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The Free Library > Humanities > Literature, writing, book reviews > Twentieth Century Literature > June 1, 2016
The Free Library > Date > 2016 > June > 1 > Twentieth Century Literature
The Disarticulate: Language, Disability, and the Narratives of Modernity.
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The Disarticulate: Language, Disability, and the Narratives of Modernity, by James Berger. New York University Press, 2014. 320 pages.
James Berger's second book has been published in New York University Press's Cultural Front series, which, rather than having a thematic focus, develops "new ways of thinking about--and promoting--open and egalitarian societies." As such, his title represents something of a misnomer. "The Disarticulate," as Berger explains in the book's helpful introduction, was originally "The Dys-/Disarticulate," before an editorial decision to erase the slash so as to avoid confusion. The erasure and subsequent reintroduction of this slash, this confusion, this stutter acts as a fitting reenactment of the ethical challenges presented by this book, which concerns itself with the relationship between the symbolically apprehensible and the not-linguistic, the speaking and the non-speaking. For Berger, the figure of the dys-/disarticulate resides, or at least is imagined to reside, at the boundary of the social-symbolic, a liminal place where there is no adequate terminology. As disarticulate, this figure is "forcibly severed from the social fabric, stigmatized, silenced, possibly physically dismembered" (2). As dysarticulate, this figure is "blocked from language, standing at the convergence of all of language's impasses: those of injury, trauma, neurological variation, socio-political silencing, and the workings of language itself as language plots its own aporias." Figured linguistically as the "outside of language" and perceived as the "other," the dys-/ disarticulate foregrounds and problematizes representational strategies and ethical considerations. Berger brings a wealth of both professional and personal experience to bear on such matters. His first book, After the End: Representations of Post-Apocalypse (1999), engaged with the limits of language by considering what would be the symbolic remainder after trauma, after "apocalypse." His relationship with his two developmentally disabled sisters, Susan and Claudia, led him, meanwhile, to reflect on experiences of separation, questions of home and institution, feelings of sibling responsibility, and, ultimately, the issue of care as it relates to those with linguistic and cognitive impairments. Issues of metaphor, trauma, and care animate this important work, which has much to offer the fields of disability theory, literary studies (particularly the study of modernist and postmodern literature), and neuroscience.
Today, all of us live among the ruins of Babel. The first, Adamic, language purported to be a perfect language, a language that named things truly, unambiguously, perfectly. Each term was precisely a proper term. With the fall of Babel came the fall into languages, "into ambiguity, duplicity, multiplicity, jokes, puns, lies, translations, fictions, and truths in the plural" (16). If language was once indexical, truly naming the thing, after this second fall it became merely conventional, always dependent on a third term. According to Berger, if language is tropic, lacking proper terms, then "catachresis" should be understood as the general condition of language. Catachresis is, for him, the very foundation of language. As such, an account of its workings constitutes a great deal of this book. Berger defines catachresis, or kata-chresis (kata: against; chresis: use), as "an abuse of language," that is, as "the use of the wrong word or of a word with a standard usage in one context dragged into a use against usage in another" (28). A good example of this would be the statement "I see a voice." Understood in this way, catachresis takes the common understanding of metaphor to its extreme. Where metaphor commonly means to make an implicit comparison between two different things, summoning a term from one context to another, catachresis means "to 'bear across' . . . from the inexhaustible, and inexhaustibly desired, realm of not-language into language" (29). It means to gesture toward the outside of language. Accordingly, it is, Berger suggests, catachresis that facilitates the emergence of language out of nonlanguage.
Such an understanding of metaphor as catachresis serves to highlight, for Berger, a central problem of a particularly influential strain of thought in disability studies--the rendering of all metaphorical use of disability as problematic. Although Berger also takes issue with the work of Rosemarie Garland-Thomson and Tobin Siebers, his critique emphasizes the work of David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder, particularly Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse (2000). Drawing on the prevalence of metaphorical uses of disability in literary and filmic narratives, they suggest that narrative, rather than highlighting the social and political dimensions of disability, often employs disability as a metaphor, as a "narrative prosthesis," that is, as a "crutch upon which literary narratives lean for their representative power, disruptive potential, and analytical insight" (49). According to Berger, such a critique of metaphor relies on an Aristotelian view of metaphor in which the metaphorical substitutes for the actual, true term. According to such a view, if metaphor were to represent "something other than itself," then, the portrayal of disability would contain no residue of meaning, no ambiguity, and therefore could be definitively known "as it really is," as it is lived, materially.
Berger posits, however, that metaphor does not work by means of simple substitution but instead by the mechanism of catachresis, in which "a word is recognized to denote some entity that has not yet been adequately conceptualized and that has, at present, no word that signifies it" (149). Only by understanding metaphor as catachresis can the emergence of new perspectives and new knowledge be accounted for. While the critique of new perspectives and knowledge in the form of bad or unfair aesthetic representations is, for Berger, within the purview of disability theory, it does not, for him, dictate a broader critique of metaphor. Such a distinction is no small matter as the compatibility of disability studies and literary studies is at stake. (1) The position of disability theorists like Mitchell and Snyder understands narrative as affirming dominant ideologies through the marginalization or even negation of disabled characters. Berger argues, by contrast, that the portrayals of dys-/disarticulate characters are "far more multivalent than straightforward disability analyses would seem to allow" (152). Understanding all language as figural, as catachresis, allows Berger in this book to explicate how modern narratives use the concept of the dys-/disarticulate as a means to critique the powerful aesthetic, scientific, and political discourses that construct the "degenerate," "wild child," and "ideology" of neuroscience.
In chapter 1, "The Bearing Across of Language: Care, Catachresis, and Political Failure," Berger clearly and forcefully lays out the primary conflict that will enliven the readings of dys-/disarticulate figures throughout this book: the ways in which the representational tensions that construct dys-/disarticulate figures, which are overdetermined by discourses from religion to aesthetics to science, problematize their roles as objects of care, particularly in relation to sexuality. While this chapter features illuminating readings of Carson McCullers's The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and Herman Melville's Billy Budd, it is William Wordsworth's "The Idiot Boy" that serves as the ur-text of modern depictions of the linguistically and cognitively impaired. For Berger, the boundary of language in this literary text is uncrossable by conventional means. It is only through the poem's "idiot" protagonist Johnny, who provides a new poetic form, that a "meta-pherein," or carrying across, from the nonlinguistic can take place. Existing in tension with Johnny is the doctor, who, as the agent of aspiring rationality, pursues the elimination of alterity. This text seeks, in other words, to "maintain and elaborate a catachretic relation with otherness, and not allow it to be absorbed into philosophical, scientific, or political languages of rationality" (33). Berger writes that it is familial and communal care that makes Johnny's aesthetics possible. Although relationships of care are presented in this story as threatened by the disarticulating forces of modernization, such forces are, Berger argues, directed back toward language itself by the dys-/disarticulation of language, which produces an avant-garde poetics grounded in traditional, Christian ethics. Care is also threatened by the erotic, which must be suppressed for the ethical to function in this and the other texts examined in this book. Wordsworth's "The Idiot Boy" thereby exemplifies a number of features that are made more explicit in Berger's analyses of modernist and postmodern literature: the impaired figure's (1) marginalization, (2) availability to both projected fantasies by the other characters and textual overdetermination, (3) language functioning as an avant-garde poetics, (4) vulnerability and opposition to the discourses and institutions of modernity, and (5) role as an object of care (37).
The following two chapters, entitled "Linguistic Impairment and the Default of Modernism: Totality and Otherness: Dys-/Disarticulate Modernity" and "Post-Modern Wild Children, Falling Towers, and the Counter-Linguistic Turn," consider how an exit from the systemic and pervasive forces of modernity can be found. In chapter 2, Berger considers characters diagnosed as degenerate who serve as the objects of genuine forms of care outside the totalizing social-symbolic system. Yet, as Berger shows by reading effectively at the level of form, these attempts at care fail, with these characters ultimately being removed from the social-symbolic order. Stevie from Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, for instance, espouses a Christian ethics of care that represents "a genuine alternative to the totalizing, self-interested ideologies of modernity" (75). Such an ethics has no place in the novel, however, as Conrad's trademark irony renders a closed system lacking the possibility of any alterity. Care in William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury consists in Caddy's "efforts to re-articulate [Benjy] into family and social life" (86).The novel ends, however, with Caddy, and her burgeoning sexuality, banished and Benjy's radical otherness annulled by the omniscient narration of part IV. Berger then reads Robin from Djuna Barnes's Nigh two of in relation to Stevie and Benjy, a pairing he admits is not particularly convincing given that these latter characters clearly suffer from developmental disabilities while she can use language but seems "unable or unwilling to give an account of herself" (1961, 49). What a consideration of this novel allows for is a complication of the notion of care, as Robin, unlike Stevie and Benjy, is an object of care and desire. The consequences of this mingling of care and desire are gestured toward during Robin's concluding transaction with the dog: whereas the rest of the novel employs analogy to emphasize the gap between bios and logos, the end eliminates this gap through an absence of analogy. If, as this ending signifies, Robin is a way out of the totalizing modern social-symbolic order, it is not at all clear to Berger whether what she has liberated herself into is a fascist or utopic future.
