The 43rd Pirelli calendar is here, and it's a lot less risqué than usual, and the result is sheer beauty.
In a complete u-turn from the bikini-clad models which usually grace the pages of the calendar, the 2016 edition, shot by Annie Leibovitz, features famous females from the world of film, literature, art, sport and philanthropy.
In every month, as well a stunningly intimate portrait, there is an explanation of the featured woman's work.
The Pirelli calendar has become something of a collectible. Editions sell well at auction and $2 000 was paid for the 50th anniversary book.


text:
Rhino/Elektra Makes The Music Go Bang!
First-Ever Best Of Collection From X Available July 27
Rhino/Elektra salutes one of the most important and influential rock and punk rock bands ever with the release of X: The Best: Make The Music Go Bang. This two-disc, 46-track collection is the first "best-of" package for this legendary group.
X: The Best: Make The Music Go Bang covers the whole of X's recording career, from their first single on L.A.'s pioneering indie label Dangerhouse Records to their last studio album, Hey Zeus!, and touches on X's alt-country/folk offshoot, The Knitters. The set was co-produced and compiled by original member John Doe.
Disc One gathers highlights from the first four highly acclaimed albums the band cut with producer Ray Manzarek. Los Angeles stands as one of the most astonishing debuts ever (ranked #4 on Spin Magazine's recent Top 50 Punk Albums Of All Time) while the next three discs-Wild Gift, Under The Big Black Sun, and More Fun In The New World-revealed the many influences that made X's brand of punk rock so unique. With Ain't Love Grand, See How We Are, and Hey Zeus! the band broadened its sound and successfully morphed from being a great punk band to being a great rock band with classic tunes like "Burning House Of Love," "See How We Are," and "4th Of July." Disc Two of Make The Music Go Bang showcases the excellent work X did exploring folk, country, roots rock, and even flirting with metal stylings.
Fans of the band will be happy to find that Make the Music Go Bang includes rarities and tracks previously unavailable on CD before. In addition to the Dangerhouse versions of the classics "Adult Books" and "We're Desperate," the collection includes a never-before-on-CD live version of "Beyond And Back" recorded for the movie Urgh! A Music War, and single versions of "White Girl," "Riding With Mary," and "Wild Thing," X's take on the Troggs' classic.
From the now-fabled L.A. punk rock scene of the late '70s, X quickly emerged as a band to be reckoned with. While their first albums seemed to spring from the late '70s punk revolution, deeper listening reveals a group inspired as much by Woody Guthrie, Phil Ochs, Leadbelly, '50s rockabilly, and Jim Morrison as by the punk movement. X rose above many of their contemporaries thanks to their musical proficiency and the poetry of Exene Cervenka and John Doe's lyrics, which invites favorable comparisons to film noir or Charles Bukowski.
X: The Best: Make The Music Go Bang carries a suggested list price of $24.98 at retail as well as at www.rhino.com [ http://www.rhino.com/ ].
Source: Rhino Records
NAVIGATE INVESTOR RELATIONS
Copyright © 2021 Warner Music Inc. |
artist royalties

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
17 National Championships in 20 years
7 Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award Winners
101 All-Americans
174 Olympians
Countless young women inspired
Beginning its third decade of competition in 2019-20, the Western Collegiate Hockey Association is home to a record 17 women's national championship teams since 1999. It has also produced seven Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award winners, 101 All-Americans and 174 Olympians. Women's collegiate hockey's most successful conference, the WCHA boasts seven of the top programs in the sport.
The Women's League of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association, the top league in all of women's collegiate hockey, proudly celebrates its 21st season of competition in 2019-20, its first under the leadership of Commissioner Jennifer Flowers.
Founded in 1999, the WCHA has been at the forefront of growing and raising the profile of women's hockey nationwide as the league continues to churn out national champions, Patty Kazmaier winners, Olympians and professional players competing around the globe.
The league consists of seven premier institutions that offer the best in both educational and athletic environments - Bemidji State University (Beavers), University of Minnesota (Gophers), University of Minnesota Duluth (Bulldogs), Minnesota State University (Mavericks), The Ohio State University (Buckeyes), St. Cloud State University (Huskies) and University of Wisconsin (Badgers).
A closer look at the seven member institutions that make up college hockey's premier conference:
Bemidji State, which set a program record with 22 wins in 2015-16 and has 84 victories over the last five seasons, counts U.S. National Team forward Stephanie Anderson and WCHA career saves leader Brittni Mowat among its recent alumnae.
Minnesota is one of the country's elite programs, with two Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award winners (including U.S. Olympic gold medalist Amanda Kessel), 35 All-Americans and a record seven national championships – including four in the last eight seasons..
Minnesota Duluth, which boasts five national championships, 16 All-Americans and numerous international stars in its storied history, returns 2018 U.S. Olympic hero Maddie Rooney to its net for the 2019-20 campaign.
Minnesota State's exciting new era under fourth-year head coach and 1980 U.S. Olympic gold medalist John Harrington continued to move forward in 2018-19, as the Mavericks' late-season run included a victory over an eventual NCAA Frozen Four participant.
Ohio State, the alma mater of Team Canada star Natalie Spooner, established itself as a budding national power in 2017-18 with a program-record 24 wins, its first-ever Frozen Four appearance and a No. 4 ranking in the final polls.
St. Cloud State, which welcomes new head coach Steve Macdonald in 2019-20, is backstopped by the goaltending duo of Emma Polusny and Swiss Olympian Janine Alder, who combined to stop 1,435 shots a season ago, the second-highest team total in the NCAA.
Wisconsin has become one of the country's dominant programs under head coach and 1980 U.S. Olympian Mark Johnson, winning five NCAA championships, producing five Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award winners and 33 All-Americans, and developing some of the sport's brightest stars (including Brianna Decker, Alex Rigsby, Hilary Knight, Ann-Renée Desbiens and Annie Pankowski).
No women's hockey conference can top the impressive list of national accomplishments of the WCHA. Since 1998, member teams have earned a record 17 NCAA and AWCHA national championships while finishing as the national runner-up seven times. Since the inception of the NCAA women's ice hockey championship in 2001, the WCHA has won 16 titles, landed at least one team in every Frozen Four and iced two or more teams in 14 Frozen Fours.
The league has also produced seven Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award winners as well an additional 18 student-athletes who were among the Top-3 finalists for the award.
Eighty-three WCHA student-athletes have made 174 appearances in the Olympic Games, with 27 earning Gold medals, since women's ice hockey made its first appearance in the Games in 2002 in Salt Lake City.
Since 2002, every team to medal at the Olympics has had at least one player with WCHA ties on its roster.
At the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeonchang South Korea, 37 current or former WCHA players competed. The group included Gold medal winners Hannan Brandt, Dani Cameranesi, Brianne Decker, Megan Duggan, Amanda Kessel, Hilary Knight, Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson, Monique Lamoureux-Morando, Gigi Marvin, Sidney Morin, Kelly Pannek, Alex Rigsby, Maddie Rooney and Lee Stecklein of the United States.
The Silver medal-winning Canadian team featured WCHA stars Emily Clark, Ann-Renee Desbiens, Haley Irwin, Brigette Lacquette, Jocelyne Larocque, Meaghan Mikkelson, Sara Nurse, Natalie Spooner and Blayre Turnbull. Bronze medalist Finland boasted a roster that included WCHA players Mira Jalosuo, Michelle Karvinen, Emma Nuutinen, Noora Räty and Eveliina Suonpaa.
WCHA players have been recognized as All-Americans 101 times in league history, including three-time selections Hannah Brandt, Natalie Darwitz, Brianna Decker, Hilary Knight, Monique Lamoureux, Annie Pankowski, Noora Räty, Maria Rooth, Lee Stecklein and Krissy Wendell.
When it comes to coaching, WCHA teams and players have benefited from the expertise of some of the best minds in the game. Current bench bosses Mark Johnson (Wisconsin) and Brad Frost (Minnesota) are the nation's winningest active coaches and their respective career winning percentages rank among the top five in NCAA history.
WCHA coaches have won 11 of the 22 AHCA Women's Division I National Coach of the Year awards presented since the honor's inception in 1998.
Crowds at WCHA games are always among the most enthusiastic in all of hockey. The Top-10 most-attended women's ice hockey games in NCAA history, including a record 15,359 fans who turned out for the Wisconsin-St. Cloud State game on Jan. 14, 2017 at the Kohl Center in Madison, Wis., featured WCHA teams.
In January 2019, a pair of WCHA schools - Bemidji State and Minnesota State - met outdoors on the shores of Lake Bemidji in northern Minnesota as part of the annual Hockey Day Minnesota festivities in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Ohio State and Minnesota will take part in the 2020 edition of HDM with the Buckeyes and Gophers meeting on an outdoor rink at Parade Stadium in Minneapolis on Jan. 18, 2020.
The WCHA provides fans the opportunity to watch league action throughout the season. Every game hosted by Bemidji State, Minnesota Duluth, Minnesota State and St. Cloud State, along with the WCHA Final Faceoff and select games hosted by Minnesota, Ohio State and Wisconsin (shown on BTN Plus), will be streamed live and on demand exclusively on FloHockey.tv.
The semifinals and final of the WCHA Final Faceoff will again air live on Fox Sports North, March 8-9 from Ridder Arena in Minneapolis.
With seven high-quality institutions producing leaders and champions on and off the ice, and playing in front of the sport's best fans, this much is certain: The WCHA - like it has for two decades - will remain elite on the ice, while growing the game by providing an exemplary student-athlete and fan experience.
#WeAreWCHA #LeadersAndChampions
WCHA Top Stories
Minnesota Duluth's Hughes, Bell And Rooney And St. Cloud State's Cvar Chosen As WCHA Players Of The Week
Beyond the WCHA: Alumni in the Pros - January 20
Twenty WCHA Alums Named To United States And Canadian Rosters For Second Half Of Women's Rivalry Series
WCHA Announces Partnership With Krampade


