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#w your FACTS and PEER-REVIEWED SCIENCE ARTICLES
chitsangenthusiast · 3 years
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"sokka can see shrimp colors," i say into the mic.
the crowd boos. i begin to walk off in shame, when a voice speaks and commands silence from the room.
"they're right." i look for the owner of the voice. there in the 5th row stands: myself, but in a fake moustache and shoving all debunked shrimp colors facts out of frame.
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Okay! So, I decided to go ahead and go through the sources linked by @aliciabenissa on this post. Mostly because I really hate when people try and debate the literal definitions of words with me. @radkindoffeminist I thought you may also be interested in this since you commented on this post. Before beginning, I want to reiterate again that non-academic sources are still useful rhetorical devices. Essays, speeches, anecdotal evidence, and other sources have a role to play in both academic and non-academic discourse. It is disingenuous however to pass off an non-academic source as academic (and it is also a rising problem within many academic fields). First source (McKee, 2007a) used a self-selection survey sample of about 1000 people, 82% of whom were male. I had to go to a separate article (McKee, 2007b) to get that statistic. Additionally, the response rate to this survey was only 7.3% (very low). Further, this article is concerned exclusively with the effects of pornography on porn consumers, entirely neglecting the industry itself. The ultimate conclusion of this study is that people who consume pornography tend to think it benefits them positively. This is unsurprising, considering we tend to avoid ego-dystonic behaviors. In fact, previous experiments have shown that we tend to adapt or world-views to fit our behaviors, so as to avoid cognitive dissonance. Nonetheless, this source was an academic source. The second source (Orlowski, 2012) is not an academic source. It was published in the “Modern American” a student run, non-peer reviewed publication at the American University Washington College of Law. This is not a study, meta-analysis, or or review article, and is best characterized as a position paper. I don’t want to get too far into the content of the paper, but suffice to say, the paper argues that non-obscene pornography is protected under the first amendment. Curiously, the author posits that the current definition of obscenity is a reliable measure for deciding what pornography should be allowed, despite the definition of obscenity being notoriously unreliable and obscure. The third source (Friedersdorf, 2016) is also not an academic source. It is essentially an opinion essay published in The Atlantic. The main argument used is based on population studies, a methodology challenged in this study (Kingston & Malamuth, 2011), which you will note, is an actual peer reviewed academic article. The fourth source (Diamond, 2009) is academic! It’s also challenged by the same paper mentioned above (Kingston & Malamuth, 2011). The other main finding of this work is that people only want porn to be restricted from children, and think it’s fine to have available. Again, I don’t find the fact that porn consumers believe porn is fine to be surprising (see the discussion of the first source above). This article is also entirely focused on consumers. The fifth source (Pornography, n.d.) is a Psychology Today article that references the fourth source. Along with a study similar to the first source (McKee, 2007a). The same criticisms clearly apply. Nevertheless, the authors of that particular study (Hald & Malamuth, 2008) actually take the time to point out these problems with such a study design, and explain how the survey results actually support the arguments about desensitization, which is common component of anti-porn arguments. Source six (5 Reasons Watching Porn Together Can Be Good for Your Marriage, 2013) is a HuffPost article. It is not academic. The ideas presented are inane at best, and offensive at worst. Source seven (Moyer, n.d.) is also not an academic article. It is published in Scientific American which is a popular science magazine. The studies and arguments used in this article have already been debunked above. Source eight (Park, 2010) references source four (Diamond, 2009). It’s also not an academic source, as it is published in Time which is a magazine. The article also take an anti-pornography stance, describing the results as “provocative” ultimately unreliable and problematic. Source nine (McCormack & Wignall, 2017) is an academic source with a small sample size (n=35) of all men. It again is entirely concerned with the consumers of pornography, and relies on self-report of positive/negative effects. I explained how this is a flawed methodology in my discussion of source one (McKee, 2007a). I cannot verify if source ten (Wasserman, 1996) is an academic source or not. Based on what I’m able to access it looks like a position paper. Source eleven (Why Criminalizing Rape Porn Is a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Idea, 2014) is non academic. It is an opinion article in an “Internet Newspaper” called The Daily Dot. It’s entirely an appeal to emotion and references several of the above debunked arguments. Source twelve (Prause & Pfaus, 2015) is academic. It’s also about whether or not men who view porn experience erectile dysfunction, which, frankly, isn’t one of my main concerns about the sex industry. Since I know this is the only reason why some men will stop watching porn however: the study’s findings are strongly rebuked in a subsequent comment (Isenberg, 2015) that lays out several methodological and analytical problems found in the report. The final source (The 8 Best Sites to Watch Ethical, Fair Trade Porn, 2017) is not academic. It’s another opinion article with no sources (but plenty of links to porn sites) on The Daily Dot (the same as source eleven). It barely presents an argument at all, so I’ll just link you to my posts on how porn cannot be legal because it doesn’t comply to OSHA and a short opinion post on the violence inherent to porn. So, in summary: 8 out of 13 sources are non-academic, 4 out of 13 sources are academic (2 of which are directly challenged and all four of which have significant methodological issues), and 1 source is unknown. Of the twelve sources I verified, they were all entirely concerned with pornography consumers; neglecting “sex workers” altogether. (Hopefully, I don’t need to spell out why that’s a problem.) And @aliciabenissa I genuinely hope you aren’t sending sources like this to your supervisors and calling them academic. I strongly suggest using databases from your library or institution (such as ulrichsweb) to verify the legitimacy of sources.
A reminder for everyone that I have several essay posts discussing literature on the sex industry in my “sex industry” tag. This post may be a nice place to start for literature on how porn affects the consumer and I challenge other pro-porn articles in this post. Also take a look at this post for a nice summary article on the nordic model.
[Citation list under the cut]
5 reasons watching porn together can be good for your marriage. (2013, March 7). HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/5-reasons-why-watching-po_b_2766968
Diamond, M. (2009). Pornography, public acceptance and sex related crime: A review. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 32(5), 304–314. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlp.2009.06.004
Friedersdorf, C. (2016, April 7). Is porn culture to be feared? The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/porn-culture/477099/
Hald, G. M., & Malamuth, N. M. (2008). Self-perceived effects of pornography consumption. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 37(4), 614–625. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-007-9212-1
Isenberg, R. A. (2015). Viewing sexual stimuli associated with greater sexual responsiveness, not erectile dysfunction: A comment. Sexual Medicine, 3(3), 219–221. https://doi.org/10.1002/sm2.71
Kingston, D. A., & Malamuth, N. M. (2011). Problems with aggregate data and the importance of individual differences in the study of pornography and sexual aggression: Comment on diamond, jozifkova, and weiss(2010). Archives of Sexual Behavior, 40(5), 1045–1048. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-011-9743-3
McCormack, M., & Wignall, L. (2017). Enjoyment, exploration and education: Understanding the consumption of pornography among young men with non-exclusive sexual orientations. Sociology, 51(5), 975–991. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038516629909
McKee, A. (2007a). Positive and negative effects of pornography as attributed by consumers. Australian Journal of Communication , 34(1), 87–104.
McKee, A. (2007b). The relationship between attitudes towards women, consumption of pornography, and other demographic variables in a survey of 1,023 consumers of pornography. International Journal of Sexual Health, 19(1), 31–45. https://doi.org/10.1300/J514v19n01_05
Moyer, M. W. (n.d.). The sunny side of smut. Scientific American. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamericanmind0711-14
Orlowski, J. (2012). Beyond Gratification:The Benefits of Pornography and the Demedicalization of Female Sexuality. The Modern American, 8(2), 53–71.
Park, A. (2010, December 2). Study: Making pornography more accessible may curb child abuse. Time. https://healthland.time.com/2010/12/02/study-making-pornography-more-accessible-may-curb-child-abuse/
Pornography: Beneficial or detrimental? | psychology today. (n.d.). Retrieved July 19, 2021, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/homo-consumericus/201001/pornography-beneficial-or-detrimental
Prause, N., & Pfaus, J. (2015). Viewing sexual stimuli associated with greater sexual responsiveness, not erectile dysfunction. Sexual Medicine, 3(2), 90–98. https://doi.org/10.1002/sm2.58
The 8 best sites to watch ethical, fair trade porn. (2017, December 16). The Daily Dot. https://www.dailydot.com/nsfw/guides/porn-ethical-premium/
Wasserman, M. (1996). Positive, powerful pornography. Agenda, 28, 58. https://doi.org/10.2307/4065758
Why criminalizing rape porn is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea. (2014, June 18). The Daily Dot. https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/criminalizing-rape-porn-terrible-idea/
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nopperediting · 4 years
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Tamara K. Nopper Editing tnopper.editing AT gmail
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crabnby · 5 years
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ok @the-defiant-pupil i'm just gonna go ahead and make a new post bc this is about to get too long for my adhd ass
(context: continuation of this post)
1. funny thing is, i've actually read most of your sources already. they get really, really boring after awhile though, bc all of them start to say the same thing: yes there are differences, but there are also similarities, and scientists have yet to figure out the significance of this.
i'm not gonna go through each and every one of your sources, and i shouldn't be expected to either. when it comes to biological research, find the most recent articles with the most solid evidence/conclusions and call it good. don't dredge up an entire archive. i could find you sources that only characterize lichens as 2 symbiotic organisms rather than 3, but that wouldn't be correct bc the most recent research says otherwise. so yeah, just bc you CAN find that much info out there doesn't mean all of it is viable and should be used.
also, you can't just list a bunch of sources and expect it to be enough. you should contextualize them, explain them, tell your audience why each one matters. if you're really going to have that many, then be prepared to give a short annotation for each one bc i can guarantee you no one has enough time on their hands (or in my case, attention span) to read that many sources
your "plain as day" source by the way?? says this as well:
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
this is what i was talking about earlier!! do you actually read, contextualize, and analyze what you read? or do you just find the first line you agree with and run with it?
bc what i got from reading that article is that even after years of research and the largest study to date, scientists STILL don't fully understand what they're looking at, and they might never. so we, as people Not Actively Researching This Subject should be incredibly hesitant to draw our own conclusions when even the researchers can't do so.
i also like that the author mentions how socialization can affect brain structure and development — did you know that domestication causes visible differences in gene structure between the ancestor and current-day species? bc of selective breeding, humans changed the genetics of dogs, cows, crops, etc.; genetics changed bc of domestication, domestication didn't come about bc of a change in genetics. and i KNOW that you're going to tell me this has nothing to do w what we're talking about, but it does hold a similar concept: it's not just genetics and bodily functions that affect behavior, the environment has an equally important role.
similarly, gene expression in almost every species is highly regulated by the environment just as equally as it is the body (and for clarification: environment means anything external, body means anything internal). as are hormonal responses, reflexes, emotions, etc. all of which can have subtle but lasting impacts on the body! i don't actually think that anti-transmeds are trying to deny science when we say that how your brain developed is not the only thing that affects gender identity! i think it's kinda actually the opposite!
2. i've haven't heard of this tumblr biologist, so please direct me to their publications, i'd actually really love to read them
3. science literacy is a whole other beast than literacy in general. like, yes, you have to be able to read, but suddenly specific word choice and HOW you read articles becomes important. it goes from reading chronologically (english literacy) to reading section by section and contextualizing what you've read in previous sections and articles so that by the end you understand the initial hypothesis, if the evidence ACTUALLY proved it, if their methods were sound, and why it matters in the particular field.
i'm not trying to say that people who aren't studying science can't read peer-reviewed articles and understand them, but you do have to realize that it's a completely new skillset you have to practice over and over again, not just something you can pick up on the fly
4. i think you completely missed my point about the anti-vaxxer movement. the reason it started was bc McBastard Wakefield published his article and before any other research could be done to refute it or back it up, the greater population picked it up and ran with it. 7 or so years since it's been debunked and he lost his medical license, but people still believe him bc he got published, and to some of the most accredited journals at that.
my point was that just bc the research exists doesn't mean we should accept it at face value until the medical/scientific community can undeniably say "this is what this is, and what it means." and they're STILL doing further research, which means that hasn't happened yet. bc the whole point of science, and by extension research, is to never be satisfied w your results, and instead continue to look for more than you can currently see. or at least that's what i've been taught.
bc to look at published articles and assume that they MUST be true bc it's PUBLISHED SCIENCE is...exactly what the anti-vaxxer movement began on. and i'd rather not repeat that.
