurs exploiting private labor and appropriating the excess value their workers produce.
Core values
The organizing idea of the Soviet model was Power.
The organizing idea of the Chinese model is Order. When Order required of them to become someone’s junior partner, like after WW2 to Stalin, or under Deng to the Americans, they didn’t waver. They went for Order.
The USSR never wavered from the path of Power. Once Gorbachev tried the Chinese trick and partnered with the Americans, the whole thing crumbled.
Loyalty versus meritocracy
The imperial tradition of old Russia brought into Soviet Communism a strong appreciation of loyalty. No matter how bad was your performance as a soldier of the Communist cause, your “boundless commitment” (bespredélnaya prédannost) to it was your ultimate life buoy.
The Imperial tradition of China brought to Chinese Communism a strong meritocratic bend.
During their recurrent purges, personal skillsets and competencies saved lives and helped recover untold Chinese bureaucrats and Party functionaries who in the USSR would have been shot or sent to oblivion.
The Tzars and the Underdog
Soviet Communism was an heir to Russia’a colonial story. It won the Civil War by re-incorporating back into our state the territories that were about to secede after Tsar’s abdication.
It kept adding territories to the “Socialist Camp,” where the new progressive order was supposed to supplant the old reactionary way of life.
The story of Chinese Communism is a classic of anti-colonial, anti-Imperialist struggle.
The Soviet poster from 1976 below showcases the most apparent difference between Soviet and Chinese Communism.
The title is “Proletarian Internationalism!” The banners read: “For anti-Imperialist solidarity!” and “For world peace, democracy, and Socialism!”
~ Dima Vorobiev, Quora
Bill Smith:
The USSR was internationalist until June, 1941. Then Stalin quickly learned that appeals to class struggle failed to motivate soldiers. No one was willing to die for their class.
So Soviet propaganda switched to nationalism. WW2 became a struggle for Mother Russia, not communism.
Matthew Hunt:
Between the two, the Chinese version is far better for civilization in general. The West can work with China as a stable trading partner. The Russians are just too chaotic and greedy these days.
Christopher Gilmore:
Unlike the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which was envisioned by Lenin as a multicultural/multiracial federation of equal republics (in theory), the People’s Republic of China is very much a Han-centric state, with minority nations subordinate. The reconquest of China, based on this idea that the Communists had a right to govern former Qing territories, is not all that different from the new Soviet state reconquering Ukraine, Belarus, the Caucuses, Central Asia and trying to reconquer Poland and Finland after the Revolution (based on the idea that they were entitled to the former lands of the Romanovs).
When you look into Hitler’s plans for the USSR, complete with intentional starvation (the Hunger Plan), turning Moscow into an artificial lake, setting up ethnic German farming communities, and enslaving what remains of the population, it’s pretty clearly a colonialist venture. I believe Hitler even references the US expansion westwards a few times.
In Hitler’s envisioned post-war order there wouldn’t be Russian, Baltic, Ukrainian or Belorussian nations, just Reichskomissariats from the Bug River to Astrakhan.
Oriana:
Turning Moscow into an artificial lake might be a good idea for the ugly parts of that city. Come to think of it, once population decline becomes a visible reality, almost any great city has parts that would look better as an artificial lake.
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ORCHID PARENTS AND DANDELION PARENTS
~ Ask any parent of young children whether they've ever felt overwhelmed, and the answer will probably be: yes. Even in the most relaxed households there can be days when the noise, mess and chaos seem to spiral out of control, leaving parents exhausted and irritated. Toddlers don't have an off button or a quiet voice.
As normal and common as this feeling is, there's a personality trait that can make everyday family life more overwhelming for some parents than others. Roughly 20-30% of the population are classed as being a highly sensitive person (HSP), according do a 2018 research paper – a trait receiving greater recognition by scientists as well as the general public. This sensitivity can relate to smells, sights or sounds. People who have it may, for example, find it hard to cope with bright lights and loud noise, and can find chaotic situations very stressful. It can also involve a heightened awareness of other people's moods or feelings, and come with a particularly strong sense of empathy.
Add the demands of parenting into the mix, and it surely sounds like a recipe for disaster. On top of the daily sensory and emotional overload, highly sensitive parents may face the additional challenge of caring for children who are also highly sensitive (being highly sensitive is thought to be 47% heritable).
Fortunately, though, the trait also comes with certain advantages, research suggests. For those affected, learning to understand these nuances could help turn parenting into a more joyful and enriching experience, rather than an overwhelming one.
The first step is probably to find out if you are highly sensitive. A team of psychologists from different universities who study sensitivity have developed a free online test for this. Crucially, being highly sensitive is not a disorder but a personality trait – a certain way of responding to one's environment. In particular, highly sensitive people tend to react especially strongly to sensory stimulation, a characteristic known as sensory processing sensitivity (SPS).
"Generally, sensitive people have heightened perception, they perceive more details," explains Michael Pluess, a developmental psychologist at Queen Mary University of London who specializes in the study of highly sensitive people and co-developed the test. "They will pick up on the moods of other people and have higher empathy. They also process things more deeply so they will pick up more about the environment." That is, they have a tendency to ruminate on what they experience and can be deeply affected by what they see and feel (which explains why I can't watch horror films).
Being highly sensitive involves a brain response to certain events or experiences that is measurably different from that of less sensitive people.
In one study, researchers asked a randomly recruited group of people to take a high-sensitivity test – a set of questionnaires, similar to the online test – then showed them photos of happy and sad people, and monitored their brain activity through fMRI scans. The highly sensitive people in the group, who had scored high in the test, displayed stronger activations of regions of the brain involved in awareness and empathy compared to the less sensitive participants.
Other studies showed similar patterns of people with sensory processing sensitivity displaying especially strong brain activation in regions involved in empathy and reflective thinking.
