text:
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Opinions ,They are telling you why they chose Easyflirt
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When is an aggressive horse not aggressive? When he is playing!
Sometimes in my work as an equine behaviourist it is enough to change people's perception of their horse or pony without working on solving the 'problem' through behaviour modification.
A good example is a case I saw nearly ten years ago now. One day the phone went and a distraught mother explained that she had bought her pony-mad teenaged daughter a pony two months ago but that the pony was aggressive and her daughter is understandably distraught because the 'dream' was turning into a nightmare. They couldn't lead the pony (let's call him Fred; names changed for this article) from the stable to the field without him pulling, running away from her and nipping. Life at the livery yard was becoming fraught with fellow liveries offering plenty of judgement and advice to the new owners but no help. Things had got so upsetting that they were planning to sell Fred and give up on the dream but didn't feel they could sell him to another teenaged girl as he was so dangerous.
I attended the consultation prepared to talk about aggression, leading and some general handling advice. I was concerned that, as is often the case with teenage owners, I'd need to carefully manage their expectations about when the pony would be able to go to shows and so on. However, during the consultation it became clear that Fred was not aggressive at all…..
Photo: Suzanne Rogers CHBC (IAABC), Learning About Animals
Unlike behaviourists on TV, practicing behaviourists in the real world, when faced with an aggression case do not ask the owner to handle the horse so that the behaviourist can see them getting kicked or bitten! Instead, after taking a full history, we then ask the owners to carefully describe what the horse is doing (not what they think the motivations of the horse are) and we might perhaps ask to see them interacting with the horse but not put horse or owner in the exact situation we know is potentially very dangerous. In this case, the mother and daughter described Fred's behaviour to me in detail. Throughout their description it was so clear that they were feeling very hurt and confused by Fred's behaviour – they loved him so much, owning a horse was meant to be a dream come true and they felt that he hated them! It didn't take long for me to suspect that rather than aggressive behaviour the horse was in fact playing with them….
The chapter 'Equine play behaviour' by Debbie Goodwin and Carys Hughes in 'The Domestic Horse' provides a full discussion of play behaviour in domestic and wild horses including con-specific and inter-specific play. The effects of domestication on the behaviour of horses is generally considered to have resulted in retention of juvenile characteristics and an increased propensity to play. Horses are one of the few mammals to play throughout their lives rather than just as young and juvenile animals. Horses that have been hand-reared can be more likely to try to play with humans, and when I took the history it was revealed that Fred had indeed been hand-reared as a foal. Much horse-human interaction has been interpreted by humans in terms of dominance/submission but as a social prey species for which cooperative behaviour is important, horses are willing participants in horse-human play interactions (Goodwin, 1999).
Horses have four main play patterns (described by Fraser in 1992): nip and shove; chase and charge; follow the leader and object play (playing alone with an object). The two that Fred was exhibiting were "nip and shove" and "chase and charge". On the way to the turn-out fields the owners had to lead Fred past a number of temptations. When the owner was using her shoulder to try to manoeuvre him away from these, Fred interpreted her behaviour as being an instigation of the pattern 'nip and shove' and would join in enthusiastically. This then became chase and charge when the owner commonly let go of the lead rope and he used to run into a field that they were meant to go past chased by the owner. Fred was having fun – playing one game then another with his owner. Each morning he did this – the owners thought he hated them and was being aggressive but Fred thought each morning started with vigorous play!
Fred was generally very playful at other times too; for example with the other horses in his field, often eliciting the 'follow the leader' play pattern. He was also observed during the consultation to engage in object play with brushes, wheelbarrow handles, ropes and everything he could investigate!
To add to the problem, other people on the yard were advising the owners to hit Fred when he was doing these things. This was also not working because the owners were hitting him very lightly so he was probably thinking they were further engaging in the 'nip and shove' game and he was reacting by 'shoving' or 'barging' back. The advice given by other livery owners was then to hit harder, which, to Fred, would either be playing rougher, or would indeed be a punishment and sufficient to terminate play behaviour but is not the safest way to solve the problem (as discussed by Fagen in 1981).
When I explained about what was happening to the owners they said that it fitted in with other aspects of Fred's personality'. We then discussed how to address the problem safely and effectively. This involved first considering his management – in all behaviour work before any re-training is done we must consider the daily life of the horse and how well their needs are being met. In this case although Fred was stabled overnight, other than a few 'tweaks' there were no big changes required.
The aim of the programme was to teach Fred how to relax, to harness his playfulness in a more appropriate manner, and to use clicker training to teach him to lead. This would therefore extinguish the nipping play behaviour by both training an incompatible behaviour (can't be relaxed and nippy at the same time) and teaching the owners to be more effective at communicating with him when leading. We trained Fred to touch a target (part of a box) and to follow it whilst remaining calm and relaxed. This was immediately successful as he picked it up very rapidly and the owners could lead him to the field by throwing the target in front of them, he'd walk up to it to touch it with his nose, get a treat and repeat on the way to the field. I advised to use different targets, vary the treats, and gradually phase out the number of times the game was played on the way to the field.
Nearly instantly he could now be 'led' from stable to field without pulling away, nipping or shoving. And over the course of two weeks the owners were using the target game more sparingly as he got into the habit of leading calmly rather than playing. But the biggest thing about the case was that just knowing that Fred was playing with them rather than 'hating' them pretty much made the problem go away in both the owners minds. This case often serves as a reminder to me that sometimes the various things that horses do are only a problem, or not a problem, because of the way that people interpret them. And sometimes knowing the reason why horses do things is enough to mend a wobbly relationship between horse and owner.
Suzanne Rogers CHBC (IAABC), Learning About Animals (www.learningaboutanimals.co.uk)
Fagen, R.M. (1981) Animal Play Behaviour. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Fraser, A.F. (1992) The Behaviour of the Horse. Wallingford: CAB International
Goodwin, D. (1999) the importance of ethology in understanding the behaviour of the horse. Equine Veterinary Journal, 28 (Suppl.): 15-19
Goodwin, D. And Hughes, C.F. (2005) Equine Play Behaviour. In The Domestic Horse: The Evolution, Development and Management of its Behaviour. Edited by Daniel Mills and Sue McDonnell. Cambridge University Press

