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Cultic Studies Review, 7(2), 2008, 99-128
Contemporary Uses of the Brainwashing Concept: 2000 to Mid-2007
Stephen A. Kent, Ph.D.
The brainwashing concept is sufficiently useful that it continues to appear in a wide variety of legal, political, and social contexts. This article identifies those contexts by summarizing its appearance in court cases, discussions about cults and former cult members, terrorists, and alleged victims of state repression between the years 2000 and mid-2007. In creating this summary, we discover that a physiologist has examined the biochemical aspects of persons going through brainwashing processes, and that (to varying degrees) some judges and others related to the judiciary have realized that people who have been through these processes have impaired judgment and often need special counseling. Most dramatically, a new brainwashing program may be operating in Communist China, a country whose political activities toward its own citizens in the late 1940s and 1950s spawned so much of the initial brainwashing research.
In relation to controversial religions, the brainwashing debate is particularly intense, probably because so much is at stake. For groups themselves, avoiding a 'spoiling designation' as organizations that at least try to brainwash their members is vital for their public images. Consequently, some groups have put out public relations statements dismissing the validity of the concept (for example, The Family, 1993; Foundation for Religious Freedom [Scientology], 2000:85-86), and they find support in the work of scholars who argue that the concept itself has no social scientific validity (for example, Aldridge, 2000, pp. 160-170; Anthony and Introvigne, 2006; Richardson, 1993). For several academics and scholars on both sides of the issue, professional reputations are at stake, which may explain why the debate over the concept has become acrimonious at times. For others in the academic, legal, and ex-member communities, however, 'brainwashing' is a concept with great utility because it applies to intense programs of indoctrination that various ideological groups impose upon members and/or potential members in efforts to obtain social-psychological compliance and adherence.
In this article, I expand the discussion about the utility and applicability of brainwashing by moving outside the comments of scholars (like myself) who have been involved in the social scientific debate and bring forward examples of how professionals and laypeople in the legal, political, financial, and 'ex-cult' communities use brainwashing to make sense out of their lives and events in them. In doing so, I introduce perspectives from people who are not entangled in the rancorous exchanges within the social sciences about brainwashing but who nevertheless use the concept. This article, therefore, proceeds inductively, as I gather, organize, and present information about the use of brainwashing in descriptions that people formulate about their own lives and the lives of others.
Methodologically, the data-gathering process that I use involves the examination of legal documents and various presentations in newspapers, magazines, and biographical and autobiographical accounts that mention brainwashing as possible explanations for intense, (almost always) detrimental personality reformulation programs that people seemed to have undergone. I obtained these sources in a variety of ways, which included database and Internet searches and an ongoing compilation that I began several years ago of print-media articles that use the brainwashing term. My choice to begin this analysis with materials in the year 2000 was an attempt to get beyond the raft of speculative articles about millenarianism and 'cults' prior to the beginning of the new century, and selection of late June 2007 as a cut-off date simply reflected that fact that I had to prepare my initial findings for a conference held around that period. I hope that, in the future, someone repeats a similar analysis for material that appears after mid-2007, especially because the debate over 'brainwashing' is not likely to subside.
Through monitoring media stories, plus continuing to read about various alternative religions, I have amassed a collection of references that various academics, journalists, lawyers, other professionals, and former group members have made to brainwashing. For purposes of presentation I have divided these references into categories—ones that admittedly have some overlapping characteristics. These categories include New Religions/Cults; Teen Behavior Modification Programs; Terrorist Groups; Dysfunctional Corporate Culture; Interpersonal Violence; and Alleged Chinese Governmental Human Rights Violations Against Falun Gong.
'New Religions/Cults'
Aum Shinrikyo
Japanese defense lawyers representing Aum Shinrikyo members on trial for their role in the 1995 Tokyo subway gas attacks used a brainwashing defense in an effort to save their clients' lives. According to The Japan Times:
Mind control at the hands of Aum Shinrikyo founder Shoko Asahara was a key defense argument for many of the 11 cultists sentenced to death and the six others handed life prison terms for carrying out Aum's heinous crimes—an argument that had little if any effect.
As the convicted cultists pursue their appeals, including before the Supreme Court, their lawyers continue to seek leniency, claiming their clients were brainwashed by the guru and his teachings—a factor the courts have partially recognized.
In the case of Kiyohide Hayakawa, who was convicted of playing a role in the 1989 murders of Yokohama lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto and errant cultist Shuji Taguchi, the Tokyo District Court determined the accused was in "a state of absolute obedience to the guru, in which it was unthinkable to refuse his orders."
But Hayakawa was nonetheless sentenced to hang. The judge noted, "It is very common in organized crimes that a member of a lower rank blindly follows the orders of his senior, and that does not lessen his criminal responsibility" (Wijers-Hasegawa, 2004:1).
Subsequent court rulings boosted to thirteen the number of former Aum members sentenced to death, including Yoshihiro Inoue, who initially had received a life sentence for his involvement in the attack. A lower court had spared Inoue the death penalty, apparently having accepted his attorneys' argument that he had been brainwashed and had not been directly involved with releasing the gas. This court even allowed Inoue to receive counseling about his involvement in the group, during which time he had "reflected deeply on his deeds" (Wijers-Hasegawa, 2004:2). Presumably his repentance, combined with his indirect involvement, were sufficient grounds for the lower court to stop short of a death sentence. In late May 2004, however, the Tokyo High Court overturned the lower court decision by imposing the death penalty on him (The New York Times, 2004).
A journalist named Yoshifu Arita, who was following the Hayakawa trial, sharply criticized the court's failure to realize the importance of the 'brainwashing' techniques. He stated:
The court completely lacks the view that it is dealing with crimes committed by a cult.... Sentences are handed down under the same criteria as any other criminal offense, and punishments are based on the number of people killed in the crime involving the accused cultist. But the judges should have first realized that the crimes would never have happened if it had not been for Asahara.
Arita said society has wrongly perceived the cultists as part of a bizarre fringe group. They could have been anybody, he said, noting Asahara used brainwashing tactics that entailed the use of drugs.
In 'the initiation of Christ' ploy, Aum members had to drink a liquid containing LSD, and then were made to sit in solitary confinement with a photo of the guru and listen to his recorded sermons for up to ten hours.
Because they did not know they had been drugged, they thought their hallucinations were the result of some religious miracle, thereby solidifying their dedication to the guru, Arita said (Wijers-Hasegawa, 2004:2).
The journalist's points are worth reiterating because we then can compare them with several American court rulings about people who had been brainwashed and manipulated by other cult leaders.
First, courts apparently recognized that brainwashing occurs as a real social-psychological phenomenon, and a lower court's permission to one defendant, Yoshihiro Inoue, to receive counseling about his Aum involvement would have saved his life (Wijers-Hasegawa, 2004:2) if a higher court had not overturned the ruling. (Later we will see examples involving American courts where defendants claiming to have been brainwashed obtained counseling, repented, and received reduced sentences.)
Second, Japanese courts' acknowledgement that defendants had been brainwashed did not mitigate their death sentences. (Soon we will see an American case in which a parole board also acknowledges brainwashing but continues to deny parole, probably because of the serious nature of the initial crimes.)
Third, the journalist's comments remind us that Asahara's indoctrination techniques used drugs—particularly LSD. Indeed, the respected terrorist expert working for the RAND Corporation, Bruce Hoffman, also wrote about Aum's administration of "drugs—including powerful hallucinogens and electroshock therapy—to 'brainwash' recalcitrant group members and make them more compliant" (Hoffman, 2006:122; see 124). Although in an article published in Cultic Studies Review I have mentioned the relatively under-examined role that substance abuse has played in the lives of many cult leaders and members (Kent, 2004:106-107), what occurred within Aum Shinrikyo harkens back to the CIA and United States army mind-altering LSD experiments conducted in the early to mid-1950s and early 1960s (Lee and Shlain, 1985:27-43; Scheflin and Opton, 1978:108-112, 137-144, 147).[1] The brainwashing explanation appears in another analysis of a former cult member of another group whose leader used drugs to break down and indoctrinate his followers. This analysis involves a study of the former follower of Charles Manson, Leslie Van Houten, written in 2001 by a Canadian criminology professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia.
The Manson Family
Criminologist Karlene Faith is unequivocal about what happened to Van Houten: "She joined Manson's cult and she was brainwashed" (Faith, 2001:xviii). As part of the brainwashing process, Faith discussed Manson's use of LSD to manipulate Van Houten, summarizing an expert on the drug who testified at one of her trials that "Leslie surrendered herself to him through sequential processes mediated by LSD" (Faith, 2001:111). The professor concluded,
A powerful guru can take hold of the minds of his subjects while they are under the effects of LSD, and reinforce his authority over them in times when they are not under the drug's effects. This was surely the case with Charles Manson. (Faith, 2001:114)
Important to note about the Van Houten case is that, apparently, her parole board finally acknowledged that Manson had brainwashed her, but it still did not use that acknowledgement in order to grant her release. In 2000, "After thirteen hearings, beginning with her first one in 1978, a board panel finally officially acknowledged that Leslie had indeed been the victim of cult brainwashing" (Faith, 2001:152). Still, however, the board denied her parole, perhaps because of the viciousness of her crimes and the continued opposition from the family of her victims (Faith, 2001:151-153). As is the case with former members of Aum Shinrikyo, the severity of the crimes that Van Houten committed seems to outweigh the official acknowledgement that she had been brainwashed when committing them.
Winnfred Wright
An acknowledgement of brainwashing also took place in a 2003 California court case in which a man and two women were convicted for the malnourishment death of a nineteen-month-old child. Many of the twelve other children in the home suffered from malnourishment and rickets. The male head of the household was a vegan Rastafarian named Winnfred Wright, who fathered these children with the women under his control.
One article written about what it called this "cultlike" group that referred to itself as The Family indicated that various authorities and others who had contact it alleged "that Wright manipulated these women with drugs, sex, violence, and racial guilt" (Brown, 2002:2). I am unable to find out more about the alleged manipulation through drugs, but two of the women charged along with Wright, Deirdre Hart Wilson and Mary Campbell, asked for, and received, permission from the judge to "enter a treatment clinic for former cult members" (Klien, 2003:1). Prosecution and defense lawyers argued over whether the women had been brainwashed, with the defense attorney taking issue with the prosecution's "contention that Wilson was no more a victim of brainwashing than 'Patty Hearst, John Walker Lindh or the Manson women'" (Garretson, 2003:2). Ironically, some observers would contend that all three of those figures in fact had been brainwashed.
In any case, upon returning from a month at Wellspring (which is a rehabilitation facility in Ohio for former 'cult' members), Wilson stated, "'Mind control is a reality,'" and referred to herself as a "'psychological amputee' as a result of physical, psychological and sexual abuse during her 15 years with Wright..." (Garretson, 2003:1). It is unclear whether the judge factored in her brainwashing and subsequent counseling when he sentenced Wilson to seven years and four months for felony child abuse (Garretson, 2003:1), which was less than the eleven years and four months that she could have received. Likewise, Mary Campbell's ten-year sentence could have been four years longer. Wright's sentence, however, was for sixteen years (Garretson, 2003:2). While I cannot be certain whether the judge ever said that the women had been brainwashed, the fact that he allowed—over the prosecution's objections--two defendants to obtain treatment for their subjugation under Wright suggests that he suspected that they had been. Brainwashing, therefore, likely mitigated the women's sentences, but did not completely absolve them from guilt. If in fact brainwashing played this mitigating role in sentencing, then it is in line with recommendations that a lawyer and a psychiatrist made about the utility of the concept in light of issues raised thirty years ago in the Patricia Hearst trial (Lunde and Wilson, 1977:377).
Karen Robidoux and the Body
In yet another 'cult' trial in the United States in February 2004, Karen Robidoux, who was the mother of an infant who died from starvation, had a jury clear her of second-degree murder while convicting her of misdemeanor assault and battery. Her husband, however, received a first-degree murder conviction for the child's death. Karen Robidoux's lawyer "had argued that [she] was brainwashed and tortured by her husband and other members of the group" (Associated Press, 2004:1). Like the women under Winnfred Wright's control, Robidoux went to a rehabilitation centre (in this case, Meadow Haven, in Massachusetts [Ellement, 2004:2]). Once again, it is impossible to know for certain whether her enrollment in a rehabilitation centre for ex-cult members had an impact on the jury's opinion of her, but the jury's foreman determined that "'her intent was not to kill the baby'" (foreman Robert Bartolome, quoted in Ellement, 2004:1).
Brainwashing charges against another group, the Jesus Christians, appeared in the press after "Canada's largest organ transplant hospital has cancelled an operation that would have allowed a young Australian man to demonstrate his deep Christian faith by donating one of his kidneys to a desperately ill stranger in Toronto" (Boswell, 2007a:A1). According to the article, "More than half of the 30 members of the Jesus Christians—from Britain, Australia, Kenya, and the United States—have provided a kidney to recipients around the world..." (Boswell, 2007a:A9).
The potential donor was twenty-two-year-old Ash Falkingham, and officials at the Toronto General Hospital "postponed the transplant after Falkingham's mother, Kate Croft, raised alarms about her son's membership in the Jesus Christians and claimed that [the leader, David McKay] had coerced Falkingham to make the donation" (Boswell, 2007a:A9). The press labeled this alleged coercion "brainwashing." The expected recipient of the Falkingham's kidney, Sandi Sabloff, however, and potential donor Ash Falkingham himself, dismissed
the Crofts' brainwashing allegations…. 'By implication, they [i.e., hospital officials] are definitely hurting Ash, and the Jesus Christians, because they refuse to also list the REAL reason [for the cancellation],' [Ash] wrote. 'Which is they also call off operations if they think adverse publicity will bring criticism on them (in this case, from religious bigots).' (quoted in Hartley, 2007)
Apparently Ash initially had received permission to proceed with the kidney donation after having passed a preliminary interview (conducted over the telephone) "with an executive committee from the hospital that included a psychiatrist, a social worker, and a bioethicist." The hospital then determined that he had tissue compatibility with the potential recipient (Sabloff). Ash even claimed that "he was sent for an evaluation with a forensic psychiatrist who specialized in the field of undue influence, or brainwashing," and subsequently "'the hospital told me I was cleared of any suspicion of undue influence'" (quoted in Hartley, 2007).