(please show me, by the way, how """tucutes""" 1. actually exist and 2. harm anyone by simply living their own damn lives)
5. yeah """""tucutes""""" don't have any science bc uh.....there really is none. science is a process, and we're currently in the research phase which means NO ONE should be using it as proof. it's good to say "hey this exists" but to completely invalidate someone's existence based on studies that scientists are still trying to understand? that's called abusing and misconstruing results
6. i'm guessing you don't actually care, but sure. i'll explain mating types of fungi to you.
in short: genetic diversity is advantageous for survival, and fungi are nothing if not crafty little bastards, thus 1000s of mating pairs for better chances of sexual compatibility
in long: each mating type is determined by a set of genes. really, you can think of mating types as extended alleles, since each distinct allele has a distinct mating type.
so as for 5 different mating types and how they're different...there you go. that'd be like asking me to tell you 5 different alleles of the same gene and how they're different. the only difference is in sequence and then how they're expressed due to differences in sequence.
usually we don't categorize every single mating type since that'd be a bit...much.
however, we can and do categorize fungi by how they reproduce! i.e., what kind of syntamy do they display? can they go through diploid selfing? can they inbreed or only out cross? what's their primary stage of life: diploid or haploid? do they rely on sexual reproduction or asexual reproduction? if it's an ascomycete, do they form pericarps or ascocarps?
in fact, one of the main differentiators between fungi is their life cycle, most of which is geared towards reproduction. that's why although basidiomycetes and ascomycetes are the only fungi that can form macro fruiting bodies (as well as many, many other similarities), they'll always be categorized differently.
but i digress. the reason i compared fungal mating types to brain morphology and "sex" categorization is bc i was making an analogy. i'm not a neurologist, as you can probably tell at this point, but that doesn't mean i haven't taken any classes that covered the brain pretty extensively.
what i was really trying to say was this: everything that i've read so far says that although there's definitely some differences between brains, there's also a significant amount of overlap, so much so that when you try to categorize the brain into two distinct types, you're still going to have an incredible amount of variety.
likewise, you could, theoretically, do the same to fungi. you could sequence the genes from each mating type, determine the different SNPs, and categorize them into two distinct groups based on what SNPs they do/don't have. it wouldn't make sense to do so, though, bc there'd still be too much variety within each group.
this was just me trying to relate it to what i personally study but tbh i can see how that would've been confusing, so i apologize for that
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Plate with a keto diet food. Fried egg, bacon, avocado, arugula and strawberries. Keto breakfast.
Review
“For once, a book where the scientific facts outweigh the hype and where the results fulfill the promise. Once you have read the book, your diet and lifestyle will never be the same.” — Dr. William J. Kraemer, professor of kinesiology, University of Connecticut
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About the Author
Dr. Eric C. Westman is the Director of the Lifestyle Medicine Clinic at Duke University, the Vice President of the American Society of Bariatric Physicians, is on the editorial board of Nutrition and Metabolism and has penned articles for numerous peer reviewed publications. He is an expert in low carb diets, diabetes and obesity, and insulin resistance.
Dr. Stephen D. Phinney is a Professor of Medicine Emeritus at UC-Davis. He is on the editorial board of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. He has twenty-five years of clinical experience as a director of multi-disciplinary weight management programs and has contributed to books and peer reviewed articles and is an expert in low carb nutrition and metabolism, fatty acids, inflammation, and the metabolic syndrome.
Dr. Jeff S. Volek is an Associate Professor of Kinesiology at the University of Connecticut. He is an associate editor at both The Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism and the Review of Diabetic Studies. He has contributed to numerous peer reviewed publications and is an expert on low carb diets, exercise and nutrition, weight loss and dieting, and dietary supplements.
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The New Atkins for a New You
Introduction
Welcome to the new Atkins.
You have a lot on your plate. Between holding down a job and/or raising a family and other activities, you’re probably long on responsibilities and commitments and short on time. No doubt your to-do list grows with every passing day. So the last thing you need is a dietary approach that’s complicated or time-consuming. Instead, you want an easy-to-follow way of eating that allows you to slim down quickly and stay there, address certain health problems, and boost your energy.
Atkins is the program you’ve been looking for.
Maybe you’ve heard about Atkins before. Maybe you’ve even tried it before. If so, this book will show you a whole new way to live the Atkins lifestyle that’s easier and more effective than any previous book has offered. Welcome back. You’ll love the updated Atkins.
Or perhaps you’re new to the Atkins program. Read on and find out why the Atkins lifestyle is the key to not just a slimmer body but also a healthier life. Not only is doing Atkins easier than ever, a growing number of researchers have recently conducted experiments aimed at better understanding how carbohydrate restriction impacts health. In the last few years more than fifty basic and applied studies have been published which, in addition to validating the safety and effectiveness of the Atkins Diet, also provide new insights into ways to optimize the Atkins lifestyle.
We’ll tell you how the right foods will help you take charge of your weight, boost your energy, and generally make you feel better. You’ll learn everything that you need to know now and for a lifetime of weight control. You’ll also come to understand that:
• Excess weight and poor health are two sides of the same coin.
• The quality of the food you eat affects your quality of life.
• Atkins is a way of eating for life, not a quickie weight loss diet.
• Activity is the natural partner of a healthy diet.
Before telling you more about The New Atkins for a New You, let’s establish the logic of a low-carbohydrate lifestyle.
BEAT THE EPIDEMIC OF OBESITY
Here’s a pop quiz for you. When eaten in large amounts, which macronutrient raises your blood levels of saturated fats and triglycerides: protein, fat, or carbohydrate? You’re probably tempted to answer fat. But the correct answer is carbohydrate. Second question: Which of the three lowers your HDL (“good”) cholesterol? Again, the answer is carbohydrate.
In the last four decades, the percentage of overweight American adults and children has ballooned. As Albert Einstein once remarked, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results.” In this time frame, the medical and nutritional establishment has told us to follow the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Guide Pyramid, skimp on calories, avoid fat, and focus on eating carbohydrate foods. Americans now consume less saturated fat than they did forty years ago but have replaced those calories—and added another 200 a day—with carbohydrates. Clearly, something is seriously wrong with the way we eat.
So has our population become thinner? Quite the contrary! Today, more than 65 percent of American adults are overweight. Likewise, the prevalence of type 2 diabetes has skyrocketed. Are you a part of this statistical nightmare? Or are you at risk of becoming part of it? If so, this book provides the tools to escape that fate. But it’s not just enough to read the words, you must also truly take responsibility for your health. Remodeling your eating habits—like making any major life change—takes commitment. But if you’re truly ready to exchange your old habits for new ones, your reward will be the emergence of a slimmer, healthier, sexier, more energetic person—the new you!
The New Atkins for a New You will make clear that doing Atkins isn’t about eating only beef, bacon, and butter. Rather, it’s about finding how many carbohydrates you can tolerate and making good choices among carbohydrate, protein, and fat foods. In terms of carbohydrates, that means a wide array of vegetables and other whole foods. And if you choose not to eat meat or fish or any animal protein—whether for personal or other reasons—or to minimize their intake, you can still do Atkins.
CHANGE IS GOOD
In its almost forty-year evolution, the Atkins Diet has seen a number of modifications reflecting emerging nutritional science. This book reflects the latest thinking on the diet and nutrition and introduces several significant changes, including:
• A daily requirement of a substantial amount of high-fiber “foundation vegetables.”
• An easy way to reduce or eliminate symptoms that sometimes accompany the initial conversion to a low-carb approach.
• Ways to smooth the transition from one phase to the next, ensuring the gradual and natural adoption of healthy, permanent eating habits.
• Detailed advice on how to maintain weight loss, including a choice of two paths in Phase 4, Lifetime Maintenance.
• The ability to customize the program to individual needs, including variations for vegetarians and vegans.
• An understanding that we eat many of our meals outside the home with detailed suggestions on how to strategize and what to eat on the road, in fast-food places, or in different kinds of restaurants.
The book is full of other small but significant updates, again based on recent research. For example, we now know that consuming caffeine in moderation actually modestly assists fat burning. So your eight daily cups of fluid can include some coffee and other beverages in addition to water.
Simplicity, versatility, and sustainability are essential for any dietary program to succeed—long term. Atkins meets all three challenges.
1. Simplicity. Above all, the goal of this book is to make Atkins simple to do. In a nutshell, here it is: The key to slimming down and enhancing your health is to train your body to burn more fat. And the way to do that, quickly and effectively, is by cutting back on sugars and other refined carbohydrates and allowing fat—including your own body fat—to become your primary source of energy. (Before you know it, you’ll understand why fat is your friend.) This book will give you all the tools you’ll need to make this metabolic shift.
2. Versatility. Atkins now allows you to personalize the program to your lifestyle and food preferences. If you’ve tried Atkins before and found it too difficult, too restrictive, you’ll be very pleasantly surprised with the updated approach. For example:
• You determine which phase to start in and when to move to the next phase.
• You can eat lean cuts of meat and poultry—or none at all—if you prefer.
• You can do Atkins and still honor your own culinary heritage.
• You choose when to begin a fitness program and what activities to pursue.
• You select one of the two approaches to Lifetime Maintenance that better suits your needs.
3. Sustainability. Atkins doesn’t just help you shed pounds and leave you there. We know—as you do—that the problem with every weight loss program is keeping the weight off for the long term. Understanding the power of fat burning is equally essential to lifetime weight maintenance. Importantly, the four-phase program trains you to gauge your personal tolerance for carbohydrates, so that you can tailor a program that not only fits you to a T but also enables you to permanently banish excess pounds and maintain improved health indicators. And once you find a way of eating that you can live with, yo-yo dieting will be a thing of the past.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
Four sections allow you to get going on the program quickly, complete with lists of acceptable foods and meal plans, plus provide a grounding in nutrition and the scientific foundations of the Atkins approach.
• Part I covers the basics of nutrition, looking at carbohydrates, protein, and fats, and explains how and why Atkins works. We’ll introduce the four phases that form the continuum of the Atkins Diet:
– Phase 1, Induction
– Phase 2, Ongoing Weight Loss (OWL)
– Phase 3, Pre-Maintenance
– Phase 4, Lifetime Maintenance
You’ll also learn all about “Net Carbs” and how to count them. (For brevity, we’ll often refer to carbohydrates as carbs.) Once you understand these basics and commit yourself to concentrating on whole foods, you’ll find it easier than ever to slim down and shape up. You’ll also learn how the wrong foods—think of those made with sugar and refined grains—keep you overweight, tired, and sluggish and increase your risk for health problems.
• Part II tells you how to do Atkins on a day-to-day basis and transition easily from one phase to the next. We’ll guide you through the process of exploring the amounts and types of food that are right for you, with extensive lists of acceptable foods for each phase, as you customize the program to your needs. You’ll find a wide variety of choices in the types of foods you can eat, whether dining in or eating out.
• Part III includes detailed meal plans, recipes for all phases of the diet, and guides to eating out.
• Part IV is for those of you who want to learn how Atkins can improve cardiovascular risk factors, reverse metabolic syndrome (prediabetes), and manage diabetes. We’ll give you the short course and provide lots of reference material in case you happen to love reading scientific journals or want to share these chapters with your physician.
Just as you can tailor Atkins to your needs, you can read this book as you wish. If you’re eager to get going immediately, simply start with part II, but please circle back later to learn how and why Atkins works. At the very least, read the review sections at the end of the chapters in part I. As the Success Stories sprinkled throughout the book make clear, until you understand the nutritional grounding of the Atkins Diet, it’s all too easy to regard it merely as a tool for quick weight loss—instead of a healthy and permanent lifestyle.
In part I, you’ll also make the acquaintance of the metabolic bully, which threatens your resolve to stay on the weight loss path, and its enemy—and your ally—the Atkins Edge. This powerful tool helps you slim down, without experiencing the hunger or cravings usually associated with weight loss.
Other diets may come and go, but Atkins endures because it has always worked. As physicians, nutritionists, and researchers, we’re committed to making Atkins simpler than ever. After all, the easier it is, the more likely you are to stick with it, and—bottom line—achieve success. We can assure you that Dr. Robert C. Atkins, who was a pioneer in low-carb nutrition, would approve of the science-based changes introduced in this book, particularly any that make the program easier for you and enable you to keep excess weight off long term. The growing worldwide epidemics of obesity and diabetes mean that it’s not a moment too soon.
