Link
Victims of clerical sex abuse have reacted furiously to Pope Benedict's claim yesterday that paedophilia wasn't considered an “absolute evil” as recently as the 1970s.
In his traditional Christmas address yesterday to cardinals and officials working in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI also claimed that child pornography was increasingly considered “normal” by society.
“In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children,” the Pope said.
“It was maintained — even within the realm of Catholic theology — that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a ‘better than' and a ‘worse than'. Nothing is good or bad in itself.”
The Pope said abuse revelations in 2010 reached “an unimaginable dimension” which brought “humiliation” on the Church.
Asking how abuse exploded within the Church, the Pontiff called on senior clerics “to repair as much as possible the injustices that occurred” and to help victims heal through a better presentation of the Christian message.
“We cannot remain silent about the context of these times in which these events have come to light,” he said, citing the growth of child pornography “that seems in some way to be considered more and more normal by society” he said.
But outraged Dublin victim Andrew Madden last night insisted that child abuse was not considered normal in the company he kept.
Mr Madden accused the Pope of not knowing that child pornography was the viewing of images of children being sexually abused, and should be named as such.
He said: “That is not normal. I don't know what company the Pope has been keeping for the past 50 years.”
Pope Benedict also said sex tourism in the Third World was “threatening an entire generation”.
Angry abuse victims in America last night said that while some Church officials have blamed the liberalism of the 1960s for the Church's sex abuse scandals and cover-up catastrophes, Pope Benedict had come up with a new theory of blaming the 1970s.
“Catholics should be embarrassed to hear their Pope talk again and again about abuse while doing little or nothing to stop it and to mischaracterise this heinous crisis,” said Barbara Blaine, the head of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests,
“It is fundamentally disturbing to watch a brilliant man so conveniently misdiagnose a horrific scandal,” she added.
“The Pope insists on talking about a vague ‘broader context' he can't control, while ignoring the clear ‘broader context' he can influence — the long-standing and unhealthy culture of a rigid, secretive, all-male Church hierarchy fixated on self-preservation at all costs. This is the ‘context’ that matters.”
The latest controversy comes as the German magazine Der Spiegel continues to investigate the Pope's role in allowing a known paedophile priest to work with children in the early 1980s.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
Drug ‘Ecstasy’ May Help Individuals with Schizophrenia, Autism
By TRACI PEDERSEN
Associate News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on December 17, 2010
Some scientists believe that the drug MDMA (ecstasy), which is known to increase feelings of social connection and empathy, may have psychotherapeutic benefits for those with disorders often associated with a lack of feeling connected to others, such as in schizophrenia, autism, or antisocial personality disorder.
Up until now, scientists have had a hard time objectively measuring the effects of this drug, and there has been very little research in humans. Researchers from the University of Chicago, who conducted research on healthy volunteers, have reported their new findings in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry.
“We found that MDMA produced friendliness, playfulness, and loving feelings, even when it was administered to people in a laboratory with little social contact. We also found that MDMA reduced volunteers’ capacity to recognize facial expressions of fear in other people, an effect that may be involved in the increased sociability said to be produced by MDMA,” said author Dr. Gillinder Bedi.
These findings suggest that MDMA makes others appear more attractive and friendly, and this may be the reason for its popularity as a recreational drug. Furthermore, it makes others appear less intimidating, which may allow an individual to feel more confident in social risk-taking.
“Within the context of treatment, these effects may promote intimacy among people who have difficulty feeling close to others,” said Dr. John Krystal, editor of Biological Psychiatry.
“However, MDMA distorts one’s perception of others rather than producing true empathy. Thus, MDMA may cause problems if it leads people to misinterpret the emotional state and perhaps intentions of others.”
Further studies in controlled settings will be necessary before MDMA can be considered for use as a psychotherapeutic drug. However, these findings also emphasize the importance of understanding how different drugs affect social experiences, since abused drugs are often used in social situations.
This study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Source: Elsevier
Associate News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on December 17, 2010
Some scientists believe that the drug MDMA (ecstasy), which is known to increase feelings of social connection and empathy, may have psychotherapeutic benefits for those with disorders often associated with a lack of feeling connected to others, such as in schizophrenia, autism, or antisocial personality disorder.
Up until now, scientists have had a hard time objectively measuring the effects of this drug, and there has been very little research in humans. Researchers from the University of Chicago, who conducted research on healthy volunteers, have reported their new findings in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry.
“We found that MDMA produced friendliness, playfulness, and loving feelings, even when it was administered to people in a laboratory with little social contact. We also found that MDMA reduced volunteers’ capacity to recognize facial expressions of fear in other people, an effect that may be involved in the increased sociability said to be produced by MDMA,” said author Dr. Gillinder Bedi.
These findings suggest that MDMA makes others appear more attractive and friendly, and this may be the reason for its popularity as a recreational drug. Furthermore, it makes others appear less intimidating, which may allow an individual to feel more confident in social risk-taking.
“Within the context of treatment, these effects may promote intimacy among people who have difficulty feeling close to others,” said Dr. John Krystal, editor of Biological Psychiatry.
“However, MDMA distorts one’s perception of others rather than producing true empathy. Thus, MDMA may cause problems if it leads people to misinterpret the emotional state and perhaps intentions of others.”
Further studies in controlled settings will be necessary before MDMA can be considered for use as a psychotherapeutic drug. However, these findings also emphasize the importance of understanding how different drugs affect social experiences, since abused drugs are often used in social situations.
This study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Source: Elsevier
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Cops don't get fired cause they're just a big gang...
VANCOUVER - A Vancouver police officer has been charged with assault for pushing a disabled woman to the ground in an incident caught on video.
Const. Taylor Robinson was charged after a three-month investigation of the incident by the New Westminster police department.
Robinson was among three officers on foot patrol in the city's Downtown Eastside last June.
The video shows the woman walking by the officers when one of them pushes her from the back.
The officer didn't help the woman, who was assisted by other people on the street as the three officers walked away.
Robinson, who's been with the Vancouver Police Department since March 2009, has been placed on administrative duty pending the outcome of his court case.
Const. Taylor Robinson was charged after a three-month investigation of the incident by the New Westminster police department.
Robinson was among three officers on foot patrol in the city's Downtown Eastside last June.
The video shows the woman walking by the officers when one of them pushes her from the back.
The officer didn't help the woman, who was assisted by other people on the street as the three officers walked away.
Robinson, who's been with the Vancouver Police Department since March 2009, has been placed on administrative duty pending the outcome of his court case.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Police who brutalize should be locked up
Lac La Biche RCMP officer pleads guilty to 'appalling' assault
EDMONTON — An RCMP officer who beat a man in custody at the Lac La Biche RCMP detachment last year has pleaded guilty to assault in provincial court where a video of the incident was shown.
The video shows Const. Desmond Sandboe lunging across a hallway toward Andrew Clyburn after the man appears to say something to the officer. Clyburn is smashed against a wall, taken to the ground and punched repeatedly in an assault that lasts approximately 40 seconds and leaves the floor smeared with fluid.
“The RCMP finds this incident appalling. The public trusts the RCMP to care for them in our custody, and we take that responsibility very seriously,” said Supt. Joe Loran, acting commanding officer for the RCMP’s K-Division, in a statement.
Court on Friday heard RCMP officers were called to the Almac bar in Lac La Biche around 3 a.m. on Sept. 13, 2009, to deal with Clyburn, who had been in a fight and was causing problems for staff.
When RCMP arrived, they found Clyburn intoxicated and bleeding from injuries. He was arrested for public intoxication.