For ethical reasons involving patient confidentiality, however, the hospital would not say why it cancelled the surgery. Nor did the media articles provide any specific information about the alleged brainwashing that went on in the group. Meanwhile, Sabloff held out hope that Australian authorities might allow the transplant to go on in their country (Boswell, 2007b).
Among the more compelling recent accounts of brainwashing is that which appeared in a Washington Post Magazine article about Lyndon LaRouche, who leads a politically oriented group often called a political cult (Witt, 2004). Reporter April Witt documented LaRouche's frequent claim that "enemies, including American, Soviet, and British intelligence agencies, [were] sending brainwashed zombies to assassinate him" (Witt, 2004:37). Moreover, within the group during the 1970s,
Brainwashing hysteria quickly spread through the LaRouche organization, [former member Paul] Kacprzak says. He attended LaRouche meetings in the United States where there were 'people writhing on the floor saying, "I've been brainwashed, somebody deprogram me!"' (quoted in Witt, 2004:37).
The account of another former member, however, indicated that the LaRouche group itself might have been doing the brainwashing. Former member Michael Scott Winstead recounted the circumstances that led to his own departure from the movement:
One day a member of LaRouche's inner circle of advisors was giving a lecture when he touched upon a favorite topic in the movement—brainwashing. He mentioned a 1957 book on the subject, Battle for the Mind. Curious, Winstead tracked down the book at a library.
'Various types of belief can be implanted in people, after brain function has been sufficiently disturbed by accidentally or deliberately induced fear, anger or excitement,' the author, William Sargant, wrote. 'Of the results caused by such disturbances, the most common one is temporarily impaired judgment and heightened suggestibility' (quoted in Witt, 2004:39; see Sargant, 1957:145, 160-168).
Chinese communists 'spread their gospel,' the author noted, through psychological conditioning: inventing enemies, isolating trainees in special locations, keeping them exhausted by performing demeaning tasks and learning difficult new terminology, using informers to keep people tense and uncertain, and forcing them to sever ties with family and friends, even encouraging their recruits, as Hitler had, to denounce their parents.
'Winstead felt ill,' he says. 'I sat there and read exactly what I had been going through for the last six months,' he says. 'It [i.e., his involvement in the LaRouche group] definitely had worked on me quite a bit, more than I'd like to admit to myself then or now' (quoted in Witt, 2004:39).
Within days, Winstead left the group, and—as he did—he stuffed a report that he had written about (what he felt were) LaRouche's brainwashing techniques into the mailboxes of members (Witt, 2004:39).
Cults in General
Among the most interesting and recent discussions of cults in general took place in a 2004 book written by a research physiologist at the University of Oxford, Dr. Kathleen Taylor, which is devoted entirely to brainwashing. While specialists in the area of cults would adjust a few of her facts—she seems to believe, for example, that the attack against Congressman Leo J. Ryan happened when his plane landed near Jonestown rather than when he was leaving (Taylor, 2004:32)—the study is important in part because Taylor came to the topic unencumbered by the rancorous debates within the social scientific scholarship on 'cults/new religions' (see Zablocki, 2001:159-171).
First, she uses the label 'cults' when describing groups that passionately, "fervently, and irreconcilably, believe their own descriptions" of reality (Taylor, 2004:37). Second, she realizes that "many of the most dangerous cults can be described as totalitarian" (Taylor, 2004:43). Third, she realizes that "coercive techniques may be applied to keep members in the group" (Taylor, 2004:44), although not all groups need to use them. This statement certainly is in line with ones that Ben Zablocki and I have made about some groups using brainwashing techniques in efforts to retain members (Kent, 2001:367-368; Kent and Hall, 2000:75; Zablocki, 1998; 2001:174-177). Finally, while rejecting any notion that "a particular process called 'brainwashing' ... is distinct from ... other psychological processes" (Taylor, 2004:44), she nonetheless realizes the brainwashing term alerts us to the "dream of control" that dangerous cults and their leaders hold:
When the apocalypse comes, it is the cult which will survive and inherit the new dispensation; the rest of the world will be dead, or at best enslaved. In the here and now, the cult leader typically insists on increasingly severe control over his members' lives, often encouraging them to refer to him as God or God's representative on earth .... (Taylor, 2004:45)
Because cult leaders and members hold these grandiose visions, she concludes, "Brainwashing as control fantasy [by cult leaders] remains extremely relevant" as a concept (Taylor: 2004:45).
Much of the remainder of her study discusses how the extreme social psychological pressures that people undergo in brainwashing programs change the neurology and physiology of the brain. In doing so, Taylor has given the discussion about brainwashing grounding in medical science that complements and extends the social scientific discussions about the processes. Her definition of brainwashing, however, still assumes that targeted individuals must be in such a program unwillingly, which is a highly contentious assumption not shared by several others cited in this article. Regarding a wide range of research, she concludes, "the studies suggest that brainwashing, in its aspect as process, is best regarded as a collective noun for various, increasingly well-understood techniques of non-consensual mind change" (Taylor, 2004:23). While many might disagree with the implication that brainwashing always takes place in nonconsensual settings, few researchers doubt that the particular techniques employed in brainwashing attempts simply are well-understood social-psychological phenomena.[2] Taylor reminds us, too, that the techniques also involve physiological alterations and reformulations within the brain.
Teen Behavior Modification Programs
In the mid-1980s, Louisiana and Georgia officials developed facilities for teenage boys who had gotten in trouble with the law for various offences (Selcraig, 2000:67). Soon similar facilities appeared in other sections of the United States, and various camps and programs opened in other countries. Parents who were concerned, if not at times desperate, about their children's (real or imagined) behaviors sent their children to these programs, as did juvenile justice officials in many states. Criticisms arose, however, about the often brutal—and sometimes deadly—punishments that the 'inmates' suffered, and some of those brutal punishments led to charges that the teens were undergoing brainwashing programs.
For example, a parent, Karen Burnett, who withdrew her son from the Dundee Ranch Academy in Costa Rica, looked at what her son had been through and concluded,
'It's really a brainwashing technique. It's to keep them hungry, keep them stressed, break them down, emotionally, psychologically, get them to admit to their crimes, then build them back up. And in the building back up process ... you rebuild what you want.' (quoted in Smyth, 2003)
Likewise, psychologist Larry Brendtro, president of a nonprofit and advocacy group for troubled children called Reclaiming Youth International, looked at the accounts of the procedures that sixteen-year-old Katherine McNamara experienced in a Mexican program called Harmony Harbor and concluded:
'The methods which she describes are substantially the same used to brainwash prisoners of war: Isolate individuals from anything familiar, strip them of their personal identity, push them psychologically and physically to the point of exhaustion, make them submit to all-powerful adult authorities, and use pure ridicule and punishment to enforce authority' (quoted in Arriola, 2001:3).[3]
Many of the accounts from teens who had been in programs in Oregon, Missouri, Italy, and Mexico involved "psychological rapes, physical abuses, [and] sleep and food deprivation ..." (Arriola, 2001:1). Despite, if not because of, these probable abuses, attendance in these programs seems not to deter juvenile crime, with one study finding "that nearly three out of every four children who pass through the camps are back in detention within a year" (Selcraig, 2000:67).
In 2005, eighteen plaintiffs filed suit against at least a dozen defendants who either owned or worked at a Christian "boot-camp" facility for troubled teens in Mississippi. The facility—formerly known as Bethel Children's Home, then Bethel Boys Academy (with a girls' equivalent in another part of the state), and finally Eagle Point Christian Academy—had been under investigation several times previously (see Coalition Against Institutionalized Child Abuse, 2007). During one investigation in 1988, which led to the closure of the facility, state officials raided the facility amidst "charges of mental and physical abuse." Some of the children in the institution, however, "were loyal, many believed brainwashed, and wanted to stay" (Wade-Dixon, 2002). A court reached a settlement with the facility that was supposed to eliminate the abuse of children (by such actions as "allowing restroom and water breaks during exercise to forbidding the use of electrical devices for discipline" [Brown, 2003; see Chancery Court of George County, Mississippi, 2003]), but allegations of abuse continued.
Consequently, in 2005, numerous parents filed suit against Bethel Boys Academy and its staff, in which (among a litany of allegations) they assert that the facility brainwashed the defendants. The specific claim states:
35. Defendants routinely pressure cadets to remain at the Academy as staff. In some cases, pre-arranged marriages are carried out, with Defendant performing the marriage ceremony and both cadet and spouse remaining as Bethel Staff members. Such employees are given a pittance of pay, much less than minimum wage, and are expected to enforce all the demands of the Defendants against any cadet in their custody. The employment of such persons is made possible only by Defendants' brainwashing and routine deprivation of substantial age and intelligence appropriate education which might thereby render the cadet competent and confident to find employment in the outside world. (Struble et al v. Fountain, et al, 2005:para. 35)
I am unable to determine what the current status of this action is.
Terrorist Groups
With the escalation of suicide bombing in numerous locations around the world, attention has turned to the indoctrination and training that these bombers receive. Analysts sometimes use the brainwashing concept to describe what people go through in order to detonate bombs that destroy themselves and others. For example, the Director of Global Research in International Affairs, Barry Rubin, reports, "Palestinian groups have historically used after-school activities and youth clubs to spot potential suicide bombers. Promising recruits have then typically been subject to intensive brainwashing by experienced terrorists" (Rubin, 2004).[4]
Experienced terrorists in another part of the world, Sri Lanka, also put recruits through a brainwashing program, according to Christoph Reuter, who is an international correspondent for the German magazine, Stern. Writing about the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Reuter reported:
Brainwashing methods have played a significant role in the Tamil Tiger organization. In its training camps, one hears heroic songs blaring from loudspeakers from dusk to dawn. LTTE recruits are not allowed to marry; they are already married to the 'Tamil Eelam.' Nor are they allowed to have sex, for anyone who is chaste and who saves his sperm bestows a magical potency on it or gives it superhuman powers which are then set free at the critical moment. The highest goal, drummed repeatedly into the heads of the youths, is to be ready to die for the common cause…. [T]he highest honor is to be invited by [their leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran [b. 1954]) to a 'last supper'—an opulent meal normally available only to those who have been chosen for a suicide attack (Reuter, 2004:160).[5]
Here we have a reputed brainwashing program that does not orient one to an afterlife paradise but instead to "the privilege of being at the side of God's chosen one in the here-and-now, for the first and last time, at an evening feast" (Reuter, 2004:160). Nevertheless, the outcomes of both the Palestinian and Tamil Tiger brainwashing programs are the tragic loss of life, coupled with untold pain and suffering.[6]
Dysfunctional Corporate Culture
Terrorist training might involve the most extreme situations of brainwashing programs that do use forcible confinement and physical coercion. By contrast, highly focused and ideologically filled corporate training has neither aspect to it. Nevertheless, anthropologist and psychoanalyst Michael Maccoby described General Electric's (or GE's) corporate executive officer (from 1981 to 2000), Jack Welch, as a narcissist, and then added that his organizational
'teaching' involves a personal ideology that he indoctrinates into GE managers through speeches, memos, and confrontations…. GE managers must either internalize his vision, or they must leave. Clearly, this is incentive learning with a vengeance. I would even go so far as to call Welch's training brainwashing. (Maccoby, 2000:76)
This evaluation of Welch's rule may sound exaggerated, but a management study of his tactics indicated that "For several years, GE managers were encouraged to carry in their wallets a card listing GE values, just as Chinese party members, soldiers, and students had to carry Chairman Mao's Little Red Book" (Abetti, 2006:79).
Important to note about Maccoby's evaluation of Jack Welch's program is that people were neither forcibly restrained to stay nor physically threatened if they tried to leave. Social, professional, and financial pressures likely kept many people in the company (although tens of thousands were fired) and acted as incentives for those employees to successfully internalize the values that Welch imposed; but if these pressures resembled brainwashing, then he and GE did not conduct it with a sanction of violence toward those who quit.
Interpersonal Violence
In the examples of alleged brainwashing cited thus far, all of the abuses took place within group contexts of four or more people. Two legal cases occurred early in the new decade, however, that involved only dyads, in which defense lawyers argued that the less powerful individuals had suffered brainwashing. Both cases involve deeply disturbing behaviour.
Graeme John Slattery
In February 2004, Graeme John Slattery, 42, went on trial in Australia, charged with "keeping a woman as a slave in the garage of his family home..." between 1996 and 1999 (Silkstone, 2004). While the defense argued that the woman could have left but did not (thereby providing consent), the "prosecutor said the woman could not leave Slattery because she had been subjected to brainwashing similar to that experienced by concentration camp victims. She was brutalized, her head shaved, and her name taken away, replaced by the demeaning title 'toe rag,' which was tattooed on her body" (Silkstone, 2004). The defense failed, and Slattery received a fourteen-year sentence for convictions "on 2 charges, including assault, indecent assault and intentionally causing serious injury against the woman between 1996 and 1999" (Walsh, 2004).
Lee Boyd Malvo
By far, however, the highest-profile case in which the brainwashing defense appeared was the Washington, D.C. sniper case involving Lee Boyd Malvo, who—at seventeen years old—was arrested along with John Allen Muhammad in late 2002 for a string of random sniper killings of ten people. Because of Malvo's age, the court appointed a guardian to act as a replacement for a parent; and this guardian, Todd G. Petit, concluded that Muhammad had brainwashed the boy. "'The only conclusion I can come to is that [Malvo] was under the total control of John Muhammad… This really was an indoctrination and brainwashing of the boy'" (Petit, quoted in Jackman, 2003).
Petit researched the boy's history, discovering that his mother had abandoned him when he was fifteen. Without a place to live, he moved in with Muhammad, and then probably listened to the older man's teachings of hatred against the United States government and other bodies. Petit concluded that Muhammad's brainwashing "'probably started out as benign and not very forceful, worked its way ... until he could tell Lee what to do, how to act, and Lee had no choice but to listen'" (Jackman, 2003). With other evidence in hand about how dependent Malvo was and how controlling Muhammad had been of Malvo, Malvo's defense team decided to go with a temporary insanity defense based upon brainwashing in an attempt to explain the young man's participation in the shooting death of an FBI analyst in Fairfax County, Virginia on October 14, 2002. According to one of Malvo's lawyers, "'Lay folks may use the term 'brainwashed....' Specifically, it is the defense of indoctrination" (Craig S. Cooley, quoted in Kovaleski, 2003). In the end, this defense did not prevent a jury from finding Malvo guilty, but it might have been the key factor in the young man avoiding the death penalty and instead receiving life in prison (see Eichel, 2004:3).