Stephen D. Phinney, M.D., Ph.D.
Jeff S. Volek, Ph.D., R.D.
Eric C. Westman, M.D., M.H.S.
Read more
See more
[amz_corss_sell asin=”1439190275″]
New Atkins for a New You: The Ultimate Diet for Shedding Weight and Feeling Great. Paperback – March 2, 2010 Review "For once, a book where the scientific facts outweigh the hype and where the results fulfill the promise.
0 notes
dentalinfotoday · 4 years
Link
Stop the presses! The news is out. Everyone needs to understand the facts. And all healthcare professionals need to connect the dots, including all those dentists and medical doctors out there.
The news is simply this: Your gut has everything to do with the manifestation of periodontal disease (PD) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
This research is still new to many dentists and traditional healthcare providers, but the news is spreading. An increased risk of autoimmune responses like those in RA is a big deal, particularly in otherwise healthy individuals.
Current Medical Science, Gut Health, & History
Sometimes, science proves that what was thought to be untrue in the past to be true now.
Sometimes, science proves things that were thought to be true in the past to ultimately be untrue in the future.
And sometimes, what was thought to be true hundreds of years ago (but lost its impact over time) becomes the newest news today.
Specifically, some medical research today is uncovering an important truth and confirming what was believed hundreds of years ago.
The truth is that a healthy gut and its healthy garden of bacteria are critical for the avoidance of most – if not all – chronic diseases. Interestingly, this was believed over 2,000 years ago.
Hippocrates, the “Father of Medicine”, was reported to say, “all disease begins in the gut”. Maybe he knew something that we are just beginning to relearn and that medical investigators are just beginning to prove.
Fortunately for us and for the entire medical profession, the newest research is shining a new and vital light on the importance of a healthy gut and the overall health of the human body.
The food we eat, the substances we avoid, and our overall lifestyle affect gut health. Specifically, these affect the bacteria in the gut, the gut’s protective mucosal layer, and the all-important epithelial layer that separates the lumen of the gut from the rest of our body.
The healthy gut lining is the gatekeeper between what’s inside the gut and what’s inside the body. This one-cell-layer-thick gut lining allows necessary digested nutrients to enter our bloodstream. The same lining also protects us from all the other junk in the gut that the body does not need. The junk gets eliminated and the nutrients get absorbed.
Once the nutrients are inside our bloodstream, they help every cell do what each cell was designed to do – to keep us healthy and functioning properly.
Today, many scientific articles have been published that prove the direct causal effects of gut bacteria on the health of various organ systems. One recent peer-reviewed paper describes two very serious but related diseases that may be the result of a damaged gut.
2019 Research Linking Gum Disease to Rheumatoid Arthritis
In 2019, a medical analysis was published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences titled, “Linkage of Periodontitis and Rheumatoid Arthritis: Current Evidence and Potential Biological Interactions.”
This paper suggested some common causes of periodontal disease and rheumatoid arthritis. If you connect the dots, one likely common cause is a damaged gut.
In essence, this investigation supports the theory that periodontal disease and rheumatoid arthritis may have their beginnings in an unhealthy gut. Yes, the gut!
If this theory is correct, then your dentist and physician need to collaborate on treatment. They could offer effective healing modalities for both periodontal disease (PD) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) as well as treatment to heal a damaged gut and prevent further progression of PD and RA.
What is periodontal disease (PD)?
PD is the most common cause of tooth loss and one of the world’s most prevalent chronic inflammatory diseases. PD includes gum inflammation (gingivitis) and the more advanced periodontitis, where the jawbone becomes infected.
The prevalence of PD is at epidemic proportions. In 2010, a published paper showed that 93.9% of adults in the United States had some form of gingivitis (almost always caused by the P. gingivalis bacteria).
In 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published their results in the Journal of Dental Research. The report was updated in 2015 in the Journal of Periodontology.
It showed the prevalence of periodontitis was estimated to be 47.2% for American adults (approximately 64.7 million people at the time of the study). For adults 65 years old and older, the prevalence of periodontitis jumped to 70.1%. That’s huge!
These findings were the result of the most comprehensive periodontal evaluation performed ever in the US.
Periodontal disease develops when unhealthy periodontal bacteria accumulate around the teeth margins and penetrate the gum tissues. These bad bugs eventually could progress into the jawbone that holds the roots of the teeth in the jaw, leading to bone loss, tooth loss, and painful tooth sensitivity.
If a person’s immune system is strong, then periodontal disease may never get started. If a person’s immune system is weak, then harmful oral bacteria could create gingivitis, then possibly severe periodontitis and tooth loss, and ultimately a spread of infection to other areas of the body. Poor oral health almost always translates to poor overall health.
What is rheumatoid arthritis (RA)?
RA is a chronic autoimmune disease, one of the inflammatory conditions known as rheumatic diseases that impact joints and connective tissues. (For context, autoimmunity happens when the immune system recognizes healthy cells as foreign.)
RA patients experience synovial inflammation and hyperplasia leading to irreversible damage of the cartilage and bone in the joints, loss of function, chronic pain, and progressive joint disability.
There are many causes of RA, but many of them are the same for PD.
The Periodontal Disease/Rheumatoid Arthritis Gut Connection
It appears that Hippocrates got it right over 2000 years ago. The gut microbiota is the initial starting point for most, if not all, chronic diseases in humans.
Unhealthy changes in gut bacteria will create a weakened immune system with results spreading into the mouth. When the immune system is compromised, the healthy bacteria in the mouth could change and allow specific bacteria (like periodontal pathogens Porphyromonas gingivalis and Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans) to overgrow.
Both of these bad bacteria could lead to local protein alterations by a process called “citrullination”.
Citrullination is the conversion of the amino acid arginine into the amino acid citrulline. Evidence suggests that increased citrullination may participate in tissue destruction associated with periodontal disease and rheumatoid arthritis. Citrullination may be a key mechanism allowing both PD and RA to affect one another.
The path seems clear to me. Physicians and dentists need to integrate their therapies to treat periodontal disease and rheumatoid arthritis efficiently and effectively.
Treating an unhealthy gut will not automatically treat periodontal disease or rheumatoid arthritis — there are many other factors, such as changes in oral hygiene or procedures such as scaling and root planing.
Likewise, only treating PD or RA will not treat an unhealthy gut.
Therefore, a healthy gut should be an important therapeutic goal in order to provide all-inclusive treatment for PD and RA — and, by extension, all systemic diseases.
I have developed a Protocol to Restore Normal Gut Bacteria, which I could send in a PDF. Email me at [email protected], and I will send it to you.
Read Next: Can gingivitis cause Alzheimer’s disease? (A Scientific Review)
3 References
de Molon, R. S., Rossa Jr, C., Thurlings, R. M., Cirelli, J. A., & Koenders, M. I. (2019). Linkage of periodontitis and rheumatoid arthritis: current evidence and potential biological interactions. International journal of molecular sciences, 20(18), 4541. Full text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6769683/
Li, Y., Lee, S., Hujoel, P., Su, M., Zhang, W., Kim, J., … & De Vizio, W. (2010). Prevalence and severity of gingivitis in American adults. American journal of dentistry, 23(1), 9. Abstract: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20437720
Eke, P. I., Dye, B. A., Wei, L., Slade, G. D., Thornton‐Evans, G. O., Borgnakke, W. S., … & Genco, R. J. (2015). Update on prevalence of periodontitis in adults in the United States: NHANES 2009 to 2012. Journal of periodontology, 86(5), 611-622. Full text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4460825/
The post Stop the Presses: Gut, Periodontal Disease & Rheumatoid Arthritis appeared first on Ask the Dentist.
from Ask the Dentist https://askthedentist.com/rheumatoid-arthritis-periodontal-disease/
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kristinsimmons · 4 years
Text
Stop the Presses: Gut, Periodontal Disease & Rheumatoid Arthritis
Stop the presses! The news is out. Everyone needs to understand the facts. And all healthcare professionals need to connect the dots, including all those dentists and medical doctors out there.
The news is simply this: Your gut has everything to do with the manifestation of periodontal disease (PD) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
This research is still new to many dentists and traditional healthcare providers, but the news is spreading. An increased risk of autoimmune responses like those in RA is a big deal, particularly in otherwise healthy individuals.
Current Medical Science, Gut Health, & History
Sometimes, science proves that what was thought to be untrue in the past to be true now.
Sometimes, science proves things that were thought to be true in the past to ultimately be untrue in the future.
And sometimes, what was thought to be true hundreds of years ago (but lost its impact over time) becomes the newest news today.
Specifically, some medical research today is uncovering an important truth and confirming what was believed hundreds of years ago.
The truth is that a healthy gut and its healthy garden of bacteria are critical for the avoidance of most – if not all – chronic diseases. Interestingly, this was believed over 2,000 years ago.
Hippocrates, the “Father of Medicine”, was reported to say, “all disease begins in the gut”. Maybe he knew something that we are just beginning to relearn and that medical investigators are just beginning to prove.
Fortunately for us and for the entire medical profession, the newest research is shining a new and vital light on the importance of a healthy gut and the overall health of the human body.
The food we eat, the substances we avoid, and our overall lifestyle affect gut health. Specifically, these affect the bacteria in the gut, the gut’s protective mucosal layer, and the all-important epithelial layer that separates the lumen of the gut from the rest of our body.
The healthy gut lining is the gatekeeper between what’s inside the gut and what’s inside the body. This one-cell-layer-thick gut lining allows necessary digested nutrients to enter our bloodstream. The same lining also protects us from all the other junk in the gut that the body does not need. The junk gets eliminated and the nutrients get absorbed.
Once the nutrients are inside our bloodstream, they help every cell do what each cell was designed to do – to keep us healthy and functioning properly.
Today, many scientific articles have been published that prove the direct causal effects of gut bacteria on the health of various organ systems. One recent peer-reviewed paper describes two very serious but related diseases that may be the result of a damaged gut.
2019 Research Linking Gum Disease to Rheumatoid Arthritis
In 2019, a medical analysis was published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences titled, “Linkage of Periodontitis and Rheumatoid Arthritis: Current Evidence and Potential Biological Interactions.”
This paper suggested some common causes of periodontal disease and rheumatoid arthritis. If you connect the dots, one likely common cause is a damaged gut.
In essence, this investigation supports the theory that periodontal disease and rheumatoid arthritis may have their beginnings in an unhealthy gut. Yes, the gut!
If this theory is correct, then your dentist and physician need to collaborate on treatment. They could offer effective healing modalities for both periodontal disease (PD) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) as well as treatment to heal a damaged gut and prevent further progression of PD and RA.
What is periodontal disease (PD)?
PD is the most common cause of tooth loss and one of the world’s most prevalent chronic inflammatory diseases. PD includes gum inflammation (gingivitis) and the more advanced periodontitis, where the jawbone becomes infected.
The prevalence of PD is at epidemic proportions. In 2010, a published paper showed that 93.9% of adults in the United States had some form of gingivitis (almost always caused by the P. gingivalis bacteria).
In 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published their results in the Journal of Dental Research. The report was updated in 2015 in the Journal of Periodontology.
It showed the prevalence of periodontitis was estimated to be 47.2% for American adults (approximately 64.7 million people at the time of the study). For adults 65 years old and older, the prevalence of periodontitis jumped to 70.1%. That’s huge!
These findings were the result of the most comprehensive periodontal evaluation performed ever in the US.
Periodontal disease develops when unhealthy periodontal bacteria accumulate around the teeth margins and penetrate the gum tissues. These bad bugs eventually could progress into the jawbone that holds the roots of the teeth in the jaw, leading to bone loss, tooth loss, and painful tooth sensitivity.
If a person’s immune system is strong, then periodontal disease may never get started. If a person’s immune system is weak, then harmful oral bacteria could create gingivitis, then possibly severe periodontitis and tooth loss, and ultimately a spread of infection to other areas of the body. Poor oral health almost always translates to poor overall health.
What is rheumatoid arthritis (RA)?
RA is a chronic autoimmune disease, one of the inflammatory conditions known as rheumatic diseases that impact joints and connective tissues. (For context, autoimmunity happens when the immune system recognizes healthy cells as foreign.)
RA patients experience synovial inflammation and hyperplasia leading to irreversible damage of the cartilage and bone in the joints, loss of function, chronic pain, and progressive joint disability.