This tendency to process information deeply can lead to highly sensitive people being easily overstimulated, Pluess adds – and I can somewhat relate to that. I flinch at hearing about the plot of a gruesome movie. Watching it is out the question. It can feel physically painful to be in a noisy environment with bad acoustics. On London's screechy underground I have to cover my ears – and often wonder why nobody else does it. This sensitivity to noise – a typical feature of being highly sensitive – can make parenting especially challenging. When my children scream, it can feel as though my brain is imploding. To respond to their needs and comfort them, I have to learn to switch off that sensation.
Of course, this is easier when I feel well-rested. Unfortunately, parenting tends to come with disrupted sleep, at least in the early years.
The challenges highly sensitive parents face – including stress and overstimulation in a chaotic environment – can interfere with "high quality parenting", explains Pluess.
Research has shown that in the early stages of parenthood, highly sensitive parents report greater stress and tend to find parenting more difficult than other parents do. However, they also report more attunement with their child – good news which chimes with other findings on highly sensitive people showing especially strong empathy.
Emerging evidence also suggests the added stress highly sensitive parents feel can be short-lived. A pilot study presented at the European Conference on Developmental Psychology in August 2023 found that whilst highly sensitive parents initially experienced high levels of stress, by the time their babies were nine months old they showed improved parenting styles compared to those who had low sensitivity.
Francesca Lionetti, a researcher at G d'Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara in Italy, conducted the study and found that there was another factor involved. Negative childhood experiences impacted how a highly sensitive person responded to parenthood.
"If they experienced rejection [from their parents as a child], then they reported more stress and were more intrusive in their parent-child interactions," she explains.
Lionetti points out that "being a highly sensitive parent does not need to be negative". Being attuned to details can, for example, be a positive factor in parenting. In the study, she found that for sensitive parents, being better attuned to their own respiratory signals was linked to more positive parenting. "That's related to the fact that [highly sensitive people] process more deeply what's going on inside their body," explains Lionetti.
This also tallies with research currently in press, which found that when new teachers were sent to teach in challenging environments, those who were more sensitive experienced a greater drop in wellbeing and felt greater stress than those who scored low on sensitivity. But once they got used to their environment, they fully recovered.
"It seems that sensitive people in the short term are more easily overwhelmed with change," explains Pluess. But when it comes to parenting, he says that highly sensitive parents have the potential to be exceptional. "Their sensitivity helps them to understand their child and respond more quickly and more appropriately to the needs of the child.”
Since parental overwhelm can of course affect anyone, whether highly sensitive or not, some of the coping strategies for highly sensitive people could in fact benefit all parents.
One is being aware of your own reactions, and knowing what makes you feel stressed or relaxed. Self-awareness then allows us to accept the positives as well as the challenges of parenting, Pluess says, and look for ways to feel calm or find spaces of quiet when we feel overwhelmed.
"Sensitive people seem to benefit from social support too," he adds. Research shows that highly sensitive people respond better to mental health prevention programs that promote resilience, while highly sensitive children benefit even more than others from anti-bullying interventions.
Highly sensitive people have been described as "orchids" who find it hard to thrive if the conditions are not right, unlike less sensitive "dandelion-type" people, which can grow in any environment. Of course, everyone needs light and warmth – and an apparent dandelion may just be an orchid-like person who was forced to deny their needs. But the metaphor might help convey that it's OK to try and modify our environment a little, to help us flourish.
Sometimes, parenting can actually help people make their lives more orchid-friendly. At school, my daughter gets regular "brain breaks", where her class sing songs to give themselves a rest. I haven't yet tried getting my entire household to join me for an all-singing brain break when things feel like they're getting out of hand – but maybe I should give it a go.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230525-the-rise-of-highly-sensitive-parents
KNOWING WHAT IS IMPORTANT IN A PARTNER
~ I’ve dated rich, poor, highly educated, uneducated, conventional, unconventional, old, young, and I’ve come to this conclusion: what ultimately matters most is that your partner has a good heart, is empathetic, listens and is willing to hold your hand through the good and the bad. They show up. They’re willing to grow and learn with you. You don’t feel alone. The good news is you don’t have to go crazy looking for this. You have to be willing to embody these qualities yourself. I think my journey was really that: my own evolution to be this type of person. ~ Fatima Mariano
Oriana:
It reminded me of a time when I said to a man I briefly dated during my college years: “You are handsome and impressive in many ways, you seem to “have it all,” but you lack one important thing: a good heart.” His reaction was a blank stare. I don’t think his mentality included the concept of a “good heart.”
Before that moment, if anyone asked me what I most admired in a person, I’d have replied, “intellectual brilliance.” But after that moment (my own words surprised me a bit — I’d never verbalized this before), I finally consciously understood that something else was even more important.
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SHOULD WE DISCARD THE “FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF”?
~ I never had the honor to meet the famed Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, MD (1926-2004), yet I have spent much of my career as a thanatologist getting to know her through her work on the five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance (On Death and Dying, 1969).
From all accounts I have heard, she was a challenging woman, and an amazing thanatologist. A woman who bravely expanded into qualitative research to explore the experiences of the dying, and later, her work grew to be used to describe the experiences of the grieving.
Subsequently, others have built upon her work to include additional stages. Grief specialist David Kessler, MS, added the sixth stage of finding meaning. Others have added sub-stages, as in the case of the EKR Foundation and the Kübler-Ross Change Curve for understanding grief.
There is much to learn from this early work and from those who built upon Kübler-Ross' original theory. Yet, I would posit there remain two predominant concerns with stage theory in the context of grief: one is that it fails the standards for scientific inquiry, and the other is that it is being applied prescriptively, instead of descriptively.
Kübler-Ross's work never fully graduated from the descriptive to the explanatory. The stages have been studied to describe what patients were experiencing, yet they have repeatedly failed to matriculate from the explanatory level of scientific inquiry because they are neither universal nor uniform. Many have attempted to study grief, but there is so much variability across individuals (granted, that is true for just about every psychological phenomenon), that it is improbable we will ever be able to fully quantify it. And if we cannot quantify the amounts or conditions, then how can we use it predictively? Thus, Stage Theories of Grief will continue to fail the general line of scientific inquiry.
