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The First Gathering
The Swan 22 High Street, Hampton Wick, Kingston, KT1 4DB
This event invites young entrepeneurs looking for a communal working space and a chance to share business ideas with other budding business owners. So, come along for a meet, drink and greet.
Meetup group details at: http://www.meetup.com/20s-Entrepreneur-Gang/
Tweet Beccy at @beccylee87


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Hello. I was hoping you would help distribute my research announcement to your autism-related listservs, and to your autistic friends, colleagues, and students. Thanks in advance for your help. Rebecca Sonnenberg
The Relationship between Identity-Centrality and Identity-First Language Preferences and Usage in Individuals who have Autism Survey
Dear Participant:
I am a psychology major at St. Mary's College of Maryland. I am conducting a study on identity-first and person-first language related to autism. This online research survey will ask questions about autism identity-centrality, perception of stigma attached to autism, language preference when being addressed, and information about your background. We sincerely invite you to participate in this survey in order to help better understand the language preferences of autistic individuals in our communities.
To be eligible for this study, you must be diagnosed with autism, be at least 18 years old, and currently reside in the United States. If you are over the age of 18, but under guardianship, you are not eligible to participate in the current study. The survey is confidential, and takes about 10 minutes to complete. As an incentive to participate, all participants will be given the chance to enter a raffle awarding $50 Amazon.com gift card to one randomly selected person. For those interested in participating in this study, click on the following hypertext link (or cut and paste it into your browser):
This will take you to the consent form and questionnaire.
Please feel free to forward this email announcement to eligible friends/colleagues and other autism-related listservs. Thanks in advance for your help with this project!
Becca and Trevor
Rebecca Sonnenberg, St. Mary's College of Maryland
Trevor L. Dunn, Ph.D., St. Mary's College of Maryland
Rebecca F. Sonnenberg, (email@example.com)
Trevor L Dunn (email@example.com)
Department of Psychology
St. Mary's College of Maryland
St. Mary's County, MD 68600
Published on: Feb 26, 2020 at 14:01

subset: commoncrawl


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Russian Metal stalwarts SECOND TO SUN have released a drum playthrough video for "I Psychoanalyze My Ghosts." The track is taken from forthcoming album Leviathan and features drummer Theodor Borovski.
Ever prolific and consistently ferocious, SECOND TO SUN will release new album Leviathan on September 29. The follow-up to 2019's raging Legacy, itself a game changer, the new album finds the band firing on all cylinders!
Pre-order Leviathan: https://smarturl.it/STSLEVIATHAN


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- This event has passed.
TBC: The Life and Art of Artemisia
28th May at 6:00 pm - 7:30 pmFree
Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–1654 or later) is considered one of the most accomplished and brilliant painters among the followers of Caravaggio. In an era when women artists faced many barriers, she was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia del Disegno in Florence and had a truly international clientele, including royalty. Artemisia faced challenges in both her professional and personal life. Her biography has long overshadowed her artistic achievements, but today she is recognised as one of the most talented painters of her generation.
The Life and Art of Artemisia, Thursday 28th May, 6pm to 7.30pm, 16+
In 2019, we had the privilege of displaying Artemisia Gentileschi's deeply moving 'Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria' at GWL. A year from then, the first major exhibition of her work in the UK opens at the National Gallery in London. To celebrate Artemisia in our own way, we are hosting a talk by Dr Elisabetta Toreno who will tell us more about the life and work of this exceptional artist, and help us explore her paintings in relation to her life and to works by other artists of her time and later periods.
As of Wednesday 18th March, Glasgow Women's Library is closed until further notice. We believe that closing our doors is the best way to slow the spread of Covid-19. We are no longer taking bookings for events in our Spring programme, in the understanding that they may not go ahead. If you can check in at the end of April for updates on our website and social media, or by email, please do so. You can find more information on our response to Covid-19 here.
This event is for open to all and is free to attend. Please book below (you will be taken through the shopping cart but no charge will be made) or you can call us on 0141 550 2267. If you have booked a place and are no longer able to attend please let us know so that we can make your place available to someone else.
Glasgow Women's Library is wheelchair accessible, with lifts to the first floor and the Mezzanine Floor. We have accessible toilets and all the bathrooms are individual closed stalls and are gender neutral. Our larger Events Space is fitted with an induction loop. A portable induction loop is also available. For paid events free companion tickets are available.
Find more information on Accessibility at GWL or contact us and we will be very happy to offer assistance.


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Nuestro is an unincorporated town in Sutter County. It is located south of Sanders, southwest of Sullivan, west of Berg, northwest of Yuba City, north of Tierra Buena, east of Sutter, and southeast of the Sutter Buttes.
|This article is in need of a Photo.To add an image to this page, click "Edit" and then click the "Files" button.
Nuestro is split between the 95953 and 95993 zip codes. The U.S. Postal Service sometimes lists addresses in Nuestro as being in Live Oak or Yuba City, because Live Oak is in the 95953 zip code and Yuba City is partly in the 95993 zip code. However, on the Yuba-Sutter Wiki, we prefer listing the more specific location Nuestro.


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The five most wanted Slovaks are featured in a special campaign the police have launched on Facebook and Instagram. The campaign is a response to the coronavirus pandemic in Slovakia and the world.
The police came up with virtual vouchers for "special state quarantine in Leopoldov" stating other conditions and advantages.
Leopoldov is a municipality in western Slovakia with one of the best-known maximum-security prisons in the country.
Lifetime quarantine for former mafioso
As the police stated on Facebook, the aim of the campaign is to increase public awareness about criminals being hunted down by the police, with the goal of gaining information leading to their arrest.
The first to be issued the so-called ID for life-long quarantine is for former mafia kingpin, 44-year-old Róbert Okoličány.
The quarantine vouchers should attract the attention of the public, who are invited to report any information they might have for the police about the suspects. Those with information can contact the 158 telephone number, report it in person at any police station, or even send a private message to the police Facebook page.
Christmas cards
The quarantine vouchers follow last December's Christmas campaign, when the police published "Christmas cards" for the four most wanted Slovaks.
More than 500,000 followers saw the information on Facebook, increasing the chance of gaining new information.
The police say the Christmas campaign contributed to the January arrest of a top member of the mafia group takáčovci Henrich Sz., who had been wanted for more than three years. There were hints that he may have died.
"We believe that our coronavirus campaign will bring a similar, if not better result," said Jana Maškarová, vice-president of the Police Corps, as quoted by the SITA newswire.
More than 800,000 followers follow the police's social networks. The main Facebook page reached 300,000 fans a few days ago and about 360,000 followers.
19. May 2020 at 13:37 | Compiled by Spectator staff


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Rehearse 🔊 Meaning in Urdu
Urdu meaning of Rehearse is مشق کرنا, it can be written as Mashq Karna in Roman Urdu.
Rehearse Synonyms
Related to Rehearse
Close to Rehearse
Rehearse in Detail
1. مشق کرنا Mashq Karna : Practice Practise Rehearse : (verb) engage in a rehearsal (of).
Related : Perform
English Learning Video
Useful Words
Affiance Betroth Engage Plight : منگنی کرنا Mangni Karna : give to in marriage. "They have got engaged"
Dry Run Rehearsal : آزمائشی مشق کرنا Aazmaishi Mashq Karna : a practice session in preparation for a public performance (as of a play or speech or concert). "He missed too many rehearsals"


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Quality men evaluate possible relationships based on character and not physical beauty alone. I trust you fully believe this by now. Men do have an idea in the back of their minds of the kind of girl they want.
Asking and apologizing for forgiveness is one of the most significant elements contributing to relationship satisfaction. Having the ability to proceed from hurtful events will finally result in a stronger relationship.