Court heard officers took Clyburn to a local hospital. Nurses met the group at the RCMP cruiser but said they would not treat Clyburn because he was belligerent and was smashing his head inside the car. Nurses noted a cut to the back of his head, along with other injuries.
Clyburn was taken to the local RCMP detachment around 3:15 a.m. and put into a cell. Around 7:15 a.m. Clyburn was taken out of his cell and escorted into a hallway area. Sandboe had just started his shift.
The video shows Clyburn, who is not wearing shoes, getting ready to put on a sweatshirt when the assault occurs. Clyburn appears to say something to the officer, although there is no audio in the recording. That’s when the officer lunges at Clyburn from across the hallway, smashing him twice against the wall and punching him repeatedly as he takes Clyburn to the ground.
The officer continues to punch Clyburn, while the man raises his hands to protect his face. He punches Clyburn at least 10 times, while the pair struggle and move along the ground of the hallway.
The assault lasts approximately 40 seconds and two other officers can be seen watching the incident. The video then shows Clyburn being hauled to his feet and taken back down the hallway. The video shows the previously clean floor smeared with fluid.
The case is scheduled to be back in court Jan. 27, 2011, when the defence is expected to present more facts related to the case. A pre-sentence report has been ordered.
Sandboe, a nine-year veteran of the RCMP, has been suspended without pay, a disciplinary action reserved for the most serious of conduct matters.
“Const. Sandboe’s conduct has violated the public’s trust. He has also done a great disservice to the men and women of the RCMP who daily meet and exceed the public’s expectations and who uphold our values,” said Loran, the acting commanding officer.
Sandboe was initially charged with assault causing bodily harm when the charges were announced in 2009 by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team, which investigates actions of police in cases that result in death or injury. The charge resulted from the ASIRT investigation.
The RCMP is also conducting a code of conduct investigation, which will be completed after the case goes through the court system and could result in Sandboe’s dismissal.
Lac La Biche is about 200 kilometres northeast of Edmonton.
EDMONTON — An RCMP officer who beat a man in custody at the Lac La Biche RCMP detachment last year has pleaded guilty to assault in provincial court where a video of the incident was shown.
The video shows Const. Desmond Sandboe lunging across a hallway toward Andrew Clyburn after the man appears to say something to the officer. Clyburn is smashed against a wall, taken to the ground and punched repeatedly in an assault that lasts approximately 40 seconds and leaves the floor smeared with fluid.
“The RCMP finds this incident appalling. The public trusts the RCMP to care for them in our custody, and we take that responsibility very seriously,” said Supt. Joe Loran, acting commanding officer for the RCMP’s K-Division, in a statement.
Court on Friday heard RCMP officers were called to the Almac bar in Lac La Biche around 3 a.m. on Sept. 13, 2009, to deal with Clyburn, who had been in a fight and was causing problems for staff.
When RCMP arrived, they found Clyburn intoxicated and bleeding from injuries. He was arrested for public intoxication.
Court heard officers took Clyburn to a local hospital. Nurses met the group at the RCMP cruiser but said they would not treat Clyburn because he was belligerent and was smashing his head inside the car. Nurses noted a cut to the back of his head, along with other injuries.
Clyburn was taken to the local RCMP detachment around 3:15 a.m. and put into a cell. Around 7:15 a.m. Clyburn was taken out of his cell and escorted into a hallway area. Sandboe had just started his shift.
The video shows Clyburn, who is not wearing shoes, getting ready to put on a sweatshirt when the assault occurs. Clyburn appears to say something to the officer, although there is no audio in the recording. That’s when the officer lunges at Clyburn from across the hallway, smashing him twice against the wall and punching him repeatedly as he takes Clyburn to the ground.
The officer continues to punch Clyburn, while the man raises his hands to protect his face. He punches Clyburn at least 10 times, while the pair struggle and move along the ground of the hallway.
The assault lasts approximately 40 seconds and two other officers can be seen watching the incident. The video then shows Clyburn being hauled to his feet and taken back down the hallway. The video shows the previously clean floor smeared with fluid.
The case is scheduled to be back in court Jan. 27, 2011, when the defence is expected to present more facts related to the case. A pre-sentence report has been ordered.
Sandboe, a nine-year veteran of the RCMP, has been suspended without pay, a disciplinary action reserved for the most serious of conduct matters.
“Const. Sandboe’s conduct has violated the public’s trust. He has also done a great disservice to the men and women of the RCMP who daily meet and exceed the public’s expectations and who uphold our values,” said Loran, the acting commanding officer.
Sandboe was initially charged with assault causing bodily harm when the charges were announced in 2009 by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team, which investigates actions of police in cases that result in death or injury. The charge resulted from the ASIRT investigation.
The RCMP is also conducting a code of conduct investigation, which will be completed after the case goes through the court system and could result in Sandboe’s dismissal.
Lac La Biche is about 200 kilometres northeast of Edmonton.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Sometimes cops are criminals.
Not wearing badges, not having to be interviewed, and the fact that victims have the burden of proof is enraging.
No police charged for civilian G20 injuries: SIU
6 men lodged complaints
Last Updated: Thursday, November 25, 2010 | 6:01 PM ET
CBC News
The SIU says it has been unable to identify police officers it says used excessive force when arresting two men at a G20 protest on June 26 at Queen's Park in Toronto. (Canadian Press)
An Ontario police watchdog is not holding any officers accountable for separate incidents in which it says excessive force was likely used against two civilians at a G20 protest in Toronto.
The province's Special Investigations Unit, which probes police operations where civilians are hurt or killed, on Thursday released the results of its investigation into six complaints of police brutality during last June's G20 summit.
The six men in question all complained that they were injured when law enforcement officers used excessive force against them at various locations across Toronto's downtown on June 26. One man had his arm broken in an interaction with an officer, while another two suffered facial fractures.
The SIU concluded that officers were not at fault for four of the incidents, citing either a lack of evidence to support the theory that excessive force was used, or an inability to determine how exactly the complainants sustained their injuries.
"It's been my experience here … that the SIU does a thorough, complete and impartial investigation," Frank Phillips, a spokesman for the SIU, told CBC News.
"If the evidence isn't there, the charge is not going to be laid."
But the agency concluded that it is probable excessive force was used in the case of two men who suffered facial fractures at a protest at Queen's Park.
Subject officers decline interview
Adam Nobody, 27, was running from officers in riot gear who were advancing upon him at the Queen's Park protest, the SIU said.
He was tackled by the officers and arrested in an incident that demonstrates "probable excessive use of force by an unidentified police officer," Ian Scott, the director of the agency, said in a statement.
"The arm of one of the officers can be seen moving very quickly two or three times in a striking motion toward the complainant with a closed fist in the upper area of either his body or head. If one or more of those blows landed in the complainant's facial area, it would be consistent with the injury he received," he said.
Identification controversy
SIU spokesman Frank Phillips said he couldn't say whether any of the officers involved in any of the six complaints were wearing identification.
About 90 Toronto police officers face disciplinary action for not wearing ID badges during the G20 summit.
"It is unknown whether any of the involved officers in these cases were wearing their name tags, nor is it clear on the evidence whether if they were wearing their name tags, it would have made any difference on the question of investigation given the volatility and the dynamics of the situation," Phillips said.
The SIU said it designated two officers as the subject of its investigation. Both declined to be interviewed in the investigation, as they are legally entitled to do. In total, the SIU interviewed eight officers and one civilian witness in its investigation.