This is vastly different than the extensive work that has been done with complicated or prolonged grief, where we can evaluate and measure the severity or duration of a person's experience of grief (see the DSM-V-TR [2022] and ICD-11 [2018]). However, if you were to ask a patient or client what they know about grief, chances are the only remotely "scientific" thing they know are the five stages.
So, despite this lack of scientific support, why are we still "stuck" on the stages? Because they are easy. They make sense, they fit our personal observations, and to be honest, they just feel right.
A Love Affair With Stage Theories
Developmental psychologists adore stage theories. From Jean Piaget's cognitive development to Erik Erikson's psychosocial stages, developmentalists have attempted to understand how humans grow and change over time. Often, we break down a person's development into "chunks" or stages, based on major milestones (bio-physical, neurocognitive, psychosocial) achieved. The beauty of theories is that it gives us a framework to test against reality — does the data support the premise?
There are two other prevailing arguments for why we have such an affinity for staging human experience. First, it is often parsimonious and allows us to feel we understand more complex phenomenon. And second, it offers us a gestalt that has high face validity: I see a person before me and I see behavior A, and I know that they have experienced situation B, and Eureka! I get it!
A Problem in Practice
Grief does not follow a uniform or consistent trajectory -- there is nothing magical about 1 year in this context. Similarly, there is nothing universal about how we express our grief in socially patterned expressions of mourning. Yet, due to the mental heuristic and perceived face validity (which is to say, it is not valid!) of the stages, I have observed countless clinicians, clergy, and well-intended friends and family try to force a person's grief process into the mold of the stages -- even individuals may judge their own experience as poor or that they are "grieving wrong" if they don't grieve along this trajectory.
This is dangerous, as it can further alienate those who are suffering from receiving the support and healthcare they need. It invalidates, suffocates, and disenfranchises those who are grieving — and this is particularly problematic when you have an individual who has been historically marginalized. It becomes a barrier to cultural humility and negates other attempts to help the person to heal. And when we focus too much on this one very limited approach to understanding the human experience of grief and loss, we collectively fail to pursue better or more nuanced grief theories that allow for the full range of affective and cultural experiences.
So, why am I arguing that the "stages" be retired? Because they do those of us in the healthcare industry a disservice, as it has turned Kübler-Ross' original work that was wonderfully descriptive into something that has become stereotyped to the point of being dangerously prescriptive.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-opinions/105952?xid=nl_secondopinion_2023-08-22&eun=g2215341d0r
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THE MOST RELIGIOUS COUNTRIES SEEM TO HAVE THE LEAST FAITH, OR THE INFINITE IMPOTENCE OF GOD
The awareness that blasphemy was once punishable by burning at the stake is always with me. The priests understood that in the absence of divine punishment (odd, how lightning failed to strike the blasphemers), the clergy had to be the executioners.
This morning I was thinking about capital punishment for blasphemy in Islamic countries (unbelief is the ultimate blasphemy). It struck me that such punishment itself constituted blasphemy, a lack of faith that god himself would exact revenge. Punishment simply could not be left in god’s hands! And, come to think of it, nothing could be left in god’s invisible hands. The most religious countries seem to have the least faith.
By the way, this reminds me of a friend of mine, K, who lost her job once — a job she didn’t want, so it was not distressing. But a co-worker urged her to appeal. K replied, “I think it’s best to leave it in god’s hands.” The co-worker pleaded, “I too believe in god, but I don’t think you should leave it in his hands!”
No, we don’t leave anything in god’s hands. We know better than that.
Michelangelo, God departing to create plants, Sistine Chapel
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THE MAKERS OF CULTURE ARE SECULAR
However long humanity may take to really take in the fact that we live in a godless (or call it "god-free") universe, I think what matters is that the makers of culture — artists, scientists, engineers, inventors, leading business entrepreneurs — are all, or pretty much all, secular. I can't think of a writer of the first rank, for instance, who isn't secular. Or anyone we'd call a genius.
As Goethe observed, artists don’t need religion. You could argue that art is their religion — but that’s a separate post, expanding beyond art to all creative, dedicated, meaningful work. Religion, Goethe thought, was for the “have-nots” — those without something in their lives that might give it that larger dimension. (Goethe himself could hardly be called a Christian; rather, he seemed to have an esthetic appreciation of Classical Antiquity. Above all, he was supremely creative.)
But already Shakespeare was quite secular. You can't really be a religious propagandist and say anything interesting anymore, anything that could advance human understanding and well-being. Traditional “faith” is too out-of-kilter with the modern world, and many religious institutions have been exposed as a giant swindle and worse. We might as well believe in the fairies (many Victorians did). Believing in angels is in the same category, but some have yet to catch up to that.
Which reminds me: more people believe in heaven and the angels than in hell and Satan. As one woman I knew put it with disarming simplicity, “I believe only in things that make me happy.” Is this really so far removed from the priest who dealt with the story of Jesus’ cursing the fig tree (which had no fruit “because its time was not yet”) by counseling the questioner to focus only on those bible stories that inspired him.
(I’m not sure about the source of the first two paragraphs; it’s probably my own forgotten past writing.)
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LEAVING RELIGION: WHO DOES IT AND WHY
~ Researchers have recently begun to study individuals who are no longer religious. This group of formerly religious individuals—known as the religious dones—is growing in number, but little is known about those who de-identify from religion. Aaron T. McLaughlin, Daryl R. Van Tongeren, Kelly Teahan, Don E. Davis, Kenneth G. Rice, and C. Nathan DeWall sought to fill that gap in knowledge through research; their results were recently published in Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. Building on previous research (Van Tongeren et al., 2021), the authors conducted two studies to examine the religious dones’ motivations behind leaving religion and whether there are different types of religious dones.