Chapter 3 interrogates such a desire for escape from the totalizing modern social-symbolic order. Specifically, it considers the responses to a period, postmodernity, characterized by a damaged linguistic-social order, as represented by the fall of Babel. Not unlike the modern degenerate, it is the wild child during this period that embodies a radical alterity in relation to such a linguistic-social order. While the Enlightenment wild child occupied the liminal space between nature and culture, what Berger terms the "post-modern wild child" emerges from within the social-symbolic as a hybrid of the natural (the "state of nature") and the biological (genetic and neurological). For instance, Chance in Jerzy Kosinski's Being There is read as being both outside the symbolic and mediated by it as a result of growing up both in the garden and in front of the television. Postmodern wild children differ from modern degenerates, according to Berger, in that they are more explicitly sites of projection, products of the fantasies and wishes placed upon them. The role that desire plays in this construction is elucidated by contrasting the works of Oliver Sacks and Don DeLillo: where Sacks "ignores the role of desire in the relations between cognitive and linguistic impairment and culture," DeLillo emphasizes "the desire to imagine wild children with the power to redeem us and pull us with them outside the symbolic order" (133). DeLillo, through his portrayals of Wilder from White Noise and Tap from The Names, emphasizes, according to Berger, that the desire to escape from the traumatic burden of a damaged linguistic-social order can take the form not only of transcendence and redemption but also terror and violence.
What is implied in this previous chapter is made more explicit in chapter 4, "Dys-/Disarticulation and Disability": that the study of the dys-/disarticulate is to a great degree the study of trauma. In seeking to identify points of contact between the fields of disability studies and trauma studies, fields that rose to prominence during roughly the same period of time, (2) Berger makes perhaps his most timely and important intervention in this book (3) when he suggests that such a lack of contact arises due to differences concerning (1) the status of the event and (2) the politics of representation. Trauma theory emphasizes the event of trauma, as a thing that happens with symptomatic consequences; for disability theory, however, trauma is not an actual historical event but rather "an ongoing or structural presence in the norm itself--a rupture in its self-perception" (165). In refusing to theorize the traumatic event, disability theory thereby continues to neglect critical issues of vulnerability, healing, and mortality that follow from an event experienced as traumatic. As described earlier, Berger questions disability theory's suspicion of metaphor, which, for him, only allows for the most literal, iconoclastic representations of persons with disability. Discussions of trauma, by contrast, necessarily rely on metaphor, specifically catachresis, since there exists no language adequate to signifying the traumatic event. As Berger writes, "The post-traumatic world is an emergence of something from nothing" (166). Berger identifies such limitations inherent to the disability studies approach in the work of Mitchell and Snyder, arguing that, in their reading of Captain Ahab from Herman Melville's Mohy-Dick, they suggest that "people with disabilities can be reduced to the physical evidence of their bodily difference" (2000, 123), such that "physical disability becomes synonymous in the text with the tragedy of a deterministic fate" (138). Such an analysis focused on Ahab's physical condition prevents a thoughtful consideration of the trauma that causes this condition. According to Berger, Melville's novel depicts Ahab's traumatic moment as generating a new symbolic system in the form of Ahab's politics, which allows him to rely on a crew in his post-traumatic world. Thus, at those points of contact between the fields of disability studies and trauma studies resides the dys-/disarticulate, which captains the journey across this divide.
After this brief interlude, chapter 5, "Alterity Is Relative: Impairment, Narrative, and Care in an Age of Neuroscience," returns to the questions posed in the previous chapters, namely the imagining of radical alterity in relation to the totalizing ideologies of modernity. What Berger terms the "ideology" of neuroscience continues the work of earlier totalizing ideologies: he describes this ideology as an act of disavowal because even though neuroscientists concur that total knowledge of brain/mind is not possible, they still make such totalizing claims. (4) The ascendance of this ideology gives rise to the "model," which is "the static representation of a fluid state [that] claims to provide a picture of the reality of the state and to be able to predict future states" (186). Berger contrasts the model with "narrative," which attempts to understand events in time, articulate the subjective experience of time in language, and provide knowledge of contingency and ambiguity (188). In response to the powerful claims of this ideology, contemporary novels, including Mark Haddon's A Curious Incident of a Dog in the Night-Time, Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn, and Richard Powers's The Echo Maker, act as defenses of the novel, of narrative. (5) In analyzing the neurological disabilities presented in these novels--Christophers autism, Lionel's Tourette's, and Mark's Capgras Syndrome, respectively--Berger too often relies on a deficit-based model. Specifically, his understanding of autism draws on the problematic idea that the autistic subject lacks a "theory of mind" and, therefore, empathy. Yet Berger does affirmatively assert that alterity is relative, that these characters fall on a neurological spectrum comprising all people. Arriving at the conclusion that contemporary fictions revise the notion of radical alterity found in modernist and postmodern literature, this book situates degenerates and wild children outside the totalizing social-symbolic system. Indeed, Berger suggests that these defenses of narrative, in opposing the ideology of neuroscience, revise our very sense of otherness. He ends by making the bold claim that narrative "in neuroscientific terms is in fact a truer form of knowledge than the model and ... the ideology of neuroscience would allow," since narrative accords with the science of neuroscience in characterizing life as indeterminate, open to change, and vulnerable (230). In this way, narrative revises otherness, figuring the self as other to itself as well as figuring the other as other to itself.
Such a revised understanding of otherness and alterity presents "social-ethical challenges to re-articulate [the dys-/disarticulate], to articulate and practice new forms of care" (230). In the epilogue, '"Language in Dissolution' and 'A World without Words,"' Berger identifies David Goode's A World without Words: The Social Construction of Children Born Deaf and Blind (1994) as an important influence on his thinking. For
Goode, the relationship between the speaking and non-speaking is the ultimate testing ground for an ethics. Throughout his book, Berger emphasizes the insufficiency or even failure of care within a seemingly unchangeable unjust social order, arguing, for instance, that in Haddon's Curious Incident all people demonstrate Christopher's "failure of empathy" (206). Significant recent work in critical autism studies has, conversely, questioned "the autism/empathy dichotomy" (McDonagh 2013, 32) and even proposed that the autistic subject embodies a different "ethics of relation" predicated on an "empathy not explicitly for or toward the human, but with the world in its emergence" (Manning 2013, 152). By hoping for better care in the future, after a social reformation, Berger avoids the challenge of actually articulating new, radical modes of caring in the present. Alyson Bardsley, in her analysis of Jane Smiley's Horse Heaven, takes up this challenge, and in doing so offers an alternative approach. While admitting that Smiley's "creation of an ideal healing circuit of feeling between a horse and her girl" is limited due to being an individual solution to a social set of problems, Bardsley still finds this "fantasy of healing" to be "a place from which to offer a critique" (2015, 265). Even with such perceived shortcomings, Berger's The Disarticulate stands as a significant and relevant book in its embrace of our shared responsibility to recognize those uncanny bodies, babbles, and echoes that demand care.
DOI 10.1215/0041462X-3616612
Ajitpaul Mangat is a doctoral candidate in the English department at SUNY Buffalo. His research interests include British and American modernism, disability studies, and the mind-sciences, and his dissertation considers how the modernist novel reshapes understandings of the sensory and social experience of neuropsychiatric disability.
(1.) Berger draws here upon the work of Michael Berube who, in "Disability and Narrative" (2005), argues that disability studies' suggestion to not read the representation of disability as figural threatens to make it "incompatible with the enterprise of professional literary studies, dedicated as so much of it is to the interpretation of the figural" (2005, 570). As Berger shows, Berube ultimately reintegrates the two, concluding that "rereading narrative from the perspective of disability studies ... is to try and learn what makes all reading and self-representation possible" (576).
(2.) Berger points out that two of the defining books in these fields, Cathy Caruth's Unclaimed Experience (1996) and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson's Extraordinary Bodies (1997), were released just a year apart.
(3.) For a useful summary of Berger's position, see his entry on "Trauma" in Keywords for Disability Studies (2015).
(4.) In "Freud and the Matter of the Brain: On the Rearrangements of Neuropsychoanalysis" (2013), Nima Bassiri finds that the adage "you are your brain" (108) underlies much neuroscientific research today.
(5.) For recent readings of modern narratives in terms of neuroscience, see the special edition of Modern Fiction Studies entitled "Neuroscience and Modern Fiction" (2015).
Bardsley, Alyson. 2015. "Interspecies Limbic Love: Jane Smiley's Horse Heaven." MFS Special Edition: Neuroscience and Modern Fiction 61, no. 2: 251-70.
Barnes, Djuna. Nightwood. 1961. New York: New Directions.
Bassiri, Nima. 2013. "Freud and the Matter of the Brain: On the
Rearrangements of Neuropsychoanalysis." Critical Inquiry 20, no. 1: 83-108.
Berube, Michael. 2005. "Disability and Narrative." PMLA 120, no. 2: 568-76.
Manning, Erin. 2013. Always More Than One: Individuation's Dance. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
McDonagh, Patrick. 2013. "Autism in an Age of Empathy: A Cautionary
Critique." Worlds of Autism: Across the Spectrum of Neurological Difference, edited by J. Davidson and M. Orsini, 31-52. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Mitchell, David T., and Sharon L. Snyder. 2000. Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
COPYRIGHT 2016 Hofstra University
Mangat, Ajitpaul
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Man airlifted to hospital after being swept over waterfall
Lucinda Cameron
A man was airlifted to hospital with multiple injuries after he was swept over a waterfall.
A rescue operation was launched after the man lost his footing and fell into the burn at the Grey Mare's Tail waterfall near Moffat in Dumfries and Galloway.
He was swept downstream and over one of the upper waterfalls, falling between 10 and 15 metres before being swept further along the burn, Moffat Mountain Rescue Team (MRT) said.
Moffat MRT went to the scene along with police, the fire service, coastguard helicopter and the Helimed Trauma Team helicopter when the alarm was raised at 10.30am on Saturday, and battled gusts of up to 40mph as they rescued the man.
An air ambulance and a coastguard helicopter went to the scene (Moffat MRT/PA)
The casualty, who suffered broken bones, was winched from the water to a safe location on the path where he was given pain relief and medical attention before being flown to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow.
James Coles, Moffat MRT team leader, said: "He lost his footing and slipped in. The main waterfall is huge, fortunately he didn't go over that one, but there is a series of upper waterfalls.
"He was swept along the burn then over the waterfall and was then swept further along the burn and somehow he managed to stop himself.
"He was there with friends and they raised the alarm. It was a bit of bad luck, they were trying to take photos of the lovely scenery and it appears he slipped and ended up in the burn."
The main waterfall, which is further downstream from where the man ended up, is one of the highest in the UK and plunges 60 metres from Loch Skeen.
A Moffat MRT spokesman said: "With gusts of wind up to 40mph, all teams involved had a challenging day on the hill before being stood down at 2.30pm."
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Eleventh Hour
