ANS -- How Will the 99% Deal with the Psychopaths in the 1%?

Here is an interesting article about what to do about the sociopaths in our midst -- to arrange society so that they do minimal damage, and end up in positions that take advantage of the positive side of having no conscience. (Apparently, people with no conscience are immune to post traumatic stress disorder....) Of course, the article doesn't say how we are going to get there from here, but that's pretty standard.  It does have one slight inaccuracy: He says, "The modern era saw the ascension of "corporate personhood" as an amoral entity enshrined into law by an 1886 ruling of the US Supreme Court." but actually, it wasn't a decision by the court, it was a note added by the clerk of the court in the margins.  Apparently, no one much reads the actual decisions....
Find it here:  http://www.alternet.org/visions/how-will-99-deal-psychopaths-1?paging=off  
--Kim


  Visions  
Cognitive Policy Works / By Joe Brewer
  181 COMMENTS

How Will the 99% Deal with the Psychopaths in the 1%?

A lot of the world's misery can be traced to people who lack the wiring for empathy. What can we do to contain the damage they cause?
July 26, 2012  |  
 


Photo Credit: Thomas Quine
 

 

Did you know that roughly one person in a hundred is clinically a psychopath?  These individuals are either born with an emotional deficiency that keeps them from feeling bad about hurting others, or they are traumatized early in life in a manner that causes them to become this way. With more than 7 billion people on the planet that means there are as many as 70,000,000 psychopaths alive today. These people are more likely to be risk takers, opportunists motivated by self-interest and greed, and inclined to dominate or subjugate those around them through manipulative means.

Last year, the Occupy Movement drew a distinction between the top 1% and the remaining 99% ­ as distinguished by measures of wealth and income.  Of course, this breakdown is misleading, since there are many top income earners who sympathize with the plights of others and are not part of the problem. But the real defining metric reveals itself: 1% of the global population is comprised of people who exhibit psychopathic tendencies.

The global economy we have today is built on a deep history of top-down hierarchies that promote domination and control.  There have been plenty of feudal lords, warrior chieftains, and violent dictators throughout the last 6000 years of burgeoning civilization.  The modern era saw the ascension of "corporate personhood" as an amoral entity enshrined into law by an 1886 ruling of the US Supreme Court.  This provided a new mechanism for mobilizing capital by the moneyed elites to deploy their wealth into the realm of public policy and civil society ­ creating the dysfunctional economic system we must now contend with as we struggle to address global challenges.

We find ourselves in a situation where economic philosophies that celebrate selfishness can be implemented through a web of legal and financial tools that elevate and reward those individuals with psychological tendencies toward self-interest ­ the same people who also have a predisposition to game social contexts to their advantage regardless of impacts on others.  Thus the psychopathic corporation was forged as a Frankenstein monster that enabled the constant flow of psychopathic blood, continuously replenished by the 1% of the population born into psychopathy in each new generation, to rise into positions of power as stock traders, corporate executives, and corruptible politicians.

What can we do collectively to contain and manage this small minority of people who are driven by selfish motives with no concern for others?  How must we include them in our plans so that global civilization can transition to a configuration of peaceful cooperation and environmental balance?  This is the defining question for global financial stability and environmental sustainability.  It runs right to the core of our inability to garner collective action on such systemic challenges as climate change, global poverty, and corporate corruption.  It is the central issue of political power that has so far eluded our environmental and social justice movements.

We can start to sketch out the solution by drawing on cross-disciplinary research about human nature and our evolutionary past.  The key questions are:

1. What are the evolutionary advantages for having psychopaths in the gene pool?
2. How did our ancestors keep their anti-social tendencies in check?
3. What is the positive role for psychopaths that needs to be preserved in the new economic system?

Partial answers to these questions can be found in the pioneering work of anthropologist, Christopher Boehm, in his recent book Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism, and Shame.  Professor Boehm has dedicated much of his career to the study of primates in an attempt to explain where pro-social behaviors originally came from.  Along the way he realized that a critical piece of the puzzle was how hunter-gatherer tribes dealt with would-be cheaters and dictators in order to maintain an egalitarian ethos in their social groups.  Every hunter-gatherer society has a long history of democratic governance that provided cohesion and stability to the small bands of humans who had to cooperate in order to survive long periods of climatic instability and changing landscapes.

These small bands had particular difficulty with their psychopaths when it came to hunting big game.  They depended heavily on the wealth of nutrients provided by large animals, yet were unable to successfully acquire meat without cooperation.  It was in this context that the cheaters and bullies had to be suppressed ­ through a consensus process amongst tribal members with the power to ostracize or, in extreme cases, execute these (typically male) would-be upstarts.  They did this to keep them from disrupting the social order that enabled the group to survive and thrive.

Things changed with the invention of agriculture and its associated patterns of human settlement and increasingly sophisticated economic structures.  The rise in population size, combined with a division of labor into social castes, enabled the would-be upstarts to sow division in the ranks and rise in power through physical and political domination.  The checks-and-balances of tribal society no longer held them in place.  And so it happened that the psychopaths in our midst were able to begin the process of consolidating power and manipulating the masses for personal gain.

But why were there psychopaths in the first place?  What possible advantage could they bring to the genetic mix that promotes human flourishing?  It is vital that we keep in mind that being psychopathic is NOT the same as being violent or criminal.  A psychopath is simply a person whose brain does not register stressful feelings when they observe harms inflicted on others.  Someone with this characteristic might be more likely to deceive and manipulate others for personal gain, but they quite often are aware of social sanctions (and the punishments that follow) and so constrain their behaviors accordingly.

On the positive side, a person who experiences less emotional angst about harm to self and others is well suited as a risk taker whose attempts to 'rise in the ranks' of material wealth bring pioneering innovations to the group.  They also handle the hardships of war and stressful negotiations with other tribes without the compounding harms of emotional trauma that would be inflicted on a more sensitive soul. In today's context, such a person would be a great fit for working as a field medic during times of war (or in the aftermath of a natural disaster), since they could operate on many people without accumulating post traumatic stress disorder.

Such benefits to society may be small in comparison to the harms they inflict upon us all when their power goes unchecked. But the stubborn fact remains that they comprise a persistent part of our progeny ­ regardless of their perceived worth to the whole ­ and must be included in our thinking about how to build robust political and economic systems in the future.

With this goal in mind, I'd like to offer some preliminary thoughts about how we can make use of insights like these to both accurately diagnose our root problems and engage in active redesign of global civilization to enable humanity to cooperate on the scales necessary for our long-term survival.  First, a few reflections on the nature of the problem:

• The primary issue of concern is one of design oversight that failed to include psychopathic tendencies as a parameter for political and economic systems.  We simply did not know how to handle them when civilization began 6000 years ago, and have yet to update contemporary global systems to mitigate the potential harms they might cause.
• In recent centuries, a set of legal instruments were put in place that encourage and reinforce psychopathic tendencies through a system of incentive structures that reward selfish behaviors. This enabled the misguided philosophies of neoclassical economics and neorealist politics to gain undue influence over our thinking about social policy and institutional design.
• A profound gap now exists between what needs to be done to ensure a prosperous future for humanity and the current trajectory of civilization.  We must contain the innate psychopathic tendencies that comprise a small portion of the human gene pool if collective action is to be taken that harnesses real economic and political power to tackle global challenges like climate change, human insecurity, and corruption.