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Purchase the Book Here. . . Dating After Divorce For Your Single Daddy *****Dating Ideas For The Single Daddy helps single dads get some relationship ideas before they begin dating again. It gives a step- by- step way of enjoying the dating procedure and developing of what they want clarity.
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I told Sylvester concerning my nocturnal struggles. I play Sagawitchewan local sluts free with the button and would pull Joseph's name up. Bedtime's silent could allow me to live on wronged I felt and how much I deserved a apology.
Trigger was able to relieve himself entirely, and because we were all in a jumble, or if it was, I discovered that Cal was on this group's side. I usedton't care. Because we had evidently staged at a circle, I could see over the way that is steady on the side of the region.
If a man approaches a woman and says something along the lines of" I know this is awkward and bizarre but I believed, you were appealing and wanted to talk to you personally" . This line alone will make the woman open to you( if she's not trapped) .
A textbook example of the relationship market on these programs can change when they attain a certain popularity. The most popular women tend to move off these platforms because they don't need the hassle of being bombarded by every man in town. The good news is they finally move over with a number of men, and thus better likelihood of getting.
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But some jobs will function better than others. By way of instance, FireFighterGuyinReno is a screen name. Plenty of women are drawn to men who are firefighters. You're telling them what townyou're in and exactly what you are doing.
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I agreed and I proposed that we should play with tennis. We never did, but I was called by him one day and asked if I played with golf. He invited me to join him, and I do and the other one of his friends. I gave him a list of my situation while on the golf course.
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This behaviour not only induces women to lose ALL fascination and NEVER care to watch him again, but these women feel the need to inform OTHER MEN as well as their wives helpless this man is and the way he'll never have another chance with her.


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Canon's triple-digit EOS line has traditionally catered for those dipping their toes into DSLR photography, but as successive models have acquired more functionality, they've ventured further into enthusiast territory.
The Canon 600D sits somewhere in between the two camps, with a small form and entry-level styling, but many features inherited from the enthusiast EOS 60D.
Even so, it varies in only a handful of ways to the previous EOS 550D and arrives only a year after that model.
|Canon EOS Rebel T3i Digital SLR Camera Body Only (discontinued by manufacturer)
|Check Price
Despite a number of other changes, the EOS 600D carries over the same sensor/processor combination seen on the 550D. The APS-C CMOS sensor still contains 18.7MP to give an effective total of 18MP, while the DIGIC 4 processing engine facilitates a burst rate of 3.7fps for up to 34 JPEG images, six raw pictures, or four simultaneous raw and JPEG captures.
The two allow a sensitivity span of ISO 100-6400 with an extension to ISO 12,800, and noise reduction is also on hand for both long exposures and high sensitivities, the latter in three different strengths.
HD video functionality is largely unchanged from that of 550D, with Full HD recording (1920 x 1080) at 24, 25 and 30fps, and 720p recording at 50 and 60fps.
There's also a VGA option should you not require high-definition footage, and plenty of control on offer, from manual exposure control and the provision of Picture Styles, to adjustment of audio levels and application of a wind cut filter.
There is, however, the new addition of a Movie Snapshot mode, which captures movies in two-, four- or eight-second bursts, before stitching the separate files together into a single sequence.
Picture Designs comprise Standard, Portrait, Landscape, Neutral, Faithful and Monochrome modes, as well as a new Auto mode, which lets the camera decide on the best parameters for the scene being shot, and three user-definable options.
This is complemented by the camera's Scene Intelligent Auto mode (which replaces the more standard Auto function) to take full control over many parameters such as focus, flash and Picture Style. The standard quartet of evaluative, centre-weighted, partial and spot metering patterns are provided, as are three levels of Auto Lighting Optimisation and a Highlight Tone Priority function.
In contrast to previous EOS models, which have shunned many novelties found elsewhere to deliver a comparatively sober feature set, the 600D shows its fun side by adding the EOS 60D's Creative Filters, which allow processing effects to be applied to images post-capture.
Also from the 60D comes an image rating system, whereby images may be tagged with a number of stars, should you want to remember any particular images for later.
Another significant addition is the Wireless Flash option, which allows the camera's pop-up flash to be used as the master for other Speedlite flashguns. While the subject of flash can be mysterious to beginners, Canon has gone to the trouble of including an EasyWireless flash setting to help simplify flash for new users, and has broken everything down step-by-step in the accompanying user manual.
Should users want to get more creative, or for those already familiar with flash handle, the 600D goes on to offer the usual sync options, flash exposure compensation and custom mode which places greater control in the user's hands.
Next to the focusing modules found in competing models, the 600D's wide-area nine-point AF system may seem a little lacking, but the system cover a healthy portion of the frame as the centrally placed cross-type stage promises an increase in speed and accuracy on the eight around it.
In good light, none of the nine points has any problems picking out the subject, and when all points are activated the camera does well to quickly bring subjects into focus.
In lower light, however, the better performance of the central point is appreciated, with it picking up low-contrast subjects reasonably well, while the other eight often run the lens through its entire focusing range, before pausing for a brief moment and fine tuning focus. Using a better-specified zoom lens shows this can be improved, and not just in velocity but also in sound, since the kit lens can be a little whirry.
Live View is always made more useful when coupled with an articulated LCD screen, and thanks to the Creative Filter systems and Picture Styles, it's possible to achieve a range of effects from all manner of shooting positions on the 600D.
Focusing in Live View is could be carried out using the directional menu pad to guide to point over to the details, however the contrast-detection focusing system tends to match the uncertainty of its phase-detection partner, with the system taking a while to confirm focus once it has reached an approximate area.
This isn't entirely uncommon for such systems, and the thoroughness is there for accuracy. However, in a handful of situations it may prove to be a little too slow and limiting next to the faster Quick AF setting, which flips the mirror up to temporarily blackout the picture.
The three-inch LCD screen boasts the same 1,440,000-dot resolution as the Canon 60D, and is primed with three anti-reflection and fluorine anti-smudge coatings. The level of detail it resolves is excellent, and both its default contrast and brightness are spot on, too.
It also boasts a perfectly respectable viewing angle, although zooming into and around images is almost always followed by a short but noticeable pixelation because the digital camera catches up. Furthermore, with no ambient light sensor, the display tends to suggest that certain images may be underexposed outdoors when in fact, under more subdued lighting they appear balanced and accurately exposed.
Build and Quality
Just as many of the Canon EOS 600D's specifications mirror those of the EOS 550D, so does the design of its body. From the front it simply looks like the newer model has bulked up a little, while on the top-plate the only changes are to the look and functionality of the mode dial, and the addition of the display button, whose former space on the rear is now taken by an Info button.
The mode dial is sufficiently tall to be easily turned and the new texture around its side makes it easier to grip than before, but it's a shame it doesn't rotate all the way around, particularly because the movie option is right at the other end of the dial to all creative settings. For the most part, though, if you only tend to stick to either creative or the scene modes, this shouldn't be too great an issue.
Most other alterations concern the rear of the camera; the eye sensor used to help conserve battery life is nowhere to be seen, having been displaced by the larger articulated LCD screen, while the menu pad and thumb rest are each a shade smaller for the same reason.
The LCD screen moves freely about its hinge, although accessing the Menu and Information buttons above it can be awkward when the screen is pulled away from the camera's body, because in most positions it's directly in the way.
Despite the smaller thumbrest, it still provides just enough room for someone with averagely-sized hands, although only just; some will no doubt find it a little too cramped.
The body maintains much of exactly the same style as the 550D, with the same stainless steel chassis and polycarbonate resin casing, but a slightly more matte finish. A number of buttons have, however, been subject to minor aesthetic revisions, while slight changes to overall dimensions have added a little more entire body to the camera's grip. Even so, the grip still feels just a little lacking even with average hands, with the lack of room meaning the user's fingertips often feel pushed against the body.