There are many causes of RA, but many of them are the same for PD.
The Periodontal Disease/Rheumatoid Arthritis Gut Connection
It appears that Hippocrates got it right over 2000 years ago. The gut microbiota is the initial starting point for most, if not all, chronic diseases in humans.
Unhealthy changes in gut bacteria will create a weakened immune system with results spreading into the mouth. When the immune system is compromised, the healthy bacteria in the mouth could change and allow specific bacteria (like periodontal pathogens Porphyromonas gingivalis and Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans) to overgrow.
Both of these bad bacteria could lead to local protein alterations by a process called “citrullination”.
Citrullination is the conversion of the amino acid arginine into the amino acid citrulline. Evidence suggests that increased citrullination may participate in tissue destruction associated with periodontal disease and rheumatoid arthritis. Citrullination may be a key mechanism allowing both PD and RA to affect one another.
The path seems clear to me. Physicians and dentists need to integrate their therapies to treat periodontal disease and rheumatoid arthritis efficiently and effectively.
Treating an unhealthy gut will not automatically treat periodontal disease or rheumatoid arthritis — there are many other factors, such as changes in oral hygiene or procedures such as scaling and root planing.
Likewise, only treating PD or RA will not treat an unhealthy gut.
Therefore, a healthy gut should be an important therapeutic goal in order to provide all-inclusive treatment for PD and RA — and, by extension, all systemic diseases.
I have developed a Protocol to Restore Normal Gut Bacteria, which I could send in a PDF. Email me at [email protected], and I will send it to you.
Read Next: Can gingivitis cause Alzheimer’s disease? (A Scientific Review)
3 References
de Molon, R. S., Rossa Jr, C., Thurlings, R. M., Cirelli, J. A., & Koenders, M. I. (2019). Linkage of periodontitis and rheumatoid arthritis: current evidence and potential biological interactions. International journal of molecular sciences, 20(18), 4541. Full text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6769683/
Li, Y., Lee, S., Hujoel, P., Su, M., Zhang, W., Kim, J., … & De Vizio, W. (2010). Prevalence and severity of gingivitis in American adults. American journal of dentistry, 23(1), 9. Abstract: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20437720
Eke, P. I., Dye, B. A., Wei, L., Slade, G. D., Thornton‐Evans, G. O., Borgnakke, W. S., … & Genco, R. J. (2015). Update on prevalence of periodontitis in adults in the United States: NHANES 2009 to 2012. Journal of periodontology, 86(5), 611-622. Full text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4460825/
The post Stop the Presses: Gut, Periodontal Disease & Rheumatoid Arthritis appeared first on Ask the Dentist.
Stop the Presses: Gut, Periodontal Disease & Rheumatoid Arthritis published first on https://wittooth.tumblr.com/
0 notes
Dr. Epstein, Political Bias, & Google Search Results
I’m a little confused by claims made by Dr. Robert Epstein and his assertion, based upon a single study of 95 participants, that Google somehow intentionally biased the results shown before the 2016 U.S. presidential election. And therefore, likely impacted the election results itself.
That’s a huge assertion to make. One would hope that an esteemed researcher such as Dr. Epstein would have the scientific data to back it up. Unfortunately, I don’t see it.
Science is only objective up until the point where a scientist acknowledges and accounts for her or his own biases. Science is not based on a preset agenda, or an attempt to settle a score. I’m not certain Dr. Epstein has done kept his own biases in check in his apparent witch hunt to take down Google for offering “biased” search results.
Search Engines Have Always Been Biased
Google has always offered biased search results. If you don’t understand that this has to be the case with any search engine, then you might need a quick refresher course on how search engines work.
There is no such thing as unbiased search results. All search engines use proprietary trade-secret algorithms to ensure you see what the search engine company believes makes for the “best” results. “Best” has — since the beginning of search engines online back in the early 1990s — always been a subjective term. There is no single objective ranking of websites that says, “Always show this website first for this search engine because it is clearly the best result.”
And guess what — people love that! That’s why Google is on top of the search engine pile, because it does indeed offer the results that are apparently the most relevant to most people. The minute Google stops offering such relevant results, a new search engine can and will take its place. (Anyone remember Alta Vista, Excite, or even Yahoo? [And no, Yahoo doesn’t do search anymore — its results are provided by Bing.])
What Does Bias in Search Engine Results Look Like?
Unbeknownst to many, search engines don’t show the exact same results to the same query asked by two different people. Most search engines, including Google, use complex personalization factors and a complex psychographic profile in order to further sort and present results it thinks are most relevant to you.
In practice, this means that my search for “depression symptoms” may return a different result set than your search on the exact same terms. If you don’t carefully control for this in your methodology, your results will be meaningless and tainted.
Epstein & Robertson (2015) found in a series of laboratory (not real-world) experiments, when they artificially manipulated search engine results pages, they could influence subjects’ voter preferences over a short duration of time. It did not research any actual search engine pages. And it ignored the layout and makeup of modern search engine result pages. Real search result pages feature multiple advertisements (that anyone can purchase) at the top of the page before any organic results.
These researchers’ results are not surprising in that they echo what any search engine optimization (SEO) expert would tell you — position matters on a search engine results page. Websites get tons more traffic if they are #1, #2, or #3 versus #9 — or worse yet, on the second page of results.
In a second laboratory experiment, the same researcher demonstrated methods (again, using a completely fake search engine — not Google) in which the effect they coined — the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME) — could be suppressed (through timely alerts shown to users).
Google Helped Hillary Win?
In 2017, Epstein & Robertson weren’t content to demonstrate the obvious any longer — that ranking positions matter on search engine results pages. They took it a step further and conducted a study of 95 Americans (only 21 of whom identified as “undecided” in the upcoming presidential election) in 2016 and their search habits.
In a white paper published only to their own website, Epstein & Robertson make the extraordinary claim:
[…W]e have found that between May and November 2016, search results displayed in response to a wide range of election-related search terms were, on average, biased in Mrs. Clinton’s favor in all 10 search-result positions.
Published as a “white paper” and not a peer-reviewed journal study, this raised a bunch of red flags.1
There was little in the way of methodology explained in the study. This includes no information about what was done to limit the personalization of search results (since you want to control for that independent variable), nor what search terms they actually used. In fact, in reading the two previous studies these researchers published, it’s not even clear they’re aware how search engines work in terms of their monetization strategies, constant weekly algorithm changes, and personalization of search results.
There is also some apparent sloppiness in the researcher’s efforts, in my opinion. There is no rationale given for the specific 25-day period of time they used to examine in the study, versus any other period of time. And in fact, they acknowledge they didn’t really look all that closely at the majority of datapoints they had gathered. The researchers ignored 7 months’ worth of research data to focus only on the 3 weeks before the election.2
They also made the decision, post-hoc, to discard all Gmail.com based data because of anomalies in that data. Those anomalies happened to show no such bias, which they attributed to either a set of “bots” or — wait for it — intentional sabotage on Google’s part.
Since there’s a significant minority of legitimate users who use Gmail, these rationales to throw out all Gmail.com-derived data seem questionable at best. It is, in my opinion, a horrible research decision to have made, but one that coincidentally also ensured that the researchers found significance in their data.
But here’s the real kicker:
Extrapolating from the mathematics introduced in this report, in articles published in February 2016and thereafter, the lead author of the PNAS study predicted that a pro-Clinton bias in Google’s search results would, over time, shift at least 2.6 million votes to Clinton.
There is zero mathematics in their white paper. There are a bunch of descriptive statistics, but those statistics barely speak to what procedures or modeling the researchers actually used to arrive at the conclusions that they did.
The researchers’ “evidence of systematic bias in the 2016 presidential election?” A small sampling of modeling data based upon 95 Americans (minus the Gmail.com users whose data they tossed post-hoc).
In short, in my opinion this is exactly the kind of shoddy, shady, horribly-designed research that passes for “proof” in this day and age. Why would researchers conduct such a seemingly politically-biased study, and also draw conclusions that they have no actual direct proof of?3
Perhaps There’s an Axe to Grind?
Researchers are human. And humans sometimes have an axe to grind. You don’t have to go far to find one of Epstein’s possible particular axes.
Prior to 2012, Epstein showed little interest in search engines or how they worked. He published on a wide variety of psychological, relationship, and mental health topics and wrote about them for mainstream websites.
Then in early 2012, Epstein’s personal website was a recipient of a malware warning that appeared when users tried to access his site from Google. Google displays these alerts to steer users away from potentially malicious websites.
But this incident apparently got under Epstein’s skin in some way because suddenly he’s writing multiple articles in the fall of 2012 about the need to regulate Google. This from a researcher who had never written a single word about search engines before. I find the timing interesting.
In short, Epstein has been advocating for the federal government’s regulation of Google for the past seven years. It wouldn’t be too hard to imagine a hypothetical researcher designing studies to support her or his beliefs.
The Upshot of Search Engine Bias
Search engines have always been biased, and always will be because they are subjective tools meant to help get users to information or entertainment. The minute big government wants to start overseeing my search results is the minute I turn to a search engine where such government filtering isn’t done.
It also helps to keep in mind hypothetical meddling versus real meddling in U.S. politics. While Epstein is insinuating that Google is manipulating its political search results to favor candidates it wants elected into office, we have actual proof of Facebook manipulating the 2016 presidential election through Russian-sponsored organizations purchasing millions of dollars of false advertising on its platform.
Interestingly, Epstein doesn’t seem to have much interest in that. Maybe that’s because Facebook has never wronged him as Google once did.
  For further information
Politifact: Donald Trump wrong on Google manipulating election results
References
Epstein & Robertson. (2017). Suppressing the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME). Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact., 1(2), 42.
Epstein & Robertson. (2017). A Method for Detecting Bias in Search Rankings, with Evidence of Systematic Bias Related to the 2016 Presidential Election. White paper published by AIBRT, Epstein’s organization.
Epstein & Robertson. (2015). The search engine manipulation effect (SEME) and itspossible impact on the outcomes of elections. PNAS, 10.1073/pnas.1419828112
Footnotes:
When asked about the lack of peer-reviewed studies, Epstein replied to me, “I also have problems of both urgency and quantity: I’ve completed or have in progress so many different studies of new forms of online influence (I’m studying seven different types of influence at the moment — SEME and six others) that I’ve decided to summarize my findings in conference papers, white papers and, at some point, in book form, rather than spend what little time remains to me on the painfully slow academic publications process. When I stumble onto another new form of online influence, it takes me a year or two, at least, to understand and quantify it. (I haven’t even gotten around to beginning experiments on a half dozen new forms of influence I know about.) Adding another year or two onto that process to publish in a journal seems imprudent given my age and given how potentially important these discoveries are for humanity.”
The researchers claimed this was due to what they said were recruiting issues and refining their procedures. Which begs the question — shouldn’t their procedures had been refined in a pilot study first, as most researchers would have done?
Or, if you want to be pedantic, have minimal proof of based upon a tiny sample of just 95 users’ searches — minus some number of Gmail.com subjects — over the course of 25 days.
from World of Psychology https://ift.tt/2Nrzn7E via IFTTT
0 notes
729renegades · 5 years
Text
THINK BIG, START SMALL, STAY FLEXIBLE
To eliminate any preconceptions, let me define ‘budget’ for the purpose of this article. A budget is a manifestation of a unique business model created by the business owner and expresses his or her values and aspirations. It’s a detailed plan of how you’ll spend and earn money over the next year.
I spent time last week with a venture capitalist on two funding renewals. Her due diligence requirements include a 12-month budget. She offered the following insight, “I always look to see who’s using their budget to tick the box and who’s using it to run the business.” Let’s take a look at what she means.
There are three ways to define future financial numbers: projections, budgets, and forecasts. I recommend thinking of projections as long-term numbers. They’ll tell the business owner where the company’s financial and operational numbers will be in one, three, and five years’ time. In a similar way, a budget will tell you your short-term numbers, most likely over the next twelve months. Finally, there are forecasts, which are real time adjustments made to the budget during the year to sharpen year-end numbers. These changes are usually made on a quarterly basis and reflect how actual quarterly numbers differ from budgeted ones.
Projections or Longer-Term Numbers
There are three main reasons to create projections. Firstly, they are needed to know the business’ financing needs 6-18 months ahead of time. Secondly, projections are used to value companies. They are also a tool to set goals and expectations: goals for the management team and staff, and expectations for the board and outside investors.