The arrest is also captured in a YouTube video. But Scott said "it is impossible from the video to identify the officer who delivered these blows. They are all wearing largely identical clothing with helmets, and the video is taken from too great a distance to be of any assistance."
As the SIU was unable to determine exactly which officer used excessive force, it is not proceeding with a criminal investigation.
Arrested while helping fallen woman
Brendan Latimer, 19, was also at the Queen's Park protest and, like Nobody, suffered a facial fracture in the melee.
Latimer was knocked to the ground while helping a young woman who had fallen, according to the SIU. Demonstrators were fleeing the area after police started advancing on them, the SIU said.
Latimer was trampled by some of the protesters, and was on the ground for 25 to 30 seconds before officers moved in to arrest him. He alleges one officer struck him in the face, causing a fracture.
After interviewing nine witness officers and one civilian witness, the SIU concluded "there are reasonable grounds to believe an officer used excessive force leading to injuries to the complainant," Scott said.
"However, given the fact that no subject officer can be named after a thorough investigation, I cannot form reasonable grounds that any identified officer committed a criminal offence in the circumstances of this case."
The SIU said it is not looking into any other cases of alleged assault by law enforcement officers. It is unclear whether the officers involved in any of the six incidents were members of the Toronto Police Service, or whether they were from one of the myriad other forces responsible for policing the summit.
Around 1,100 people were arrested over the course of the G20 weekend on June 26 and 27, but most of those detained were not charged. Around 140 people are still facing charges and six people have been convicted.
Another provincial body, the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, is investigating around 275 complaints about police conduct during the G20. That watchdog has not said when they expect their review to be completed.
No police charged for civilian G20 injuries: SIU
6 men lodged complaints
Last Updated: Thursday, November 25, 2010 | 6:01 PM ET
CBC News
The SIU says it has been unable to identify police officers it says used excessive force when arresting two men at a G20 protest on June 26 at Queen's Park in Toronto. (Canadian Press)
An Ontario police watchdog is not holding any officers accountable for separate incidents in which it says excessive force was likely used against two civilians at a G20 protest in Toronto.
The province's Special Investigations Unit, which probes police operations where civilians are hurt or killed, on Thursday released the results of its investigation into six complaints of police brutality during last June's G20 summit.
The six men in question all complained that they were injured when law enforcement officers used excessive force against them at various locations across Toronto's downtown on June 26. One man had his arm broken in an interaction with an officer, while another two suffered facial fractures.
The SIU concluded that officers were not at fault for four of the incidents, citing either a lack of evidence to support the theory that excessive force was used, or an inability to determine how exactly the complainants sustained their injuries.
"It's been my experience here … that the SIU does a thorough, complete and impartial investigation," Frank Phillips, a spokesman for the SIU, told CBC News.
"If the evidence isn't there, the charge is not going to be laid."
But the agency concluded that it is probable excessive force was used in the case of two men who suffered facial fractures at a protest at Queen's Park.
Subject officers decline interview
Adam Nobody, 27, was running from officers in riot gear who were advancing upon him at the Queen's Park protest, the SIU said.
He was tackled by the officers and arrested in an incident that demonstrates "probable excessive use of force by an unidentified police officer," Ian Scott, the director of the agency, said in a statement.
"The arm of one of the officers can be seen moving very quickly two or three times in a striking motion toward the complainant with a closed fist in the upper area of either his body or head. If one or more of those blows landed in the complainant's facial area, it would be consistent with the injury he received," he said.
Identification controversy
SIU spokesman Frank Phillips said he couldn't say whether any of the officers involved in any of the six complaints were wearing identification.
About 90 Toronto police officers face disciplinary action for not wearing ID badges during the G20 summit.
"It is unknown whether any of the involved officers in these cases were wearing their name tags, nor is it clear on the evidence whether if they were wearing their name tags, it would have made any difference on the question of investigation given the volatility and the dynamics of the situation," Phillips said.
The SIU said it designated two officers as the subject of its investigation. Both declined to be interviewed in the investigation, as they are legally entitled to do. In total, the SIU interviewed eight officers and one civilian witness in its investigation.
The arrest is also captured in a YouTube video. But Scott said "it is impossible from the video to identify the officer who delivered these blows. They are all wearing largely identical clothing with helmets, and the video is taken from too great a distance to be of any assistance."
As the SIU was unable to determine exactly which officer used excessive force, it is not proceeding with a criminal investigation.
Arrested while helping fallen woman
Brendan Latimer, 19, was also at the Queen's Park protest and, like Nobody, suffered a facial fracture in the melee.
Latimer was knocked to the ground while helping a young woman who had fallen, according to the SIU. Demonstrators were fleeing the area after police started advancing on them, the SIU said.
Latimer was trampled by some of the protesters, and was on the ground for 25 to 30 seconds before officers moved in to arrest him. He alleges one officer struck him in the face, causing a fracture.
After interviewing nine witness officers and one civilian witness, the SIU concluded "there are reasonable grounds to believe an officer used excessive force leading to injuries to the complainant," Scott said.
"However, given the fact that no subject officer can be named after a thorough investigation, I cannot form reasonable grounds that any identified officer committed a criminal offence in the circumstances of this case."
The SIU said it is not looking into any other cases of alleged assault by law enforcement officers. It is unclear whether the officers involved in any of the six incidents were members of the Toronto Police Service, or whether they were from one of the myriad other forces responsible for policing the summit.
Around 1,100 people were arrested over the course of the G20 weekend on June 26 and 27, but most of those detained were not charged. Around 140 people are still facing charges and six people have been convicted.
Another provincial body, the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, is investigating around 275 complaints about police conduct during the G20. That watchdog has not said when they expect their review to be completed.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
MINDFULNESS
Breathe Away Pain
While resisting pain only makes suffering worse, mindfulness meditation can help chronic pain sufferers.
By Ferris Jabr
Pain is necessary. It alerts us to threats, teaches us to avoid future risks, and makes sure we don't forget to help ourselves heal. Our bodies have evolved instinctive reactions to pain and injury—accidentally brush your hand against a boiling kettle and your arm will retract reflexively before you even realize why. Our minds, too, respond to pain in a characteristic manner: ever notice how even a minor wound can dominate your thoughts?
But what if you could manipulate your natural response to pain in order to control and alleviate suffering? That approach—aided by a technique known as mindfulness meditation—holds great promise for those experiencing chronic pain.
Though pain usually serves a beneficial purpose, chronic pain—which persists far longer than the usual period for an injury or illness—is pathological. Close to 1 in 3 Americans suffers from chronic pain to varying degrees, according to Penny Cowan, founder and executive director of the American Chronic Pain Association. Headaches and pain from the lower back, cancer, and arthritis are among the more common afflictions.
In a June 2008 study published in The Journal of Pain, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh found that elderly individuals who suffer from chronic low back pain benefited from mindfulness meditation, experiencing less pain, better sleep, enhanced well-being, and improved quality of life. And a 2003 review in Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice found significant improvements in pain ratings and other medical and psychological symptoms across a decade of studies.
The basics of mindfulness meditation aren't as complicated as you may think. First, you should simply relax, while maintaining good posture. Then close your eyes and accept all sensations as they filter through you. Don't judge them, but rather focus on your breathing. If you get distracted, gently guide yourself back to the sound and rhythm of your own breathing. The aim is to achieve active and focused moment-by-moment awareness of your present experience.
If you are in chronic pain, you may worry that increasing your awareness could only amp up your suffering. But mindfulness meditation can actually help by redirecting your attention, Cowan says. Our instinct is to resist pain, but resistance only increases suffering. Mindfulness can relinquish your resistance, thereby lessening the experience of your pain.