The menu system offers little by way of surprise, adhering to exactly the same tabbed and colour-coordinated format that has graced many former EOS models. Those new to Canon's system should easily pick up its operation; while the left hand brings up the menus and alternates between screen information, the right uses both the command dial and directional buttons to move across and down each menu tab respectively.
The less experienced also benefit from Canon's helpful Feature Guide, which explains all features succinctly, while those with a bit more shooting time behind them can personalise their camera's with 11 custom functions and file commonly used options under a My Menu tab.
With a formatted Class 10 SDHC card, testing the camera on its burst mode showed it to manage average of 19 high-quality JPEGs before slowing down, and about six Raw frames at a continuous speed. Somewhat disappointingly, only around six or seven Raw and JPEG captures may be taken at a much slower rate of around one per second, before the camera prohibits images from being shot without needing a few seconds of breathing space in between exposures.
Speed is no doubt compromised by the digital camera creating such larger files; when opened, JPEGs measure in at over 50MB, while TIFF documents converted from Natural files typically double this. It's a shame there's no option to shoot at a faster rate but at a reduced resolution, which would no doubt be preferable when such huge data files aren't required.
Once the setting dial has been turned to the relevant position, video recording could be started by pressing the dedicated button on the rear. The Quick AF mode, which uses the same phase-detection system as in standard shooting, is indeed very quick, although the contrast detection setting (dubbed 'Live' mode by Canon) has the advantage of a continuing feed, although is much slower at bringing subjects into focus (just as in live view).
Playing back movies shows good, fluid movement, and a gradual but swift transition in exposure as the scene changes, but the inevitable wobble introduced by panning does make itself known. Audio quality is adequate for general use, but it's not particularly great for anything else and isn't reproduced well by the camera's speaker, either. Fortunately a stereo microphone may be plugged into the camera's side should you wish to improve on this.
The Movie Snapshot mode is a curious addition, but one with the potential to force users shoot video more selectively. It seems particularly useful for those travelling, who may want to record a brief summary of where they've been without needing to trawl through various clips of different sizes.
The camera automatically stitches all footage in exactly the same album together, and watching it back makes for an undoubtedly more interesting experience than watching a single long video.
The feature is relatively simple to use, and footage may be played back before it's saved to an album, while it's also nice that Canon has allowed basic editing, so that footage could be trimmed from either end of a recording.
The metering system does very well to balance shadows, midtones and highlights, and many situations in which other cameras would err one way or the other fail to outfox the 600D – although now and again the camera will sometimes create the odd error of judgement.
Something that does become apparent when examining the 600D's images is the effect of the iFCL metering program; because this uses the AF point among other factors to judge exposure, the camera will prioritise exposure for the subject on which the user focuses.
As a consequence, such images may appear either over or underexposed, depending on the brightness of the topic in relation to the rest of the scene. This can be beneficial when shooting against backlighting, for example, although for print-ready results it's advisable to experiment with either the Highlight tone priority option or the Auto Lighting Optimiser (or both).
Most of the time, the camera's auto White Balance system helps to produce colourful but faithful pictures. During the test the digital camera coped perfectly nicely with standard natural lighting and even managed to render to warm glow of sodium vapour streelights against twilight with aplomb.
Only a couple of occasions proved problematic: under tungsten light, where it recorded the warm yellow lighting as a more rosy magenta, and outdoors when the scene contained little colour detail, which caused noticeably cold casts. In both of these cases, selecting the appropriate white balance preset proved to be a better match (which, with the direct WB switch, can be done in little time).
JPEGs are noticeably sharper than corresponding Raw files, but it's still possible to tease out a little more detail without degrading all of those other image using a sharpening tool.
With regards to noise, texture begins building up at around ISO 800, and continues to rise steadily up the maximum sensitivity of ISO 12,800.
The in-camera noise reduction options do well to remove the fine-textured chroma noise which appears over darker areas, and even the strongest setting manages to do so while leaving images relatively intact.
The Digital Photo Professional software works a treat to eliminate the coarsest red and green speckling from Natural files, and also images shot at the highest sensitivity of ISO 12,800 remain detailed after careful processing, particularly if just a touch of luminance noise reduction is applied.
The new EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II kit lens is said to be optically unchanged from the previous version (which it now supersedes), with just slight revisions to its outer design.
Once again, it offers a four-stop image stabilisation program, although in practice it managed acceptably-sharp results down to around 1/8 sec at 55mm, equating to around a three-stop improvement.
No doubt it's possible to reach the four promised stops, but like results are generally just obtainable with flawless technique and the optimum conditions.
Once the lens is stopped down a little, sharpness is excellently maintained to both edges and corners of the frame, but sadly plenty of magenta and green chromatic aberrations are easily spotted throughout each Raw and JPEG images. The boost in contrast in the latter doesn't particularly help here, often making chromatic aberrations even more apparent.
There's also a touch of purple fringing noticeable in high contrast areas, although this tends to be due to the camera's microlens formation, and there's also a little barrel distortion at the lens's widest extremity, which disappears once zoomed in just a little.
- Sensor
22.3 x 14.9mm (APS-C) 18.0-million effective pixel CMOS sensor
- Focal length conversion
Approx 1.6x
- Memory
- Viewfinder
Optical pentamirror, 95% coverage with 0.85x magnification and approx. 19mm eye point
- Video resolution
MOV format, 1920 x 1080 (at 29.97, 25, 23.976 fps), 1280 x 720 (at 59.94, 50 fps), 640 x 480 (at 59.94, 50 fps). Mono sound.
- ISO range
ISO 100-6400, expandable to ISO 12,800
- Autofocus
9 points (1 cross-type)
- Max burst rate
- LCD screen size
Three-inch articulated Clear View LCD, 1,040,000 dots (346,666 pixels)
- Shutter speeds
1/4000-30sec, bulb
- Weight
570g (including battery and memory card)
- Dimensions
133.1 x 99.5 x 79.7mm
- Power supply LP-E8 (supplied)
Check Out: Best Canon EOS 600D Lenses
Although the 600D's focusing speed is generally good, the meagre burst rate and slow down upon processing mean that it's perhaps not the ideal camera for action photography. It's also probably not ideal for larger handed users, but otherwise there's little to complain about. The various changes bestowed upon the 600D perhaps make a little more sense here than they do in the enthusiast EOS 60D, and what results is a model that provides plenty of growing space for beginners but enough to keep the more adventurous happy from the off.
When the LCD screen, wireless flash capabilities and numerous other improvements are considered, the premium EOS 550D isn't entirely unreasonable, but the 600D is nevertheless a minor upgrade to an already-acclaimed formula.
Check Canon EOS 600D Price
|Canon EOS Rebel T3i Digital SLR Camera Body Only (discontinued by manufacturer)
|Check Price


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Michael Pugh
Michael Pugh Updated November 28, 2015
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Michael Pugh
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I'm a British transwoman author who writes novels and other books across several genres. I am now called Michelle McMurrie, but my books were written under my previous name of Michael Pugh. I'm a lefty author who believes in equality. I write fiction without filler, because I have no interest in filler; life's too short to write it, and I certainly wouldn't want to waste anyone's time expecting them to read it. My work is relatively short and to the point, with all of my books so far landing between 5,000 and 85,000 words. It's my job to tell you the story I want to tell you without distractions, because you're busy and I wouldn't insult you with thousands of words of padding! I have been married to Jenny since 2010 and we live together in Liverpool. As well as doing her quality wifing, Jenny also acts as editor and publicist for all of my works.


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Of all the heartbreaking, soul-inspiring things he writes, the sentence about the waitress is the one that brought tears to my eyes. Shiva is the week of intense mourning that many Jews observe after a death in the family, during which the mourners do not prepare food. Serving a shiva meal in a pizza place: that's what we will have to do for each other, white for black, non-Jews for Jews, non-Muslims for Muslims, native citizens for immigrants, hetero for LGB, cis for trans, native English speakers for English as a Second Language learners: everyone who has not been the latest salvo's target for those who have been, because as long as we are united we cannot be defeated.