text:
Q: Compare-Object Dynamic Variables for ReferenceObject DifferenceObject This Compare-Object doesn't work, but is there a way to do the same thing?
For ($F=0; $F -le $NumberOfSameFolders; $F++)
{
$Results$F = Compare-Object "$FilesInFolderX$F" "$FilesInFolderY$F"
-Property Name, LastWriteTime -IncludeEqual -PassThru |
Select-Object FullName
}

This is an experiment that works for the 20th pair of folders.
$Results20 = Compare-Object $FilesInFolderX20 $FilesInFolderY20
-Property Name, LastWriteTime -PassThru | Select-Object FullName

A: Here is a way you can handle that with Get-Variable CmdLet
$a1 = 12,13
$a2 = 13,14

$b = 1
Compare-Object   (Get-Variable "a$b").Value (Get-Variable -Name "a$($b+1)").Value

In your case you can use :
Compare-Object (Get-Variable "$FilesInFolderX$F").value (Get-Variable "$FilesInFolderY$F").value

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
<?php

final class PhabricatorMacroSearchEngine
  extends PhabricatorApplicationSearchEngine {

  public function getResultTypeDescription() {
    return pht('Macros');
  }

  public function getApplicationClassName() {
    return 'PhabricatorMacroApplication';
  }

  public function newQuery() {
    return id(new PhabricatorMacroQuery())
      ->needFiles(true);
  }

  protected function buildCustomSearchFields() {
    return array(
      id(new PhabricatorSearchSelectField())
        ->setLabel(pht('Status'))
        ->setKey('status')
        ->setOptions(PhabricatorMacroQuery::getStatusOptions()),
      id(new PhabricatorUsersSearchField())
        ->setLabel(pht('Authors'))
        ->setKey('authorPHIDs')
        ->setAliases(array('author', 'authors')),
      id(new PhabricatorSearchTextField())
        ->setLabel(pht('Name Contains'))
        ->setKey('nameLike'),
      id(new PhabricatorSearchStringListField())
        ->setLabel(pht('Exact Names'))
        ->setKey('names'),
      id(new PhabricatorSearchSelectField())
        ->setLabel(pht('Marked with Flag'))
        ->setKey('flagColor')
        ->setDefault('-1')
        ->setOptions(PhabricatorMacroQuery::getFlagColorsOptions()),
      id(new PhabricatorSearchDateField())
        ->setLabel(pht('Created After'))
        ->setKey('createdStart'),
      id(new PhabricatorSearchDateField())
        ->setLabel(pht('Created Before'))
        ->setKey('createdEnd'),
    );
  }

  protected function getDefaultFieldOrder() {
    return array(
      '...',
      'createdStart',
      'createdEnd',
    );
  }

  protected function buildQueryFromParameters(array $map) {
    $query = $this->newQuery();

    if ($map['authorPHIDs']) {
      $query->withAuthorPHIDs($map['authorPHIDs']);
    }

    if ($map['status']) {
      $query->withStatus($map['status']);
    }

    if ($map['names']) {
      $query->withNames($map['names']);
    }

    if (strlen($map['nameLike'])) {
      $query->withNameLike($map['nameLike']);
    }

    if ($map['createdStart']) {
      $query->withDateCreatedAfter($map['createdStart']);
    }

    if ($map['createdEnd']) {
      $query->withDateCreatedBefore($map['createdEnd']);
    }

    if ($map['flagColor'] !== null) {
      $query->withFlagColor($map['flagColor']);
    }

    return $query;
  }

  protected function getURI($path) {
    return '/macro/'.$path;
  }

  protected function getBuiltinQueryNames() {
    $names = array(
      'active'  => pht('Active'),
      'all'     => pht('All'),
    );

    if ($this->requireViewer()->isLoggedIn()) {
      $names['authored'] = pht('Authored');
    }

    return $names;
  }

  public function buildSavedQueryFromBuiltin($query_key) {
    $query = $this->newSavedQuery();
    $query->setQueryKey($query_key);

    switch ($query_key) {
      case 'active':
        return $query->setParameter(
          'status',
          PhabricatorMacroQuery::STATUS_ACTIVE);
      case 'all':
        return $query->setParameter(
          'status',
          PhabricatorMacroQuery::STATUS_ANY);
      case 'authored':
        return $query->setParameter(
          'authorPHIDs',
          array($this->requireViewer()->getPHID()));
    }

    return parent::buildSavedQueryFromBuiltin($query_key);
  }

  protected function renderResultList(
    array $macros,
    PhabricatorSavedQuery $query,
    array $handles) {

    assert_instances_of($macros, 'PhabricatorFileImageMacro');
    $viewer = $this->requireViewer();
    $handles = $viewer->loadHandles(mpull($macros, 'getAuthorPHID'));

    $xform = PhabricatorFileTransform::getTransformByKey(
      PhabricatorFileThumbnailTransform::TRANSFORM_PINBOARD);

    $pinboard = new PHUIPinboardView();
    foreach ($macros as $macro) {
      $file = $macro->getFile();

      $item = id(new PHUIPinboardItemView())
        ->setUser($viewer)
        ->setObject($macro);

      if ($file) {
        $item->setImageURI($file->getURIForTransform($xform));
        list($x, $y) = $xform->getTransformedDimensions($file);
        $item->setImageSize($x, $y);
      }

      if ($macro->getDateCreated()) {
        $datetime = phabricator_date($macro->getDateCreated(), $viewer);
        $item->appendChild(
          phutil_tag(
            'div',
            array(),
            pht('Created on %s', $datetime)));
      } else {
        // Very old macros don't have a creation date. Rendering something
        // keeps all the pins at the same height and avoids flow issues.
        $item->appendChild(
          phutil_tag(
            'div',
            array(),
            pht('Created in ages long past')));
      }

      if ($macro->getAuthorPHID()) {
        $author_handle = $handles[$macro->getAuthorPHID()];
        $item->appendChild(
          pht('Created by %s', $author_handle->renderLink()));
      }

      $item->setURI($this->getApplicationURI('/view/'.$macro->getID().'/'));
      $item->setDisabled($macro->getisDisabled());
      $item->setHeader($macro->getName());

      $pinboard->addItem($item);
    }

    $result = new PhabricatorApplicationSearchResultView();
    $result->setContent($pinboard);

    return $result;
  }

  protected function getNewUserBody() {
    $create_button = id(new PHUIButtonView())
      ->setTag('a')
      ->setText(pht('Create a Macro'))
      ->setHref('/macro/create/')
      ->setColor(PHUIButtonView::GREEN);