First, in a pilot study, the authors queried self-identified religious dones about their reasons for leaving their religion. In response, each participant wrote a short personal essay, which was coded by the research team. Four primary themes emerged. About half of the sample (51.8%) reported leaving for intellectual reasons or because they outgrew their faith. Roughly a fifth of the sample (21.9%) reported religious trauma, such as the hypocrisy of the sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church. Others (14.9%) reported leaving religion because of personal adversity, such as an inability to make sense of the tragic death of a child, or social reasons (11.4%), including a religious community’s being unwelcoming.
Then, in the primary study, the authors examined data from 643 dones, sampled from the United States, Hong Kong, and the Netherlands. Their goal was to identify different groups or types of religious dones on the basis of their religious beliefs (e.g., belief in God, commitment to religious beliefs), religious behaviors (e.g., frequency of engaging in religious behaviors, frequency of associating with religious individuals), and religious attitudes (e.g., attitudes toward religious individuals, attitudes toward religion in general).
The authors also assessed distal variables, including positive and negative affect, anxiety, depression, sense of perceived meaning in life, prosocial behavior, self-control, implicit attitudes toward God, and emotions toward God.
Using a latent profile analysis, the authors identified two groups: discontinuing dones, who had largely ceased religious behaviors and held more negative attitudes toward religion, and still-practicing dones, who continued to engage in religious behaviors and held more positive attitudes toward religion. Crucially, this latter group reported significantly more negative affect, anxiety, depression, and negative emotions toward God and less positive affect, sense of meaning in life, and self-control than did members of the discontinuing group. Still practicing religion after having de-identified from religion is associated with poor mental health. To be sure, additional (longitudinal) data are needed to clarify whether practicing a faith one no longer identifies with is a strain on mental health and well-being or whether poor mental health may lead one to de-identify from religion.
These data offer a better understanding of religious dones. Many people leave religion for intellectual reasons or because of religious trauma. Yet some who de-identify from religion may linger, continuing to engage in religious behaviors despite no longer identifying as religious. Indeed, other work has identified a religious residue effect, whereby one’s religious psychology and behavior persist after de-identification.
The landscape of religion is changing. Future empirical work is needed to better understand the nature of this religious change. In particular, research on religious dones is critical for a more complete understanding of the psychology of religion and spirituality of all individuals—including the newly nonreligious.
https://www.apa.org/pubs/highlights/spotlight/issue-255
Michelangelo: Creation of the Sun, Moon, and Plants
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DIETING CANNOT ELIMINATE FAT CELLS
~ Once fat cells form, they might shrink during weight loss, but they do not disappear, a fact that has derailed many a diet. Yale researchers in the March 2 issue of the journal Nature Cell Biology describe how — and just how quickly — those fat cells are created in the first place.
Young mice fed an obesity-inducing diet fail to produce fat cells if they lack a key pathway involved in the sensing of nutrients, the study showed. In addition the new study also revealed that fat cell production starts within a day of starting a high-fat diet.
“In studying what happens before these animals become obese, we found that this fat-producing response occurs unbelievably quickly,” said Matthew Rodeheffer, assistant professor of comparative medicine and of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology, and senior author of the paper.
Weight gained is caused by the creation and expansion of white fat cells, or adipose tissue. Dieting can shrink fat cells but not eliminate them, which is why people can gain weight back so quickly. The Yale team found that the activation of a nutrient signaling pathway called PI3-kinase/AKT-2 was necessary to produce fat precursor cells, which in turn produce adipose tissue. Normal mice began producing these precursor cells within 24 hours of starting a high-fat diet.
“However, it may be possible to inhibit the generation of more fat cells in obesity and increase our understanding how dietary changes drive increased fat mass,” he said. ~
https://news.yale.edu/2015/03/02/study-new-fat-cells-are-created-quickly-dieting-cant-eliminate-them
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SUNSCREEN IS NOT ENOUGH
When it comes to lowering the risk of developing skin cancer, childhood and adolescence are critical periods. The amount of sun exposure a person has in the first 20 years of their life determines to a substantial degree the likelihood of developing skin cancer, research shows. Just one case of blistering sunburn as a child or teenager has been found to double the risk of developing melanoma, which is the most serious form of skin cancer, later in life.
Australia has one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world, with a prevalence roughly double that of the UK and United States, due to its intense sun. In fact, melanoma is the most common cancer for Australians aged 20 to 39, and is so common that it has come to be known as Australia's "national cancer" (in the US, it is the third most common cancer in that age group). But in response to that threat, the country has also developed some of the world's most effective measures for skin cancer prevention – which hold powerful lessons for other countries dealing with ever-hotter summers.
Since early sun protection can make such a big difference, one key message from Australian experts is for families to be aware of the danger of ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the Sun, and take a few simple protective steps.
"The UV sort of 'zaps' the DNA in healthy cells," says Justine Osborne, program manager at Cancer Council Victoria in southeastern Australia. "The cells will repair themselves when the UV exposure disappears, but if you're constantly hitting them with UV there's no chance for them to repair. That is when skin cancer develops." Globally, skin cancer was diagnosed in 6.7 million people in 2019, and it killed 118,000.
Thin skin needs protection
While most of the guidance around sunscreen is applicable to both adults and children, protecting infants from sunburn requires a different approach. Sunscreen should never be used on a baby who is six months or younger, and a child under one year should not be directly exposed to UV rays, according to the Cancer Council. Instead, appropriate protections for babies include lightweight, loose-fitting clothes that allow airflow, dense shade and a soft hat that will not become a choking hazard.