Swissair Flight 111
U.S. soccer captain Megan Rapinoe embodies all it is to be American
Derek Van Diest, Postmedia News (dvandiest@postmedia.com)
Updated: Jun 27 at 4:57 p.m.
USWNT captain Megan Rapinoe (right) - Reuters
PARIS, France — Megan Rapinoe represents America.
The good, the bad, the strong, the proud, the courageous, and the controversial.
The captain of the United States women's soccer team does not pull punches nor care who is offended when she's fighting for what she believes is right.
She has a drug-addicted older brother in prison, led the lawsuit against her own soccer federation for equality, and is currently in a war of words with U.S. president Donald Trump.
And on top of all that, Rapinoe is preparing to lead the United States into its biggest game of the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, a quarterfinal on Friday here at the Parc des Princes against the hosts France.
Rapinoe, 33, took to the stage for the pre-match media conference Thursday and before she took any questions, tackled her latest controversy as Trump responded on Twitter Wednesday to comments she made months ago in regards to not wanting to visit the White House if the United States wins the tournament.
"I'll address it head on and then we can get to the soccer questions," Rapinoe started. "I stand by the comments I made about not wanting to go to the White House with the exception of the expletive, my mom will be very upset about that. But I think entering with a lot of passion considering how much time and effort and pride we take in the platform that we have and using it for good and for leaving the game in a better placed and, hopefully, the world in a better place. I don't think that I would want to go and I would encourage my team to think hard about lending that platform or having that co-opted by an administration that doesn't feel the same way and doesn't fight for the same things that we fight for.
"I'll just leave it at that and am not interested in answering any of those questions, so we can get to the real reason we're here, because it's a huge game."
Rapinoe is the reason why the United States is in the quarterfinal. She stepped up to take two important penalty kicks against Spain in the previous round and buried both of them in a 2-1 victory.
She has three goals thus far in the tournament, but her accomplishments on the field have been overshadowed by controversy off it.
Rapinoe, of Redding, Calif., became the first female athlete to kneel during the U.S. national anthem in support of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
Trump responded to Rapinoe's stand against visiting the White House on Twitter, tagging the wrong Megan Rapinoe in his tweet.
"Women's soccer player (Megan Rapinoe) just stated that she is, 'not going to the F…ing White House if we win,'" Trump tweeted. "I am a big fan of the American Team, and Women's Soccer, but Megan should WIN first before she TALKS! Finish the job. We haven't yet invited Megan or the team, but I am now inviting the team, win or lose.
"Megan should never disrespect our Country, the White House, or our Flag, especially since so much has been done for her and the team. Be proud of the Flag that you wear. The USA is doing GREAT."
Rapinoe shrugged it off. Just like she did when criticized for her elaborate celebration of the 9-0 goal in a 13-0 win against Thailand to open the tournament.
She has bigger issues and was surprisingly candid when speaking of her brother Brian, who is currently serving out his prison sentence in a rehabilitation centre in San Diego.
"Certainly from a social perspective, just seeing the course of his life and how that played out, really he's just a drug addict and all of his offences on the outside were wrapped around that, he probably just needed treatment or a rehabilitation facility rather than being put in maximum-security prisons for his drug offences," Rapinoe said. "Obviously on the inside, he made different choices. But I think seeing how he was swept up in that, it's not like he's a bad person, and I think it just gave me a broader perspective on the criminal justice system in general and what kind of people are in there.
"They're just normal people, they're your brothers and your friends and your family and how can we do better? His greatest crime is being a drug addict and it doesn't help the addiction for him to be in prison, I don't think that deterred him at all from using drugs. He probably just met more people that he could probably get drugs from. I think in a large way, especially as I've gotten older and started to understand it a lot better, that shaped my view on that in particular, but obviously that has a lot of ramifications outside of just drug abuse."
Rapinoe will likely continue to fight for social causes she believes in long after her soccer career is over. It's unfortunate such a talented player, who is competing in her third World Cup and already has championship might be better remembered for her stance on equality and protests concerning them.
When asked about her protest, which in now reduced to not singing along with the national anthem or putting her hand on her chest, Rapinoe deferred to the matter at hand, which was trying to defeat France and move on to the semifinal.
"I think it would prefer to just keep it on the game for this," Rapinoe said. "I have talked about it a lot and said a lot about it, and if they want to read about it they can, but I prefer to keep it about the game."
Email: dvandiest@postmedia.com
On Twitter: @DerekVanDiest
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
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Diversity Culture
Author Topic: Diversity Culture (Read 659 times)
I recently made the mistake of looking up what the denizens of the interwebs were saying about the newest Middle Earth adaptation coming to Prime. I thought the trailers looked very interesting.
Most of what I saw were rants about how "woke" the characters are now vs what Tolkien originally wrote.
Here's a good take on it.
https://gamerant.com/lotr-rings-of-power-diversity-important/
The fans that are opposed to the addition of diversity, whatever their argument may be, are completely dismissing the perspective of entire groups of people. Many of the individuals that are passionate followers of Tolkien's works and the recreations made of them, have been fans of the stories for years- maybe even their whole lives. For those people, Tolkien's worlds were a unique and immersive experience that inspired the reader to be courageous. In most cases, they even had a character, or multiple, that they connected to and saw themselves in, but being an almost entirely white cast, this was an experience that in many ways, only white viewers could have.
By making some of the prominent and respectable characters of the world people of color, or by fleshing out the story arcs of a few female characters, the Rings of Power writers made the world more accessible to a broader audience. Now, a whole new generation of young people, at a greater number, can watch this series and see themselves in the characters. That is the purpose of diversity in film, so that the immersive, connecting effect of the characters is not reserved for only one group of people.
Location: Deathbridge
Re: Diversity Culture
Quote from: Squidward von Squidderson on August 12, 2022, 04:52:20 pm
*Guy watching show set in a world with dragons, orcs and magical angels* "Whaddaya mean there are Black people here!?"
I don't particularly have a big problem with a few black characters or more prominent female characters. I think it's lame and unnecessary hypersensitive politically-motivated weaksauce, but if it turns out to be a really good show then whatever that's by far the most important thing. I'm a bit worried about some of visuals/special effects for the show, but that's a different subject.
I think the above argument is pretty stupid however. We are all human beings regardless of skin colour. You don't need to see someone with your own skin colour in order to relate to them. That's like saying people with blue eyes or red hair need to see people with characters with blue eyes or red hair in order to relate to them. Some of my favorite films and shows like The Cosby Show have all-black casts and I can relate to those characters quite a lot because those characters were quite like my family. The gender argument is a bit more poignant since gender affects your lived experience more than the pigment of your skin. But having a relatable and likeable character doesn't have to be of your same gender either, especially if they are elves from Middle Earth.
Bubbermiley
To paraphrase: I don't like it but I don't dislike it because I don't care and neither should anyone else...but I don't like it.
Quote from: Bubbermiley on August 12, 2022, 07:52:26 pm
No more like that's annoyingly unnecessary but whatever, carry on if it makes you feel better.
Quote from: Nipples Von Graham on August 12, 2022, 07:59:28 pm
Unnecessary for whom?
Well not you apparently.
I honestly don't care. I'm white. If there are all white characters, I probably wouldn't even notice.
But, I have empathy for other people, so I understand why one would care if they never see themselves represented in the popular culture, like these large tv productions.
And, since I'm not a bigot, I don't mind if people of colour are represented in tv shows that I watch. If it's a good show, with good acting and writing, then why would I care?
« Last Edit: August 13, 2022, 01:01:18 am by Squidward von Squidderson »
I don't mind either, because part of the experience is watching a story staged in 2022.
So I expect a new production of Shakespeare to have trappings of modern production, camera technology, pacing and diverse casting.
What I don't like is that such things seem to be the limit of social progress in our society. And that people are satisfied with that.
*Guy who doesn't like quotas in workplaces voice* there should be quotas on women/PoC characters in TV shows.
I think the above argument is pretty stupid however. We are all human beings regardless of skin colour. You don't need to see someone with your own skin colour in order to relate to them. That's like saying people with blue eyes or red hair need to see people with characters with blue eyes or red hair in order to relate to them. Some of my favorite films and shows like The Cosby Show have all-black casts and I can relate to those characters quite a lot because those characters were quite like my family.
Spoken like someone who's never experienced a lack of characters who look like him on screen. If you genuinely didn't think representation mattered, you wouldn't care how many non-white or women characters were out there, but you obviously do.
The gender argument is a bit more poignant since gender affects your lived experience more than the pigment of your skin. But having a relatable and likeable character doesn't have to be of your same gender either, especially if they are elves from Middle Earth.
Cite required.
I don't really have a problem with this kind of diversity. As long as well established characters are being changed.
Agree x 1 View List
Quote from: Elon Shady on August 15, 2022, 11:27:18 am
I disagree. I don't have any problem with a movie about a government agent who happens to be a Filipino woman, but making James Bond into a Filipino woman would be silly. Fortunately, it appears only you are in favour of that....unless you're too dumb to write what you actually think and write the opposite instead.
Quote from: Bubbermiley on August 15, 2022, 11:50:34 am
Sorry, typo, I meant aren't being changed. Although I would love to see Edris Ilba as James Bond. He would be fantastic.
People forget that these are the ARTS.
Changing the 'type' is fine, but it still needs to be done artistically.
Elba would be a cinch for Bond. Probably racists are preventing this one.
But if you make Bond a Filipino WOMAN:
1) She had better be AMAZING in it
2) If it only stands to make money because of the novelty, that doesn't work for a franchise. Sh needs to come back.
Quote from: Black Dog on August 15, 2022, 09:58:41 am
If you moved to India would you start complaining or feel bad because some 80 year old Indian novels written by an Indian were made into a tv show and featured all brown skinned characters? I definitely wouldn't give a f***. Would you be less apt to watch because OMG no white people?
Somehow Big Bird was relatable when I was a kid and he's a giant yellow bird. Because he acted and reacted like I would and his color had nothing to do with anything.


