There’s clearly a trend toward slightly-ominous slender cylinders in tech: first Amazon’s Echo, and now Logitech has put the form-factor to use as a portable Full HD video conferencing gadget. The Logitech ConferenceCam Connect may at first glance look like a fancy sippy-cup for commuters to tote their coffee around in, but it’s actually a fancy 1080p camera with ZEISS … Continue reading
Shannon Watts wrote a column for Huffington Post promoting more effective laws to hold parents accountable when their children get their hands on guns. She points out that child access prevention (CAP) laws make a real difference in unintentional gun injuries in which the victims are kids, but that the NRA has chosen to oppose such laws because CAP might “infringe on gun owners’ rights to effectively protect their homes.”
What Shannon neglected to mention is that the NRA goes a lot further than just fighting CAP laws. They also promote themselves as America’s gun-safety organization through their Eddie Eagle program which they claim to have introduced to more than 26 million children in schools throughout all 50 states. The program materials consist of instructional brochures, DVDs, student workbooks and the like, all designed to “keep America’s young children safe.”
The gun industry and the NRA touts their commitment to gun safety because unintentional gun injuries have steadily declined over the past twenty years. The NSSF cites data from the National Safety Council which shows that deaths of children from accidental shootings has dropped by more than 70 percent since 1993, with all unintentional gun mortality for both children and adults now standing at an all-time low. What better proof could there be about the effectiveness of the NRA’s Eddie Eagle program or other safety programs conducted by the NSSF? All the more reason why comprehensive CAP laws would just make it more difficult for gun owners to protect themselves, their families and their homes, right?
Duhhh, there’s only one little problem. The NRA and the gun lobby in general can’t ever seem to understand that causation and causality are two very different things. The fact that unintentional gun injuries have declined over the same period that the NRA claims to have introduced its Eddie Eagle gun safety program to millions of school kids doesn’t mean that one has anything to do with the other, even if they occurred at the same time.
The NRA has never validated its claims about the effectiveness of Eddie Eagle through an objective, third-party source. And while the NRA Eddie Eagle website contains what at first glance appears to be an impressive list of individuals who comprise the program “task force,” if you examine the list closely you soon discover that while it includes teachers, school administrators, NRA staff and a few cops, there isn’t a single individual connected to the program in any way who has ever attempted to study the impact or value of the program at all.
Public health researchers have convincingly demonstrated that efforts to change the behavior of children by discussing issues in group settings yields, if any positive results. The most effective way to modify the behavior of children is on a one-to-one basis, and if the teaching is widened to a group setting, the target group should be very small. The fact that the NRA has never conducted any study to test the before-and-after results of distributing their safety literature either in classrooms or in community groups makes it impossible to accept their self-congratulatory statements about teaching gun safety to kids.
I’m not saying the Eddie Eagle program doesn’t work. I’m saying that to use a totally non-validated safety program as an excuse for opposing CAP laws is shabby at best, harmful and unsafe at worst. The real reason that unintentional gun injuries have declined over the past twenty years is because gun makers have phased in more safety engineering (e.g., floating firing pins) and states now require additional safety features such as loaded chamber indicators and minimum trigger-pull weights. But neither factor invalidates Shannon’s call for more comprehensive CAP laws. If the NRA was really serious about representing all those responsible gun owners, they would welcome laws that require guns to be locked or locked away.
In a symbol of the broader sidelining of his “pivot to Asia” to attend once again to the recurrent quagmire that is the Middle East, President Barack Obama decided to cut out his visit to the Taj Mahal and leave India early to fly to Saudi Arabia–to pay his respects to the family of recently deceased King Abdullah and meet with new King Salman. Since the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Saudi Arabia has enjoyed the protection of the United States in exchange for providing the world with cheap oil. And the wider Middle East has enjoyed excessive U.S. strategic and military interest for the same reason.
In my book, No War for Oil: U.S. Dependency and the Middle East, I debunk the myth that oil is a strategic commodity, more important than other products for running a military or an economy. Even before the oil fracking boom, which again will likely soon make the United States the world’s largest oil producer, the United States produced enough oil to run its military in any large war. As for the American economy, the cheapest and surest way to get plentiful oil supplies is to pay the world market price rather than undertake the costly–both in lives and money–stationing of U.S. military forces permanently in the Middle East and using them to fight to “safeguard” petroleum supplies.
In fact, the United States does not even get most of its imported oil from the Middle East. Therefore, the real reason for the heavy U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf seems to be to have an American thumb on the “oil lifeline” of other powers, such as China and even Japanese and European allies.
