Revealing American Highway Statistics

A leading American newspaper, USA Today, reports that western and southern states have a higher proportion of fatalities than the northeast. Wyoming, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota and Arkansas have more fatalities, while DC is safest, followed by Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut and Illinois. Overall, Texas, California and Florida have the highest numbers of fatalities  as this chart shows:

 

States	Deaths	Rate
Ala.	848	18
Alaska	64	9.2
Ariz.	807	12.2
Ark.	585	20.3
Calif.	3,081	8.3
Colo.	465	9.3
Conn.	223	6.3
Del.	116	13.1
D.C.	29	4.8
Fla.	2,558	13.8
Ga.	1,284	13.1
Hawaii	109	8.4
Idaho	226	14.6
Ill.	911	7.1
Ind.	693	10.8
Iowa	372	12.4
Kan.	386	13.7
Ky.	791	18.3
La.	821	18.3
Maine	159	12.1
Md.	547	9.6
Mass.	334	5.1
Mich.	871	8.7
Minn.	421	8
Miss.	700	23.7
Mo.	878	14.7
Mont.	221	22.7
Neb.	223	12.4
Nev.	243	9.2
N.H.	110	8.3
N.J.	583	6.7
N.M.	361	18
N.Y.	1,156	5.9
N.C.	1,314	14
N.D.	140	21.6
Ohio	1,021	8.8
Okla.	738	20
Ore.	377	9.8
Pa.	1,256	10
R.I.	83	7.9
S.C.	894	19.6
S.D.	131	16.1
Tenn.	989	15.7
Texas	3,071	12.4
Utah	244	8.8
Vt.	74	11.9
Va.	757	9.6
Wash.	492	7.4
W.Va.	356	19.6
Wis.	561	9.9
Wyo.	134	24.6
USA	33,808	11

Your chances of having an accident vary dramatically because of where you are.

The study doesn't take into account the idea that fewer cars might make roads safer in the case of bad weather.

Washington National Cathedral: 42nd Martin Luther King Day with The Winans & more

Today's celebration of Martin Luther King Day at the Washington National Cathedral is available online. Cathedral Dean Samuel T. Lloyd III introduced the program with a rarely heard recording of Martin Luther King in his last sermon at the Cathedral. He promised this  performance the 'most fun' program of the year which had me curious.  Many other ones available at the website are 'fun' too. The Cathedral's Sunday Forums are always interesting and the Sunday Services, all online, are cleansing and restorative emotionally. Watching them online are wonderful occasions for personal reflection at any time.

Urban Nation H.I.P. H.O.P. Choir 

The Talents!!! Today's uplifting performance is very showy, and the camera work is excellent, so it is very entertaining to watch. The music, as can be seen on the webcast, is well-rehearsed, an intense and moving program.

Pianists, guitarists and groups of singers and dancers in colorful gear made an altogether riveting and emotional program. The popular well-known crossover singers the Winans family made a surprise appearance. Many more artists sang along to well-known songs such as  "We Shall Overcome", far more than I can name, I'm sorry. Hip-hop violinist  Daniel D played an amazing see-through violin with  fluid sounds reminding me of the rushing waters of a mountain stream.

Watch it here at the Washington National Cathedral website. The Winans are on past halfway. It's well worth watching all the way through the program.

FOR Stricter Gun Controls

Revelations some families condone gun possession for recreational use, hunting, for self-defense against animal or human aggressors, and for presents, as gifts are described in this article in The Huffington Post.

As reasons to understand gun ownership in an open society, let's take apart the arguments.  These are words to use to say to your personal circles, if you are in favor of strict laws, or  just need reasons to lose the unwanted, inherited weapons, capable of mass destruction.

Using guns for recreational use, as aggressors and hunters do, is not popular in areas of the country with developed houses, suburbia, and the cities. Sure, the military use them; police use them; even farmers use them. For food, health-inspected meat from a grocery store is more safe and appropriate to eat (even better for your health is a plant-based diet).  Guns are dangerous to children and to wives in the hands of abusive husbands.

The next argument: guns are for self-defense. Guns are used more for offense, not  self-defense, as many studies show. Both human and animal aggressors are infrequent in rural areas.  Human aggressors should be recognized as the criminals they are;  they face severe legal penalties when caught and punished. Animal aggressors, wild animals with rare exceptions, do not attack humans unless provoked or cornered.

Lastly, guns as gifts. Wonder if families talk about them as they sit around the dinner table and thank each other for those guns. A gift of money, on the other hand, the hard stuff, would be more useful now and to the next generation.

The author of that article, Mitchell Bard, says politicians in the northeastern U.S. are far more likely to condone gun control than politicians in the south and west, with the exception of California. This map, from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, proves gun controls are strongest in California  (scoring 79/100 points) and the northeastern states, and weakest in the midwest, especially Arizona (scoring only 02/100 points!). If every bullet cost an unreasonable amount of money, and if politicians cleaned up their words of vitriol, there wouldn't be any point selling guns; the demand simply wouldn't be there. I know, I'm dreaming.

History lesson: President George W. Bush endorsed the pro-gun lobby for the people of America, and in 2008, the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling, allowing guns for self-defense. Notably unhelpful, since guns and ammunition can already be sold without background checks. There are only "gun shows"...There are no "victim  shows"...

America's powerful National Rifle Association (NRA) spends a fortune with emotional appeals on television to push "freedom" as a message, as if Americans will lose personal freedom if they give up their guns. The aggressive NRA commands Americans to buy them because guns scare away everyone and everything. Words from the other side, against the anonymously funded NRA's brawny slogans is the inspiration for my post, to write for the silent, unrepresented victims, and to urge for stricter gun controls.