During the trial, the press reported about the testimony of defense witnesses who concluded that Muhhamed likely had brainwashed Malvo. One of these witnesses was Paul R. Martin of the Wellspring rehabilitation facility in Ohio, who suggested that John Muhammad "may have come to control Mr. Malvo's mind and free will." In making his argument, Martin drew "parallels to the brainwashing of prisoners of war in Korea, to the Jonestown mass suicide, and the Branch Davidian siege in Texas" (Liptak, 2003). The press reported on the expert testimony of another witness, psychiatrist Diane Schetky, who concluded that a "childhood marred by abuse, neglect, and the absence of a father figure rendered ... Lee Malvo susceptible to brainwashing techniques that enabled him to kill without emotion" (Bender, 2004).
Along these same lines, psychologist Steve Eichel and psychiatrist Neil Blumberg concluded that Malvo had a dissociative disorder, with Blumberg concluding that the young man had lost the ability to distinguish between right and wrong "because of brainwashing by his alleged accomplice, convicted killer John Allen Muhammad." Specifically, Malvo was "suffering from an unspecified 'dissociative disorder,' depression, and a 'conduct disorder'" (Siegel, 2003:1; Eichel, 2004:1). These diagnoses were in line with the Diagnostic and Statistical Disorder IV-TR, which gives as an example of "Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified": "States of dissociation that occur in individuals who have been subjected to periods of prolonged and intense coercive persuasion (e.g., brainwashing, thought reform, or indoctrination while captive)" (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).
In the Washington Post, reporter Don Oldenburg used the Malvo case to highlight other recent cases in which the brainwashing concept appeared. After he mentioned the Manson family murders, Jonestown, and the Heaven's Gate suicides, Oldenburg indicated:
When Islamic extremists flew airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, some speculated brainwashing. The mother of 'shoe bomber' Richard Reid and the father of American Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh said their sons were brainwashed. When kidnapped Elizabeth Smart was reported to have strangely complied with her abductors, her father said she had been brainwashed. (Oldenburg, 2003)
Throughout the rest of the article, Oldenburg used insights from Benjamin Zablocki, Philip Zimbardo, Robert Lifton, Dick Anthony, and James Richardson, all of whom are important people in the brainwashing debate, to provide an overview of the controversy surrounding the term. It is doubtful, however, that Malvo's trial changed any of these disputants' views about the brainwashing issue.
Alleged Chinese Governmental Human Rights Violations Against Falun Gong
In the classic research on brainwashing, conducted in the 1950s by Lifton, Schein, and others, the actions of Communist China came under close scrutiny. The Communists ran re-education or brainwashing programs for members of society (especially intellectuals) in attempts to indoctrinate them into the Party line, and the Communists collaborated with the North Korean brainwashing programs against captured United Nations soldiers. In the contemporary period, the Communist Chinese appear to be using camps again in efforts to indoctrinate a defiant segment of its population—those persons who practice Falun Gung.
Numerous Falun Gung websites speak about brainwashing programs and facilities used against practitioners who run afoul of the law (for example, Falun Dafa, 2007:Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group, 2003-2007: 2; FalunInfo.net, 2007:2; Friends of Falun Gong USA, 2004:2), and an article in the Washington Post seems to confirm these sites' basic assertions. In August 2001 the newspaper reported:
After a year and a half of difficulties in suppressing the movement, the government for the first time this year sanctioned the systematic use of violence against the group, establishing a network of brainwashing classes and embarking on a painstaking effort to weed out followers neighborhood by neighborhood and workplace by workplace, the sources said. They said the crackdown has benefited from a turn in public opinion against Falun Gong, since five purported members set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square, leading many Chinese to conclude the group is a dangerous cult (Pomfret and Pan, 2001:A1).[7]
Worth noting is that—at least on the surface---these classes have parallels to the Communist brainwashing programs in the 1950s.
So, too, does the current regime's development of labour camps resonate with techniques that Chinese Communists implemented in the early years of its regime. Mentions of contemporary "labor camps" appear throughout Falun Gung's literature, as indicated by the account of a woman who reputedly "was detained at the Fenghuangtai Office for one month of brainwashing, then illegally sent to a labor camp" (FalunInfo.net,2007:3). Of course, the Communists in the 1950s (Fu-Sheng, 1962:160, 173; Schein with Schneier and Barker, 1961:50), and then again during the Cultural Revolution (MacInnis, 1972:360-366; Rice, 1972:291), used labor as part of their re-education efforts (see also Pomfret and Pan, 2001:A22). Moreover, according to Amnesty International's 2007 report on China:
Hundreds of thousands of people were believed to be held in Re-education through Labour facilities across China and were at risk of torture and ill-treatment. In May 2006, the Beijing city authorities announced their intention to extend their use of Re-education through Labour as a way to control 'offending behaviour' and to clean up the city's image ahead of the Olympics. (Amnesty International, 2007:3)
Amnesty's report specifically named a Falun Gong practitioner who received a two-and-a half-year sentence into one of these re-education and labour programs for having possessed the group's literature (Amnesty International, 2007:2).
China, however, is not the only ideologically driven body to use labour as part of its re-education efforts. Studies published in 2000 and 2001 showed that both the Children of God/The Family and Scientology had used labour as part of their confinement and re-education programs to 'reform' supposed deviants in their respective organizations. Scientology's program is called the Rehabilitation Project Force, and it has operated in various forms since 1974 (Kent, 2001). Likewise, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Children of God/The Family put teens through hard labour in its teen detention programs (Kent and Hall, 2000:67). No information exists, however, abut whether the designers of either program consciously borrowed the idea of forced labour from the earlier Chinese camps.
Clearly we have much to learn about the contemporary situation of Falun Gong in China, and at some point an entirely new wave of publications is likely to appear about these reputed brainwashing programs. Certainly, too, these publications will return to the classic brainwashing literature in an attempt to see whether the new Chinese techniques and programs differ from ones used in the 1950s.
Descriptions of the Chinese government's anti-Falun Gong campaign are only a few of many social contexts in which laypeople and professionals are using the brainwashing concept. Its widespread use does not necessarily mean that that it is a legitimate social-scientific term. As a British writer, Dominc Streatfield, concluded in his recent, book-length history of brainwashing, it "is a useful term because it can be used to describe anybody who performs actions out of character…. Although no one really seems to know exactly what 'brainwashing' entails, how it works, or who uses it, the term is applied all over the place" (Streatfield, 2006:357). Indeed, this article has documented that the brainwashing term is in fact applied "all over the place"—courtrooms, terrorism discussions, analyses of interpersonal undue influence, abusive teen behaviour modification programs, high-demand business settings, and so on. Streatfield may misstate, however, just how much various people know about what 'brainwashing' entails, how it works, and who uses it. While the content of such programs varies according to the groups or individuals operating them, all seem to involve manipulative, systematic efforts at reformulating the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours of target populations. Nothing in any of the techniques is mystical or magical; all of the techniques—in whatever combinations they may appear within particular programs—use well-understood social psychological means (albeit usually for ends that likely are harmful for the targeted persons). Kathleen Taylor would even go so far as to argue that she and others now understand brainwashing down through the levels of physiology and biochemistry.
Several judges and parole-board personnel seem to have recognized that some people brought before them had committed criminal acts while having been brainwashed, and a few judges even have let defendants receive treatment before sentencing. These actions make me question the categorical statement made by sociologist Lorne Dawson, who indicated, "American courts will no longer accept expert testimony on 'cult brainwashing' as scientifically credible" (Dawson, 2006:96). Evidence presented here shows that American judges allowed defendants to receive treatment to counteract brainwashing, thought reform, or mind control in at least two cult-related cases (Winnfred Wright and Karen Robidoux), and brainwashing evidence was the central defense in the Malvo case. Likewise, we should not arbitrarily discount the accounts (as some social scientists such as Dawson would have us do) of people who have gone through intensive thought- and behavioural-alteration programs, and subsequently have been able to reflect critically upon them (cf. Dawson, 2006:106).[8] Moreover, the appearance of a physiology book on brainwashing should transform the debate about the concept to a new level of discourse, providing a partial response to critics who assert that the concept itself is unscientific.
Whether confinement and force are necessary remains a research question rather than a conclusion; but suffice it to say that a few of the examples that I provided of professionals using the brainwashing term involved situations of imprisoned confinement and immediate physical punishment, while others did not. Indeed, some of the situations involved manipulative drug use, so it seems likely that altered states play a role in the brainwashing techniques found in some social settings.
Regardless of what ongoing researchers might find or what definitions they might use, it is far too early to move beyond the brainwashing debate and leave important issues either unexplored or unanswered (see Zablocki, 2001:168-169). I disagree, therefore, with the position taken by sociologist of religion Lorne Dawson, whose call for expanding the study of alternative religions beyond (among other issues) the "'brainwashing controversy'" seems like an attempt to shut the door on further examination of the concept's utility (see Lucas, 2007:12; cf. Zablocki, 1997). Intelligent, thoughtful people from a variety of backgrounds continue to use the term, and social science will be remiss if it lets its own disciplinary biases get in the way of legitimate, and potentially important, research.
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This article is an expanded version of a presentation to the International Cultic Studies Association Annual International Conference, Fondation Universitaire, (Brussels, Belgium), June 29 to July 1, 2007.
Stephen A. Kent, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, University of Alberta, teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on the sociology of religion and the sociology of sectarian groups. He has published articles in numerous sociology and religious study journals. His 2001 book, From Slogans to Mantras: Social Protest and Religious Conversion in the Late Vietnam War Era, was selected by Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries as an "Outstanding Academic Title for 2002."
Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2008, Page
[1] The most extensive and diverse U.S. government research program involving the effects of LSD was MK-Ultra, begun by the CIA in April 1953 and continued into the 1960s. Research involving LSD apparently had six variants, all revolving around its possible use in warfare or covert operations. Various experiments and projects attempted to use LSD to disturb people's memories; facilitate "aberrant" behavior, the performance of which would discredit the unwitting actors; change people's sexual patterns (and presumably opening them up to blackmail or other compromises); facilitate interrogation; heighten suggestibility; and create dependence (presumably on the drug itself, thereby making them susceptible to compromise [Scheflin and Opton, 1978:147]). Clearly, Asahara's use of LSD to create a god-like illusion about himself among his followers is an example of using the drug to heighten suggestibility, although I have no indication that the CIA ever tried to create godly delusions. Charles Manson, however, did use LSD to create such delusions among his followers (see Faith, 2001: 34-35, 37, 69).
[2] I note, for example, that psychologist Yvonne Walsh dismissed use of the brainwashing term when discussing controls that some 'new religions' and 'modern cults' employed against individuals, some of whom subsequently entered therapy. She feared, for example, that 'brainwashing' conveyed the use of mystical and "bizarre" techniques of control that (if they were real) would place them beyond the realm of orthodox psychological intervention (Walsh, 20001:127). The techniques that cults and others use, however, are well known within social psychology (Walsh, 2001:126). On this point, of course, Taylor would agree, so it is unfortunate that Walsh rejected use of the brainwashing term based upon a misconception. Walsh also insisted that brainwashing implies an "apparent physical threat" (Walsh, 2001:126), which Taylor may also have assumed but which others dispute (Lifton, 1957:6; Zablocki, 1997:99).
[3] Worth noting, however, is that in February 2007, the owner of the former Dundee Ranch Academy, Narvin Lichfield, was acquitted of charges involving "coercion, holding minors against their will, and 'crimes of an international character' (violating a law based on international treaties, in this case, torture)…." While the three judges declared Lichfield innocent, they still "said they believe the students at Dundee were abused, but the evidence and testimony presented did not prove that Lichfield ordered the abuses" (Baxter-Neal, 2007).
[4] Two other references to brainwashing and terrorism are worth mentioning. First, an imam in Alberta, Canada was "almost certain" that he knew the identity of a young Canadian being held in Afghanistan for assisting insurgents in May 2007. "Sheikh Alaa Elsayed says that just a few months ago he urged a University of Calgary computer-science student, who had been 'brainwashed' by Internet propaganda, to dispense with notions of fighting the jihad in Afghanistan" (Freeze, 2007a). Second, a notorious Canadian family of fundamentalist Muslims, the Khadr family, has four sons, all of whom have served prison time for alleged terrorist activities. One son (Abdulrahman), however, has denounced his family's political orientation and al-Qaeda support by stating that his relatives are "'mindwashed'" (quoted in Freeze, 2007b).
[5] I thank Susan Raine for reminding me of this information.
[6] I note in passing that a Website run by the Wyoming Office of the Attorney General—Division of Victim Services about domestic violence states, "Experts have compared methods used by batterers to those used by terrorists to brainwash hostages" (Wyoming Silent Witness Initiative, 2007). Finally, a graduate student of mine, Terra Manca, found a quote about brainwashing made by a young woman who had been abducted briefly by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda. When a researcher asked her why she thought the LRA trained child soldiers to commit appalling atrocities, she replied, '"The rebels ... target the children, because they are brainwashed very fast ... and when they do something they don't really reason: 'What I am doing is bad ...'" (quoted in Allen, 2006:42).
[7] I am aware, too, of the study by Human Rights Watch and the Geneva Initiative on Psychiatry (2002), examining Communist China's abusive use of pseudo-psychiatry to punish political and social dissenters.
[8] The most recent examples of former members using the brainwashing term to describe how they had been indoctrinated in a group they consider to be a cult are in a book written by three sisters who grew up in the Children of God/The Family but who eventually left as they gained insights into the abuses that they had suffered (Jones, Jones, and Buhring, 2007:263, 271, 381, 403; see 83).