I have been asked to moderate a panel, and there's a chance I'll be holding a microphone. I'm a little nervous that my hand will shake. Do you have any suggestions?
A woman I had coached on presentation skills recently emailed this question to me.
She raised an important issue. How do you use a microphone so that it amplifies your voice but doesn't become a distraction? You don't want your listeners to pay more attention to the microphone than to what you are saying.
1. Arrive early at the meeting room and practice using the microphone. Make sure the volume is set at an appropriate level.
--If you are using a hand-held mike, do not gesture with that hand. When you are listening to a question, or to other speakers, lower the hand in which you are holding the microphone.
--If you are part of a panel and seated at a table with other panelists, your microphone probably will be placed on a stand. Since you don't have to hold it, you will be less likely to play with it.
--If you are given a lavalier mike, it will be clipped to your clothing so you don't have to hold anything. Remember to turn off this lapel mike when you are not presenting. I will never forget the time I forgot to do so, and went to the bathroom with my mike on!
--If you are standing behind a podium that has a microphone mounted on it, you won't have to hold the mike. However, this is not an ideal place for a speaker to stand. You want to be able to walk around. If you can, use a lavalier mike.
3. Remember that the more you worry about something, such as the possibility that your hand might shake while you are holding the microphone, the more you are likely to pay unnecessary attention to it. Chances are people won't even notice the microphone unless you draw attention to it. Your audience wants to hear what you have to say. If you speak clearly and with confidence, you will have their attention.
More presentation tips can be found in my new book, The Essentials of Business Etiquette: How to Greet, Eat and Tweet Your Way to Success (McGraw Hill). Reserve your copy now at Amazon.
This is for the first time I've come across some tips to handle the mic effectively and to your advantage. Loads have been written about presenting, presentation, powerpoint and all other related stuff... Sure, these tips are going to be quite helpful. Thanks Barbara!
You are correct! Understanding the little things about making a presentation can make a big difference in your success!
i appreciates the choice of words being used in this post and would like to add my experience being a user of such products. I too uses a Microphone . its a useful product for the bussiness tycoons.