Meditation can help you find "the spaces in between" all of your experiences, where you can be in the moment and not in the pain—or worries about the pain, or feelings of anxiety or sadness, says Lonnie Zeltzer, professor of pediatrics, anesthesiology, and psychiatry at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, and director of the Pediatric Pain Program. "By sitting each day to meditate, your brain actually begins to quiet down; you begin to feel more equanimity, and the pain begins to lessen and move from foreground to background."
A few suggestions for mindfulness meditation:
Find a Good Spot
Location can influence your ability to meditate properly. Above all, choose a place where you feel comfortable. The less distracting and quieter it is, the better.
Sit Right
You may sit in a chair or on the ground, but sitting with your legs crossed and your back straight is best. Comfort is good; slouching isn't. Buddhists believe that erect posture strengthens the connection between mind and body.
Breathe!
Your primary goal is to maintain a focus on—and solely on—your own natural inhalation and exhalation. Not only does such focus anchor you to successful meditation, it helps relax your body and your mind.
Keep Re-Focusing
Inevitably, your thoughts are going to wander. It will be impossible to think only of your breathing. But that's perfectly fine. Simply return your focus each time you realize you've been distracted.
While resisting pain only makes suffering worse, mindfulness meditation can help chronic pain sufferers.
By Ferris Jabr
Pain is necessary. It alerts us to threats, teaches us to avoid future risks, and makes sure we don't forget to help ourselves heal. Our bodies have evolved instinctive reactions to pain and injury—accidentally brush your hand against a boiling kettle and your arm will retract reflexively before you even realize why. Our minds, too, respond to pain in a characteristic manner: ever notice how even a minor wound can dominate your thoughts?
But what if you could manipulate your natural response to pain in order to control and alleviate suffering? That approach—aided by a technique known as mindfulness meditation—holds great promise for those experiencing chronic pain.
Though pain usually serves a beneficial purpose, chronic pain—which persists far longer than the usual period for an injury or illness—is pathological. Close to 1 in 3 Americans suffers from chronic pain to varying degrees, according to Penny Cowan, founder and executive director of the American Chronic Pain Association. Headaches and pain from the lower back, cancer, and arthritis are among the more common afflictions.
In a June 2008 study published in The Journal of Pain, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh found that elderly individuals who suffer from chronic low back pain benefited from mindfulness meditation, experiencing less pain, better sleep, enhanced well-being, and improved quality of life. And a 2003 review in Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice found significant improvements in pain ratings and other medical and psychological symptoms across a decade of studies.
The basics of mindfulness meditation aren't as complicated as you may think. First, you should simply relax, while maintaining good posture. Then close your eyes and accept all sensations as they filter through you. Don't judge them, but rather focus on your breathing. If you get distracted, gently guide yourself back to the sound and rhythm of your own breathing. The aim is to achieve active and focused moment-by-moment awareness of your present experience.
If you are in chronic pain, you may worry that increasing your awareness could only amp up your suffering. But mindfulness meditation can actually help by redirecting your attention, Cowan says. Our instinct is to resist pain, but resistance only increases suffering. Mindfulness can relinquish your resistance, thereby lessening the experience of your pain.
Meditation can help you find "the spaces in between" all of your experiences, where you can be in the moment and not in the pain—or worries about the pain, or feelings of anxiety or sadness, says Lonnie Zeltzer, professor of pediatrics, anesthesiology, and psychiatry at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, and director of the Pediatric Pain Program. "By sitting each day to meditate, your brain actually begins to quiet down; you begin to feel more equanimity, and the pain begins to lessen and move from foreground to background."
A few suggestions for mindfulness meditation:
Find a Good Spot
Location can influence your ability to meditate properly. Above all, choose a place where you feel comfortable. The less distracting and quieter it is, the better.
Sit Right
You may sit in a chair or on the ground, but sitting with your legs crossed and your back straight is best. Comfort is good; slouching isn't. Buddhists believe that erect posture strengthens the connection between mind and body.
Breathe!
Your primary goal is to maintain a focus on—and solely on—your own natural inhalation and exhalation. Not only does such focus anchor you to successful meditation, it helps relax your body and your mind.
Keep Re-Focusing
Inevitably, your thoughts are going to wander. It will be impossible to think only of your breathing. But that's perfectly fine. Simply return your focus each time you realize you've been distracted.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Fish respond to SSRIs??!
Solitary fish hit rock bottom
'Frozen' zebrafish may be first piscene model for human depression.
November 22, 2010 0
By David Cyranoski
Zebrafish that stop swimming when left without company are showing promise as the first fish model of a human mood disorder.
In 2005, when neurobiologist Herwig Baier of the University of California, San Francisco, was screening thousands of zebrafish for vision problems, he found one that seemed a bit "off." If alone, especially after repeated periods of isolation, the fish would "freeze": just sit at the bottom of the tank (see video). If fish that swum normally were put in the tank, the relatively inactive fish became normal and swam around too.
Baier looked at the genetic mutations in the "frozen" fish and found one in the glucocorticoid receptor, a protein that is found in almost every cell and that senses cortisol--a hormone involved in the stress response. In the normal response to a stressful situation, the hypothalamus in the brain sends corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) to the pituitary gland, which releases adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) to the adrenal gland. The adrenal gland in turn produces cortisol. Cortisol then effectively reduces levels of ACTH and CRH, completing the normal response that allows both humans and zebrafish to deal with stress.
In the frozen fish, however, Baier found that levels of all three hormones--CRH, ACTH and cortisol--were higher than normal. He guessed that the animals were unable to respond properly to chronic stress--a problem that is known to trigger anxiety or depression in humans. On the basis of that diagnosis, he started putting the antidepressant fluoxetine (originally marketed as Prozac) in their water. After four days, they started swimming around normally. Other antidepressants and anxiolytics--drugs used to treat anxiety--also worked as a pick-me-up, he says. "There's a long literature on chronic stress being related to depression, but the causal link is unknown," says Baier. "Now we might be able to simulate this in fish and study it."
Mutant marvel
Discussing his results at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego, Calif., last week, Baier says his mutants could represent the first fish model for a mood disorder and be a useful screening model for drugs.
"The fact that the key elements of stress and stress response are conserved in zebrafish is exciting because of the many experimental advantages of that model organism," says chemical geneticist Randall Peterson of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown.
Studies this year support the idea that zebrafish can model complex behavior. Earlier this year, Peterson and his collaborator, neuroscientist Alex Schier of Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., published the first two small-molecule screens based on zebrafish behavior. The studies focused on motor behavior, not mood disorders, but the team found that certain classes of psychotropic drugs, such as the antidepressants known as monoamine oxidase inhibitors, had recognizable, characteristic effects on behavior. "So, the idea of discovering new therapeutic approaches for anxiety or depression may not be so far-fetched," says Peterson.
If that proves true, the finding could accelerate drug-discovery programs. Chemical biology and drug discovery usually depend on screens of cells in lab dishes, for example. "But much of biology can't be easily reduced to an in vitro assay. This is particularly true for nervous-system disorders, where a complex, integrated nervous system is essential for research," says Peterson. Filling thousands of tiny wells on lab plates with zebrafish larvae and dousing them with candidate drug molecules offers the best of both worlds--high-throughput screening in a living system. "When we discover a new small molecule, we have the advantage of knowing that it works in vivo," he says.