    $icon = $this->getApplication()->getIcon();
    $app_name =  $this->getApplication()->getName();
    $view = id(new PHUIBigInfoView())
      ->setIcon($icon)
      ->setTitle(pht('Welcome to %s', $app_name))
      ->setDescription(
        pht('Create easy to remember shortcuts to images and memes.'))
      ->addAction($create_button);

      return $view;
  }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
New curriculum requirements bring host of new courses to A&S
NASA to Host Virtual Briefing on February Perseverance Mars Rover Landing
Help inform public health cost of loss of arts and culture access across Liverpool City Region
U.S. Coast Guard Operation Southern Cross Builds Multilateral Cooperation to Combat Illegal, Unreported
As COVID deaths pass two million worlwide, Guterres warns against self-defeating 'vaccinationalism'
Native Hawaiian groups meet community need during COVID-19
NZ police charge three after burglaries of building materials in Napier
Secretary Pompeo's Call with Republic of Cyprus Foreign Minister Christodoulides 16 January
Prime Minister's statement on coronavirus 15 January 2021
October 9, 2019 5:44 am AEDTDate Time
Genes contribute to dog breeds' iconic traits
A new study by a research team that included the University of Washington examined the role of genes in dog behavior.Kasper Luijsterburg
Dog breeds tend to have signature traits: Border collies love to herd, greyhounds love to chase, and German shepherds make good guard dogs.
There's a reason for that: Traits like these are highly heritable, according to a study of 101 dog breeds that identifies genetic differences in behavior.
The study, published Oct. 2 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, points to 131 genetic variants, and offers new evidence to support what scientists have long suspected: that some of the behaviors that help characterize breeds – a drive to chase, for example, or aggression toward strangers – are associated with distinct genetic differences among them.
"Dogs present a good model for understanding what portion of the variation in their behavior is attributable to differences in genetics, and how much to their environment and experiences," said Noah Snyder-Mackler, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Washington and a co-author of the study.
Most dog breed diversity has arisen in the last few centuries. People have bred dogs for their looks, but the bulk of breeding efforts have taken aim at eliciting particular behaviors, said James A. Serpell, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Medicine.
"If you look at the evolution of the dog, selection has been primarily for behaviors: hunting behaviors, guarding behaviors, or giving companionship to humans," said Serpell, the study's senior author.
What seems obvious – that genes can influence an individual's behaviors – has not always been easy to support with evidence, in large part because behaviors are complex traits, the researchers said.Tendencies such as aggression, anxiety, or a compulsion to chase anything that moves are governed by many genes, not just one.
But dog breeds, being highly inbred, have allowed researchers to make progress in this area. Snyder-Mackler and the research team recognized that, if a dog breed is associated with a particular behavior that distinguishes it from other breeds, it might be easier to detect the genetic variants contributing to that behavior if that breed's genome was compared to a host of others.
The team used data from C-BARQ, short for Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire, a survey that more than 50,000 dog owners have filled out about their pets. C-BARQ returned a result on 14 behavioral "factors" about each dog surveyed, giving a measure of traits such as stranger-directed aggression, excitability, energy level, and predatory chasing drive.
For this study, the researchers pulled 14,020 of those entries that included information about purebred dogs. To look for associations with genetics, they borrowed data from two earlier studies, together representing 5,697 dogs, for which 172,000 points in the genome had been sequenced.
They found that about half of the variation in the 14 measured behaviors across breeds could be attributed to genetics – a greater proportion than previous studies have found.
The traits with the highest rates of heritability – in other words, those that seemed to be most influenced by genetic factors rather than environmental ones – were behaviors such as trainability, predatory chasing, stranger-directed aggression and attention seeking. For these traits, genetics explained 60 to 70 percent of variation across breeds.
"These are exactly the types of traits that have been selected for in particular breeds of dogs," said Serpell. "So for trainability, you're thinking of breeds like border collies that have to respond to human signals to accomplish complicated tasks; for chasing behavior you can think of something like a greyhound, which is innately predisposed to chase anything that runs; and for stranger-directed aggression you might focus on some of the guard dog breeds that are highly protective and tend to respond in a hostile way to unfamiliar people."
When the researchers looked for genetic variants associated with breed differences in the 14 C-BARQ traits, they found 131 variants tightly linked to these behaviors. Some were located in genes that have been implicated in influencing behavior, including in humans. But many were unknown and provide fodder for future study.
"This gives us an encouraging start and places to look," said lead author Evan MacLean of the University of Arizona. "We have ongoing projects where we've obtained genetic and behavioral data from the same individuals, so we'll be able to dive deeper into some of these traits and variants to see if the patterns we found here hold up."
As a final step, the team looked to see where the genes in which key variants appeared were expressed in the body. Their analysis showed the genes were much more likely to be expressed in the brain than in other tissues.
The researchers' results also leave plenty of room for individual differences and an animal's environment in influencing behavior.
"It's important to keep in mind that we looked at breed averages for behavior," Snyder-Mackler said. "We're not at a point yet where we can look at an individual's genome and predict behavior. Environment and training still has a very, very strong effect."
Bridgett vonHoldt of Princeton University was a co-author. The study was supported with a grant to Snyder-Mackler from the National Institute on Aging.
Tags:aging, Arizona, brain, dog, German, Human, import, pennsylvania, Professor, research, school, Scientists, study, university, University of Washington, Washington
Official Results Saturday Lotto Draw No. 4121 Drawn: Saturday, 16 January 2021. Drawn Numbers: Winning…
Jan 16, 2021 – SYDNEY. It is with great sadness that Caroline Murphy and family…
A man has died after a single-vehicle quad bike crash near Bega on the South…
Major Crash Investigation Section officers are investigating a fatal traffic crash that occurred in Munster…


The Harness Racing Victoria (HRV) Racing Appeals and Disciplinary (RAD) Board today considered charges issued against licensed trainer-driver Brian Sylvia under Australian Harness Racing Rules (AHRR) 193(1), 187(2) and 187(3) relating to HRV Stewards surveillance of his property on 6 April 2017.
A person shall not attempt to stomach tube or stomach tube a horse nominated for a race or event within 48 hours of the commencement of the race or event.
The particulars of this charge were that on 6 April 2017 Mr Sylvia stomach tubed the horse 'Elslatsy' which was engaged to race at the Mildura harness racing meeting that evening.
A person shall not refuse to answer questions or to produce a horse, document, substance or piece of equipment, or give false or misleading evidence or information at an inquiry or investigation.
The particulars of Charge 2 were that Mr Sylvia gave evidence that he did not stomach tube the horse 'Elslatsy', which was evidence he knew to be false.
The particulars of Charge 3 were that Mr Sylvia provided evidence that he was not in possession of a blue bucket, which he later retrieved.
The particulars of Charge 4 were that Mr Sylvia refused to produce stomach tubing equipment from his residence when requested to do so by HRV Stewards.
A person shall comply with an order or direction given by the Stewards.
The particulars of these charges related to Mr Sylvia's failure to comply with two separate directions of the HRV Stewards to present the horse 'Elslatsy' to the Mildura harness racing meeting by prescribed times.
At the outset of the hearing, HRV Stewards made a submission to combine charges 5 and 6 into a composite charge under AHRR 187(3).
Mr Sylvia pleaded guilty to all charges.
The HRV RAD Board considered submissions as to the circumstances surrounding the charges and on penalty from the HRV Stewards and Mr Sylvia, which included viewing surveillance footage shot from an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (drone).
In determining penalty the HRV RAD Board considered Mr Sylvia's guilty plea at today's hearing, however noted his lack of cooperation with the Stewards at the outset of the investigation. The HRV RAD Board also considered Mr Sylvia's good record over approximately 40 years in the industry, the need for both general and specific deterrence; penalties in matters of similar offending; and the seriousness of the rules in relation to prohibited substances that support both animal welfare and the need for a level playing field.