"A baby's skin is very thin and sensitive, and babies tend to suck on things, which means they could ingest the sunscreen," says Osborne. "Babies and young children are particularly susceptible to UV damage, so it's really important that they are well protected whenever the UV index is three or more." The World Health Organization's UV index measures the strength of the ultraviolet radiation from the sun on a given day and place, and ranges from 0 (low) to over 11 (extreme). A higher number means the potential damage to the skin and eye increases, and also, that it can occur more quickly.
Sunburn in children can be particularly dangerous, also because they are more likely to suffer from related conditions such as heat stroke. Experts recommend using sunscreen formulas designed for children, and testing the cream on a small patch of skin first. "True allergies to sunscreen are very rare, but when they occur it is usually caused by the extra ingredients in a sunscreen [such as fragrance], rather than the sun-protective properties," says Osborne.
She points out that sunscreen should be stored below 30C (86F) because if it overheats, the ingredients will start to separate and lose efficacy. "If you're at the beach, keep sunscreen in the cooler box with your drinks. Don't keep it in the glove box of your car. Treat it as a precious thing.”
How much sunscreen should you use?
While darker pigmented skin generally takes longer to sunburn, all skin types can be damaged by the sun. Depending on factors such as the UV index and a person's skin type, sunburn can occur in just 10 minutes. UV exposure can raise the risk of skin cancer even when it doesn't cause sunburn. In recent years, research has also shown that sun exposure can cause premature aging in different skin types, including skin of color.
"UV is not related to temperature. It is possible to get sunburnt on a cold but clear day. You can also get sunburnt on a cloudy day. You don't feel it until it is too late," says Stuart Henderson, a radiation scientist at the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPNSA). He has co-authored a review of the effectiveness and use of sunscreen in Australia that found that sunscreen is safe for the skin, but the amount of sunscreen and the way it is applied varies considerably between individuals.
Sunscreen is an effective way to help prevent sunburn in children over six months of age. However, there is widespread confusion about its correct use. Along with damaging myths (such as a fake tan providing protection against sunburn), studies have found that people often apply insufficient amounts of sunscreen. Some assume that sunscreen is itself a complete protection.
"Sunscreen is not a suit of armor: it should be used in combination with some other protection measures," says Henderson. "It should generally be thought of as the last resort when you haven't got any other way to protect your skin.”
In Australia, the Cancer Council recommends another four sun protection measures: clothing, shade, a broad-brimmed hat and sunglasses. Their use was popularized through an unusually successful health campaign, launched decades ago in Australia in response to the country's particular melanoma risk.
Slip, Slop, Slap
Annual rates of melanoma in women in Australia are 10 times higher than those of women in Europe. For men, they are 20 times higher. This is partly due to climatic conditions and the fact that the Earth's orbit is not perfectly circular: the southern hemisphere is closer to the Sun during its summer months than the northern hemisphere is in its own summer. As a result, the Sun feels more intense in places like Australia, where UV rates are higher by comparison. (Incidentally, the highest level of ultraviolet radiation ever recorded on Earth's surface was measured in 2003 in the Bolivian Andes, with a UV index of 43).
In 1981, when the dangers of UV rays were becoming apparent, the then Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria launched an education campaign that is ongoing 40 years later.
The SunSmart campaign – also known as the Slip, Slop, Slap campaign – used a cheerful seagull called Syd to encourage people to "slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen and slap on a hat." Crucially, one of its central messages is that sunscreen alone is not enough. Covering up with clothing, and seeking shade, is also important. It is considered one of Australia's most successful community health campaigns, which is attributed to its longevity, consistency and being well-funded.
"We've seen a decline in melanoma rates in people under 60 in Victoria and under 50 in Australia since the 1980s, when the SunSmart campaign began," says Osborne. "This is a cohort of people who used to embrace the sun and loved getting a tan. It was a huge ask to tell them to take protective measures, and it was a big cultural shift.”
"There's absolutely no doubt that the Slip, Slop, Slap campaign increased public awareness of sun exposure, and it has been hugely effective in influencing our behavior," says Phil Barker, honorary principal fellow in chemistry at the University of Wollongong. "But the message needs to be constantly reinforced to educate the new generations of parents and their children.”
Indeed, recently there have been alarming incidents of sunburn reported in Australia. A report on cases of sunburn at Victorian emergency departments showed that the summer of 2018-19 had the second highest number of cases since 2004. One in two hospital presentations for sunburn were children and adolescents, and one in five were children under nine years of age.
Sun warnings by phone
An app developed in Australia, and co-designed by Cancer Council Victoria, ARPANSA and other organizations, aims to help prevent skin cancer skin cancer by showing users the UV index in their local area. A global version, the free SunSmart Global UV phone app, was launched by the World Health Organization and its partners this year. The app will be especially helpful for those holidaying in new destinations, according to Barker.
"If you're going to an unfamiliar place, make sure you know what the expected UV index is, and amend your sun protection strategies accordingly," says Barker.
Barker is currently working on developing "next generation" sunscreens that are specifically designed to provide protection in Australia's extreme exposure conditions. He estimates they may be on the market by 2026.
The future of suncare?
Developing new ways to remind people to reapply their sunscreen can be a difficult area for scientists to research, says Elke Hacker, a senior research fellow in public health at Griffith University. "We need to know whether the technology developed in the lab is useful in the real world, but it is morally inappropriate for scientists to put people potentially in risky environments where they will be wearing their sunscreen out.”
However, Hacker and her team at Queensland University of Technology found an environment where people voluntarily sit in the sun for over four hours: a cricket match.
The team studied the effect of UV detection stickers reminding people to reapply their sunscreen during the four-day Ashes Test of 2017 in Brisbane, Australia. The stickers change color in response to UV. A total of 428 people completed the study, which made it the largest of its kind. The sticker was clear when the sunscreen was freshly applied, and when the sunscreen wore off it and it was time to re-apply, the sticker's color changed to purple. There was also a control group of people who were provided with free sunscreen, but no stickers; while the sticker group were provided with free sunscreen, and stickers.