It makes me double down on my resolve to actively ally with those whose "category" I don't share, especially African-Americans. I confess my slowness to take up their cause as passionately as my own, to respond as energetically to threats to their children as I do to threats to my own. I ask for their forgiveness, and forbearance as I work to change.
And I have an appeal to other religious leaders. Many of Pittsburgh's Jewish leaders have told the president that he is not welcome to come to them as long as he is fomenting hate and violence. The murderer's words were straight out of Trump's speeches; the vicious, false fantasy of the dangerous refugee is the one Trump stoked and rode to the White House. His presence can do nothing to heal our wounds unless he accepts responsibility for his demagoguery and turns it around 180 degrees. And they are our wounds, not just Jews' (as they were Saturday in Pittsburgh) or African-Americans' (as they were on Wednesday in Jeffersontown, Kentucky) or Muslims' (as they are prevented from traveling) or Mexicans' and Central Americans' (as they are in children's prisons all along the border) or trans* folks' (as their lives are redefined by the pseudoscience of bigots).
So we should all deliver the same message as those Jewish leaders in Pittsburgh: no politician who is inciting terrorism and enacting fascist policies is welcome in our communities. Trump doesn't come to the Bay Area anyway, because he only likes to visit cheering crowds, but I'm still drafting a letter from clergy to the White House from my region because it's what decent people do when others are threatened.
Will you do the same, dear colleagues of all faiths? Will you sign on, dear people of all faiths?
The following is the letter for our region. People of faith of the Bay Area, please "sign" in the comments, and I will compile all the names into a letter, which may be posted online as well as to the press. The names of faith communities and organizations are given for identification purposes only.
To President Trump:
We are faith community leaders and members in the San Francisco Bay Area. Like the leaders in Pittsburgh and tens of thousands of signers who asked you to stay away, we request that you not come to our region until you denounce white nationalism with both your words and your actions.
We have seen the rise of fascism before, and we recognize it in what you are doing and what you are inspiring. Demagogues whip their followers into acts of violence. These leaders need never strike a blow in order to rain down terror upon the people; indeed, many have been less explicit than you. You have urged your followers to beat members of the crowd, "Second Amendment people" to "do something" about Secretary Clinton, and police to slam suspects' heads into cars. You have hailed as "[your] kind of guy" a thug who assaulted a journalist. Your power is built on scapegoating of the vulnerable.
Furthermore, you spread lies that feed fear and hatred. Your false, frequently-repeated claim that asylum-seekers, refugees and undocumented immigrants commit a disproportionate number of crimes was the reason the killer in Pittsburgh gave for his assault upon a synagogue that helps settle refugees.
You have consistently, repeatedly set yourself up as a threat to innocent people, due process, and democracy itself, and you have sought to enlist your followers to put your threatening words into action. When we look at our nation's history, we see the times fascism has risen and been put down, and we vow to be this generation's upholders of justice, democracy, and human rights. Until you uphold them as well, please do not come to the Bay Area.
In faith,
Rev. Amy Zucker Morgenstern
Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto
I'm going to give a long answer to a short question: Is Donald J. Trump competent to serve as president? No way. He has Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), and it renders him incompetent to be president and a danger to us all. That's not the long answer. Keep reading.
I'm not talking about strategy here, whether it would be wiser to impeach him or invoke the 25th Amendment now, or after the Special Counsel releases his report, or after the midterms, or when. This is long enough without that.
Talking about mental illness is often fraught with misapprehensions and flat-out prejudice, so a few important points are in order before I continue.
- When I say Trump has a mental illness, I don't mean he is unintelligent, immoral, cognitively impaired, erratic, or an asshole. If I want to say those things about him, I'll say them in those words. What I am saying is that he has a mental illness.
- I am not stigmatizing those with mental illnesses. I suffer from one myself, as do many, many people I love and admire. We so often shame people for mental illness, and there is nothing shameful about it. People with mental illness–chronic or occasional, mild or severe–deserve profound respect, and can function very well in all manner of jobs.
- As with non-mental illnesses, the difference between being incapacitated by a mental illness or not often rests on treatment. Trump does not appear to be getting effective treatment for NPD, if any. He probably hasn't sought help, because it's the cruel nature of the disorder to make its sufferers certain that everyone else is the problem, not themselves. Or, as Psychology Today politely puts it, "Treatment for narcissistic personality disorder can be challenging because people with this condition present with a great deal of grandiosity and defensiveness, which makes it difficult for them to acknowledge problems and vulnerabilities."
- Having a mental illness should not disqualify one from public office. I don't doubt that almost all of the previous 43* presidents had mental illnesses at some point during their terms, and many served with excellence just the same. Lincoln almost certainly had depression, and he was probably our greatest president. Having a mental illness whose symptoms interfere with the basic functions of the job, and not getting effective treatment: that's where the problem enters in.
- Saying that someone is mentally ill does not absolve him of all responsibility, nor does compassion require us to allow him to continue in his position.
- NPD is not simply "having a big ego" or "thinking a lot of oneself" or speaking highly of one's own abilities. It's arguable that one couldn't survive 24 hours as president without a lot of self-confidence, and even if having higher-than-average self-confidence were a problem, it's not what I'm saying about Trump.
I am no psychologist, but I can read and reason, and here are the criteria for NPD:
A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
- Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements).
- Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.
- Believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions).
- Requires excessive admiration.
- Has a sense of entitlement (i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or autonomic compliance with his or her expectations).
- Is interpersonally exploitative (i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends).
- Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.
- Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her.
- Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.
Do I need to quote cases of Trump "requir[ing] excessive admiration"? Or give examples of his being "interpersonally exploitative" and "lack[ing] empathy"? I'm not asking rhetorically. Maybe you have practiced better internet habits than I and haven't read umpteen statements indicating that Trump "is often envious of others or [I'd say: and] believes that others are envious of him," in which case, just ask in the comments and I'll supply the quotes. Likewise, there is abundant evidence that Trump "exaggerates achievements and talents" and "expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements," and "believes that he or she is 'special' and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people."
Two friends of mine who do have the professional credentials I lack–one is a therapist and the other a PhD in psychology whose dissertation was on NPD–both, after the caveat that they can't diagnose someone at a distance, say that hell yes, this guy has a screaming case of NPD.
Unfortunately, most of us don't have that expertise, and so early in the Trump fiasco, progressive folks were giving entirely too much credence to a letter to the New York Times by an expert on Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Dr. Allen Frances. In fact, he is not only an expert, he was described in reprint after reprint as "the man who defined NPD." And he argued that Trump doesn't have it. However, there are two enormous holes in his argument.
One, it is based on the DSM-IV criteria, because those are the ones he authored (he chaired the group that wrote that section), and he doesn't accept the DSM-V version. That's a defensible position, but it can't just be assumed correct, and he doesn't make the case in this letter, but instead, disingenuously asserts that he "wrote the criteria that define this disorder."
Two, Frances claims that Trump is not impaired by the above characteristics. This is important because even the DSM-V says that in order to be diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, one must experience impairment or distress, noting:
Many highly successful individuals display personality traits that might be considered narcissistic. Only when these traits are inflexible, maladaptive, and persisting and cause significant functional impairment or subjective distress do they constitute narcissistic personality disorder.
Fair enough. But how would Frances support the contention that Trump "does not suffer from the distress and impairment required to diagnose mental disorder" (sic; one needs either distress or impairment, not both); that he "causes severe distress rather than experiencing it and has been richly rewarded, rather than punished, for his grandiosity, self-absorption and lack of empathy"? Yes, he has reaped many rewards, including the position of president. But one can't read more than a few tweets without perceiving a deeply distressed person, and as for impairment, I would like to know the name of one person who is a genuine friend of Donald Trump. Descriptions of people such as Tom Barrack, "one of Trump's closest friends," "a friend . . . for more than 30 years," include such chilling asides as this: "Barrack noted that he has been able to maintain a candid and honest relationship with Trump over the years because he 'was always subservient to him.'"