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Watch trailer for Menace II Society Watch trailer
Menace II Society
Director: Albert Hughes, Allen Hughes Run Time: 97 min. Format: 35mm Rating: R Release Year: 1993
Starring: Tyrin Turner, Jada Pinkett Smith, Vonte Sweet, Larenz Tate, MC Eight, Ryan Williams, Too $hort, Samuel L. Jackson, Charles S. Dutton, Glenn Plummer, Bill Duke
After growing up in the gang lifestyle of the Los Angeles projects, 18-year-old Caine Lawson (Tyrin Turner) wants a way out. Everyone around him, including his unpredictable friend O-Dog (Larenz Tate), is trapped in their lives of crime and violence. With the help of his caring teacher (Charles Dutton) and supportive girlfriend (Jada Pinkett), Caine plans to leave the city for good. But in a series of tragic events, Caine realizes that escape will not be easy.


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Джорджо Перласка (, , 31 січня 1910, Комо — 15 серпня 1992, Падуя) — італієць, який видавав себе за іспанського генерального консула в Угорщині узимку 1944 року і врятував тисячі євреїв від знищення.

Ранні роки
Джорджо Перласка народився 31 січня 1910 року в Комо. Його дитинство пройшло у місті Мазера-ді-Падова, провінція Падуя. У 20-х роках він став симпатизувати ідеям фашизму. Він брав участь у другій італо-ефіопській війні та Громадянській війні в Іспанії, де отримав подяку від Франсіско Франко. Після прийняття антисемітських законів у Італії у 1938 році і зближення Муссоліні і Гітлера Перласка розчарувався у фашизмі.

Друга світова війна
У грудні 1944 року Перласка сміливо врятував двох хлопчиків, коли їх загнали на вантажний потяг за наказом німецького підполковника. Шведський дипломат Рауль Валленберг повідомив Джорджо, що офіцера, який віддав наказ, звали Адольф Ейхман. У період близько 45 днів, з грудня 1944 року по 16 січня 1945 року, Перласка врятував тисячі євреїв з власної ініціативи.

Протягом зими 1944—1945 років він потайки передавав євреям їжу та теплі речі.

Після війни

Після війни Перласка жив ув Італії. Він нікому, навіть членам своєї родини, ніколи не розповідав, що рятував євреїв. У 1987 році група угорських євреїв дізналася про його справи. 15 серпня 1992 року Перласка помер від серцевого нападу. Він отримав державні нагороди від іспанського, італійського та угорського урядів. Ізраїль визнав Джорджо Перласку праведником світу.

Енріко Деальо присвятив Перласке книгу «Банальність добра», за якою зняли фільм.