The stickers were found to improve the frequency of sunscreen reapplication, prompting 80% of cricket goers to reapply their sunscreen as compared with 68% in the control group. However, the results also highlighted the challenges of sunscreen use: 39 people wearing stickers still experienced sunburn, perhaps because they were simply exposed to the sun for too long, or because the sunscreen was not properly reapplied.
"Previous studies have shown that people sometimes apply only half the recommended thickness to cover the skin," says Hacker.
The correct amount is two milligrams per square centimeter, which is equal to seven teaspoons of sunscreen for an adult body. That equates to one teaspoon for each arm and leg, two for the torso, plus one teaspoon for the face, neck and ears. It needs to be reapplied every two hours.
Sunscreen basics
Experts recommend using a broad-spectrum sunscreen lotion that has a sun protection factor (SPF) 30 or above and putting it on 20 minutes before you go out in the sun. This will give it a chance to sink into the skin's pores and prevent it from immediately being brushed or sweated off. If you're going out doing things like swimming and then toweling off, or exercising and sweating, you'd need to reapply. "With kids, the same rules apply," says Henderson.
Lotions may be more effective than aerosols, with research suggesting the latter can be insufficiently protective in windy conditions. Hacker's latest study at Griffith University tested five aerosol sunscreens and found 28% to 93% of aerosol sunscreen was lost in 20 kilometer per hour winds, and 32% to 79% of aerosol sunscreen was lost when the wind dropped to 10 kilometers an hour. These winds are considered everyday conditions at Australian beaches.
"In some cases, a person would need to spray an aerosol sunscreen for up to 250 seconds per limb, or more than a bottle's worth, to provide adequate protection to the whole body," says Hacker.
Some may consider just staying out of the sun altogether, but Barker says that would be neither practical nor healthy. Others agree.
"Our bodies need some sunlight for vitamin D production and there are other benefits to running around outdoors, especially in childhood. There's been links with children not spending enough time outdoors and developing short-sightedness," says Henderson.
Instead, a good option is to enjoy the summer sunshine at the start and the end of the day, when the UV rays are lower. In Australia, there's yet another mnemonic for that: Between 11 and 3, slip under a tree. ~
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220704-why-childhood-sunburns-are-so-dangerous
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STRONG LINK BETWEEN PARKINSON’S AND CERTAIN AUTOIMMUNE DISEASES
“Sjögren’s syndrome, IBD, rare skin condition showed significant Parkinson's ties”
~ Although Parkinson’s disease is generally considered a brain disorder, recent research has found that the body’s immune system may play a role in the development of this condition.
While it helps protect the body from invading germs and viruses, the immune system also lends a hand in the overall health of different parts of the body such as the brain, heart, and gastrointestinal system.
And when a person’s immune system is not healthy, it leaves them susceptible to viral infections and other diseases. It can also impact their mental health and even cause sleeping issues.
In the case of the neurodegenerative condition Parkinson’s disease, researchers still do not know exactly what causes it. However, some researchers now believe that it may have direct ties with the health of a person’s immune system.
People with Parkinson’s disease are at a higher risk of simultaneous autoimmune diseases where the immune system erroneously attacks the body, according to a review study.
Pooled data from multiple studies showed a significantly increased risk of Parkinson’s combined with either bullous pemphigoid, a rare skin condition characterized by large luid-filled blisters, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), or Sjögren’s syndrome, which is marked by dry eyes and mouth.
Overall, “this study supports the existence of a strong link between AIDs [autoimmune diseases] and PD [Parkinson’s disease], the researchers wrote, adding “clinicians need to be aware of the possibility of coexistence.”
The review study, “The association between Parkinson’s disease and autoimmune diseases: A systematic review and meta-analysis,” was published in Frontiers in Immunology.
Parkinson’s is marked by the progressive loss of nerve cells that produce a major brain chemical messenger called dopamine that’s involved in several functions, including control of voluntary movement. This leads to motor symptoms such as resting tremor, muscle rigidity, and slowness of movement, and to nonmotor symptoms, like mood changes and cognitive deficits.
Increasing evidence has implicated immune response impairment in Parkinson’s. In fact, some studies have suggested the neurodegenerative disease may be partly driven by autoimmune processes, which occur when the immune system wrongly attacks and destroys healthy tissue.
“There are shared mechanisms between PD and many AIDs, with PD often occurring in conjunction with at least one AID,” the researchers wrote. “However, epidemiological studies involving PD and AIDs have yielded inconsistent results, with contradictory and controversial findings.”
Investigating Parkinson’s autoimmune disease association
A team of researchers in China searched four electronic databases for published studies up to December 2022 to investigate the relationship between Parkinson’s and 34 autoimmune conditions previously reported to be the most common, and conducted a meta-analysis, a statistical analysis combining several studies’ results.
Of the 321 hits evaluated for eligibility, 46 observational studies — involving 752,488 people with AIDs, 121,155 with Parkinson’s, and 13,402,821 controls — were included. Half were conducted in Asia, 18 (39.1%) in European populations, and five (10.9%) in North America.
Most studies used people with autoimmune diseases as the test group, while six included Parkinson’s patients as the test group. The majority of studies compared patients with one to 10 age- and sex-matched controls. Of these studies, 38 had calculable risk estimates and were therefore included in the meta-analysis. Results showed a 55% significantly higher risk of Parkinson’s combined with autoimmune diseases.
While the findings indicated high variability between the studies, subgroup analyses didn’t find any significant differences in risk by study type or design, sex, age, or race.
Of the 34 autoimmune diseases investigated, bullous pemphigoid, inflammatory bowel disease, and Sjögren’s syndrome showed a significant association with Parkinson’s.
Seventeen studies looked at a link between bullous pemphigoid, which causes large, fluid-filled blisters in the skin, and Parkinson’s. Results showed a 2.7 times higher risk for having both conditions, the strongest link observed.