When your "closest friends" can only maintain the "friendship" by being subservient to you, I have to tell you, friend: you have not experienced friendship. You don't know what friendship is. And to live without true friends is a deep and tragic functional impairment, made no less so by the sufferer's illusion that he does have them.
So Dr. Frances's argument fails to convince. Trump has NPD by the standards of the DSM-V, including being significantly impaired by the disorder.
Which leads to the reasonable question: can't someone be a good president even with untreated NPD?
Nope. At least, someone who checks off every last criterion, like Trump, certainly can't. Several examples of how his NPD renders him incompetent and/or dangerous:
- Because he is so desperate for praise, he is incapable of intelligent diplomacy. Every foreign leader is judged by how much he likes Trump. The foreign leaders, their vision unclouded by narcissism, immediately realize that this requires no more commitment than paying him an insincere compliment. This would be laughable if it were just a matter of foolish, fawning statements about Emmanuel Macron and Shinzo Abe. But his insatiable need for admiration causes him to be unwary when wariness is needed. All an adversary has to do is flatter him and he's putty in their hands. So when Russia's foreign minister and ambassador stroked his ego, he divulged classified information, including exposing a confidential source.
- His envy drives him to foolish, destructive policy decisions. When he isn't trying to unravel Obama's policies (regardless of whether they are helping the country), he is trying to win the competition that dominates his own mind. He must win. And so, goaded by Obama's (undeserved, in my opinion) Nobel Peace Prize and by the idea dangled by right-wing commenters (ludicrously, in my opinion) that Trump could win one as well if he made a deal with North Korea, he rushed into a meeting with Kim Jong Un, made absurd claims of success there, and denied the evidence before, during and since that the summit had had a negligible effect on Kim's policies.
- Another factor in the North Korea debacle was his inability to tolerate failure or even a normal level of success. Someone with NPD "exaggerates achievements and talents"; the slow pace of diplomacy is incompatible with his self-image. He has to be able to fix what no one else could fix, faster and more brilliantly than anyone in the past. When that proves impossible, he simply will not perceive it; he puts his fingers in his ears and runs from the room, shouting what a tremendous success he has been.
- Also notable in the Kim meeting was his lack of preparation. Someone who perceives himself as having "unlimited success, power, brilliance" doesn't need no stinkin' prep sessions. For the same reason, Trump has not had serious security briefings in his entire term so far. He won't read the Presidential Daily Briefing–the short version of intelligence documents–even dumbed down and sprinkled with many mentions of his own name.
- He can't grasp a concept as simple as "trade is not a zero-sum game" because to the narcissistic mind, everything is a zero-sum game. Economists from Adam Smith to Milton Erickson know that a trade deficit is not an unfavorable balance of trade. But Trump (aside from intellectual and cognitive difficulties, which may be significant factors as well) cannot even entertain that idea.
- For that matter, his narcissism won't permit him to think of trade as a good thing at all (see forthcoming book Fear by Bob Woodward, which reprints a report with a margin note in Trump's own handwriting, "TRADE IS BAD"). It follows a certain solipsistic logic: nothing outside his country should be taken seriously, unless it can be made to reflect well on him. He has long seen foreign relations the same way he sees personal ones: they are a contest of egos. Nothing about the past 20 months suggests that he has changed since the 1990 Playboy interview in which he said, "I think our country needs more ego, because it is being ripped off so badly by our so-called allies; i.e., Japan, West Germany, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, etc. They have literally outegotized this country, because they rule the greatest money machine ever assembled and it's sitting on our backs. . . . We Americans are laughed at around the world for losing $150 billion year after year." He's talking about the trade deficit again; he thinks that if you sell $50 billion in products and buy $200 billion worth, you are losing $150 billion.
- Likewise, he not only exhibits no loyalty (he only demands it), but he can't restrain his competitiveness enough to maintain a coalition even with his closest allies. He derides and undermines Congressional leaders in his own party when they are in the act of promoting legislation he wants to see passed. His own arrogance and sense that he is, and must be, special, leave no room for teamwork.
- He can't absorb criticism or change course for fear of being seen as weak. Narcissist Personality Disorder does not permit apologies. Hence we have a president who, when he makes a mistake, "doubles down" rather than mitigating it. After getting flak for suggesting that people on "both sides" were to blame for the violence by Nazis in Charlottesville, he reluctantly gave a speech condemning Nazis and white supremacists. Immediately afterwards, rightly recognizing that people saw the speech as a reversal, he railed about it–the criticism of Nazism, not the coddling of it–calling it the "biggest f—ing mistake I've made."
Whatever a president's policy positions, be they leftist, liberal, conservative, libertarian, the person needs to be able to see through flattery, risk being seen as a failure, absorb new information, work with a team, and change course. Trump's Narcissistic Personality Disorder is complicated by impulsiveness and cognitive deficits, but even if it were not, it would be as disqualifying an ailment as coma or severe brain damage. A person with untreated, severe NPD cannot be a competent president of the United States, period.
*Numbers 23 and 25 were the same person–good old Grover Cleveland–so we've had 43 presidents prior to Trump.
The kvelling over Senator John McCain shows how low the bar has fallen recently. We know why, but if we're going to grade politicians on a curve, let's not just look at the past two years. "Greatest American hero of the past 50 years," a man of "honor and integrity," "a maverick" . . . Are we talking about the same person? I believe in speaking respectfully of the dead when one possibly can, and remaining silent when one can't, with rare exceptions (for example, when someone finally puts a stake through Kissinger's heart, I'll spit on his grave). So I am fine with respectful words for a complex, flawed person. These showers of praise go beyond that. They make bold claims about the meaning of honor, integrity, and independence that drag those fine qualities through the mud, and insult far greater heroes of our time.
Surely there are public servants of more integrity and honor than the Keating Five; I know, that's barely a scandal by today's measure, or maybe we just can't recall any history more than five years back, but his "poor judgment" ruined many lives. Surely decency requires choosing better than Sarah Palin to be a heartbeat from the presidency. While people of integrity can differ about public policy, my heroes don't get a 100% rating from the National Right to Life Committee or a 17% from the NAACP. The people who inspire me care more about leaving a livable environment for the next generation than guaranteeing profits for today's businesses. I admire mavericks, but it takes more than one or two issues and one prominent vote to earn the title. (Okay, three issues. The best thing I know about McCain gets little attention: he shifted from being an implacable foe of gun control to a moderate supporter.) Yes, his vote last year rescued the Affordable Care Act; but if we resist the availability heuristic in which the most recent event gets undue prominence, we see a long career of making health care less accessible to most of us.
Even the most exalted politician leaves a trail of bad decisions, and even the best people do a lot of harmful things. I hope I will be remembered as a decent person, even though I am often unkind, selfish, apathetic . . . But for a public servant to receive such glowing praise as I've seen since yesterday, the preponderance of his deeds should glow, and McCain's just don't. Not for African-Americans, LGBTQ people, immigrants, poor people, or those who care about any of the above.
I like the way Obama put it, that at his best McCain showed us what it means to put the greater good above one's own. That is true, and the best I can say.
P.S. If you aren't familiar with the strictly non-partisan resource Vote Smart, check it out. For a citizen of the United States who wants to make informed choices, it's an indispensable tools.
My wife and I are visiting Amsterdam, and today we went to the Dutch Resistance Museum. It's really excellent, with very creative displays and lots of information delivered in easily-digested-yet-substantial bites. For us, it also provided a lot of lessons that are all too relevant to our situation in the United States today.
