In-Sight Publishing

Dear Rick 2 – A Day in the Life

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Dear Rick

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/11/26

Scott: What does your average day look like?

Rick: Sometimes, I’ll wake up when my wife wakes up. She gets around a quarter to five. The dog is used to getting up when she is up by waking her up. Even when my wife does not want to wake up at that time, she gets up at that time. When she does it on purpose, it is to get on the freeway by 6:20/6:30 because driving to Santa Monica on the 405 is impossible.

It’s impossible if you leave after 7:00am. The 405 is a ten- or eleven-lane freeway from the San Fernando Valley to the West Side of LA, close to the beach. They keep adding lanes. It doesn’t help. It is gridlocked. You go along 18 miles an hour. There are probably 8 hours a day when it is that bad.

So if I get up with her, I read the paper, eat my morning pills, maybe do some work, see what’s happening in social media. Lately, I’ve been ignoring Facebook and LinkedIn because it is too much, especially with Twitter. Even though, Twitter has a reputation for not being a cutting edge social media anymore because the number of followers don’t grow with Twitter.

Twitter had 310 million monthly active users a year ago. Now, they’re only up to 313 million this year. Other things like Snapchat, Instagram, are on to being more less your Grandma’s social media. Although, my family doesn’t want me to use them to not embarrass them as much.

I’ll tweet for a while, read the paper, watch the TV news, get up and sit around, and we’ll have this work format where we’ll have this format where you transcribe sessions and then I edit them eventually. We put them on Amazon with the eventual goal of having legitimate books put out by a legitimate publisher.

We may meet at 7:30 in the morning. I’ll back to bed. I’ll get up again around 10:00am. Maybe, I’ll beat off. It feels good and is good for prostate health. My prostate isn’t that large yet, but regular orgasms are good for prostate hygiene, especially for men. Men have less prostate cancer statistically that have orgasms.

I’ll get on the stock market and see as it gets closer to closing time. The markets close at 1:00PM West Coast time. Lately, I’ve been selling stuff because the market has been going on since the crash of 2008. It has been an 8-year gold market, which means it’s pretty old.

It might be in the season at records highs. It might be good to get out of securities to some extent because there’s going to be a correction eventually. Maybe, when the fed starts raising interest rates because the economy or when it is good, there’s writing later in the day.

My wife gets home generally around 1:00. Often, we have lunch together. After that point, I continue tweeting and doing the things that I should be doing: editing and writing (generally unpaid). Although, I do have an article running for Reader’s Digest, paid, from a year ago.

I hope this is stuff lead to enough recognition that we get legitimate book deals. At dinner, around 6/6:30, it’s pretty early. However, my wife waking up at 4:45 in the morning wants to eat to get into bed by 9:30. After dinner, I’ll go to the library sometimes, but usually to a series of five gyms more often than not in a big ten-mile loop.

I’ll go LA Fitness, Coldwater, LA Fitness North Hollywood, Gold’s Gym on Laurel Canyon, the Y, the Tahunga, LA Fitness on Ventura, and then back home to a total of 80-110 sets. TV is watched, usually Netflix. I’ll get some writing work done. Usually, I’m too tired. I have been able to watch an hour of TV and then am rested enough to do some editing from midnight to 1 or 2 in the morning.

I’ll go to bed and then up at 5 in the morning and start again.

License

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Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on Registration to the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (7)

Interviewer: Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Numbering: Issue 29.A, Idea: Outliers & Outsiders (24)

Place of Publication: Langley, British Columbia, Canada

Title: In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Individual Publication Date: March 1, 2022

Issue Publication Date: May 1, 2022

Name of Publisher: In-Sight Publishing

Frequency: Three Times Per Year

Words: 1,057

ISSN 2369-6885

Abstract

Paul Cooijmans is an Independent Psychometitor and Administrator of the Glia Society, and Administrator of the Giga Society. He discusses: registration to the Glia Society; rationale for free membership; the need to submit the registration form if giving a qualifying score; members returning to the Glia Society if they have left; members expelled of the Glia Society; the importance of having the information entered in the registration form available to members of the Glia Society; the optional registration form information; prevent the sharing of members’ information to non-members; and the main ethic guiding the structure of the Glia Society.

Keywords: Glia Society, I.Q., I.Q. tests, intelligence, Paul Cooijmans, registration.

Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on Registration to the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (7)

*Please see the references, footnotes, and citations, after the interview, respectively.*

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: “Registration: The Glia Society” (n.d.a) is the main page for consideration for registration to the Glia Society. Membership is free. Other high-I.Q. societies aren’t free. What is the typical rationale for charging membership fees among some high-I.Q. societies?

Paul Cooijmans[1],[2]*: In the past, the Glia Society had a fee for subscribing to the journal, which was sent by regular mail, and the fee just covered the cost of producing and mailing the booklet. Since the journal became digital-only, there has not been a fee any more. Other societies may have a fee for the same reason, or to cover costs of online infrastructure. In some cases, the fee serves also as a source of income for the person leading the society; this has never been the case with the Glia Society, or any of my societies.

Jacobsen: What is the rationale for free membership to the Glia Society?

Cooijmans: The cost of conducting the Glia Society is not so high that it warrants a fee. The cost of the society’s web location is technically born by my business I.Q. Tests for the High Range, which is appropriate since it is money from test fees.

Jacobsen: For new members, you emphasize the need to submit the registration form if giving a qualifying score or scores when, or around the time when, submitting it. How often is this instruction misunderstood or missed?