True fact:

"Where there are more guns, there are more gun deaths, and higher household gun ownership correlates with higher rates of homicides, suicides and unintentional shootings."
Brady Campaign

Everyone knows we rarely buy anything with the purpose of not using whatever it is. Most people use what they have, especially if they've paid for it. Guns are no exception.

There it is in a nutshell: what we don't have, we aren't likely to use.

Let's not play a game with safety, or think about using a gun to hurt  anyone. Please don't buy a gun to start with, or accept one as a gift. Stop the cycle.

A Canadian reporter wonders why there are so many guns in America here':

I don’t recall anyone saying, “I’m worried this rhetoric might inspire a perfectly sane person, with a coherent political theory, toward violence.”

Yet the initial outrage over the event was lost in the ensuing outrage over the outrage. By midweek, the bullet through the head, the deaths and the injuries almost disappeared.

The extraordinary violence of the act nearly vanished as the media apologized for asking obvious, relevant questions.

... they seemed to swear off asking other relevant questions: Why are there so many bullet wounds to the heads and bodies of Americans? Why is this normal? Why are there so many guns?

 T. Southey. The Globe and Mail.

UPDATE: I would like to thank the writer of an article in The New York Times which investigates current gun control research entitled:  NRA Stymies Firearms Research, Scientists Say, which completely disposes of the counterarguments promoted by the National Rifle Association. The NRA uses brute force without punishment to stop funding of basic government research into gun violence and squelches any form of opposition with billions and billions of dollars in financing, physically intimidating and threatening the lives and livelihoods of scientists, according to the article. 

The power of money to destroy opponents can be just as powerful as that of guns. Unfairly, the NRA has choked off money for basic research that would undoubtedly help increase the safety and comfort of Americans. Would that those who are able could take up the fight against gun violence and help the Brady Campaign, which is a sole provider of gun-related research in America. It could help bring more civility and peace to this divided country. Why not have a closer look at all aspects of the National Rifle Association? If they are a non-profit, they are obligated to welcome the interest, because of the tax benefits they receive from the government. 

The Violent Lord's Resistance Army in Africa

Imagine a large group of children in America are abducted. All at once, reporters race to cover the incident. Swift reactions are predictably anxious and international news coverage is generous. Yet, according to Human Rights Watch, far worse than that is still happening right now, every day, in northern Uganda, and the silence  in world news  is deafening.  Human rights organisations agree world leaders aren't reacting strongly enough to stop the escalating violence. Covered by few journalists, the violence is being carried out by a group called the Lord's Resistance Army. Calling itself a Christian army, led by a supposedly religious  spiritual leader, the video below, "Dear Obama" offers convincing proof it is not religious at all.

A rebel army has displaced thousands of people from their homes, abducted a whole generation of children and then forced them for years to become soldiers capable of killings and mutilations. Organizations such as Human Rights Watch says America has a moral obligation to stop it, and now.

 According to the Sunday Forum at the Washington National Cathedral led by Cathedral Dean Samuel T. Lloyd III in a fascinating introduction and conversation on the issue, the LRA is not a Christian group as its leader claims. It is an army concerned with violence against enemies, with no objective, political or religious, and needs to end. It is unlike the Darfur conflict which is racial.

Here's a quick summary of the situation in Northern Uganda:

Army 1: Ugandan Joseph Kony and three to ten associates are training and using kids as young as eight as an army to kill enemies.

Army 2: Ugandan Government Army, funded by the US, is profiteering from American funding and looking the other way from the LRA. There isn't a French or other army in the area.

Problem:  Ugandan  Army  2 isn't stopping Army 1.

Solution:  According to Human Rights Watch,  special foreign forces could use ground intelligence to capture Joseph Kony and his other cohorts and bring them to the Hague Tribunal to face punishment, because the Ugandan Army won't do it, before the violence spreads further and takes a stronger hold as the army of children mature.

Uganda and the surrounding jungle are where a despotic army chief called Joseph Kony, together with a group of fewer than ten other militiamen, have used children to kill their enemies for decades (BBC). Kony  named his army the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) although he is not a religious or spiritual leader. The LRA abducts both boys and girls for the purpose of massacring his enemies without any political or religious objective.

It is not clear what Kony's objective is, apart from engaging in violence. According to members of the press, Kony and the other leaders have reneged on official peace agreements and do fear prosecution if it should come. All of this is happening while America is funding the main Ugandan army which has then taken money and  done nothing to stop the violence, yet has profiteered.

Typically, Mr. Kony ascends a mountain and then uses his cell phone. There, he orders around his army using his phone on the mountain. His child followers believe him when he comes down from the mountain and issues orders they are told are taken from heaven. His army does not allow radios, so these abducted children cannot know their families want them to return home. The abducted children are used as soldiers, and if girls, then taken as wives.  Kony supposedly has over 60 women forced to be sex slaves and called "wives."

Many wonder why the United Nations hasn't stopped the LRA already?...Briefly, we were informed that the LRA  crosses borders to escape detection. The area they fight in is too insecure to have any NGO base. At the same time,  Human Rights Watch, formerly Helsinki Watch, says the US has a moral obligation to stop the violence, and that it would be relatively effective to do so now as a preventative measure against greater violence.

It's an important, under-reported issue because the current generation of Africans in Uganda and the Congo and Sudan is being lost. When schools close, the entire generation of people pressing for social change, doctors and educators and communities are also lost.

There are steps we can take. Urgently, we can support the current legislation on the LRA that has passed President Obama, currently before Congress to do more, meant to bring change to the region. We can also support humanitarian organizations, such as Human Rights Watch and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Just because the news is not often reported, doesn't mean the situation isn't newsworthy, or that it isn't happening, but just that news organizations can't afford to pay to cover it.