The first is that resistance is messy: morally messy. The actions people took to hurt the occupiers, such as a railroad strike, also hurt the people (hunger increased) and the resistance itself (since members depended on the trains for transport). Few moral choices were perfectly clear or afforded an option that resulted in entirely clean hands. Forcibly called up to work in Germany, men could either go, thus unwillingly helping the German war effort; refuse, and be shot or sent to concentration camps; or hide, endangering their families. Those who weighed the options and went to Germany were castigated by many compatriots afterwards–"Why didn't you hide?"–but they had not necessarily chosen the worst of three bad options. And then there were the many civil servants and officials who faced the unenviable decision: do I stay in my position and try to intercede for my people, soften the effect of the Nazi takeover, or do I resist and, at best, be replaced by a member of the Dutch Nazi Party? Some were outright collaborators, but many others were simply trying to walk an impossibly thin wire.
It's the nature of violent regimes to set up such impossible choices. Divide and conquer was a common and effective strategy of the Third Reich. In the Netherlands as elsewhere, they instituted Jewish councils that were charged with carrying out Nazi requirements. Even those leaders who did their best to mitigate the decrees were set up to be perceived as collaborators by their own people; that was one of the occupiers' intentions.
Another effective strategy was the frog-in-the-pot approach. The Nazis didn't lower the hammer right away. People were devastated by the invasion, but it soon appeared that life remained pretty normal, even for Jews. Bit by bit, more repressions were added: a registry system, labels on passports, requirements that schoolchildren learn a Nazi-approved curriculum . . . Different people drew the line in different places, and some just kept their heads down and put up with all of it; some, no doubt, were even sympathetic to the German aims. But again, those who genuinely opposed fascism and anti-Semitism were still that frog in the pot, noticing a growing discomfort and wondering when to say "too hot."
Is this sounding familiar?
Those who resisted did not always agree on how to do it, when to do it, or how much was too much or not enough. In fact, the impression one gets from the museum's displays is that internal conflict was at least as common as unity. For example, people criticized even the bravest actions for coming too late. One heroic act of resistance was planned in intricate detail and attempted three times before modest success and devastating punishment (execution, imprisonment, exile). The German occupation required everyone to have papers; for many, forgeries were the only option since genuine ones would be marked with a "J" and thus be a sentence of internment or death; the forgeries, naturally, did not match what the Registry Office held. So, going to the source, the conspirators plotted to blow up the Registry Office. In the end, they succeeded in starting a fire that destroyed 15% of the records. (Today, someone wanting to carry out equivalent sabotage would have to be a hacker.) There was much rejoicing, but since most Jews had already been deported, many people also pointed out that if the bombing had been carried out earlier, many more lives would have been saved.
If this kind of sniping doesn't sound familiar, you can't have read any liberal or leftist responses to the news over the past year and a half.
I wonder how people responded when it was not the liberals, nor the socialists–both pillars of Dutch life, according to the museum–who rushed to the defense of Dutch Jews, but the fringe, mistrusted Communists. I wonder if, when this defense of the Jews was seized by the Germans as a pretext for vicious crackdowns that shed some of the first blood of the occupation, there was a wave of recrimination: "If we'd just stayed quiet, those people would still be alive." I don't know, but there are hints in the displays that some at the time were uneasy with the Communist-Jewish alliance, and that the protests gave the regime the excuse it was waiting for. If so, we've heard those arguments more recently and closer to home.
Also familiar was the way that some people were treated as heroes while their partners in resistance were virtually ignored. For example, Gerrit van der Veen, one of the conspirators in the Registry Office bombing, has numerous streets named after him across the country, while another, who was gay, gets little recognition. See?: I have already forgotten his name, while van der Veen's sticks because it's a major street and a tram stop. We enact unfairness like this constantly, giving white women credit for #MeToo without acknowledging the black woman who initiated it, or allowing our prejudices to influence which resisters of Trumpism get more attention and praise. Then these injustices prevent our unifying to fight our common enemy: sexual harassment or the administration's policies.
Even resisters were prejudiced and entitled. When Jews who survived the camps returned to Holland, many of their neighbors downplayed the Jews' suffering, didn't want to hear about it, or drew facile, false equivalents. A young girl who survived Bergen-Belsen heard all about the rationing of food and confiscation of bicycles that her neighbors endured, though they didn't want to hear about the camp.
Do that failure to hear each others' experience, and a defensiveness about others' greater suffering, sound familiar?
Most Dutch, inheritors and upholders of a global empire, were slow to acknowledge their hypocrisy, and the people they colonized made deals that also sit uneasily on the conscience. Many Indonesians took up arms against Dutch and Dutch-East-Indian residents of Indonesia, some of whom had lived there for generations. The Indonesians wanted to be a free republic, and saw the Japanese fight against the Dutch as an opportunity to free themselves from colonial rule. So, despite Japan's own imperialism and the repressiveness of the Japanese army, they joined forces with Japan to drive out the Dutch. Many Dutch East Indians and Dutch were bitter about this and didn't understand for years, if ever, that the struggle for Indonesian independence was much like their own struggle against German occupation. Resistance to oppression created uncomfortable parallels and unsavory coalitions, then as now.
And there was the passionate support of the Dutch royal family, which had fled to England, which might seem an odd rallying cry for a pro-democratic movement but also inspired and unified the people; and the almost comically bourgeois forms of resistance, such as the woman who, when compelled by the Nazi officers to darn their socks, claimed ignorance and sewed them shut. Gasp!–but, laughably minor though it seems, it got her into trouble.
It seems as if we have been here before. Here's the thing to remember, then: the Dutch resisters were victorious. They needed the Allies to liberate the country, ultimately, but they hung in there through starvation and repression and outright murder, until they won and the Nazis lost. This, even though their resistance movement was filled with infighting and compromise and sniping.
Maybe that's just what successful resistance looks like. Maybe even when your efforts are messy and you get a hundred things wrong, it can be enough. Maybe we should stop worrying about being such a flawed, frustrating resistance movement, and just keep on keeping on. They also serve who only sabotage the officers' socks. And if enough serve in enough ways, we will win.
When we talk about gun deaths in this country, we don't talk much about suicide. This may seem strange, since about two-thirds of our annual more-than-36,000 deaths by firearms are suicides. Most of the rest are homicides, with a small number of accidents (Centers for Disease Control figures for 2015; the 2016 total was over 38,000). In other words, you are twice as likely to die by a gun in your own hand as someone else's.
You would think that suicide by firearms would garner attention, since it kills 60 U.S. Americans a day, but I think that neither gun control advocates nor those who want to permit free access to guns want to bring up suicide. The gun-rights folks may believe that people wanting to kill themselves should have the right to choose a gun, but it's not really the kind of argument that wins you a lot of fans. And the gun-control advocates, of which (in case you haven't read my blog before) I am most definitely one, tend not to bring it up because of a widespread belief that someone bent on suicide will carry it out, and the means are not significant. In this, we could not be more mistaken.
I've said it myself, this "they'll find another way" mistake, but I was corrected, after a sermon on suicide, by a local activist, to whom I am very grateful. It does indeed matter what means people choose for suicide. Those who choose highly fatal means–jumping off bridges or tall buildings, shooting themselves, or, all too often in the community where I serve, stepping in front of a speeding train–are much less likely to survive a suicide attempt. That much is obvious, in fact tautological. But what is also true is that, denied these means, they are much less likely to kill themselves, then or ever.
This is why, thanks to the California state legislature, we now have barriers making it harder to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, along with hotline phones and posted phone numbers. There is nothing stopping someone who is turned back by the barrier from seeking another way to end their life, but the psychology of suicide is such that many do not: not that night, not the next day, not ever. Of course, to cut the suicide rate, we can and must do more than just making the final stage harder; we need to reduce poverty and injustice, reduce drug abuse, restore meaning, and provide ample mental health care. But that final stage also matters.