Cooijmans: As good as never any more, but in the past it happened that people submitted the registration form without providing a qualifying score, and then I had all that unusable form data, and had to contact people to tell them they needed to show proof of test scores, which they often failed to do. That is why I added that instruction to the form, and it works well.

A similar situation occurred with the test registration form on my tests web location; in the past, it could be reached via hyper references on the web location itself, and people were constantly submitting it without subsequently taking any tests, so that the database got polluted with useless data. So I removed the hyper references and only referred to the form from within the test files, and that works much better.

Jacobsen: How often are members returning to the Glia Society if they have left?

Cooijmans: That happens regularly, maybe a few times per year, but I am not keeping count of that specific event. In fact, it is because of returning members that I stopped reusing member numbers long ago. In the early years, I reused the member numbers of people who had left, because I am a frugal person and did not want those numbers to go down the drain. But I learnt that returning members sometimes like to have their old number back.

Jacobsen: Also, how often are members expelled of the Glia Society? What are the main reasons for the expulsion?

Cooijmans: Three times so far, in twenty-five years. Once for harassing other members, once for publishing a test item from an admission test with proposed solution and explanation, and once for fraudulently and without permission using the name “Giga Society”.

There are some latent expulsions too; people who leaked out members-only information but have not been identified yet, and people who committed fraud with tests for which I do not have hard proof yet.

Jacobsen: What is the importance of having the information entered in the registration form available to members of the Glia Society?

Cooijmans: Well, members can know who the other members are. Anonymous membership is expressly not allowed, so it is possible for any member to know who all of the others are. Thus it is also possible for any member to verify that those present on the society’s communication fora are indeed members, and report it to the Administrator if not so. And that is an everlasting battle; if you neglect this aspect, the fora get infested with non-members before you know it.

Jacobsen: What part of the optional registration form information do applicants tend to fill out the least?

Cooijmans: The web location uniform resource locator. Not too many people have personal web locations any more. I have the impression that the advent of social media, as well as the omnipresent contents management systems, have killed personal web locations, which had their heyday in the late 1990s and early 2000s when people were still able to write hypertext markup language by hand. It is even so that when people today see a genuine handmade web location, they may be observed making remarks like, “That looks like it has not been updated since the 1990s”. One wonders if they ever look at the source of a page (Ctrl-u) and see the difference between clean hypertext markup language and spaghetti code. One wonders if they appreciate that a proper web page is rendered in a tiny fraction of a second, while a contents management system takes several seconds to load a page because its contents has to be pulled from a database and produced by server-sided programming. One wonders if they realize that all that server activity and sending rubbish code from server to browser use extra energy and cause extra exhaust of harmful gasses into the plagued atmosphere of our planet.

Jacobsen: To prevent the sharing of members’ information to non-members, you state, “By submitting this form you agree to respect this state of affairs; that is, you certify you will not leak out information shared between members to non-members.” (Ibid.) What happens to members who break this social contract?

Cooijmans: They will be expelled when it becomes known who they are. So far, no such moles have been identified though.

Jacobsen: What is the main ethic guiding the structure of the Glia Society, the rules for the interactions between members, and the administrative duties of the Glia Society?

Cooijmans: These matters serve to have and keep a group truly selected at the stated intelligence level, to protect the privacy of members, and to prevent any perversion of these goals by a hostile takeover, such as via “democratic” procedures. I have seen these things go wrong in other societies and try to do better. As said before, I see parallels between the hostile undermining of I.Q. societies and that of societal institutions and industries at large.

References

Cooijmans, P. (n.d.a). Registration: The Glia Society. Retrieved from https://gliasociety.org/reg.html.

Footnotes

[1] Administrator, Giga Society; Administrator, Glia Society.

[2] Individual Publication Date: March 1, 2022: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/cooijmans-7; Full Issue Publication Date: May 1, 2022: https://in-sightpublishing.com/insight-issues/.

*High range testing (HRT) should be taken with honest skepticism grounded in the limited empirical development of the field at present, even in spite of honest and sincere efforts. If a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population.

Citations

American Medical Association (AMA): Jacobsen S. Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on Registration to the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (7)[Online]. March 2022; 29(D). Available from: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/cooijmans-7.

American Psychological Association (APA, 6th Edition, 2010): Jacobsen, S.D. (2022, March 1). Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on Registration to the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (7). Retrieved from http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/cooijmans-7.

Brazilian National Standards (ABNT): JACOBSEN, S. Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on Registration to the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (7). In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 29.D, March. 2022. <http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/cooijmans-7>.

Chicago/Turabian, Author-Date (16th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott. 2022. “Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on Registration to the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (7).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 29.D. http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/cooijmans-7.

Chicago/Turabian, Humanities (16th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott “Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on Registration to the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (7).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 29.D (March 2022). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/cooijmans-7.

Harvard: Jacobsen, S. 2022, ‘Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on Registration to the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (7)’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 29.D. Available from: <http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/cooijmans-7>.

Harvard, Australian: Jacobsen, S. 2022, ‘Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on Registration to the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (7)’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 29.D., http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/cooijmans-7.

Modern Language Association (MLA, 7th Edition, 2009): Scott D. Jacobsen. “Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on Registration to the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (7).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 29.D (2022): March. 2022. Web. <http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/cooijmans-7>.

Vancouver/ICMJE: Jacobsen S. Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on Registration to the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (7)[Internet]. (2022, March 29(D). Available from: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/cooijmans-7.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012–2022. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links March be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen, and In-Sight Publishing and In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and can disseminate for their independent purposes.