Нагороди

 Орден «За заслуги перед Італійською Республікою»
 Золота медаль «За цивільні заслуги» (Італія)
 Орден Ізабелли Католички (Іспанія)
 Зірка «За заслуги» (Угорщина)

Примітки

Посилання
 FONDAZIONE Giorgio Perlasca
 Perlasca. Un eroe italiano
 An article from Commonweal
 «Giorgio Perlasca»

Див. також
 Рауль Валленберг
 Гаральд Едельстам

Великі офіцери ордена «За заслуги перед Італійською Республікою»
Кавалери Великого хреста ордена Ізабелли католички
Померли в Падуї
Фашисти Італії
Праведники народів світу з Італії
Персоналії:Голокост в Угорщині
Персоналії за алфавітом
Нагороджені медалями Італії

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Q: awk system syntax throwing error I'm trying to move all my files in my directory individually to a new directory phonex and rename them at the same time phonex.txt.
so e.g.
1.txt, 2.txt, jim.txt
become:
phone1.txt in directory phone1
phone2.txt in directory phone2
phone3.txt in directory phone3.

I'm a newbie to awk, but I have managed to create the directories, but I cannot get the rename right.
I have tried:
ls|xargs -n1|awk ' {i++;system("mkdir phone"i);system("mv "$0" phone"i ".txt -t phone"i)}'

which errors with lots of:
mv: cannot stat `phone"i': No such file or directory

and:
ls|xargs -n1|awk ' {i++;system("mkdir phone"i);system("mv "$0" phone"i "/phone"i".txt")}'

error:
awk: 1: unexpected character 0xe2

xargs: /bin/echo: terminated by signal 13
Can anyone help me finish it off? TIA!

A: Piping ls into xargs into awk is completely unnecessary in this scenario. What you are trying to do can be accomplished using a simple loop:
for f in *.txt; do
    i=$((i+1))
    dir="phone$i"
    mkdir "$dir" && mv "$f" "$dir/$dir.txt"
done

Depending on your shell, the increment of $i can be done in a different way (like ((++i)) in bash) but this way is POSIX-compliant so should work on any modern shell.
By the way, the reason for your original error is that you are using curly quotes ", which are not understood by the shell. You should always only use single ' and double " in the shell.

A: If you wanted it with incrementing numbers.
Else Tom Fenech's way is the way to go !
for i in *.txt;do d=phone$((++X));mkdir "$d"; mv "$i" "$d/$d.txt";done

Also you may want to set x to zero x=0 before doing this in case it is already set as something else