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text:
Oscar 2012: Erik Nash Talks 'Real Steel'
Production VFX supervisor Erik Nash of Digital Domain gets into the virtual production ring.
By Bill Desowitz | Wednesday, February 15, 2012 at 4:15pm
In Awards, CG, Films, People, Visual Effects | VFXWorld
Real Steel took the Simulcam developed for Avatar and put it into a real world setting for the next advancement in virtual production in collaboration with Giant Studios, which came up with a new system. Erik Nash provides an overview of the significance for this Oscar contender.
Bill Desowitz: Interesting mix of nominees but with an emphasis on character-driven work such as yours.
Erik Nash: Yeah, it was the first year with 10 in the bakeoff and it was quite a tough group to be in. Lot of competition.
BD: What are your impressions of the five nominees?
EN: Well, in my mind, the favorites would have to be Planet of the Apes and Harry Potter. Planet of the Apes just because of all the facial work, particularly on the Caesar character, which is just phenomenal, and Harry Potter, they've never won but the work is just so consistently outstanding, particularly in the latter half of the eight movies. I think they may benefit from it being the last of the series, and people wanting to show some love for the work, not just for the last film but for the whole series of films.
BD: You've obviously raised the bar here for virtual production and the use of the Simulcam for these great robot boxing matches. What's it been like as an experience?
EN: When I read the script coming on two and a half years ago, it struck me immediately that it was a project that just called out to take advantage of that budding technology: Just the nature of the fights being robot on robot within a confined space. It's almost like it was written to take advantage of virtual production, specifically Simulcam. And we were very fortunate that the production and the studio agreed with our take on it and took the leap and put the investment in upfront to take advantage of the technology because there was a bit of a risk because it hadn't been done before. There was definitely quite a risk to take the plunge with us but at the end, when it was all said and done, they couldn't be happier with the outcome and saw the benefit of the approach, both in terms of how it enabled us to put the bulk of our visual effects money on screen and also really imbue the cinematography of the fights with a visceral quality and an immediacy that you could never achieve in the traditional manner where you blindly shoot negative space and shoehorn the animation into those plates after the fact. And they also the savings that virtual production gave us in terms of shooting a pretty sizable visual effects movie in 71 days with no second unit. And, again, without the virtual production component, that would've been impossible. We never would've gotten all those plates for the robot boxing as quickly and as efficiently as we did. There were times when we were shooting Simulcam when we were doing as many as six setups in an hour, which in terms of plate photography in my experience and everybody's experience I talked to is unheard of. So I think this approach definitely gave big benefits in a variety of manners on this movie.
BD: What was the process like for this movie?
EN: It's so intuitive. There's a little bit of a learning curve in terms of the process and the terminology we use on set. Occasionally, there were very minimal delays, usually just to save what we had just done because there is an incredible amount of data that you're generating as you shoot. But other than that, there was no learning curve for the camera operator and the director, Shawn Levy. They're seeing robots through the camera as we shoot, and so you can shoot it as if you were shooting human boxers. Really the only onset complication is that if you're not looking at the feed from the camera with that live composite, you're see a cameraman in the ring with a steadicam by himself, which is sort of odd. And for all the extras and talent onscreen reacting to the boxing, we needed guide them as far as where they should be looking and what their eye lines should be. The fact that you had onset temp versions of the shot as soon as Shawn yelled, "Cut," was a huge benefit both for his process for deciding whether or not we had a usable plate -- and more often than not it was take one. And then Dean Zimmerman, our editor, having a temp with videogame quality robots in frame going through the boxing choreography, he's cutting as we're shooting, which really accelerated the whole post-production process, allowed them to give us turnovers often within a week or two of completing cinematography on a given sequence, so it gave us a head start in post. There were shots we were virtually finaling nine weeks after the plate was shot, while we were still in Detroit. Again, speed and efficiency that's unheard of. This allowed us to focus on the subtlety and the nuance and just creating a consistency from end to end.
BD: And the challenges of animating the robots?
EN: The biggest challenge we faced was getting our lead robot, Adam, to connect with the boy and be endearing, sympathetic and appealing as a real character and not just as a machine. And to get the audience to connect with. The toughest part was we had to do that without dialogue and he has no facial expression capability whatsoever. His face is hidden behind this mesh. As far as the robots in general, we wanted to have believable weight and mass. So the three parties that had to create Adam's performance, Jason Mathews, the Legacy puppeteer for all the practical shots, the motion capture performers and Dan Taylor and his Digital Domain animation team, pulled it off with subtle and nuanced body language. And they made him relatable.
Bill Desowitz is former senior editor of AWN and editor of VFXWorld. He has a new blog, Immersed in Movies (www.billdesowitz.com), and is currently writing a book about the evolution of James Bond from Connery to Craig, scheduled for publication this year, which is the 50th anniversary of the franchise.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
More From VFXWorld:
Oscar 2012: Rob Legato Talks 'Hugo'Previous Post
'Journey 2' Gets More Immersive in 3-D