Uganda is a troubled country;  previous dictator, Idi Amin, was accused of committing atrocities, and the country is currently led by President  Museveni and his corrupt army. Let's hope Congress has the sense to pass this legislation, and can bring about a cessation to the violence we know is going on.

Uganda.africa.upenn.edu

Washington National Cathedral   welcomes people of all faiths, a spiritual resource for the nation.With gratitude. Please give generously.

Human Rights Watch is dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world.sponsors international journalism 
Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting 

It's Better To Look Forward

An article in The Wall Street Journal about Chinese parenting has whipped up a firestorm of attention in the Comment section.

The author, originally from Asia, speaks only of her daughters, is a professor at Yale Law School, and author of a book about "Free Market Democracy" and how it breeds global instability and ethnic hatred. Little wonder, she is aiming to take the same lesson home to Americans, except on the personal scale. She thinks child and teenage freedom possibly lead to a great national weakness of character and strength. For example, she favors competitive classical music for her child over drama, without tolerance for art, and perhaps psychology.

 The article has moved many readers. One comment that boys in China would not have been insulted by their mothers, stays with me and bothers me. It surprises me that a law professor gets away with calling her daughter names like "garbage" and withholds bathroom trips, and yet hasn't been threatened with child removal by the Department of Youth and Family Services, as they have done for far lesser offenses. Such free publicity in a "serious newspaper" should help the author sell her books this week.

When my sixteen year old read the article, she reflected the author-mother illegally committed child abuse with her daughters. She, of course, thought I was being excessively strict with her last week when I wouldn't drive her and her friend through a snowstorm to attend a rock concert!

Another disturbing article this week concerns a long suicide note left by a graduate student at Princeton University. In it, he addressed the lingering effects of child abuse and that he could not forget them. He wrote the darkness of the pain is what drove him over the edge.

It is obvious to me: parents use strategies to raise children that worked out best for them; it's not necessarily what will work for all children. Each child is different, and needs to have a unique set of circumstances combine to create great success in a career. It's true that luck favors the prepared, but life is short, too. Each person has a unique life to live.

Watch 'The King's Speech': About Leadership and Compassion

All I'll say about the last post is that I got several self-publisher emails in response. They might have seen the post or they might have sent them anyway since I contacted them after the first few drafts. (That latest draft is probably number twenty or so.) We'll see...

Anyway, 'The King's Speech' is a fast-paced, never boring, riveting movie indeed. Sure it's about a speech impediment. Concerned it might be dull, how could the subject-matter be interesting, I wondered? That idea couldn't have been farther from the truth. Everyone loves this movie, and little wonder! 

King George VI

It's so moving emotionally, I suspect no one saw it dry-eyed; it was that  touching. Not only was it compassionate about speech problems, it was sympathetic to Britain, the West and the British monarchy before the Second World War.

King George VI was a British King famous for his stirring speeches; his brother King Edward VIII who abdicated the throne and then married the American Wallis Warfield Simpson had a more lingering, colorful, partying reputation. 

History shows King George VI made many important speeches during the war and his wife, 

Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother (above) of current Queen Elizabeth II, lived to the age of 104, greatly beloved by the British. The monarchy has, since the time of Queen Victoria  at least, left a legacy of compassion that continues with the British Crown to the present day.  The movie is a tribute to the currently peaceful reign of one of the longest running monarchies in British history.

'The King's Speech' also interests the audience by illuminating the topic of true leadership. Never before King George VI had a British monarch reigned while a previous one still lived. The dangers inherent in a temporarily ambiguous monarchy in England as  King Edward VIII held the throne is a central story behind the movie. Germany in the late 1930s was an  immediate threat to safety in the daily lives of all the British. 

The story of a vulnerable and beleaguered nation facing peril they wished would go away lies behind the story of a King with a disability he wished would, too. The King needed to be a strong speaker to better serve his subjects, not one "afraid of his own shadow" but one who could speak up in  a strong voice to both soothe and defend a nation.

The movie was directed by the British award-winner Tom Hooper starring the enormously talented Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter, already well-suited to this role.  The movie is advertised as "based on the incredible true story: when his nation needed a leader, when the people needed a voice, an ordinary man would help him find the courage." It was a  brilliant idea by the original playwright, David Seidler, to tell the story of the King's  relationship with his coach, Lionel Logue, played by Geoffrey Rush, a central character of the movie. The therapy that broke the King's stammer is a personal story, interestingly regal. Anger management was also an important issue the King had to work on with his therapist.

But  the real story is the King's long-term dependence on the therapist, and how hard all the people of Britain had to work for their survival as the storm clouds drew closer. Let's hope America can't draw a parallel somehow to the present day. It's a movie with an entertaining story from the past and many interesting lessons for the present.

Masterpiece Music: American Coastlines, A Five Part Concerto

This post is an update of my earlier review of my musician favorites. "American Coastlines: Concerto for Piano, Orchestra and Choir" would make beautiful background music for a movie. 

It is rare indeed to find such beautiful music born and bred the United States by an American composer.  Reminiscent of the music of some of the greatest and most ambitious American movies, past and present, these songs on the piano are clearly discernible and memorable. The added overlay of the orchestra adds fullness and richness of texture. The entire performance is marvelously imaginative and innovative, truly an American masterpiece of which to be proud.