Based on data from nine studies, there was a 30% higher risk of Parkinson’s with IBD, a group of disorders that cause chronic inflammation in the intestines. In fact, “gastrointestinal inflammation and neuroinflammation may be important causes of PD due to disorders of the gut-brain axis,” the researchers wrote.
Based on data from five studies looking at a link between Parkinson’s and Sjögren’s syndrome, which mainly affects the glands that produce tears and saliva, there was a 61% increased risk of having both conditions.
No significant associations were found between Parkinson’s and autoimmune conditions such as multiple sclerosis, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis.
“To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to comprehensively synthesize the available population-based research evidence on the relationship between PD and AIDs,” the researchers wrote, adding it provided “evidence that patients with PD have a significantly increased risk for [simultaneous] AIDs. “However, it is difficult to distinguish the sequence of development of PD and AIDs in multiple studies, and this study only analyzed the risk of PD combined with AIDs to demonstrate whether there is a correlation between the two, not to determine the causal relationship.”
They said more more accurate evidence of a relationship “can be obtained by following up [patients] long enough to include a large sample size of the study population, using standardized hospital-based records of disease diagnosis, carefully selecting normal controls, and adjusting for potential [influencing factors].”
“Mechanistic studies” on the simultaneous occurrence of Parkinson’s and autoimmune disorders can help better understand how both get started and help recognize “new therapeutic and diagnostic targets” if a common beginning is observed, the researchers said. ~
https://parkinsonsnewstoday.com/news/strong-link-seen-parkinsons-certain-autoimmune-diseases/
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IS PARKINSON’S AN AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE?
~ Although Parkinson’s disease is generally considered a brain disorder, recent research has found that the body’s immune system may play a role in the development of this condition. Medical News Today spoke to Parkinson’s disease experts about why this might be.
Increasing evidence has implicated immune response impairment in Parkinson's. In fact, some studies have suggested the neurodegenerative disease may be partly driven by autoimmune processes, which occur when the immune system wrongly attacks and destroys healthy tissue.
Researchers still do not know exactly what causes Parkinson’s. However, some researchers now believe that it may have direct ties with the health of a person’s immune system.
“Immune system involvement in brain diseases is not unheard of,” added Dr. James Beck, senior vice president and chief scientific officer of Parkinson’s Foundation.
“Multiple sclerosis is primarily a brain disorder that involves and is treated by modulating the immune system,” he exemplified.
Nevertheless, “why the immune system is involved in Parkinson’s disease remains unanswered,” Dr. Beck told us.
“It could be the result of an autoimmune response where the immune system incorrectly identifies a brain protein as foreign and responds to it,“ he hypothesized. “It could be the result of insults elsewhere in the body — maybe even the brain — such as an infection, that triggers an immune response that involves the brain.”
If inflammation is involved in causing Parkinson’s disease, how exactly could that happen?
Dr. Osama Abu-hadid, a movement disorder specialist and assistant professor of neurology at the Parkinson’s Center at the Neuroscience Institute and the Department of Neurology at Hackensack University Medical Center and Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, told MNT that there is currently no “hard” proof as to the exact mechanisms in which the immune system plays a role in the development of Parkinson’s disease.
“However, there are multiple theories along with associated studies that give some guidance,” he said. “One of the proposed mechanisms is impairment of the blood-brain barrier, allowing easier access of the immune system into the brain tissue, hence, exposing this system to native antigens it has not seen before.”
“When the substantia nigra is lost beyond a critical threshold and little of it remains, the clinical signs of cognitive loss and movement disorders become apparent, and the disease is diagnosed,” he explained. “But why is the substantia nigra lost?”
“Here the idea is that the immune system is involved, with a misplaced attack on the substantia nigra,” Dr. Sette continued. “Essentially the immune system mistakenly believes that the substantia nigra is foreign or dangerous and attacks it in a process called auto-immunity.”
“There is also a suggestion that gut bacteria in Parkinson’s disease are different from healthy people and their metabolites are linked to inflammatory processes that may promote neurodegeneration,” Dr. King added.
As further research unveils more about the link between the immune system and Parkinson’s disease, experts agree it may open doors for the development of new therapies or even protection against developing the disease.
“Maybe we don’t have to stop the alpha-synuclein from accumulating if we can stop the immune response that is triggered [by] the accumulation,” she hypothesized.
“There are drugs already in clinical use that control the immune response,” Dr. Gilbert continued.
“In my opinion, the big reason it is exciting to think about Parkinson’s disease beginning outside the brain in the immune system is that we could potentially identify people who are at risk for Parkinson’s disease prior to them having the disease,” Dr. Pilitsis added.
Even though the exact cause of Parkinson’s remains unknown, there are various changes that people can make to their lifestyle that can help protect their immune system and potentially reduce the risk of Parkinson’s disease and similar conditions.
“It makes intuitive sense that instituting lifestyle modifications that potentially decrease inflammation may decrease [the] risk of Parkinson’s disease,” Dr. Gilbert said.
“Exercise, for example, has been shown to reduce inflammation and is probably one of the many reasons that exercise reduces the risk of Parkinson’s disease and also improves symptoms of established Parkinson’s disease,” she noted.
Dr. Pilitsis agreed exercise has been shown to have a positive effect on outcomes for those with Parkinson’s disease.
“Also we should avoid things like excessive alcohol and nicotine that we know have negative effects on the immune system,” she added. “[And] managing our stress as best as possible can slow and help maximize outcomes of many diseases.”
When it comes to what we eat, Dr. Gilbert said there is evidence that the Mediterranean and the MIND diets are good for brain health.
