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Broadway/Ball Sq Bridge closure meeting Weds. Aug 29; Cedar St chicanes, bumpouts & roadway
Posted on August 28, 2018 · Add your reaction
Broadway/Ball Square Bridge, GLX train
Broadway/Ball Square Bridge closure and detour routes community meeting this Wednesday, August 29 6 PM at Community Baptist Church, 31 College Ave, Davis Square;
Cedar Street chicanes, bumpouts and roadway
Broadway/Ball Square Bridge closure and detour routes community meeting this Wednesday, August 29, 6 PM at Community Baptist Church, 31 College Ave, Davis Square; update on detour routes and my concerns
The City Communications Department sent out an excellent email about this meeting on Friday so I am copying it in here below for your info. After the City email, I share some new information about the detour routes, my concerns, and what I am advocating for. Please share with me your thoughts and ideas. I hope you can attend the meeting on Wednesday night and speak up with your concerns, ideas and questions. I have been told there will be ample time for comments by and discussion with the community. Many final decisions about the detour routes and exact timing of the closure have yet to be made.
Here is the City Communications Dept email:
Dear Ball and Magoun Square Community Members,
Beginning in late 2018, the Broadway Bridge (between Boston Ave. and Cedar St.) will close for one full year to vehicle, pedestrian, and bicycle traffic as part of ongoing construction for the Green Line Extension project (GLX).
Please join Mayor Curtatone, Ward 5 Alderman Mark Niedergang, Ward 6 Alderman Lance Davis, and reps from the City and the GLX team on Wednesday, August 29, for a public meeting about upcoming construction, detour routes, and mitigation efforts in the Ball Square neighborhood.
August 29 Community Meeting -- Somerville Community Baptist Church, 31 College Ave., 6 p.m. Please note that there will be a second meeting scheduled for late September if you are unable to attend this meeting.
How to Stay Informed
There are a number of ways in which MassDOT, the MBTA/GLX team, and the City of Somerville will keep the community updated throughout this project. We encourage you to familiarize yourself with these additional resources to stay as informed as possible.
City of Somerville GLX Updates
Receive bi-weekly email updates about the GLX project. To enroll, email construction@somervillema.gov with "GLX Alerts" in the subject line.
MassDOT / GLX Update Emails
MassDOT and the GLX team maintain an email list, available to anyone wishing to opt in. Emails include upcoming schedules and work information. To sign up for these email updates, visit www.greenlineextension.org.
Station-Area Representatives
The GLX Project team developed a Community Working Group to provide information sharing between the project team and the public. The Working Group consists of representatives from each of the station areas in Medford, Somerville, and Cambridge. Working Group members provide assistance to the MBTA and to the community in identifying local issues of concern, facilitating dialogue, and planning agendas and topics for discussion at neighborhood and community meetings. We strongly encourage you to reach out the Working Group representative closest to your area of interest and sign up for their alerts and updates. These representatives work very closely with the project team and the City of Somerville and can provide you with valuable information for your specific neighborhood. The representatives for each area are listed below along with their contact information.
Jennifer Dorsen, Ball Square: jdorsen@gmail.com
Justin Moeling, Gilman Square: glxjustin@gmail.com
Ryan Dunn, Magoun Square: ryandunn.glx@gmail.com
Jim McGinnis, Union Square: jim02143@gmail.com
Elliott Bradshaw, Brickbottom: ebradshaw@alum.mit.edu
Dylan Manley, East Somerville: dylanm510@gmail.com
4. GLX Project Website
If you would like updated information but do not wish to receive active alerts and updates, you can visit www.greenlineextension.org, where full project background materials are also linked.
GLX 24/7 Hotline: The GLX team is happy to assist you, and this is the best first stop for any questions or concerns. Email them at info@glxinfo.com, or call the project hotline, which is monitored 24/7: 1-855-GLX-INFO.
311 Constituent Services: For basic, city-specific issues related to the GLX, contact our 24/7 Constituent Services Office at 3-1-1 (or 617-666-3311).
City of Somerville Construction Team: City staff assigned to the project are available to assist you via construction@somervillema.gov or 617-666-3311.
Information and updates on the detour routes, my concerns, & what I am advocating for
If you want the latest information, I encourage you to review the PowerPoint presentation from the August 7 GLX Community Working Group meeting (pdf)
You may have noticed that previous announcements said that the bridge would be closed starting in November; the most recent City email which I copied in above says "Beginning late 2018."
Many residents of the Ball Square area are alarmed at the additional traffic and chaos that may ensue on their neighborhood streets due to the detours. The businesses in Ball Square are, of course, extremely worried, but I was impressed by their stoicism and remarkably positive attitude when I walked Ball Square with Ward 5 Community Police Officer Walter Collette and talked with many business owners, managers, and workers last week.
We all know that the Broadway/Ball Square bridge closure will have a negative impact, and especially on Ball Square businesses, residents who live near Ball Square, and people who regularly drive, walk or bike across the bridge. There is no way around this and no point in sugar-coating it. The inconveniences, hassles, and delays from the bridge closure -- in addition to the $50 million that the state coerced from Somerville for the GLX Project -- are part of the price we will pay for GLX coming to Somerville in 2021, and for GLX stations in Ward 5 at Lowell Street/Magoun Square and Ball Square.
All we can do is mitigate the harmful impacts as best possible. Some mitigation suggestions have already been ruled out by the GLX Team. For example, community members advocated for three alternatives to the proposed ¾-mile pedestrian/bike detour down Winchester St to Harvard St and back to Ball Square on Boston Avenue. All three community proposals have been ruled out by the GLX Team. You can see their rationales for nixing these great suggestions on pp. 25, 26 and 27 of the August 7 presentation.
I am enormously concerned about the ¾ mile pedestrian detour, and have expressed this to decision-makers on the GLX Team, in our City government, and to our state legislators. It is outrageous to expect some people to walk ¾ of a mile to get around the bridge, especially elderly people, people with disabilities, parents with strollers, and parents with young children. And what about when it snows, and ice and snow are not cleared from some sidewalks? It is the responsibility of the GLX Team to solve this problem. City staff and I have suggested that a shuttle van could pick people up at one end of the bridge and ferry them around the detour route to the other. This shuttle van could also carry bus riders to and from their bus stop – since the bus stops will be moved off Broadway and many bus riders may have to walk far to get to their stop.
City officials have asked the GLX Team to establish a shuttle van program and pay for it. So far, the GLX Team has said no; their proposed solution is that residents who need help use the MBTA Ride. This is not a viable solution for many reasons. If the GLX Team refuses to provide a shuttle van service, I hope the City will do it, even if the City has to pay for it.
My greatest concern continues to be the safety of pedestrians in the Ball Square Somerville neighborhood in Wards 5 and 6 bordered by Cedar Street, Highland Avenue, and College Avenue. These streets constitute the proposed motor vehicle detour route for vehicles heading west, and one of the proposed bus detour routes for all bus traffic, both eastbound and westbound (see pp. 19 & 20 in the August 7 presentation). My biggest fear is that out-of-town drivers will peel off from the motor vehicle detour route to avoid the gridlock and enter neighborhood streets, especially Morrison Avenue. Morrison Avenue is already used as a cut-through. Because the section between Cedar and Willow is wide and straight, drivers bomb down it at speeds that are way too fast. I worry that a pedestrian, perhaps a child or parent crossing Morrison at Highland Road to get to Lexington Park or the Community Path, will be hit by an out-of-town driver going too fast on Morrison Ave who is not familiar with the neighborhood. In addition, if drivers who are not from that neighborhood get into it, they may get lost and go the wrong way down the many one way streets there, since the traffic pattern in that neighborhood is unusual.