Haunting and mellifluous melodies interweave with background music of an orchestra and choir composed and conducted by Tim Keyes, with piano music by Darlene Popkey. This stunning performance was recorded live at the Richardson Auditorium in Princeton, New Jersey in five parts:

1. Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey: July

2. Long Boat Key, Florida: October

3. Galveston Island, Texas: January

4. Big Sur, California: April

5. Hymn

Darlene Popkey has enjoyed numerous international  musical awards and honors. She has played with the Tim Keyes Consort such masterpieces as Dvorak's Symphony no. 9 (From the New World) and Saint Saens Symphony no. 3 as well as other new symphonic compositions. Her schedule continues with live virtuoso solo and orchestral musical performances.

"
Tim Keyes is a New-Jersey-based composer, conductor and director of his eponymous orchestra of instrumentalists from Central New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania.

It is really quite extraordinary and refreshingly reassuring to be able to hear soothing and majestic new American compositions.

It's wonderful to play as a DVD on the computer or in the car. This would also make wonderful music for ecclesiastical settings, school plays and a a terrific present to buy as a gift. Everyone would like it. It is available from Amazon.

Darlene Popkey has an audio CD called "Small Town" also available at Amazon. Piano and clarinet music combine to create lovely, classy music from these two award-winning musicians.

Christians Celebrate Christmas Day at Washington National Cathedral

Christmas Day is one of the most holy in the Christian calendar. As we Christians celebrate the holy Day each December 25th, as I do, we do it in ways most appropriate to our religious views and life work. Christians find it important to continue with their life work through the holidays: nurses and doctors, flight attendants and pilots, as well as organists and church ministers.

The point is we all experience this great holiday, if we are Christians, in ways appropriate to our circumstances. And therewith we can find contentment and satisfaction, especially if we can take time to give God the space to enter our lives. There is not only one perfect way to spend Christmas. Life is a kaleidoscope and so is this special day.

Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC has online broadcasts of three Christmas services broadcast live, in color. Two were recorded on Christmas Eve and one just now on Christmas morning. The same Organist, choir and most of the same religious officials showed up again only a few hours later on Christmas morning.

All three worship services brought tears to my eyes; I wish I had been there in person. Just to be able to stop what one is doing and watch it online is priceless to me now.

Scott Dettra, Organist, Washington National Cathedral

The entire religious spectacle is one of the finest in all the world. The Organist, Scott Dettra, is surely one of the best in the world, if not the best.Wherever in the world you are, you can enjoy Christmas by taking the time to watch it online at Washington National Cathedral.

Please give generously to the National Cathedral. The church has wonderful services, and the institution supports many social services for those less fortunate - the homeless and hungry - and offers many affiliated social programs for education, with weekday classes and the Sunday Forums.  The Cathedral is a  tourist magnet, with many extra worship events to attend. Volunteers offer tours and a gift shop is now also online. The spectacular services, sermons and special events are accessible in archives at National Cathedral's website. The online  program of webcasts are significant in at least three ways:

1) They are useful for other houses of worship to follow as examples of fine practices.

2) They are available for all of us to enjoy, both live and recorded.

3) For the future, they will be historically significant recordings.

In full disclosure, this post was not in any way paid for by the National Cathedral or with any communication whatsoever.  

I watch (and write about) these recordings 250 miles away in New Jersey.

Humility Is Necessary To Civility

In a New York Times article about Diane von Furstenberg, the dress designer talks about her fashions in Beijing. Leaping from the article at me was not the content  -  about the expansion of her fashion company into China -- but how inclusive and friendly she appears to be. One can almost imagine knowing her already. Better, she could be one of your most likeable, best friends. This empathy must be a secret to her great success, apart from the actual product of clothing -- her DVF dress she is most known for.

The quality and viewpoint of any writing, as well as the content, to be sure, hook readers. The author of the DVF article could have turned against her with a different choice of words giving readers distinctly opposing impressions of the same person.

Journalistic stance saturates partisan politics; it goes with the territory. The truth gets slanted, warped and all but unrecognizable; aided and abetted with convenient deluges of statistics, many of which cannot be instantly verified in real time and then disputed, whether on television or in print. Politicians look weak if they do not have the numbers at their disposal. Even if numbers are wildly inaccurate, the fact they are said can make them believed. In the United States today, someone saying the most common place comments, whether they tell the truth or not, can bolster their comments with a few well-rehearsed statistics, and then turn into a brilliant celebrity.

It also happens with real estate. Agents can turn against other agents, houses, buyers. Attitudes are formed by knowledge, sometimes misinformation.

Sadly, people can misuse the natural tendency of others to believe and exploit that quality. We must be educated to be skeptical and question. We aren't always perfectly correct, but then neither is anyone else, as far as the truth is concerned. We all make mistakes when we try to master a new concept, a skill, a challenge. Often, we need to heed warnings. At the same time, just as we know we cannot be completely correct, neither is anyone else. The humility to understand that idea is a foundation stone of civility.

I see arrogance all over the place, and have to consciously calm myself often to remain civil. Have you had kind thoughts about someone until something makes you question that person's psychological stability, and maybe disappoint you? What methods do you use to remain civil, polite and well-liked when someone says something a bit, well, crazy?

Dinner and a Movie: Americans Try Dine-In Movie Theaters

AMC Dine-In Theaters

A Dine-In AMC Theater is an innovative way to see a movie and eat a relaxing meal at the same time.  Leather recliners at the Bridgewater Theater offer waiter/bar service at the press of a button along with very generous seat width and leg-room. Where else can one see a movie while being served, if so desired, a glass of wine and a salad, or a menu of heartier dishes and desserts?

 

Business people  and restaurant owners from around the world should visit these theaters for the new experience. It's surprisingly relaxing to have wait service and enjoy a movie at the same time. If it sounds too good to be true, please visit one -- this website  has further details. I really liked this new idea: a hotel/restaurant/shopping center combo with a dine-in theater. I don't know what, besides this competition, except litigation or tax incentives, could force traditional  movie theaters to offer better than the standard fare of over-priced soda/popcorn/nachos (which I have encouraged already). 