text:
Peter Kinderman's blog
Times of change and opportunity: Towards a psychological model of mental health and well-being
Notes for a speech given at: The International Psychology Conference, Dubai 1st November 2013. These are my NOTES for the speech, the speech as delivered may have been different (in particular, I did suggest that we needed to lead "a revolution" in our approach to these issues, which doesn't appear below).
Good morning, and thank you for inviting me.
It is a time of significant change in the field of mental health.
Over the past twenty years or so, we've seen a very positive and welcome growth of the user and survivor movements, some first signs of more responsible media coverage, and a rejection of the idea that we should be stupefied by shame and stigma into accepting the paternalism of earlier days – we are just starting to see the beginnings of transparency and democracy in mental health care.
The publication of DSM-5, the fifth edition of the American psychiatric diagnostic manual, has proved controversial, and has led many to question the creeping medicalisation of normal life, and to criticise the poor reliability, validity, utility and humanity of conventional psychiatric diagnosis.
At the same time, we have seen many commentators conclude that there is precious little reason to believe some of the more outrageous claims as to the effectiveness of many psychiatric drugs. We know that these drugs have very significant adverse effects, too. And there is even less reason to believe that these drugs are effective in the longer term – whatever their benefits in emergencies.
On the other hand, we have seen growing evidence of the effectiveness of evidence-based psychological therapies, helping people with a wide range of problems.
All this has led many to call for radical alternatives to traditional models of care.
But I would argue that we do not need to develop new alternatives.
We already have robust and effective alternatives… we just need to use them.
The well-established ethos of the clinical psychologist as 'scientist-practitioner' means that we can offer evidence-based scientific models of mental health problems and well-being.
These integrate biological findings with the substantial evidence of the social determinants of health and well-being, mediated by psychological processes.
For example, colleagues and I found – in research conducted with the support of the BBC – that negative life events were substantial contributors to a person's levels of depression and anxiety, but this was mediated by their level of rumination.
And, of course, because these models almost inevitably refer to psychological mechanisms mediating the effects of biological, social and circumstantial factors on mental health problems and wellbeing, they almost inevitably imply that psychological interventions – which affect these psychological mechanisms – can be effective.
In simple terms, if we were able to "turn off" our rumination, we'd be able to turn down at least some of our depression and anxiety.
These significant scientific and professional developments allow us to foresee a future beyond the 'disease model' of mental health and well-being.
The Roman emperor and philosopher, Marcus Aurelius (played by Richard Harris in the film "Gladiator") once argued that we need always to bear in mind: "What is this, fundamentally? What is its nature and substance, its reason for being?"
What, then, is the fundamental nature and substance of those psychological, emotional and behavioural problems that are the subject matter of our profession?
In my view, they are fundamentally social and psychological issues. They do have clear biological elements – we should not artificially separate our physical from our mental health. So psychologists, therapists and social workers must work closely alongside GPs, public health physicians and nurses. But mental well-being is fundamentally a psychological and social phenomenon, with medical aspects. It is not, fundamentally, a medical phenomenon with additional psychological and social elements.
Clinical psychology is a wonderful profession – I'm proud to be a clinical psychologist. But we have, I believe, been tempted down a medical route. We've tended to think in terms of "disorder", in terms of "aetiology" in terms of "treatment" and in terms of "pathology" or "abnormality". We conduct 'randomised controlled trials', we set up programmes such as the UK's "IAPT" – improving access to psychological therapies programme – which is predicated on the notion of identifying people with recognised 'mental disorders', offering 'treatment' and assessing outcome on the basis of quite traditional medicalised criteria. We criticise this language, this way of thinking. But all too often, we use it.
We need to place people and human psychology central in our thinking. And we need to return to core principles – ethical, professional and scientific.
I went to a – slightly odd – meeting recently where a very senior psychiatrist said: "… we've got to remember, we're paid to treat illnesses…" I simply disagree. That may be the core purpose of some professions, but not mine… and perhaps not medics' either.
The World Health Organisation describes health as "... a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity". The European Commission takes a step further, describing mental health as: "a resource which enables them to realise their intellectual and emotional potential and to find and fulfil their roles in social, school and working life. For societies, good mental health of citizens contributes to prosperity, solidarity and social justice".
The European Commission, interestingly, also suggests that: "the mental condition of people is determined by a multiplicity of factors including biological, individual, family, social, economic and environmental". They cite the role of "genetics, but also gender, personal experiences, social support, social status and living conditions" in our mental well-being.
I agree. In my view, good mental health is indeed: "a resource which enables them to realise their intellectual and emotional potential and to find and fulfil their roles in social, school and working life". My role, my job, my profession, is helping people fulfil their potential as human beings, not treating illnesses. In fact, doctors – medical practitioners, psychiatrists – have always prized an element of their profession that goes beyond merely treating the patient and illness in front of them.
I'm an unapologetic cognitive psychologist. And I recognise certain pretty clear findings from psychological science. Our thoughts, our emotions, our behaviour and therefore, our mental health are largely dependent on our understanding of the world, our thoughts about ourselves, other people, the future, and the world. Biological factors, social factors, circumstantial factors - our learning as human beings - affect us as those external factors impact on the key psychological processes that help us build up our sense of who we are and the way the world works.
Of course, we must address the issue of biology.
Every thought I have involves a brain-based event. All learning involves changes in associative networks, depolarisaion thresholds, synaptic biomechanics, even gene expression.
My view is not an anti-brain, anti-psychiatry, model. But I believe that my brain is a learning engine – a biological system that is the servant of learning. I am not the slave of my brain, my brain is the organ with which I learn. So of course every thought involves brain-based activity. But this isn't the same as biomedical reductionism. Our biology provides us with a fantastically elegant learning engine. But we learn as a result of the events that happen to us - it's because of our development and our learning as human beings that we see the world in the way that we do.
Everybody recognises that there are changes to the way that our brain functions which affect our thinking, our moods, our behaviour. Most cultures in the world are familiar with a range of chemicals – cannabis, alcohol, even caffeine – that affect our psychological functioning because of the effects they have on our brain.
And it's perfectly reasonable to suggest that individual differences in people – even differences as a result of genetic differences – will have measurable influences on their behaviour and thinking in later life.
There's nothing un-psychological and certainly nothing un-scientific about understanding that biological factors can affect our psychological functioning… and thereby affect our moods, our thinking, our behaviour.
But I think there's a world of difference between acknowledging these influences and accepting a 'disease model'.
For two striking reasons.
First, I believe that the relative influence of biological factors is relatively small.
I need to clarify this.
Every thought I have ever had involves a biological event.
I have also been involved in supervising research that used fMRI technology – functional magnetic resonance imaging – to study regional blood flow during a self-referential task. We found that specific areas of the brain were associated with self-referential thinking, and that these areas were more active in people seeking help for depression.
When we think – for example – of ourselves, as opposed to thinking of another person, it's abundantly clear that specific neural pathways are involved. Since thought involves neural signals in the brain, it's hugely unsurprising that thoughts of all kinds involves identifiable brain circuitry.
But identifying a pathway to a particular though process does not imply that a pathological mechanism has been found.
Logically, quite the reverse seems a more parsimonious explanation – if a particular neural pathway is found to be associated both with emotional and interpersonal difficulties and a key psychological process, it makes sense to me to assume that this is an important scientific finding that applies to us all, not just those of us unfortunate enough to have somebody attach an 'illness' label to our emotions.
This is not a style of thinking compatible with the "disease model".
Because every thought must involve a neurological process, merely finding a neurological correlate of emotional distress or psychological process isn't the same as identifying a pathology or an 'illness'. Quite the reverse.
In addition, my reading of the available literature suggests to me that the influence of variance between people in biological terms has much less influence on their subsequent emotional life than the variance between people in social and circumstantial terms.
Just a couple of examples.
In my department at Liverpool, colleagues Ben Barr, David Taylor-Robinson and Alex Scott-Samuel together with Martin McKee and David Stuckler demonstrated that around 1000 more people killed themselves in the years between 2008 and 2010 than would have been expected. They also found that the English regions with the largest rises in unemployment had the largest increases in suicides, particularly among men.
They conclude that the economic recession was the most likely cause.
Recession, economic insecurity, loosing your job clearly has a major impact.
Rather differently, Richard Bentall and John Read have analysed the impact of childhood trauma – abuse – on the likelihood of developing psychosis. In a number of studies, they have concluded that childhood abuse more than doubles the risk that you'll develop hallucinations or delusional beliefs in later life.
It seems clear that social and circumstantial factors are significant.
There have been relatively few studies directly comparing the relative contributions of biological and social variables, but reviews of the relative contribution of negative life events and abnormalities of the serotonin reuptake gene by Steven Reich and colleagues suggest that while life events are associated with future depression, the same can't be said of serotonin reuptake gene differences.
It's perhaps noteworthy that proponents of biological reductionism occasionally make some peculiar suggestions – suggesting to Bentall and Read, for example, that genetic abnormalities might make kids vulnerable to BOTH abuse and psychosis, but that the abuse wasn't really the cause. And, of course, when the different alleles of the serotonin reuptake gene are found to be less clearly related to depression than might be thought, well, we're told that new genetic breakthroughs are likely "within months".
But, we must, as psychologists, remain clear-sighted as to HOW biological, and, for that matter, social and circumstantial factors affect our mental health and well-being.
And, again, the alternative to the 'disease model' is already with us. It's already part of our scientist-practitioner model, and already well-established within psychological science.
Undergraduate psychology students are introduced to the ancient Greek philosopher Epictitus, and his ethos that "it isn't events that upset us, but our interpretation of those events".
That fits with my own findings that psychological processes mediate the impact of biological, social and circumstantial factors on mental health.
And more generally, it supports the notion that our thoughts, our emotions, our behaviour and therefore, our mental health are largely dependent on our understanding of the world, our thoughts about ourselves, other people, the future, and the world. Biological factors, social factors, circumstantial factors - our learning as human beings - affect us because those external factors impact on the key psychological processes that help us build up our sense of who we are and the way the world works.
In this view of the world, of human nature, there is no real need to invoke the idea of abnormality or disease, even of diagnosis – people are just making sense of their world; developing complex, shifting, emotionally-laden frameworks of understanding of the world. This is why psychologists tend to be sceptical of diagnoses.
Our science is robust and substantiable. And our therapies – even when appraised using the standards of biological medicine – are demonstrably effective.
So... what are the implications for the system of care?
This is perhaps not the forum to outline the failings of modern psychiatry. But it seems clear that we're dealing with a slightly dysfunctional family. On the one hand, biological psychiatrists such as Guze – author of "Biological psychiatry: is there any other kind?" and the Nobel Prize-winning Eric Kandel suggest that biological functioning is the 'final common pathway' for mental disorder and, indeed, therapy.
And our own Nick Craddock argues in his manifesto or 'wake up call for British psychiatry' that there has been a "creeping devaluation of medicine" in psychiatry. There is, Craddock and colleagues argue: "… a very real risk that as the understanding of complex human diseases steadily increases, recent moves away from biomedical approaches to psychiatric illness will further marginalise patients…" and that "…Psychiatry is a medical specialty. We believe that psychiatry should behave like other medical specialties". This is a precise recapitulation of a medical model of psychiatry. Craddock and colleagues are also refreshingly clear in their professional or political aspirations – "British psychiatry faces an identity crisis. A major contributory factor has been the recent trend to downgrade the importance of the core aspects of medical care".
Craddock and colleagues confidently expect that molecular biology and neuroscience will help us understand the 'pathogenesis' of mental health problems, therefore confirm the value of 'biomedical explanations of illness' and confirm the value of a medical psychiatric profession. On the other hand, Pat Bracken and colleagues – in the same forum as Nick Craddock – argue the opposite: that "…Psychiatry is not neurology; it is not a medicine of the brain. Although mental health problems undoubtedly have a biological dimension, in their very nature they reach beyond the brain to involve social, cultural and psychological dimensions. These cannot always be grasped through the epistemology of biomedicine". And, of course, a phrase often repeated in relation to the developments of DSM-5 is that such approaches represent "the creeping medicalization of normal life".
Two pretty much diametrically opposed perspectives.
Does this matter?
It probably does.
I receive a fair number of unsolicited letters. One read: "... Rather than engaging with the patients on the ward, the staff instead shepherded them around like sheep with bullying commands, threats of 'jabs' (injections), and removal to an acute ward elsewhere in the hospital, if they did not co-operate. The staff also stressed medication rather than engagement as a way of controlling the patients. And the staff closeted themselves in the ward office, instead of being out and about on the corridors and in the vestibule where they should have been. The staff wrote daily reports on each patient on the hospital's Intranet system; these reports were depended upon by the consultant psychiatrists for their diagnoses and medication prescriptions, but were patently fabricated and false, because the staff had never engaged or observed properly the patient they were writing about in their reports. The psychiatrists themselves were rarely seen on the ward, and only consulted with their patients once a week."