text:
/*
 * Amicable Numbers
 * ================
 * Let d(n) be defined as the sum of proper divisors of n (numbers less than n
 * which divide evenly into n).
 *
 * If d(a) = b and d(b) = a, where a != b, then a and b are an amicable pair
 * and each of a and b are called amicable numbers.
 *
 * For example, the proper divisors of 220 are 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 20, 22, 44,
 * 55 and 110; therefore d(220) = 284. The proper divisors of 284 are 1, 2, 4,
 * 71 and 142; so d(284) = 220.
 *
 * Evaluate the sum of all the amicable numbers under 10000.
 */

implicit class Int2Divides(d: Int) {
  def divides(n: Int): Boolean = n % d == 0
}

implicit class Int2Divisors(n: Int) {
  lazy val divisors: Seq[Int] = (1 to n-1) filter { _ divides n }
}

def d(n: Int): Int = n.divisors.sum

val limit = 9999

// Precalculate the divisor sums by marking off multiples of each divisor
// instead of performing all possible candidate divisions each time.
val divisorSums = Array.fill(limit + 1) { 0 }

for (divisor <- 1 to limit / 2) {
  // Divisors must be smaller than the number they divide itself so start from
  // next multiple up when marking them off in divisorSums.
  var divides = 2 * divisor
  while (divides < limit) {
    divisorSums(divides) += divisor
    divides += divisor
  }
}

val amicablePairs = divisorSums.zipWithIndex filter {
  case (sum, index) if sum <= index =>
    // Require index < sum to avoid double counting.
    false

  case (sum, index) if sum < divisorSums.length =>
    // Have already precalcuated the divisor sum for the pair here.
    index < sum && divisorSums(sum) == index

  case (sum, index) =>
    // It just happens that none of the amicable numbers < 10,000 are amicable
    // with a number >= 10,000. But this is the (slow) manual check in case
    // there was such an instance.
    d(sum) == index
}

val amicables = amicablePairs flatMap { case (a, b) => List(a, b) }

val answer = amicables.sum // = 31,626
println(answer)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Colin Kaepernick was awarded the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal by Harvard University on Thursday.
The medal is considered "Harvard's highest honor in the field of African and African American studies" and is awarded "to individuals in the United States and across the globe in recognition of their contributions to African and African American culture and the life of the mind."
Previous recipients of the honor include Muhammad Ali (2015) and Maya Angelou (2014), among others.
According to Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio, the live stream of the award presentation ceased when Kaepernick stepped to the microphone to address the audience.
"Due to the current litigation of W.E.B. Du Boss medalist Colin Kaepernick," the stream read, "no press photography or video livestream will be allowed of his remarks."
Kaepernick is currently in the midst of fighting the NFL over a collusion grievance that will advance to trial.
The 30-year-old's last NFL action came in 2016 as a member of the San Francisco 49ers, the same season he initiated his protest of social injustice and police brutality during the national anthem. He has been a free agent ever since.
Meanwhile, Kaepernick has developed into a leading civil rights advocate. In January, he completed his pledge of donating $1 million to oppressed communities.


text:
6 Strategies for Your Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program
, Keith Loria
Keith Loria
Keith Loria is a contributing writer to Medical Economics.
MHE Publication, Vol 29 No 9, Volume 29, Issue 9
The ultimate guidebook on everything you need to know about reducing hospital readmissions-the most common risk factors, the reimbursement issues, and how real-world hospitals are solving the problem.
The introduction of the CMS Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) in October 2012 thrust readmission reduction into the mind of every health executive.
Defining readmissions
Readmissions are defined by CMS as an admission to a participating hospital within 30 days of a discharge from the same or another hospital.
CMS tracks these six conditions and procedures as part of HRRP:
Heart Failure (HF)
Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI)
Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG) Surgery
Elective Primary Total Hip Arthroplasty and/or Total Knee Arthroplasty (THA/TKA)
Each of these conditions is vital for healthcare organizations to measure-falling behind on only one can still result in penalties.
How readmissions penalties are calculated
For FY 2020, CMS will be examining hospital data based on hospitals' performances during a three-year period from July 1, 2015 through June 30, 2018.
The payment adjustment factor (PAF) is the reduction applied to CMS payments. It is calculated using an excess readmission ratio (ERR), which CMS calculates by looking at a hospital's expected readmission rate (based on other similar hospitals) and comparing it to a hospital's actual readmission rate.
Related article: Nine Ways to Reduce Hospital Readmissions from Hospital Executives
Hospitals that perform better than average will have an ERR less than 1.0 (and are not penalized), while hospitals performing worse than average will have an ERR of greater than 1.0 (and are penalized). The PAF is generated using ERR and a complicated formula. The minimum PAF is 0.97 (which would account for a 3% penalty, the maximum penalty allowed).
Payment reductions are calculated by subtracting the PAF from 1.0 and multiplying by 100. So for example, a hospital with a PAF of 0.975 would have a payment reduction of 2.5%:
1.0 - 0.9750 = 0.025 x 100 = 2.5% reduction
Since the program began, CMS has doled out $2.5 billion in penalties, with an estimated $564 million in fiscal year 2018 alone, up from the $528 million in 2017. Even though there are signs that readmission rates in a variety of condition types are improving, of the 3,241 hospitals evaluated for readmissions between October 2017 and September 2018, 2,573 (80%) were penalized.
The maximum penalty for hospitals is 3%. However, very few hospitals have penalties this high levied against them-in FY 2017, just 1.8% of hospitals paid the highest penalties.
In this special three-part series, Managed Healthcare Executive will be bringing you the ultimate guide on reducing readmissions for each of the six conditions CMS tracks. This first part will take an in-depth look at how hospitals can prevent heart-failure readmissions.
Reduce heart failure readmissions
To help your organization successfully reduce heart failure readmissions, here is the complete guide to heart failure, including:
Heart failure rates by region (see map)
Causes of heart failure readmission
Reimbursement trends
Real-world strategies for reducing readmissions.
The reasons for readmission are multifactorial and it is difficult to predict individual causes for readmission.
Catherine J. Ryan, PhD, clinical associate professor, college of nursing, University of Illinois at Chicago Department of Biobehavioral Health Science, Chicago, says one way that readmissions have been categorized is simply as preventable or unpreventable. Others have categorized reasons for readmission as clinical, behavioral, and patient-centric, recognizing that the responsibility of readmission may reside with the patient, provider, hospital system, or any combination thereof.
"Heart failure readmissions have been associated with a variety of factors or characteristics," she says, adding that the most common include advanced age, history of renal disease, history of diabetes, or a heart failure admission within the past year. Other factors include admission to a teaching hospital, discharge against medical advice or discharge to home, receiving Medicaid, and being of African American ancestry.
Related article: The SDOH Factor That Impacts Heart Disease
A study by the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) found that elderly black patients were more likely to be readmitted to the hospital after a prior hospital stay for heart failure due to disparities related to both race and the hospitals where patients were treated.
Another study, "The Prevention of Hospital Readmissions in Heart Failure" by the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, showed that among readmitted Medicare patients with HF, the five most common primary diagnoses-HF, renal disorders, pneumonia, arrhythmias, and sepsis-account for 56% of the readmissions with no other diagnoses accounting for more than 5%.
"Readmission potentially reflects a failure of the discharge process; thus, discharge planning should start at the time of admission," says Karen M. Vuckovic, PhD, advanced practice registered nurse, division of cardiology, University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System, Chicago. "Health-related quality of life, or an individual's perceived physical and mental health over time, predicts readmissions in patients with heart failure."
"For the past several years, there has been a heightened national focus on reducing readmissions and thus identifying patients with the highest risk for readmission," Ryan says. "Although there have been reductions, readmission rates remain high."
In the skilled nursing market, Zachary Palace, MD, medical director of RiverSpring Health Hebrew Home at Riverdale in Bronx, New York, says the shift to patient-driven payment model (PDPM) provides facilities with higher reimbursement for more complex Medicare Part A patients, explaining the amount of care needed correlates more directly to the reimbursement received.
The ACA authorized the federal government to penalize hospitals for poor readmission rates for Medicare patients with heart failure, and this has caused many to rethink their strategies.
Managing heart failure risk factors: Successful strategies
David Majure, MD, medical director, mechanical circulatory support program, Sandra Atlas Bass Heart Hospital at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York, says reducing readmissions is about a strong system approach and doing good heart failure care.
At his hospital, a group known as Health Solutions targets patients subject to the Heart Failure HRRP umbrella and efforts are made to connect with them at home.
The way it works, he explains, involves calling the patients at home and ensuring they have adequate resources at home and following up appropriately. By doing this, it helps reduce readmissions and the hospital's decreasing numbers have shown it's a success.
"If they become readmitted, they help them identify factors to help minimize their readmission," Majure says.
The American Heart Association's Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure program is a hospital-based quality improvement program that provides assistance for providers to maintain current practice guidelines.
The guidelines noted that scheduling an early follow-up visit (within seven to 14 days) and early telephone follow-up (within three days) of hospital discharge are reasonable. In response to this recommendation, most HF programs include a discharge follow-up phone call though data in response to this recommendation is mixed. Therefore, Vuckovic notes each program needs to evaluate what works for their population.
"Studies which have included follow-up phone calls usually include other interventions," she says. "There is a handout for TARGET-HF which guides the process and scripts the call."
For example, a clinician-initiated discharge phone call is a simple and cost-effective method that allows clinicians to connect to the patients after their hospital discharge to check on their well-being, review or reinforce discharge instructions, and address issues that may potentially lead to adverse outcomes.
"Dealing with heart failure patient's basic needs is essential in helping them manage their disease," Vuckovic says. "For example, one inner-city teaching hospital recognized that providing housing for those who are homeless during the transition phase led to patients being more likely to attend follow-up appointments."
Hebrew Home utilizes the AMDA's (The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine) Heart Failure Clinical Practice Guide as its protocol for treating CHF patients. Palace explains the guidelines are in a small handbook, easy to read, and provide clinicians with key points to identify heart failure, assess it, and treat and monitor achievements. This keeps everyone on the same page with best practices and ensuring they are practicing the most current medicine.
"We also have full-time physicians on staff and provide comprehensive training to all of our clinical teams on what to look for and what steps to take," he says. "Through these efforts, we are able to manage the majority of patients in our facility and thus have a low number of readmissions."
Related article: How Health Systems Use Pharmacists to Reduce Readmissions
Anecdotally, he shares families often talk about how their mom or dad when at different facilities, would end up in ER every few weeks with heart failure, but since coming to Hebrew House, they haven't gone out at all. It's a credit, Palace says, to managing these patients in-house.
Hebrew Home has also invested in technology, such as contact-free continuous vital sign monitoring, to help it identify patients at risk for CHF exacerbation. This is a trend that others are following and Palace says it's important because it acts as the eyes and ears when the nurse is not in the room, which is a large part of the time.
"In CHF patients, a key risk to look for is an increase in fluids. Fluid builds up and when patients lie down, this fluid moves from their legs and collects in their lungs. An indicator we look for is shortness of breath," Palace says. "We also monitor weight, a quick increase in weight is another way to monitor for fluid retention. We are also seeing a lot of new technology coming to the market specifically designed to help identify changes."
The facility has also embraced the ReDS Vest, a recently-approved technology. The technology is a vest a nurse applies a patient which has a built-in sensor that reads across the chest from front to back and can quantify total lung water volume. That is also significant in helping to identify heart failure patients.
Hospitals successful at reducing readmissions that were enrolled in the American College of Cardiology's Hospital to Home initiative, a resource for hospitals and cardiovascular care providers committed to improving transitions from hospital to home and reduce their risk of federal penalties associated with high readmission rates, created a summary of 10 key practices. Of the 10 practices, three centered on medication management.
"Education about the purposes of each medication, changes in doses/frequency, which to stop, which are new, and how to take them correctly were identified as essential to self-management. Medication reconciliation is essential," Vuckovic says.
Palace says medication compliance is much easier to manage in a skilled nursing facility where physicians are keeping a close eye, and the clinical staff is helping to ensure adherence.
Vuckovic says that culturally appropriate multidisciplinary discharge planning and education has been shown to facilitate compliance and decrease readmissions. Research has shown that self-care (e.g., diet, medication, and symptom management) is largely insufficient in ethnic minority populations, indicating an area where more emphasis is needed-especially as self-care can be a major component of reducing readmissions.
"We need to shift our approach from hospital care to providing self-care at home since the majority of the patients' care takes place in the home, not the hospital," she says. "Providers should seize every opportunity to reinforce self-care principles and education."
Nicholas Hamm is an editor with Managed Healthcare Executive. Keith Loria is an award-winning journalist who has been writing for major newspapers and magazines for close to 20 years.
Download Issue : Vol 29 No 9