You probably know a few movie snobs. They won't go to movie theaters  because they can see everything at home with better privacy, cleanliness and food. But they have a new choice; not many home media rooms have the full package of services these theaters provide. They are exactly the audience now testing the Bridgewater Mall Dine-In Movie Theater, newly renovated and re-opened in December, 2010. With seven theaters, the entire cinema now has 684 seats. Aisles are wide enough to pass out food, and wait staff dressed in black are trained to speak quietly. Composite plateware with fork-friendly food together with movable tray tables and individual lighting make this experience resemble, even surpass, first class plane travel. The costs of seeing a movie quickly add up, and the varied menu and generous seating make this place actually a bargain. Seats can and no doubt will be reserved ahead.

It's great new way to see a movie with a few significant others, especially couples and lucky teenagers. We saw an excellent movie very conducive to watching while dining. Any movie would be great here, purely from the perspective of the best seats, where each one has a great view and lots of space, and the healthier food. "How Do You Know" is a sophisticated romantic comedy, dear to my heart, that announces heart-throb Paul Rudd, also in "The Cider House Rules" and "Knocked Up" in a major role, starring already huge Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, and Jack Nicholson. 

A list of current Dine-In Theaters:

Atlanta

AMC Fork & Screen Buckhead 6

Dallas

AMC Grapevine Mills 30 *NOW OPEN*

Kansas City

AMC Studio 30AMC Mainstreet 6

New Jersey

AMC Essex Green 9 *NOW OPEN* AMC Bridgewater Commons 7 *NOW OPEN*  AMC Menlo Park 12 *COMING SOON* opening 12/15/2010 (full disclosure: no sponsorship by AMC) Personally, I can't watch 3D movies without feeling extremely nauseated; "Avatar" sent me to a doctor worried I had to sit out most of it. In gratitude, this was a completely different experience. It won't be long before we go back for another "dinner and a movie." Enjoy a Dine-In Theater near you if you can.

What Are Your Three Dream Wishes For The Holidays?

Here is a good topic of conversation for anyone fortunate enough to have precious time with friends and family:

If you could, who and what causes would you help first, second and third?

That's assuming you set aside all your desires for more and better clothes, surroundings, and so on, and supposing you had unlimited amounts of money, more than the richest person in the world. It's beneficial, you are sure to count your blessings and think of those less fortunate than yourself.

It's a great question to ask almost anyone, even close friends, because you will find out aspects of others you probably didn't imagine exist. It's a quick way to find out what your significant others care about deeply. For example, my friend wants to help someone with a prosthetic leg who needs a better one. Another would like to build a new barn for a horse rescue non-profit.

I hope during the upcoming holidays, you have time to think of some of the blessings you are grateful for, and can give generously, as much as you are able, to those in need of your kindness.

Gifts and Games: Findings from Positive Psychology

Try these 10 actions to get happier now:

 Give It Away, Give It Away Now! - G

 Take Initiative at Work - I

 Make Friends, Treasure Family - F

 Say Thank You Like You Mean It - T
Smile Even When You Don’t Feel Like It - S

 GIFTS

Have Meaningful Goals - G

Avoid Comparisons - A

 Put Money Low on the List - M

 Get Out and Exercise - E
Savor Everyday Moments - S

GAMES

 GIFTS and GAMES?
 Please forgive my anagrams.

More information in this article at  Alternet

Acknowledgements:
Jen Angel, Yes Magazine
Sonia Lyubomirsky, author, psychologist
E. Diener and R. Biswas-Diener and Stephen Post

Hope Your Thanksgiving Is Happy

         Freedom from Want, by Norman Rockwell, 1943

As we head into the conventional Thursday Thanksgiving Day holiday celebration here in America, we need to show gratitude for the blessings we have been given all year, including readers of this blog, and to celebrate the year's harvest of food. 

Whenever and wherever we celebrate, harvests binds cultures together. We can all relate to their significance. Harvest festival is earlier and religious in nature in England, usually during the month of September. Canada celebrates Thanksgiving Weekend as a long weekend, including a Monday holiday the first weekend in October, much the same as here.

At our house, we have goose, dry-brined for a day in a mixture of salt and spices. With that, we have braised vegetables, homebaked breads, Cold Soil wine from Terhune Orchards. This we finish with homemade cherry and apple pies and cheeses. It's a small celebration for us, just rather formal and filled with meaning and emotion. As we set the tablecloth on the table, arrange china and silverware and light the candles, we wish everyone good, fine conversation.

Thanksgiving Day is a holiday to celebrate with humility and gratitude, and who wouldn't want more of that?

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Be Careful Whom You Bring Home

Broadmoor Hospital

A recent interview aired on BBC radio Nov. 20, 2010  concerned Broadmoor, a high security psychiatric hospital in England for men. This notorious British hospital has housed numerous dangerous inmates and captured the imagination of the British public since Victorian times.

Dr. Gwen Adshead
The Independent

The interviewer questioned Dr. Gwen Adshead, the unexpectedly mellifluous New-Zealand-raised Psychiatrist and Forensic Psychotherapist (and here is a wonderful example of what is generally meant by the word, I think).

We heard that patients are not admitted voluntarily to Broadmoor. They are admitted when they are considered a risk to society and other people and then are frequently subjected to revisions and reviews.

These risk of violence of these patients is raised by:

1) a paranoid state of mind caused by drinking or drugs

2) anti-social attitudes, they don't like others and see others as a predator on prey

3) the homicidal

She asserted the surprising point: you are most likely to be murdered by a person you sleep with, so be careful whom you bring home.