Larval question
Baier plans to do the same sort of screening for new antidepressants and anxiolytics using his "frozen" fish. But Peterson does sound a note of caution. Baier's experiments used adult fish, whereas most zebrafish screens use larvae. Using adult for screening would be expensive and laborious. Baier plans to use larval stages but he admits it is not clear yet whether the larval zebrafish will react in the same way as the adult mutants.
The model will also have to convince the pharmaceutical industry that fish depression has significant similarities with the condition in people. This has not always been the case with mice, which as mammals should be a closer match to humans. "Considering the challenges of using rodents, including genetically engineered mice, to validly model human psychiatric diseases, zebrafish probably have some way to go before they are accepted as a translational model," said conference delegate Jeffrey Kogan, a behavioral neuroscientist working within the pharma industry who studies psychiatric disease.
It might, however, just take some time to sink in. In an e-mail to Nature a few days later, Kogan said that zebrafish might be a useful model organism for psychiatric disease after all. The huge numbers of fish that can be used in such studies would, for example, give the zebrafish mutant an advantage over the mouse. "I may have to reconsider my opinion," he says.
'Frozen' zebrafish may be first piscene model for human depression.
November 22, 2010 0
By David Cyranoski
Zebrafish that stop swimming when left without company are showing promise as the first fish model of a human mood disorder.
In 2005, when neurobiologist Herwig Baier of the University of California, San Francisco, was screening thousands of zebrafish for vision problems, he found one that seemed a bit "off." If alone, especially after repeated periods of isolation, the fish would "freeze": just sit at the bottom of the tank (see video). If fish that swum normally were put in the tank, the relatively inactive fish became normal and swam around too.
Baier looked at the genetic mutations in the "frozen" fish and found one in the glucocorticoid receptor, a protein that is found in almost every cell and that senses cortisol--a hormone involved in the stress response. In the normal response to a stressful situation, the hypothalamus in the brain sends corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) to the pituitary gland, which releases adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) to the adrenal gland. The adrenal gland in turn produces cortisol. Cortisol then effectively reduces levels of ACTH and CRH, completing the normal response that allows both humans and zebrafish to deal with stress.
In the frozen fish, however, Baier found that levels of all three hormones--CRH, ACTH and cortisol--were higher than normal. He guessed that the animals were unable to respond properly to chronic stress--a problem that is known to trigger anxiety or depression in humans. On the basis of that diagnosis, he started putting the antidepressant fluoxetine (originally marketed as Prozac) in their water. After four days, they started swimming around normally. Other antidepressants and anxiolytics--drugs used to treat anxiety--also worked as a pick-me-up, he says. "There's a long literature on chronic stress being related to depression, but the causal link is unknown," says Baier. "Now we might be able to simulate this in fish and study it."
Mutant marvel
Discussing his results at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego, Calif., last week, Baier says his mutants could represent the first fish model for a mood disorder and be a useful screening model for drugs.
"The fact that the key elements of stress and stress response are conserved in zebrafish is exciting because of the many experimental advantages of that model organism," says chemical geneticist Randall Peterson of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown.
Studies this year support the idea that zebrafish can model complex behavior. Earlier this year, Peterson and his collaborator, neuroscientist Alex Schier of Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., published the first two small-molecule screens based on zebrafish behavior. The studies focused on motor behavior, not mood disorders, but the team found that certain classes of psychotropic drugs, such as the antidepressants known as monoamine oxidase inhibitors, had recognizable, characteristic effects on behavior. "So, the idea of discovering new therapeutic approaches for anxiety or depression may not be so far-fetched," says Peterson.
If that proves true, the finding could accelerate drug-discovery programs. Chemical biology and drug discovery usually depend on screens of cells in lab dishes, for example. "But much of biology can't be easily reduced to an in vitro assay. This is particularly true for nervous-system disorders, where a complex, integrated nervous system is essential for research," says Peterson. Filling thousands of tiny wells on lab plates with zebrafish larvae and dousing them with candidate drug molecules offers the best of both worlds--high-throughput screening in a living system. "When we discover a new small molecule, we have the advantage of knowing that it works in vivo," he says.
Larval question
Baier plans to do the same sort of screening for new antidepressants and anxiolytics using his "frozen" fish. But Peterson does sound a note of caution. Baier's experiments used adult fish, whereas most zebrafish screens use larvae. Using adult for screening would be expensive and laborious. Baier plans to use larval stages but he admits it is not clear yet whether the larval zebrafish will react in the same way as the adult mutants.
The model will also have to convince the pharmaceutical industry that fish depression has significant similarities with the condition in people. This has not always been the case with mice, which as mammals should be a closer match to humans. "Considering the challenges of using rodents, including genetically engineered mice, to validly model human psychiatric diseases, zebrafish probably have some way to go before they are accepted as a translational model," said conference delegate Jeffrey Kogan, a behavioral neuroscientist working within the pharma industry who studies psychiatric disease.
It might, however, just take some time to sink in. In an e-mail to Nature a few days later, Kogan said that zebrafish might be a useful model organism for psychiatric disease after all. The huge numbers of fish that can be used in such studies would, for example, give the zebrafish mutant an advantage over the mouse. "I may have to reconsider my opinion," he says.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
A cold hard cruel politician. If I agreed with him I'd love him.
And if I agreed with the Senate's existence, I'd love those old fools too.
NDP outraged as Senate kills climate change bill
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper has turned back the clock on Canada's democracy by centuries after allowing unelected Conservative senators to use their majority to kill climate change legislation adopted by a majority of MPs in the House of Commons, NDP leader Jack Layton said Wednesday.
Conservative senators used a procedural tactic Tuesday night to scrap the bill, adopted in the Commons last spring in a vote of 149 to 136, without allowing it to be examined in Senate hearings or debated in the Senate chamber.
"That is totally contrary to the constitutional tradition of this country," said Layton, standing with his caucus in front of the Senate chamber on Parliament Hill. "It is totally contradictory and every Canadian should now be worried because these senators are here for one heck of a long time. And what's going to be next? What bill, representing the will of Canadians, is this Senate going to stop next? This Senate should be abolished. It should be ashamed of itself."
The climate change accountability legislation, introduced by the NDP, was also previously adopted by the Commons but died on the order paper when Harper called the 2008 election. NDP MP Bruce Hyer sponsored the latest version of the bill that calls on the government to adopt science-based targets for reducing pollution linked to global warming and to regularly report results and effectiveness of its policies.
Layton compared the Harper government tactics to the regime that prompted rebellions in what was then Upper and Lower Canada in the 1830s.
"The Senate hasn't done that for a private member's bill on second reading in 70 years," said Layton. "Stephen Harper is turning back the clock on democracy in this country and he starts with the climate change bill . . . We must not as Canadians allow the Senate to get away with this, because it would re-establish a system of government that we had thrown out 200 years ago and it's got to stop. OK, maybe not 200 years — the rebellions of (1838) — I'll start there."
He added that it also contrasts with Harper's previous criticism of the Senate when it was dominated by a Liberal majority.
"What's it going to be next?" Layton asked. "Is he saying it doesn't matter if Canadians throw Stephen Harper out of office in the next election. But he's now got his majority socked in here to make sure that his agenda gets established and that anything positive that the House of Commons wants to do can get blocked."
Marjory LeBreton, leader of the government in the Senate, said the Conservatives were prepared to debate the legislation, and suggested the Liberals were the ones who forced the 43 to 32 vote that killed the bill.
The Liberals said the Conservatives were to blame.