Some lovers of U.S. military interventionism would claim that no free market for oil exists and that the OPEC cartel, led by none other than Saudi Arabia, makes the Middle East strategic to American security. But Economics 101 teaches that in the long term, most cartels are not very effective in raising the price of any commodity above that of what the market would produce. That outcome occurs simply because all cartel producers have an incentive to publicly adopt production restrictions in an attempt to elevate the price but privately cheat “under the table” by producing more to get higher revenues offered by the higher price. Of course, with everyone cheating, the price eventually falls back to the market level. In the case of oil, the cartel also has to deal with many non-cartel producers, all of whom will not even pretend to restrict production and instead will pump furiously if the price rises. So the oil cartel might have some effect on the prices in the short term but not in the long term.
Thus, Saudi Arabia has power only because economists don’t drive policy in most capitals, and many world leaders believe the oil illusion. Also, the Saudis play a double game of sponsoring Islamist terrorism and then pretending to fight it. And Saudi Arabia has one of the worst human rights records on the planet, so why coddle it at all?
Even if Saudi Arabia and OPEC had as much control over oil prices as many believe–which should be debunked by the current frantic Saudi struggle, as in the mid-1980s, to get “control” of a down market–industrial economies, such as the United States, are fairly resilient to spikes in oil prices, contrary to the conventional wisdom. A modern economy requires many important inputs–such as semiconductors and rare platinum-group metals required to “crack” large crude oil molecules into smaller gasoline and diesel fuel molecules–that the government doesn’t claim that it needs to “defend” with military force. So defending oil is questionable.
So if oil is not all that “strategic”–meaning that the government must intervene because the market will not work properly–maybe Obama and all his predecessors back to FDR have been excessively bogged down in the Middle East. But what about the other pillar of U.S. Middle East policy–defending our ally Israel? Even if oil were strategic, American support for Israel certainly doesn’t help the United States to gain the favor of Arab oil producing states, which are mortal enemies that nation. Also, alliances are supposed to be a means to a strategic end. The strategic end for American politicians in supporting Israel is usually domestic rather than international. Besides, Israel is now much richer than its neighbors and has a capable military that has done a wonderful job defending it.
In addition to removing the attention- and resource-diverting bog from obstructing Obama’s pivot to the much more important Asian region, less U.S. interventions in the Middle East would also enhance security at home by reducing the amount of blow back terrorism directed at American soil. Most of this terrorism is a result of historic American intervention in Islamic nations, including attacking or invading at least seven Muslim countries since September 11, 2001. Since people of all political persuasions should agree that job one for the U.S. government and military should be to protect the American people and their home territory–which both failed miserably to do on 9/11– the neo-imperial policing of the world (while endangering Americans) should take a back seat to protecting home soil.
It won’t. Unfortunately, vested interests have an even bigger grip on the formulation of the neo-imperial foreign policy than they do on domestic policy, because the American public has less interest, knowledge, and therefore involvement in the former rather than the latter. Americans will continue to be endangered by U.S. overemphasis on the Middle East. An Obama visit to the Taj Mahal would have been better for everyone.
What does it mean to be a transgender individual living in America who needs access to affordable healthcare?
Filmmaker Christian Hendricks tackles this question in his latest project “Seeking Assistance: Trans Healthcare in America.” Currently engaged in a Kickstarter campaign, this film aims to contribute to a longer conversation surrounding transgender identity and healthcare with a focus on Mississippi.
The Huffington Post chatted with Hendricks this week in order to develop a more nuanced understanding about this project.
The Huffington Post: Why did you decide to embark on this project? What are you trying to accomplish?
Christian Hendricks: I’ve worked on a lot of projects focusing on different aspects of queer culture, but recently I’ve felt especially strong about the concerns of trans people. I think at this point, as a white cisgender gay male, if you’re not getting concerned, you have to be willfully ignoring the issue of trans rights. Basically, being the white cis gay male that I am, part of me is really tired of seeing more protected members of our community failing to acknowledge or help just because things have gotten a lot better for them in the past few years.
Why focus specifically on Mississippi?
I had a really great time in Mississippi and met some of my favorite people during the trip there. However, Mississippi has some of the more unfortunate policies (or lack of policies) for protecting and helping trans people. The issues presented in this documentary will be issues that affect every trans person in the country, but I felt that Mississippi would serve as a strong microcosm for the issue.
How is this building on your previous project?
This project is following in the steps of the previous project, but it’s not necessarily a “Part 2.” I didn’t want to make another documentary about the general experience of being queer in a place. I wanted to address something specific, and attempt to make a difference with this one. The last project got a lot of exposure and afforded me a small platform to say something else. I decided that this what I wanted to say because not enough people are talking about it.
What do you hope people take away from this project in terms of their understanding of how trans identity intersects with access to healthcare?
I hope that this helps motivate a larger conversation about what it means to be trans. — both in general but also within the LGBT community. Transitioning is a combined mental and physical experience that’s certainly more harrowing than what I experienced coming out as a gay man, and it deserves consideration and recognition — on a personal level and absolutely in a medical and political sense.
Head here to check out the “Seeking Assistance” Kickstarter.
For the past several days my family has been in an uproar of energy, opinions, emails and phone calls about how to care for our aged mother. The care system we’ve had in place is falling apart and we are stumbling, controlling, gut-punching, aching and loving as we struggle with — and amongst ourselves — to find a solution.
This woman who held us as children, nurtured us, bothered us, sometimes belittled us — but always loved us — is no longer fully present within her own life. She cannot take care of herself, make cogent choices or stay within the present moment for long spaces at a time. She is walking, inside-dancing, sleeping, dreaming and remembering herself through this ending time of her life. And we, her six children, are trying to be of service to her in her journey.
We are also trying to come to terms with the already-loss of the full-minded woman who raised us, as we now care for the turning-towards-the-end woman who still holds our mother’s name, resides in her house of 60 years, and has the sometimes pistol-sharp opinions and energy that we knew so well. We sit at the decision point of whether or not our mother should leave her home and go to live in a place that is designed to hold her in these last days and years of her life with safety, consistent care and the companionship of others of her age.
As I have read the emails going back and forth, as I have listened and talked, as I have felt ignored, been arrogant, opinionated and sometimes hurt, I realize there is much more going on than the “care of Mom.” We are each feeling the ending days of our own youthful selves as we look at what is in store for us. We are also experiencing the tearing apart, the winding down and the not-pretty dissolution of the center of our family — our mother is no more. The body that held her quick mind, sparking eyes and potent wit is still with us, but the core of that woman left us about six months ago.
It is the struggle with this loss that seems to be hurting us the most. We are each going about it in our own way. We are wandering in the past, arguing about the future, and do not quite know how to embrace the present. We are grieving, exhausted, upset and fear-shot. Our mother has already slipped away and we haven’t been allowed to mourn her passing. We are in an in-between world of trying to come to terms with a different life. This also means we are each facing our own lives as they change forever right before our eyes — remembering, hurting and sorrowing — one day, one week, one tear-stained smile at a time.
www.robininyourface.com/a-mourning-not-yet-allowed-2/
Robin Korth enjoys interactions with her readers. Feel free to contact her at info@robininyourface.com or on Facebook.
To learn about her new book, “Soul on the Run,” go to: www.SoulOnTheRun.com
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Earlier on Huff/Post50:
On a chilly morning, we went to the park to toss around a baseball. That’s what we do. That’s our thing. The three of us fan out across the diamond and throw back and forth. After a while, we went across the street for ice cream… just me and the boys and our cookies and cream.
As we ate ice cream and watched a dad with a couple of little girls walk in… girls around the same age as my boys. And we got to talking, the boys and me. I told them I know they might not like them now, but one day, they’ll think girls are pretty cool. And I told them it’s important above all to respect those girls. Don’t talk down to them. Don’t demean them. I told them the girls can do anything they can. They are the future women of the world. They are just as smart, they are just as athletic, they are just as strong. They can be president or an astronaut or a Fortune 500 CEO just like the boys. They are beautiful, but don’t need to be defined by their beauty. They are pretty incredible. Conclusion: Girls rule. Boys drool.
OK, I didn’t say that last part. Actually, I need to confess that I didn’t say any of it. Truthfully, I don’t have boys. None. Zero. I have two girls. I’m the dad with those other girls who walked in. But I’ve often wondered what it would be like to have sons and what I would say to them. And interestingly, the things I would want to teach my boys about girls are the things I’ve learned and embraced and realized in the process of raising my own girls. It’s a conversation I’m already having with my daughters… and continue to have with them every day. By the way, girls play catch too. And they know never to let a boy dictate who she is or how she should feel or why she is going to be a superstar one day in whatever path she chooses.
Find me on Facebook at Dadmissions and at dadmissions.wordpress.com
By Dr. Phil
We all look at life from our own point of view. It’s human nature. But if you want a successful relationship, you need to try seeing yourself through your partner’s eyes. Think about one very important question: How much fun are you to live with? That may sound silly, but I’m not kidding. Are you fun to be around? How often do you make your partner laugh? Do you tease, play, create positive energy and try to ignite passion?
Robin and I just celebrated our 38th wedding anniversary, and I can tell you that she is fun damn near every day. Since we started dating four decades ago, we’ve been laughing together, reading together, traveling and discovering new music. Then we reminisce about our experiences so we can share them over and over. We’re both having fun. In fact, a few nights ago we found ourselves out in the backyard pool at 1 a.m. I won’t say much, but we were real glad that the lights are timed to go off at midnight!
We also love to tease each other, but it’s never meanspirited. For instance, my knee was killing me the other day, and I was limping into the kitchen when I saw Robin’s reflection in the window. She was walking two feet behind me, imitating the way I was hobbling along. When I caught her, she nearly died laughing, and so did I.
Now, I don’t always have the energy or spirit to be a fun partner. None of us do. But at those times, I can count on Robin to take care of me, and when her spirits are flagging, I do the same for her. Years ago, I had to travel a lot for work. I’d leave on Monday and wouldn’t be back until 4 p.m. Thursday. Robin, who had been alone with the kids all week, could have said, “Welcome home. Now start helping me out around here, buddy.” Instead, she’d meet me at the door with a hug, a kiss and my tennis racquet. She knew I’d be a lot more fun if I could run around and break a good sweat instead of coming in straight from the grind. And we still managed to sit down for dinner as a family by 6p.m.
I’m not saying that marriage should always be like a day at Disney World. Of course the two of you are going to have hard times and issues you need to work through. But if you’re constantly talking about problems, then you’ve got a problem relationship. Show me a partner who’s always bellyaching about bills, housekeeping, the kids, and I’ll show you a partner who isn’t much fun to live with. Say your beloved leaves the toilet seat up, or plays the TV too loud, or falls asleep in his armchair and snores. You can decide to complain about it, or you can decide to find it charming. Either way, it’s a choice.
Don’t let your relationship become like elevator music — something in the background that doesn’t merit your attention — while the days turn into weeks, the weeks turn into months and the months turn into years. There is a very clear formula for success in a relationship: It’s a function of how well it meets the needs of the two people involved, and it’s always based on a solid underlying friendship. You have to discover what your partner needs, and you also have to teach him about what you need instead of expecting him to read your mind. Think of yourself as your partner’s closest companion and playmate. Would you keep hanging out with somebody who just criticizes you and grunts when he runs into you on the way to the bathroom? No way. You’re looking for a person who wants to laugh, talk about interesting things, share stories and grow. You’re looking for a friend. And as the saying goes, if you want to have a good friend, you have to be a good friend.
Dr. Phillip C. McGraw’s daily talk show is in its 13th season. He has written seven best-selling books; his latest is The 20/20 Diet: Turn Your Weight Loss Vision Into Reality.
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Bo Derek’s sultry role in the blockbuster romantic comedy “10” was more than three decades ago, but she’s still remembered for that famous nude swimsuit and those cornrowed blonde braids. It was Derek’s breakout role, and it catapulted her to sex symbol status seemingly overnight. Suddenly, the then-20-something beauty went from an unknown actress to one of the most sought-after women in the world. But to hear Derek tell it, she never had her sights set on fame.
Speaking with Oprah for an episode of “Oprah: Where Are They Now?”, Derek opened up about her meteoric rise in the spotlight.
“It was fairly chaotic,” Derek says in the above video. “I wasn’t prepared for it mentally.”
Following “10,” Derek appeared in more movies, graced the cover of many magazines, posed for “Playboy” and made countless public appearances. The attention and lifestyle, she says, was difficult to adjust to for one key reason.
“I think if you want to be a star, you’re more prepared if you should be lucky enough to become one,” Derek continues. “Since I didn’t even want it, it was pretty daunting. The scrutiny, the attention, lack of privacy… But it was a great adventure at the same time.”
Today, of course, there is an even brighter spotlight on celebrities, thanks to both new technologies and social media. The way people put themselves out there, posting personal photos and sharing so many details of their private lives, is something Derek can’t even fathom.
“I don’t understand celebrities having social media to begin with,” Derek says. “I prized and took such care of my private life. It was important to me. Now, the idea of not having one is crazy… And not wanting one. It’s strange.”
Also in the interview: Derek tells Oprah why she “never took beauty seriously.”
“Oprah: Where Are They Now?” airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on OWN. Find OWN on your TV.
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What appealed to Jennifer Aniston about her recent role in Cake? “[Claire] was such a beautifully layered, complex character,” Jennifer says, “there was so much to explore — it was like a soufflé, and I was just drooling.” Jen knew right away that she wanted to play Claire Bennett. “It’s not often that you read a screenplay and you can’t put it down,” Jen says “I just fell in love with her.” Cake’s screenwriter Patrick Tobin actually submitted the screenplay to a writing competition, where director Daniel Barnz was a judge. Tobin won the competition, and Barnz asked him if he could make the screenplay into a movie. “I feel like we’ve all taken a leap,” Jen says, “we were a team that worked really well together.”
View the slideshow below for 10 reasons why I love Jennifer Aniston!
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The Outsider Art Fair is coming to New York on January 29, bringing 47 international galleries of folk, self-taught, and outsider art to Center 548 for four glorious days. The fair offers the rare opportunity for artists operating far outside the regulations of the art world — whether marginalized, isolated, incarcerated, institutionalized or psychologically compromised — a space to show the vibrant and singular artworks that don’t just reflect their worlds, but constitute them. In anticipation of one of our favorite art events of the year, we’re spotlighting a different outsider artist every day.
Untitled, 2009
Aurie Ramirez crafts pastel worlds populated by androgynous glam rockers, pinstriped clowns, and Victorian vaudevillians. The Filipino artist, now based in Oakland, California, combines the daintiness of watercolor with the rough edges of hard rock, rendering a topsy turvy visual realm somewhere between a circus tent and a lady’s boudoir.
Ramirez creates work at Oakland’s Creative Growth center, a studio and gallery space for artists with developmental, mental and physical disabilities. The artist, born in 1962, was diagnosed with autism, and never became proficient in language, although she can understand English. “Some people describe it as if you’re typing on your keyboard and just moved your fingers over a little bit to the right and started typing from there,” Jennifer Strate O’Neal of Creative Growth explained. “You’re going through the same motions but words are not being produced from it.” She does, however, speak in a language of her own devising, and writes in it as well.
Many outsider artists, including Susan King and James Castle, communicate with means outside of language. It’s this urgency of creation for the purpose of communication that often categorizes outsider artists’ work, which is known to be compulsive, unvarnished and wildly eccentric.
Untitled, 2010
Ramirez’s images, dripping with melodrama and watery, rainbow brightness, resemble advertisements for an NSFW performance accessible only through your dreams. As Roberta Smith described in The New York Times: “These figures cluster in groups, like a theater troupe posing for a group portrait; they inhabit Victorian settings or plainer ones that suggest contemporary California. There are signs of violence and surgical scars; frequent indications of romance, sex and family dysfunction; odalisques reclining before paintings of odalisques.”
Untitled, 2015
One of the ways Ramirez connects with the world around her is through pop culture — another common characteristic of self-taught artists. Her main two obsessions are the rock band Kiss, which she saw preform live at the age of 18, and The Addams Family. Combine Gene Simmons and Wednesday Addams and you’ll get a figure resembling the close cousin of Ramirez’s psychedelic jokers. Fashion also plays a large role, with subjects donning neon tuxedos, royal robes and the occasional crotchless garter belt.
Another prominent feature of Ramirez’s work is junk food — everything from ice cream cones to pizza slices. According to O’Neal, Ramirez focuses on rendering foods in her art that she can’t eat in reality. Slices of veggie pizza fall daintily, forming a ring around an exposed vagina and garter belt, creating an image that appeals to base teenage fantasy as well as something far stranger. Her artwork functions as an alternate universe where the unattainable can be grasped and savored again and again.
Untitled, 2008
Ramirez’s watercolors epitomize desire, glamour, sexuality and indulgence in colorful forms untethered to the mainstream images that often channel such sensations through commodified goods. Her imagination conjures relevant yet visionary tales of androgynous queens and stylish rocker dolls, putting on a show of elegance, edge, allure and eroticism on some stage up in the clouds. Even the non-queens among us can’t help but get wrapped up in the luxurious whimsy of it all.
See Ramirez’s work at the Creative Growth gallery at the Outsider Art Fair, from January 29 until February 1 at Center 548 in New York.
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