Broadmoor patients are "survivors of a disaster of which they are the disaster."

Dr. Adshead emphasized there is no direct link between crime and mental illness. At the same time, a causal relationship needs to be looked at in brain scans, how they think, their behavior, how their childhood histories have affected them, their world views and how they regulate negative feelings.

The most common illnesses at Broadmoor are:

1) paranoid schizophrenia

2) major affective (mood) disorders

3) psychotic disorders (loss of contact with reality),

4) borderline (mood) disorders

5) anti-social, callous, cruel attitude to others.

Broadmoor has a further function; it protects the public from homicidal individuals. It's a rehabilitative, restorative, and therapeutic community, according to Dr. Adshead. We are "homo narrans." Humans love to tell stories, and make meaning out of our stories.

 In Broadmoor:

• 1/3 of patients came from prisons
• 1/3 were impossible to manage in general psychiatric settings.
• 1/3 had an incomprehensible natural "element to offend".

The patients and doctors look at diagnosis and treatment options and the fear that brought them there. Treatment options are available; patients come angry, frightened, resistant to treatment. At Broadmoor, they join "a community of the excluded." Everyone needs to be attached to where they feel more secure and can grow, she said,  and most become interested in treatments. Unfortunately, some patients enter Broadmoor nasty, cruel and predatory. Nurses have to work hard and learn not to retaliate.

When asked why she works there, she said that she is interested in why people want to hurt other people, and wanted to work with the best people on the most complicated cases. Dr. Adshead says they way a society treats the least loved members is a measure of the health of a society. She says Broadmoor is giving compassionate, highly skilled treatment, and she said "it's good to be part of it."

Wikipedia says patients stay from six months to thirty years at Broadmoor. Built in 1863, Broadmoor is located in Crowthorne, Berkshire, United Kingdom. Women  patients are housed at Southall. Other famous British psychiatric hospitals are Ashworth in Merseyside, Rampton, in Nottinghamshire and Carstairs in Scotland.

Click here for the interesting podcast interview at BBC.com.

Rules To Live By In America

Thomas Jefferson,  Third President, 1801-1809

Jefferson's Rules:

1. Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.
2. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.
3. Never spend money before you have earned it.
4. Never buy what you don't want because it is cheap; it will be dear to you.
5. Take care of your cents: Dollars will take care of themselves.
6. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold.
7. We seldom repent of having eaten too little.
8. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.
9. How much pain the evils have cost us that have never happened.
10. Take things always by the smooth handle.*
11. Think as you please, and so let others, and you will have no disputes.
12. When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, count a hundred.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
From "Canons of Conduct" Written for his namesake Thomas Jefferson Smith, Feb. 21, 1825.

* meaning, "the exchange of ideas must always be civil" or interpreted by the reader. (monticello.org)

Jefferson pared down this list in later life to exclude 5 and 11. Maybe he had money issues and disputes after all.

Idyllic Frenchtown, New Jersey: Visit Liz Gilbert's "two buttons" And Eat At The "Lovin Oven" Next Door

Lovin Oven, Frenchtown, New Jersey interior, from Josey Miller

While usually I write posts with an international audience in mind, this post will be a review in favor of a wonderful restaurant in Frenchtown, New Jersey. It's a hip, upscale hot spot with flowers and art, and wooden tables and an imaginative menu, partly vegan, with pastries and artisanal breads worthy of greater recognition.

This restaurant has the unusual name, the "Lovin Oven" and I was told to go there by a friend even though it's an hour's drive away. After hearing it shares the building with the Asian artifacts store called "two buttons" owned by the writer of the book "Eat, Pray, Love" now also a movie, Elizabeth Gilbert and her husband, Jose Nunes, I couldn't resist. Trusting this great recommendation and intrigued by the quirky name, I was pleased to finally hear the location of the Gilbert shop, which I had wanted to visit since reading the book.

I definitely recommend the Lovin Oven for sophisticated diners of any age. The scenery of Frenchtown is quaint and accessible, as it is in the other nearby towns of Stockton and Lambertville, some of my favorites in western New Jersey, all situated along the Delaware River. The new address of the  "Lovin Oven" where it has relocated from Milford is in a building with plenty of parking, shared with "two buttons" and a Pilates studio.

Service was friendly, and couldn't have been better. Not for ages have I felt sufficiently inspired to write a restaurant review here, which goes to show how worthy it is of more traffic. It was filled Friday evening, and will likely soon require reservations as they've only recently moved to this new location. After a thorough renovation, the building that used to be an old warehouse now looks unrecognizably different from the view on Google maps.

We enjoyed bruschetta with broccoli, tomatoes and cheese on fresh artisan bread. The tomato soup was very fresh and spicy. For the main course entree, grilled salmon was placed atop Israeli coucous, accompanied by broccoli and carrots. My tortellini had pesto filling and tomato sauce. Dee-licious! We followed these dishes with chocolate chip mint ice cream and Terhune Orchards plum sorbet. What a heavenly taste bouquet.

62 Trenton Avenue, (Route 29) Frenchtown, NJ 08825 - (908) 996-7714 Open Wed-Thu 8am-9pm; Fri-Sat 8am-10pm; Sun 8am-3pm. Wine welcome, byob.

For more information on Frenchtown, you might read a special article in the Washington Post by Josey Miller on July 9, 2010 or see the local magazine, the Frenchtowner.

photo: twobuttons.com

CNN Raises Awareness of Bullying And Homophobia

On CNN, anchor reporter Anderson Cooper (left) has taken up the cause of bullying more than any other journalist. In this video, he very skillfully and politely persuaded an anti-gay man, C. McCance (right), to publicly back down on homophobic rhetoric in his writing and to concurrently resign from his position as vice-president of an Arkansas school board.