And I quote in aid Professor Sir Robin Murray, writing as Chair of the recent 'Schizophrenia Commission'; "the message that comes through loud and clear is that people are being badly let down by the system in every area of their lives."
So… what's needed?
Well… First….
1. Get the message right – drop the 'disease model' and adopt a psychosocial model.
I realise this is didactic, that I'm telling people how to think. But didactic messages from medicine have been commonplace for years! (a very senior psychiatrist once, quite pleasantly, stated that his medical education made him entirely competent to do all the jobs of everyone in his team, including clinical psychologists, nurses and social workers, but that they, of course, couldn't do his!).
So… drop the 'disease model' and accept that these are psychosocial issues.
On twitter, a colleague suggested I was proposing a 'psychobiosocial model'.
I quite like that.
2. Stop diagnosing non-existent illnesses – a simple list of people's problems (properly defined) would be more than sufficient as a basis for individual care planning and for the design and planning of services.
3. Recognise our role lies in supporting well-being, not treating illnesses. For my psychiatric, medical, colleagues, this is a perfectly respectable medical role (think of the role of General Practitioners and public health physicians, think of medical care in pregnancy and the role of someone like the medical advisor to the Manchester United Football Club squad).
4. Fourthly … and perhaps more radically…. Stop pushing the drugs (or at least slow down). They just simply don't offer an effective and safe solution…. And here I would appeal to the work of medical colleagues such as Dr Joanna Moncrieff and others.
Of course, pharmaceuticals alter our mood, cognition and, therefore, our behaviour. But –very briefly to summarise Jo Moncrief's 'drug-centred' rather than 'disease-centred' model – this merely explains that drugs alter brain chemistry… there's simply no convincing evidence that they are re-establishing neurotransmitter balance or addressing pathologies.
5. Offer psychosocial services that aim for recovery and personal agency on the part of the client. That means working with a wide range of community workers such as social workers, social pedagogues, and psychologists in multidisciplinary teams, and promoting social rather than medical solutions in the first instance.
Of course, of course, there should be one-to-one psychotherapy. But we should be doing what we've always wanted to do - which is offering more fully holistic services. We should be linking with Jobcentre Plus employment advisers who are delivering what are effectively wellbeing interventions for people. We should be working with the education services. And we should be working with the physical health services. We should be working with employers, there's plenty of evidence that interventions aimed at improving people's wellbeing, not curing their mental illnesses but improving people's wellbeing is productive for employers. We should be working with community services and the wider civil society.
In each case, scientifically elegant analyses of psychological processes leading to interventions.
All such interventions should all be evidence-based and delivered by qualified, competent professionals. Decisions about what therapy or therapies should be offered to whom should be based on a person's specific problems and on the best evidence for the effectiveness of the intervention, not on diagnosis, and individual formulations should be used to put together an individualised package of care suitable for addressing each person's unique set of problems.
So there are a number of psychosocial interventions that we should pursue in addition to standard one-to-one therapies.
6. Where individual therapy is needed, recognise that there are many effective, evidence-based, psychological therapies available.
When I was first qualified as a clinical psychologist, I was told that to talk to a service user experiencing psychosis was "unethical", as talking about their problems would make them worse. We now have evidence-based psychological therapies recommended for a wide range of so-called 'disorders' and – in my area of speciality, such evidence-based approaches are recommended for all – 100% of people experiencing psychotic phenomena such as hallucinations and delusions.
But this again returns to the language and thinking style of medicine – diagnosis, treatment, outcome. We need to accept that a focus on social determinants of well-being means that we are discussing what is effectively a social and psychological phenomenon, with medical aspects, not a medical phenomenon with social correlates
And this means…
7. In the multidisciplinary teams delivering these services, medical psychiatric colleagues should remain valuable colleagues. An ideal model for interdisciplinary working would see leadership of such teams determined by the personal qualities of the individual members of the team. It would not be assumed that 'clinical primacy' would inevitably put our medical colleagues in a position of unquestioned authority – people should regard themselves as consultants TO the team, not leaders OF the team.
This does have implications. It could mean a much greater reliance on GPs and other primary care colleagues as opposed to what are not 'traditional' psychiatrists. We might see joint working between GPs and community teams, with GPs offering the medical input when needed – as opposed to seeing psychiatrists serving this role.
And that might not only be beneficial for the service user, but could see a massive cost saving for the NHS, if this fed through to a commensurate reduction in our dependence on highly expensive psychiatrists.
And this principle could apply in residential care, too…
8. When people are in crisis, residential care may be needed, but this should not be seen as a medical issue. Since a 'disease-model' is inappropriate, it is inappropriate to care for people in hospital wards; a different model of care is needed. Residential units, again, should be based on social, not medical, models. Residential social workers or nurses may well be the most appropriate people to be in charge of such units. The nature of extreme distress means medical colleagues may well be valuable members of the team but again they should be consultants TO the ward, not having sapiential authority OVER the team.
As part of the process of accessing these residential units…
9. When the powers of the Mental Health Act are needed, the decisions should be based on the risks posed to self and others, but also on the person's capacity to make decisions about their own care. This approach is the basis for the law in Scotland, and the law in England and Wales permits the 'responsible clinician' to be a psychologist, nurse, or social worker. This should be routine. When we reject a 'disease-model' of care and adopt a 'human-centred' model, the law relating to mental health could change significantly; with different legal criteria, different ways of assuring that people are offered 'least restrictive alternatives', with a psychosocial focus, new roles for new professions, and a greater focus on social justice and judicial oversight.
But all this would – in my vision – need one final… or first… step.
10…. Base yourselves in local authority services, alongside other social, community-based, services.
That doesn't mean "design medical teams for psychiatry, manage them out of hospital-based, NHS-based Trusts but put them in a building away from the hospital site", it means locate the whole service in community services – put the service entirely under local authority control. In the UK, we have the model of public health (transferred to local authority control) to build upon. This should – and could then be – under democratic local governance. I recognise that some local authorities – especially, perhaps, in developing countries, may not yet be robust enough for the task, but this should be the vision and aspiration, rather than aiming for a medical model.
Adopting this approach would result in much lower reliance on medical interventions, and a much greater reliance on social and psychological interventions. We would – we may as well be honest – need fewer psychiatrists. As we see a move towards community-based social services, we would look to primary care (General Practice - GP) colleagues for much of the necessary medical consultation and input; linking psychological care to the wider well-being of patients in the community. We would, in contrast, require much greater emphasis on, training in, and staffing of, psychosocial approaches. What I'm proposing would be a very major revolution in psychiatric practice. It would challenge the central tenets of at least some traditionalist, biological, psychiatrists – and the knock-on implications for social psychiatrists (who might otherwise share Pat Bracken's views and therefore otherwise be sympathetic) could be equally significant as their power and authority is challenged.
In such a vision…. Where are psychologists and what is our role?. Well… In my view, good mental health is indeed: "a resource which enables them to realise their intellectual and emotional potential and to find and fulfil their roles in social, school and working life". My role, my job, your profession, is helping people fulfil their potential as human beings, not treating illnesses.
I believe that our thoughts, our emotions, our behaviour and therefore, our mental health is largely dependent on our understanding of the world, our thoughts about ourselves, other people, the future, and the world. Biological factors, social factors, circumstantial factors - our learning as human beings - affect us as those external factors impact on the key psychological processes that help us build up our sense of who we are and the way the world works.
It naturally follows that psychologists should play a central role. We should offer leadership – with colleagues such as Pat Bracken, Phil Thomas, Jo Moncrieff and Sami Timimi; psychiatrists proud of their profession and expert medical practitioners who nevertheless share these points of view.
But most importantly, we should lead in the process of change. I invite you to think about how we might work to make this kind of vision a reality.
Some steps might appear hugely ambitious – I am recommending that local authorities, not hospital Trusts, are the right home for psychiatry. You might think that the opposition to that might be overwhelming. And you might think that it would be impossible to achieve.
But we've recently seen public health services transferred from NHS responsibility to local authority management – a wholesale transfer, in my opinion placing public health where it should be – and under democratic control – and, significantly, meaning that local authorities now employ doctors and deliver clinical services. I believe psychiatry should follow them. So… perhaps this relies on the political and managerial activity of local Health and Well-Being Boards and the management teams of Trusts… but it's certainly not impossible.
And we've seen some public and influential psychiatrists recently arguing that it's dangerous to abandon the current diagnostic tools – despite their acknowledged and admitted flaws – because we have no proven alternative. The argument – the incorrect argument – is that the critics of diagnosis would need to develop a new technology of classification, which would then need to be counter-tested against diagnosis, before we could take the dangerous – in their view – step of abandoning the 'disease-model' approach.
Not true. It's forgivable for people with no perspective other than a 'disease-model', 'diagnosis-treat' approach to look within medicine and see… diagnosis and nothing more. But I am – we, as clinical psychologists, are – applied scientists.
We use the basic principles of applied science. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the scientific method as: "a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses."
So we use operational definitions of relevant concepts. We develop hypotheses. And we collect data. We don't need to meet the challenge of a new technological alternative to diagnosis and the "disease model". We've had it since the 17th century.
So it is time for change.
It is time to remember – and act up to – out core purpose as psychologists.
Psychological health and well-being is "... a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity"…. and "a resource which enables citizens to realise their intellectual and emotional potential and to find and fulfil their roles in social, school and working life".
Our thoughts, our emotions, our behaviour and therefore, our mental health are largely dependent on our understanding of the world, our thoughts about ourselves, other people, the future, and the world. Biological factors, social factors, circumstantial factors - our learning as human beings - affect us because those external factors impact on the key psychological processes that help us build up our sense of who we are and the way the world works.
Our particular role is to use the well-tested tools of science to understand this process and to intervene to help people improve their lives.
Change is needed, but it's also a return to our core purpose as a profession.
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This course has been very enlightening and a great help to myself and the people that I deal with.
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Very thought provoking and well established basis for the role of psychology in mental well being.
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Open Letter about BBC Coverage of Mental Health
Following Richard Bentall's inspired OpenLetter to Stephen Fry, we – a group of people who have (and still do) use mental health services, ...
Clinical Psychology in the UK – where will we be in 2023?
A talk given to the South East Thames Division of Clinical Psychology AGM Friday 22nd March 2013 Thank you. Just to ...
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A more humane approach to mental health
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text:
by Buzz May 8, 20198:54 pm May 11, 2019
Champions League: Defensive Disarray Leads To An All-England Final
I don't know much about soccer. I played through 5th grade, then I switched to football. What I do know about soccer is – Barcelona and Ajax completely fell to pieces. In similar fashion too. They had beyond-epic meltdowns, helping to secure an All-England Champions League Final.
Liverpool vs Barcelona
Barcelona came into this game with a 3-0 lead on aggregate. That meant that Liverpool would need to lead Barcelona 3-0 – just to tie things up. If Barcelona were to score an away goal then they would have the advantage on aggregate.
Things were looking terrible for Liverpool, especially when Mo Salah and Robert Firmino were ruled out for the match. To make things worse, two of my favorite former-Liverpool players were starting for the other side at Anfield. Those players being Suarez and Coutinho.
Barcelona did not look like Barcelona, and Liverpool played an unbelievable game at home. Like I have said – I don't know much about soccer. However, that last goal was ridiculous. That was an incredibly bone-headed defensive miscue that Barcelona fans will be crying about for the next year.
Tottenham vs Ajax
What a wild semi-final this was. At first glance this seems more like a group stage game than a Champions League Semi-Final. Ajax won the first game 1-0 at Tottenham. I checked the score for this game around halftime. I saw that it was 2-0, 3-0 aggregate, and thought there was no point in turning the game on. I was way wrong.
Lucas Moura turned into superman in the second half, scoring a hat trick. His third and final goal during injury time tied the aggregate, but gave them the edge on away goals and secured Tottenham's place in the final. That goal was an unbelievable heads up play by Lucas Moura. Ajax will have a tough time bouncing back after allowing that to happen.
On June 1, 2019 in Madrid, Spain we will have an All-England Champions League Final of Liverpool vs Tottenham.
It has to be Liverpool's year after falling to Real Madrid in the final last year. Do Jurgen and The Reds have what it takes to bring the trophy back to Anfield?
– Buzz