“The MIND diet emphasizes whole grains, vegetables, nuts, legumes, and berries,” she detailed. “Fish is the preferred protein and olive oil is the preferred fat. Recently a study was published that showed adherence to the MIND diet and the Mediterranean diets were associated with later onset of Parkinson’s disease.” ~
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/how-the-immune-system-contributes-to-parkinsons-disease
Oriana:
The logical question to explore is the use of immunosuppressive drugs in relation to Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases. Indeed, some immunosuppressants such as corticosteroids do seem to lower the risk (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/acn3.580)
The drug rapamycin also seems to be effective: "Multiple independent studies have recently shown that rapamycin, a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved antibiotic and immunosuppressant currently used to prevent rejection in organ transplantation, can provide therapeutic benefit in experimental models of several age-linked neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, Alzheimer's disease and spinocerebellar ataxia type 3." https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn3068
Anecdotal evidence came to light relatively long ago. I'll never forget the sounds of astonishment among the audience when one lecturer said that he knows of an Alzheimer's patient who also underwent an organ transplant and was put on immunosuppressants. All symptoms of AD went into remission. "The patient died clear-minded" was the ending of that story.
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OBESITY-RELATED CARDIOVASCULAR DEATHS TRIPLED IN THE LAST TWO DECADES
~ Heart disease is killing fewer Americans overall. However, cardiovascular deaths where obesity was listed as a key contributing factor have tripled between 1999 and 2020, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association. Black women had the highest mortality rate out of all the population groups studied.
“I think this data is really important in that it shows us a problem,” said Mamas Mamas, professor of cardiology at Keele University in the U.K., and primary investigator of the study. “And it shows that it disproportionately affects one underserved, underprivileged group. I think you need that information and then to plan, OK, what do we do? How do we address this through policy?”
Obesity affects about 42% of the U.S. population, nearly a 10% increase from the preceding decade, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Excess weight gain is driven by a complex, interconnected web of genetic, physiologic and environmental factors. Some of the key drivers include where individuals live, their access to health care and nutritious food, as well as safe places for physical activity. Obesity disproportionately affects people in underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, putting them at a higher risk for cardiovascular disease.
Still, obesity does not directly cause cardiovascular disease — it contributes to risk factors like type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia. Previous research has also shown that obesity prevention strategies, whether at the individual level or population level, have not been successful in the long term, which adds urgency to addressing this public health issue.
Overall, obesity-related cardiovascular death rates tripled from 2.2 per 100,000 people to 6.6 per 100,000 during the study period, according to the researchers. They also found that mortality, adjusted for age, was highest among Black individuals (11.6 per 100,000 people in 2020), followed by American Indian adults or Alaska Native adults (6.7 per 100,000).
Black women had the highest rates of obesity-related heart disease deaths than all others. The opposite was true for other racial groups: Men experienced more obesity-related cardiovascular deaths.
“There’s something about being Black that presents more pressure,” said Queen Henry-Okafor, an assistant professor at the Vanderbilt School of Nursing who was not involved in the study. “And then being a Black woman presents a whole different dynamic, which I think is not really talked about.”
Among Black adults, those living in urban areas had higher rates of obesity-related cardiovascular deaths compared to those living in rural areas, whereas rural living was associated with higher mortality rates for people in all other racial groups.
“So, we are winning the war,” Merz said about overall cardiovascular deaths decreasing across all groups. “And why is that? Because we treat hypertension, because we treat dyslipidemia, because we have better diabetes drugs now. So I’m a little worried this is not maybe the right message we should be talking about.”
Oriana:
The good news is that we now have some truly effective weight-loss drugs (if you can afford them). And those drugs (Wegovy) have been shown to reduce the incidence of heart attack and stroke. https://diatribe.org/wegovy-dramatically-reduces-heart-disease-and-stroke-risk-people-obesity
The bad news is that the rate of severe obesity has been going up worldwide.
Obesity used to be rare in the past. One obese child per classroom seemed to be the norm. Several years ago I was invited to do a poetry workshop at an elementary school; half the children were obese, and many others were what is often called "chubby" or "pudgy." Some experts believe this has a lot to do with the mother's diet during pregnancy.
A special kind of bad news is that drugs like Wegowy are not covered by Medicare, and are not always covered by private insurance. This creates a socially unhealthy situation where money can buy you more years of life.
This is speculation, but more than "mere" speculation. We already know that higher income is associated with higher life expectancy. "The richest
American men live 15 years longer than the poorest men, while the
richest American women live 10 years longer than the poorest women." http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/health/
Ideally, we should try to prevent obesity, rather than treat it with expensive drugs and bariatric surgery. The campaign against cigarettes has been a marvelous success, while any incipient campaign against obesogens such as junk food (remember when New York tried to tax it?) have never really taken off. (Taxing junk food manufacturers, which would make junk food more expensive, might be more effective.)
In the US, obesity is strongly associated with low income. And low-income people are more likely to eat a poor quality diet, high on potato chips and soda, low on vegetables.
Among the surprises I’ve witnessed over the course of my life has been the shift from the “population bomb” perspective (“I’d be ashamed to have a kid,” one of my biology instructors actually said) to the “depopulation crisis” (or call it the depopulation bomb just for symmetry). Another shift has been from constant news about famine in various (mostly third-world at the time) countries to the current concern about the global rise in obesity, rich countries included.
Humanity seems trapped in going from one extreme to the other. 
*
Ending on beauty:
A LIFE SENTENCE
A life sentence is what was handed down to the thief
that gunned down your father, my mother said,
her breathing labored, as if by hammering words—tread
and riser—into a flight of stairs, she could climb past grief,
ascending up and out of her own history. Gunned down,
she repeats, for ten dollars and half a tuna sandwich.
The briefcase, an open disappointment, tossed in a ditch
and found, infested with fingerprints, each a proper noun
announcing, like an intricately hand-lettered calling card,
the murderer’s name and table number. To set the scene
for her story, my mother drops metaphor—at seventeen
I married the boy next door—as we exit the graveyard,
down three steps, stumbling on the bottom one, broken
and forgotten, like a life unwritten, its sentences unspoken.
~ Richard Michelson
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