Anderson Cooper did a fine job on air of publicly connecting a face with homophobia for millions of viewers around the world. This elected member of an education board in Arkansas clearly seemed surprised to find himself caught on international television. I have to commend Mr. Cooper for  using his platform to confront this official. (If only certain other right-wing American talk show hosts could be as helpful.)

More than that, Mr. Cooper should get a special award for raising public awareness of the ongoing social issue of bullying, since it overlaps and underlies so very many social issues and timely matters of current public policy socially, in the workplace and at schools. At the same time, spotlighting outrageous instances of outright homophobia can't hurt the LGBT community (not that I belong, but I happen to think homophobia is wrong).

It might interest my international readers to know that America's free public schools are controlled by locally elected school board members. These board members are obviously American, in my experience, and mostly Americans of many generations.

...At the same time, it might interest my American readers to learn that most free schools in other countries are not controlled by anyone other than school heads.

These American school boards in general worry me because they aren't necessarily filled with educators and the most educated and experienced people in the community. School boards get filled with citizens whose wish for board membership coincides with having the time and inclination to serve. The busiest and most experienced professionals and educators rarely serve on school boards. The trouble is, in America these board members make academic decisions on school matters in which they are far from expert.

We can only hope school board members do the right thing for  the sensitive, vulnerable young minds, the children like mine, on whose shoulders the future rests. The work Mr. Cooper did to expose this official is valuable to all whose children's educations rely on a fair and balanced school board, sadly an oxymoron. They should be accountable to communities; yes, that is definitely the least they should be.

Slavery: An Important Old Problem Revisited with an Expert: Kevin Bales, President of Free the Slaves

Did you know there are 27 million slaves in the world in 2010 and that many of them have been slaves for generations? So says Kevin Bales, President of Free the Slaves, U.S. sister organization of the world's oldest human rights organization, Anti-Slavery International.

Here are excerpts as a quick synopsis from an interview by Bales on Big Think with apologies for errors.

Slavery has always been the same thing. It's about a person who's completely controlled by another. 

There are many types of slavery, many of which have been unaltered for hundreds of years. In the 20th century, the price of human beings collapsed and changed the dynamics of slavery. There has been a population explosion in the world. Lack of the rule of law has made people vulnerable to slavery. Huge population and lack of the rule of law has an overlap, whereby people live on extreme deprivation and citizens are harvested, and there is a glut of humans. A given is the pool of potentially slaveable population group of 700 million. The number of 27 million could be far higher and thankfully, it isn't.

Nowadays enslavement starts with asking the question: "do you want a job?" Slaves are not initially usually taken by violence, or bought. People walk into slavery, as we all would, sometimes to feed children and then the enslaved are separated, and the threat of violence begins.

There is not a single way to stop slavery. There is not a silver bullet. Liberation workers do the dangerous work of kidnapping the enslaved. Community organization has to stop it. Direct intervention creates liberation. We wish governments would step in and stop it and do what they should do.

Domestic servitude is a form of slavery. Stopping slavery in any random location requires the sharp eyes of people around to liberate the enslaved. 

Warning signs of slavery:

• underage of employment
• not in school during school hours
• not well dressed
• working all hours
• frightened 
• hungry 
• injured
• fearful
• not knowing where they are
• sleep-deprived 

Slavery is a hidden crime. It's impossible to collect solid numbers. The academic world and the United Nations have estimated there are 27 million slaves in the world at the present time, plus or minus 5 million. 

Slavery is worst in: 

• India (largest number) 
• Burma (worst percentage-wise) 
• Nepal
• Pakistan (hereditary forms)
• Japan (worst in that police overlook it; they could improve it)
• Congo 
• 1 in 10 children live in slavery in Haiti (at Freetheslaves.net)

Governments could do better, even in America.

Myth: Slavery is not in America. Truth: It is.

Myth: Slaves are all prostitutes. Truth: America has numbers of 50,000 or more slaves. In U.S. sexual exploitation (prostitution) is less than half of that number. But it exists all around, and we are unaware of it.

The U.S. has always had slavery. We could be a slave-free country. The government has promised we will have a slave-free country. 17,000 are brought into America each year to be slaves, same number as homicides, but much less is spent on slaves than homicides. A crime almost as serious as murder getting little attention.

Slavery is prehistoric. It existed then in a fairly sophisticated way. Violence exploited people. Familial exploitation existed.  Changed from family exploitation to animal domestication model, e.g. Aristotle: the "ox is the poor man's slave".

Slaves are pre-legal; 30% of code of Hammurabi is about slavery. It is pre-monetary; slaves come after records of money. Slaves do not exist in every society. Slavery as a semi-permanent condition has evolved over 5,000 years. Slavery bankrolled payrolls of army legions and is linked to productive regional growth. Now, slavery generally involves the physical possession of people temporarily, rather than land.

Amazon: Joseph, Original Soundcast

American Drug Companies Pay Doctors To Sell Drugs

Do you ever worry a trusted doctor accepts secret payments from pharmaceutical companies at the expense of your life and health? Here's a place to check.

Investigative journalists have made an astounding report in ProPublica detailing how drug companies have cleverly managed to pay so little to get so much in many cases. Many payments they made are for a few hundred dollars in "speaking fees" where doctors tout a drug. It's not surprising doctors would accept the money, since they can be bombarded by drug company incentives. In fact, it's surprising how few did accept payments, at least according to this report, and most payments were surprisingly small (in the hundreds of dollars). But many doctors have accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars. Whether they earned it is not within the scope of this article, although the article mentions doctors sometimes only had to attend seminars to get paid.