Early stage businesses search for the right business model. They operate in cash mode 24/7 and test hypotheses for product/market fit in real time. At this stage, the entrepreneur’s role is to innovate; the customer’s role is to validate. With all this uncertainty, it seems implausible to create three or five year projections.
Despite this tension, the business owner must be able to envision future growth, competition, and the long-term profits of the business.
She must keep in mind three fundamentals when projecting her numbers. They should be driven by scenario analysis, realistic assumptions, and a clear understanding of the main drivers of the business, namely the key performance indicators.
Scenario Analysis
There are many external factors beyond the control of the business owner, such as competitors releasing a disruptive technology, or key customers unexpectedly going out of business. To avoid being blindsided to potential risks and opportunities, it’s important to envision different scenarios when modelling. The most frequently used scenarios are: best case, most likely or ‘base’ case, and worst case. There is, however, no preset number of scenarios you can use.
When performing scenario analysis, make sure there are 3 types of people in the room. The optimist will imagine the future where every opportunity works out. The pessimist will ask: “What if we’re unable to hire that person?” or “What if there’s an unforeseen delay in launching the product?”. Finally, the realist compares similar businesses to yours and looks at history to see what their path turned out to be. Each person will force you to start over in your assumptions and numbers until, several iterations later, you’ll have a workable plan.
Assumptions
The essence of business forecasting is to predict future cash flows based on realistic assumptions and assigning probabilities to each of them. Learning occurs as you follow each potential path and evaluate each potential outcome.
Always start with your assumptions and clearly document them. A big mistake is to focus first on the outcomes you would like to see. Examine where the numbers come from,their roots, before prematurely congratulating yourself on the outcomes.
Billionaire Vinod Khosla, CEO of Khosla Ventures, and ex-founder of Sun Microsystems provides this warning to entrepreneurs: “The more success you’ve had in the past, the less you challenge your own assumptions in a new venture. The more credentials someone has, the more assumptions he or she makes.”
Get as much feedback as you can around your assumptions. If you have them, ask your investors and board to review them. If you’re a solo-entrepreneur, ask mentors and peers whose wisdom you respect.
Budgets or Short-Term Numbers
In my experience, these are the four budgeting errors to avoid:
1. The business owner is lazy and uses someone else’s budget template. Budgeting is more art than science. You must design your own budget.
2. Never use blanket percentages in your profit and loss statement to project forward 12 months. The lazy business owner will increase revenues by 40%, expenses by 20%, and expect net profit to increase 20%. Instead, frame your budget around the key milestones to hit, the different products you’re selling, or your customer markets.
3. A budget that has been created as outlined in mistake #2 above will invariably show a % cushion incorporated into each important number. I’ve also seen a separate line item at the bottom of the budget that’s called ‘cushion’ and is a plug number to make the numbers more conservative. Both methods constitute poor modelling. Instead, as mentioned previously, each number should be chosen conservatively based upon assumptions and KPIs.
4. The lazy business owner waits until the end of December, or dare I say February, to start creating the budget and ends up stitching together a rushed and feeble plan. Every successful business owner should set at the beginning of each year a financial calendar for the company. Nestled into it is a budgeting timeline that differs for the size of your business.
The business owner who is guilty of making these mistakes has ‘ticked the box’, in the words of the venture capitalist at the start of the article. Although he has a budget to submit, it fails to be an effective tool with which to run the company for the next 12 months.
Budgeting in An Early Stage Business
The budgeting process differs depending on the stage of your company. We will apply the concepts discussed earlier in this article to an early stage growth business, which I define as employing between 1 and 10 staff. In my next article I’ll discuss what projecting and budgeting looks like for companies with 10-100 employees and beyond.
At this early stage of growth, it’s tempting to start with the budget and neglect establishing long term projections due to uncertainty around your business model. Delaying, however, would be a mistake. Budgeting is a refinement of the projections. Always do your projections before budgeting.
The budgeting process launches annually in October or November with final approval in December by your board or your team. Two people can do your budget, likely the collaboration between the business owner and a finance savvy person.
It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it – George W. Bush
Start with the structure of a 3-year financial model. Lock down key business or performance metrics for the next 12 months and commence creating your assumptions. In the act of planning the business owner identifies her risks and builds contingencies against them.
It’s especially important to project conservatively in an early stage business. Revenue lines and drivers change often as you continue to mould and develop your business model. One key goal of the revenue section is to show product market fit, indicated by total revenue.
Your focus with expenses is on hiring and people costs. The business owner wants to determine the number of staff she is able to hire, and at what salary level, in each month over the next 12 months. There will be a cash burn analysis at the bottom of your budget to help with this analysis.
This is your monthly liquidity analysis; it tells you how much cash you have left each month to invest in your business. It will also tell you in what month you’ll run out of cash if you continue to follow your plan. Please refer to ‘The Numbers Game’ article in October 2015 where I explain this topic in detail.
Once approved by the board, share your budget with the entire team. I recommend only showing and providing the rationale behind the major line items. It’s important that your team understands the reasoning behind your numbers, but the
details can be distracting to them. Ensure that the monthly cash flow projections are removed. There is no benefit to alarm your team if you will be running low in cash in the future. The budget must make sense to your staff internally
and to your board of directors externally.
We’re in a bull cycle where growing as fast as possible is desired and even encouraged. In fact, last year, Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, designed and taught a class at Stanford Business School called “Blitz-scaling”.
However, Vinod Khosla provides a strong warning against scaling without having appropriate product/market fit and an established business model. He says: “The more money you raise and the more people you hire, the more difficult it is to
execute on your plan. And that can lead to disaster. It’s much easier to discover your plan when you have less people, and less money. The plan is never complete until the business model is set and that could be a long way down the road. Use
your budget early on to establish your business model, not to figure out how to grow at the highest rate possible.
Forecasting or Real Time Numbers
Successfully implementing a budget is a continuous iterative process, especially during the early years.
Each month report actual numbers vs budgeted numbers and track how you’re doing. Keep an account of lessons learned, unexpected outcomes, difficulties encountered, and changes in future plans. This will be presented at board meetings and used for strategic planning.
If the budget is relatively close to the actual numbers being recorded, then you’re running according to your plan and no adjustments are needed.
However, if there are large discrepancies, new forecasts must be made during the year in order to come up with more accurate year-end numbers. In this case, the budget is not thrown out, but comparisons are now made between actual numbers and the original budget, and actual numbers and the new real-time forecasts.
Having an inaccurate budget should only be viewed as temporary defeat. It means your plan doesn’t work. Many business owners fall into the trap of lowering their year-end numbers. Instead pivot and create a new plan. Repeat this process until you find one that works.
As the business progresses, your assumptions will start to become fact and you will gain greater clarity into your business model. Then, creating a budget moves beyond a boring requirement into the astute entrepreneur’s toolbox for a smarter business.
from Blog | 729renegades http://bit.ly/2w6wPSn
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conners-clinic · 5 years
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On October 4, 2018, Sharon Goldberg, MD testified before the Michigan House Energy Committee on 5G and Health. Here is the scientific documentation for her testimony.
Sharon Goldberg is an Integrative Internal Medicine Physician. Her background includes fifteen years as an academic Hospital Medicine physician and medical educator responsible for the training of medical students and resident physicians. She was Assistant Professor at New York City’s Mount Sinai Hospital; Albert Einstein College of Medicine and at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.  She is board certified in Internal Medicine and Integrative Medicine and has advanced training in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from the Gorgas Memorial Institute in Lima, Peru. Her clinical and research interests include dietary, lifestyle and environmental modifications in the setting of complex chronic disease. Dr. Goldberg has clinical expertise treating environmental illness, including Microwave Syndrome (Electro-Sensitivity).
The following is an edited (for ease of reading) transcript of Dr Goldberg’s full testimony.
The Dangers of 5G Wireless Technology
Wireless radiation has biological effects. Period. This is no longer a subject for debate. When you look at Pub Med and the peer-reviewed literature and these effects are seen in all lifeforms, plants, animals, insects, microbes. In humans we have clear evidence of cancer. There is no question. We have evidence of DNA damage, cardiomyopathy, which is the precursor of congestive heart failure, neuropsychiatric effects. So 5G is not a conversation about whether or not these biological effects exist. They clearly do. 5G is a conversation about unsustainable healthcare expenditures.
EMF Radiation and Diabetes
Why do I say this? We’ve been sitting on the evidence for EMR and chronic disease for decades. And now we’re seeing all these epidemics appearing. So diabetes is the first epidemic. I think most of you know the statistics, they’re very scary. 1 in 3 American children will become diabetic in their lifetime and if they’re Hispanic females, the number is 1 in 2. So what does this have to do with wireless radiation? Wireless radiation and other electromagnetic fields, such as magnetic fields and dirty electricity, have been clearly associated with elevated blood sugar and diabetes. That is what the Peer-Reviewed Literature says. It is not opinion. The closer you live to a cell tower, the Higher your Blood Glucose. That is based on hemoglobin A1C measurements. So the idea with small cells of putting the cells closer to people’s homes and bedrooms scientifically is very dangerous. And from an economic perspective, it’s dangerous.
And you may not know this, I was shocked to find this out, but the way you create a model of diabetes in rats in the lab is by exposing them to 2.4 gHz. And this is not for long term exposure. I don’t have time to talk about the costs, but the huge problem with diabetes really is chronic kidney disease. End stage renal disease – the worst complication of diabetes – leads to hemodialysis. Hemodialysis is an automatic qualification for Medicare and if you don’t qualify for Medicare, we still have to dialyze the patient, and the state ends up paying in many different instances. So renal failure is 1% of Medicare, but it takes up 7% of all Medicare expenditures. I don’t have time to talk about this anymore, but once again the other epidemics that clearly link from the science with electromagnetic radiation are related to mental health.
Scientific, Peer-Reviews Research on the Dangers of EMF
And this is straight from PubMed (our national library of medicine, where you would go for peer-reviewed literature) and this isn’t my opinion, this is science. So we have three epidemics that clearly they’re essentially one epidemic. We have deterioration of mental health in the United States. And if you look really at the science, what does it show? And these epidemics are suicide epidemic, epidemics in violent crime, so shootings, and the opioid epidemic. This is in the peer-reviewed literature. These are facts. These are things that have just been glossed over by the wireless industry.
We need to examine our epidemics in the context of our EMF exposures. What does that mean? That means that the CDC should be tracking these epidemics. The CDC needs to start measuring how much radiation people are being exposed to before we roll out 5G. There are four kinds of electromagnetic fields that we know are harmful to human health. Radio frequency radiation, magnetic fields, dirty electricity, and electric fields. Our exposure, any given person, and all humans are affected by EMFs, are given exposure, has nothing to do with the research that my colleagues are going to site with the national toxicology program. That is an assessment of the risk of one cell phone in the near field. What is our exposure in a day? It’s not one cell phone, it’s cell phones, it’s multiple wireless networks. It’s smart meters, it’s cell towers, it’s this sandwich and it all adds up. And this is a serious problem for occupational health, public safety and personal safety. And I feel that it’s irresponsible to be even talking about the Internet of Things (IoT) and rolling out a new, untested technology, when we’re not even measuring what are our current exposures from the current networks.
I got interested in electromagnetic fields after my administrator at the University of Miami gave me a new iPhone. I used it for 20 minutes on speaker and my, my finger was burning at the end of the call. That was years ago. I started reading about the science and connecting with other scientists and really my expertise, I’ve taken care of a lot of patients with chronic disease. So when I talk about diabetes and for instance heart failure, that the national toxicology program shows clear evidence of cardiomyopathy in that study. In other words, that’s a precursor to congestive heart failure. This is from the United States renal data system, healthcare expenditures for persons with chronic kidney disease: “Over half of the 2015 medicare spending for beneficiary is age 65 and older was for those who had diagnoses of CKD, diabetes Mellitus or heart failure. All three of these conditions. When you look as an independent scientist (not someone who’s funded by wireless) all of those three conditions are linked.” So diabetes and heart failure are linked with EMF exposures there. It’s very clear.