Taken together, these observations begin to paint a picture for what the solution looks like.  Not only must we stop celebrating greed (and enabling it to run rampant through our policy choices), we also have to provide supports for pro-social cooperative behaviors that embody the altruistic and compassionate aspects of human nature that are expressed through the remaining 99% of us.

A sketch of the solution might look like this:

• Gather together the best knowledge we have about human nature – as it emerges from the cognitive and social sciences ­ to inform the design of institutional policy, legislation, incentive structures, and regulatory bodies.  Employ it to critique long-standing assumptions about economic behavior and political power.
• Diagnose the current global economy to reveal pathways where psychopathic tendencies are expressed. Target these areas for policy reform as a "damage control" measure while engaging in broader debate about how to build replacement structures.
• Create policy-development frameworks that promote cooperative behavior amongst people and with the broader environments on which we depend for our survival.  This includes new metrics of success (e.g. replace Gross Domestic Product with more systematic measures like General Progress Indicators or Gross National Happiness), greater investments in societal infrastructure (e.g. public education, medical research, Earth monitoring systems, etc.) that enable us to integrate our increasingly sophisticated knowledge about global change into the management of social and economic systems.
• Introduce incentive systems (with clearly defined and enforceable punitive measures) that enable our psychopaths to participate in society in a more beneficial and less disruptive manner.  We need to recognize that people with these behavioral tendencies will likely always be part of the societal mix.  Helping them find ways to participate as productive members of society will go a long way towards containing the harms they might produce and promoting social cohesion across our pluralistic societies where past harms remain to be fully healed.

I have intentionally set out these parameters at a broad conceptual level because this topic is too nuanced and complex for any one person to hold all the answers.  Hopefully what I've written here will encourage you to think more deeply about what is happening in the world ­ and what role(s) you might fill in helping to create a new economic system that serves us all.  It is safe to assume that I've made significant omissions and that much more needs to be brought into the conversation before we can begin to implement the solutions I recommend or any others which improve upon them.

For now, it is my hope that the ideas presented here create new insights for us as we struggle to articulate the path beyond the political impasse that has stalled action on financial reform and climate change in recent years.  Perhaps these thoughts will also inform our next steps as we ponder how to improve upon the Occupy Movement and Arab Spring of 2011 to elevate and meld together the social movements of the world into a coherent new economic and political system capable of delivering complex outcomes for our interconnected and rapidly changing world.

Can we contain the 70 million psychopaths in the world today?  Only if we come together and create effective sanctions on their destructive behaviors before it's too late.  The future still resides in the strength of our communities as we struggle together to find solutions that match the severity of existing threats during these turbulent times.  As a recent political slogan decried, "Yes we can!"

And, ultimately, we must if we are to deliver our children into a livable world.
 
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Joe Brewer is founder and director of Cognitive Policy Works, an educational and research center devoted to the application of cognitive and behavioral sciences to politics. He is a former fellow of the Rockridge Institute, a think tank founded by George Lakoff to analyze political discourse for the progressive movement.

ANS -- Exclusive: Brigham Young’s Great-Great-Granddaughter on Mormonism and Mitt Romney

Here is an interesting article about the Mormon church and an ex-Mormon, and why she thinks Romney is frightening.  The article quotes Mormon officials and ex-Mormons, whose stories differ quite a bit.  I didn't intend to include the comments, but they seem to have come along for the ride. 
Find it here:   http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/07/exclusive-brigham-young-s-great-great-granddaughter-on-mormonism-and-mitt-romney.html
--Kim

U.S. Politics

 
Content Section

Exclusive: Brigham Young's Great-Great-Granddaughter on Mormonism and Mitt Romney

Aug 7, 2012 4:45 AM EDT

A direct descendant of Brigham Young, Sue Emmett left the church because of the very values she says would make Romney a frightening president. She speaks exclusively with Jamie Reno.

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Sue Emmett is Mormon royalty. Her great-great-grandfather was Brigham Young, the founder of Salt Lake City, first governor of Utah, and president and prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) from 1847 until his death in 1877.
 

Clockwise from top left: A billboard advertising ex-Mormon support groups; a statue of Mormon pioneer leader Brigham Young in front of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Temple in Salt Lake City; Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney; ex-Mormon Sue Emmett. (Getty Images; AP Photo)

Emmett, whose grandmother was born in Young's historic Beehive House, attended Brigham Young University, where she walked past the imposing 7-and-a-half-foot bronze-casted statue of her great-great-grandfather every day on her way to class.
 

"Walking by that statue every day, I was reminded of my heritage, my lineage," says Emmett. "That, plus going up to Salt Lake and walking through the Beehive House a couple of times and thinking of my grandmother, who I knew very well, all that pretty much sealed the deal for me being a very devout, obedient Mormon girl."

But by the time she reached her mid-30s, she began to have doubts. Emmett started questioning the ethics and veracity of the church's doctrine and its founders, including Young himself, and she grew increasingly concerned with the way, she says, the church treats women. She held these questions close to the vest for many years until, in 1999, at the age of 55, she finally made the hard decision to leave the church.

"There was a powerful mystique around me that I was special because of my heritage, so it was really difficult for me to leave," says Emmett, now 71. "It was the only life, the only home I ever knew. But I just couldn't stay any longer."

Emmett, who still has dear friends and family members in the church­"You can be critical of the church and still be compassionate toward the people in it," she says­is now president of the Exmormon Foundation, which was organized to give support and understanding to those who leave Mormonism. In an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast, Emmett, who rarely speaks to the media, talks about what life is like in the church, why she left, and what she thinks motivates Mitt Romney to want to be president.

Sue Emmett discusses her experience as a woman in the Mormon church.

"The church has astutely created a very benign image to the world. They spend millions of dollars a year doing this," says Emmett, who was born and raised in Portland, Ore., and still lives there. "But there are things that go on inside the church that are hurtful to women. There are many women still in the church who have complaints about not having any real say in what goes on, but they have nowhere to go with these complaints."

Emmett says there is a lot of silent suffering among Mormon women, but she just reached a point where she couldn't stay silent anymore.

"The church has astutely created a very benign image to the world. They spend millions of dollars a year doing this," says Emmett.

Divorced from her husband of 34 years, who is still a Mormon, Emmett­the mother of seven grown children, five of whom are still in the church while two have left­says that "the one thing that finally put the arrow in me" was when she and her sister-in-law decided to start a retreat for Mormon women. Church leaders were not amused, she says.

"It was just a social and cultural thing," Emmett explains. "We made a vow that we would never have anything at the retreat that was anti-church, it would just be a place for cultural events and sharing ideas. We had artists and guest speakers, including one woman who spent her life traveling around the world taking pictures of women and their cultures."

Emmett says the retreat, which was held in an Oregon mountain lodge and typically attracted between 60 and 70 Mormon women, had feminist overtones, "but we never talked about problems at church. We did nothing wrong."

Still, the negative reaction among her church's leadership was the last straw.

"We knew we'd get in trouble for doing it, but we did it anyway," she says. "From that point on, I was marginalized. I'd done everything a good Mormon woman could do in the church, including teaching children in Sunday school, but after we did the retreat I was treated differently."