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When I was a kid, spending a night in a hotel was the ultimate luxury because it had a pool and cable TV. Now that I'm older, I realize that the pool wasn't the reason my parents picked a particular hotel. Instead, they were looking for the best deal and often chose hotels based on the rewards they could earn. More hotel chains are offering loyalty rewards today versus back then, which means you want to make sure you're getting the best possible value whether you're a seasoned business traveler or just taking the kids away for the weekend.
That's where Marriott Rewards comes in. While my ten-year-old self is wondering how big the pool is, the rewards specialist in me wants to know if their program is as world-class as their hotels.
From turning down the sheets to leaving a chocolate on your pillow, there are a lot of things a hotel can do to deserve a tip. Marriott Rewards earns a generous tip in a couple of incredible ways.
If you're a regular reader of the Smile blog, you know that we use the term "explainer page" to describe a page dedicated to explaining the ins and outs of a rewards program.
Well, when it comes to Marriott Rewards I just don't think "page" is a big enough word to describe their online rewards experience. Instead, Marriott has designed a rewards portal that breaks their program into clear sections members can click between to learn everything there is to know about the program.
Each page is beautifully designed, with gorgeous photography and clearly labelled sections to make navigation easy and painless. No matter what part of the program you're exploring, Marriott makes it easy to find your way around with a scrolling navigation bar that outlines the four key pieces of their program: Overview, Benefits, Earn, and Redeem.
As if that wasn't enough, they've also added a clear link to their site's navigation bar, making it easy to access the program from anywhere in the browsing experience. These features, combined with the clear calls-to-action scattered throughout the portal, make it easier for customers to create an account and start experiencing the benefits of being a Marriott Rewards member.
Traveling is the most fun when you do it with people you love. Unfortunately, you can't always bring them with you.
Although Marriott Rewards doesn't offer to pay for your friends and family, they do give you other ways to share your experiences with them by allowing you to gift your points to other members. Now, you have the power to make it possible for your bestie to join you on your next trip to Mexico — all without actually spending more money!
Members can also donate to charitable causes like the American Red Cross. With donation sizes ranging from $5 to $500, customers can cash in their points to help others in their communities.
Both of these rewards emphasize sharing, putting a strong focus on the third stage of an effective brand community. With a focus on emotional relationships, Marriott makes it easy for their members to feel connected not only to the hotel chain but other members and external causes, too. This sense of being part of something bigger helps every member feel good about their decision to stay with Marriott, making it an easy decision to choose them on their next family getaway.
There are few things that feel more luxurious than travelling first class. That includes not just your flight but your hotel accommodations, too.
With six different VIP levels, Marriott Rewards knows how to make you feel like one of the travel elite. From mobile check-in services to bonus points and hotel welcome gifts, everyone can feel special no matter how much you travel! With Silver Elite, Gold Elite, Platinum Elite, Platinum Premier Elite, and Platinum Ambassador status up for grabs, members only need to stay with Marriott 10 nights/year to reach the next tier. From there, the 25 night milestone increments are incredibly reasonable, making the program accessible to anyone who takes more than one trip a year.
The real luxury comes with their Platinum Ambassador tier, though. Intended for business travelers who can take advantage of the program all year long, this exclusive VIP tier pulls out all the stops to make every Marriott stay a perfectly-personalized experience. Not only do Ambassadors have the option to choose their 24 hour check in and check out window, they're also treated to special welcome gifts and exclusive member rates that no one else has.
These personalization efforts make reaching that higher tier even more valuable for savvy travelers and demonstrate that Marriott's number one priority truly is customer comfort, satisfaction, and experience.
Even the most respectful travelers need their rooms cleaned after they spend a night in a hotel, and the same goes for Marriott Rewards. While they offer a number of great perks, they still have some cleaning up to do.
You may recall that one of my favorite things about Marriott Rewards is their amazing portal, so I can understand if this section feels a bit hypocritical. However, if I learned one thing from my mom it's that too much of a good thing is too much, and the Marriott Rewards portal is indeed too much.
There's such a thing as giving your customers too much information.
Even though each of the elements included in the portal are incredible on their own, there is an overwhelming amount of information provided in only a number of pages. At a glance it's great — you know that every question you've ever had about Marriott Rewards will be answered! The problem is that you need to click through page after page in order to find what you're actually looking for.
There's also a ridiculous number of links on each page, many of which opens another tab. This can make it hard to know where you actually are in the Marriott Rewards portal at any given time.
Each of these features, combined with an exhaustive amount of text, has turned a relatively simple program into one that feels complicated and involved. These characteristics can very quickly distract potential members from the benefits of being a member, no matter how beautiful the photography on each page might be.
I know I just said that there's such a thing as too much information, but it's also possible to give too little. Somehow, Marriott Rewards has managed to do both on their Earn Points page.
As a customer, the things that prompt you to join a rewards program are the rewards you can earn and how easy those rewards are to get. Without that information, it's difficult to determine if becoming a member is worth your time.
This is the problem with Marriott Rewards' earning page. When you first land there, you're blown away by idyllic photos of nice hotel rooms and tropical vacations. However, a quick scan tells you absolutely nothing about how you can take earn points to use on your next trip or hotel stay. Instead, generic copy is used to point you to a number of Learn More links that then point you to even more Learn More links on different pages.
All of this clicking quickly turns the experience into a wild goose chase that leaves customers wondering how beneficial the program really is, creating a huge barrier to entry. No matter how great the rewards you're offering are, not knowing how to earn them can frustrate customers enough that they don't want to join. With their portal organized the way it is, this is definitely a risk Marriott Rewards is facing.
When I decided to write about Marriott Rewards, the first thing I did was go to Google. It seemed like a logical place to start since it's the easiest way to find information on virtually anything.
That's what made my search results so surprising. Searching for "Marriott Rewards" returned a slew of web pages that all had different page names, domains, and descriptions.
Based on the results they gave me it almost looked like Google was confused, and I can see why! The meta descriptions gave me very little to go on, and it took a number of clicks for me to find the Marriott Rewards portal I was looking for. This experience not only left me a bit frustrated but also confused as to how the program is set up. I found myself wondering if I was missing something simply because I chose the first link instead of the third, and left the portal not entirely sure I had ended up in the wrong place.
It doesn't matter how good a program is if it's not search engine optimized.
While this might sound inconsequential to some, this is a huge issue for the share piece of Marriott's community building cycle. No one navigates directly to websites anymore, which means your site's organization and search engine optimization needs to be better in order to make sure the correct page gets found. After all, if someone recommended this program to a friend, they wouldn't know which page to visit!
I can easily see many potential members getting frustrated with this process, ruining Marriott's chances of earning another loyal customer for life. Goodbye repeat travelers, hello poor customer experience.
Is Marriott Rewards worth a 5 star rating?
I set out to determine whether Marriott Rewards was worth the hype, and finish my investigation feeling a bit conflicted. On the one hand, they've made it relatively easy for customers to advance through their VIP tiers and built a number of amazing personalized experiences into their program structure. Not to mention their program's beautiful presentation and their emphasis on emotional relationships.
Unfortunately, these positives are buried beneath a mountain of external links, poor SEO, and wasted web space. At the end of the day, Marriott Rewards has some significant barriers to entry that will keep new customers from fully investing in their program, if only because they can't find it.
That's not to say I won't ever consider staying with them — I just can't guarantee I'll care about more than the nice pool.
There are a few things Marriott could do to strengthen their brand community.
Learn what it takes to build a world-class brand community in our behind-the-scenes strategy guide.