Environmental groups said the legislation provided guidelines for meeting Canada's international climate change obligations in a clear and transparent manner.
"It would have been difficult to watch the Senate defeat this groundbreaking legislation under any circumstances," said Clare Demerse, associate director of climate change at the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based environmental research group. "But to see it lost in this way is even tougher: C-311 was defeated without any debate, without the chance to call a single witness to explain what it offered, and at a moment when key supporters of the bill happened to be away from the Senate."
— with files from Meagan Fitzpatrick (Postmedia News)
mdesouza@postmedia.com
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
NDP outraged as Senate kills climate change bill
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper has turned back the clock on Canada's democracy by centuries after allowing unelected Conservative senators to use their majority to kill climate change legislation adopted by a majority of MPs in the House of Commons, NDP leader Jack Layton said Wednesday.
Conservative senators used a procedural tactic Tuesday night to scrap the bill, adopted in the Commons last spring in a vote of 149 to 136, without allowing it to be examined in Senate hearings or debated in the Senate chamber.
"That is totally contrary to the constitutional tradition of this country," said Layton, standing with his caucus in front of the Senate chamber on Parliament Hill. "It is totally contradictory and every Canadian should now be worried because these senators are here for one heck of a long time. And what's going to be next? What bill, representing the will of Canadians, is this Senate going to stop next? This Senate should be abolished. It should be ashamed of itself."
The climate change accountability legislation, introduced by the NDP, was also previously adopted by the Commons but died on the order paper when Harper called the 2008 election. NDP MP Bruce Hyer sponsored the latest version of the bill that calls on the government to adopt science-based targets for reducing pollution linked to global warming and to regularly report results and effectiveness of its policies.
Layton compared the Harper government tactics to the regime that prompted rebellions in what was then Upper and Lower Canada in the 1830s.
"The Senate hasn't done that for a private member's bill on second reading in 70 years," said Layton. "Stephen Harper is turning back the clock on democracy in this country and he starts with the climate change bill . . . We must not as Canadians allow the Senate to get away with this, because it would re-establish a system of government that we had thrown out 200 years ago and it's got to stop. OK, maybe not 200 years — the rebellions of (1838) — I'll start there."
He added that it also contrasts with Harper's previous criticism of the Senate when it was dominated by a Liberal majority.
"What's it going to be next?" Layton asked. "Is he saying it doesn't matter if Canadians throw Stephen Harper out of office in the next election. But he's now got his majority socked in here to make sure that his agenda gets established and that anything positive that the House of Commons wants to do can get blocked."
Marjory LeBreton, leader of the government in the Senate, said the Conservatives were prepared to debate the legislation, and suggested the Liberals were the ones who forced the 43 to 32 vote that killed the bill.
The Liberals said the Conservatives were to blame.
Environmental groups said the legislation provided guidelines for meeting Canada's international climate change obligations in a clear and transparent manner.
"It would have been difficult to watch the Senate defeat this groundbreaking legislation under any circumstances," said Clare Demerse, associate director of climate change at the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based environmental research group. "But to see it lost in this way is even tougher: C-311 was defeated without any debate, without the chance to call a single witness to explain what it offered, and at a moment when key supporters of the bill happened to be away from the Senate."
— with files from Meagan Fitzpatrick (Postmedia News)
mdesouza@postmedia.com
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Live in the Moment or Be Unhappy
Live in the Moment or Be Unhappy
Link
By RICK NAUERT PHD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on November 12, 2010
A new study finds that the admonition to “live in the moment” is more important than we imagined.
Researchers found that people spend almost 50 percent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they are doing — and that mind-wandering typically makes one unhappy.
The research is described this week in the journal Science.
Psychologists Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert of Harvard University used an iPhone web app to gather 250,000 data points on subjects’ thoughts, feelings, and actions as they went about their lives.
“A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind,” Killingsworth and Gilbert write.
“The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.”
Unlike other animals, humans spend a lot of time thinking about what isn’t going on around them: contemplating events that happened in the past, might happen in the future, or may never happen at all. Indeed, mind-wandering appears to be the human brain’s default mode of operation.
To track this behavior, Killingsworth developed an iPhone web app that contacted 2,250 volunteers at random intervals to ask how happy they were, what they were currently doing, and whether they were thinking about their current activity or about something else that was pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant.
Subjects could choose from 22 general activities, such as walking, eating, shopping, and watching television. On average, respondents reported that their minds were wandering 46.9 percent of time, and no less than 30 percent of the time during every activity except making love.
“Mind-wandering appears ubiquitous across all activities,” says Killingsworth, a doctoral student in psychology at Harvard. “This study shows that our mental lives are pervaded, to a remarkable degree, by the non-present.”
Killingsworth and Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard, found that people were happiest when making love, exercising, or engaging in conversation. They were least happy when resting, working, or using a home computer.
“Mind-wandering is an excellent predictor of people’s happiness,” Killingsworth says.
“In fact, how often our minds leave the present and where they tend to go is a better predictor of our happiness than the activities in which we are engaged.”
The researchers estimated that only 4.6 percent of a person’s happiness in a given moment was attributable to the specific activity he or she was doing, whereas a person’s mind-wandering status accounted for about 10.8 percent of his or her happiness.
Time-lag analyses conducted by the researchers suggested that their subjects’ mind-wandering was generally the cause, not the consequence, of their unhappiness.
“Many philosophical and religious traditions teach that happiness is to be found by living in the moment, and practitioners are trained to resist mind wandering and to ‘be here now,’” Killingsworth and Gilbert note in Science.
“These traditions suggest that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.”
This new research, the authors say, suggests that these traditions are right.
Killingsworth and Gilbert’s 2,250 subjects in this study ranged in age from 18 to 88, representing a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds and occupations. Seventy-four percent of study participants were American.
More than 5,000 people are now using the iPhone web app the researchers have developed to study happiness, which can be found at www.trackyourhappiness.org.
Source: Harvard University
Link
By RICK NAUERT PHD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on November 12, 2010
A new study finds that the admonition to “live in the moment” is more important than we imagined.
Researchers found that people spend almost 50 percent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they are doing — and that mind-wandering typically makes one unhappy.
The research is described this week in the journal Science.
Psychologists Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert of Harvard University used an iPhone web app to gather 250,000 data points on subjects’ thoughts, feelings, and actions as they went about their lives.
“A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind,” Killingsworth and Gilbert write.
“The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.”
Unlike other animals, humans spend a lot of time thinking about what isn’t going on around them: contemplating events that happened in the past, might happen in the future, or may never happen at all. Indeed, mind-wandering appears to be the human brain’s default mode of operation.
To track this behavior, Killingsworth developed an iPhone web app that contacted 2,250 volunteers at random intervals to ask how happy they were, what they were currently doing, and whether they were thinking about their current activity or about something else that was pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant.
Subjects could choose from 22 general activities, such as walking, eating, shopping, and watching television. On average, respondents reported that their minds were wandering 46.9 percent of time, and no less than 30 percent of the time during every activity except making love.
“Mind-wandering appears ubiquitous across all activities,” says Killingsworth, a doctoral student in psychology at Harvard. “This study shows that our mental lives are pervaded, to a remarkable degree, by the non-present.”
Killingsworth and Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard, found that people were happiest when making love, exercising, or engaging in conversation. They were least happy when resting, working, or using a home computer.
“Mind-wandering is an excellent predictor of people’s happiness,” Killingsworth says.
“In fact, how often our minds leave the present and where they tend to go is a better predictor of our happiness than the activities in which we are engaged.”