text:
Collective Bargaining is a Human Right
Article 23 of the Universal Human Rights Declaration adopted by the United Nations in 1948 reads:
(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
What we are seeing in Wisconsin and in Indiana is the attempt not to balance a budget but rather the attempt of elected officials to do the bidding of the corporations to strip the fundamental right of workers to form and to join trade unions for the protection of their interests. This is a violation of their human rights under the UN's declaration of Human Rights.
In June of 2007, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled:
"The right to bargain collectively with an employer enhances the human dignity, liberty and autonomy of workers by giving them the opportunity to influence the establishment of workplace rules and thereby gain some control over a major aspect of their lives, namely their work… Collective bargaining is not simply an instrument for pursuing external ends…rather [it] is intrinsically valuable as an experience in self-government… Collective bargaining permits workers to achieve a form of workplace democracy and to ensure the rule of law in the workplace. Workers gain a voice to influence the establishment of rules that control a major aspect of their lives."
While Canada's Supreme Court has no jurisdiction over the US, what its ruling does do is affirm emphatically that the right to unionize and to have collective bargaining is indeed a fundamental right as declared in the UN's Declaration of Human Rights. It is part of what a democracy looks like for its people.
Wisconsin and Indiana are not the first states to attempt to rid collective bargaining nor would they be the first states to not have collective bargaining for their public workers, including teachers. There are five states that explicitly make collective bargaining illegal in their state for their public sector employees. There are additional states where restrictions apply to the bargaining process. Many more states prohibit teachers and other public employees from striking should collective bargaining efforts fail. Again, all of these violate the fundamental right of workers to have unions to protect their best interests. If a union is unable to negotiate with an employer on basic work conditions or to use non-violent strategies such as a strike to bring resolution to the issues at hand, their rights are being violated.
In my state of Alabama, which does not allow public employees to have collective bargaining, David Stout the president of the Alabama Education Association which is not union, recently stated, "I don't think people in Alabama are ready for collecting bargaining laws." This attitude that people need to be ready is a slap in the face of workers dignity. Similar statements have been made before regarding groups of people needing to be ready to have the vote, needing to be ready to have democracy, needing to be ready to have equality. The fact that it comes from the organization that is supposedly best equipped to support the interests of teachers reveals just how far the AEA is from representing their constituents. Instead comments like these represents the state's and corporate interests just like the false trade unions in corrupt corporations in Mexico.
The essential right for the workers in Indiana and in Wisconsin to be able to sit down in negotiation with their employers is about reclaiming and resurrecting our most treasured American values of democracy. We have seen in the last 40 years such a deterioration of democracy in this nation while we pandered to the wishes of corporations as if they are people under the law with rights and privileges inherent in their being. Our nation has stripped away through this pandering all avenues of upward mobility for the poorest of the poor in this country and for the middle class. The divide between 90 % of the people and the top 1% has never been greater. The average income for the bottom 90 % is $31, 244. The average income for the top 1 % is 1, 137, 684. The average income for the top 1/100th percent is $27, 342, 212. Further the income of the bottom 90% has decreased significantly per year over the last decade while the top ten percent have seen astronomical gains in income. Stripping the right to collective bargaining from employees will ensure this trend not only continues but accelerates at an alarming speed because unlike a democracy, it places an imbalance of power into the hands of the government and corporations.
The Corporations are not people. They are only a vehicle towards sustaining our lives in what hopefully will be one with a certain level of quality of life. If they no longer serve the people towards the advancement of a quality life for all who work for them, then corporations and governments should be held accountable for their actions against human rights. Our elected officials must represent the people and not the corporations who line their pockets. If they do not then they must be removed from office and replaced with elected officials that will represent the best interests of the people.
This is one of many moral issues facing our nation today. It is essential that we stand with our workers in this fight because the survival of our democracy depends on it.
Tags: Alabama Education Association, Collective Bargaining, David Stout, Democracy, Economic Justice, Employee rights, Human Rights, Indiana, Supreme Court of Canada, Unitarian Universalist, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Wisconsin
My Brother's Keeper
Several months ago, I responded to a relative of mine who sent me one of those viral emails about the state of affairs in America. I had grown tired of receiving the tirade of complaints against what immigrants have done to this country, what Muslims are wanting to do to this country, and how disastrous "a foreign born Muslim" [sic] President Obama was for this country. So I responded and stated that in this country we believe in the American Dream where everyone can grow up to become President, where everyone has the opportunity to forge their own destiny. I further stated that since we held these ideals and values that we needed to do everything in our power to ensure that those opportunities continued to exist for everyone and if they were thwarted in anyway, we had the responsibility and the obligation to right that wrong.
The response I received was that my relative was not his brother's keeper. In short if he could not have it, then his brother could not either. And the only way to keep his brother from having it was to ensure that laws were passed that were restrictive, punitive against the other from receiving what allegedly was kept from him.
The Biblical story where the brother's keeper is mentioned is a painful story where two brothers, the sons of Adam and Eve, were at odds. Everything that Abel did was pleasing in the eyes of God. Everything that Cain did was displeasing and so Cain grew angry at God and angry that his brother always got what he did not get. Cain surmised if he couldn't get what he desired then his brother should not have it either. And so in this story, Cain kills Abel. When confronted by God as to where Abel was, Cain responds, "Am I my brother's keeper?" God exiles Cain and in order for him to survive he will need to depend on the kindness of strangers, in short other brothers will be his keeper. The answer to this question is yes and so are we all.
A recent article on alternet.org regarding the protests against the Wisconsin Governor's proposal to do away with collective bargaining of the unions, ends the article with this quote: "The Right has made great political progress getting Americans to ask the question: "How come that guy's getting what I don't have?" It's the crux of the politics of grievance. Progressives need to get Americans to ask a different question: "What's keeping me from getting what that guy has?"
It is a good question but the question does not go far enough. It is not enough to know that white privilege is rampant in America and is used to keep others from the good life. It is not enough to know that continued tax cuts for the top 2% income earners keeps the financial burden of government on the poor. It is not enough to know that our corporations have moved factories and jobs to other countries where they do not have to comply to our labor laws or environmental regulations. It is not enough to know that cutting spending on health care, human services, education will keep people in poverty. Many people know these things keep them from the same opportunities that the other guy had to fill his coffers.
What they are not doing is demanding a government that lives up to its ideals of being of, for, and by the people. Where the basic needs of the people are met. They have not realized that when we seek for our brothers and sisters to thrive we are seeking for ourselves to thrive as well. When corporations begin to take care of their employees' basic needs such as a living wage, health care, pensions, life insurance, sufficient vacation and sick time; the incentive for the employee to be loyal, to be productive, to be innovative increases which benefits the corporations. Ensuring the best for our brother helps ensure the best for us as well.
It is time the people begin speaking up on what kind of government we want here in America. Will it be one that only benefits the rich and powerful or one that fulfills our American Creed so that everyone has the opportunity of having life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? We are not living Abraham Lincoln's dream of being a government of, by, and for the people. We have moved far from that dream to being a plutocracy of corporations whose only use of the people is enslavement to sell their products and to line their pockets with gold. And if you think these words are too harsh, look at the work conditions in the countries where these corporations have set up shop to produce products. Those conditions would be here if they could get away with it. There are already some states that want to do away with child labor laws.
What we are seeing in Wisconsin is only the tip of the iceberg of what needs to happen across this nation. We need to send a strong message that in order for America to fulfill its creed of equality, that we need to begin by supporting the least of these in our nation; the children and the infirmed, the workers and the laborers, the poor and the immigrant. They are our brothers and sisters. To paraphrase Jesus of Nazareth, what you do to the least of my brethren, that you do also to all of us.
Tags: brother's keeper, child labor laws, Economic Justice, Justice, Unitarian Universalism, Wisconsin
Acceptance vs Tolerance
Acceptance v Tolerance
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa
13 February 2011 © Rev Fred L Hammond
There was a long pause on the phone. Then, "What did you call me?" I was flabbergasted, I had to think; did I say something derogatory and not realize it? "I called you Sir." He sputtered, "No one has ever called me sir. I am not a sir. I am called lots of things but Sir is not one of them." "Well," I replied, "I just did and therefore you must also be, a Sir."
Keith was many things in the eyes of the world. He was a convict, a violent criminal, an addict, a street bum, a con artist, abusive to his girlfriend, and infected with HIV/AIDS. All of these labels were met with fear by most everyone he encountered. This is the person parents warn their children about. Good people do not associate with the likes of him. He was the other to everyone he met. At best he would be tolerated by the social service workers who would help with food stamps, clothing vouchers, rental assistance. Rarely would he be accepted for his essential self, a fellow human trying to find his way through this maze called life.
The definition of tolerance has broadened over the centuries but its earliest meaning had to do with enduring, endurance as in something painful or abhorrent. A newer connotation of the word is to offer a permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, culture, race; sexual orientation is different to ones own. But the underlying denotation of enduring or forbearing something abhorrent remains.
Accept is the root word of acceptance and it has many definitions as well, including "to receive or admit formally, as to a college or club; and to regard as normal, suitable, or usual." So the matter of acceptance means to welcome in as one of us or to consider as typically everyday normal.
The difference between tolerance and acceptance reveals a strong contrast: endure something painful or welcome as one of us.
There is in our society lots of conversation about tolerating our diversity. We are asked to be tolerant of gays, lesbians, and transgender folk. We are asked to be tolerant of our religious differences. We have heard specifically to be tolerant of Muslims in our country. So given the definition of the word what are we really asking when we ask for tolerance of those who are different from us. Are we asking to simply put up, endure people that we do not like, whose very presence might be painful, offensive to our set of morals or cultural mores?
It could be said that in the 20th century Euro-Americans were tolerant of African Americans as long as African Americans remained in their scripted place of being at the back of the bus. As long as African Americans remained in their prescribed societal role of a second class citizen, then Euro-Americans could tolerate them. Tolerate them with total indifference. This was not acceptance of African Americans, but it was tolerance. When African Americans refused to remain at the back of the bus, tolerance of African Americans went out the window and the south went up in flames, quite literally. African Americans wanted acceptance as equals. They no longer would stand for the tolerance of indifference which on a good day is what they received. We all know what happened on the bad days.
Martin Buber, 20th century philosopher, wrote a ground breaking text called I and Thou. He describes the person who declares I as having two basic word forms, I-It and I-You or I-Thou. We experience it. What ever that something is, it is experienced by the I. He writes, "I perceive something. I feel something. I imagine something. I think something. …The world as experience belongs to the basic word I-It."
We do not experience You, instead I-You is in the realm of relationship. There are no boundaries, no borders to the I-You basic word form. There is a border with the I-It experience. The I-It has shape, it has definition, and it may also have a past tense. However, the I in the I-You dyad impacts upon the You only in the present, in the here and now, likewise the You impacts on the I. The I-You relationship must be dealt with; the relationship cannot be ignored or placed into the background like an I-It experience.
In the movie Avatar there is within the Na'vi culture this notion of seeing the other. The Na'vi do not experience their world in the I-It sense but rather in the I-You relationship. They see their world in the full essence of life unfolding. Their world embodies an entity of being. They do not experience their world they are in relationship with the world. In the movie it is stated that the skypeople, the humans, cannot see. When Jack Sully finally embraces the culture of the Na'vi he and his Na'vi mentor say to each other, "I see you." They are finally in an I-You relationship. Buber suggests that in these moments the I-You relationship is also addressing the eternal You. I see you.
The skypeople, the humans, are not in relation with the world Pandora. To them the world is an It. They experience the world. They know what the world can offer them in resources and in potential experiences. But the world is an It and all the beings living on the world are an It, as well. Pandora to the skypeople is of no consequence to them. They therefore are blind and do not see Pandora.
Extrapolate this not seeing the other as a You to the United States stance and quest for oil in the Middle East or our stance on immigration and undocumented citizens. Or our long embattled history with the indigenous people of this land. All of these are I-It experiences. This is not simply a political analysis this is as spiritual as it gets.
There is a Hindi word that also expresses this I-You relationship, Namasté. It has been translated in many ways from the simple "The god in me recognizes the god in you." To "I honor the place in you in which the entire Universe dwells, I honor the place in you which is of Love, of Integrity, of Wisdom and of Peace. When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are One." Saying Namasté, the person is acknowledging the I-You relationship.
In the last 18 days we have seen something remarkable happen in Egypt. We saw a people rise up, realize that they are people of worth and dignity and peacefully remove a dictator who saw them only as his objects. They claimed an I-You stance in this revolution and demanded that their government see them for who they are.
In the 1950's, when Rosa Parks sat down in the bus, when the college students sat down at the lunch counter, when Ms. Lucy walked into the University of Alabama, they were declaring an I-You stance and demanded to be seen as the same as any other person. They were to be known as the I-You and no longer as an I-It. There is a lot of courage and fortitude to insist to be in relationship with another who does not see you but only tolerates you as a piece of landscape in the background. Tolerance as experienced in America is an I-It paradigm.
There is a video that has been making the rounds on Face Book. It is sponsored by a bible church in Arkansas. It opens with a young man in a hurry to work and he is complaining about every inconvenience, the kid next door on his skateboard that isn't paying attention to cars, the traffic, the car that cuts him off, and the long lines in the coffee shop. He is handed a pair of glasses and as he puts them on he suddenly sees the problems that is weighing down on each person. One person is fighting addictions; another just had a blow up fight with their spouse, the single mom working two jobs to make ends meet, the man who just lost his job and trying to save face with his kids. Suddenly these people are no longer in the I-It experience. No longer are they barriers to his getting to where ever he is rushing to but I-You individuals that if he so chooses might serve as a difference in their lives.
Does acceptance mean embracing the opposing behaviors, values, and beliefs to our own? Contrary to popular argument, no. I can accept the person before me as one with dignity and worth and still not like their behaviors or belief system. Acceptance is not carte blanche. Parents can accept their children universally but this does not automatically mean they accept their children's behaviors that are disrespectful or harmful to themselves or others.
What it does mean is that we are seeing the whole person as a person of worth and dignity. Before us stands a person who deserves to live their life as fully and as abundantly as possible. We are in relationship with them instead of simply tolerating their presence. This is spiritual work. When all the forces around us insist on making others I-Its in our landscape, it takes a disciplined soul to see the other as I-You. And when the person is oppressed by society, it takes even more fortitude to insist on being recognized as part of I-You.
Unitarian Universalist Zach Wahls, whose testimony before the Iowa state legislator on the zero impact of his parents being a lesbian couple on the development of his character was an I-You testimony. He declared that his family is not so different from any other family in Iowa. Their sense of worth as a family is not derived by the state declaring his parents married. "Sense of family comes from commitment to each other, it comes from the love that binds us," Zach told the chambers. Acceptance of his family as equal partners in contributing to the positive development of Iowan society is far different than tolerance of his family. Zach told the council that not one person in his 19 years of life ever independently deduced that he was raised by two women instead of a heterosexual couple. He was passionately arguing that his parents were not I-It but were worthy of being I-You because he could declare, I see you to his parents. He was asking the council to join him in seeing, truly seeing his family as any other family in Iowa that receive the fair and equal treatment from their government.
Remember Keith, the hardened street criminal I called sir? He died many years ago just before Thanksgiving. At his funeral, his older brother told me that I was able to reach Keith in a way that no one in the family could. He thanked me for seeing Keith for who he was at his core being. He suggested that this made the difference in how Keith chose to live his final days surrounded by family, welcomed and accepted home.
Live with an attitude of acceptance, of welcoming in people where they are instead of an attitude of tolerance, of putting up and enduring the pain of life's diversity. By so doing you may enter into the realm of I-You and even encounter the eternal You in the process. Namasté.
Tags: Acceptance vs Tolerance, Avatar, I and Thou, Justice, Martin Buber, Namasté, Racism, relationships, Unitarian Universalist, Zach Wahls