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High Court Rules That Refusing Public Housing to Married Same-sex Couple Is 'Unlawful and Unconstitutional'
High Court Rules That Refusing Public Housing to Married Same-sex Couple Is 'Unlawful and Unconstitutional' https://www.hugillandip.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/tennis-court-2.jpg 598 417 Alfred Ip Alfred Ip https://www.hugillandip.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/hugill-and-ip-solicitors-Alfred-Ip_500x700.jpg 5 March 2020 29 June 2020
On Wednesday 4 March 2020, the High Court allowed a judicial review instigated by Nick Infinger over the decision to bar him and his husband from renting a public housing flat. The judge ordered that the couple's application be remitted for fresh consideration.
The case background
Infinger, who was 25 years old when he filed the legal challenge, had applied for public housing with his husband under the category of "ordinary family" in March 2018, but the Hong Kong Housing Authority ("HKHA") ruled that they were ineligible as they were not "husband and wife".
The High Court has declared that the Hong Kong government's policy of denying legally married same-sex couples the right to apply for public housing is 'unlawful and unconstitutional'. Hence, it has allowed the judicial review over the HKHA's decision to deprive Infinger and his husband from being entitled to such benefit.
Mr Justice Anderson Chow recognized that the government was trying to protect traditional families by providing for their housing needs, and that public flats were in scarce supply. But the judge also established that the authority had failed to justify its differential treatment that had "resulted in an unacceptably harsh burden on same-sex couples lawfully married overseas, including the applicant". Chow deemed the HKHA's decision quashed and ordered that the application be referred, with priority, for new consideration.
Other same-sex couples in Hong Kong have previously won high-profile court cases against the government, but this case is the first judicial challenge to affect low-income LGBT couples.
The arguments and the final decision
Infinger's legal team found he had satisfied all criteria for public housing eligibility: he was lawfully married; he and his spouse were permanent Hong Kong residents (over the age of 18); and neither owned any domestic properties or exceeded the limits on income or assets. The legal argument was particularly focused on the fact that the existing precedent amounted to "direct and deliberate" exclusion of same-sex couples from housing benefits.
However, the bid was rejected on 7 September 2018. The authority referred to the Oxford English Dictionary's meaning of the word 'husband' and stated that he was not eligible due to the fact that the relationship between the applicant and other family members must be either husband and wife, parent and child or grandparent and grandchild. This left Infinger only eligible for non-elderly one-person flats.
Representing the HKHA, Abraham Chan said the government was allowed to deny public housing to same-sex couples because of the scarce availability of such flats in the territory to provide for every low-income resident in the territory. The authority found no valid data to back the conclusion that granting this right to the LGBT community would affect the overall availability of public housing.
Chow concluded that the policy was discriminatory. In doing so, cited The Court of Final Appeal's previous rulings regarding the issue of discrimination based on sexual orientation (QT v Director of Immigration (2018) 21 HKCFAR 324 and Leung Chun Kwong v Secretary for Civil Service (2019) 22 HKCFAR 127).
He also dismissed the HKHA's argument that the "protection of the family in the traditional sense" is a "weighty and legitimate reason" for a difference in treatment. He acknowledged that The Court of Final Appeal accepted that the protection of the traditional family constituted by heterosexual marriage was a legitimate aim but held that providing financial spousal benefits to opposite-sex married couples only was not rationally connected to that legitimate aim. In his dismissal, Chow also referred to a statement made by the European Court of Human Rights in Kozak v Poland (2010) 51 EHRR 16. That case concerned discrimination based on sexual orientation in the context of the right to succeed to a municipality flat, which had previously been rented to the deceased partner of the applicant.
Moreover, he stressed that the government has the ability to formulate policies in respect of the social welfare system, but it cannot seriously be argued that the Basic Law and the Bill of Rights authorize the government to pursue an unlawful or discriminatory policy. In fact, both the Basic Law Chapter III Art. 25 and the Bill of Rights Ordinance, Cap. 383 Art. 22 guarantee equality for all residents and promote protections from discrimination.
In allowing the application for judicial review with the Court, the following was granted:
a declaration that the Spousal Policy of the Housing Authority to exclude same-sex couples who have entered into lawful and monogamous marriages overseas from eligibility to apply for Public Rental Housing as Ordinary Families under the General Application category is unlawful and unconstitutional for being in violation of BL 25 and BOR 22; and
an order of certiorari to bring up the Eligibility Decision and Registration Decision to the High Court and quash those decisions.
Finally, the Public Renting Housing Application has been remitted to the HKHA for fresh consideration in accordance with this judgment and with its restored priority to the date on which the application was originally made (9 March 2018).
Public reactions to the ruling
The HKHA has yet to formally announce if it plans to appeal, but it potentially could do so. In fact, a few prominent pro-government lawmakers have called on the government to lodge an appeal, believing the case threatens current policy around marriage which is strictly defined as between a man and a woman.
Holden Chow, a lawmaker from the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong denounced the ruling. He claimed that he has received feedback from different people and groups against LGBT rights, expressing their "grave concern" over the ruling. "There is a perception and a fear within the public that the decision handed down by the Court today would acknowledge same-sex marriage in Hong Kong" he said. Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong lawmaker Priscilla Leung, also commented and voiced her criticism by saying "we need a public discussion – not the Court – to decide on our marriage system."