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The folks at Pronet Advertising have just released a Flash-based online game called Search Engine Smackdown.
The game is simple – pick a fighter – Larry or Sergey from Google, Bill or Paul from Microsoft, Jerry or David from Yahoo, and duke it out by answering a number of search engine related questions.
How many people will really pick Bill Gates as their fighter of choice? Come on!
Some of the questions are easy, but others are definitely a bit more challenging. And, most of the questions are quite interesting too. You'll have some fun and you might just learn something too!
I've already asked them to add a Pause button, and I'm sure they'll make a handful of improvements over time.
Go play Search Engine Smackdown!
This is a great example of buzz marketing at its finest. It's fun, catchy, and helps Pronet extend and develop its brand and reputation in the markets where it does business. Nice job.
As buzz marketing goes this is perfectly targeted.
It's a cool game but I was rubbish!
It's a cool game but I was rubbish!
Thanks Ben. I had a little too much fun. Enough to find myself on the high score board today.


Six-year-old Mohammed Suleiman was born with Down Syndrome chromosome 21. According to his father, Mohammad has intellectual difficulties and doesn't speak at all. But that didn't stop a substitute teacher at C. J. Harris Elementary School from calling the police alleging that Mohammed was a terrorist who was sexually harassing her.
This was a disgusting example of blatant discrimination, a complete waste of time and resources, and an unnecessary cause of humiliation for the Suleiman family.
Please join in urging Pearland Independent School District to never hire this substitute teacher again, and demanding that police investigate the substitute's actions.
According to reports, the teacher claimed that Mohammad was saying "Allah" and "boom" and called the police to report him as a terrorist. She also claimed that the 6-year-old was sexually harassing her.
However, Mohammad's father Maher Suleiman and a community activist both agree that, based on all of the evidence, this was a made up story based on nothing but discrimination. Pearland Police seem to agree -- they conducted an investigation, but found no need for police involvement.
We cannot tolerate discrimination by our teachers, substitutes or not. Please sign this Care2 petition, and let's make sure this person can no longer cause pain and humiliation to anymore children or families.