Dear Rick 1 – Being Rick Rosner

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Dear Rick

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/11/24

Scott: What’s it like being Rick Rosner?

Rick: Right now, the Olympics are happening. It’s the very best people in the world at sports. In a way, I’m the world’s silver medalist in IQ. I want to ask NBC where my human interest feature is with Bob Costas. He shows me tending to my sheep, when I’m not working on IQ tests.

Or working at Home Depot, neither of which I do, but which are generally involved in human interest pieces. Anyway, in my everyday dumbness and life, I am like everybody else, except with an obsession to go to the gym. Where I have a circuit, I go to five different gyms because this is LA. There are gyms every half-mile or so.

Every three years or so, I have been poking at this IQ test, which is hard enough that it offers the possible score that could move me up in the rankings. However, it’s so hard. It has taken years to come close to completing it. I used to have an awesome and semi-crushing job writing jokes and bits for Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where I was for about 12 years.

As far as things defining you, that job probably defined me. It was all-consuming while I had it. I haven’t had that job in 2 years. There’s a lot of me sitting at home in a towel because it’s hot, tweeting, and trying to get famous enough to sell my memoir of going back to high school several times.

Right now, you and I are trying to sell a book to a mainstream publisher that may be called How to be a Fucked Up Genius. I feel little bit of desperation because I am 56 now. My time to be recognized as an authority on anything is getting shorter and shorter.

I don’t feel 56, but there are a lot of people that feel that way. I take 70-80 supplements a day. I exercise for 2 hours per day. So, maybe, that’s a more legitimate claim in my case. Sometimes, I think about stuff that’s not non-sense. Usually, I am thinking about non-sense.

We have been working for over two years. You encourage me to think about subjects that aren’t garbage: physics particularly cosmology, consciousness, the ethical implications of what we think about physics and consciousness, what the future will be like given what we think about physics, ethics, and consciousness.

My wife and I are empty nesters for the most part. Our kid is going to be a senior in college. She has an internship. So, she’ll only be here for a week this summer. Although, the nest doesn’t feel entirely empty because we have a dog that pisses and poops when and where she pleases, often.

It is a problem in behavioural engineering, which we haven’t figured out yet. That’s about it.

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Norwegians of the High-Range Discussion with Erik Haereid, Eivind Olsen, and Tor Arne Jørgensen: Statistician & Actuarial Scientist; Chair, Mensa Norway; 2019 Genius of the Year – Europe, World Genius Directory (5)

Interviewer: Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Numbering: Issue 29.D, Idea: Outliers & Outsiders (24)

Place of Publication: Langley, British Columbia, Canada

Title: In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Individual Publication Date: March 1, 2022

Issue Publication Date: May 1, 2022

Name of Publisher: In-Sight Publishing

Frequency: Three Times Per Year

Words: 4,550

ISSN 2369-6885

Abstract

Erik Haereid is an Actuarial Scientist and Statistician. Eivind Olsen is the Chair of Mensa Norway. Tor Arne Jørgensen is the 2019 Genius of the Year – Europe. They discuss: Nordic cultures; Norway’s birth rate; ‘White’ or Euro-North American racists; racists from across the pond; these same individuals within the borders of Norway; the typical view within the high-IQ circles; an Indigenous high-IQ group; people with higher IQs tend to have fewer kids; the Flynn Effect; smart women tend to have fewer children or none; and other directions.

Keywords: Erik Haereid, Eivind Olsen, IQ, Mensa, Mensa Norway, Norway, Tor Arne Jørgensen.

Norwegians of the High-Range Discussion with Erik Haereid, Eivind Olsen, and Tor Arne Jørgensen: Statistician & Actuarial Scientist; Chair, Mensa Norway; 2019 Genius of the Year – Europe, World Genius Directory (5)

*Please see the references, footnotes, and citations, after the interview, respectively.*

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What words best describe Nordic cultures?

Eivind Olsen[1]: Generally speaking, the Nordic culture(s) are somewhat egalitarian — where most people are considered to be equal, unless they’re not. Royalty is one area where that’s not the case (in Norway, Denmark and Sweden).

Erik Haereid[2]*: Hard working. Independent. Naïve. Trustful. Egalitarian and excessive bureaucratic political systems spiced with a dash of double standards and hidden xenophobia. A combination of pietistic order and romanticized nationalism draped in a suit of provincial stubbornness and pride. And beneath these dichotomic layers of infantile behavior and mature responsibility, there is an intrinsic naïve belief in the goodness of mankind.

Tor Arne Jørgensen[3],[4]: Different, neutral, and innovative according to statistical poles. A healthy exterior characterized by an insufficient wish aimed at self-development ensured further by a steadfast and rock-hard economy and efficient institutions aimed at technological innovations. Furthermore, the Nordic Permian position is probably explanatory through its geographical imprint. Not only a barren and frozen landscape but housing a hardy people who sadly sit on their own personal mountaintops and share their interests by and for their own conceivable pleasure.

A historical population within its real-life monopoly state, whereby covered and insured through acquisitions furthered by philanthropic eccentricities fueled in the futile hope of saving an already lost existence by common front to stop global deforestation and beyond with their democratizing intensities, a part where joy, despair and boredom go hand in hand. The Nordic embrace that is postulated only to covers the rest of the world washed over by its cool exterior and shady appearance.