Restricting access to guns–by far the most common way U.S. Americans kill themselves–is thus a very effective way to save many of those lives. When Australia responded to its 1996 Port Arthur massacre by putting tough gun laws in place, the rate of firearms homicide dropped, and so did the rate of homicide overall. The rate of firearms suicide dropped, and so did the rate of suicide overall. With homicide, the reason is obvious to those of us not being paid by the NRA: it's much harder to kill a lot of people fast with a knife or a truck. With suicide, though? Why don't people denied a gun find another method? I don't know. But as often as not, maybe more often than that, they don't.
So let's stop shying away from the topic of guns and suicide. When people want to know what good it will do suicidal people to restrict their access to guns, the answer is: it can save the larger part of sixty lives a day.
Sixty lives is a Las Vegas massacre, every day, week in, week out. If you worry about your child's safety, reflect: they are probably twice as likely to die by suicide as by homicide. To keep them safe, tackle suicide. To tackle suicide, tackle the gun lobby.
I'd be hard pressed to name a favorite of the eight or so books by Philip Roth that I've read, but I wouldn't hesitate at all to name the one that comes to mind most often: The Plot Against America. It affected me strongly when I first read it, and now it seems terrifyingly, but usefully, prescient.
Roth takes a few facts as his foundation and spins an all-too-possible alternative history from them. Those facts: Charles Lindbergh, son of a Minnesota Congressman, and a national hero for his solo transatlantic flight, ardently opposed a United States entry into the Second World War. He was a member of the anti-interventionist America First organization; unlike the organization, he was also anti-Semitic and a lifelong advocate of "racial purity." His sense that Russia was a greater threat than Germany was not so much about fearing Communism more than fascism, but about his preferring the Nordic to the "semi-Asiatic"; he hoped that the U.S. and Germany would unite to oppose the "semi-Asiatic" Russia. He did support U.S. entry into the war after Pearl Harbor, as did many America-Firsters (the organization disbanded immediately after the attack), and fought bravely in the Pacific. But by then, he had set himself up as an opponent of the three forces he saw as agitating for war: the British, the Roosevelt Administration, and the Jews. He and Henry Ford were longtime friends, drawn together in part by their anti-Jewish paranoia. Lindbergh was also a candidate for the Republican nomination in the 1936 presidential election. The only scrap of this paragraph that I learned in school was that he was the first person to fly solo and nonstop across the Atlantic.
The Plot Against America proposes that Lindbergh wins the 1940 Republican nomination and goes on to defeat FDR. With the anti-interventionist in office, the U.S. stays out of the war; those who do want to fight the Nazis must flee to Canada and join the despised (by President Lindbergh) British forces. With a vocal anti-Semite as President, Henry Ford's racial theories are given free rein and U.S. Jews have an increasingly uncertain and frightened existence, like immigrants and Muslims in 2018. Roth fills the novel with specific detail by focusing on the experiences of one family–"his" family–in Newark, New Jersey.
It's a portrait of a nation gradually sinking beneath an internal sea of fascism. Last week, the president suggested that people who peacefully protest racial injustice should maybe just not be in our country; his administration pursued a policy of asking teachers to report students without documents and another of removing children from any undocumented adults; it was revealed that 20% of the children thus removed are either unaccounted for, or so terrified of the government that is supposed to be their guardian that they have gone into hiding; and the administration has repeatedly accused the investigators of foreign interference in a presidential election of employing "spies."
In the middle of it, Philip Roth died, and for all his fear of death, was probably glad to shake the dust of Trump's United States off his feet. But before he went, he weighed in on the nation's tumble toward the dystopia he had so vividly envisioned. The parallels between Lindbergh and Trump were considerable, he said, but with this difference:
Charles Lindbergh, in life as in my novel, may have been a genuine racist and an anti-Semite and a white supremacist sympathetic to Fascism, but he was also . . . an authentic American hero . . . [a] courageous young pilot . . . . Trump, by comparison, is a massive fraud, the evil sum of his deficiencies, devoid of everything but the hollow ideology of a megalomaniac. (New York Times, January 16, 2018)
Lindbergh's fictional rise to power is more probable than that of a multiply-bankrupt self-promoter who only regained wealth and a household name by parodying himself on a game show about business, and you'd think that it would be easier to both see through Trump and get him out of office. But so far, that sea is still threatening to take the whole country under. If you're looking for insight into how it happens and what we can do about it, in the marvelous prose of the writer who came up with that phrase "the evil sum of his deficiencies," or you're just looking for an excellent novel for your summer reading, check out The Plot Against America.
As long as lawmakers and courts insist that what James Madison had in mind with the Second Amendment was unlimited weaponry for the likes of Nikolas Cruz and Adam Lanza, we're going to have to hit the gun lobby and its pals in the pocketbook. Some of the scummiest of those pals are the people who use the airwaves and internet to claim that these killings are hoaxes.
I'm happy to note that some of the worst sites generating and promoting fake stories–Gateway Pundit and InfoWars, for example–have no actual advertisers. Gateway Pundit advertises one religious pamphlet by the site owner's twin brother, and InfoWars sells a brain supplement (hold the jokes, please) and a toothpaste, fluoride free, of course, that seem to be manufactured by InfoWars. Breitbart appears to have no remaining advertisers. But some other sites do get advertising money from actual companies. So I took a few minutes today to breathe deeply, overcome my nausea, and tell these companies what I think about that.
(NOTE: Earlier, I had the wrong e-mail address here; it was the support address for a company that distributes Berkey Water systems, and is not in charge of advertising decisions. The below address is the manufacturer's.)
To: firstname.lastname@example.com
To the chief executive of Berkey Water Filter Systems:
I notice that you advertise there, and I hope you will immediately withdraw your ads and stop supporting this revolting site with your money. I am posting this letter on my blog and will post your reply there when I receive it.
I was appalled to read articles on NaturalNews.com promoting the idea that the survivors of the mass shooting in Parkland, FL, last week, are actors and that the entire event is a fake staged by gun reform advocates. Accusing traumatized, injured and murdered children of fakery is about as low as public so-called debate gets.
I notice that you advertise there, and I guess your partnership with the author, Mike Adams (the "Health Ranger"), is very close since he engineered your grow boxes. Maybe you are a one-person operation and he is it, for all I know. If that is not the case, and you are in fact dedicated to food innovation, I hope you will immediately withdraw your ads from NaturalNews.com and stop supporting this revolting site with your money.
I am posting this letter on my blog, sermonsinstones.com, and will post your reply there when I receive it.
I notice that you are his sole advertiser. I hope you will immediately withdraw your ads and stop supporting this revolting site with your money. Accusing traumatized, injured and murdered children of fakery is about as low as public so-called debate gets.
You claim you will respond to phone calls and e-mails, but you don't actually post an e-mail address. So I am calling you and also posting this letter on my blog, sermonsinstones.com, and will post your reply there when I receive it.
Each year for the season of Lent, since 2011, I have undertaken three spiritual practices: one subtractive, one additive, and one giving.
This year, as I have done a few times before, I will subtract social media: no Facebook or Twitter. (I'm not cool enough for Instagram, so nothing to give up there.) It's good for my soul.
For the additive practice, I'm participating in #UULent's photo-a-day practice. This is in direct contradiction of my subtractive practice, since I've proposed to my congregation that we post our photos on the congregation's Facebook site–sharing a spiritual practice really helps it stick. However, I think it's in the spirit of my social-media fast if I do nothing on Facebook other than post my photos and look at others'. I'm also encouraging folks to post selected photos (only their own) on the bulletin board between rooms 9 & 10 at UUCPA. When I did this (spottily) a couple of years ago, Barb Greve was someone I knew mostly by reputation and occasionally running into him at installations or ordinations, but currently, we are working together at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto, so using a resource he created is extra special.