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Home About Services Projects Reports Links Contact Accidents Site map Cookies
Online road accident map
Highways Forecasting and Analytical Services has developed an online interactive map of road accidents in the Greater Manchester area. The map is intended to be used by the general public and displays accidents from the past ten years and is updated every three months. The current system contains accidents up to the end of June 2010.
In addition there is a search form to allow our website visitors to view summary information for their ward and another form to allow visitors to list accidents on their own street.
For data protection reasons we are limited in the amount of detail we can display for an individual accident to the year, week day, number of casualties and the severity of the accident.
The system was developed in partnership with the ten local authorities of Greater Manchester.
The map also displays traffic count information for some lengths of road in the form of AAWT (annual average weekday) and AADT (annual average daily) traffic flows.
View the map
We have developed a more detailed system for use by local authority professionals. This system is secure and will require registration before use. If you work in a Greater Manchester authority and are interested in accessing the database then please contact us.
For more information, please contact: Melanie Newall, 0161 244 1699
Last updated: 03 August, 2011

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Cinedigm Corp (NASDAQ: CIDM) has entered into a definitive agreement to buy video platform Future Today, one of the largest AVOD channel networks in the world, for $45 million in cash and $15 million in Cinedigm common stock.
This acquisition increases Cinedigm's over-the-top footprint to over 7.6 million monthly active users and 67 million total app installs, the company said in the Friday announcement.
Future Today generates healthy cash flow and positive net income, with revenues increasing almost 150 percent in 2018, according to Cinedigm.
Future Today owns over 700 content channels with over 70 million app installs and manages more than 200,000 film, television and digital content assets that receive 85 million views per month in a variety of categories including food and lifestyle, entertainment, animation and kids.
The acquisition of Future Today makes Cinedigm the world's largest premium library of AVOD content, Cinedigm said.
The deal dramatically increases Cinedigm's reach across leading platforms in the OTT streaming marketplace and enhances the company's key capabilities for distributing and monetizing content, according to the press release.
The acquisition of Future Today provides Cinedigm with a fully scaled video ad platform, according to the announcement.
It also expands the company's market position and accelerates growth, as Future Today can now immediately leverage more than 90 new distribution channels increasing revenue growth.
Future Today can take advantage of Cinedigm's deep relationships in China, expanding into that market, Cinedigm said.
The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2019 and is subject to customary closing conditions.