Jacobsen: In spite of the social and health indexes of a healthy society, Norway’s birth rate, as with many developed countries, is below 2.1 or the theoretical replacement level. Its most recent tallied level is 1.53. It’s not Japan bad, but it’s not great. What is the national conversation about this? Countries simply cannot make up the deaths with more immigration indefinitely. It can be a threat to social stability with destructive movements looking to capitalize on demonizing immigrants and to social welfare programs dependent on a productive younger population, especially ages 25 to 54 — more in the actuarial realm and expertise of Erik.

Olsen: There are probably multiple reasons for the low birth rate. I’m guessing that economics play a part (raising multiple children has a cost). People might want to wait until later in life before they have children — and might eventually realise that they have waited too long. We’ve also received sex education, and have good access to prophylactics, which probably leads to fewer “accidental” pregnancies. A society does need a certain amount of productive (as well as
reproductive) citizens. If we look back in time, people needed to have more children since not all of them could be expected to grow up. We also didn’t have the same social security we do today, so people needed to have kids so someone could take care of them when they grew old.

Haereid: “Make more children!”, our prime minister said a couple of years ago. I don’t expect it to have effect in the long run.

It’s an unfortunate combination having an aversion against too many immigrants and an aversion against getting and raising children; it’s a cataclysmic consequence of developing welfare states. Such attitudes are built on romantic beliefs in development; technology and eternal life. It’s like “the only person I am not in conflict with is me”, and this becomes the social benchmark. “To what do I need other people?”; a social dystopia and a narcissistic utopia.

It’s a substantial increase in the population for people older than 45 years, from 1990 to 2021, compared to the increase among those younger than 45. The population growth in the group 45–79 is about 57% from 1990 to 2021! The growth is only 12% in the group 0–44, and 35% for those older than 80 years. The population distribution between age groups is approximately 56% (0–44), 39% (45–79) and 5% (older than 80).

There are some net immigrations and some birth surplus, and there are not expected a lot more net birth nor immigration in the next couple of decades, and the growth in population are expected in the older group. There are about 18–19% immigrants in Norway today, and 20% of these are born in Norway with immigrant parents.

The xenophobia factor will always be apparent in societies with mixed populations, like in most western countries today. Statistics will of course prevent and reduce some of the irrational critics, but the harsh group of haters give a damn in statistics. I think the most important task is to provide statistics and information about ongoing changes to the people. If some exploits the system, independent if they are immigrants or ethnic Norwegians, the society has to deal with that and contribute to get everyone into activities. Assimilation is not about making everyone similar, but allowing everyone to be different together. The genetic similarity between humans is about 99,9%, and that should be an inspiration to nurture and respect our differences.

Jørgensen: Our former Prime Minister Erna Solberg went on national television and tried to influence the people to produce more citizens. We were and are still not able to maintain a positive development according to the birth rate of 2.1

It’s been a few years now, but a noticeable change is yet to be discovered. As immigration goes it cannot replace the growth necessary for the positive development of the population output. If this were to be the case, it would undoubtedly have been, and as one sees in Sweden that ethnic-related conflicts have escalated to conditions that are unfortunate to ensure a stable democratic development. According to what is presented in the media, the government in Norway will not allowed for that to happen here I am sure, as we have strict regulations on who receives a residence permit on the right basis, insofar as family reunification is concerned and more… If we are to maintain a healthy welfare system and at the same time hope for a prosperous economic future, whereby we the citizens can all benefit strongly, a strict regulation must be advisable at all levels- of social structure.

Jacobsen: ‘White’ or Euro-North American racists, typically, stoke fear and prejudice, and territoriality, about Western Europe, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and America, being taken over by non-‘whites’ or non-European heritage peoples with the implicit claim of very low melanin levels in skin, generally speaking, associated with historical-territorial claims to post-colonial settlement nation-states — Canada, Australia, New Zealand, America(, and South Africa) — and Western European nation-states. These are, as usual, falsified racist lies, not simply for the basis on the non-scientific pseudo-taxonomical term ‘race’ and concept of ‘races.’ It’s not a term validated in scientific literature, by and large, and more reflects the sociological — so artificial — categories of the individual purporting to speak for their ‘actualization’ or reification. Anyhow, insofar as has been documented, the only known Indigenous group in Western Europe is the Saami (previously Laplanders). They live in currently drawn-out parts of Norway and other Nordic territorial boundaries too. They can be traced back to 6,000 years ago, which matches some of the longest-lived extant Indigenous civilizations today. Indigenous Europeans go back along time. What is the treatment and general knowledge about the Saami?

Olsen: Disclaimer: I’m do not, as far as I know, have a Saami background myself, so my reply here is based on my perspective and understanding. It won’t necessarily be universally valid. I think Norwegians in general know that Saami exist, but often just think of the reindeer herders in the northern part of Norway and forget that most Saami are not reindeer herders. The Saami are a diverse group, with multiple different Saami languages (from 3 to 11, I believe, depending on who you ask and how you count). Since the 18th century (at least, possibly longer), the church were campaigning to convert the “heathen” Saami to Christianity, and in that process did their
“best” to eradicate Saami culture and language — a process which was continued by the Norwegian state/government, and which to some extent has continued up until more recent times.

Haereid: The knowledge about the Saami people is poor but growing. The main TV-channel in Norway marked the Saami’s national day 6. February, and I think this is the first time they have done so into this extent. That’s an improvement.

In general, I think the Nordic people respect the Saami more than ever, based on knowledge about their culture. But it’s a long way to go.