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The first trailer for Avengers: Endgame dropped last week and while it gave Marvel fans their first look at the eagerly-anticipated film, it also left fans with plenty of questions -- especially those about Ant-Man/Scott Lang.
In the trailer, Scott shows up outside the Avengers headquarters apparently well after The Decimation event. As Scott had previously been considered among the missing, his appearance was a shocking one for Captain America and Black Widow. For fans, though, Scott's appearance was exciting as it seemed to hint that the theories about time travel and the quantum real might be true.
However, for one user on Reddit, Scott's appearance is less about using time travel or the quantum realm to avoid being killed when Thanos snapped his fingers and more about the nature of what happened in The Decimation instead. According to "joethehamface", maybe none of those who turned to dust in The Decimation actually died and are, instead, simply in another reality.
The theory is surprisingly straightforward. When Thanos said something to the effect that death was unnecessary when one has the power to change things with the infinite powers of the Infinity Gauntlet, he might not have been speaking metaphorically. The theory speculates that when Thanos snapped, he simply split reality into two parts with each part missing people. That means that while Captain America and the others witnessed the dusting of their friends, heroes like Scarlet Witch saw those we've dubbed "survivors" turn to ash as well. Under this theory, there's a whole other world where people are trying to figure out how to undo things and bring their loved ones back form the "dead".
"Is the Quantum Realm a safe place?" Ant-Man and the Wasp director Peyton Reed said to ComicBook.com. "I assume there's parts of the Quantum Realm that are safe, and parts that are dangerous, and I think it remains to be seen how and if he'll get out of the Quantum Realm. Beyond that, I ain't saying a thing, man. I don't want a Marvel sniper showing up at my house and taking me out."
What do you think? Let us know your thoughts on this Ant-Man theory in the comments below.
Avengers: Infinity War is now available on home media. Upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, Avengers: Endgame on April 26, 2019, and Spider-Man: Far From Home on July 5, 2019.