text:
Q: Setting up emacs with openCL What steps are needed to get a simple OpenCL enabled program to compile and run using emacs? We're developing with the C++ bindings right now and I have never used emacs but my teammate is very fond of it.
I just need to know how to set up the linker with ATI Stream SDK and basic OpenCL C++ bindings. The actual coding is not the problem.

A: OpenCL doesn't change anything about the C/C++ project, you can use any build system you would otherwise use (vanilla Makefiles, autotools, cmake, etc).
For .cl files I have this in my .emacs:

(setq auto-mode-alist (cons '("\.cl$" . c-mode) auto-mode-alist))

...which forces Emacs to treat them as C files.

I just need to know how to set up the linker with ATI Stream SDK and basic OpenCL C++ bindings.

You need to #include <CL/cl.hpp> and to  pass -lOpenCL to the linker, that's all.

A: Care trying to make this more precise? OpenCL programs (kernels) are usually compiled using the API calls from a program written in C or C++. Running the program, as well as transferring data back and forth to the memory of the host program, are likewise handled through the API.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Q: Comparing/Switching Selected JButtons within a 2D Array Similar questions to my own have been asked, but I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to proceed. I really have a poor grasp of some of the more subtle nuances of java, so I apologize if anything isn't clear.
Say for example I wanted to compare one JButton within a 2D array with another. To be more specific, all of these JButton's would be stores within a 2D array and displayed in grid format. All of the buttons would have the same action listener that, upon the button being pressed, calls the setselected() method.
How would I go about comparing one of these selected JButton's with another selected JButton within the same array? And upon doing so, how could I swap the positions or more specifically, the icons of said buttons.
Below, I've included some example code and my own attempt on the subject. I understand that I can use .getSource() to grab a JButton object itself, but would this not only allow me to capture 1 selected button at a time. This is all considering the use of the same actionlistner code for each button, but a secular listener for each button.
The code below sets every icon to 1 of 7 randomly generated image icons. A frame is generated within secular main class. Upon being pressed or "selected" the image icons change to a selected iteration of the same image.
EDIT: Based on Ameer's suggestion, I've run into several nullpointer exceptions that are caused by my actionPerformed method. Is this as a result to my button array not being filled with button objects at this point, or am I simply presuming something within my code?
  public class SButtonGame extends JFrame implements ActionListener   {

    public static ImageIcon[] icons={

    new ImageIcon("img1.png"),
    new ImageIcon("img2.png"),
    new ImageIcon("img3.png"),
    new ImageIcon("img4.png"),

    new ImageIcon("img5.png"),

    new ImageIcon("img6.png"),
    new ImageIcon("img7.png"),

    };

    public static ImageIcon[] selectedIcons={

    new ImageIcon("simg1.png"),
    new ImageIcon("simg2.png"),
    new ImageIcon("simg3.png"),
    new ImageIcon("simg4.png"),

    new ImageIcon("simg5.png"),

    new ImageIcon("simg6.png"),
    new ImageIcon("simg7.png"),
    };

   int rowNum=0;
   int colNum=0;
   JButton[][] Buttons;

   boolean swaptf=false;
   JButton CButton; // Selected button "holder". Doesn't accomplish anything I think it            should

    public SButtonGame(String title) {

    //Constructs frame
    super(title);
    getContentPane().setLayout(null)
    setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    setSize(578,634);

    int colLoc=10;
    int rowLoc=10;
    this.colNum=0;
    this.rowNum=0;

    for(int r=0; r<8; r++)
    {

    this.Buttons= new JButton[9][9];

    this.rowNum++;

    for(int c=0; c<8; c++)
    {

    ActionListener listner = new ActionListener(){

    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
    {

    if(e.getSource() instanceof JButton)
    {

    ((JButton) e.getSource()).setSelected(true);

    CButton=(JButton)e.getSource();

    }

    }

    };

    int ranImg;

    ranImg=0+(int)(Math.random()*7);
    int sranImg=ranImg;

    this.Buttons[this.colNum][this.rowNum]= new JButton(icons[ranImg]);
    this.Buttons[this.colNum][this.rowNum].setSelectedIcon(selectedIcons[sranImg]);
    this.Buttons[this.colNum][this.rowNum].addActionListener(listner);
    this.Buttons[this.colNum][this.rowNum].setSize(59,59);
    this.Buttons[this.colNum][this.rowNum].setLocation(rowLoc,colLoc);
    rowLoc=rowLoc+69;

    this.Buttons[this.colNum][this.rowNum].setVisible(true);

    this.Buttons[this.colNum]  [this.rowNum].setBorder(BorderFactory.createLineBorder(Color.black));
    add(this.Buttons[this.colNum][this.rowNum]);

    }
    this.colNum++;
    colLoc=colLoc+69;
    rowLoc=10;
    }

    JButton Newgame;
    Newgame= new JButton("NewGame");
    Newgame.setSize(100, 30);
    Newgame.setLocation(350, 560);
    Newgame.setVisible(true);
    add(Newgame);

    JButton Quit;
    Quit= new JButton("Quit");
    Quit.setSize(60, 30);
    Quit.setLocation(480, 560);
    Quit.setVisible(true);
    add(Quit);

    New.addActionListener(new ActionListener()
    {
    //dispose of current frame and generates a new one;

    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
    {

    dispose();
    SButtonGame Frame;
    Frame = new SButtonGame("ShinyButtons");

    Frame.setVisible(true);

    }

    });
    Quit.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){

    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)

    {

    dispose();

    }

    });

    }

 @Override
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ae){

                if(ae.getSource() instanceof JButton){

                    JButton sButton;
                   int rindex=0;
                   int cindex=0;

                    ((JButton) ae.getSource()).setSelected(true);

                   sButton=(JButton)ae.getSource();

                   if(SButtonGame.this.Buttons[(int)sButton.getClientProperty("rownum")][(int)sButton.getClientProperty("colnum")].isEnabled()==true){

                   }

                }

            }

    public static void main(String[] args)
    {

    SButtonGame Frame;
    Frame = new SButtonGame("ButtonsGame");

    Frame.setVisible(true);

    }

    }

A: Inside actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) method, you can access the 2D array of buttons by using SButtonGame.this.Buttons (ideally variable name should be buttons starting with small b).
You can then compare the clicked button with the buttons from array and do rest of your stuff.