Jørgensen: As far as the Sami people are concerned, the knowledge is consequently set up. We in Norway are well acquainted with the origins of the Sami people and the injustice that has been inflicted on them during the course of centuries. This dates back to the early 13th century and onwards well into the 16th century with reference to the persecutions as a result of the rumors of sorcery, shamanism, witchcraft, whereby the result is a witch hunt as recognized on a global scale, these persecutions were set forth by both the official ecclesiastical and the official Norwegian government, all the way to more recent times, now by failed assimilation policies imposed on the northernmost counties and there indigenous population.

The Alta uprising in 1981 that we who have lived a little remember all too well from the national news reports. The recognition of the Sami Parliament’s origins in a newer sense in 1989, the Sami National Day on 6th February and so on. The road to acceptance and recognition of the Sami people has been a tortuous path to walk, a sad testimony and national stain inflicted upon the real Norwegian origin, and not just a steel acquisition, whereby murder, oppression and deportation generally accepted procedure set forth by the Norwegian state. Recently decorated with a vague public apology from government officials far too little, far too late for such a wonderful and proud people.

Jacobsen: How do Norwegians tend to view the, rather loud, racists from across the pond in North America?

Olsen: We shake our heads in disbelief when we hear about blatant racism in the USA. Not that we necessarily understand or interpret the situation in the right way.

Haereid: Norwegians became angry after the George Floyd killing. Most people can’t believe that such an event can happen in a modern, civilized democracy. There is racism in Norway, obviously, and most verbal and subtle. But the violence in the Floyd-case, and some other cases where the American authorities have expressed irrational destructive behavior, is disturbing; it’s a tendency. One mad man; that happens. But when the incarnation of the Law treats people like that, and this is not one case, it is distressing.

Talking about the American racists in general, it depends on who you ask. Some get angry and emotional, and a few agree with them. Most are indifferent. I think some look at it as a part of a movement growing in USA, not at least in the wake of president Donald Trump. He pushed a hidden North-American button. There is something wrong with the distribution of goods.

Jørgensen: Land grabbing of tribe property, the oppressive condition put in place by the early settlers. The near extinction of the total Native American tribe community, furthermore the acquisition of forced labor through the triangle trade, as regards to the African American community, etc… are hereby far too much to deal with at this point. Briefly referring to Donald Trump and his movement, attempt to disabling of the entire democratic foundation by inspiring to attack the U.S. Capital building, nothing more is needed, furthermore the refusal of students to go to school during the decades from the early 20th century onwards.

Police assault and lots more, this for me must be a separate isolated topic, as this is one of my special fields, so one must categorize these events regards to both national and global spectrum for a later interview…

Jacobsen: Although, every country has them. What is the view of these same individuals within the borders of Norway?

Olsen: In general, we like to believe that we’re not racists ourselves. In reality, we as a society have our fair share of racists, somewhat-racists (“I’m not racist, but…”), and people being tarred
with the same brush as racists (“He votes for that political party, so he must be racist”). We have Trump-supporters, and we have “woke BLM-supporters”, and we have many people who are neither. My personal opinion? Racism (and other discrimination) is a tricky subject, and
not everyone agrees on what it is and what it isn’t. For example, some people will claim that racism is a one-way street — that it can only go in one direction (“only whites can be racists, and only towards blacks” — sorry for the choice of words, btw.), but that is a definition I do *not* agree with.

Haereid: Unfortunately, I think many Norwegians are quite indifferent to such people, including own racists. The internal pond is made of mountains, woods, miles and self-centered minds. I think this is one of the negative features with respect to prosperity; the rich don’t care unless they have to pay tax. The racists are usually not in their garden. I think there were a lot of empathy after 22/7 2011 (the ABB-killings). But after some months it disappeared.

Jørgensen: It is perceived as sad as it is, that people should treat each other in this way whereby the difference in skin color or otherwise should judge a person to status of less valuable, how on earth have we not come any further than that, look at what history has displayed with regards to the injustice toward peoples of different skin color. If certain elements of society are to keep up this mind-bending madness, nothing will ever change. Yes, we have this problem in Norway as well, and this is being cracked down on hard by both the general public and the police, hate crime is thus being judged extra harshly in this country and rightfully so.

The terror attack of 22nd of July 2011 on the innocent political youth at Utøya is a grim memory of this white supremacy movement. Populist riots in such a state must be eradicated any way possible. We the Norwegians in a big way as far as history goes been a big part of the disgraced also with regards to the slave trade also called the triangular trade during the 16th and 17th century, a historical record not to be proud of.

Jacobsen: Indeed, the high-IQ communities have them, even well-known ones. What is the typical view within the high-IQ circles?

Olsen: I have the impression that the typical view is pretty similar
to the rest of society.

Haereid: I don’t know the typical, current view among high-IQ people. I am hibernating at the moment.

Jørgensen: It is probably from what I mean and believe, that certain utterances are allowed, but where set outer boundaries are broken, the relevant elements are excluded. The freedom to express oneself as one wishes does not come without restrictions and fortunately one gets to say, when direct violations that move outside the direct events in question and whereby the focus is directed towards one’s ethnic origin are by that fact misplaced. What is in these unreasonable borderlands should be removed to ensure that everyone is accepted regardless of their heritage roots.

Jacobsen: Is anyone aware of an Indigenous high-IQ group or even individuals? I would love to interview them.

Olsen: I haven’t heard of any such high-IQ groups. Mensa is open to all who qualify, regardless of “race”, creed or religion, and I think most (all?) other groups also have similar principles. I know we have members with various ethnic backgrounds, but it’s not something we keep track of.