Responding to Emmett's comments about the church's treatment of women, Ruth Todd, a spokeswoman for the church, tells The Daily Beast: "Nearly half of the 14 million members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are women. To assert that my membership or participation in the church is based on compulsion or deception is both offensive and disparaging to me as a woman, and is patently false."

Says Todd: "The right of every individual [Mormon] to make choices for themselves that determine their path in life and in the eternities is a fundamental doctrine of our faith. As a woman, I view my role in the church and in God's plan as distinct and complementary to the efforts of men. Trying to characterize the role of women in the church in a purely hierarchical way misses the mark and is a flawed premise that demeans the role and value of women."

Since she left 13 years ago, Emmett has become a leader of the ex-Mormon movement, which she says is not about bashing her former church but about helping former members make the difficult adjustment. "It's such an insular world, and for some people it is really hard to make it on the 'outside,' so to speak," she says.

Emmett has watched Mitt Romney very closely throughout his public life and has strong opinions about what shaped his personality and his character. "Mitt is a product not only of his wealth, but of an organization that gives men power when they are 12 years old," she says. "That is when boys are ordained with the priesthood. It is a big moment in a Mormon male's childhood."

As for what pundits say is Romney's difficulty connecting with people, Emmett blames it largely on what she calls "the entitled Mormon male syndrome, where the leadership professes compassion and concern but leaves the manifestations of that to the drones. All male leadership is not this way; there are some wonderful men who do their best to exercise their power compassionately, but many do not."

Emmett says Romney was a bishop, "a position where everyone defers to you. What a bishop says goes. People come to them to receive blessings." He then became a stake president, she says, which means he presided over several congregations, and at that point bishops deferred to him.

"Mitt has had people defer to him and not challenge him his entire life," says Emmett. "In the Mormon church if you challenge your priesthood leaders it's a very bad thing to do, especially for women. As the world can now see, Mitt has a very hard time with being questioned and criticized; he's had so little of this in his life."

Will he be more beholden to his church than to the American people? Emmett recalls that when Romney was stake president in the church, he was pro-life. But when he was running for governor he changed his position to pro-choice. A woman in the church who was a good friend of Emmett's went to see Romney and thanked him for changing his position. "He told her that he had talked to church leaders in Salt Lake," Emmett says, "and that they gave him permission to change his position."

The Romney campaign did not respond to numerous requests for comment.

Emmett says she doesn't think Romney has the ability to separate what leaders of the church want from what the country needs.

"Mitt has been groomed to become president from a very young age," says Emmett. "The thing is, I think his father [George Romney, who ran for president in 1968] would have made a much better president. In many ways the church was more benign then than it is now."

Regarding Romney and the presidency, Emmett cites a bit of Mormon lore called the White Horse Prophecy that has floated around since the time of Mormon founder Joseph Smith. It suggests that Mormons believe a time will come when the U.S. Constitution is eroding and Mormon leaders will save it and usher in a new theocracy with Mormons in charge. Emmett's great-great-grandfather talked about it. In a discourse from 1855, Young wrote that "when the Constitution hangs, as it were, upon a single thread, they will have to call for the 'Mormon' Elders to save it from utter destruction; and they will step forth and do it."

Romney has said that he considers the White Horse Prophecy just a matter of speculation by church members. "I haven't heard my name associated with it or anything of that nature," he told The Salt Lake Tribune in 2007. "That's not official church doctrine…I don't put that at the heart of my religious belief."

But Emmett begs to differ. "I can guarantee you that there are millions of Mormons who believe this prophecy and see Romney as potential fulfillment of it," she says. "As a Mormon, you grow up hearing about this prophecy. I think Mitt believes he has a mandate from God to become president so he can help move this along. I don't know if it's a conscious thought, but it's in his subconscious."

Emmett says she thinks Romney's biggest fault is that he has a "serious problem telling the truth. There is flip-flopping, which he has done more than any politician in modern history, and then there is out and out lying," she says. "This kind of thing has sadly been a part of the church from the very beginning. Some modern apostles actually taught that it is not always the best thing to tell the truth if it interferes with preaching gospel."

Emmett says the notion of "Lying for the Lord," as it has been called, implies that teaching the whole truth about the church should be avoided. At a presentation on Lying for the Lord at the 2008 Exmormon Foundation conference, Ken Clark addressed the issue. Clark, who worked as a teacher for the LDS Church Education System (CES) for 27 years and also served as a bishop before leaving the church in 2003, tells The Daily Beast, "Lying has become an institutionalized method of administrative control with the church."

"Every Mormon grows up with the idea that it's OK to lie if it's for a higher cause," says Clark, who now works for a company that markets employment and labor market data. "But what happens is when this becomes a part of your ethical tool kit, you develop a condescending attitude toward people. Like Ann Romney saying 'you people.' This idea of lying for the Lord gives you license to place people on an inferior level. It's OK for Mitt Romney to ignore the principle of full disclosure because it's in his DNA. Look what he's doing with his taxes, and how he talks only in generic and sanitized terms about his religion."

But church spokeswoman Ruth Todd says there is no merit to Clark's accusations.

"To assert that there is a culture of dishonesty or deception in the church is both woefully uninformed and ridiculous," Todd says. "The pursuit of truth is at the heart of who we are. Mormon women around the world participate actively in our church because we find value and truth in the doctrines, structure and deep meaning provided by the gospel of Jesus Christ that is at the core of our faith. All church members are encouraged to study for themselves and develop their own convictions about the church and its teachings."

When Clark left the church, he says, Emmett was of "great help to me. She is one of best people I know. She is very courageous and compassionate."

And Emmett, despite her issues with Romney and the church, does not want to be cast as a Mormon hater. She says that while she strongly disagrees with many of the tenets and practices of Mormonism, most Mormons are kind, honest people.

"Many of my children and other family members are still devout Mormons, and I want to be sensitive to their beliefs and I have no desire to hurt them," says Emmett. "It's been hard for me. It was my entire life for 50 years. I was very sincere and devout for a very long time. But as a feminist and someone who believes that you should be allowed to say what you really feel, I had to leave."

Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.

Jamie Reno, an award-winning correspondent for Newsweek for 17 years, has also written for The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone, People, Men's Journal, ESPN, Los Angeles Times, TV Guide, MSNBC, Newsmax, Entertainment Weekly, and USA Today. Reno, who's won more than 85 writing awards, was the lead reporter on a Newsweek series on the 9/11 terrorist attacks that earned him and his colleagues the National Magazine Award for General Excellence, the highest award in magazine journalism. Reno, who's also an acclaimed author, singer-songwriter, and 15-year cancer survivor, lives in San Diego with his wife, Gabriela, and their daughter, Mandy.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.