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Open: Wednesday-Sunday, 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
Average annual snowfall: 250″ 100% natural snow!


Dublin, Ireland, 9th November, 2016. Fitness champ alias INDIAN LION Paras Gupta raised India's collar in Dublin. Paras has proved worth of the power of Indian lion by getting Silver medal in Senior category in WFF-16 . 25-year-old Paras has become the youngest player to represent country at an International platform in senior category. Paras has lots of National Medals before this. World Fitness Federation (WFF) 2016 was organized at Dublin, Ireland this year on 6th November 2016, which was made a success by BSN company. Representatives from several countries amazed the Judges by their muscles. After passing through several strict norms, Paras succeeded to win the Silver medal in the competition. Meanwhile, China bagged the first position.
Paras's father Sunil Gupta told some interesting habit of Paras's childhood. He said 'In his childhood Paras used to stand in front of mirror for hours staring at himself making different poses. At that time, nobody has imagined that one day he will achieve something like this. It makes us feel proud when we are addressed parents of a son who made country's name shine across the globe'.
Whole country, family as well as fans are feeling proud of Paras's victory. Such sons add to the pride of motherland. Paras's home is continuously receiving phone call and congratulatory messages since the news of his victory has been out.


Our fully accessible custom converted 16 seater party bus, equipped with audio visual technology, creates an enjoyable and moveable environment in which to engage with young people as they tackle issues facing them today. It's 'kerbside appeal' means that it immediately attracts attention wherever it is parked.
The multi media technology and comfortable seating creates an ideal environment for educational purposes and as a safe place for young people to gather when it is parked or as a base for our Street Team at community events. Hot drinks and bottled water are available free of charge.
In other South Hams towns and villages, we are visiting with the bus and inspiring, training and supporting a whole army of community volunteers to start their own youth outreach projects.
If you are interested in starting a project in the South Hams area and would like our help or the use of the bus to help kick start something please get in touch.