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Will Liverpool and Tottenham's form be disrupted by the Europa League?
Last Updated: 19/02/15 9:24am
Daniel Sturridge and Harry Kane are vital for Liverpool and Tottenham respectively
After getting their top-four challenges back on track, Liverpool and Tottenham may be fearing the return of the Europa League...
The return of the Europa League on Thursday poses a potential headache for Brendan Rodgers and Mauricio Pochettino as they divide their attention between the race for the Premier League top four and pursuit of European glory.
The two managers may be encouraged by the fact that this year's Europa League winners will automatically qualify for next season's Champions League but, after overseeing impressive upturns in form in recent weeks, Rodgers and Pochettino will be reluctant to lose momentum.
There has been a remarkable improvement to Liverpool and Tottenham's results since their last European ties on December 11 and 12.
Tottenham and Liverpool's fortunes have improved since the break from European football
After crashing out of the Champions League at the first hurdle, Liverpool have lost only two of their last 17 matches in all competitions - away to Manchester United in the league and Chelsea, in extra-time, in the Capital One Cup.
Rodgers' switch to a three-man defence has been crucial, with Liverpool displaying an attacking fluency similar to last season while also keeping more clean sheets in fewer games in the Premier League. Only four were recorded in the first 15 matches of the campaign compared to five since the end of their Champions League adventure.
Tottenham also appear to have turned a corner since mid-December, with confidence-boosting victories against Chelsea and Arsenal at White Hart Lane as well as reaching the Capital One Cup final.
Brendan Rodgers and Mauricio Pochettino have steered their sides up the Premier League table
Pochettino's careful use of Harry Kane has been essential, with the England hopeful gradually eased into the starting line-up, and he has thrived with 12 goals in 15 games since the break from the Europa League.
The question now for both managers is how they juggle a return to Thursday night action with revitalised top-four challenges.
The distractions of Liverpool's test against Besiktas this week and Tottenham's clash with Fiorentina should tell us a great deal about the two teams' ability to handle the pressure, and whether recent revivals will be short-lived.