Last year I did art every day, and I would love to do it again, but along with the daily photo it seems too much. I'll see.
And I always choose a cause to which to give money, and this year it was easy to choose: Black Lives of UU. The UUA has committed to raising $5.3 million for BLUU, and individual contributions are part of that work, so this is my mite. You can contribute yours at the BLUU website. I am excited, occasionally even hopeful, about the UUA's renewed commitment to shift us away from the dominance of white culture and help us shake off the effects of white supremacy, and it will take thousands of us to realize this commitment.
We are each entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts. The fact is that arming more citizens than are currently armed will not reduce the number of deaths by gun. You cannot point to any statistics, any other country, any studies that indicate otherwise–I know because I read the ones people link to, and they never say what the poster claims they say. In fact, the facts are that we have way too many guns for safety.
Two kids died and another 15 were wounded in the shooting at a Benton, Kentucky, school yesterday. It was the 11th shooting on a school campus in the first 23 days of this year, a tripling of the past several years' rate of one such shooting per week. After the Benton murders, as always, there are people pleading with the president or the NRA to say something. This is counterproductive, because if the NRA or Trump offer any policy solution, it is always in the vein of "More guns in the hands of more people." And along with them, hundreds of internet commenters emerge like worms after rain to claim that the problem is not enough guns.
I am sick of our treating these claims as if they have a shred of evidence to back them up. "More guns" is no more a strategy for reducing gun deaths than "Pray to the Tooth Fairy." If it were, I would support it.
You who make this argument, and you who are silent as it rages, I am sure that we have something in common: you, too, would like to see fewer people die by guns in this country. Will you embrace the solutions that are proven to be effective?
A year ago tomorrow, 36 people died in the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland. At the time I did these three drawings in my sketchbook. I was haunted by the stories of people being trapped, trying to flee the fire by going down a staircase that ended only in more fire.
The larger story, that haunted me at least as much, was (and is) the extreme scarcity of safe, affordable housing in our area. These people lived there because actual apartments, which have stricter codes, were out of reach to their budgets (as they are to an increasing number of Bay Area residents). Their landlord got away with housing them in a warehouse because everyone concerned wanted it to work, even though it wasn't safe. The housing crisis is another rapidly narrowing space that leads to suffering and possible disaster. I knew when I drew these that I wanted to do more, a piece with specific allusions to the cost and scarcity of decent places to live, the way people are trapped by a poverty we have created. I haven't yet. But I am still haunted.


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New York is a big transportation hub. Because of that, many people utilize the airports. While most will go through their lives without experiencing a plane crash, it is impossible to predict when they will happen. These crashes can be traumatic and even deadly. Today, we'll take a look at some of the possible causes behind a crash.
In an overview of airplane crash liabilities, FindLaw focuses on why airplane crashes happen in the first place. According to them, some sources have calculated that up to 50 percent of these crashes are caused by pilot error. This is generally agreed to have the biggest hand in flight failures. Many distractions can affect pilot concentration and lead to errors, such as in-plane disturbances or surprise inclement weather. Storms, ice, and other visibility issues can easily cause a pilot to make dangerous mistakes. Even experienced pilots can slip up under extreme circumstances.
Another contributing factor in crashes are errors or defects in the manufacturing of plane parts. The components of a plane come from many manufacturers and are assembled by different groups of people. One single plane can pass through hundreds of hands before completion. Any defect or failure in critical systems like the landing gear or electronics could be catastrophic and may lead to mechanical failures.
Unfortunately, regardless of the cause, the aftermath of a plane crash can be traumatizing and severe. If you have been involved in a plane crash and are seeking compensation for your injuries and trauma, consider seeking an attorney with experience handling aviation incidents, as they will know how to proceed.


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Central air conditioner repair and maintenance are an essential part of owning the machine. Without regular care, your air conditioner is sure to break down faster than it should. Also, it will be a costly mistake, as poor maintenance is one of the main culprits in increased electrical bills. Lastly, proper use of your AC will help maximize its functions.
If you want to make sure that your central AC is functioning well all year round, especially during the warmer months of the year), make sure to follow these central air conditioner basics.
Keep doors and windows closed.
When your air conditioner is in operation, it is recommended that you keep the doors and windows in your house closed. This is because open doors and windows will cause cold air to escape from the inside and warm air to come in. This will make it much harder for your AC to maintain your desired temperature, causing it to work harder and drive your electrical bills up as a result. Make sure to keep them closed when using your air conditioner!
Consider insulating your home.
This is one of our most common recommendations when people come to us wanting to have central heating or cooling units installed in their homes. If you are targeting maximum efficiency for your air conditioner, proper insulation will greatly help in accomplishing this. By installing insulation, cold air will be better retained inside your home, making it much easier to reach the target temperature, and making your air conditioner work less.
Keep your air filter clean.
The air filter is necessary to ensure that your air conditioner will blow only clean air into your living space. However, with regular use, the filter can collect dust and other air impurities, which will then clog your air conditioner. With obstructions at the filter, air circulates less effectively, increasing the strain on your AC's moving parts while increasing your energy bills. Periodically cleaning or replacing your AC's air filter will work wonders in keeping it working well.
Check the drain channels
The drainage system is an often overlooked part of AC maintenance, but it is crucial that you check it from time to time. Clogged drains will cause accumulation of water, which can potentially damage your air conditioner. Beyond this, it can also cause a lot of trouble in your home, as it's a leading cause of leaks and flooding. Make sure to periodically check your AC's drains to prevent these issues from happening.
Keep the coils clean.
The coils are responsible for bringing down the temperature of the incoming air. Keeping it free from debris is essential to ensure safe and efficient operations. However, there are some air impurities that the filter is unable to block, which will then attach itself to the coils. The presence of dirt and dust in the coils not only reduces your air conditioner's effectiveness in cooling down the air, but it can also increase the risk of overheating. Periodically clean your AC's coils to prevent this situation.
Get a functional thermostat.
Nearly all air conditioners have a built-in thermostat. When the preset temperature is reached, the AC unit will tone down its function. A proper thermostat will not just ensure that your room is at the right temperature at all times, but it will also help in managing the workload of your air conditioner. If you are using a central air conditioner, it is a good investment to also purchase an actual thermostat. Some of the latest thermostats can have programmed functions during specific times of the day and can even be operated remotely using mobile devices.
Turn off the AC when not in use.
Something as basic as this is often overlooked by many people, resulting in energy wastage. Responsible use of your air conditioner is one of the best ways to save money on electricity while also saving your AC unit's moving parts from stress. When a room is not in use or nobody is home, you can turn off the air conditioner. Also, you can turn off the air conditioner when the desired temperature is reached.
Never skip periodic maintenance.
This is one of the best ways to avoid central air conditioner repair, which can get potentially costly. While there are some maintenance techniques that you can perform yourself, it is prudent to have your AC checked by a professional every now and then. They can access parts of your AC that you otherwise won't, and they can spot telltale things that indicate something is wrong. Have a technician routinely check your air conditioner periodically.
Get repairs when necessary.
If you see something broken in your air conditioner (ex.: leaks, inefficient cooling, shutdowns, overheating), it is important that you don't take it for granted. Get professional help right away and have your air conditioner repaired. More often than not, parts and manpower for fixes are more affordable than replacing your unit when the damage goes beyond repair. Also, not delaying overdue repairs will allow your AC to function more efficiently and prevent more damages from appearing.
Those are just some of the basics to ensure that you'll get the best experience when you own a central air conditioner. If you need central air conditioner repair and maintenance services in McKinney, TX, you can get it from us here at Air Repair Pros. Call us, send us an email, or visit our website to know more about our services. We are open 24 hours a day, and we are always ready to serve you!