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Silence
7 days ago

What an absurd woman - she states she has never spoken with Mitt Romney - but purports to know what is in his subconscious mind. She's worthless as a source of information. Whoever is responsible for concocting this article should be ashamed of their muddled thinking.
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LondonInNY
13 days ago

The Mormon Church and its leadership can go to HELL. It is a patently false andfraudulent faith that preys on human souls.
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LondonInNY
13 days ago

The Mormon Church and its leadership can go to HELL. It is a patently false and fraudulent faith that preys on human souls.
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ManyQuestionsFewAnswers
Sep 13, 2012

When I was in high school one of our vice principals was also a Mormon bishop. He blatantly favored the Mormon kids over everyone else, regularly refusing to discipline bullies who were part of the church. He was one of the most pompous, entitled people I have ever met to this day. Some of the former students are now ex-Mormons and have plenty of stories about the dishonesty, misogyny and manipulation that goes on in the church. I think it speaks volumes that blacks couldn't be ordained in the church until it became too politically sensitive, then all of a sudden that long-standing doctrine was dropped, just like polygamy. When it became clear that Utah wouldn't be accepted as a state until multiple marriages were ended, suddenly polygamy was labeled as false doctrine and dumped. It's also theologically odd that, for a religion which puts so much faith in its founders' statements, the current sitting Prophet is permitted to freely contradict anything in prior Mormon doctrine without question. So the Mormon scriptures are God-given and inviolate... unless the Prophet says otherwise, then it's okay to believe or practice something different. We see that same level of wishy-washy "truthiness" in much of what Romney speaks: "This is absolutely what I believe... unless you tell me I should believe something else in order to get elected."
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suefergiebum
Sep 17, 2012

@ManyQuestionsFewAnswers  - so the Mormon's he favored are now ex-Mormon's?
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suefergiebum
Sep 11, 2012

I totally disagree that the Mormon church does things to hurt women - although I do think this woman's feelings or her pride were hurt. I am a Mormon woman - not born in the Church - I joined the church in my late twenties. I married a Mormon and he was the sweetest guy who respected me way more than men who were NOT Mormon. I heard all sorts of trash talk against the Mormon's. I listened to it for a while - but what I heard and what I witnessed did not add up. Don't believe everything you hear. I think it is good to hear both sides - but to truly make an educated judgement don't just listen to scorned former members or people who have never set foot in the Mormon church. I have never felt so appreciated as a woman before I attended this church.
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JFarleg
Aug 31, 2012

The part about lying is especially correct. Some small percent of Mormons are truly good. A small percent are honest. The rest live in a world where deceit is the norm.
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hockkm
12 days ago

@JFarleg Like Harry Reid?
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Tammo
Aug 30, 2012

Fantastic article. Brave, precise, accurate. Excellent. I shall investigate the Exmormon Foundation and when I do, I fully expect to receive all of the information about it right up front. There will be no milk before the meat, of that I am sure. Kudos on this article.
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acberger1
Aug 29, 2012

This article is extremely poor, it ties a bunch of facts together in order to merely fit the author's own agenda. And that whole "retreat" thing seems extremely fishy, some sort of thing like that has nothing against church doctrine, why would mormon leaders assume there would be anti-mormon material and condemn it? It doesn't add up and shows theres more to the story than the article tells, and her assertions that Romney is a drone who simply commands and expects people to follow is ridiculous, her portrayal of church structure is exceedingly biased and un-realistic. Not to mention the plethora of blatant generalizations towards mormon men, the structure of the church and Romney himself, and she attempts to cover these by saying she still does like some Mormon men and believes they work to be compassionate and open-minded. Which on a side note, if she says this, how on earth can she profile Romney, a man she has never known or seen operate within the churhc, as a command giving drone? And Romney worked as a governor for numerous years, this isn't some dictatorial position, it requires working with numerous other people and following guidance. This article is simply a basis for a woman to condemn a Candidate merely because of his religious affiliation, which is absolutely ridiculous. Its a pity her generalized and ignorant condescension towards Romney is given weight merely because she is related to a prominent mormon figure.
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Sirk
Sep 6, 2012

@acberger1 You have no idea about some religions.  My in-laws belonged to a Church of Christ, and the entire congregation went ballistic when a few women were the only people to show up at one of their Wednesday night prayer meetings (or whatever they call them), which naturally meant one of the women had to lead the group in prayer.  You would have thought the world was coming to an end - because a WOMAN led a prayer group!!!
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lynnea1
4 days ago

@Sirk @acberger1 The Church of Christ is a breakaway of the Mormon Church.  It used to be called the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.Many times, things such as what you mention come from a group or a clique within their own congregation. When they think things are going to go a certain way and they dont then sometimes people get their panties bunched up in a wad.  That happens everywhere, not just in your in-laws church.  :)
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timelapse11
Aug 23, 2012

Wow. Where to even begin here. First of all, the author of the article seems to have had life experiences growing up that I do not envy. I imagine that she felt so much pressure to be the perfect mormon, just because you were related to B.Y. I imagine that people who knew you were related to him pretended to be your friend, lied to you, used you just because were considered "church royalty". I imagine that when it came time for you to choose a college, you were expected to choose BYU. Even though you probably wanted to go somewhere where people hadn't even heard of B.Y. I imagine that you're entire youth the one thing you wanted was independence, and freedom just to figure out things for yourself. I don't know you at all, but I can imagine....

My experience with the church has been much different. I am 20 years old and was born i the church. I have never heard of the "white horse prohpecy", and since most mormons aren't actually US citizens i would guess that "millions" haven't heard about it, however I do know there have been incidents where the US Government has counted on the church's humanitarian aid forces when natural disasters hit in various areas, and if that is a real prophecy i'd assume that's what it refers to. But idk. Seriously.

In the church i have often found myself in leadership roles and can honestly say I have never felt powerless, or like my words and opinion didn't matter because i am a girl. I have always been encouraged to question things, think logically (like SPOC!). I can also say I have never felt pressured to lie in the church. I have not yet needed to go to the bishop to resolve any serious matters like addictions, but I have had a number of temple interviews. The questions aren't to find out if you KNOW that Joe. Smith was a prophet or if you KNOW that there is a God etc. but more to find out if you believe and hope that these things are true even though you don't know for a fact or beyond a shadow of a doubt. The interviews are designed to help you in your search to find truth whereever you are in that quest. If you're doing your best to live by the commandments and become a better person everyday and you believe and hope that jesus christ is your savior, you will be found worthy to go to the temple. End of Story.

On Mitt Romney: I will be very general here, I think Romney, i like many of us people (not just mormons) sees a country that is hurting. Now, I think that everyone can agree that Mitt Romney is good at managing his wealth. It doesn't matter if you think he is evil because of his money or if you think he's a "good steward" because if it, you pretty much have to agree that he is good at making money and right now our country could use someone who is good at making money and getting rid of debt. Obama has been really good at spending money and has been really bad at spending money well.