ProPublica's report includes a national American database, check-able by state and by name of doctor, linked here. It says there is nothing wrong or illegal about doctors taking money from companies manufacturing drugs. In fact, some doctors assert they do so because they are "so good" at what they do. We cannot verify that advice.The problem is, more than seventy drug companies did not disclose their payments publicly, so this list may potentially be the tip of the iceberg. 

The database is restricted in many ways, unfortunately:

• Payments to group practices were also excluded from this database; only  doctors practicing alone were included.  
• Some doctors evidently have not received board certifications. 
• The government removes older disciplinary procedures from websites.
• We cannot be sure how long these doctors have accepted payments from drug companies. 

Perhaps that is the true point of the article: not only do we as patients not know how much money doctors make from drug companies and where it comes from, we can't find out how long it's been going on or how it influences their  practice of medicine without asking them, which we wouldn't.

The investigation found proof of practices as sleazy as one would suspect and fear possible. Doctor speakers were dropped if they did not write substantial prescriptions for a company. Doctors accepted "preceptor-ship programs" to allow sales representatives to spend time observing their practices, when in fact the sales reps were paid to use the time to push drugs to doctors. The report found evidence of illegal marketing of "off-label" uses of the drugs, i.e. those not approved by U.S. government regulators. Doctors rewarded for being "top injectors." Even vacation resort fees were covered.

While whistleblowers have tried to level the field,  skepticism about the purity of prescription-givers abounds in America. Consumer Reports found in  a study that 58% of Americans assume doctors give speeches paid for my drug companies, 51% believe that less than $500 could influence a doctor's judgment and 40% would not feel comfortable asking their doctors if they accept payments from a drug company for a drug they prescribe...a low number when considered, as if 60% would ask.

 Do you think all doctors should post how much and exactly what they accept from each and every pharmaceutical company on their waiting room walls and on their websites? Do you think they ever will?

ProPublica has achieved a victory with this report and found a great deal of truth however limited to disclose.

Full-disclosure: hip and spine injections by a Physiatrist have improved my own life immeasurably. While, doctors and drug companies by themselves are not the problem, our problem is with secret payments to doctors from drug companies possibly compromising the judgments of doctors.

Restoring Power to The Powerless With Love

The statistics in my last post regarding the zero percentage divorce rate of line repairmen challenged me to find out about it. Today, I got to put the idea to the test. The electrical power to the house had an outage and in came repairmen from the power company to fix the buried line going out to the street that is half a mile away. At first, I was upset that the company had hung up on my phone call when I reported it and they hadn't taken my address, causing me to call back. (I was upset when they asked for my customer service number in the pitch black when it was all I could do to get through to the toll-free number for outages.)

Anyway, Luis, the repairman, was very kind when I talked to him outside, and he noticed my necklace and complimented it. After getting over my surprise, I told him about my friends making jewelry and my own blog, and how I like to make jewelry, and he said he helps his wife make jewelry, too, part-time as well as elevating himself four floors above ground in a cherry-picker to cut cables as his full-time job.

The point is, he spoke very lovingly about his wife over and over again, and I was very impressed with his sweetness. He also told me about a location where his wife would be selling jewelry today, so I would have the opportunity to meet her. Of course, I went over and introduced myself to her. She also had enjoyed a very successful real estate career for nineteen years, which I wanted to hear more about. I had not ever heard two people so in love with each other and talking so well of the other for decades. 

It was very beautiful and at the time, I had forgotten about the statistic that line repairmen are among the least divorced of men. Turns out they were both divorced years before they met each other, thus challenging that statistic (not that I disapprove). They were in the same second grade classes and then met up many years later. Both of them say the other is the very best thing that happened to them, and so on. It was very nice and refreshing to hear such love and devotion in their voices, and it made a very romantic story.

So, while it may be true that the very first line repairman I spoke to would render the statistic false, at the same time, he proves that it doesn't make any more sense not to love another woman any more than it would be to stop eating and breathing, and restoring power to those without it. Thanks for the lesson, Luis!

Telephone Repairmen Have Most Solid Marriages On Average

icsscale.com
According to Business Insider, divorce rates are lowest in the following professions:

• Media & communication equipment workers -- 0% divorce rate
• Agricultural engineers -- 1.78% divorce rate
• Optometrists -- 4.01% divorce rate
• Transit and railroad police -- 5.26% divorce rate
• Clergy -- 5.61% divorce rate
• Directors of religious activity -- 5.88% divorce rate
• Sales engineers -- 6.61% divorce rate
• Podiatrists -- 6.81% divorce rate
• Nuclear engineers -- 7.29% divorce

Portrait of a farmer [unidentified], [ca. 1910]
John Boyd
Archives of Ontario, I0003403

In case you are wondering about the opposite, most divorce-prone professions, here's a link for more information. I have to admit, these are riveting statistics, if true.

My angle is that marriage, in its essence, is the relationship between two private people. Individually, as far as the people we know, relationships aren't really any of our business, unless we are called upon as marriage counselors (as few of us are). So it's wise to steer clear with casual judgments about marriages and help let marriages keep their inscrutable mystery and ineffable romance. 

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/highest-divorce-rates-by-profession-2010-9#bonus-these-are-the-professions-that-dont-get-divorced-16#ixzz11KqXpv

How Ink is make

Thanks to Huffington Post:
"Set to Alfred Brendel's lyrical Piano Concerto No.5 in E flat major, it shows the process from top to bottom of how ink is made. And it turns out that that process is not only more interactive than we would have expected, but its also vivid and even balletic."