Haereid: I am not aware of any.

Jørgensen: I do not know, I’m sorry, but maybe Eivind or Erik have some more information to hand out here.

Jacobsen: Why do people with higher IQs tend to have fewer kids?

Olsen: I’m guessing it’s caused by many of the same reasons we have
low birth rates in society. The same factors probably apply to an even
greater extent.

Haereid: The short answer is: Because they (we) are emotionally immature, and/or want to spend their (our) time on pure cognitive, intelligent practices more than developing advanced social skills. This doesn’t mean that people with children are emotionally and otherwise mature, or that people without children are necessarily immature.

Jørgensen: The basis for having fewer children of those with higher IQ than the average is based on higher education in anticipation of better paid jobs. Moreover, career seeking whereby the intense desire to secure their own need for an opportunity into the history books has become for me in some degree an absolute. If one can spend time on self-sustaining activities, where disruptive elements can affect one’s outcome on success, then it becomes decisive for the possible conditions one undertakes.

This is summed up by the fact that the importance of one’s own success overshadows the need for happiness through the acquisition of one’s and for one’s own offspring.

Jacobsen: With the Flynn Effect in a modest stagnancy and decline, though with decades of increase over time before, is there a potential relationship between better nutrition, wider educational access, and improved equality for all — e.g., men and women, for higher average IQs and lower birth rates? Some have attempted preliminary research into test scores and GDP, for example.

Olsen: I wouldn’t be surprised.

Haereid: Yes, I believe so. Humankind is in a peak of its cognitive potential, and achievements are culturally prioritized. In this individual and collective struggle, we easily forget that we are mentally and physically limited as species. Our minds allow us to create ideas about who we are and what we can do, without any prior humbleness that make us get frequently in contact with whom we are; we tend to think we can achieve something we can’t within the timeframe we draw. We will profit on striving for a more balanced development. An example is the production of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is increased when we experience success, which we feel when we achieve something. It’s like getting a reward. In lack of alcohol or heroin, which obviously destroy our bodies, we use sex, prosperity, titles, chocolate, creating heroes, run and so on to attain the level of dopamine we feel we need. But that level normalizes on an increasing higher level. The problem with dopamine is the lack of it, and that level depends of how much “normal” has become, which is a function of how much pleasure we expose ourselves to. The abstinence factor, the pain, will appear immediately after we stop achieving and celebrating, and endure until the body accepts the lower level of achievements as sufficient. Raising children is more pain than pleasure, I have heard. And this alternating activity between ups and downs competes with the abundance of opportunities the modern unlimited world provides and will provide almost everyone.

Jørgensen: I have personally too little information on the subject, but I think that an improved and healthier lifestyle, less disruption from outside forces and to some extent negative stress, will affect most of us in a positive way according to mentioned better general physical condition and mental health. It seems obvious to me that this should be the norm, but in an age of widespread use of brain-dead mental stimuli, acquired through watching people eat food on YouTube, bloggers talking solely about mental exhaustion through loneliness and boredom, whereby their personal feelings are being exposed on social media in the hope of huge financial gain makes itself very prevalent.

The creative and or intellectual measuring bar that could be characterized by maintaining a previous high standard has now become so low that one simply stumbles across it on flat ground. What personally irritates me the most is that now the more brain-dead material that is presented, the greater the financial earnings, further fueled by a tsunami of “likes” and words of praise for its impressive and innovative content. I find myself torn between the following facts, whether in total belief as to positive social structure input, or in total despair of the foolish ingenuity on a global scale.

Jacobsen: Particularly smart women tend to have fewer children or none, there seems to be multiple factors playing into this. For one, as stated by many smart heterosexual or bisexual women, heterosexual or bisexual men don’t like smart women for long-term partnering as much on average, though only pluralistically anecdotal and women speaking about men rather than asking the men, too. For two, they’re busy with cognitively demanding jobs or educations, which take time and effort away from potential family formation or even supersede any interest in children with or without a partner. For three, there are many women who simply reject the stereotype of women’s innate natalist inclinations; some have absolutely zero desire: Deal with it. Do some of these analyses seem fair and reasonable? What other factors might be at play here? I realize the irony of four guys talking about this. What about smart men? What has been the experience for the three of you, e.g., Tor is a parent of two?

Olsen: Previously, society expected women to limit their ambitions to “breed” and “stay at home”. That is no longer the case. Not every woman has “produce offspring” on top of their bucket list.. I keep hearing how men supposedly only want “dumber” women, but that’s as you
mention anecdotal, and coming from women. I can’t remember having heard *any* man say that they want to find a “dumb” woman — but I can’t say that it never happens at all. Personally, Since we’re sharing anecdotes: I’m a heterosexual male, father of two. I’ve really only been attracted to women with at least half a brain — ideally a fully functioning one at that. My exes, and my current partner, have all been on the right side of the Bell curve (i.e. I’m convinced that
they’ve all had an IQ of 120 or higher (with standard deviation 15), and I know my partner is “Mensa-material” (she’s a member). No, I don’t know the exact numbers, and the numbers aren’t important. What matters is that the person has a brain and can use it, and that we feel like we’re living on the same planet (so to speak).

Haereid: Women want emotionally mature, charming, confident, masculine and strong men, optimized relative to their own self-esteem and social and sexual value. Traditionally, women think of their future children’s welfare, when looking for a lifelong partner. Exaggerated but to a certain degree true: Men look for sexual satisfaction when they choose women; women are traditionally pickier choosing men than men are when they choose women.