American Cancer Society and Harmful EMFs
What are we to make of the American Cancer Society (ACS) telling us there’s no evidence of a harmful product? Well, at this point there’s a national and international 5G appeal that thousands of people have signed. The point is, many of these organizations have conflicts of interest. I don’t know who’s on their board who made these decisions. I’ve been reading this literature for years and really I got interested in it because I’ve spent my career taking care of so many patients who are sick in the hospital. And when I found out about the links, I was just shocked. I couldn’t believe it. So I’ve read these articles myself and the experts who don’t work for telecom and who are in their independent research, everyone comes to the same conclusion. We’re not in a place where we should be debating this anymore.
This is exactly what happened with tobacco. It’s the exact same thing. And really right now the only people protecting the only people who are able to protect Americans are our legislators, because we don’t have any relevant, regulatory guidelines to protect human health. The FCC guidelines were developed for short term exposures, 6 minutes, 30 minutes depending on a phone or outdoor exposure and they have absolutely no connection to the biological effects that have been very clearly summarized in the bio initiative. That’s a huge document generated all of the summaries are there. There are very concise summaries and abstracts documenting everything that I’m saying.
In academic medicine we have a name for what’s happening now with 5G. This is called an untested application of a technology that we know is harmful. We know it from the science. In academics, this is called human subjects research. Human subjects research is very tightly regulated. You can’t just roll out some type of a research project on human beings unless A) you have their informed consent, so they understand the risks and benefits, and B) you have the approval. Like someone is actually examining the literature inside and saying, “This research project, we believe that it’s safe. There’s no evidence in the science to indicate that it would not be safe.” We have decades of evidence to show that it is not safe.
The Importance of Evidence-Based Medicine
One of the things that I taught in medical school is evidence based medicine; teaching medical students and residents how to critically evaluate the literature, the science. And one of the first things that you teach residents is that you always have to look at the funding. You can read about it. Marsha Angle, the editor of the New England Journal just wrote a great op Ed in the New York Times about researchers who are funded by private industry. The results of their research are much more likely to support whatever it is that is being funded.
Some people are asking, “What is the amount of EMFs that an individual could be exposed to if these small cells are installed, and what is the prediction of how much EMFs the human body would experience?” The answer is that no one’s measuring, and that is the problem. Your exposure will depend on what you do in a given day. So if one cell phone causes cancer, clear evidence of cancer, DNA damage, heart damage, well what happens if you work at an airport? What happens if you work in a stadium where there are 100,000 people coming to watch a football game and everyone’s using their phone at the same time? The problem is that we have a very, very systematic, clear, empirical way to measure these exposures. And it’s a discipline called building biology.
There are certain situations relevant to public safety where we really do need to be measuring with firefighters, with airline pilots. Because when you activate microwave radiation inside an enclosed metal space, you get amplification, you have increased power density. So think about an airplane, everyone’s with their devices. Every device is emitting radiation and the access point is right next to the cockpit usually. So what does this do to pilots? What does this do to firefighters? We already have a submission to the FCC from Susan Foster about firefighters that were unable to function in the line of duty. This is from 2013, after exposure to a cell tower that was put up near their station and they also have two way communication devices that they wear. So we have to measure these exposures. That is the start. And not go ahead and roll out a whole bunch of Internet of Things with more like more devices that we’re not even measuring what we’re exposed to now.
Toxicology and Health Effects Of Electromagnetism
Paul Heroux is Professor of Toxicology, Electromagnetism and Health at McGill University. Dr. Heroux Directs the McGill Occupational Health Program. He is a toxicologist who holds a PhD in Physics and began his career working for industry studying health effects of electromagnetic fields and radiation. Professor Heroux currently teaches toxicology and is considered an expert in the field of electro biology, having authored several textbooks. He has extensive teaching and research experience with the biological effects of electromagnetic radiation.
“I want to tackle the subject of insurance. You know that neither Lloyd’s of London, nor Swiss Re will underwrite liability policies for electromagnetic radiation because they think the health risk is too great. In other words, they believe that when the lawyers get involved, and I know many of them, the companies who deliver this radiation to the public could be wiped-out… The environment has to be cleaned-up of electromagnetic radiation progressively, not augmented in radiation. Electromagnetic radiation has repeatedly been linked with cancer in animals…”
Listen to his whole testimony below.
via News – – Conners Clinic
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Scarleteen Timeline
One of my projects over the last year has been a full content review of Scarleteen. I have now literally read every blog, every article, every advice column we have ever published. Besides our director and founder Heather Corinna, I don't think anyone else on earth has read as much of Scarleteen as I have.
Doing that gave me a chance to absorb how much Scarleteen has done in twenty years, and how many big events we’ve been around for. Scarleteen has been around long enough to both see the landscape of sexual health, queer rights and, heck, even the internet, change dramatically. Scarleteen played a part in many of those changes; sometimes a big one.
To mark our twentieth, I want to share a timeline I think shows some of what we’ve accomplished over the years, with some major political and social events thrown in for perspective (those events are U.S-focused, because our base of operations is in the U.S and therefore is most affected by things that happen there). Included in the timeline are the debuts of some of the articles that have become classics, that we still use in our work with users, and that are still read by some of the tens of thousands of young people who come to Scarleteen to read up here each and every day.
1998: Heather starts getting emails from young people asking questions about sex through Scarlet Letters, a website about sexuality for adult women (that was pioneering in and of itself!) they'd also founded and ran at the time. Heather realizes there's nowhere online teens can safely ask questions about sex or get reliable, supportive and sex-positive answers and that they need a redirect for under-18s on Scarlet Letters, anyway. So, they answer the emails. Some of these questions and answers are originally posted as extra pages on Scarlet Letters in a sub-site first called "Pink Slip." A reader writes in soon enough and suggests these questions and answers need their own place: they say Scarlet Letters needs a "Scarlet Teen."
The rest, as they say, is (a long) history of people not understanding what on earth our name means. And thus a brand-new kind of sex education, with many brand-new ways of doing it, at a place (the internet) that was still pretty brand-new itself, was born. (Heather also apparently then thought of this as their "little side project," and has felt quite foolish about how totally delusional that was ever since.)
This is the year that the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) is introduced in response to large portions of the Communications Decency Act being struck down. Both acts were designed to limit minors' access to pornographic or "harmful" material on the internet, but in practice would have also prevented youth from accessing crucial educational resources such as Scarleteen.
1999: We get our URL and unleash our first site design! Some of the first articles published include: “Innies & Outies: The Vagina, Uterus, Clitoris and More”, “Is Masturbation Okay (yep)?” and “Dealing with Rape.” In the wider world, Plan B is approved by the FDA. Heather moves Scarleteen to Minneapolis (a choice influenced in part by stalking that occurs because of their work with Scarlet Letters and Scarleteen), and Scarleteen gets its first major media coverage in The City Pages. Heather and Hanne Blank start to map out the first book proposal for what will much later become S.E.X.
2000: We publish our Sex Readiness Checklist, along with other classic pieces, like the first version of “Human Reproduction: A Seafarers Guide” and “Sexual Response & Orgasm: A Users Guide.” We also launch our message boards and bring on our first wave of volunteers to help staff them. George W. Bush, whose administration will go on to allocate 117 million dollars for abstinence-only education, is elected president. We will fight against abstinence-only and work with users struggling because of its negative impacts and outcomes ever after.
2001: We publish “On the Rag: A Guide to Menstruation” and “Innies and Outies: The Penis, Testes, & More.” We had been part of the (now sadly defunct) ChickClick Network, which allowed us about nine months of not-totally-terrible funding for about nine months and then the financial bottom completely fels out of the internet and ChickClick closes. Welp.
2002: We do another redesign, and start including things like news and a listing of the top ten articles on the front page of our site. Those top ten articles at the time are about anatomy, porn, orgasm, and safer sex. At this point we are serving around 2 million users each year. Heather starts writing the book that will become S.E.X.
2003: We publish “The 10 Best Things You Can Do for Your Sexual Self (At Any Age)” and “M.I.A (Or Dude, Where’s My Period).” The Supreme Court produces a victory for sexual freedom and queer rights by overturning all sodomy laws in the United States.
2004: A good year for medications relating to sexual health, as emergency contraception becomes a more prominent topic on the site and PrEP is first approved by the FDA. With Scarleteen getting more and more visible, Heather frequently has to work through more character attacks and harassment -- especially as a queer woman, as a person with sexual trauma, someone who did adult sex and sexuality work, and just as a person with an unhidden sexuality, period, all things that were all largely not considered acceptable for people providing sex education to young people at the time.
2005: We devote a large portion of our front page to promoting our message boards and directing users to information that can help lower chlamydia rates in young women. Our blog is very dedicated to reporting on the legal battle over accessing Plan B over-the-counter and offering our users ways to advocate for that access. In the United States, Representative Barbara Lee and Senator Frank Lautenberg introduced a bill that would provide $206 million a year to states for comprehensive, medically accurate, and science-based sex education.
2006: We continue to track the legal status of Plan B, and offer users updated information on how they can access emergency contraception. This is also the year that the Gardasil vaccine for HPV is first approved for use, and we create content to address myths and facts about the vaccine. Scarleteen goes to Washington (state, with Heather, who moves there).
2007: A big year for us! The first edition of S.E.X: The all-you-need-to-know sexuality guide to get you through your teens and twenties is published and we redesign and then migrate the site to Drupal (which means Heather no longer has to code the site by hand, a thing they were doing up until now). We also publish “Positively Informed: An HIV/AIDS Round-Up, "What is Feminist Sex Education?" and “Reciprocity, Reloaded.” We start winning some awards, starting with The Champions of Sexual Literacy Award for Grassroots Activism from the National Sexuality Resource Center/SFSU. Heather talks Shamelessness in a fundraising effort for Scarleteen, and does some pushback against the rising tide of purity culture and abstinence-only education.
2008: Another exciting year for Scarleteen! Barack Obama becomes president, we turn ten years old, publish our giant Birth Control Bingo piece, and are a major player (after years of leadup work behind the scenes) in the COPA court case, helping to net a win that allows young people to retain access on the internet to things sex education and other content. To top it all off, the FDA approves a new version of the female condom. Heather gives a talk about doing sex education as a Montessori educator but also deals with some tough responses after a lot of media exposure as a sexual assault survivor.
2009: We introduce our texting service, and Heather’s advice columns are syndicated at Rewire. We bring real talk about the hymen to the internet and beyond  -- and information that wasn't widely known then! -- by pairing up with the RSFU to release "My Corona: The Hymen & the Myths That Surround It." Abortion provider and reproductive justice hero George Tiller is murdered.  Heather gives a talk about innovation and inclusivity in sex ed, wins the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, Western Region's Public Service Award and the Our Bodies, Ourselves' Women's Health Heroes Award for their work with Scarleteen. Yes Means Yes (and Heather's seminal piece, An Immodest Proposal, within it) is published.
2010: We do another site redesign and publish two pieces that become instant classics: “Yes, No, Maybe So: A Sexual Inventory Stocklist” and "Drivers Ed for the Sexual Super Highway: Navigating Consent.” We also offer peer education training for budding sex educators, and begin to incorporate more and more content into the site for those who are in or who have survived abuse. We do a tweetstorm about How Sex Ed Can Prevent Rape, and Heather's piece debunking conservative claims about oxytocin goes viral.
2011: We introduce our (now retired) Find-a-Doc sexual healthcare database and publish “Sexuality, WTF is it Anyway?” On the blog, Heather writes about the rise and politics of SlutWalks.
2012: More redesign for us! “Risky Business: Learning to Consider Risk and Make Sound Sexual Choices” is published, as is "The Rainbow Connection: Orientation for Everyone.” This is also the year that data is released showing that long-acting, reversible birth control methods such as the IUD are not only safe, but even a better choice for young people than more commonly recommended methods like the birth control pill. Heather is given the Joan Helmich Educator of the Year award.
2013: We introduce our live chat service and publish “Self-Care: A La Carte.” On the blog, Heather implores people to "Please Stop Calling Rape Sex" and explains "After Contraception or Commitment, Why Your Still Gotta Rock Safer Sex." Heather wins the Woodhull Foundation's Vicki Award.