City staff in the Transportation and Infrastructure Division and the Traffic and Parking Dept are looking at possible traffic-calming physical interventions, such as speed bumps, to enhance safety on Morrison Avenue and the surrounding streets. As far as I know, no decisions have yet been made. However, one absolutely necessary part of protecting that neighborhood is strong enforcement by police to keep non-residents out. There should be a police officer at the intersection of Cedar Street and Morrison Ave – and also at several other key intersections along the detour route -- for at least two or three hours every weekday morning and evening during rush hour. I have spoken with the GLX Team and City officials including the Mayor and Chief of Police about this, but have not gotten any commitment yet to a strong police presence along the detour route. We know from experience that signs are not enough: many drivers ignore signs and just do what they want if there is not a police officer present to enforce the signs that say "Abutters and local residents only."
In terms of bus detour routes, I have been assured by City staff that there will be no buses or motor vehicles detoured through the Ball Square neighborhood. Bus detours down Rogers Ave, Pearson Ave, Highland Road and Willow Ave have been proposed by the GLX Team. In a meeting with top City staff and the Mayor, I was told that the City will not support bus detours into that neighborhood, and that the Citydoes have the legal power to deny the GLX Team and MBTA from detouring busses onto Somerville local streets. While no decisions have yet been made, the #s 80 and 89 busses may be detoured onto Cedar Street, Highland Avenue, and College Avenue (the same route as the westbound motor vehicle detour). A couple of longer alternative bus routes are also being considered. I think the MBTA should keep the busses completely off of Cedar Street. (See pp. 28-38 of the August 7 presentation for possible bus detour routes).
Cedar Street chicanes, bumpouts and roadway: my thoughts on the continuing controversy
Cedar St. curb extension by Muskat Studios makes the street very narrow.
Many Ward 5 and other Somerville residents who live near or drive down Cedar Street have shared their concerns about the chicanes, bumpouts and curb extentions on upper Cedar Street. Some, thinking ahead, are worried about the increased delays and possible gridlock due to the high volume of traffic that will be detoured onto Cedar Street when the Bridge is closed. I share those concerns. (For those who are not familiar with the term, "chicanes" are artificial serpentine curves in the road so that drivers drive slower and pay closer attention.)
The changes in upper Cedar Street have drawn much comment, including warnings such as "Someone unfortunately will DIE on Cedar St because of those dangerous chicanes," and "I only hope to God I'm not right, but I feel that north and south traffic being pushed into one another will cause a serious accident." (Check out my Facebook page if you want to see these and other comments.)
Bicyclists have complained about how unsafe Cedar Street is, too. They are right, but it always has been. I mostly get around by bicycle myself and I tell bicyclists to avoid upper Cedar Street during rush hour as the street is simply not wide enough to have adequate bicycle infrastructure. There is nothing that can be done about this.
I do not agree with those who think the changes on upper Cedar Street are bad. I continue to support the chicanes, bumpouts and curb extensions because I believe they will make that street a slower and safer roadway for all users once the construction is complete.
Let me give a little history. The plans were developed four years ago by City staff and professional traffic engineering consultants. There have been two large community meetings to review them. There was enthusiastic and widespread support for the plans in the community and at those meetings.
The main goal is to slow traffic and make Cedar St safer, and to allow cars entering from Morrison, Clyde, Murdock and other sidestreets to do so more safely. Another goal is to deter some of the many out-of-towners who use Cedar St as a cut-through to Cambridge and Boston from using our City for their commute. To do the latter, the engineers decided to make the street more uncomfortable to drive on. We will get used to it; hopefully this will inspire people north of Somerville who don't use Cedar Street regularly to find other ways to get into Cambridge and Boston.
The project was delayed by three years and now there have been a lot of complaints about the current (unfinished) roadway. I have to agree that the construction and implementation has been flawed, leaving the street in an in-between, halfway-finished state for three months. And it looks like the job won't be finished until late September, when they will finally repave and restripe Cedar Street from Highland Avenue to Broadway.
The current condition of the street does present dangers for drivers. I have heard that some vehicles have run into the bumpouts at night, including a Warwick Street resident who had to swerve to avoid a driver who was in the middle of the road. As a result of complaints I received, I urged City staff to put bollards and reflectors on the bumpouts so they are more visible at night, and they put those orange and white reflective barrels up right away. I then urged City staff to temporarily repaint the street so that drivers had some guidance as to where to swerve to negotiate the chicanes and bumpouts. It took over a month, but finally the street got some center lines on it, but only a bare minimum. Driving on upper Cedar Street still requires great caution. Of course not all drivers are paying close attention, so I expect that accidents will continue, but so far, as far as I know, nobody has been hurt.
The reconstruction of the upper Cedar Street roadway has created a narrower and harder to negotiate street. This is actually a good thing as it will slow and reduce traffic. However, it seems to have come at the worst possible time. I do not understand how traffic will be able to flow, or even move, if large trucks and MBTA busses are detoured onto Cedar Street when the Broadway/Ball Square Bridge is closed. Some spots on upper Cedar Street are now quite narrow – especially the curb extension near Clyde Street and Muskat Studios (see photo) and the large bumpouts at Morrison, Clyde and Murdock. Under normal circumstances, I see this as a positive, as it will do what this design was intended to do – slow traffic and make drivers pay better attention. But when the Bridge closes and lots of large trucks and MBTA busses go down Cedar Street, I am concerned that traffic may become gridlocked if a bus and a truck are facing each other and can't back up or pass. I have shared this concern with City staff, and told the GLX Team at the August 7 meeting that they should do some serious testing of their buses and drivers along Cedar Street now.
Despite the short-term pain, I believe that the redevelopment of upper Cedar Street will improve safety and mobility for all users. I have encouraged the critics to wait and evaluate the new roadway once it is complete and has been in use for a few months.
Lower Cedar Street: water and sewer infrastructure project to be completed in September
Lower Cedar Street will continue to have closures into September as Gioisio Construction, the City's contractor there, continues to work on the Summer/Cedar Street intersection and the sidewalks to make them legally ADA accessible. They will also replant some trees. When that's all done, they will repave the roadways on Cedar Street up to Highland Avenue, Hall Street, and Cedar Avenue. City officials have said this long-running project will finally be finished by the end of September.
In the coming weeks, I will write to you again about topics such as the tree slaughter along the GLX rail corridor and in other locations in Somerville; the need for more green and open space in Somerville and Board of Aldermen efforts to make progress on this important goal; and priorities for the Board of Aldermen and the Legislative Matters Committee, which I chair, for this fall, winter and the spring of 2019.
Mark Niedergang
Ward 5 Alderman
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text:
a few years in the Absolute Elsewhere
An hour later, with ten more miles and the visit to the World's Biggest Drugstore safely behind us, we were back at home, and I had returned to that reassuring but profoundly unsatisfactory state known as "being in one's right mind."
Come as Your Madness: Samson De Brier and the Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome.
Imagine you're a rising Hollywood star in the fifties or sixties. You're riding the cusp of a wave, on the brink of making it to the lofty heights, to the strange gilded zoo where money, ego, and madness make anything and everything possible and permissible. You have a pointed awareness of being initiated slowly into a world with its own laws and conventions, its own rich history and mythos, woven out of half-truths and an exalted kind of malicious gossip. Hollywood is a place of endless intersections, its mythic canvass crowded with sidelong cameos from politicians, tycoons, mobsters, and gurus. You hear legends about Valentino and the gods and goddesses of the Silent Era, tales of sybaritic orgies that ended in murder, and private megalomanias, peccadillos, and fetishes that wound up in the files of J Edgar Hoover. Your initiation into the Hollywood Babylon wouldn't be complete, however, without a trip to a certain Victorian bungalow in Barton Avenue, West Hollywood. The bungalow was the home of the self-styled raconteur, aesthete and "Hollywood warlock" Samson De Brier, and throughout the forties, fifties, sixties, and early seventies, it was the scene of a remarkable afterhours artists salon, attended, at some point or another, by a staggering cast of luminaries from the big screen, and far, far elsewhere.
De Brier was born Arthur Jasmine in China in 1910. He was rumoured (very likely by himself) to have been the bastard off-spring of the King of Bavaria. The Jasmines moved to Atlantic City when Arthur was a very young child. According, once again, to the very sketchy providence of legend, his father was a corrupt politician in Atlantic City who was eventually stabbed by a jealous mistress. Fleeing the scandal, the Jasmines washed up in Los Angeles, where Arthur enjoyed a brief and undistinguished career as a child/teen movie star, appearing in 22 films between 1915 and 1925. (Wormwood Star: The Magickal Life of Marjorie Cameron, Amazon.) Of these, the most noteworthy was a 1923 adaptation of Wilde's Salome, whose beautiful, Beardsley-influenced costumes and sets promted later critics to label it the first art film produced in America:
At age 16, Jasmine set sail for the heady, bustling bohemia of 20s Paris, where he encountered Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau, and became the lover of Andre Gide. After returning to the States, and trying his hand at a variety of occupations, Jasmine eventually bought a Victorian duplex property on Barton Avenue. The property was situated in an apt location to be haunted by the ghosts of Old Hollywood: a block away was the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street, known as Gower Gulch since the silent days when real cowboys had congregated on that street corner, hoping to find work in western pictures at the nearby Christie Studios, and apparently giving birth to the expression "drug-store cowboy" in the process. By renting out the other properties in the duplex, and living in the bungalow to the rear, Jasmine found that he could devote all his time to the activity that best suited his disposition: essentially, the stylized, self-absorbed indolence of the full-time aesthete and bon-vivant. Jasmine adopted the pseudonym "Samson De Brier", and decorated his home with Art Deco furnishings, oriental rugs, and rare Hollywood memorabilia, until it resembled an opulent, opiated fever-dream; a modest, but serviceable stately Pleasure Dome. Thus established, De Brier began his keeping his salon, and in the ensuing decades, 6026 Barton Ave. would become a strange attractor to a diverse and shifting cast of movie stars, magicians, intellectuals, and degenerates.
Visitors to De Brier's Salon: Stanley Kubrick, Steve McQueen, Jane Fonda.
In the forties, De Brier's orbit was a nexus where various twilight subcultures and scenes converged and coalesced: the Hollywood gay, occult, and drug/bohemian communities were all in evidence. In the early years of the salon, De Brier entertained the gifted rocket scientist and ill-fated magus Jack Parsons, the untalented sci-fi writer and gifted sham-guru L. Ron Hubbard, the composers Igor Stravinsky and Kurt Weill, the writers Anais Nin, Ray Bradbury, and Dorothy Parker, and many others. A teenage Kenneth Anger showed up there, soon to impress Jean Cocteau with his homoerotic 1947 fantasia Fireworks, and De Brier's salon would maintain a pivotal place in the American experimental/underground film community that emerged in the wake of Maya Deren's ground-breaking Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). As the decades passed, 6026 remained a kind of living museum exhibit of the increasingly eccentric bohemian pioneers who had had first ventured into the outer limits of drug use and sexual experimentation. Over the years, it would be visited by weirdness-seeking Hollywood luminaries including James Dean, Richard Burton, Stanley Kubrick, Jack Nicholson, Steve McQueen, and Jane Fonda. The magickal and exotic ambience of De Brier's home and salon is preserved in Kenneth Anger's rapturous underground fantasia The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954), which was filmed there, and starred De Brier himself in a variety of roles, alongside Anais Nin and the legendary Babalon herself, Marjorie Cameron:
De Brier passed away in 1995, having lived at 6026 for fifty years. The property went on sale in autumn 2007, described as "the former home of infamous celebrity warlock Samson De Brier" and a "relic from Hollywood's pre-hippy freak show days." Whatever ghosts remain there today – whatever flickering shadows of the Dream Factory in its silent infancy, whatever whiff of unspeakable scandal, whatever demons or surreptitious guffaws conjured up by incantations – they must be left to our imagination, like the excitement and curiosity of the various stars as they stood at the threshold of a fading and dreamlike Pleasure Dome, with no telling who – or what – might be within.
Posted by Tristan Eldritch at 5:22 PM
bigjay said...
Interesting article although it's almost certainly false that de Brier was Arthur Jasmine (and most of the other details of his life are laughable). A quick check on imdb reveals that Jasmine was born in 1899 and died in 1954. No doubt de Brier took the opportunity to impress his circle of friends by claiming this as his background. Most of these LA occult types are known bullshit artists. Anger still claims that he was the changeling prince in A Midsummer Night;s Dream- now proven to be a girl (Sheila Brown). And almost everything Anton Lavey has claimed about his life is BS. de Brier was just another poseur, trying to make himself out to be more than he was which was a bitter little man who tried really hard to be important.
Tristan Eldritch
Tristan Eldritch is an Edwardian sleuth, occultist, and amateur draftman in the school of Beardsley. In 1972, he was voted Pipe Smoker of the Year by readers of the London pipe enthusiaists bible The Gentleman's Chimney. In 1978, he was voted World's Most Desirable Man by a cross-section of Welsh ladies who had been placed in institutional care. He spent much of the 1980's perfecting a certain aristocratic languor when in the horizontal position, a skill he demonstrated to rapturous applause on various chat shows. In the 1990's, he was briefly the editor of Old Moore's Almanac, until his controversial assertion that red skies possess no relevance whatsoever to the dispositon of shepherds resulted in his immediate dismissal. He currently resides in Mount Brown, Dublin, with his feline familar Tzadkiel, and divides his time between writing the 2012 Diaries, and publishing several incendiary, albeit dated, pamphlets expressing his fierce oppositon to the Ladies Suffragette and Irish Home Rule movements.
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From the weblog : http://blahsploitation.blogspot.com/20040801blahsploitationarchive.html#109139124639379841
Henry Louis Gates Jr :
Are white racists forcing black teenagers to drop out of school or to have babies?
Dunno. What proportion of MTV shareholders are white racists?
I gotta CallBullshit on this one, Phil.
categorizing "showing TV shows demonstrating poor personal choices" as "force" demeans the true force/violence faced by billions around the globe.
do you really think that MTV managers show the crap they do because they want black teenagers to have babies, to continue the cycle of PoverTy? I'd say it's more a combo of (a) younger limo-liberals wanting to embrace populist culture, and (b) managers deciding their job is simply to show what "sells" - if it bleeds it leads.
–BillSeitz
Yep. I accept that. It was an over-the-top assertion and I'll pull back from it.
But I think there are a some important points raised :
1) categorizing "showing TV shows demonstrating poor personal choices" as "force" demeans the true force/violence faced by billions around the globe.
Clearly there is "true force / violence" out there and it's a lot worse than other harms you can do to people. And we must preserve the sense of difference. Certainly I'd reserve special holding areas like prisons for people threatening "real" violence.
But I'm not sure I'd accept that the two are as cleanly separable as I think you would like to believe.
More specifically, I wouldn't accept that there is a clear and obvious cut-off point between "bad behaviours which cause harm" which include physical violence or the threat of it, and "innocent behavious which don't cause harm", which includes mere conveying information.
I most definitely believe you can harm someone by teaching them false things. And I think you can harm someone by teaching them particular interpretations of the world and particular values. I think that's pretty much Gates's point too, that there are beliefs within the black community which are destructive for it. For example, that studying is "white" or a betrayal of black culture. Psychologists are always discovering that if you start telling people that they are different or stupid or telling one group that another group can be hated, that this causes those symptoms. (StanfordExperiment, BlueEyesBrownEyes)
Now, does MTV force you to drop out of school to have babies? No. Does it contribute to a climate where kids value beauty, sexual success, and consumption more than study and academic achievement? Sure. Though it's not the only factor. School is stupid (as everyone from JohnTaylorGatto to PaulGraham keeps reminding us.) Teenagers are going to value beauty and sexual success anyway. (I will accept that's HumanNature, as well as the message of almost all human culture throughout history). And although I don't think consumption is human nature, I think it's pretty easy to implement it on the human virtual machine. (TheWantingWithoutAName)
2) do you really think that MTV managers show the crap they do because they want black teenagers to have babies, to continue the cycle of PoverTy? I'd say it's more a combo of (a) younger limo-liberals wanting to embrace populist culture, and (b) managers deciding their job is simply to show what "sells" - if it bleeds it leads.
No, I don't think MTV managers (or shareholders) want that. My political understanding is driven very much by SystemsThinking and belief in unplanned / "emergent" / self-organized effects; in InvisibleHands and BasinsOfAttraction. I'm extremely resistant to analyses in terms of ConspiracyTheories, guilty groups, "who's fault" it is, or human malice. That's one reason I don't get depressed by politics. If I spent my time thinking problems existed because people were bad I'd be a lot less happy (and a lot less polite to people who I disagreed with.)
But because I don't think people are necessarily "at fault" here, doesn't mean I don't think there's anything wrong. There is a case to be answered, and somehow, there needs to be some kind of intervention in the system to change it. If we recognise a CycleOfPoverty, we ought to do something about it! Such an intervention might even have to inconvenience some people who are, in this sense, innocent.
What kind of intervention should that be? I don't know. That needs some thinking. And more important, some piecemeal experimentation. And there are lots of other things that should be balanced. I believe FreedomOfSpeech is a very important value we should try to preserve at (almost) any cost. I love HipHop and would hate to be denied access to what I think is arguably the world's current richest, most innovative, cultural form. So I'm open to good suggestions. Maybe we need a ChessNerd channel? Maybe school needs to be rethought. Maybe we need quotas for black scientists on TV. Maybe we need to pull the plug on MTV.
What I don't see a good argument for, is to divide these suggestions a priori into "thinkable" and "unthinkable". Where "unthinkable" is defined rather like a NashEquilibrium, with anything that might economically "hurt" someone automatically rejected.
So, to return to your point. My comment was over-simplistic. It was wrong. (I'll let you define the CallBullshit page :-) But I want to remind people to wonder about this. Is there a role or a causal arc from MTV to the problems Gates diagnoses, and if so what needs to be done?)
There's also a meta-issue for me, as I'm always fascinated by left and right political thinking. I suspect that left and right are very much influenced by intuitions about personal responsibility and "causation". One of the reasons I'm getting into PollsAndCompasses is because I want to produce something where self-defined left and right thinkers can answer a bunch of questions about causation and responsibility and try to extract what the core intuitions of both are.
– PhilJones
"Maybe we need to pull the plug on MTV. "
What is your specific beef with MTV? That it encourages valuing (and thus spending money on) stupid things? That it encourages sexual promiscuity without a balancing sense of responsibility? Something else?
Nothing specific to MTV. Just like McDonalds, Nike etc. it's a brand-name which has become an easily identifiable short-hand for a category.
But I guess your question is something like : why do I accuse, or how do I justify the accusation of, MTV-like things as causal agents in the CycleOfPoverty system?
Which might also be rephrased :
a) what are the possible causal links?
b) can I justify them?
Actually, this question is trickier and more interesting than I first thought.
a) The answer to your way of phrasing the first question is "yes to both. And maybe some more".
It's certainly to do with "encouraging valuing ... stupid things." And that it teaches certain sexual norms of behaviour and expectation. (Although I wouldn't characterize that problem quite the way you do. Your way makes it sound like if there were only enough adverts for contraceptives to make up the "responsibility" quota, I should be satisfied. The problem is down at a more fundamental level than that. The problem is what it shows men about how they should persue sex, and what they should expect from success and from women. And it shows women how they ought to be to be valued by men and by society in general.)
As an example of another possible causal arc, remember that Gates says : Too many of our children have come to believe that it's easier to become a black professional athlete than a doctor or lawyer.
Reality check: According to the 2000 census, there were more than 31,000 black physicians and surgeons, 33,000 black lawyers and 5,000 black dentists. Guess how many black athletes are playing professional basketball, football and baseball combined. About 1,400.
Now I believe, absolutely, that children think it's easier to become a black professional athlete than a doctor or a lawyer partly because they see a lot more black athletes represented in the media. And, although I haven't done a statistically significant study of MTV, I'll also bet you 10 quid (trivial but real money) that there's more video-time and more advert-time on MTV showing blacks in sportswear and sport-fantasy situations, than blacks in doctorwear and doctor-fantasy situations.
I can't prove it, but a couple other factors here that smell significant: (a) people fantasize about glory regardless of the odds of success in achieving it through a particular path, (b) they don't televise operations and then have big cheers for the surgeon (that would be pretty cool), (c) I think that in sports there's more commonality between what the amateur does (shoot baskets, perform well in a game vs peers) compared to what a doctor does (if you're 12 and you want to be a doctor, they don't let you try a little surgery) (so there's much more of a DelayedGratification issue here) –BillSeitz
That's probably true for whites as well, but I'll bet another 10 quid that as a proportion of airtime portraying blacks athletes get more than the other "role-models", relative to the amount white athletes get relative to other white role-models.
well, certainly black athletes get more airtime than black doctors, as a function of SpectatorSports getting more airtime than hospital shows (hence general concern over the total number of people pursuing, say, engineering, regardless of color). And also there's an IncreasingReturns issue here. –BillSeitz
As to b) All these causal arcs are, of course, empirically open questions. I don't have (or know of) any good studies of MTV-like things that try to quantify their influence. I guess there must be some studies of the influence of advertising in general. I'll have a look. Although I suspect this is the sort of thing it's almost impossible to do methodologically well. (Maybe politics is what we have when the systems are too complex to tackle with statistically sound methodology. See also TestingMarxism.)
Note the parallels to this and the congressional hearings on TV content and Internet porn.
Meanwhile, I do have intuitions derived from observations of my own experience : times when I see a lot of ads I start to think about consuming more, and I valorize consumer stuff more. Times when I don't, I tend to forget about it. When I see sexualized entertainment, some ideas and images find their way into my sexual fantasies.
Everything I know about other minds comes from extrapolating from such personal experience, and so I'm on no-worse ground here than attributing any other belief or desire according to my FolkPsychology theories.
But, like I say. These hypothesized arcs could turn out to be falsified by some large scale test. Eg. MTV gets banned in one statistically representative state, people watch a lot fewer adverts and so go out and do more sex and shopping to entertain themselves. Teenage pregnancy and other phenomena contributing to the CycleOfPoverty increase. We can't find any alternative causal arcs which might explain the rise. It gets conjectured that MTV has an inhibitory effect. We re-introduce it, and the cycle attenuates.
Could happen ...
OnPoverty
FreedomOfExpressionVsFeministCondemnationOfPornography
NetoCracy/Consumtariat
OnTelevision
SchoolEducation
OnInterventions
GeorgeSoros on guilt in the market.
WhatsWrongWithInequality/TrainerDiscussion
OnPrison where Cringely points out that prison contributes
BillSeitz:TeenagePregnancy
: which links to this interesting research : which http://www.center4policy.org/children10.html which has a couple of points :
** who your friends are is a better predictor of "problem behaviour" than typologies such as EconomicClass, race etc. Strike one up to the power of SocialNetworks
** Blum also stresses that the study supports "the importance of adolescents having after-school and evening programs and places that provide structured time that is supervised by adults." Instead of watching too much trashy television?
** I'd really like to know more about the SelfEsteem question which was analyzed, but who's results aren't mentioned.
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TheWantingWithoutAName
Page Last Modified : Tue Apr 25 11:19:47 BRT 2017 Exported from CardiganBay 2021-01-17T21:33:59.676056


Welcome to the 15th Habbox Weekly Free Lotto!
How would you like to win 1 HC Sofas! More if the 14th Lotto isn't won. If it is won I will add another HC Sofa to the 15th Lotto.
This fourteenth Lotto competition will run until 9th December unless otherwise stated. The dices will be rolled on the 9th December. When the three dice are rolled your entry must match the three numbers in the correct order. If more than one entry shows identical numbers, then the names will be entered onto a computer and the winner selected randomly. If there is no winner then the prize will be added to the next Lotto, and so the prize will grow until it's eventually won. After that Pixelie will hand over the prizes in Habbo.


Toxic amounts of a fluoride have been found in several major brands of dog food, possibly putting pets at a higher risk of cancer, neurotoxicity and other life-threatening illnesses, a research organization warns.
The dog foods contain fluoride levels 2.5 times higher than the Environmental Protection Agency's national drinking water standard and those excessive levels "can predispose dogs to health problems, along with high veterinary bills, later in life," according to the Environmental Working Group.
"Due to a failed regulatory system and suspect practices by some in the pet food industry, countless dogs may be ingesting excessive fluoride that could put them at risk," Olga Naidenko, lead researcher of the Environmental Working Group-sponsored study, states in a media release.
Scientists have yet to determine how much fluoride is safe for dogs, but they have found people who consume excessive fluoride often develop mottled teeth (dental fluorosis) and weakened bones, leading to more fractures. High fluoride consumption is also associated with reproductive and developmental system damage, neurotoxicity, hormonal disruption, and bone cancer.
Three studies show that boys ages 6 to 8 who drink fluoridated tap water face a heightened risk of osteosarcoma, the rare but deadly form of bone cancer associated with fluoride. Scientists suspect that boys' rapid growth may make them more susceptible to bone cancer.
Dogs may be even more vulnerable to osteosarcoma than humans, according to EWG. More than 8,000 osteosarcoma cases occur in dogs each year in the United States, nearly 10 times the number that occur in people, according to the study.
"Whatever the size and the appetite of a dog, combined fluoride exposure from food and water can easily range into unsafe territory," the study states. "And, unlike children, who enjoy a variety of foods as they grow up, puppies and adult dogs eat the same food from the same bag every day, constantly consuming more fluoride than is healthy for normal growth."
In the study, 10 brands of dog food were tested. Two dog food brands, one with vegetarian ingredients and one made by a small manufacturer, had no detectable levels of fluoride. But eight others - all major brands - found to contain high levels of fluoride. The contents of those brands included chicken byproduct meal, poultry byproduct meal, chicken meal, beef and bone meal. Any ingredient described as "animal meal" is basically ground bones, cooked with steam, dried, and mashed to make a cheap dog food filler.The Washington-based Environmental Working Group, whose stated purpose is to protect human health and the environment, advises pet parents to feed food to their dogs that contains no bone meal and other meat byproducts to minimize exposure to harmful pollutants, including fluoride. "To protect pets from excessive fluoride exposures, dog owners can purchase pet foods that do not contain bone meal and other animal byproducts," the study states.
Pet food should be held to the same health and safety standards as human food and should be free of contaminants that may endanger pets' health, the study states. Yet, the federal Food and Drug Administration has little authority and few resources to ensure that products produced for pets are safe. The fact so many popular national pet food brands contain previously undetected health hazards shows that better federal food safety regulations are needed.
"Our findings point to the need for basic health protections that require companies to prove their products are safe before they are sold," Naidenko said. "Bringing public health laws in line with the newest scientific research is a critical step in protecting the health of all members of American households, whether they walk on two legs or four."


According to the latest WHO data published in 2017 Diarrhoeal diseases Deaths in Belgium reached 389 or 0.43% of total deaths. The age adjusted Death Rate is 1.50 per 100,000 of population ranks Belgium #131 in the world. Review other causes of death by clicking the links below or choose the full health profile.


text:
Q: Responsive issue with fixed bootstrap sidebar I have taken two divs say "Panel1" and "Panel2" where Panel1 is having property affix (hard-coded in HTML so have to forcefully apply position:relative on other screen sizes) attached to it in HTML with col-md-3 and Panel2 is col-md-8.
Now the problem is I have to apply left value of around 25% for my Panel2 to align as per Panel1 otherwise it goes beneath it but doing this has broken responsiveness. The design breaks on all other screen sizes and just violates the purpose of using bootstrap for responsive design. (I have to use header and footer from original design and creating a dashboard based on that).
What would be the approach to design without writing and managing screen sizes again manually so that, all I use is bootstrap and design should work on low rez screens.
HTML:

Profile

My Advertisements

My Favouraite Advertisments

Reported Advertisments

Name: John Doe

Email: doejohn@xyz.com

Summary: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Nesciunt natus dicta assumenda, velit quae officia accusantium explicabo similique possimus veniam illo, dolor delectus saepe quis in eveniet voluptatem adipisci, repudiandae.Veritatis at saepe labore explicabo, voluptas asperiores unde accusantium tempore harum, numquam porro doloremque aliquid assumenda. Maiores voluptates aliquid dicta autem commodi eveniet voluptas exercitationem ut, hic laborum laudantium veritatis.

                        Edit info

Overridden CSS
  /* Contains custom css for dashboard */

 @import url(https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat|Dosis);
 @import url(https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans);

body{
    background: #1D1D1D none repeat scroll 0px 0px;
}

.dash-panel{
    padding-top: 1%;
    padding-bottom: 1%;
    height: 480px;
}

.left-panel{
    background: #000;
    margin-right: 4%;
    height: 100%;
    left: 5%;
}

.dash-items{
    list-style: none;
    margin-left: -10%;
}

.dash-li{
    margin-top: 2px;
    padding: 3%;
}

.dash-li:hover{
    background: #3F3030;
}

.list-links{
    text-decoration: none !important;
    color: #F0B101;
    font-family: 'Montserrat', sans-serif;
}

.list-links-profile{
    text-decoration: none !important;
    color: #F0B101;
    font-family: 'Montserrat', sans-serif;
    margin-left: -20%;
}

.right-panel{
    background: #000;
    padding: 2%;
    margin-left: 32.4%;
}

.right-panel-2{
    background: #000;
    padding: 2%;
    left: 24%;
}

.profile-image{
    max-width: 100%;
    width: 100px;
    height: 100px;
    border-radius: 100%;
    float: left;
}

.profile-info{
    float: left;
    margin-left: 2%;
    font-family: 'Dosis', sans-serif;
    background: #1D1D1D;
    width: 80%;
    padding: 2%;
}

.profile-detail-para{
    margin-bottom: 2%;
}

.set-BG{
    background: #1D1D1D;
}

.listing-image{
    width: 180px;
}

.profile-edit{
    background: #D7DFE6;
    padding: 1%;
    color: #000;
}

/* Status */
.pub{
    color: #369536;
}

.pen{
    color: #D13D3D;
}
/* Status Ends */

.edit-profile{
    font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif;
    padding: 2%;
}

.text-area{
    background-color: transparent;
    border: 1px solid #464646;
    border-radius: none !important;
    color: #B8B8B8;
    height: 40px;
    padding: 5px 10px;
    width: 100%;
    box-shadow: none;
}

input[type=file]{
    background: #000;
}

.submit-btn{
    width: 15%;
    background: #000;
    border: 1px solid #E1B101;
}

@media (max-width: 768px) {
  .left-panel  {
    position: relative;
    left: 1.5%;
    width: 34%;
    float: left;
  }
  .right-panel{
    left: 0%;
    float: right;
  }

  .right-panel-2{
    left: 0%;
  }

  .profile-info{
    left: 0%;
  }
}

@media (max-width: 480px) {
  .left-panel  {
    position: relative;
    left: 1.5%;
    float: none;
  }
  .right-panel{
    left: 0%;
    float: none;
  }

  .right-panel-2{
    left: 0%;
  }

  .profile-info{
    left: 0%;
  }
}

/* @media (max-width: 900px) {
  .left-panel  {
    position: relative;
    left: 1.5%;
  }
  .right-panel{
    left: 0%;
  }

  .right-panel-2{
    left: 0%;
  }

  .profile-info{
    left: 0%;
  }
} */

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Bluegrass Orthopaedics' would like to acknowledge our latest Comeback Champion – Mr. Gary Toler. While painting up on a ladder back in September, Mr. Toler had a fall and severely injured his knee. "I found out later, after numerous trips to different physicians, that I was walking around for 3+ months on a broken knee." Mr. Toler came to BGO and saw our total joint surgeon, Dr. Kevin Denehy, for a revision knee replacement. Unfortunately, this same knee had already been replaced a few years before, and the fall off the ladder meant that his total knee replacement would need to be revised.
This posed a difficult surgery, especially due to the months that Mr. Toler was active on an unstable knee. Recovery from this would also be difficult, but Mr. Toler did extremely well, and has been a true CHAMPION in our eyes.
"Thank God for Dr. Denehy. Within a few days I was walking with almost no pain at all. I will never be able to thank Dr. Denehy and his staff enough. I am blessed that he was there when I needed him." BGO is very thankful for Mr. Toler's recovery, as we know it was not an easy one. We wish him well… with no trips up a ladder :-).
To learn more about our total joint specialist, Dr. Denehy, please visit here!


text:
With many people fearing the actions of super heroes, the government decides to push for the Hero Registration Act, a law that limits a hero's actions. This results in a division in The Avengers. Iron Man stands with this Act, claiming that their actions must be kept in check otherwise cities will continue to be destroyed, but Captain America feels that saving the world is daring enough and that they cannot rely on the government to protect the world. This escalates into an all-out war between Team Iron Man (Iron Man, Black Panther, Vision, Black Widow, War Machine, and Spider-Man) and Team Captain America (Captain America, Bucky Barnes, Falcon, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, and Ant Man) while a new villain emerges. Written by RespectTheHyphen
Country: USA , Germany
161 min | 174 min (extended)
Forced to spend his summer holidays with his muggle relations, Harry Potter gets a real shock when he gets a surprise visitor: Dobby the house-elf, who warns Harry Potter against returning to Hogwarts, for terrible things are going to happen. Harry decides to ignore Dobby's warning and continues with his pre-arranged schedule. But at Hogwarts, strange and terrible things are indeed happening: Harry is suddenly hearing mysterious voices from inside the walls, muggle-born students are being attacked, and a message scrawled on the wall in blood puts everyone on his/her guard - "The Chamber Of Secrets Has Been Opened. Enemies Of The Heir, Beware" . Written by Soumitra
Country: UK , USA , Germany
Genre: Adventure, Family, Fantasy, Mystery,
This is the inspiring captivating story of the legendary rapper Eminem. The troubled young aspiring rapper from a ghetto in Michigan must exert his last chances to become successful while dealing with his life in ruins. All is seemingly lost. He is now single, has only a few friends, an insane/alcoholic mother, and is dealt with poverty and living in a violent city on 8 mile. His only way out of the ghetto and torturous life he's living in is with his talent in rapping. Will B-Rabbit prevail and seize the shot he's given or will he let it slip? Written by ojmessier23
After young Katniss Everdeen agrees to be the symbol of rebellion, the Mockingjay, she tries to return Peeta to his normal state, tries to get to the Capitol, and tries to deal with the battles coming her way...but all for her main goal: assassinating President Snow and returning peace to the Districts of Panem. As her squad starts to get smaller and smaller, will she make it to the Capitol? Will she get revenge on Snow or will her target change? Will she be with her "Star-Crossed Lover," Peeta, or her long-time friend, Gale? Deaths, bombs, bow and arrows, a love triangle, hope... What will happen? Written by baileyyybroooks
When a retiring assassin realizes he's the target of a hit, he winds up back in the game going head to head with an army of younger, ruthless killers.
Genre: ,
Set in contemporary New York City, a seemingly ordinary teenager, Clary Fray, discovers she is the descendant of a line of Shadowhunters, a secret cadre of young half-angel warriors locked in an ancient battle to protect our world from demons. After the disappearance of her mother, Clary must join forces with a group of Shadow Hunters, who introduce her to a dangerous alternate New York called the Shadow World, filled with demons, warlocks, vampires, werewolves and other deadly creatures. Written by Sony Pictures Entertainment
Country: USA , Germany , Canada
Genre: Action, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Romance,
100 min | 108 min (unrated)
Angelenos Doug Billings and Tracy Garner are about to get married. Two days before the wedding, the four men in the wedding party - Doug, Doug's two best buddies Phil Wenneck and Stu Price, and Tracy's brother Alan Garner - hop into Tracy's father's beloved Mercedes convertible for a 24-hour stag party to Las Vegas. Phil, a married high school teacher, has the same maturity level as his students when he's with his pals. Stu, a dentist, is worried about everything, especially what his controlling girlfriend Melissa thinks. Because she disapproves of traditional male bonding rituals, Stu has to lie to her about the stag, he telling her that they are going on a wine tasting tour in the Napa Valley. Regardless, he intends on eventually marrying her, against the advice and wishes of his friends. And Alan seems to be unaware of what are considered the social graces of the western world. The morning after their arrival in Las Vegas, they awaken in their hotel suite each with the worst ... Written by Huggo
The Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift
An American teenager named Sean Boswell is a loner in school, however he challenges his rival for an illegal street racing, and he totals his car in the end of the race. To avoid time in prison he is sent to Tokyo to live with his father who is in the military. As soon as he arrives he discovers a new, fun but dangerous way of street racing in the underworld of the streets of Tokyo, Japan. Written by Emphinix
Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller,
Rush Hour 3
After an attempted assassination on Ambassador Han, Inspector Lee and Detective Carter are back in action as they head to Paris to protect a French woman with knowledge of the Triads' secret leaders. Lee also holds secret meetings with a United Nations authority, but his personal struggles with a Chinese criminal mastermind named Kenji, which reveals that it's Lee's long-lost...brother. But their race will take them across the city, from the depths of the Paris underground to the breathtaking heights of the Eiffel Tower, as they fight to outrun the world's most deadly criminals and save the day. Written by Anthony Pereyra {[email protected]}
Genre: Action, Comedy, Crime, Thriller,
A Cure for Wellness
An ambitious young executive is sent to retrieve his company's CEO from an idyllic but mysterious "wellness center" at a remote location in the Swiss Alps. He soon suspects that the spa's miraculous treatments are not what they seem. When he begins to unravel its terrifying secrets, his sanity is tested, as he finds himself diagnosed with the same curious illness that keeps all the guests here longing for the cure. Written by 20th Century Fox
Los Angeles street racer Dominic Toretto falls under the suspicion of the LAPD as a string of high-speed electronics truck robberies rocks the area. Brian O'Connor, an officer of the LAPD, joins the ranks of Toretto's highly skilled racing crew undercover to convict Toretto. However, O'Connor finds himself both enamored with this new world and in love with Toretto's sister, Mia. As a rival racing crew gains strength, O'Connor must decide where his loyalty really lies. Written by rball4042; Car7
EX LAPD cop Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) teams up with his ex-con friend Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson) and works with undercover U.S. Customs Service agent Monica Fuentes (Eva Mendes) to bring Miami-based drug lord Carter Verone (Cole Hauser) down. Written by slightlymad22
139 min | 151 min (workprint)
A nameless first person narrator (Edward Norton) attends support groups in attempt to subdue his emotional state and relieve his insomniac state. When he meets Marla (Helena Bonham Carter), another fake attendee of support groups, his life seems to become a little more bearable. However when he associates himself with Tyler (Brad Pitt) he is dragged into an underground fight club and soap making scheme. Together the two men spiral out of control and engage in competitive rivalry for love and power. When the narrator is exposed to the hidden agenda of Tyler's fight club, he must accept the awful truth that Tyler may not be who he says he is. Written by Rhiannon
Genre: Drama,
187 min | 200 min (extended edition)
Carl Denham needs to finish his movie and has the perfect location; Skull Island. But he still needs to find a leading lady. This 'soon-to-be-unfortunate' soul is Ann Darrow. No one knows what they will encounter on this island and why it is so mysterious, but once they reach it, they will soon find out. Living on this hidden island is a giant gorilla and this beast now has Ann is its grasps. Carl and Ann's new love, Jack Driscoll must travel through the jungle looking for Kong and Ann, whilst avoiding all sorts of creatures and beasts. But Carl has another plan in mind. Written by Film_Fan
Country: New Zealand , USA , Germany
Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama, Romance,
In 1999, Ken Carter accepts the job of basketball coach for his old high school in a poor area of Richmond, CA. As much dismayed by the poor attitudes of his players as well as their dismal play performance, Carter sets about to change both. He imposes a strict regime typified in written contracts that demand respectful behavior, a dress code and good grades for players. Any initial resistance is soon dispelled as the team under Carter's tutelage becomes a undefeated competitor. However, when the overconfident team's behavior begins to stray with too many doing poorly in class, Carter takes immediate action. To the outrage of the team, the school and the community, Carter cancels all team activities and locks the court until the team shows acceptable academic improvement. In the ensuing debate, Carter fights to keep his methods, determined to show the boys that they need good values for their futures and eventually finds he has affected them more profoundly than he ever expected. Written by Kenneth Chisholm ([email protected])
Genre: Biography, Drama, Sport,
Down and out rock star Dewey Finn gets fired from his band, and he faces a mountain of debts and depression. He takes a job as a 4th grade substitute teacher at an uptight private school where his attitude and hijinx have a powerful effect on his students. He also meets Zack, a 10-year-old guitar prodigy, who could help Dewey win a battle of the bands competition, which would solve his financial problems and put him back in the spotlight. Written by Anonymous
Genre: Comedy, Family, Music,
The story of a group of Jewish Boy Scouts who worked with the French Resistance to save the lives of ten thousand orphans during World War II.
Country: France , USA , Germany , UK


We are trained to perform the Jewish shrouding ceremony known as Taharah, believed to release the soul to God with great honors and love.
We make this ritual available to families on their own terms following a loved one's death at home, such as by performing it on site, even with the family participating if they wish. We can also do this at the mortuary.
For more information, see our Web site at www.Sacred-Waters.com.