Despite the possibility of an appeal clouding the judgement, activists in support of equality and LGBT rights have described the court case as another big step forward on the path to marriage equality.
In a news release, Man Kei Tam – Director of Amnesty International in Hong Kong – said, "This ruling is a triumph for equality and LGBT rights, and a significant step forward in the fight against discrimination at the highest levels of Hong Kong society." He added, "The Hong Kong government's refusal to provide public housing to two married men based purely on their sexual orientation is a despicable affront to their human rights. No one should face discrimination because of who they are or who they love. After the High Court's welcome intervention, the authorities must ensure housing applications from same-sex couples are treated exactly the same as everyone else's. Today must be a wake-up call to the Hong Kong government, which must urgently review all its laws and policies to ensure no one else faces discrimination based on their sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status."
Hong Kong lawmaker Ray Chan said that the ruling was a big victory for the LGBT community: "The legal victory should be viewed in the context of other rulings in favour of LGBT rights in Hong Kong in recent years such as employee benefits, dependent visas, and filing joint tax returns." Chan advised the HKHA not to appeal against the decision and said they had a high chance of losing the case. "Progress was made one step at a time… [and] every judicial victory comes at a high cost in terms of legal fees, time, and stress for the plaintiffs," Chan added. He also called on the government to initiate a public consultation on same-sex marriage legislation as the current marriage system created hurdles for many: "It is time to announce that same-sex couples can enter into legally-recognized civil unions in Hong Kong."
Considering the legal developments experienced in Hong Kong in the past two years, no improvement has been made in the territory for guaranteeing rights to same-sex couples through the implementation of specific legislation. The right of access to the public housing system is one of the many rights that same-sex couples should be entitled to in the same manner as heterosexual couples are. It relates to the fundamental need of accommodation and this is a particularly pressing need in Hong Kong where housing prices are extremely high. This is just one of many rights that heterosexual relationships can enjoy but same-sex relationships cannot. Child and family wealth are not accounted for in legislation when it comes to same-sex marriages, these couples cannot rely on the judicial system to resolve any disputes among themselves. Given the current lack of legislation in this area, we hope it does not take an estranged same-sex couple to challenge the laws on divorce for same-sex marriage to be recognised.
It was only through the actions of some brave individuals who challenged the government in court that some progress has been made. Leung and QT cases – together with a handful of other cases – show that on the issue of same-sex and minority rights, where the legislature fears to tread, the Courts (especially the Court of Final Appeal), are fully prepared to uphold the core human right of freedom from discrimination. Hong Kong legislation now needs to follow suit.
Our team at Hugill & Ip has extensive experience in dealing with Family and LGBT Rights issues – so kindly get in touch with us to find out how we can help.
Basic Law
Alfred assists high net-worth individuals (HNWIs) in handling their wealth-related issues, such as contentious and non-contentious trust and probate, mental capacity, family office, amongst other wealth management matters. He is also a leading Dispute Resolution lawyer with over 20 years of experience in Hong Kong. Moreover, Alfred helps clients with issues regarding Family Law.
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If Obesity is a Disease
March 12, 2013 ~ Ragen Chastain
Let's be clear, obesity is not a disease. By some medical definitions it is a simple ratio of weight and height that includes Tom Cruise, The Rock, and me. By other medical definitions it is a body that is 30 pounds over "ideal" weight. By it's more colloquial definition it is just another word for what someone considers a very fat body. Making obesity into a disease is simply pathologizing a body size. While it's been highly profitable for everyone from diet companies to pharmaceutical companies to bariatric surgeons, it's a dubious idea at best. Obesity is not a set of distinguishing signs or symptoms. Obese people have as much diversity of experience, behaviors, habits, and health as any group of people with only one common physical characteristic but for the exception of our shared size discrimination, bullying, and oppression. I have suffered because I'm obese, but I've never suffered from obesity.
Still, even if obesity is a disease, let's look at how it is being handled compared to other diseases:
Can you think of another disease with a treatment protocol that is prescribed to over 30% of the total population despite over 50 years of studies suggesting that the protocol is unsuccessful and often makes the disease worse?
Can you think of another disease intervention that fails almost all the time that is not only still prescribed to everyone with the disease, but whose failure is actually blamed on those who aren't cured ? In spite of evidence that the intervention itself actually causes the disease? While those receiving the intervention are told that everyone who tries hard enough gets cured.
Can you think of another disease that is diagnosed by a single physical characteristic which has no distinguishing symptoms other than the physical characteristic itself, has widely varied health outcomes, almost none of which have been causally related to the single physical characteristic that comprises the entire diagnostic criteria?
Do you think it's a good idea to shame, stigmatize, blame, bully and oppress people who have a disease and call it a public health intervention?
Can you think of a disease that often has zero major health consequences where people are nevertheless pushed to choose highly dangerous and very expensive interventions that can kill them?