It’s something about men feeling unsecure when women beat them intellectually. This is linked to archetypical features. Men do not only provide food and security, but also inventions and technical solutions.

Raising children takes much of women’s time during their “best” years. I think smart women are more selfish in a more modern way, and want to achieve something, using their intellectual capacity. Getting and raising children are not only time-consuming, but also a risk; you depend upon the other half’s genes. You can predict something, but maybe only 10–20% of all the hidden genetic stuff. What if you get a child, you are not happy with? Then the moral issues take place, and invade a brain that you instead could use on evolving yourself.

I think the unconditional love “concept” is real in all of us, also in intelligent women. If you get close to another person, and especially your own flesh and blood, you can’t escape feeling strong love for that person independent of what or who this organic creature is. You can repress it, ignore it, but never get rid of it.

Before you choose to have children or not, you don’t have any; you are not in the condition of feeling unconditional love to your child, only having ideas about it. And our rational behavior doesn’t take such irrational emotions into account. Especially when your brain is filled with intellectual opportunities.

I have been in one fairly long (ten years) adult relationship with a woman, but are not in any now. Maybe I am too selfish, and probably introvert.

Jørgensen: Strong women tend to intimidate men with their intellectual superiority, their regulations governing the household with an iron grip. I easily see that their interests in self-realization can easily be a hindrance for family life, whereby a weaker male partner may have to give into their premises in favor of the strong female partner with reference to stereotypical career woman. For my part, I have now been so lucky that 22 years ago I found the most beautiful woman in the world, and who incredibly has endured me and all my extremities all this time.

I am eternally grateful for this.

My two boys or my two prides are knowingly set to this world of pure love as the desire for self-enrichment through the search for ever new knowledge, has been occasionally pushed aside and created space for emotional based care and parental feelings. The influence that my lady has had on me as an egocentric logic seeker has enriched me in more ways than I care to mention… The best in my life has sought me out and together with my close ones it is again time to seek towards new horizons in the quest for new and possible undiscovered knowledge just waiting to be plucked like ripe fruit from the tree of knowledge itself.

Jacobsen: What other directions are of interest to you? I think we can expand the conversation grounds to more Norwegians now.

Olsen: Other topics? I really like talking about Amiga computers, or why The Last Ninja was the best game ever on the Commodore 64. 🙂

Haereid: Why is little Norway the dominant nation in winter Olympics? And generally, in sport? What about more cognitive activities like art and science?

Libido and drives versus control and cognition. What is unconditional love? Is it possible to learn to like people? Is this necessary to establish civilized peace? Do we try to be civilized when it’s impossible to be? If so, why can’t we just be savage? Is UN and such institutions based on some powerful dictatorship that profit on creating illusions about humans being civilized? Or is the human idea about world peace sincere; embracing everyone?

What is convincement?

What are thoughts? What are perceptions, and how do they appear? What are emotions, and what kind of role do they play? Which social role do emotions like guilt, shame, anxiety, anger, happiness and interest, to mention some, have?

Jørgensen: I have previous mentioned in this interview of topics to be debated forward according to themes about North America and settler mentalities, Native American wars, African American exploitation, and segregation policies with regards to the 21st century. Also, looking forward to getting more people to share thoughts and opinions with.

Footnotes

[1] Eivind Olsen is the current chair of Mensa Norway. He has scored “135 or higher” (SD15) on the test used by Mensa Norway. He has also previously been tested with WISC-R and Raven’s. He recently took the MOCA test and aced it. When he’s not busy herding cats, he works in IT. He sometimes spends time with family and friends.

Eivind Olsen is a member of Mensa Norway since 2014, having filled various roles since then (chair of Mensa Bergen regional group, national test coordinator, deputy board member, and now chair).

He was born in Bergen, Norway, in 1976, but has lived in a few other places in Norway, including military service in the far north of the country.

Since he got bored at school and didn’t have any real idea what he wanted to do, he took vocational school where he studied electronics repair. He has worked in a different field ever since (IT operations).

He is currently residing in Bergen, Norway, with his significant other, 2+2 offspring, 2 cats and a turtle.

[2] Erik Haereid has been a member of Mensa since 2013, and is among the top scorers on several of the most credible IQ-tests in the unstandardized HRT-environment. He is listed in the World Genius Directory. He is also a member of several other high IQ Societies.

Erik, born in 1963, grew up in Oslo, Norway, in a middle class home at Grefsen nearby the forest, and started early running and cross country skiing. After finishing schools he studied mathematics, statistics and actuarial science at the University of Oslo. One of his first glimpses of math-skills appeared after he got a perfect score as the only student on a five hour math exam in high school.

He did his military duty in His Majesty The King’s Guard (Drilltroppen)).

Impatient as he is, he couldn’t sit still and only studying, so among many things he worked as a freelance journalist in a small news agency. In that period, he did some environmental volunteerism with Norges Naturvernforbund (Norwegian Society for the Conservation of Nature), where he was an activist, freelance journalist and arranged ‘Sykkeldagen i Oslo’ twice (1989 and 1990) as well as environmental issues lectures. He also wrote some crime short stories in A-Magasinet (Aftenposten (one of the main newspapers in Norway), the same paper where he earned his runner up (second place) in a nationwide writing contest in 1985. He also wrote several articles in different newspapers, magazines and so on in the 1980s and early 1990s.