The researchers estimated that only 4.6 percent of a person’s happiness in a given moment was attributable to the specific activity he or she was doing, whereas a person’s mind-wandering status accounted for about 10.8 percent of his or her happiness.
Time-lag analyses conducted by the researchers suggested that their subjects’ mind-wandering was generally the cause, not the consequence, of their unhappiness.
“Many philosophical and religious traditions teach that happiness is to be found by living in the moment, and practitioners are trained to resist mind wandering and to ‘be here now,’” Killingsworth and Gilbert note in Science.
“These traditions suggest that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.”
This new research, the authors say, suggests that these traditions are right.
Killingsworth and Gilbert’s 2,250 subjects in this study ranged in age from 18 to 88, representing a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds and occupations. Seventy-four percent of study participants were American.
More than 5,000 people are now using the iPhone web app the researchers have developed to study happiness, which can be found at www.trackyourhappiness.org.
Source: Harvard University
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Friday, November 5, 2010
Cops beat innocent man and are vindicated.
As with any situation, the cops have one story and the "offender" has another. If only it was filmed.
Nonetheless, with the VDP's current record of abuse, we the public have reason to be skeptical of the "official" story. But regardless of who's story is true, the fact that the cops had the wrong address should be enough for them to admit fault; of course, they did not.
http://www.vancouversun.com/Report+Vancouver+police+beating+case+reveals+different+accounts/3785897/story.html
VANCOUVER -- To Yao Wei Wu, the encounter in January was a textbook case of police brutality: Two heavy-handed officers banged on his door in the middle of the night, roused the 44-year-old from his sleep and beat him until he was bloodied, in front of his family, for no reason.
To Vancouver police, it was the appropriate response to what they believed was a violent, drunken man threatening the safety of a woman and baby, their efforts unfortunately derailed by a case of mistaken identity but the situation exacerbated by a resistant and combative Wu.
The result is a high-profile case that for nine months has been the subject of an investigation by the Delta police department, which Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu asked to take over after learning Wu had retained prominent lawyer Cameron Ward.
The two officers were cleared of any wrongdoing on Wednesday, a written decision by Delta Police Chief Jim Cessford saying they had acted "in good faith," had reasonable grounds to believe Wu was their suspect and "used reasonable force" to arrest him.
The final investigation report, which was completed Oct. 18 and includes transcripts of interviews with Wu and police constables Nicholas Florkow and Bryan London, illustrates two very different accounts of what happened at Wu's south Vancouver home in the early hours of Jan. 21.
A woman had called 911 at 2:16 a.m. to report that her intoxicated husband had assaulted her and that her 10-month-old baby was at the residence. However, she was reluctant to provide details to the 911 dispatcher, saying she was afraid her child would be taken away by child services, according to the report. After some initial confusion, Florkow and London, both in plain clothes with badges worn around their necks, arrived at the right Lanark Street house — but the wrong door. The female caller, Wu's tenant, lived in the basement suite of the house, accessed through the rear.
awoo@vancouversun.com
The Vancouver police version:
1. At about 2:25 a.m., police knock on the front door and ring the doorbell. Wu asks through the door who it is, to which officers reply, "Vancouver police" and hold their badges up to a small window in the door. They identify themselves as "Vancouver police" between seven and 10 times.
2. Wu opens the door about 10 inches. Florkow holds his badge and police ID card up to Wu's face and states again that they are police and need to enter the home to investigate a domestic disturbance. Wu says "no" repeatedly. Florkow sticks his foot in the doorway so Wu can't close the door.
3. Wu shoves Florkow in the chest with both hands, then grabs him around the shoulders and attempts to pull him to the ground. Florkow attempts to step backwards and disengage.
4. London grabs hold of Wu and takes him to the ground outside the front door. The left side of Wu's face makes contact with the concrete as he is taken down.
5. London tells Wu several times to put his hands behind his back and that he is under arrest. Wu does not comply and instead swings his arms and attempts to stand up. Florkow employs three unsuccessful "close-handed tactical strikes" to Wu's upper shoulder. Wu continues to resist and Florkow employs two more "close-handed tactical stuns" to Wu's upper back.
6. London and Florkow eventually press Wu onto his stomach and handcuff him. It is then that the officers learn from other people at the residence they have the wrong person.
Yao Wei Wu's version:
1. After hearing someone banging on his front door, Wu, who speaks very limited English, walks downstairs, looks through the door's peephole at the two men and asks, in English, who it is. One man responds, "police." Wu says the man was wearing what "looked like a police badge."
2. Wu opens the door eight to 18 inches after Florkow and London identify themselves as police.
3. The officers immediately push the door open and pull Wu outside without explaining why they are there.
4. Florkow and London press Wu to the ground and beat him for 10 to 20 minutes. "It was very quick when I was outside. ... I didn't know whether I was scared or what."
5. Wu cries hysterically and screams for help in Cantonese. He covers his head as they hit him in the face. He doesn't remember how his eye is injured. "It was very chaotic."
6. The officers handcuff Wu and pin him to the ground. The officers then call emergency health services to attend to Wu. Wu's handcuffs are removed when he is in the ambulance. More officers arrive, including a Cantonese-speaking officer who explains the situation and apologizes for the mix-up.
Nonetheless, with the VDP's current record of abuse, we the public have reason to be skeptical of the "official" story. But regardless of who's story is true, the fact that the cops had the wrong address should be enough for them to admit fault; of course, they did not.
http://www.vancouversun.com/Report+Vancouver+police+beating+case+reveals+different+accounts/3785897/story.html
VANCOUVER -- To Yao Wei Wu, the encounter in January was a textbook case of police brutality: Two heavy-handed officers banged on his door in the middle of the night, roused the 44-year-old from his sleep and beat him until he was bloodied, in front of his family, for no reason.
To Vancouver police, it was the appropriate response to what they believed was a violent, drunken man threatening the safety of a woman and baby, their efforts unfortunately derailed by a case of mistaken identity but the situation exacerbated by a resistant and combative Wu.
The result is a high-profile case that for nine months has been the subject of an investigation by the Delta police department, which Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu asked to take over after learning Wu had retained prominent lawyer Cameron Ward.
The two officers were cleared of any wrongdoing on Wednesday, a written decision by Delta Police Chief Jim Cessford saying they had acted "in good faith," had reasonable grounds to believe Wu was their suspect and "used reasonable force" to arrest him.
The final investigation report, which was completed Oct. 18 and includes transcripts of interviews with Wu and police constables Nicholas Florkow and Bryan London, illustrates two very different accounts of what happened at Wu's south Vancouver home in the early hours of Jan. 21.
A woman had called 911 at 2:16 a.m. to report that her intoxicated husband had assaulted her and that her 10-month-old baby was at the residence. However, she was reluctant to provide details to the 911 dispatcher, saying she was afraid her child would be taken away by child services, according to the report. After some initial confusion, Florkow and London, both in plain clothes with badges worn around their necks, arrived at the right Lanark Street house — but the wrong door. The female caller, Wu's tenant, lived in the basement suite of the house, accessed through the rear.
awoo@vancouversun.com
The Vancouver police version:
1. At about 2:25 a.m., police knock on the front door and ring the doorbell. Wu asks through the door who it is, to which officers reply, "Vancouver police" and hold their badges up to a small window in the door. They identify themselves as "Vancouver police" between seven and 10 times.
2. Wu opens the door about 10 inches. Florkow holds his badge and police ID card up to Wu's face and states again that they are police and need to enter the home to investigate a domestic disturbance. Wu says "no" repeatedly. Florkow sticks his foot in the doorway so Wu can't close the door.