text:
Gay Press: The Long Haul
by Tracy Baim, Windy City Times
Working in the gay press should probably be measured in dog years. Right-wing threats, death and destruction, physical assaults, robberies, property destruction, and that's not to mention the internal struggles within our great rainbow community—it all makes those years seem so much longer.
But while hundreds of reporters have come and gone through the years of gay media in Chicago, I feel very fortunate to have done this since 1984, one month out of journalism school. I had been doing newspapers since I was 10 years old, shadowing my mother, Joy Darrow, when she was managing editor of the Chicago Defender, creating a family newsletter, and then working on grammar-school, high-school and college newspapers, as well as starting my own feminist newsletter in college.
Still, when I graduated with a journalism degree from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, in May 1984, I assumed I would never have a career in journalism. I didn't think I could be an out lesbian and a reporter, so I readied myself for a typesetting career supplemented by activism and journalism—just as in college. I packed up my 1966 Mustang with all my college memorabilia and headed home to Chicago.
Within a few weeks, my mom heard about a part-time job at GayLife newspaper, owned by Chuck Renslow. I worked doing typesetting and some writing for it, while also freelancing for the Chicago Tribune, where my stepdad Steve Pratt was a reporter and editor of the City Trib section. And to pay the bills, I was typesetting at night for an advertising firm.
Given the low wages and lousy hours, attrition was a fact of life in the gay press. I moved up from editorial assistant to editor of GayLife in 12 months—in time for the June 1985 Pride edition.
I was really lucky to graduate when I did. There were a few dozen Chicagoans who had done the heavy lifting of gay journalism in the 1960s and 1970s, into the early 1980s. They started newspapers, radio shows and newsletters. They fought harassment, struggled to pay the bills and somehow created a thriving media world by the time I started at GayLife. My role models included Marie J. Kuda and William B. Kelley, who had reported in the 1960s for the Mattachine Midwest Newsletter, and Toni Armstrong Jr. and Jorjet Harper, who were lesbian journalism pioneers.
By the summer of 1985, there were stirrings at GayLife. When a group left to start Windy City Times, I joined them as founding managing editor. I left again, 18 months later, to start Outlines newspaper, and then added subsequent sister publications ( Nightlines, BLACKlines, En La Vida, Out!, Clout!, Identity, etc. ) over the years. More on that elsewhere in this issue.
Bars, Bombs and Crises
Since there were so few pages in the gay newspapers, and of course no Internet, the power of the press in the 1980s was in choosing just what to cover. It was always a battle for space, and to this day there has never been an edition where we didn't have far too much to print. Making decisions on what to include, whom to cover and what photos to run was always difficult. A lot of what we were writing about was news briefs, AIDS developments and local organization events.
From the start, I was plunged deep into the gay and feminist communities. I covered Mountain Moving Coffeehouse for Womyn and Children, the Pride Parade, sports leagues, gay and lesbian business owners, gay bars and, most importantly, the growing AIDS crisis.
My first bylined cover story for GayLife was June 14, 1984, about a man arrested for placing 24 bombs in Chicago, claiming to be the "North American Central Gay Strike Force Against Public and Police Oppression." He was a lone wolf, likely not gay. But I have to say that I did not even remember that story until recent years, when I started to work on gay history projects, including co-writing and editing Out and Proud in Chicago: An Overview of the City's Gay Community and launching www.chicagogayhistory.org . Having worked pretty much seven days a week—16-to-18-hour days—on LGBT news and issues for all these years, it's funny how little I remember of some of the actual stories. But the memories come flooding back when I page through those yellowing issues of the papers.
In that same GayLife issue, I also wrote about the closing of the Jane Addams feminist bookstore, after seven years in business. I took photos of the Pride Parade that month and covered the Proud to Run Race.
My first major interview was with ex-Mormon Sonia Johnson, running a third-party race for U.S. president. My interview ran July 12, 1984, and she attacked even Geraldine Ferraro, who was the Democratic vice-presidential pick that year. ( Johnson later came out as a lesbian. )
One article I wrote in the June 20, 1985, issue of GayLife led to a series of articles ( including some at subsequent papers ) on the anti-gay terror striking the University of Chicago and Hyde Park community. A right-wing newspaper, the Chicago Patriot, had been published by students and included offensive remarks about AIDS, gays, investment in South Africa and more. Later, when I worked on related stories about events at the U of C, and actual anti-gay attacks, I received phone calls at home threatening my life if I continued to cover the stories.
Of course, I continued investigating the stories, but I was scared. In later years, we received threats, usually through the mail, including some suspicious powder soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks. We also were robbed of all our computers, suffered additional robberies and even had our windows shot at ( when we were not there ). Our news boxes were vandalized ( dirty diapers being a favorite ) and stolen. I was arrested covering an early-1990s Easter Sunday pro-choice demonstration at a right-wing church on the Northwest Side. The arrest and threats were never a deterrent—they usually were a motivator.
I also wrote a lot of editorials for GayLife and subsequent gay papers, but I was always most comfortable doing news articles and interviews. I did some fluff stories, business profiles, and lots of sports news since I played in the lesbian sports leagues, and I took thousands of photos a year. And because I am a pack rat for history, I have saved almost every press release and photo—including those by other photographers.
Once I made the move to Windy City Times in September 1985, I felt freer to explore all parts of the LGBT community. I had never felt constrained by GayLife Publisher Chuck Renslow, but Windy City Times soon had a larger advertising base and therefore more space to cover the community. It was all about the space ( no overflow of articles to the Internet yet ).
Even though I was managing editor, at a small paper that means doing everything, including typesetting and delivery. I found that such chores kept me more interested than just doing writing or editing all day. The cover of our first Windy City Times, on Sept. 26, 1985, was my story about the new Committee on Gay and Lesbian Issues appointed by Mayor Harold Washington.
The years 1985—'87 were among the most devastating and exciting in Chicago's gay community. AIDS was tightening its terrifying grip on our city, slightly delayed from the East and West coasts. We lost some of our own staff ( travel writer Richard Cash was among the first to die ) and one of our WCT founders, Bob Bearden, to AIDS. There was a large push for the city's gay-rights bill; gays were running for office; more gay businesses were opening; sports and culture groups were thriving; new nonprofits were starting; the 1987 March on Washington sparked a huge growth in local groups back in cities such as Chicago; and ACT UP formed to take a no-prisoners approach to fighting for access to a cure for AIDS.
During the 18 months in my first turn as managing editor of Windy City Times, until May 1987, I was so excited and honored to cover this incredible growth in the community. The highlight was a huge downtown rally in July 1986, when all parts of the community came together to push for a city gay-rights bill vote. There was a buzz unlike any I had witnessed earlier. There were people of all races and genders, thousands strong in Daley Center Plaza. I snapped photos, took notes, and had tears in my eyes seeing such community unity. We ran the phone numbers of all 50 aldermen and encouraged readers to call their elected officials.
That unity has rarely shown itself, but when it does, I am a sucker for the emotions of the moment. Yet I am also realistic, and for the most part the community's divisions have been the hardest part to cover. The sexism, racism, ageism, classism and geographic divisions make this city a smoldering pot, not a melting pot. I was called a "cunt" and other names by men threatened by a woman publisher.
Of course, there are also the sinister elements, those who are just gays gone bad, who steal from nonprofits, abuse drugs and alcohol, destroy businesses and organizations, or even in some cases murder. I have covered my share of serial and spree killers within the gay community, those so distorted and so ashamed of their own true selves that they have to kill to cope, from John Wayne Gacy ( who was arrested long before I started, but who was put to death in 1994 ) to Larry Eyler ( who was on the scene when I started at GayLife ) and later Jeffrey Dahmer and Andrew Cunanan.
The high-profile cases of murders and suicide have been especially traumatic to write about. The 1998 killing of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming, the murders of numerous transgender, lesbian, bisexual and gay Chicagoans, and the spike in reported LGBT youth suicides are very difficult to report. Windy City Times did a series on youth suicide in 2010, and at that time I wrote about my own suicide attempt while in college. I have infrequently used personal difficulties to relate the stories of our movement, but it is not easy getting personal with the political.
So it is not all parades and galas, bartenders and athletes, that keep this LGBT world spinning. As a journalist, you can get pretty disgusted and burned out with the difficult stories.
But then, what always kept me going was the true heroes of our community, those who were martyred for our movement in deaths due to AIDS, cancer, murder, car crashes or other tragedies, or those who have been able to soldier on, keeping committed to their activism for decades, despite the burnout, despite the bitter community infighting.
Notable Moments
There were many other notable moments over my 31 years:
— Meeting and interviewing Mayor Harold Washington in 1986 was a highlight for me as a 23-year-old journalist. He was a big teddy bear of a man, warm and fierce at the same time. Covering his re-election was exciting and rewarding. And I even had the guts to ask him about the rumors about his sexuality ( he denied them ).
— The push for the city's human-rights ordinance was at a fever pitch in the mid-1980s. The forced ( and failed ) vote under Washington led to heightened community activism, and eventual passage under Mayor Eugene Sawyer in 1988. The work of the Gang of Four and hundreds of other activists and politicians was fantastic to watch and cover. Reporting about the City Council for the final winning vote in 1988, under Mayor Sawyer, was phenomenal.
— In 1985, I drove to northern Minnesota to interview Karen Thompson in one of the more tragic stories of the 1980s gay movement. Her partner, Sharon Kowalski, was severely injured in a November 1983 car accident, and Sharon's family won court victories to keep Karen out of her life. This badly affected Sharon's recovery and future health. Interviewing Karen less than two years after the accident, and after Sharon had been moved to a nursing home, was difficult, but her story served as an example to gay couples across the country to get their legal paperwork in order. Sadly, these types of cases still happen.
— Attending and covering the 1987, 1993 and 2000 Marches on Washington were life-changing experiences, as was being at the 1994 Stonewall 25 March combined with the Gay Games in New York. Priceless. The 1987 march and related events were especially pivotal and inspiring, including taking photos of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, and Chicago attorney Renee Hanover and others being arrested at the U.S. Supreme Court protest.
— I witnessed the courage of Black LGBT activists in pushing for inclusion in Chicago's Bud Billiken Parade. Janice Layne recommended applying to be in the parade, and when activists won ( with the help of Lambda Legal ) and subsequently marched in the event, I was happy to walk the route taking photos. This was a wonderful event to cover, and the acceptance from the onlookers brought tears to my eyes. I had watched the parade as a child, because my mom, Joy Darrow, covered the parade for the Chicago Defender.
— Starting BLACKlines and En La Vida newspapers brought emotional highlights for me, especially the first-anniversary party for BLACKlines at the DuSable Museum, with my mom mixing the punch. This was just shortly before she died, so it is an important memory for me. Since Joy, as a white woman, had been managing editor of the Defender for eight years, she was especially proud of me for launching BLACKlines. The economics couldn't support those papers after 10 years of publishing, but I was very happy to have been publisher of such important monthly media.
— Receiving the 2005 Community Media Workshop's Studs Terkel Award, presented by Terkel himself, was a career highlight. I am also thankful for the other journalism and community awards I have received, including induction into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame at age 31, and induction in 2014 into the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Hall of Fame and the Chicago Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame.
— Being co—vice chair of the board of Gay Games VII in 2006 was a once-in-a-lifetime experience as an organizer, showcasing Chicago to the world—and breaking even, financially. I think we did our city proud, despite the odds ( and people ) against us. Doing outreach for the Games and speaking in more closeted towns, including Crystal Lake ( where our rowing events were held ), proved educational even to this jaded journalist.
— Founding the Chicago Area Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce in 1995 was also an important accomplishment for me. I believe it was the first gay and lesbian business group to use the word "chamber" in its title, and now that has been replicated all over the country—and the world. Around that time I also received the Crain's Chicago Business 40 Under 40 Award, which made me feel accepted beyond the gay community.
— The chicagogayhistory.org website has been a labor of love for me, interviewing hundreds of current and former Chicagoans on gay issues. I launched this in 2007, and want to do many more—only time and funding restrict all it can be. This also got me thinking about writing books on history, and I been lucky to have published my 11th book this year, on Barbara Gittings.
— Producing the films Hannah Free, starring Sharon Gless and terrific Chicago actors, and Scrooge & Marley with a host of actors—well, those are experiences I can't even compare to anything else. And they are simply other ways to tell our community's stories—journalism on the big screen.
— Interviewing Barack Obama in 2004 for his U.S. Senate run, and doing a 2010 in-depth book on him, Obama and the Gays: A Political Marriage, are certainly high points of my journalism career. Going to the White House for his June 2012 Pride Month reception, and getting a hug and kiss from the president, was amazing.
— In recent years, stepping away from journalism to coordinate the March on Springfield for Marriage Equality in 2013, and the LGBTQ Youth Homeless Summit in 2014 have really challenged me. I especially want to focus on community-wide solutions to complex issues that impact not just our community, but beyond. I think we LGBTQs have the talent to lift all boats even more than we already do, so a new group is officially launching next month, Pride Action Tank ( as a project of AIDS Foundation of Chicago ), to help us work better in coalition with one another, and the mainstream.
Journalism Juggling 101
The funny thing for me all these years has been the multiple hats I have had to wear, just to keep doing what I love most: reporting. Some people have criticized the conflicts of interest I have to navigate in doing this, but it was the only path I knew to follow in order to keep doing the work. I decided to co-found Windy City Times at age 22, and run my own paper at age 24 so that I could control my own destiny—as a writer. It took me a long time to claim the title of "publisher" at Outlines, even though that was what I was—and nobody else was doing that work. For decades, I have been lucky enough to have shareholders in the paper who have allowed me to make a lot of mistakes as I worked through sleepless nights on a very long learning curve.
So I do sales, writing, editing, photography, delivery, opinion columns, and whatever else it takes to keep Windy City Times visible and thriving.
And I don't take that surviving lightly. Having almost died a few times in my life, I have never taken my days for granted. I also came of age as a gay media reporter when the city had just a few dozen diagnosed cases of AIDS. This was like coming into a war zone, as people on our own staff, and all over the gay community, began to die very quickly, with no end in sight. I was covering the deaths of men ( and some women ) my age or just slightly older. Many of them never received coverage in the mainstream media, so it fell on the gay press to document their lives. That pattern is repeating with the murders of transgender women of color. The mainstream is barely noticing this plague, and we as a community must pressure to help and change this narrative.
Looking back over thousands of obituaries over the years, and hundreds of funerals I attended, it was the greatest honor to cover the war years, as a young person just getting to understand what her "community" was, making sure our community's heroes are not forgotten.
I remember their faces, their smiles, their anger and their tears. And that is what keeps me motivated.
This essay was adapted from Gay Press, Gay Power: The Growth of LGBT Community Newspapers in America, edited by Tracy Baim, published in 2012 by Prairie Avenue Productions.
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Lisa Middleton becomes Palm Springs mayor, third out trans mayor in U.S. history, first in CA
--From a press release - PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — Today LGBTQ Victory Fund and Equality California jointly praised news that Palm Springs, California City Councilwoman Lisa Middleton will be sworn-in as Palm Springs mayor on Thursday. Middleton will become the first ...
Windy City Times 2021 recipient of NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists Legacy Award
--From a press release - WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 9, 2021) — Today, NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists announced that the Windy City Times is the 2021 recipient of the NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists Legacy Award. The NLGJA: The ...
Chicago queer hair artists carve out safe spaces to cut and style hair
When Blue Line Barbers moved locations, Talia Roxit immediately knew which barber chair she wanted to claim: the one closest to the window. "It's not that I want the attention, but I want to draw in ...
Autistic ChicanIndia queer artist Sabrina Zarco discusses creative process
Sabrina Zarco is a ChicanIndia queer femme multi-media artist. She is also an activist, poet, cultural worker and community educator. Her visual artwork, or "artivist work," as Zarco calls it on her website, documents stories often ...


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