2014: “Casual...Cool? Making Choices about Casual Sex” is published, as is our first article on D.I.Y sex toys. The latter becomes one of the most viewed articles on the site. I didn't mention the gazillion times over all these years we almost shut down, or that Heather was working one or two additonal jobs to try and pay for Scarleteen on top of themselves, or all the different times we begged folks for financial help to keep us going, each time somehow working it out from MeetPositives SM Feed 4 https://ift.tt/2Lg424A via IFTTT
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jakehglover · 5 years
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The Remarkable Benefits of Molecular Hydrogen
youtube
Molecular hydrogen is a gas with very unique and selective antioxidant effects.1 Tyler W. LeBaron is a world-class expert on molecular hydrogen, who has done research at Nagoya University in Japan, where most of his research started. He's executive director of the Molecular Hydrogen Institute (MHI), which is a science-based nonprofit under Section 501(c)(3). MHI is focused on advancing the research, education and awareness of hydrogen as a therapeutic medical gas.
He's also director of several other nonprofit organizations, including the International Hydrogen Standards Association, which is currently creating standards for the ISO criteria for measurement of hydrogen gas. The reason you probably haven't heard of molecular hydrogen is because it's relatively new. The landmark paper published on it in Nature Medicine came out only 10 years ago (2007), and most of the research has been done in Asia.
Molecular Hydrogen 101
Molecular hydrogen refers to diatomic hydrogen or H2 gas — two hydrogen atoms combined together. Hydrogen is the smallest molecule in the universe, and is neutral and nonpolar, which is why its bioavailability is so great. It does not dissociate into its electrons and protons when dissolved in water, so it will not alter the pH of water or your body and has nothing to do with the alkaline water concept.
"It's just hydrogen gas. It's three times more energy-dense than gasoline. That's why it's being looked at as an alternative energy source or fuel," LeBaron says. "It's what powers the sun and fusion in producing helium. This is the hydrogen we're talking about and we're seeing it can also be therapeutic, [and is] effective whether you inhale it, dissolve it in water and drink it, or other methods of application.
In 2009, I came across an article published in Nature Medicine2 [in 2007] … [which] showed [2 percent] hydrogen [gas] was effective at preventing the brain damage from ischemia reperfusion induced by a middle cerebral artery occlusion in a rat model … I was getting my degree in biochemistry at the time, but I've always been interested in health …
I took it from there and was able to read all the research, all the literature, and continue advancing in this area, then later go to Japan. Now I'm able to work with and collaborate with some of the top researchers around the world in this. I feel very fortunate to be involved in this emerging area of hydrogen gas."
Molecular Hydrogen Has Unique and Selective Antioxidant Effects
Molecular hydrogen remediates oxidative stress, which is one of the most fundamental mechanisms that destroys human health. That's why molecular hydrogen is so exciting — because it has such unique antioxidant effects that specifically target only the most harmful free radicals. Now, while you might think the hydrogen gas dissociates or neutralizes hydroxyl free radicals (which cause the most oxidative damage), it doesn't appear to work that way.
There are more than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific publications on molecular hydrogen, which have collectively demonstrated that H2 has therapeutic potential in over 170 different human and animal disease models. In fact, hydrogen is shown to benefit virtually every organ of the human body, The reason why is because hydrogen targets and mitigates the root cause of many diseases, inflammation and oxidation. But just how does it do this? LeBaron explains:
"To understand how hydrogen works, we need to understand how free radicals work and why they're produced. First, the hydroxyl radical, which is OH neutral with a lone pair electron, is produced in your body through the Fenton reaction. When free radicals get too high, like superoxide radicals, peroxynitrite [or] ionizing radiation,3 [they] can be converted to hydroxyl radicals … [Hydroxyl radicals] are damaging because they're so reactive …
When you look at other free radicals [such as] nitric oxide, that's a very important free radical which causes vasodilation. We don't want to neutralize that. We have superoxide radicals [and] other oxidants like hydrogen peroxide — these are all very important.
Of course, too much is bad, but having them in the right concentrations and at the right locations is very good for you. We don't want to just neutralize all of those, whereas hydroxyl radicals or peroxynitrite oxidants, we don't want any of them.
That Nature Medicine publication specifically showed that hydrogen could act as a therapeutic antioxidant by selectively reducing the cytotoxic oxygen radicals, specifically the hydroxyl radical and to a lesser extent peroxynitrite, without decreasing the other oxidants like hydrogen peroxide or superoxide …
Most other antioxidants are not selective … [and] that can be problematic … Hydrogen is selective in that it's only going to decrease or reduce those toxic radicals like the hydroxyl radical.4"
How Molecular Hydrogen Works
There are two basic definitions of an antioxidant: 1) a molecule that donates an electron to a radical reaction, and 2) a molecule that improves the redox status of the cell. Redox stands for oxidation reduction. In your cells, you need both oxidation and a reduction of oxidation in order for everything to work properly.
When that balance gets perturbed by too much oxidation, you end up with oxidative stress. If you don't have enough oxidation, you end up with other serious problems. In many cases, damage is not caused by an excess of free radicals but rather a redox dysregulation.
"We need free radicals," LeBaron says, "and studies have shown you can actually suffer from too much oxidative stress and too much reductive stress5 (or not enough oxidative potential) not only in the same body or the same organ, but in the exact same cell. Too much oxidative stress in the cytosol; not enough oxidative power in endoplasmic reticulum. Hydrogen helps to bring everything back to homeostasis."
So, while hydrogen has antioxidant effects, it works primarily by improving the redox status of the cell when needed. As a result, you see improvements in superoxide dismutase and glutathione levels, for example. Not only does hydrogen selectively reduce the most toxic radicals, but it can help prevent an excess (which becomes toxic) of the free radicals from being produced in the first place. This is a very powerful prevention mechanism.
Another way is by activating the Nrf2 pathway when the activation is needed. Nrf2 is a transcription factor that, when activated, goes into the cell's nucleus and binds to the antioxidant response element in the DNA. It then induces the transcription of further cytoprotective enzymes such as glutathione, superoxide dismutase catalase, glutathione peroxidase, phase II enzymes, heme-1 oxygenase and many others.
"One study6,7 [looking at] metabolic syndrome found that subjects drinking hydrogen-enriched water had a 39 percent increase in extracellular superoxide dismutase. So, yes, hydrogen does have this antioxidant-like effect, because it can help regulate Nrf2 pathway8 and bring enzymes and cytoprotective proteins back to the levels they're supposed to be; back into that realm of homeostasis."
Cyclical Ingestion Is Key for Optimal Effectiveness
Depending on the individual and their diet, intestinal bacteria that ferment fiber produce about 2.5 gallons of hydrogen gas per day,9,10 which is part of the therapeutic benefits of fiber. From an evolutionary perspective, we've also always been exposed to hydrogen gas.11,12
These facts alone are indicative of its safety. "Anybody can have it — pregnant women, children, everybody. Hydrogen gas itself is very safe. They have used it in deep sea diving to prevent decompression sickness13 since the 1940s," LeBaron says. (Normally, helium gas is used but for very deep dives, hydrogen gas is used, such as hydrox, which is 96 percent hydrogen.)
Now, if hydrogen gas is so beneficial, and your body already produces loads of it, why would ingesting hydrogen-rich water still be therapeutic, seeing how you're getting far lower amounts of hydrogen this way?
Interestingly, one Nagoya University study14 showed that while continuous administration of hydrogen in air was ineffective for the prevention of Parkinson's disease, intermittent exposure was effective. The greatest effects, however, were obtained by drinking hydrogen-rich water. Just what is it about cyclical or intermittent exposure (opposed to continuous) that makes such a big difference? LeBaron explains:
"It appears to be more of a gaseous-signal modulator. The way a signal modulator works is, it needs to have this intermittent type exposure, or else you get habituation or subsequent attenuation of the signal. That's what we're seeing with hydrogen gas … it modulates gene expression, protein phosphorylation and many transcription factors, but the primary targets remain elusive.
Molecular hydrogen has also shown clinically to have some great benefits. More research is always needed, but there are some compelling ones that show its safety and effectiveness.
[In one study15] they had 50 patients with cerebral infarction; 25 [received] hydrogen inhalation and 25 in the control group [received] an approved medical drug … [T]he hydrogen was significantly more effective than the approved drug on all the measured parameters, with no side effects.
Again, the reason I'm so passionate about hydrogen is because here we have a molecule that is simple, safe, easy to administer, and actually has some really significant therapeutic potential.
There was just another study published for … Alzheimer's disease. If you look at the genotype, those with the APOE4 genotype is susceptible to Alzheimer's disease … When we look at the effects of drinking hydrogen-rich water … they found it was significantly therapeutic for this disease. That's big because there are no approved drugs that are effective for Alzheimer's disease."
Molecular Hydrogen Mimics Effects of Fasting
Interestingly, there's evidence to suggest that if you have the APOE4 gene, you really need to intermittently fast to avoid Alzheimer's, and one of the pathways that hydrogen seems to mimic is that of fasting. Dr. Dale Bredesen expands on this in his book "The End of Alzheimer's" and in my interview with him.
LeBaron cites a study published in the Journal of Obesity, which basically shows that drinking hydrogen-rich water had the same effect as restricting calories by about 20 percent. Also, both fasting and molecular hydrogen increase neuroprotective gastric ghrelin secretion, a hunger hormone, and in at least one study, this was shown to be one of the primary mediators in benefiting those with Parkinson's disease.16,17,18
Hydrogen Applications for Diabetes
Clinical studies have also shown molecular hydrogen effectively prevents liver damage (fatty liver) caused by a high-sugar diet and metabolic syndrome.19,20 "In some of the metabolic syndrome studies, glucose levels in some of those with impaired glucose tolerance were brought back to the normal range," LeBaron says. Animal research21 suggest hydrogen may induce GLUT4 translocation by a similar mechanism as insulin.
"We need more studies to investigate this, but some of this preliminary data is really showing it's a great for these diabetics,22" he says. There's also some evidence23,24,25,26 it may help suppress cancer growth as an adjunctive treatment and ameliorate the toxicity of cancer drugs,27 but LeBaron is cautious in this regard, saying more research is needed.
Available Hydrogen Therapies
There are a number of ways to administer hydrogen. For example, you can inhale hydrogen gas, and for this, there are inhalation machines you can buy. Caution is required however. The gas produced at the cathode is hydrogen gas, but if the electrodes are impure or develop mineral buildup, and the water you're using has chloride in it, then chlorine gas can be produced, which you would then inhale.
Other methods are drinking and/or bathing in hydrogen-rich water, and there are several ways to do that. For example, you could bubble it into the water from a tank of hydrogen gas and dissolve it under pressure. Just keep in mind that if you plan on storing it, you cannot use plastic containers, as the hydrogen molecules are so small they'll dissipate right through the container.
For clarification, hydrogen gas is simply two hydrogen atoms bound together. When you dissolve it into water, it will not attach to the water molecules, so there's no risk that you're going to create some other structure. There are also intravenous hydrogen-rich saline injections and hyperbaric hydrogen therapy, developed in Japan.
How to Measure the Concentration of Hydrogen Gas
One way to check the quality of your molecular hydrogen product is to use a redox titration reagent called H2 Blue. This is available on many different websites, including Amazon.
This allows you to measure the concentration of hydrogen in the water you're about to drink. To do this, simply fill the small beaker with 6 milliliters of your hydrogen water. If there's no hydrogen gas in there, the blue reagent will remain blue
If hydrogen gas is present, the reagent will turn from blue to clear. Once it turns clear, add another drop of the reagent. Keep adding a drop at a time until the solution turns blue and stays blue. This is called the titration endpoint.
Simply count how many drops it took to get there. Each drop is equivalent to about 0.1 milligram per liter and the number of drops required to neutralize the test solution will determine the concentration of molecular hydrogen. So, if you had to add 10 drops, you would have 1 milligram of hydrogen per liter.
Therapeutic Dosages
Unfortunately, there's still insufficient data on what the minimum effective concentration is. There are many variables involved. However, as a very general guideline, clinical studies have shown therapeutic effects at doses ranging from 0.5 milligrams to 5 milligrams or more of hydrogen per day. We should be able to obtain this dose by consuming no more than 1 liter of hydrogen-enriched water according to IHSA standards.
"We need more research, but it appears, at least in some of these studies, that a higher concentration or a higher dose is as effective as and sometimes more effective than a lower amount," LeBaron says.
In terms of half-life, if you were to drink hydrogen-rich water, you're going to reach a peak blood level and breath exhalation point after about five to 15 minutes depending on the dose. This demonstrates that hydrogen can easily diffuse into the bloodstream in order to measure changes in the breath. Your hydrogen level returns to baseline in about an hour or so.