In the passed 24 hours I have stumbled across three incidents of ... what shall we call them? Gross insensitivity? Stupidity? Should mind their own business? Or just plain bog off back to their own little backwater and resist any attempts to play with the grown ups out in the Real World?
This week Mitt Romney's side-kick - whatever his name is - thought it would be a good idea to slag off the UK's NHS service - presumably to try and whump up the number of voters who'd plump for his party at the next poll. What a good idea, slag off how a foreign country runs it's health service, they won't catch on.
Nobody will be any the wiser - will they?
Well yes, actually they will; they have read the news, you see residents of other countries do actually pay attention to what is going on in the rest of the World.
We saw the apparently petty-fogging attempts by Mr Romney to distance himself from said side-kick's massive foot-in-the-mouth bloomer. Didn't the side-kick think to run this shameful ploy by the powers that be in the Republican party before he ran with it? Hard to believe.
And then... We find naughty pictures of Prince Harry taken when he was cavorting in his own hotel room - naked!
Shock! Horror! Scandal, rumour - gossip!!
Well, no not over here. For Christ's sake - he a young, fit, healthy twenty something year-old, he's unattached and well... up for it. Why in heaven's name can't he cavort in private? I'd be a wee bit worried if he didn't cavort, that's what young men do. So he was playing strip billiards or some such - with an equally dishevelled woman. So what? Was he running up and down the public areas of the hotel, waving his willie about? I don't think so! Can anybody tell me why they are shocked?
And finally... I listened to a radio debate about Mr Romney's side-kick's goof yesterday. And to represent the US we were treated to a Charlie Wolf, who is apparently a columnist for The UK's Daily Mail. He was there, front line to kelp the kicking the NHS was getting - and this was after he'd admitted that he's undergone successful treatment for cancer under the NHS. But this notwithstanding, he still took aim and gave the NHS a good kicking for daring to sell their wares abroad. Get the kinks out of the system first, was his cry, don't go wasting resources by selling brand NHS abroad.
The discussion also touched on the free at point of contact service we enjoy in the UK. Admittedly no one is turned away at a NHS hospital, not even if they are poor. But the service is not free, we pay for it via taxation. I think a better term would be universal healthcare, for all.
Something the USA has still to catch up with.
At first a new author gets a kick out of clicking the Amazon Kindle reports button to check on just how many copies have been sold...now. How about now?
There's nothing so satisfying as seeing that you've made yet another sale. But checking once a day is enough surely? Somebody support me on this, as I am - quite frankly - out of control, here. but it's so seductive to bask in the glory of the sales figures. That means... how much will I'll get in just over 80 days? What mega investment will I plump for? What a nest egg! Or not.
The sales trickle in in ones and... well ones! It starts slow and with luck begins to grow. Rather like a zygote as it pauses before growing into the blastocyst that will become the fetus that eventually becomes the baby that will grow into the man; or woman. Eventually, after time and the proper care and stimulus.
Hangon, let me check - any more sales.... no change from ten minutes ago when I last checked.
So, in the end, you have to stiffen your resolve and get on with doing something else - like edit the next one? Or write it, even?
But just in case you missed it, here is the Amazon tag handily placed for your convenience so you can go and buy a copy.
Even if you don't buy it, I am told that just by clicking on the Amazon button will help bolster my stats in the famous Amazon algorithm that pushes titles onto and up lists. And a girl needs all the help she can get on getting on that first rung of the ladder.
So... Go on - make my day!!
OK I've finally done it! My shiny new collection of stories is now for sale up at Amazon. Go check it out. Hell, go and buy a copy! It's only £2.58, a snip!
I'd love to hear from you - whether you've read it or not.
But apparently the supply is extremely limited and in high demand - so I am urged to take advantage of this incredible offer before it's too late.
And apparently one of my friends has taken the trouble to rip this page from the magazine and send it post-haste to me. They've even written a message in the top left corner urging me to 'Call Fast, it works!" And apparently they only paid the postage. Wow! What an offer! Such magical cream it can give me 'Extraordinary Lift! Extraordinary Results! Extraordinary Skincare!
There are even two pictures of a Susan Looper (whoever she is) And it appears to be photos of Susan Looper twenty years apart, or of Susan Looper senior and her daughter. Great stuff!
Then the insidious thought occurred - which of my bloody friends would have the brass-faced nerve to send such an outright insult to me? Buy this you baggy-eyed freak, your poor, raddled face is in desperate need of a lift.


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Minimal windows service pinging www.google.com every second.

Can be used to troubleshoot network connectivity issues.

Install as service with *pinger install*. Logs will be created in same directory as executable and named pinger.log.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


I know there are a few devious people out there who've been planning their elaborate April Fool's Day prank for months. But for most of us, inspiration strikes the morning of April 1st.
1. Mind game pranks, like moving someone's furniture around and acting like nothing looks out of place.


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The Rainbows, Puppies And Unicorns Recap Of Today's Cubs Loss
By Al Yellon@bleedcubbieblue Apr 29, 2010, 5:20pm CDT
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I know Matt Murton isn't on the Cubs any more. But he could hardly have done any worse than the team did today.
Since today's 13-5 Cubs loss to the Diamondbacks was so bad in nearly every way, I'm going to spend the first half of this post talking about nothing but the good things (and yes, there were some. Sort of.)
There were some parachuters who landed right in left field before the game. (Unfortunately, I only heard about this -- I was underneath the stands at the time.)
Kosuke Fukudome hit his first major league grand slam and his 15 RBI tie him for the team lead. Fun!
Cubs pitchers retired nine of the first 11 Diamondbacks hitters and the last seven in a row.
Ryan Theriot got a hit with a runner in scoring position!
As a result of the point above, the Cubs actually had the lead... for about five minutes.
James Russell only gave up one earned run!
The Cubs held an old nemesis, Chris Young, to 0-for-5 (he reached on an Aramis Ramirez error).
Okay... I think that's enough. Don't you? That's about as good as I can get... and I am well aware, it's not very good. Follow me past the jump for the rest of the recap.
I guess someone forgot to tell the Cubs that the wind was blowing out at about 30-35 MPH until the eighth inning, when Fukudome hit his grand slam. By then, of course, the Cubs needed three grand slams to get back in the game, and that's a pretty ridiculous thing to hope for, even for an optimist like me.
What more can you say about a game like this except that it counts for only one loss? Ted Lilly said in his postgame remarks that even though he had a pretty good first three innings, that he realized he wasn't really hitting his spots -- he had a high pitch count even though he did retire nine of the first 11 -- and said he tried to make adjustments in the fourth. Unfortunately, those adjustments wound up with a pair of walks, and then Adam LaRoche hit the first of two D'backs homers in their five-run fourth.
The game might have been closer if not for Aramis Ramirez's error on a sharply hit ball in the seventh. That's a play A-Ram usually makes. In addition to that, it appears that he's throwing sidearm or even close to underhand -- could that tricep injury he had in spring training still be bothering him? And is that the reason he's not hitting? If not for that error, the Arizona seventh would have ended with pitcher Ian Kennedy's fly ball to right, and only three runs in. At 9-1, the grand slam would have at least made it interesting.
Instead, there was a mass exodus after the Cub seventh, so most of the crowd of 36,850 announced (maybe 22,000-23,000 in the park) missed Fukudome's grand slam. All you can really say after this is "we'll get 'em tomorrow" -- and as Lou hinted in his own postgame remarks, maybe in a week or so, we'll start to see some roster moves. Lou said that Jim Hendry wants to wait "25-30 games" before making changes -- that landmark comes up this weekend. In the meantime... there's still time to make something out of this season.
It was nice to sit and talk with BCB'er Clutch16 the last two days... despite the losses. And poor Jessica is now 0-4 in games she's attended in person. Let's get back to winning tomorrow.


The aim of the study was to uncover how the factor of experience affects international entry mode choice of companies. First, a theoretical framework was established which illustrates company's tendencies of entry mode choice by specifically considering Transaction Cost Theory and the Resource-based View. Secondly the goal of this thesis was to uncover different terms of experience and its influence on entry mode choice from existing research. The author established a four-dimensional framework summarizing terms of experience utilized in literature. The established dimensions are: Relational context, source of experience, depth of experience and positive/ negative experience.
Finally in the empirical part of the research, the goal was to identify the case company's entry mode choice in relation to their experience. The established dimensions of the experience term were considered and the applicability and usability of the established framework was tested.
The research revealed that no every dimension of experience appears applicable and significant for the case company. The organization specifically considers the experience of the individual and the impact of positive and negative experience as particularly important. Although there are many different factors and policies affecting the cases entry mode choice, experience has influenced the decision too. Mostly using direct exporting, the company's experience has partly influenced mode switch or changes within the chosen mode.
Additionally this study gives a good impression of how experience is handled in international small-sized companies and what processes it influences besides entry mode choice.


text:
package com.example.ui.tag;

import org.thymeleaf.Configuration;
import org.thymeleaf.context.IProcessingContext;
import org.thymeleaf.dialect.AbstractDialect;
import org.thymeleaf.dialect.IExpressionEnhancingDialect;
import org.thymeleaf.processor.IProcessor;

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Set;