Can you think of a diseases where doctors practice experimental medicine on millions of people while leading them to believe that the interventions are proven to be successful?
Even if obesity was a disease, there is absolutely no justification for the way it is being handled by medical science. Of course it's not a disease. The pathologization of fat bodies is just more size bigotry masquerading as "medicine" and those practicing it should, and perhaps do, know better than to call a body size a disease, and they should, and perhaps do, know better than to make all the mistakes that are happening after the first one. Sometimes it's just lazy medicine, sometimes it on purpose for profit. Regardless of why it happens, until it stops the rest of us have the option to refuse to buy in, and to speak up and stand up against it.
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11 thoughts on "If Obesity is a Disease"
Beautifully put!
wolfecarolyn says:
Directly to the point as always. Thank you for addressing the poor judgement of the Medical field for promoting tired and dangerous, or simply ineffective "treatments" for overweight individuals.
Again with the logic, Ragen. Hear, hear.
Wow! I've only read a few of your posts so far, but I'm QUITE impressed. I look forward to reading more of your work, which should take me quite a while. You really do light a spark in me, so forgive me if I kind of hope I won't agree with everything you have to say – it would suck to think there aren't parts of my mind that a person like you could change for the better. If not, I'm certain (and grateful) to find a vast wealth of evidence and perspective to confirm my own insufferable status of "Always Right About Everything, By God." Either way, I'm very glad to have met you!
danceswithfat says:
Hi Jenna,
Welcome! If history is any guide you needn't fear that we'll find something to disagree about eventually and I'll look forward to an opportunity to have my mind changed for the better as well 🙂 Awesome to meet you as well.
Mulberry says:
I have no problem thinking of diseases and conditions which were in the past seen as failures of will and combated with dangerous devices and operations. For example, consider the way masturbation was treated at the turn of the last century.
When one examines the way snake oils and patent medicines have been presented, their failure is always blamed on the poor patient. Really, Ragen, there is nothing new about the game of blame-the-sufferer.
And obesity is not at all unique in being treated this way.
singlequeergrrl says:
Wow, Ragen, I'd really never considered it in those terms. But you are so right. If obesity was actually a disease like cancer or lupus or anything else, patients would be treated with compassion, not contempt. The fact that shame is a necessary component in convincing people they should lose weight proves that being anti-obesity is a moralist stance, and has nothing to do with health at all.
A Elizabeth says:
"If obesity was actually a disease like cancer or lupus or anything else, patients would be treated with compassion, not contempt."
….Except some people are treated with contempt because of their disease. It's often assumed someone hasn't taken proper care of themselves. For example, if someone has HIV, it's assumed that they've been "sexually irresponsible" or have used needles. If someone has lung cancer, they must have given it to themselves by smoking (which is why people don't donate towards research for lung cancer as much as they donate towards breast cancer or pediatric cancer). If someone has a gastrointestinal or autoimmune disease, there are always people out there who will say it's because they haven't eaten properly, or gotten enough rest or exercise. And let's not forget mental illness, which is probably the most stigmatized of all (though maybe it ties with HIV/AIDS). While lifestyle choices affect a large number of diseases, no one is guaranteed to be disease-free just by living a "healthy lifestyle." But no one wants to admit that because it's scary, and also because for some reason blaming and holding people in contempt is satisfying.
Excellent points, all. I'd considered the mental health stigma, but not the other diseases. What pops to mind is the Just World Fallacy– that good people will be rewarded and bad people punished. Likewise, since we fear disease we blame people for their conditions which, in turn, grants us the false belief that if we follow a special set of rules, we'll escape disease. Humans really just seem unable to come to terms with helplessness or random chaos. But we've all heard the stories of triathletes dropping dead at 25 and chain-smoking old ladies who live to be 102. You can improve your odds, but there are no guarantees. That's my theory, anyway.
christalijntje says:
I've been catching up on reading your blog, because it helps me with my body image issues. And it's a great blog!
I understand the point you are making and I agree with it. If obesity was a disease, it should be treated respectfully and with evidence based medicine.
However, I could answer "yes" to several of your questions. ME/"CFS" is treated the way you describe. People with ME are often severely disabled and housebound or bedbound. One of the defining symptoms is called PEM or Post-Exertional Malaise. This means that people with ME get ill from exercise.
And yet, what is (or has been) often prescribed as cure: Graded Exercise Therapy, where you increase your exercise daily, ignoring any symptoms. This has led to people getting more ill (for years if not forever) and even dying from this cure.
Another supposed cure is CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), where patients are "taught" to not think of themselves as ill. It has sometimes been suggested that CBT cures up to 70 % of people with ME. In fact it cures almost no one (and the cured people were perhaps misdiagnosed).
And when people fail to get better, they get blamed for being lazy, for not really wanting to get better, for having secondary illness gains etcetera.
Also, in the last ten years people (for example the CDC) have been redefining the diagnostic criteria for ME, including many, many people who don't have ME. The defining symptom, for them, is six months of "fatigue". I think that by this criterion even more people have ME, than there are "overweight" people…
So. Sorry for the long post, but I thought it interesting to see how the treatment of "obesity" and ME overlap.


What a great review! It would be interesting to compare your two book groups' reactions should you decide to discuss it a second time.
I have to try to remember to do that, Susan.
I really enjoyed this too, even though I don't know my Shakespeare well enough to make quite all the intertextual connections you do (though I was sure they were there!). That's interesting what you say about academic readers. I do sometimes feel now as if there is an ideological purity test that it is easy to fail, which is not to say the issues at stake don't matter but that it can feel like a kind of crushing absolutism. Maybe as someone who loves many 19thC novels with problematic aspects I've just had a lot of practice at saying "yes, but also" about things.
It is the absolutism that bothers me, Rohan: a type of blinkered inability to recognise that there might be perfectly valid reasoning other than their own. There is also an element of moral condemnation in some of the reviews which I find even more disturbing.
So glad you enjoyed this despite your initial reluctance. I love Margaret Atwood (one or two I liked less but generally love her) and I have had this tbr for ages. Must rwsd it soon.
Do get round to this, Ali. I think it is much more readable than some of her books. I've been recommending it to friends as a good read for a long journey.
I know academics who are so deeply and narrowly specialized that they focus on things that annoy general readers. On the other hand, at my water aerobics class, the (female) leader gave a long speech about what a shame it is that no one venerates Louisa May Alcott properly anymore, complaining that they notice only on the stereotypes she uses for native and African American side characters.
Anyway, I'm happy but not surprised that you enjoyed Hagseed!
It is that narrow focus that bothers me, Jeanne; that and the tendency to condemn anyone who doesn't agree with their views.
Interesting – I've been avoiding this series, and really didn't like the only one I have read (Tracy Chevalier's New Boy). I also wasn't a big fan of Atwood's The Penelopiad. However, I may have to try this. I'm also intrigued to read both the academic and popular takes on it.
It's fascinating, Laura especially watching academics who have always lauded Atwood trying to explain why she has written something that doesn't meet with their approval. There is almost a sense of ownership and a desire to control what an author writes, which I find very disturbing.
I love your stirring inclinations, Ann!
Sometimes I find I have to deliberately stir a little to get people to think beyond their usual parameters, Liz.


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Home Football Liverpool allege youth winger suffered racist abuse at Spartak Moscow
Liverpool allege youth winger suffered racist abuse at Spartak Moscow
Liverpool have complained to Uefa about alleged racist abuse directed at winger Bobby Adekanye during Tuesday's Uefa Youth League match at Spartak Moscow.
The alleged abuse at the Spartak Academy occurred when the 18-year-old came on as a 58th minute substitute.
Uefa told BBC Sport it is awaiting additional reports.
Spartak also face three charges for incidents involving fans during the 1-1 draw in their Champions League game against Liverpool later that day.
They are for illicit banners and chants, setting off fireworks and blocking stairways.
These charges will be dealt with by Uefa's control, ethics and disciplinary body on 19 October.
Spartak were fined 60,000 euros (£52,664) for a firework incident during their match at Maribor earlier this month. They have also been banned from selling tickets to their fans for the match in Sevilla on 1 November.
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