"That's also how we know hydrogen is more of a signal modulator, because you can drink the hydrogen water and it's gone out of the system within an hour, yet it has residual, therapeutic, protective effects that last for hours, days and even weeks.
One small, double-blinded, randomized study28 on rheumatoid arthritis found that drinking hydrogen-rich water was very effective for the disease … Those with early onset rheumatoid arthritis had remission. During the washout period, no one was taking hydrogen and they … continued to see improvements in the disease for an additional four weeks …
[The reason for this is] because you're targeting gene expression.29 By taking hydrogen, within three days we see increases for PGC-1α, [which] is mitochondrial biogenesis … There are so many different transcription factors hydrogen operates on, so if we start to alter the gene expression, then some of these changes of the signal modulator can last for quite some time, so we get residual effects."
More Information
To learn more about molecular hydrogen, please visit the Molecular Hydrogen Institute's website. There, you'll find research, video lectures and a variety of other resources, including a number of different certifications for those interested in working with and administering molecular hydrogen.
"Again, we are a science-based nonprofit working to advance the research, education and awareness of hydrogen as a medical gas, so you're not going to find products and things on our site, but you will find a lot of information, and we do our best to provide what's going on in the hydrogen area," LeBaron says.
"I hope that you'll review this video, review the information on hydrogen, and although we have a responsibility as researchers to understand the molecular mechanisms and targets of hydrogen and do clinical studies, because we have a molecule so significant, and so safe, perhaps it's also your responsibility to share it; to let other people know about it.
There's so many people who don't have access to medical care that this could really benefit. There are also those who have access to too much medical care, where hydrogen can help mitigate the toxic effects."
from HealthyLife via Jake Glover on Inoreader http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/10/21/molecular-hydrogen-benefits.aspx
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benrleeusa · 6 years
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[David E. Bernstein] Why the American Establishment Has Lost Credibility
Three Incidents Last Week Demonstrate the Problem
The 2016 Republican primaries were one big "f you" to the establishment. We all know that Trump won the nomination, but it's easy to forget that the second-place candidate, Ted Cruz, was also anathema to the establishment. Indeed, one reason Trump won the nomination was because most of the Republican establishment refused to rally around Cruz; he was considered by some worse than Trump, and other were sufficiently hostile to Cruz they thought it was better to lose (as they expected) with Trump than potentially win with Cruz.
Of course, Trump went on to win the presidency, even though virtually the entire establishment--and here I mean prominent, powerful or influential individuals from mainstream liberal Democrats to neoconservatives, from the "usual suspects" to conservative Wall Street Journal columnists, lined up against him.
Ever since, the establishment has been aghast, and rightly so. Someone with Trump's temperament, history of lies, casual prejudiced statements, and so on, should never have gotten near the presidency. Yet, despite the establishment's warnings of disaster, enough voters were willing to vote for him to make him president.
One could blame the result of the election on Hillary's unpopularity, and yet very few of Trump's voters have since abandoned him. A major reason, I think, is that the establishment that once served as a gatekeeper against the likes of Trump has lost its credibility among large portions of the population, and their attacks on Trump are simply discounted or ignored.
Why? Well consider how the establishment would react if George W. Bush were seated two seats down from David Duke at Willie Nelson's funeral, with Duke given a place of honor. Now consider that Bill Clinton sat two seats away from an equally odious hatemonger, Louis Farrakhan, at Aretha Franklin's funeral. Some Jewish groups expressed dismay, but Clinton acted as if nothing was amiss, as did the rest of the establishment. Former attorney general Eric Holder took a picture next to Farrakhan, and it sure looks posed. But wait, you will say, Farrakhan is black, and because of historical differences in power, black racism and anti-Semitism simply isn't as problematic as white racism as anti-Semitism. That's a fine argument to have in university seminar room. What your average person sees, however, is hypocrisy and double standards. So when the establishment says, "reject Trump, he associates with some dubious characters with dubious connections on the 'alt-right," the establishment makes a fair, if sometimes exaggerated, point. But to the average Trump fan, it sure looks like the establishment is much more concerned with bigotry when it can be connect to conservatives and Trump than when it involves figures who are aligned with left-wing Democratic constituencies.
What about the fact that Trump shows little interest in truth, and his supporters are too quick to dismiss expert and scientific opinion, that they try to bend the truth to their political agenda? As Gail Heriot has recounted on this blog, a psychology professor at Brown (and you can't get more establishment than the Ivy League) published a peer-reviewed article suggesting that at least some teens who claim transgender identity do so as a matter of social contagion rather than because they were "born that way." After complaints from transgender activists, Brown apologized for issuing a press release touting the study, and the journal that published the study announced it would review it further. Establishment voices that are usually raised very quickly at any hint of the politicization of science from right-wing political sources were notably silent. But can you imagine the reaction if the study had been one favorable to, say, same-sex marriage, and the same thing had happened after conservative evangelical Christian activists complained?
Finally, there is the matter of John McCain's passing. Deaths of famous individuals are often occasions for charitable assessments of someone's legacy. In McCain's case, however, the praise heaped on him made him out to be someone so far from the actual John McCain that he was virtually unrecognizable. Someone who always treated his political opponents with respect? Not really, but a useful way to implicitly attack Trump. More important, the politically aware recall that McCain was a hero when he took on George W. Bush in 2000, and again when he became an implicit member of the "Resistance" to Trump until his death. But in 2008, when he ran against the establishment's favorite, Barack Obama, the establishment turned on him with a vengeance. Sort of seems like the esteem in which they hold a prominent individual has less to do with his character, and more to do with whether he is serving a useful political purpose at the moment. So attacks on Trump's character, however well-founded, are considered in that light.
I should emphasize that I agree that Trump has at times promoted bigotry, is a congenital liar, and engages in demeaning and belittling behavior toward his political opponents. Indeed, I think these things are obvious. But much of the country isn't listening when the traditional gatekeepers point this out, and that is, at least in part, the gatekeepers' own fault.
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topmixtrends · 6 years
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REPLY TO W. J. T. Mitchell’s “The Trolls of Academe”
I have been conducting a campaign at American colleges to oppose the efforts of Students for Justice in Palestine, an organization that is funded by the terrorist group Hamas, spreads Hamas propaganda lies, and supports Hamas-funded Boycott, Divest and Sanctions resolutions against the state of Israel. I have resorted to putting up posters, identifying campus activists who support SJP and BDS and by extension the Hamas war against the Jewish state. I rely on posters because our universities have become safe spaces which effectively exclude ideas and opinions that don’t conform to leftist orthodoxies. Thus, the pages of campus newspapers, which would be the natural venue for opposing views in a democracy, are closed to views like mine, while university faculties have already been purged of conservative voices. In this situation, individuals whom we try to hold to account for their actions, instead of defending them and arguing the case on its merits, accuse us of attempting to “blacklist” them — which is ludicrous since we have no power to deny them jobs or opportunities — and to “intimidate” them and suppress their views, which is even more ridiculous since we are the only ones without a voice on their campuses.
Professor W. J. T. Mitchell’s recent article in the Los Angeles Review of Books is a scurrilous case in point. Mitchell was placed on our posters at the University of Chicago, along with others, because he is a vocal supporter of the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement and its proposed legislation. BDS has been denounced by liberals like Hillary Clinton, Alan Dershowitz, and former Harvard president and Clinton cabinet member Larry Summers as “anti-Semitic” and destructive because that is what it is. The BDS campaign is funded by American Muslims for Palestine, a Hamas front, whose founder is also the founder of Students for Justice in Palestine, the student organization spear-heading campus BDS resolutions.
Professor Mitchell accuses me of “equating mere association” with groups like Students for Justice in Palestine with anti-Semitism. In addition to being funded by the terrorist group Hamas, Students for Justice in Palestine calls for the destruction of the Jewish state, a genocidal demand which also happens to be anti-Semitic. Mitchell accuses me of wanting “to suppress all criticism of the state of Israel,” which is a demonstrable lie since I have criticized Israel myself and in virtually all my campus speeches, which are available on YouTube, have explicitly stated that all governments, since they are run by human beings, are worthy of criticism, including the state of Israel. What I have criticized SJP and BDS supporters like Professor Mitchell for is spreading Hamas propaganda lies about Israel — i.e., that Israel “occupies” a fictional state called Palestine, or any Arab land, or that Israel is an “apartheid state” and so forth.
Contrary to Professor Mitchell’s slanders, I have never called for the blacklisting of anyone, or sought to deny any political opponent of mine a job. For example, I publicly opposed the firing of Ward Churchill who was accused of writing a deplorable internet article calling the victims of 9/11 Nazis. This fact is easily checked. Yet that doesn’t stop Professor Mitchell from conflating me with the Canary Mission and slandering me as someone who wants to prevent students and faculty from getting jobs: “His accusations have no foundation in logic or evidence. They are pure slander; they aim to harass, intimidate, and do harm to the job prospects of vulnerable students and faculty.” But of course I do provide evidence. I accused Professor Mitchell of supporting BDS, a terrorist campaign to strangle the Jewish state. How can this be slander if it is true? And if it is true — as it most assuredly is — why doesn’t Professor Mitchell attempt to defend his positions instead of slandering me as a witch-hunter with no basis in logic or evidence?
Professor Mitchell does attempt some form of defense, but it is a deceptive one. He presents himself as a moderate: “[I] have seen my role as that of someone trying to find a peaceful resolution, largely through cooperation between artists, intellectuals, and moderate political forces.” Yet he is a vocal advocate for a campaign that is funded by a terrorist, Jew-hating organization, and which even prominent liberals like Hillary Clinton and Alan Dershowitz have condemned. Mitchell speculates: “My prominent position on the posters may also be because during my editorship of Critical Inquiry, a respected peer-reviewed journal in the humanities.” This is pure fantasy since I had never heard of this magazine before his article appeared. Mitchell’s prominent position on the posters is because he is a supporter of a genocidal campaign to destroy the state of Israel. He obviously knows this and attempts to defend his support for a campaign designed and advanced by Jew-hating terrorists by defaming Gandhi and King: “My personal support for BDS is based in its adherence to the time-honored tactics of nonviolent protest pioneered by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.” Since when is a call to economically strangle a sovereign state a “nonviolent protest”? Particularly when it is funded and orchestrated by an organization, Hamas, whose charter explicitly calls for the destruction of that state and the extermination of its inhabitants?
In an interview with American Thinker, Alan Dershowitz compared the BDS campaign that Mitchell supports to the Nazi boycott of Jewish goods in the 1930s. That is a far more accurate description of BDS and its supporters than the self-serving picture Mitchell presents, and it is the reason his image is on a poster in my campaign. Anyone interested in the facts can view them at http://ift.tt/2wIiBF1.
— David Horowitz
¤
To the editor,
David Horowitz seems incapable of making two basic distinctions: 1) the difference between being critical of Israel’s government, which I am, and anti-Semitic, which I am not; 2) the difference between a movement to boycott Israeli institutions, which I support, and promoting terrorist violence, which I do not. A boycott is a time-honored tactic for nonviolent protest. It is an exercise of free political speech to declare opposition to an immoral and corrupt political regime. To equate it with terrorism is an abuse of common sense, logic, and the noble history of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.’s struggles with colonialism and racial discrimination.
I say that Horowitz “seems” incapable of making these distinctions, but I suspect that he is perfectly capable of understanding them, but chooses to ignore them in favor of abusive, defamatory accusations. This is in keeping with his declared intention not to engage in rational debate, but to use tactics whose only purpose is to silence others with harassment, insults, and intimidation. His behavior mirrors that of the Bully in Chief who now occupies the White House, and who encourages pathetic characters like Horowitz to emerge from the shadows.
Yours, W. J. T. Mitchell
¤
Horowitz is founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center (formerly the Center for the Study of Popular Culture) and author of many books and pamphlets published over the last 20 years. Among them: Hating Whitey; Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left; The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America; and The End of Time.
W. J. T. Mitchell is Gaylord Donnelley Distinguished Service Professor of English and Art History at the University of Chicago. He has been the editor of Critical Inquiry since 1978, and his latest book Image Science: Iconology, Media Aesthetics, and Visual Culture was published by Chicago University Press in 2015.
The post Reply to W. J. T. Mitchell’s “The Trolls of Academe” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.
from Los Angeles Review of Books http://ift.tt/2s4nvzo
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