/**
 * Created by naga on 15/04/02.
 */
public class MyDialect extends AbstractDialect
        implements IExpressionEnhancingDialect {

    private final Configuration configuration;

    @Override
    public Map<String, Object> getAdditionalExpressionObjects(
            IProcessingContext processingContext) {

        Map<String, Object> map = new HashMap<>();
        map.put("myFields",
                new MyFields(configuration, processingContext));
        return map;
    }

    public MyDialect(Configuration configuration) {
        super();
        this.configuration = configuration;
    }

    public String getPrefix() {
        return "my";
    }

    @Override
    public Set<IProcessor> getProcessors() {
        final Set<IProcessor> processors = new HashSet<>();
        processors.add(new IdNameProcessor());
        return processors;
    }
}


The Hayes Law Firm works to restore the lives of clients who have fallen victim to the reckless conduct or negligence of others. Through a combination of integrity, hard work, tenacity and creative legal thinking we help restore a measure of independence and dignity to those clients' lives and, in some cases, have helped to alleviate the dangerous conditions that led to their injuries.
The Hayes Law Firm offers free consultation to the victims and loved ones of car, motorcycle, 18-wheeler truck crashes and other personal injury accidents. We are only paid in the event of a positive outcome. With offices in Las Cruces and Santa Fe and the ability to serve the entire state of New Mexico, we will travel to you in the event that you are hospitalized or immobilized as a result of your accident.
We understand that after an accident is when you and your loved ones are most vulnerable while trying to cope with the physical and emotional pain that comes after personal injury. We strongly encourage that you first contact The Hayes Law Firm so that your rights are protected before speaking with an insurance adjustor. Insurance companies record conversations and minimize the financial and emotional extent of your injuries, since their primary motivation is to save money even if it is at your expense. Don't get hurt twice by allowing the insurance companies to take advantage of you.
We give our clients a high level of personal attention and first class service that most other law firms simply cannot match. The Hayes Law Firm dedicates hard work, financial resources, and expert knowledge that only comes with commitment and resolve into every matter. We exclusively represent plaintiffs, and do not represent big corporations or insurance companies. We stand behind our clients and go the extra mile to ensure they get the results, personal attention, and the legal representation they need and deserve. In every case we take, we commit to winning.
At The Hayes Law Firm we know that in some instances our clients are incapacitated as a result of their injuries. We will travel to meet you and provide hospital visits upon request at no cost to you. We can help whether you need a personal injury attorney in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Las Cruces, Deming, Alamogordo, Roswell, Clovis, Silver City, Carlsbad, Albuquerque, Taos or anywhere throughout the state of New Mexico. Do not hesitate to let us help you just because you do not reside in Dona Ana, Santa Fe or Bernalillo county.
Following an accident, insurance adjusters may pressure you to quickly accept a monetary settlement that may not be sufficient to take care of your current or future medical needs. You potentially have many rights to compensation after an injury even if you have health insurance, such as: lost wages, pain and suffering, loss of household services, loss of consortium, medical bills, and so forth. The Hayes Law Firm will fight for you and your loved ones to protect these rights and see to it that no insurance company takes advantage of your vulnerable situation.


Today�s customer wants a uniqueshopping experience. The Chinese distribution system: A. Hence the consumers need not store the commodity beyond their requirements. He then reports his findings to theretailer so that measures can be taken as appropriate. Continued market-share gains for private-label products are intensifying the uneasy relationship between retailersand owners of national brands.
By having inventory held in the store, consumers can hold less merchandise at home. We have to be consistent. Storage: A retailer maintains a ready stock of goods and displays them in his shop. This offers stores an opportunity to attract customers by offering limited edition products, such as a pair of shoes designed by a local designer or a signed copy of a book. This could also involve services like providing the space required for displaying products so that consumers can see the variety and feel and test them before buying. What business function is Best Buy performing? Retailers usually assume the risk by providing guarantee about the products that they sell to the consumers. Retailing is interdisciplinary: The pace of growth within retailing is accelerating.
Who is a retailer? What are the characteristics, functions and services of a retailer?
This retailer feedback enables the wholesalers and manufacturers to modify goods and services in order to better satisfy customers and in the process increase their sales. Some companies may make big investments in distribution infrastructure and sell it as a service to other retailers, as Amazon and eBay do now. When pineapples arrive in the distribution centers across the United States, containers are reduced to amounts that are appropriate for store delivery. The magazine would beprovided to interested retailers for free distribution to their customers. Then he has to select only such of the goods offered which would suit the need of his customers. These shifts have led a number of industry observers to forecast the end of retail as we know it.
Thus retailers contribute in financing the marketing process. Victoria's Secret is practicing: A. Belinda's goal was to assess the assortments for her company in order to see if the product was a good fit for the company brand. It means of the study changes the motivation of consumer behavior under the influence of inf ormation on food products. They alsoprovide market information to wholesalers andmanufacturers. Providing Convenient Locations and Timings: Retailers select the locations of their stores and keep them open for longer timings so that they are conveniently located and available to their customers for fulfilling their requirements of goods and services as soon as the require them.
What are functions of retailer in the distribution channel?
As pressure mounts on traditional sell-through revenue, incumbent retailers too must find new profit pools. For studying the perception of the service quality connected with Personal Selling, conducted a marketing research. In the article is evaluated internet marketing activities of the companies, operating on Georgian market, the level of Internet marketing development in Georgia and the impact of sources of internet information on consumers. For some retailers, mobile is already a huge factor: at designer-fashion retailer Gilt, for instance, mobile accounts for about 50 percent of daily traffic and more than 30 percent of total sales. He thus performs two functions like buying of goods and assembling of goods.
One of the objectives of theGreen Steps Association going forward is to develop a magazine similar in format andcontent to this one, but calibrated for a general readership. While all retailers offer an assortment, they specialize in types of assortment offered and the market to which the offering is made. The retailer acquires large quantities of the products and cuts them up into smaller quantities and sells them to individual consumers. Online retailers must consider how they can make the shopping experience as convenient as possible. Quasi Retailing is non store retailing done without conventional store based locations. In buying these products he has to be cautious.
By holding inventory, retailers can decrease the visual merchandising expenditure. Indeed, while just two years ago mobile accounted for only 3 percent of e-commerce sales, that figure will probably rise to 15 percent by the end of 2013. In the , retailers are in direct contact with customers. How are retailers engaging consumers in the development and curation of new products? To generate sales without cutting margins and avoid partaking in this race to the bottom, retailers should think about how else they can offer value to their customers. Others are beginning to invest in infrastructure to provide convenient and secure package-delivery locations: lockers and pickup boxes are appearing in groceries, convenience stores, and drugstores nationwide, and new services are sprouting up to let retailers ship packages for pickup at other retail locations or self-storage facilities.
Instead of usingtheir buying power to effectively drive down wages and environmental standards acrossthe planet, they are actively engaged in both educating their customers on issues ofsustainability and lifting the standards of all business partners. Retailers usually keep varieties of products, manufactured by different firms. It is the strategy retailers and vendors use to get products into the stores. Expertise Shoppers prefer to buy from people rather than faceless companies, so they really value it when retailers offer them expert advice. Consumers find this beneficial since they have limited storage space especially for perishable merchandise like dairy and frozen products. We also expect to see third-party distribution services evolve and expand.
Modern Retail Marketing More recently, technological, cultural and economic changes have shifted the balance of power to retailers, according to Sullivan and Adcock. Respondents who fell into this camp lamented that retailers often set restrictions rather than drive innovation. By selling goods on credit they help the retailers. In the past, trading of goods was a part of a traditional society. Retail essentially completes transactions with customers. Purchasers may be individuals or bu … sinesses.
What are the Functions of a Retailer?
It includesseveral aspects such as the flooring and lighting used in thestore, the color co-ordination in the store, uniforms of the staff,the way in which the staff interacts with the customers,mannequins used, the design of the trial rooms � in short,every thing that creates an image about the store in the mind ofthe customer. Download this ecommerce special report from Multichannel Merchant to more. Retailers serve as a connecting link between the wholesalers and consumers. World's largest retail giant of the present times Walmart is operating worldwide by establishing hypermarkets in various countries by taking the help of sophisticated means of communication as well as information systems technology. Intertype competition refers to retailers that sell similar merchandise using different formats.


text:
De Geuzentempel, een protestants kerkgebouw te Roeselare
Kasteel Geuzentempel, een kasteel bij Alken

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia