Homophobia Is a Real Fear … but of What, Exactly?

http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/01/30/what_is_homophobia_why_straight_men_are_right_to_be_afraid_of_homosexuality.html
By Zach Howe

To be a homophobe in 2014 is, increasingly, to find oneself on the fast track to social scorn. In an environment of growing acceptance, we condemn homophobic feelings, particularly in men, because we think they come from inside the individual and are thus his full responsibility. A man who says hateful things about gays is “backward.” He’s protecting his social status, or maybe he’s secretly gay himself. He needs to grow up or come out already.

However, the continued existence of homophobia—despite the obvious downsides—raises questions about its basic nature: Do psychological theories like those above really explain why gayness, specifically, evokes such fear, the kind that can sometimes even lead to violent speech and action? Do they account for why homophobia is such an easy bulwark against masculine insecurity? Why does coming out seem so impossible to some men? The only way to answer these questions is to stop thinking of homophobia as a personal choice and understand it as the inevitable and deliberate result of the culture in which American men are raised.  

Clearly, men in America have grown up learning to be scared of gayness. But not only for the reasons we typically think—not only, in the end, because of religion, insecurity about their own sexuality, or a visceral aversion to other men’s penises. The truth is, they’re afraid because heterosexuality is so fragile.

Heterosexuality’s power lies in perception, not physical truth—as long as people think you’re exclusively attracted to the right gender, you’re golden. But perception is a precarious thing; a “zero-tolerance” policy has taught men that the way people think of them can change permanently with one slip, one little kiss or too-intimate friendship. And once lost, it can be nearly impossible to reclaim.

Put another way, the zero-tolerance rule means that if a man makes one “wrong” move—kisses another man in a moment of drunken fun, say—he is immediately assumed to be gay. Women have a certain amount of freedom to play with their sexuality (mostly because society has a hard time believing in lesbian sex at all). Male sexuality, on the other hand, is understood as unidirectional. Once young men realize they are gay, they become A Gay Person. We don’t hear about gay men discovering an interest in women later in life, and we rarely believe men when they say they are bisexual—the common, if erroneous, wisdom is that any man who says he is bi is really just gay and hasn’t admitted it yet.

The result of all this is that men are not allowed “complex” sexualities; once the presumption of straightness has been shattered, a dude is automatically gay. That narrative does not allow much freedom to explore even fleeting same-sex attractions without a permanent commitment. I knew a guy who, straight in high school, hooked up with dudes for the first semester of college. He was then in a monogamous relationship with a woman for the rest of college; in the weeks before graduation, I would still hear people express confusion about the existence of their relationship.

The zero-tolerance policy is legitimately scary, then, not just because it sticks you with a label, but also because it erases a lifetime of straightness. One semester of experimentation was worth more than every other hook-up and romance of this guy’s life—both before and afterward.

Indeed, such erasure is scary even if homosexuality itself isn’t a bad thing. Even if religion andEsquire didn’t teach men to be scared of each other’s bodies, they would still be afraid of the way a brush with gayness can so suddenly erase the rest of their sexuality. With so much on the line, it’s no surprise that men take up the job of policing this boundary themselves, lest it be policed by someone else, to their detriment.

It’s worth noting that men confront their fear with brilliant creativity. High-schoolers accuse each other, their activities, and even objects of being gay with precisely the zero-tolerance attitude that they themselves are navigating. A popular game in high school was “fag tag,” where boys slap each other’s packages with the back of their hands.  In college they played chicken, where two guys each slide their hand up the other one’s inner thigh. Whoever gets freaked out first loses—or wins, really. These games aren’t just grounded in disgust with homosex; they are playing out exactly what society has taught men about heterosexuality: One wrong move, and you’ll be permanently marked.

Homophobia, then, is precisely a fear, and one that these men are not at all foolish for entertaining. The behavior it engenders is a perceptive response to a sick system, rather than a sickness itself. That’s why I don’t hold a grudge against the kids in high school who said “fag,” or the occasional bartender who makes a weird comment about my date—they’re understandably more scared of me than I am of them. 

General George C. Marshall (1880-1959)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/macarthur/peopleevents/pandeAMEX105.html



As V-E Day drew to a close, Secretary of War Henry Stimson gathered a group of top generals and officials in his office and sent for Army Chief of Staff George Marshall. "I have never seen a task of such magnitude performed by a man," Stimson said to Marshall in front of everyone. "I have seen a great many soldiers in my lifetime and you, Sir, are the finest soldier I have ever known." 

Such flattery usually sounds insincere or ridiculous, but not when applied to George Catlett Marshall. The only man to ever serve as both secretary of state and secretary of defense, his greatest achievement may have been devising the Marshall Plan, which rebuilt a devastated Europe after World War II. Born in the same year as Douglas MacArthur, he is perhaps the only other military man to play major roles in both World Wars as well as the early years of the Cold War. But Marshall was as reserved as MacArthur was flamboyant, as self-effacing as MacArthur was egotistical. The two men offer a fascinating study in contrasts. 

Growing up in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, Marshall developed a love for the outdoors evident in the early-morning horseback rides he maintained even during the war. After graduating from the Virginia Military Institute (he had been rejected by West Point), Marshall quickly made a name for himself in the Army. He performed so brilliantly at the Army Staff College that in 1908 he was made an exception to the rule that barred anyone below the grade of captain from serving as an instructor. During the war in France, Marshall cemented his reputation as a brilliant staff officer under General Pershing, who faced unprecedented logistical and strategic difficulties. Again, the contrast with the romantic, swashbuckling MacArthur is irresistible: Marshall is largely credited with planning the decisive Meuse-Argonne offensive, which included the battle at the Cote de Chatillon, scene of MacArthur's most conspicuous acts of bravery. "In many ways," comments Marshall biographer Mark Stoler, "Douglas MacArthur was the last great 19th century soldier, while George Marshall was the first great 20th century soldier." 

The inter-war years were alternately fulfilling and frustrating for Marshall. He enjoyed his time at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he helped lay the foundation for the army he would lead in the next war. In the words of historian Eric Larrabee, "Benning became Mother Church, spinning off disciples and replicate institutions that could carry the Word, center of a True Faith that radiated outward in concentric circles like the ripples on a pond, until they reached every corner of it." The low-point came in the early 1930s, courtesy of Chief of Staff MacArthur, who assigned him to run the Illinois National Guard. But even there the experience he gained in working with civilians would later serve him well. 

Two weeks after the Munich conference in the fall of 1938, Marshall was named deputy chief of staff. Less than a year later, as the Nazi war machine went into high gear, President Roosevelt passed over 33 more senior generals to name Marshall Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army. Taking the oath of office on September 1, 1939, the day Hitler invaded Poland, Marshall spent the next six years building and running an army charged with winning the greatest military conflict the world had ever known. He proved such a gifted administrator and global strategist that Franklin Roosevelt was forced to give the job Marshall coveted, the command of Operation Overlord for the invasion of France, to Dwight Eisenhower, saying to Marshall, "I didn't feel I could sleep at ease with you out of Washington." Winston Churchill probably came the closest to describing Marshall's importance in the war effort when he cabled Washington late in the war: "He is the true 'organizer of victory.'" The debt Europeans owed Marshall only deepened in the late 1940s, when, as Secretary of State, he crafted and sold to the American people the generous and far-sighted Marshall Plan, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. 

In November of 1945, President Truman made Marshall his personal representative to China, where he tried to broker a settlement of the civil war between the Nationalists and Communists. The failure of the mission, coupled with the "loss" of China to the Communists in 1949, resulted in vicious attacks on Marshall and members of the State Department from anti-communist crusaders like Senator Joseph McCarthy. Given Marshall's unquestionable patriotism and postwar role in formulating the Truman administration's strong anti-communist policies, such attacks were ludicrous. Suffering from serious health problems, Marshall retired in 1949, only to be called back to duty as Secretary of Defense during the next great crisis: the war in Korea. 

Parallel careers and divergent temperaments had placed Marshall and MacArthur in opposition many times before: in World War I, it was the staff officer vs. the front line warrior; in World War II, the global manager vs. the theater commander with a bad case of "localitis." During the war in Korea, Marshall's reluctant but unwavering support of the President's dismissal of General MacArthur placed the two in conflict once again. But on balance, when one considers what each man accomplished during a long and often perilous stretch in history, one thing seems clear: America was lucky to have them both. 

The Marshall Plan

http://www.marshallfoundation.org/TheMarshallPlan.htm

The Need

Europe was devastated by years of conflict during World War II.  Millions of people had been killed or wounded.  Industrial and residential centers in England, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Belgium and elsewhere lay in ruins.  Much of Europe was on the brink of famine as agricultural production had been disrupted by war.  Transportation infrastructure was in shambles.  The only major power in the world that was not significantly damaged was the United States. 

Aid to Europe

From 1945 through 1947, the United States was already assisting European economic recovery with direct financial aid.  Military assistance to Greece and Turkey was being given.  The newly formed United Nations was providing humanitarian assistance.  In January 1947, U. S. President Harry Truman appointed George Marshall, the architect of victory during WWII, to be Secretary of State.  Writing in his diary on January 8, 1947, Truman said, “Marshall is the greatest man of World War II.  He managed to get along with Roosevelt, the Congress, Churchill, the Navy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and he made a grand record in China.  When I asked him to [be] my special envoy to China, he merely said, ‘Yes, Mr. President I'll go.’  No argument only patriotic action.  And if any man was entitled to balk and ask for a rest, he was.  We'll have a real State Department now.” 

In just a few months, State Department leadership under Marshall with expertise provided by George Kennan, William Clayton and others crafted the Marshall Plan concept, which George Marshall shared with the world in a speech on June 5, 1947 at Harvard.  Officially known as the European Recovery Program (ERP), the Marshall Plan was intended to rebuild the economies and spirits of western Europe, primarily.  Marshall was convinced the key to restoration of political stability lay in the revitalization of national economies.  Further he saw political stability in Western Europe as a key to blunting the advances of communism in that region.   

The European Recovery Program

Sixteen nations, including Germany, became part of the program and shaped the assistance they required, state by state, with administrative and technical assistance provided through the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) of the United States.  European nations received nearly $13 billion in aid, which initially resulted in shipments of food, staples, fuel and machinery from the United States and later resulted in investment in industrial capacity in Europe.  Marshall Plan funding ended in 1951. 

Results

Marshall Plan nations were assisted greatly in their economic recovery.  From 1948 through 1952 European economies grew at an unprecedented rate.  Trade relations led to the formation of the North Atlantic alliance. Economic prosperity led by coal and steel industries helped to shape what we know now as the European Union. 

Emerging markets: Don't panic

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/01/emerging-markets-0?fsrc=rss
by R.A. | LONDON

QUICK on the heels of any emerging-market financial wobbles comes public fretting that it is the Asian crisis all over again. As my colleague pointed out yesterday, current financial developments do not really resemble those in 1997-8, for several reasons. Exchange rates are more flexible now. Debt levels are far smaller, relative to reserves, than they were in the 1990s. And the crisis, if it amounts to that, is so far focused on economies that are experiencing acute political difficulties. I think this post from last August still stands up.

But there are probably a few more things that can usefully be said about the current financial situation. The first is that it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, and not simply because the rich world has been pursuing "ultra-loose" monetary policy. In fact, Fed tightening cycles have consistently generated capital flow reversals over the past 30 years—the era of financial globalisation. The IMF's World Economic Outlook from spring of 2011 noted:

'Net capital flows to emerging market economies have been strongly correlated with changes in global financing conditions, rising sharply during periods with relatively low global interest rates and low risk aversion (or greater appetite for risk) and falling afterward. Furthermore, economies that have a direct foreign financial exposure to the United States experience an additional decline in their net capital flows in response to U.S. monetary tightening over and above what is experienced by economies that have no such direct U.S. financial exposure. This negative additional effect is larger when the U.S. rate hike is unanticipated and sharper for emerging market economies that are more integrated with global financial and foreign exchange markets, but smaller for economies with greater financial depth and relatively strong growth performance. Finally, the additional response to U.S. monetary tightening is deeper in an environment of low global interest rates and low risk aversion'.

In other words, if one wishes to tap into global capital markets, one must understand the associated risk: that when the world's monetary hegemon changes tack it will dramatically affect the level of capital flows into one's economy. Emerging markets have mostly learned this lesson and developed a strategy that looks reasonably effective at mitigating the worst effects. First, they have discovered it is a bad idea to peg one's interest rate. And second, lightly managing one's exchange rate by intervening in foreign exchange markets to dampen appreciation looks like a good idea; it leans against inflows and yields a pile of foreign exchange reserves that can be deployed to cushion the economy against outflows on the other side of the cycle.

There are downsides to this strategy, however. One is that it can distort domestic investment. A more serious problem may be that it forces central banks to sacrifice some monetary independence; a central bank may be forced to choose between moderating an overheating economy and slowing its currency's rise. On the flipside, emerging-market reserve accumulation also makes it harder for the Fed to maintain adequate demand in America. In other words, emerging markets' chosen strategy for managing the financialisation of the global economy seems to drive a wedge between appropriate monetary policy in economies on both the sending and receiving end of capital flows (though one could argue that removing China from the picture makes things look a bit less difficult).

Is there an alternative to the current emerging-market strategy? Will one might be to dial back global financialisation just a bit. Last year Helene Rey argued that perfect capital mobility may be incompatible with an independent monetary policy. Macroprudential policy, like actions to tighten limits on bank leverage when credit growth accelerates, could deflect some capital inflows while generally safe-guarding the domestic financial system. Some economists worry that macroprudential policies are little more than currency manipulation by another name. Maybe so, but the point seems to be that there is a political demand for policy that allows economies to enjoy the benefits of open capital markets while reducing the risk of destabilising capital flows. The question is whether "macro pru" is a healthier way to do that than outright foreign-exchange market interventions. (On the other hand, research by Michael Klein and Jay Shambaugh suggests that moderate capital-flow limits don't do much to guarantee monetary independence; one has to employ quite substantial capital controls, as China does, to achieve the desired effect.)

What does seem clear is that central banks which unnecessarily sacrifice monetary independence by overreacting to a falling currency are making an unforced error. When exchange rates plunge, central banks are often tempted to lean against the decline by raising interest rates—potentially squeezing the life out of their domestic economies, worsening the domestic financial climate, and doing little to stem outflows. These moves are often justified by the argument that depreciation sends import prices soaring and presages a jump in inflation. Dangerous inflation pressures have been cited by the central banks of Turkey and India, among others, as reasons for recent interest-rate hikes.

Yet research by Joseph Gagnon suggests the inflationary consequences of depreciation are overstated. He examines big currency declines between 1970 and 2004 and finds that in most cases—unless inflation expectations are high and rising—government bond yields typically fall amid a depreciation, and inflation rates are "remarkably stable" after currency crashes.

Central banks should therefore be careful not to make things worse than they need be. Meanwhile, the latest financial-market gyrations would seem like a good time to reinvigorate a discussion on global capital flows that remains woefully incomplete a half decade after the global financial crisis.

Families and Physicians Debate the True Meaning of Brain Death

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/14/families-and-physicians-debate-the-true-meaning-of-brain-death.html
Dr. Anand Veeravagu
Richard Joseph

In simpler times we were here and then gone. But recent cases have shown us there is a complicated grey area where the brain is dead but the heart is very much alive.

Advances in modern medicine, particularly in life sustaining treatments, have produced unintended consequences and stirred great ethical debates.

In the intensive care unit, we are able to manage each patient by treating separate organ systems—heart, lungs, kidneys, brain—and carefully titrating medications and adjusting machine settings to ensure optimal function. For those with serious, but treatable conditions, these measures are life saving.

The danger, of course, is that this capability allows us to straddle the increasingly blurred line between life and death for indefinite lengths of time. And for those who are beyond the point of saving—those whose bodily systems lack coordinated action and will never function independent of this intensive medical care—these measures may provide a false sense of hope while draining the emotional capacity of a family.

The brain, that mysterious organ that makes us human and allows us to feel, think, and be unique selves, is ultimately responsible for coordinating and integrating our bodily functions. The death of the brain almost always spells the death of the person. While this sounds simple, the lines are never clear in medicine. Depending on the extent of injury and the brain regions involved, some types of brain damage are reparable or even reversible, while others spell irrevocable death.

In between these extremes is a murky gray zone where factors like the age and health of the patient, time to treatment, and a sea of unknowns influence the outcome.

This is a debate had by physicians and families all across the world, every day. Cases currently in the national spotlight illustrate the discrepancy between medical and personal definitions of death. In early December, on a dental chair in Hawaii, 3-year-old Finley Boyle received a suspected overdose of sedatives for her root canal procedure, went into cardiac arrest, and suffered massive brain damage. Subsequent tests by doctors showed that Finley was in a persistent vegetative state, leaving her parents with the heart-wrenching decision to withdraw life support. And at Children’s Hospital Oakland, 13 year old Jahi McMath suffered brain death after a surgery to remove her tonsils and adenoids was complicated by massive blood loss and cardiac arrest.

Despite being pronounced legally dead by doctors, her parents contend that the presence of a heartbeat indicates that Jahi is still alive and should be provided with all possible life sustaining measures. A weeklong struggle pursued in the courts between the hospital, which contended that Jahi should be removed from ventilator support because it is unethical to perform medical procedures on a deceased person, and the family, who maintained that she showed signs of life and deserved the best chance for survival. The final agreement allowed Jahi to be transferred to a new facility that would continue her care.

These cases have resulted in embroiled legal battles, raising the issue of what brain death actually means and demonstrating its misconception. A key problem here is that medicine has its own language and a large information gap persists between medical professionals and patients. Those who are not versed in the lexicon are often left confused, frustrated, and misunderstood.

So to clarify, brain death is death, plain and simple, because the brain is essential for integrating critical functions of the body. Brain death implies the complete and permanent absence of neurological function in the cortex and the brainstem. The central nervous system is the maestro of high level functions like reasoning and stimulus response, breathing, hormone management, temperature regulation, appetite, speech, movement, and the list goes on. In reality, everyone ultimately succumbs to brain death and the final common pathway is a lack of oxygenation and glucose to the brain, whether it be because of a massive stroke or failure of the heart. The diagnosis of brain death is usually made at the bedside with corroborating clinical and neuroimaging evidence. Multiple physicians from different specialties work together and conduct advanced neurologic exams to demonstrate absent cerebral and brainstem function. Such tests may include an electroencephalogram (EEG) and cerebral blood flow studies, which show absent electrical activity and blood flow to the brain.

The problem with the medical-legal term “brain death,” is that when used amongst nonmedical professionals, it may convey partial or incomplete death. Since the brain is not the entire body, if the heart still beats, if muscles still move, and blood still flows, one could reason that death is incomplete and a part of the patient still be alive. One could take it a step further to say that terminating “life support” implies that the patient is victimized by the decision to end care. The confusion is confounded by the fact that, despite our best attempts, consciousness is still a nebulous concept without a concrete definition and method of assessment.

The medical approach attempts to tease apart degrees of consciousness based on verbal behavior, arousal, brain activity, brain blood flow imaging and purposeful movement. Consciousness appears to exist along a continuum, the degrees of which are informed by disorders or altered states such as sleep, locked in syndrome, coma, persistent vegetative state, and death. Somewhere in the middle of the spectrum resides coma, which is characterized by lack of both awareness and wakefulness even though some cortical and brainstem activity persists. Comatose patients have the potential for recovery or to survive in a persistent vegetative state, in which most higher-level cognitive function is lost.

Ariel Sharon, Israel’s prime minister who suffered a massive stroke eight years ago and recently passed away was in a coma. Terri Schiavo, on the other hand, was in a vegetative state. Both were medically and legally alive.

Since the body of a brain dead person can still have a heartbeat, can still produce urine, and can still accomplish oxygen exchange with the help of a breathing machine, those who have not dealt with brain death may conclude that at least a part of the patient is still alive and perhaps the other parts are on the mend with appropriate time and support. Sure the cost of care, logistics, and wishes of the patient make the withdrawal of support seem like a financial and functional decision, but in all honesty, those are a big part of it.

Caring for a patient who is functionally deceased is very expensive and laborious, and the question is—can you, even with all the resources, provide a meaning existence for this person? These topics are particularly challenging in children, who likely do not engage in end-of-life discussions with their parents, and probably, rightfully so.

In many cases, however, the sad reality of extended life support for a brain dead person is a vicious cycle of infections, medications and procedures as organ systems deteriorate without coordinated orchestration from the brain. What’s more unfortunate is that this losing battle can take weeks, months, and even years to resolve, leaving emotional and financial wreckage in its wake. This is not fair to any party involved and it only adds to the widespread confusion and frank avoidance of ethical issues surrounding end of life care.

Moving forward, we must determine and demand the adoption of strict standards for the diagnosis of brain death across institutions nationwide such that an already gray zone does not get unnecessarily hazier. The extremely rare, but real cases of patient’s waking up after being mislabeled as brain dead offers a false sense of hope which families naturally cling to, at all costs. Variability in adherence to published guidelines and documentation of brain death criteria must be strongly discouraged to minimize confusion among the general population, many of whom will be in similar circumstances facing end-of-life decisions down the road.

As evidenced by the McMath case, when the legal system gets involved to arbitrate, the nature of the situation changes—a sad and mournful tragedy transforms into a bitter and accusatory sociopolitical battle for an impossible justice. Somewhere in the equation, the actual patient—the once living, breathing, thinking person—gets lost and dehumanized amidst a long and miserable decline in the intensive care unit and 24-hour media coverage.

When anguish, fear, and confusion trample the spirit of those we love and those we mourn, true justice is but a dream.

Income Inequality Was Quickly Forgotten at Davos

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/26/income-inequality-was-quickly-forgotten-at-davos.html
Christopher Dickey

"It kind of disappeared," said one woman at the end of the World Economic Forum when someone asked what happened to perhaps the greatest issue facing the world today.

The witching hour had come to Davos. Inside the convention center, workmen walked the halls where, earlier in the day, world leaders paraded among their entourages. The guys in overalls were pulling the signs off the walls; they were striking the sets and stages in the conference rooms on Saturday night. This is the way the World Economic Forum ends every year, not with a bang, but a whimper.

In other corners of this snow-covered town nestled high in the Swiss Alps, the last of the extravagant networking parties were winding down. A farewell gala boogied on at the hideous new Intercontinental Hotel that looks, as one woman remarked, “like an enormous version of the golden egg laid by the goose.” But, soon, even there, the asparagus mousse disappeared, the Chateau de Pez 2006 stopped flowing, and the last of the elite invitees boarded shuttles back to their far-flung hotels.

“Whatever happened to inequality?” someone asked in my van. “It kind of disappeared,” said a woman from Montreal. “Oh, we talked about it a lot,” said a young delegate from South Africa. Everyone else looked puzzled.

Inequality was on the agenda at the WEF. Sure. The conference opened with the forum organizers themselves calling on the 2,500 people in attendance to address the explosive imbalance between the world’s astronomical rich and those who live in grinding poverty. A message from Pope Francis (arguably the world’s most admired leader at the moment) was polite but blunt: “I ask you to ensure that humanity is served by wealth and not ruled by it,” he said.

But once the conference was in full swing, few people talked, and even fewer seemed to care, about inequality. Indeed, they appeared to be living it, loving it, and laughing about it. Without question the most popular video on laptops and iPads was Jon Stewart’s “Mountain Few” segment on “The Daily Show” about the hypocrisy of the event. Citing the stunning statistic that 85 people on this planet control as much wealth as 3.5 billion, Stewart said “Jesus Christ [pause] would not be very happy about that.”

The consensus among the rich guys I talked to (most of whom had left in their chauffeur-driven Audis and private jets on Friday), was that Davos this year was just the way it should be: a place to make more deals face to face with more people much faster than they could anywhere else – then spend a few hours on the slopes or taking in the esoteric offerings on the conference agenda, like Goldie Hawn talking about meditation. “I like to improve my mind,” one influential American CEO told me.

For those determined to be serious about the state of the world – most notably the journalists who cranked out literally hundreds of thousands of articles about the confab – there certainly were some headlines to be made. While many reporters are treated as third-class citizens, after the Audi crowd and the also-ran delegates, it’s obvious that the global media, both mainstream and social, are an essential component of Davos. Stories get thrown at them like cows getting tossed to piranhas, and they’re just as rapidly torn asunder.

This year one of the biggest controversies came when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe compared the tensions between China and Japan to the tensions in Europe before World War I – but it appears now he didn’t quite say that. There may have been a slip in the English translation of his remarks at a media event. “Japan’s Leader Compares Strain With China to Germany and Britain in 1914,” read the headline in The New York Times, and many other English-language publications took a similar view. But an aide to Abe said the remark – “I think we are in a similar situation” – was improvised by the interpreter, and no such words were uttered by Abe in Japanese, as evidenced by a tape of the original remarks.

Most of the other big headlines grew out of what seemed a Middle Eastern marathon.  

Syria was much talked about, and talked about, and talked about. An extraordinary 3D video-game-style depiction of a street in Aleppo as it’s hit with a mortar allowed participants to feel the virtual reality of the war. But any real-reality initiative to end the fighting was left to the negotiators meeting last week in Montreux and now in Geneva. And those talks, in their early stages, have as yet achieved nothing.

I moderated a Davos panel with several Arab officials, including Egyptian Minister of Finance Ahmed Galal. None had a solution for Syria. But none wanted to talk about Iran, either. And naturally none would admit the errors of the regimes they serve. Some took umbrage at the mere mention of “human rights.” From the audience, Amr Moussa – former foreign minister under Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, former head of the Arab League, former failed presidential candidate, and a co-author of the new constitution embarrassingly approved by 98 percent of the Egyptians who voted in a referendum – said that any suggestion of particular problems with human rights in Arab nations was “racist.”

Sigh. No headlines came from that panel’s parallel universe. And on Saturday in Cairo scores of people died in protests marking the third anniversary of the uprising that overthrew Mubarak.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani showed up at Davos with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on a relentless charm offensive, followed by Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu talking up Israel, with reason, as “the innovation nation” -- to which a former minister from Lebanon responded, “How about ‘the occupation nation’?”

To the credit of the World Economic Forum, its organizers really do want to promote peace, and as the main events wound up at the Davos convention center on Saturday evening, a sequel started at a Davos hotel. Called “Breaking The Impasse,” or BTI, it continued Sunday with hundreds of Israeli and Palestinian business owners in attendance, many of them very rich and very well known to each other.

The atmosphere was civil, and even friendly. All hope they can encourage Secretary of State John Kerry to keep pushing for a solid peace agreement between the two peoples that inhabit Israel-Palestine. All hope they can press Netanyahu to take the plunge toward peace. And all know the parameters: two states with mutually agreed adjustments to the old borders of 1967; mutual recognition; a settlement of the Palestinian refugee issue that would not involve repatriation of the Arab exiles and their descendants to what’s known as “Israel proper”; solid security guarantees; and an arrangement allowing the Palestinians to claim East Jerusalem as their capital.

While waiting to get into one of those Impasse events I overheard, in passing, a remark by a very wealthy Israeli woman, who told a friend, “I can visit East Jerusalem. I visit Paris, I visit London, I don’t need to own them.”

Sometimes life seems so simple when you’re rich.

Fashionable celebrity diets were actually invented by MONKS in the Middle Ages, expert claims

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2535830/Fashionable-celebrity-diets-actually-invented-MONKS-Middle-Ages-expert-claims.html
EMMA INNES

Fashionable fasting diets used by celebrities were actually invented by monks and hermits in the Middle Ages, it has been revealed. 

There is a direct link between the 5:2 and DODO diets followed by stars such as Beyoncé and Benedict Cumberbatch and the spiritual eating habits devised hundreds of years ago to cleanse the mind and body. 

Andrew Jotischky, Medieval History Professor at Lancaster University, is the author of ‘A Hermit’s Cookbook’ which has recipes from the Middle Ages including stew and bread soup.

The monks’ healthy, simple diet and their fasting habits are almost exactly the same as today’s celebrity weight loss plans, says the professor. 

The idea behind the 5:2 diet is to eat normally for five days, while fasting on the other two days. 

It is suggested that the dieter limits themself to 500 calories for two non-consecutive days a week. 

However, they are given a free reign on their choice of food for the other five days. 

Some studies suggest fasting once or twice a week can also protect the brain against illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease.

The DODO - or Day On Day Off diet - follows a similar theory.

The lecturer in Lancaster University’s History Department has produced a detailed look at fasting and diet in the Middle Ages.

He believes the way the monks found, prepared and ate their food contains lessons that can - and are - being used in modern life.

Professor Jotischky said: ‘Hermits went out and found their food in the wild or grew it themselves. 

‘In that respect they were very similar to some of today’s chefs, like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, who use the same approach to prepare their dishes.

‘And of course, fasting played a major part in their lives. For them it was a spiritual act rather than a way to lose weight, but it made them very aware of the nature of food and eating. 

‘As we have seen with recent dieting fads, we still look at fasting as a way of cleansing and improving our minds and our bodies.

‘There are great similarities between the hermits’ and monks’ diets and today’s current trendy weight-loss regimes.

‘The way they ate has a very modern dimension, and the superiority of home-grown and locally picked food is an argument they would have been very familiar with.

‘They would also be familiar with the debate over concerns over “food miles”. Monks and hermits gathered their food from nature.

Modern day hermit? Professor Jotischky says that hermits foraged for food in the wild or grew it themselves - much like some of today's chefs such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

‘They also recognised the virtue of a diet of simple food that needed little or no preparation.’

WorldPost Launch Event Draws Global Leaders At Davos

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/22/worldpost-launch_n_4644993.html
The Huffington Post  |  By Joe Satran

On Wednesday in Davos, Switzerland, Arianna Huffington and Nicolas Berggruen invited some of the world’s most prominent academics, journalists and businesspeople to celebrate the launch of their new collaboration, The WorldPost, which went live hours earlier.

As their hosts described the new project, about 60 guests dined on pumpkin soup and halibut at The Huffington Post-Microsoft Cafe in the Microsoft Vision Center across the street from the Congress Centre of the World Economic Forum.

Berggruen, whose think-tank, the Berggruen Institute on Governance, partnered with The Huffington Post to launch The WorldPost, explained that the new publication is obsessed with bringing fresh voices to bear on the pursuit of human progress. He said the site will feature contributions from some of the planet's most daring thinkers on subjects from the impact of a rising China on global stability, to the shape of future technological innovation.

Huffington added that the new publication will bring The Huffington Post's focus on healthy living and mindfulness to a new global audience. Its coverage will spotlight corporate practices that enable employees to reduce workplace stress while advancing greater understanding of human physiology.

They were speaking to an accomplished crowd. Guests included economist Nouriel Roubini; Peter Salovey, the president of Yale University; the editor of the Financial Times, Lionel Barber; American political analyst David Gergen; financial blogger Felix Salmon; Josette Sheeran, head of the Asia Society; and Yang Lan, chairperson of the Sun Media Group, a prominent producer of TV programming in China.

Editors who will oversee the day-to-day operations of The WorldPost spoke as well. Nathan Gardels, the publication's editor-in-chief, described the publication as an antidote to stale thinking, and a source of new ideas on crucial global issues.

"The WorldPost was born from a contradiction and a paradox," Gardels explained. "The contradiction is that, just as we have become more globally interdependent than ever, our media is re-nationalizing, re-localizing and even tribalizing. There are ever fewer voices heard across boundaries. This leads to the paradox that we risk the information age becoming the age of non-communication."

"The WorldPost is meant to address this by connecting the world and connecting the dots," he continued. "Creating a platform where the whole world can meet -- a platform that does not have a national perspective looking out, but a global one looking around."

Peter S. Goodman, executive editor of The WorldPost and a veteran of The Huffington Post and The New York Times, portrayed the new site as a natural outgrowth of HuffPost's global ambitions, one that seeks to cover issues from an international perspective as opposed to one dominated by American concerns.

"Our new team of international correspondents -- combined with top-notch writers at HuffPost international editions in 10 countries -- gives The WorldPost considerable perspective on global issues," he said later. "We aim to elevate the conversation about global challenges while putting the spotlight on promising innovations. We are particularly keen to broaden the lens on China."

The WorldPost already has deployed correspondents to Beirut and Cairo, and plans to dispatch a correspondent to Beijing. The site also will feature stories on the People's Republic from ChinaFile, a trove of news and analysis on the world's most populous country produced by the Asia Society.

The guests at the luncheon browsed the new site from their tables using Microsoft Surface tablets, reading stories on riots in Kiev, murderous iPhone thefts and the work of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, along with commentary by Bill Gates, economist Michael Spence and foreign policy expert Anne-Marie Slaughter.

They saw something a lot like the conference they were in Davos to attend: a neutral space for the world's greatest minds to discuss the most pressing issues of the day; a lively forum for debate and conversation among friends, enemies, acquaintances and strangers; and a respite for busy global leaders and the readers looking for a way to better understand their world.

UNDER THE RADAR: Sex in the brain: A fruitless hunt?

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140115-sex-in-the-brain-fruitless-hunt/all
Philip Ball



For years, scientists have hunted for male and female differences in how the brain is wired for sexual responses. Has nature revealed how differences can arise?

There are few scientific topics more guaranteed to get people chattering – and arguing – than claims about the different wiring of male and female brains. The debate is all the more charged if those claims are about sexual behaviour. But often the evidence is vague, if not downright speculative.

Brain scans that show different areas of grey matter “lighting up” in men and women don’t in themselves say very much about the actual hardware – or rather, wetware – inside our respective skulls. It becomes even more speculative when some evolutionary psychologist suggests that male and female brains must be wired differently by evolutionary imperatives, based only on observed difference in behaviour. You might as well assume that, because there was a traffic jam on the way to school this morning but not yesterday, the roads must have been rerouted overnight.

So it’s refreshing to see a paper that tracks down differences in sexual responses between males and females to the actual wiring pattern of neurons. What’s more, the rewiring uncovered by a team at the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, is as simple as an electrical switch: it sends pheromone-triggered nerve signals one way in males, and the other way in females.

The catch is that this isn’t human behaviour we’re talking about, but that of fruit flies. The temptation to generalise from one to the other is scrupulously avoided by the researchers, although they make some comparisons with mice. The point is not that these chemical triggers for sexual activity will follow the same course in men and women, but rather, that the study shows one possible way, in a relatively advanced animal, for how differences can arise.

Pheromones are chemicals that trigger particular responses in others. Some act as alarm signals or tell other animals to follow a food trail, for example. But many pheromones are linked with reproduction. For example, they might be released to attract a mating partner, or used to check that a potential partner is of the right sex. For all its talk in popular magazines, surprisingly little is known for sure about human sex pheromones. The steroid androstenone, for example, has been said to attract women when given off by men, and to signal ovulation when given off by women – but there isn’t much solid evidence for this.

We know more about the chemical language of sex in fruitflies. In particular, a molecule called 11-cis-vaccenyl acetate, abbreviated to cVA, induces females to enter the flies’ elaborate courtship ritual, which involves singing, dancing and (once they really start getting down to business) mouth-to-genital contact. But in males cVA can have the opposite effect: suppressing courtship; and sometimes making them decidedly aggressive, which is presumably evolution’s way of dealing with male competition.

Re-wired

The question is what causes these different responses. For some pheromones, only one sex or the other can actually “smell” it, because it possesses the right receptor protein molecules needed to register the chemical signal. But very often, as with cVA, the same pheromone induces different behaviour in males and females, so both can evidently detect it – it’s the “meaning” that changes.

Previous work has shown little difference between males and females – in both the neurons most immediately excited by cVA (so-called first-order neurons), and the neurons that they communicate with in turn (second-order neurons). Gregory Jefferis and colleagues in Cambridge have found the difference lies in the next level of neurons – the third order. The difference is surprisingly straightforward: these neurons are simply wired up in different ways, routing the signal in one direction or the other within the fruitfly brain, rather like railway points in different orientations. Getting that information, however, involves the kind of tour-de-force that experimental neuroscience now takes for granted. The researchers combined microscopic imaging of slices of fly brains, which reveal the delicate tracks of individual neurons, with “patch-clamp” measurements that can record electrical impulses travelling along particular nerve filaments. In this way they were able to map out the signal routes across the male and female brains, and to show how different these are after they reach the third-order neurons.

What causes this difference in wiring? Jefferis and colleagues pin it down to a single gene, called fruitless, which scientists know is crucial for male-type behaviour. This gene encodes various related proteins, and the researchers show that the production of these proteins in third-order neurons will make them wire up in the male pattern. When the researchers mutated those neurons in the female brain to produce the proteins, the female brains wired like male ones.

Is flipping this single neural switch enough to make the females actually behave like males in response to cVA? That remains to be seen, and it’s possible that such gender-bending might require some more “masculinisation” of the brain downstream of the pheromone switch. But it’s sobering to see that, at least as far as this sexual behaviour is concerned, there is such a clear and simple distinction between the male and female brain.

UNIQUELY HUMAN: The wilder side of sex

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130221-the-wilder-side-of-sex/all
Jason G Goldman



Humans may look down upon certain sexual interests as odd or gross, though chances are that animals indulge in a spot of similar behaviour too.

Romantic relationships are complicated, and so is sex. Relationships can be fraught with the potential for miscommunication or misunderstanding at the best of times, so imagine how troublesome it is to admit, out loud, to your partner, that you've got a sexual interest or fantasy that sits far outside the cultural norms.

But here’s a secret. For just about any fantasy between consenting adults that might be thought of as beyond conventional sexual practices or decency as dictated by society, you can bet that there's a non-human species for whom that particular behaviour is commonplace. Sure, there are plenty of examples of creative role-playing, food in the bedroom, or unusual places to do the deed, but even when you push the boundaries much further the chances are you’ll find it happening in the animal world.

Take giraffes, for instance. Males, called bulls, make casual visits to various groups over time in search of a cow who might mate with him. In order to select the mating partner the bull literally finds the one that best suits his taste – by sampling their urine. Females co-operate in this "urine-testing" ritual, according to researchers David M. Pratt and Virginia H. Anderson. “When the bull nuzzles her rump, she must produce a stream of urine if he is to catch some in his mouth and savour it," they write. If a cow is particularly attracted to a visiting bull, she may simply decide to urinate as he walks past her, no prodding required. Urolagnia, or "golden showers" as it is more commonly known, is not a human invention, it seems. 

While giraffes' social decisions are ruled by urine, hippos appear to rely on dung. The function and purpose of dung-showering is still only partially understood, according to biologist Richard Despard Estes. What’s clear is that dominant males defecate in order to mark the boundaries of their territories. University of Alberta scientists EL Karstad and RJ Hudson describe one dominant male backing up to the riverbank and "copiously defecating, scattering dung up to 2 metres in radius by flapping its tail vigorously." But there's more to hippo dung than simple territory demarcation. When territorial males approach females they respond in a manner known as "submissive defecation". In this impressive display, the female turns around, lowering her head while raising her rear, then slowly wags her tail while defecating. In situations like this, dung-showering is thought to serve as a sign of submission.

Sexual fantasies aren't limited to urine and faeces, of course. Some people prefer their sexual encounters a little more on the rough side, but this is nothing compared with the blacktip reef shark (Carcharhinus melanopterus) found in the tropical and subtropical waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans. For them, sex has an added bite.

Stanford biologist Douglas J McCauley and colleagues carefully described the mating habits of this toothy species in 2010. After being followed through the water at close distance by a group of males, a female was bitten on her tail by the lead male. While the tail bite slowed her down, she managed to briefly free herself before being bitten again, by the same male, on her body near her right pectoral fin. Having got hold of her, he guided her head into the sandy seafloor long enough to insert one of his two claspers into her cloaca, resulting in a sixty-eight second copulation. Shark scientist David Shiffman pointed out recentlythat biting may be a necessary consequence of mating in a three-dimensional – and slippery – environment. "It ensures that the male remains close enough to the female to copulate." Female sharks of many species may have evolved thicker, tougher skin than males for this very reason.

Group sex appears to be another evolutionary strategy. Every spring in southern Manitoba, tens of thousands of red-sided garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis) emerge from their underground hibernation dens and end up writhing in large “mating balls”. When a female garter snake emerges, she releases a pheromone that attracts hundreds of male snakes towards her. As if that isn't enough, scientists discovered that some male snakes “cross dress”; they release female-like pheromones to attract other males. One common assumption has been that pheromone-releasing males gain a reproductive advantage by diverting fellow male snakes attention from the female. But Australian and US researchers think this solves a more mundane purpose – male snakes pose as females to warm up quicker and to reduce their exposure to predators.

The mourning cuttlefish (Sepia plangon) takes its cross dressing even further. This cephalopod, found in the waters off the eastern coast of Australia, controls the appearance of its skin with exquisite precision. When a male cuttlefish attempts to seduce a nearby female, he offers her a courtship display by controlling the arrangement of pigments that appear on the surface of his skin. If a rival male approaches, he changes his skin on the side facing the rival to appear female. The female still sees the courtship display, the intruder, however, thinks there are two females – leaving the original male to complete his reproductive business in peace.

Our societies may look down upon certain sexual interests as odd, weird, gross, or just plain silly. But as with friendships, play, and even teenage kicks, investigating other species helps us to hold a magnifying glass of sorts – albeit one with a bit of distortion – up to our own behaviours. And if we squint real hard and tilt our heads to the side we might be able to catch a glimpse of the common threads connecting us with our non-human cousins. Even if it offends or challenges our norms.