3. Wu shoves Florkow in the chest with both hands, then grabs him around the shoulders and attempts to pull him to the ground. Florkow attempts to step backwards and disengage.
4. London grabs hold of Wu and takes him to the ground outside the front door. The left side of Wu's face makes contact with the concrete as he is taken down.
5. London tells Wu several times to put his hands behind his back and that he is under arrest. Wu does not comply and instead swings his arms and attempts to stand up. Florkow employs three unsuccessful "close-handed tactical strikes" to Wu's upper shoulder. Wu continues to resist and Florkow employs two more "close-handed tactical stuns" to Wu's upper back.
6. London and Florkow eventually press Wu onto his stomach and handcuff him. It is then that the officers learn from other people at the residence they have the wrong person.
Yao Wei Wu's version:
1. After hearing someone banging on his front door, Wu, who speaks very limited English, walks downstairs, looks through the door's peephole at the two men and asks, in English, who it is. One man responds, "police." Wu says the man was wearing what "looked like a police badge."
2. Wu opens the door eight to 18 inches after Florkow and London identify themselves as police.
3. The officers immediately push the door open and pull Wu outside without explaining why they are there.
4. Florkow and London press Wu to the ground and beat him for 10 to 20 minutes. "It was very quick when I was outside. ... I didn't know whether I was scared or what."
5. Wu cries hysterically and screams for help in Cantonese. He covers his head as they hit him in the face. He doesn't remember how his eye is injured. "It was very chaotic."
6. The officers handcuff Wu and pin him to the ground. The officers then call emergency health services to attend to Wu. Wu's handcuffs are removed when he is in the ambulance. More officers arrive, including a Cantonese-speaking officer who explains the situation and apologizes for the mix-up.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
An extremely interesting article about our brains' natural negativity...
Our Brain's Negative Bias
Psychology Today
Why do insults once hurled at us stick inside our skull, sometimes for decades? Why do some people have to work extra hard to ward off depression?
The answer is, for the same reason political smear campaigns outpull positive ones. Nastiness just makes a bigger impact on our brains.
And that is due to the brain's "negativity bias": Your brain is simply built with a greater sensitivity to unpleasant news. The bias is so automatic that it can be detected at the earliest stage of the brain's information processing.
Take, for example, the studies done by John Cacioppo, Ph.D., then at Ohio State University, now at the University of Chicago. He showed people pictures known to arouse positive feelings (say, a Ferrari, or a pizza), those certain to stir up negative feelings (a mutilated face or dead cat) and those known to produce neutral feelings (a plate, a hair dryer). Meanwhile, he recorded electrical activity in the brain's cerebral cortex that reflects the magnitude of information processing taking place.
The brain, Cacioppo demonstrated, reacts more strongly to stimuli it deems negative. There is a greater surge in electrical activity. Thus, our attitudes are more heavily influenced by downbeat news than good news.
Our capacity to weigh negative input so heavily most likely evolved for a good reason—to keep us out of harm's way. From the dawn of human history, our very survival depended on our skill at dodging danger. The brain developed systems that would make it unavoidable for us not to notice danger and thus, hopefully, respond to it.
All well and good. Having the built-in brain apparatus supersensitive to negativity means that the same bad-news bias also is at work in every sphere of our lives at all times.
So it should come as no surprise to learn that it plays an especially powerful role in our most intimate relationships. Numerous researchers have found that there is an ideal balance between negativity and positivity in the atmosphere between partners. There seems to be some kind of thermostat operating in healthy marriages that almost automatically regulates the balance between positive and negative.
What really separates contented couples from those in deep marital misery is a healthy balance between their positive and negative feelings and actions toward each other. Even couples who are volatile and argue a lot stick together by balancing their frequent arguments with a lot of demonstrations of love and passion. And they seem to know exactly when positive actions are needed.
Here's the tricky part. Because of the disproportionate weight of the negative, balance does not mean a 50-50 equilibrium. Researchers have carefully charted the amount of time couples spend fighting vs. interacting positively. And they have found that a very specific ratio exists between the amount of positivity and negativity required to make married life satisfying to both partners.
That magic ratio is five to one. As long as there was five times as much positive feeling and interaction between husband and wife as there was negative, researchers found, the marriage was likely to be stable over time. In contrast, those couples who were heading for divorce were doing far too little on the positive side to compensate for the growing negativity between them.
Other researchers have found the same results in other spheres of our life. It is the frequency of small positive acts that matters most, in a ratio of about five to one.
Occasional big positive experiences—say, a birthday bash—are nice. But they don't make the necessary impact on our brain to override the tilt to negativity. It takes frequent small positive experiences to tip the scales toward happiness.
Psychology Today
Why do insults once hurled at us stick inside our skull, sometimes for decades? Why do some people have to work extra hard to ward off depression?
The answer is, for the same reason political smear campaigns outpull positive ones. Nastiness just makes a bigger impact on our brains.
And that is due to the brain's "negativity bias": Your brain is simply built with a greater sensitivity to unpleasant news. The bias is so automatic that it can be detected at the earliest stage of the brain's information processing.
Take, for example, the studies done by John Cacioppo, Ph.D., then at Ohio State University, now at the University of Chicago. He showed people pictures known to arouse positive feelings (say, a Ferrari, or a pizza), those certain to stir up negative feelings (a mutilated face or dead cat) and those known to produce neutral feelings (a plate, a hair dryer). Meanwhile, he recorded electrical activity in the brain's cerebral cortex that reflects the magnitude of information processing taking place.
The brain, Cacioppo demonstrated, reacts more strongly to stimuli it deems negative. There is a greater surge in electrical activity. Thus, our attitudes are more heavily influenced by downbeat news than good news.
Our capacity to weigh negative input so heavily most likely evolved for a good reason—to keep us out of harm's way. From the dawn of human history, our very survival depended on our skill at dodging danger. The brain developed systems that would make it unavoidable for us not to notice danger and thus, hopefully, respond to it.
All well and good. Having the built-in brain apparatus supersensitive to negativity means that the same bad-news bias also is at work in every sphere of our lives at all times.
So it should come as no surprise to learn that it plays an especially powerful role in our most intimate relationships. Numerous researchers have found that there is an ideal balance between negativity and positivity in the atmosphere between partners. There seems to be some kind of thermostat operating in healthy marriages that almost automatically regulates the balance between positive and negative.
What really separates contented couples from those in deep marital misery is a healthy balance between their positive and negative feelings and actions toward each other. Even couples who are volatile and argue a lot stick together by balancing their frequent arguments with a lot of demonstrations of love and passion. And they seem to know exactly when positive actions are needed.
Here's the tricky part. Because of the disproportionate weight of the negative, balance does not mean a 50-50 equilibrium. Researchers have carefully charted the amount of time couples spend fighting vs. interacting positively. And they have found that a very specific ratio exists between the amount of positivity and negativity required to make married life satisfying to both partners.
That magic ratio is five to one. As long as there was five times as much positive feeling and interaction between husband and wife as there was negative, researchers found, the marriage was likely to be stable over time. In contrast, those couples who were heading for divorce were doing far too little on the positive side to compensate for the growing negativity between them.
Other researchers have found the same results in other spheres of our life. It is the frequency of small positive acts that matters most, in a ratio of about five to one.
Occasional big positive experiences—say, a birthday bash—are nice. But they don't make the necessary impact on our brain to override the tilt to negativity. It takes frequent small positive experiences to tip the scales toward happiness.
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