I'll end by saying, I do believe the church is true, by which I mean I believe it is an actual restoration of the church that Jesus Christ established when he lived on the Earth. I believe that Christ is the son of God. I believe that the Sacrifice of Christ makes it possible for me to be forgiven of my misdeeds and I also believe that His complete Atonement for mankind makes it possible for all people to be resurrected after they die - not like zombies. I believe that because this church has the real priesthood authority (that "power" the 12 year old boys get) that ordinances can be performed on earth that will last for eternity. I know that when I read from the scriptures frequently, and take time to pray to my father in heaven, that my life is happier, and have more gratitude for all that I have, and I am better equipped to deal with the stressful curve balls that life can throw at us.That's all i have to say.
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JFarleg
Aug 31, 2012

@timelapse11 Never heard of the "white horse prohpecy (sic)"? Mormons have been hot and bothered about getting into the presidency since just about just about the inception of the religion. The CoJcOLDS founder Joseph Smith for president in 1844 on a platform of "theodemocracy". Much more recently, there's been a steady stream of mormon candidates (George Romney (1968); Mo Udall (1976); Orrin Hatch (2000), Jon Huntsman and Willard M. Romney) desperate to fulfill #1 BoMo's "White Horse Prophecy".You'll hear Mormons use the phrase "the Constitution hanging by a thread". (Glenn Beck and Orrin Hatch have both used it.) This is from the profit himself... http://www.salon.com/2012/01/29/mitt_and_the_white_horse_prophecy/http ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Horse_Prophecy
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hockkm
12 days ago

@JFarleg @timelapse11 Ridiculous! And learn how to spell..."profit"??? You mean prophet. And I am not Mormon. Furthermore, I say, so what? This is all so reminiscent of JFK and the threat of a Catholic theocracy. Ridiculous!
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lynnea1
4 days ago

@JFarleg @timelapse11 Nope.  Me Neither.  I dont know a single Mormon who lives from that time, who could straighten it out for us.  We dont continue to live in the 1800s either, contrary to popular beliefs.  Joseph Smith was the Prophet and Founder of our faith; he was, however, human and not perfect. He tried government and politics, but it was not to be.  The same thing applies here.  Mitt will win if it was meant to be.  The girl who made this post pretty well summed it up.  Funy you didnt include Harry Reid on the list of Mormon politicians, I wonder why that is! Id bet there has also been a steady stream of Christians of other faiths aspiring to be President, as well! So what?  And salon.com is a really substantial place to get info on Mormon doctrine---NOT! The Prophet (not Profit-that's what Mitt wants our country to do) does not aspire to have anything he says in a rag such as that. So you come on here to spew hatred.  Why dont you just go ahead and say you hate Mormons?!  You cant replace the word 'Mormons'// in that sentence and get away with saying, blacks, hispanics, Jews, gays, etc., in place of it but you'll sure be politically correct to say you hate Mormons!  When  you say the things you've said, you're just preaching to your own choir.  You're not going to change a single mind either way about the Mormon faith, or Mitt Romney, for that matter.  You're just trying to look smart, and that just aint happenin!
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Logicality
5 days ago

@timelapse11 The author of this article wasn't Emmett herself, for one thing. 

This *rebellious* trait you're projecting onto Emmett, I assume as a prevalent reason behind her accusations, is rather implicating and inaccurate. She's stated that her questioning/doubts began in her 30's.  What would she or anyone gain from her being "church royalty", as you blatantly put it, it's not like she has some kind of influence or power that people could take advantage of.   I imagine it's pretty easy to put the blame on victimization when someone is troubled by the church.  But maybe she did have a sort of pressure in her younger years due to her ancestry, but it's anything but the sole reason behind her choices.

I too was born into this church, but no longer believe in its teachings (or any religion); this was due more to my questioning of doctrine, teachings, and the strange, vindictive, racist, sexist, inconsistency and capriciousness (etc, etc...) of God, more than any kind of outside pressure.

And this "white horse prophecy" of course isn't publicly taught as doctrine, but there are obvious implications that relate to it.  The 2nd coming of Jesus is supposed to happen around a time of great turmoil and conflict, and who wouldn't suspect that his "one true church" would be the one that gains influence and/or power over the masses.  And the USA has been referred to as (one of) the most powerful nations, so of course a Mormon presidential candidate is a big deal to the 6+ million Mormons that do live in the US, even if it's not exactly something vocally focused on.  The second millennium is here, of which has been suspected by many to be a *rough* estimate of his return. And people also tend to exaggerate situations in the world, like hurricanes or earthquakes (or Mormon presidents?) as possible acts of God, or as correlations of biblical/Mormon prophecy.

I can see too well the negativity and doubt that arose in Emmett's view on the Church's questionably-sexist placement of the Priesthood and official leadership roles on only men (and until recently not even black men).  And the non-spoken given that the church leaders like bishops and such will know what's right and cannot be questioned, because to do so would be like practically questioning God to his face, what with their *influence* from God.  And in case it isn't already obvious, prevalent roles like being a bishop or a Prophet are restricted to men, because of the gender-specific Priesthood.  No wonder some women have enough of a mind and conscience to question the principles of this religion and supposedly God himself.

As for faith, or to have belief and hope as you put it.  How does one believe that which one does not know?  It's self-chosen ignorance.  This is NOT something that should decide the ultimate destination of our eternal souls on.  And praying to know if it's true?  Look up placebo effect.

I do believe that this religion gives you, and its other members, a sense of well-being and happiness.  But I believe this to derive more from the fact it gives your lives a purpose, and to follow the standards and teachings of this religion helps you to feel accomplished since you're working towards this purpose.  Plus, that feeling that a supernatural deity is watching out for you can make anyone feel more likely to succeed.
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Logicality
5 days ago

@timelapse11 Oh and one thing I forgot to mention. A lot of Emmett's criticism towards Romney relates to the fact he's been in leadership positions in the church, as well as political. And the vast differences of the needs and voices of those you're leading between the two separate fields may end up clashing with each other. Or in other words, he might just subconsciously react to events in a way that doesn't exactly fit the needs of the American people, but to those that the church views as "right" as well as how well he may take criticisms and objections to his choices if he is President.
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Jamie Reno

ANS -- What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success

this article is nominally about education, but it is also about equality, and how equality produces excellence, even when excellence is out of reach using the usual methods to strive for it.  Ironic. 
Find it here:   http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/#.Txz26HTV5U8.facebook   
--Kim



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What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success

By Anu Partanen

inShare2,343 Dec 29 2011, 3:00 PM ET 1835

The Scandinavian country is an education superpower because it values equality more than excellence.


Sergey Ivanov/Flickr

Everyone agrees the United States needs to improve its education system dramatically, but how? One of the hottest trends in education reform lately is looking at the stunning success of the West's reigning education superpower, Finland. Trouble is, when it comes to the lessons that Finnish schools have to offer, most of the discussion seems to be missing the point.

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• How School Choice Became an Explosive Issue
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The small Nordic country of Finland used to be known -- if it was known for anything at all -- as the home of Nokia, the mobile phone giant. But lately Finland has been attracting attention on global surveys of quality of life -- Newsweek ranked it number one last year -- and Finland's national education system has been receiving particular praise, because in recent years Finnish students have been turning in some of the highest test scores in the world.

Finland's schools owe their newfound fame primarily to one study: the PISA survey, conducted every three years by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The survey compares 15-year-olds in different countries in reading, math, and science. Finland has ranked at or near the top in all three competencies on every survey since 2000, neck and neck with superachievers such as South Korea and Singapore. In the most recent survey in 2009 Finland slipped slightly, with students in Shanghai, China, taking the best scores, but the Finns are still near the very top. Throughout the same period, the PISA performance of the United States has been middling, at best.

Compared with the stereotype of the East Asian model -- long hours of exhaustive cramming and rote memorization -- Finland's success is especially intriguing because Finnish schools assign less homework and engage children in more creative play. All this has led to a continuous stream of foreign delegations making the pilgrimage to Finland to visit schools and talk with the nation's education experts, and constant coverage in the worldwide media marveling at the Finnish miracle.