When you look at the role-call vote for yesterday's Marriage Equality bill in the New Jersey Senate, something interesting (and not even subtle) is apparent.
The vote would have been 23-14, maybe 23-16 if the other two Republicans had showed. But either way, marriage equality failed because of Democrats voting against it. I give a lot of credit to Sen. Baroni, the Republican who spoke passionately in favor of marriage equality. Well done, sir.
This is my reminder to show your support for Don't Ask, Don't Give, the campaign to hold Democrats accountable for supporting LGBT issues.
There are 1 Comments to "Hold Dems Accountable For NJ's Anti-Gay Discrimination"
That made me physically sick. What horrible people. They should have their civil rights stripped from them and see how they like it.


Anger is brewing over the sudden departure of Dr. Alison Bested, who, until two weeks ago, had been the much-admired medical director of the Complex, Chronic Disease Clinic at BC Women's Clinic.
About 165 patients have been seen since the clinic opened last year, but there's a wait-list of nearly 1,000.
The dispute between Bested and the Provincial Health Services Authority, revolves around the slow intake of patients and Bested's insistence that best-care standards dictate that appointments must be lengthy (at least 90 minutes).
Such patients, after all, have longstanding and multiple health issues if they are struggling with such illnesses as Lyme disease, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and fibromyalgia. From the moment the clinic officially opened last fall, there was a huge wait list of patients because so many have unmet health care needs.
Since I reported on Bested's departure, patients have demanded she be reinstated and that BC Health Minister Terry Lake intervene to make that happen.
Lake said while he understands certain patients require longer visits with doctors, a clinic which is seeing only a handful of patients a week is not sustainable. Bested was expected to spend 80 per cent of her time on delivering clinical care and 20 per cent on administrative matters.
The health minister said he gets the impression that Bested could only have been seeing only one or two patients a day. There are a handful of other doctors who have also worked at the clinic, but they are part-time since they have other private practices.
I have not been able to reach Bested but I understand she's consulting lawyers.
Dr. John Whiting: "As a Canadian by birth and with a large contingency of Canadian family of my own, I wish to 'weigh in' on the current matter over the BC clinic. My training as an Infectious Diseases Specialist was at VGH, Shaughnessy Hospital and at UBC. I am a consultant in Brisbane Australia. Currently, 100% of my time is devoted to ME/CFS clinical care. I TOO recognize how important it is to spend time (minimum 1 hour per visit) with my patients. I have been doing this for the last 25 years. The time spent is essential. Some of my patients have been seeing me for over 2 decades.
From my experience, Dr Bested has been doing precisely the right thing. It is the ONLY way to make a definite impact on these poor, sick people's lives. It takes a lot of know how to control the situation and get the right balance to avoid being overloaded psychologically and mentally. There are problems too with unmet expectations from those who 'oversee' matters and who want to see 'results'. Once this kind of scrutiny gets underway, the potential to spend more time justifying yourself to authorities can outweigh the work time available to see patients. I do not see Dr Bested's approach to be 'slow' in any way, shape or form. This is the nature of the beast that is CFS/ME.
Michele Brown: "This is yet another blow for those of us suffering with chronic illnesses for which the medical community has no understanding let alone effective treatments and I'm so grateful to you for bringing this into the open. There are hundreds of thousands of people with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome,Fibromyalgia, Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, Lyme Disease and other chronic illnesses all across the country who are severely ill with nowhere to turn. The fact the health authority terminated Dr. Bested because she wasn't processing patients fast enough proves their limited knowledge of the complexity of these illnesses and how difficult they are to treat.
Susan Owen: "She isn't the only doctor to leave the clinic, as a very prominent pain specialist left just a few weeks prior. When a Doctor, or a nurse for that matter, is asked to do things that jeopardize patient care, one must make a stand and refuse. I personally can't see how the visits could be made any shorter. I myself have been through the clinic and as I was in the soft opening, I had more time with the doctors, as they learned the charting system, got used to the extensive assessments, etc. and I still found this time was not enough to really portray all my health issues and what has gone on since I took ill.
Victoria Bell: "The message that the loss of Dr. Bested conveys is that although this Clinic purports to be designed specifically to care for those of us with complex diseases, the Clinic management and board lacks the knowledge and understanding of exactly how a ME expert must engage with patients and conduct a practice that effectively treats patients.This is a tragedy of unimaginable proportions not only to your Clinic's patients who have already been treated by Dr. Bested and those on the waiting list, but to the global ME community as well.
I am a physician who has been working for the past several years in a multidisciplinary chronic pain management program outside MSP and I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to spend 90 minutes for every new patient assessment and at least 30 minutes per follow-up, and for seeing a maximum of 6 patients a day. And I could not do it in less time. MSP needs to offer different payment schemes for doctors who focus on complex patients, and somehow politicians and managers need to understand how comprehensive and labour-intensive this work must be in order to have a chance of making a difference in the life of a patient with chronic pain, who has usually already been through thousands of brief appointments that could do no more than scratch the surface of their condition.


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Natalie Maines Says She Had to Move After Her 2003 Comments About Then-President Bush
Angela Stefano Published: July 15, 2020
In 2003, the Chicks faced intense backlash after lead singer Natalie Maines made a comment onstage in London about being "ashamed" to share their home state of Texas with then-President George W. Bush. The trio found themselves the subject of death threats, watched people literally steamroll their albums, and went from the top of the country music pile to outcasts "banned" from radio.
In a new interview, Maines — who was just 28 years old at the time — says the fallout from that night left her "want[ing] to bury my head in the sand." She describes the time as "an emotional whirlwind," explaining that the reactions to her words left her feeling unsafe at home.
"I had to move. That was one thing from the controversy, I didn't feel safe living in the center of Austin anymore because people knew where I lived," Maines tells Bustle. "So I moved 40 minutes outside of Austin."
About one month later, the Chicks — Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer — were interviewed by Diane Sawyer, with Maines making what she now calls "a half-ass apology," saying at the time that her remark came from a place of frustration over the United States' impending invasion of Iraq.
"I would tell my 28-year old-self, 'Make no apologies ... Don't do that. Do not cry on Diane Sawyer. Wait another week before you do this interview because you're too raw,'" the country star now reflects. If "the controversy," as Maines calls it, had happened in 2020, she thinks the interview never would have happened.
"I think I would have just been able to tell everyone to f--k off and get on with more important things," Maines explains. "Now you don't have to go on Diane Sawyer to tell the world [what you want to say], you can just do it in a tweet or Instagram post or whatever."
The Chicks released one more album, 2006's Grammy-winning Taking the Long Way, before mostly disappearing from the spotlight for about a decade. They began touring again, first in Europe and Canada and then in the United States, in the mid-2010s. On Friday (July 17), they will release their first album in 14 years, Gaslighter.
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Source: Natalie Maines Says She Had to Move After Her 2003 Comments About Then-President Bush
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