So there was considerable interest in a recent visit to the U.S. by one of the leading Finnish authorities on education reform, Pasi Sahlberg, director of the Finnish Ministry of Education's Center for International Mobility and author of the new book Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? Earlier this month, Sahlberg stopped by the Dwight School in New York City to speak with educators and students, and his visit received national media attention and generated much discussion.

And yet it wasn't clear that Sahlberg's message was actually getting through. As Sahlberg put it to me later, there are certain things nobody in America really wants to talk about.

* * *

During the afternoon that Sahlberg spent at the Dwight School, a photographer from the New York Times jockeyed for position with Dan Rather's TV crew as Sahlberg participated in a roundtable chat with students. The subsequent article in the Times about the event would focus on Finland as an "intriguing school-reform model."

Yet one of the most significant things Sahlberg said passed practically unnoticed. "Oh," he mentioned at one point, "and there are no private schools in Finland."

This notion may seem difficult for an American to digest, but it's true. Only a small number of independent schools exist in Finland, and even they are all publicly financed. None is allowed to charge tuition fees. There are no private universities, either. This means that practically every person in Finland attends public school, whether for pre-K or a Ph.D.

The irony of Sahlberg's making this comment during a talk at the Dwight School seemed obvious. Like many of America's best schools, Dwight is a private institution that costs high-school students upward of $35,000 a year to attend -- not to mention that Dwight, in particular, is run for profit, an increasing trend in the U.S. Yet no one in the room commented on Sahlberg's statement. I found this surprising. Sahlberg himself did not.

Sahlberg knows what Americans like to talk about when it comes to education, because he's become their go-to guy in Finland. The son of two teachers, he grew up in a Finnish school. He taught mathematics and physics in a junior high school in Helsinki, worked his way through a variety of positions in the Finnish Ministry of Education, and spent years as an education expert at the OECD, the World Bank, and other international organizations.

Now, in addition to his other duties, Sahlberg hosts about a hundred visits a year by foreign educators, including many Americans, who want to know the secret of Finland's success. Sahlberg's new book is partly an attempt to help answer the questions he always gets asked.

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From his point of view, Americans are consistently obsessed with certain questions: How can you keep track of students' performance if you don't test them constantly? How can you improve teaching if you have no accountability for bad teachers or merit pay for good teachers? How do you foster competition and engage the private sector? How do you provide school choice?

The answers Finland provides seem to run counter to just about everything America's school reformers are trying to do.

For starters, Finland has no standardized tests. The only exception is what's called the National Matriculation Exam, which everyone takes at the end of a voluntary upper-secondary school, roughly the equivalent of American high school.

Instead, the public school system's teachers are trained to assess children in classrooms using independent tests they create themselves. All children receive a report card at the end of each semester, but these reports are based on individualized grading by each teacher. Periodically, the Ministry of Education tracks national progress by testing a few sample groups across a range of different schools.

As for accountability of teachers and administrators, Sahlberg shrugs. "There's no word for accountability in Finnish," he later told an audience at the Teachers College of Columbia University. "Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted."

For Sahlberg what matters is that in Finland all teachers and administrators are given prestige, decent pay, and a lot of responsibility. A master's degree is required to enter the profession, and teacher training programs are among the most selective professional schools in the country. If a teacher is bad, it is the principal's responsibility to notice and deal with it.

And while Americans love to talk about competition, Sahlberg points out that nothing makes Finns more uncomfortable. In his book Sahlberg quotes a line from Finnish writer named Samuli Paronen: "Real winners do not compete." It's hard to think of a more un-American idea, but when it comes to education, Finland's success shows that the Finnish attitude might have merits. There are no lists of best schools or teachers in Finland. The main driver of education policy is not competition between teachers and between schools, but cooperation.

Finally, in Finland, school choice is noticeably not a priority, nor is engaging the private sector at all. Which brings us back to the silence after Sahlberg's comment at the Dwight School that schools like Dwight don't exist in Finland.

"Here in America," Sahlberg said at the Teachers College, "parents can choose to take their kids to private schools. It's the same idea of a marketplace that applies to, say, shops. Schools are a shop and parents can buy what ever they want. In Finland parents can also choose. But the options are all the same."

Herein lay the real shocker. As Sahlberg continued, his core message emerged, whether or not anyone in his American audience heard it.

Decades ago, when the Finnish school system was badly in need of reform, the goal of the program that Finland instituted, resulting in so much success today, was never excellence. It was equity.

* * *

Since the 1980s, the main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality.

In the Finnish view, as Sahlberg describes it, this means that schools should be healthy, safe environments for children. This starts with the basics. Finland offers all pupils free school meals, easy access to health care, psychological counseling, and individualized student guidance.

In fact, since academic excellence wasn't a particular priority on the Finnish to-do list, when Finland's students scored so high on the first PISA survey in 2001, many Finns thought the results must be a mistake. But subsequent PISA tests confirmed that Finland -- unlike, say, very similar countries such as Norway -- was producing academic excellence through its particular policy focus on equity.

That this point is almost always ignored or brushed aside in the U.S. seems especially poignant at the moment, after the financial crisis and Occupy Wall Street movement have brought the problems of inequality in America into such sharp focus. The chasm between those who can afford $35,000 in tuition per child per year -- or even just the price of a house in a good public school district -- and the other "99 percent" is painfully plain to see.

* * *

Pasi Sahlberg goes out of his way to emphasize that his book Finnish Lessons is not meant as a how-to guide for fixing the education systems of other countries. All countries are different, and as many Americans point out, Finland is a small nation with a much more homogeneous population than the United States.

Yet Sahlberg doesn't think that questions of size or homogeneity should give Americans reason to dismiss the Finnish example. Finland is a relatively homogeneous country -- as of 2010, just 4.6 percent of Finnish residents had been born in another country, compared with 12.7 percent in the United States. But the number of foreign-born residents in Finland doubled during the decade leading up to 2010, and the country didn't lose its edge in education. Immigrants tended to concentrate in certain areas, causing some schools to become much more mixed than others, yet there has not been much change in the remarkable lack of variation between Finnish schools in the PISA surveys across the same period.

Samuel Abrams, a visiting scholar at Columbia University's Teachers College, has addressed the effects of size and homogeneity on a nation's education performance by comparing Finland with another Nordic country: Norway. Like Finland, Norway is small and not especially diverse overall, but unlike Finland it has taken an approach to education that is more American than Finnish. The result? Mediocre performance in the PISA survey. Educational policy, Abrams suggests, is probably more important to the success of a country's school system than the nation's size or ethnic makeup.

Indeed, Finland's population of 5.4 million can be compared to many an American state -- after all, most American education is managed at the state level. According to the Migration Policy Institute, a research organization in Washington, there were 18 states in the U.S. in 2010 with an identical or significantly smaller percentage of foreign-born residents than Finland.

What's more, despite their many differences, Finland and the U.S. have an educational goal in common. When Finnish policymakers decided to reform the country's education system in the 1970s, they did so because they realized that to be competitive, Finland couldn't rely on manufacturing or its scant natural resources and instead had to invest in a knowledge-based economy.

With America's manufacturing industries now in decline, the goal of educational policy in the U.S. -- as articulated by most everyone from President Obama on down -- is to preserve American competitiveness by doing the same thing. Finland's experience suggests that to win at that game, a country has to prepare not just some of its population well, but all of its population well, for the new economy. To possess some of the best schools in the world might still not be good enough if there are children being left behind.

Is that an impossible goal? Sahlberg says that while his book isn't meant to be a how-to manual, it is meant to be a "pamphlet of hope."

"When President Kennedy was making his appeal for advancing American science and technology by putting a man on the moon by the end of the 1960's, many said it couldn't be done," Sahlberg said during his visit to New York. "But he had a dream. Just like Martin Luther King a few years later had a dream. Those dreams came true. Finland's dream was that we want to have a good public education for every child regardless of where they go to school or what kind of families they come from, and many even in Finland said it couldn't be done."

Clearly, many were wrong. It is possible to create equality. And perhaps even more important -- as a challenge to the American way of thinking about education reform -- Finland's experience shows that it is possible to achieve excellence by focusing not on competition, but on cooperation, and not on choice, but on equity.

The problem facing education in America isn't the ethnic diversity of the population but the economic inequality of society, and this is precisely the problem that Finnish education reform addressed. More equity at home might just be what America needs to be more competitive abroad.

ANS -- Want Your Kids to Read? Give Them Banned Books

This is a lighter piece, about kids reading banned books.  "They still ban books?" you say.  Yes, they do.  the man in this article says the books they ban are often critical reading for someone. 
Find it here:  http://www.care2.com/causes/want-your-kids-to-read-give-them-banned-books.html  
--Kim

Want Your Kids to Read? Give Them Banned Books

• by Ashley Lauren
• September 30, 2012
• 5:28 pm

 

• 1 of 2

Since 1982, more than 11,300 books have been challenged or banned in the United States. It is this startling fact that prompted the national book community to start Banned Books Week, a time to celebrate the great works – both classic and new – that are often challenged in schools and libraries because of their language or content. This year, Banned Books Week is celebrating its 30th anniversary, and it falls from September 30-October 6.

My students are really excited about the coming week. Each of them has selected a banned or challenged book from the American Library Association's list of frequently challenged books and they are reading them this week to celebrate free speech and raise awareness about censorship. I would love to say that I came up with this brilliant assignment myself, but the truth of the matter is that my students worked together without my help to select books and start reading them. They told me about it almost as an afterthought.

Oh those naughty tomes!

I've long known that, if you tell a kid a book has been banned, they will pick it up instantly and read it. It's English Teaching 101 – if you want a kid to read a book, tell them why they shouldn't. It just so happens that most of the books we read in class are banned, so my anticipation builders are usually presentations about all of the naughty things they will encounter in the book we're going to read. Usually, my students finish those books well before their deadline.

Justin Stanley, president of Uprise Books, had the same idea. Uprise Books is an organization "dedicated to ending the cycle of poverty through literacy, providing new banned and challenged books to underprivileged teens free of charge." The idea is that, if you give underprivileged kids banned books, they will read them, thus empowering them to value education and end the cycle of poverty. So far, it seems they are doing pretty well.

This is probably the busiest week for Justin and his team at Uprise Books, but he was able to answer some questions about Uprise Books and the importance of both literature and free speech. What follows is our interview.

Ashley: Can you tell me a little bit more about your mission at Uprise Books? How do you get these books in the hands of underprivileged youth? Why did you choose banned books in particular?

Justin: Don't you just love mission statements? They make things sound so nice and neat. Take ours, for instance. "The Uprise Books Project is dedicated to ending the cycle of poverty through literacy, providing new banned and challenged books to underprivileged teens free of charge." Easy, right? Just ending poverty, illiteracy, and censorship. No big deal.

Most people intuitively get the connection between those first two things, and there's evidence to back it up. For example, a recent study commissioned by Reading Is Fundamental (RIF noted that "children from less affluent families do not perform as well on achievement tests compared with children of more affluent families." You can see how that would create the "cycle of poverty" we refer to in our mission statement: kids in poorer families are less likely to pick up the reading skills correlated with future success. They end up in low-income jobs and have kids who're in the same situation they grew up in.

That same RIF study goes on to state that "one possible remedy to the socioeconomic gaps in academic achievement is to make sure that children of low-income families have access to high-quality, age-appropriate books." Kids in poorer families tend to have fewer books in the home, live farther from public libraries, and attend underfunded schools with fewer books.

So solving the access problem is the first step, and we'll be doing that primarily through the website we're in the process of developing (the current site has some information about us and our goals, but doesn't yet have the capability to accept and fulfill requests). We ran a successful Kickstarter campaign last year that raised $10,000 for the design and development of the new site, but it's been slow going. We'd hoped that the site would be available by now, but it looks like it will probably be around the end of this calendar year before it goes live.

Getting the books to teens, though, isn't quite enough. You still need to get them to read the things. Many teens (especially those in poorer neighborhoods) look down on reading. These students are more likely to have a lot of negative peer pressure working against them. Learning, knowledge, reading… all of that tends to be frowned upon by the kids we're trying to reach (and, sadly, by many of the adults in their lives). At best, it's "nerdy," at worst, it's "selling out." Pushing banned/challenged books provides those kids with a shield to use against that pressure. Instead of reading a great work of literature, they're breaking the rules and discovering what THEY (parents, adults, the establishment, etc.) don't want them to know. We're playing off a teen's inherent sense of rebellion… the same teen who'd never think to read "The Great Gatsby" because it was named the best book of the 20th century might be turned on to the book that was challenged for its "language and sexual references."

Of course, the banned/challenged theme has another perk: it gets the potential donors interested. During our Kickstarter campaign, we tried promoting the project using several different messages through various social media channels… "end the cycle of poverty," "promote reading," etc. While people of course agreed with those ideas, the "fight censorship" message was much more likely to lead to action.

• 1 of 2

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/want-your-kids-to-read-give-them-banned-books.html#ixzz286KYPlFQ

Want Your Kids to Read? Give Them Banned Books

• by Ashley Lauren
• September 30, 2012
• 5:28 pm
• 2 of 2

Ashley: What inspired you to start Uprise Books?

Justin: I'm not sure it can be attributed to a single event or inspiration, really. There was no "Eureka!" moment or anything like that, rather several seemingly unrelated things that eventually Voltron-ed together.

For example, we were pretty poor growing up… a single-parent family on welfare. I know how the kids we're trying to reach feel, what they're going through. I also still vividly remember how it felt when RIF visited my elementary school in second grade, how great it was to have these strangers GIVING us all books for no apparent reason (especially when you have so few possessions of your own)… and I remember how nice it was to be able to escape from the reality of the family's situation with a book, even if just for a few minutes.

I also remember the "you've got to be kidding me…" feeling I had as an adult when I first realized that books were still being banned and challenged in this country today. When you start going through the lists and see the wide range of "offensive" titles ­ anything from classic literature to kid favorites to books on anatomy ­ so often, the books being banned are the ones those kids need so desperately.

The project itself, though, came out of the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship elective I took as part of the Portland State University MBA program last summer. The course's main deliverable was a feasibility analysis of a new social enterprise of your choice, and this project was mine. I realized while performing the analysis that the start-up costs for my business model were so low that there really wasn't much to lose by trying. So, after the class was over, I decided to see if I could make it happen.

Ashley: What is your all-time favorite banned book and why? Will you be re-reading it for Banned Books Week? If not, what will you be reading for Banned Books week?

Justin: I think I give a different answer to this one every time I'm asked, but I'm going to go with "Lolita" right now. I'm usually more interested in story than style when I pick up a book, but Nabokov somehow manages to nail both in a way that few can. It's just such a beautifully written story about such an ugly and despicable subject. Love it.

But… no. I won't be re-reading it next week. There are just so many great books out there, banned or not, that I have a hard time going back to the same ones. I'm running out of time to pick one, I know, but right now the leading candidate is Sherman Alexie's "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian."

Ashley: What is important about banned books in our society today? In your opinion, why should we – and especially teenagers – read them?

Justin: Oh, so many things… first, it's a matter of educating people that these things are still happening today. Most people are shocked when they find out that books are still being banned or challenged in 21^st century America, but the data collected by the ALA and the ACLU shows that it's not all that uncommon. And we could argue about the quality of the literature in question, but whether it's "To Kill a Mockingbird" or "Fifty Shades of Grey," the idea of withholding books from the public is unforgiveable (not to mention unconstitutional).

Ashley: What is the most dangerous part about censorship, in your opinion?

Justin: I think that the bans and challenges usually come from a good place, from a desire to protect children from what the adults see as the ugliness in the world. Unfortunately, covering your child's eyes doesn't really make the ugliness go away; it only makes them less equipped to deal with it on their own.

Also, books are often banned and challenged for the very reasons that people need to access them. Books on human sexuality are kept from kids who aren't getting that education through other channels, for example, or books that empower disenfranchised minorities are withheld from the kids who need them (see the recent ridiculousness in Arizona, for instance). It's like the intellectual equivalent of taking someone's canteen when they're in the middle of a desert.

Ashley: What can we do to help your project succeed? How can we get involved?

Justin: As a non-profit, donations are obviously critical to our success. We're a very lean organization and are adept at stretching each dollar, but we still need to be able to buy books, ship them, pay developers, etc. Volunteer opportunities are limited at this point, but as things really start rolling we can certainly envision ways that people can help more with their time and non-monetary donations. For instance, while we always want to provide the teens with new books, we'll likely begin to sell used books as a fundraising tool. And people should certainly follow us on Twitter (@UpriseBooks), Like us on Facebook ( http://www.facebook.com/UpriseBooks), and subscribe for email updates (link on the current http://www.UpriseBooks.org site, just under the Donate Now! Section).

 

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/want-your-kids-to-read-give-them-banned-books.html#ixzz286HuayWj

ANS -- The Bottom Line: A Solution to a Protect Threatened Tuna

One of our readers requested more positive stories.  They can be hard to find, but I'll keep a look out for them.  Here's one: it's a way to help save bluefin tuna from being caught in lines intended for other types of fish.  I didn't completely understand how it did that: see if you can figure it out from the story.
Find it here: http://www.care2.com/causes/the-bottom-line-a-solution-to-a-protect-threatened-tuna.html   
--Kim

The Bottom Line: A Solution to a Protect Threatened Tuna

• by Pew Environment Group
• September 30, 2012
• 6:00 am

 

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Note: This is a guest post from Lee Crockett, Director of U.S. Fisheries Campaigns at the Pew Environment Group.

An innovative project in the Gulf of Mexico may finally offer a real solution to a decades-old problem.

For 30 years, fisheries experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have tried to protect western Atlantic bluefin tuna from surface longlines in the Gulf of Mexico, the severely depleted fish's only known spawning area. Yet despite those efforts, this gear, intended to catch yellowfin tuna and swordfish, still threatens bluefin and other ocean wildlife.

Fishermen and scientists may finally have a solution to the problem. Since May 2012, they have been working together on a year-long pilot program to test greenstick gear and buoy gear, which are alternative fishing methods seen as potential replacements for surface longlines in the Gulf. Initial results indicate that the new gear is more effective at catching the targeted species and, even more important, the increasing catch rates for each successive trip suggest that the equipment can be made even more effective over time. If adopted throughout the Gulf, these more selective fishing methods could provide significant environmental and economic benefits to the region.

A greenstick is a 35- to 45-foot pole attached to the top of a boat that tows a 300- to 400-foot line. Up to 10 plastic squid baits hang from the line and skip across the water, mimicking real squid and flying fish, both common prey of yellowfin tuna. Once a fish is hooked, it's quickly brought to the boat.

Buoy gear, a relatively simple piece of fishing equipment developed for targeting swordfish, consists of a single piece of heavy fishing line attached to one or two hooks on one end and a buoy with a light on the other. Generally, one vessel will use 12 to 15 pieces of this free-floating gear. The buoys, which are deployed at night, drift in a straight line with the current. When a fish takes the bait, it drags a buoy out of line, indicating that it has been hooked.

Surface longlines, by comparison, stretch for 30 miles on average and suspend approximately 750 baited hooks. These hooks are often left in the water for up to 18 hours and catch a wide variety of ocean wildlife, in addition to the targeted species.

Fishermen monitor greenstick gear and buoy gear and land fish quickly. If the catch is too small or not the right species, they quickly release it. This dramatically reduces the mortality of juveniles and any fish not kept for sale.

Researchers with the Oceanographic Center at Nova Southeastern University (NSU) in Dania Beach, Fla., are recruiting commercial fishermen in the Gulf to test greenstick fishing for yellowfin tuna and buoy gear fishing for swordfish. Two vessels from Florida are experimenting with the new equipment. A vessel fishing out of Louisiana is expected to start using the alternative gear later this month, and another Florida-based vessel is expected to join the project in October.

Fishermen who have worked with swordfish buoy gear and greensticks in other areas (the Outer Banks of North Carolina and the Florida Straits) are training the new participants to help them become skilled with the equipment and methods, including adapting the gear to the Gulf fisheries.

NSU has also assembled several trained fisheries observers to collect data on the catch and economics of the alternative gear. This information will allow scientists and fishermen to analyze gear effectiveness in multiple locations and during different seasons. Researchers will use economic data collected by the observers to compare the income and expenses associated with surface longlines with those of the alternative gear.

Data from this pilot program could be especially timely, given that NOAA is reviewing the way it manages bluefin tuna fishing in U.S. waters. The agency is developing a new bluefin rule, which is expected in early 2014. It is seriously considering promoting the transition from surface longlines to greensticks and swordfish buoy gear and prohibiting the use of surface longlines year-round in the Gulf.

If greenstick and buoy gear in the Gulf perform as well as expected, NOAA could finally have a viable, practical and economical alternative to surface longlines. Switching gear could finally halt the wasteful killing of ocean wildlife such as bluefin and sailfish, while ensuring profitable jobs for U.S. commercial fishermen and consumer access to American-caught seafood for decades to come ­ a win-win for all the communities that depend on a healthy and vibrant marine ecosystem in the Gulf.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/the-bottom-line-a-solution-to-a-protect-threatened-tuna.html#ixzz284mLT700