He earned an M.Sc. degree in Statistics and Actuarial Sciences in 1991, and worked as an actuary novice/actuary from 1987 to 1995 in several Norwegian Insurance companies. He was the Academic Director (1998-2000) of insurance at the BI Norwegian Business School (1998-2000), Manager (1997-1998) of business insurance, life insurance, and pensions and formerly Actuary (1996-1997) at Nordea in Oslo Area, Norway, a self-employed Actuary Consultant (1996-1997), an Insurance Broker (1995-1996) at Assurance Centeret, Actuary (1991-1995) at Alfa Livsforsikring, novice Actuary (1987-1990) at UNI Forsikring.

In 1989 he worked in a project in Dallas with a Texas computer company for a month incorporating a Norwegian pension product into a data system. Erik is specialized in life insurance and pensions, both private and business insurances. From 1991 to 1995 he was a main part of developing new life insurance saving products adapted to bank business (Sparebanken NOR), and he developed the mathematics behind the premiums and premium reserves.

He has industry experience in accounting, insurance, and insurance as a broker. He writes in his IQ-blog the online newspaper Nettavisen. He has personal interests among other things in history, philosophy and social psychology.

In 1995, he moved to Aalborg in Denmark because of a Danish girl he met. He worked as an insurance broker for one year, and took advantage of this experience later when he developed his own consultant company.

In Aalborg, he taught himself some programming (Visual Basic), and developed an insurance calculation software program which he sold to a Norwegian Insurance Company. After moving to Oslo with his girlfriend, he was hired as consultant by the same company to a project that lasted one year.

After this, he became the Manager of business insurance in the insurance company Norske Liv. At that time he had developed and nurtured his idea of establishing an actuarial consulting company, and he did this after some years on a full-time basis with his actuarial colleague. In the beginning, the company was small. He had to gain money, and worked for almost two years as an Academic Director of insurance at the BI Norwegian Business School.

Then the consultant company started to grow, and he quitted BI and used his full time in NIA (Nordic Insurance Administration). This was in 1998/99, and he has been there since.

NIA provides actuarial consulting services within the pension and life insurance area, especially towards the business market. They was one of the leading actuarial consulting companies in Norway through many years when Defined Benefit Pension Plans were on its peak and companies needed evaluations and calculations concerning their pension schemes and accountings. With the less complex, and cheaper, Defined Contribution Pension Plans entering Norway the last 10-15 years, the need of actuaries is less concerning business pension schemes.

Erik’s book from 2011, Benektelse og Verdighet, contains some thoughts about our superficial, often discriminating societies, where the virtue seems to be egocentrism without thoughts about the whole. Empathy is lacking, and existential division into “us” and “them” is a mental challenge with major consequences. One of the obstacles is when people with power – mind, scientific, money, political, popularity – defend this kind of mind as “necessary” and “survival of the fittest” without understanding that such thoughts make the democracies much more volatile and threatened. When people do not understand the genesis of extreme violence like school killings, suicide or sociopathy, asking “how can this happen?” repeatedly, one can wonder how smart man really is. The responsibility is not limited to let’s say the parents. The responsibility is everyone’s. The day we can survive, mentally, being honest about our lives and existence, we will take huge leaps into the future of mankind.

[3] Tor Arne Jørgensen is a member of 50+ high IQ societies, including World Genius Directory, NOUS High IQ Society, 6N High IQ Society just to name a few. He has several IQ scores above 160+ sd15 among high range tests like Gift/Gene Verbal, Gift/Gene Numerical of Iakovos Koukas and Lexiq of Soulios.

Tor Arne was also in 2019, nominated for the World Genius Directory 2019 Genius of the Year – Europe. He is the only Norwegian to ever have achieved this honor. He has also been a contributor to the Genius Journal Logicon, in addition to being the creater of toriqtests.com, where he is the designer of now eleven HR-tests of both verbal/numerical varient.

His further interests are related to intelligence, creativity, education developing regarding gifted students. Tor Arne has an bachelor`s degree in history and a degree in Practical education, he works as a teacher within the following subjects: History, Religion, and Social Studies.

[4] Individual Publication Date: March 1, 2022: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/norway-5; Full Issue Publication Date: May 1, 2022: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

Citations

American Medical Association (AMA): Jacobsen S. Norwegians of the High-Range Discussion with Erik Haereid, Eivind Olsen, and Tor Arne Jørgensen: Statistician & Actuarial Scientist; Chair, Mensa Norway; 2019 Genius of the Year – Europe, World Genius Directory (5)[Online]. March 2022; 29(D). Available from: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/norway-5.

American Psychological Association (APA, 6th Edition, 2010): Jacobsen, S.D. (2022, March 1). Norwegians of the High-Range Discussion with Erik Haereid, Eivind Olsen, and Tor Arne Jørgensen: Statistician & Actuarial Scientist; Chair, Mensa Norway; 2019 Genius of the Year – Europe, World Genius Directory (5). Retrieved from http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/norway-5.

Brazilian National Standards (ABNT): JACOBSEN, S. Norwegians of the High-Range Discussion with Erik Haereid, Eivind Olsen, and Tor Arne Jørgensen: Statistician & Actuarial Scientist; Chair, Mensa Norway; 2019 Genius of the Year – Europe, World Genius Directory (5). In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 29.D, March. 2022. <http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/norway-5>.

Chicago/Turabian, Author-Date (16th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott. 2022. “Norwegians of the High-Range Discussion with Erik Haereid, Eivind Olsen, and Tor Arne Jørgensen: Statistician & Actuarial Scientist; Chair, Mensa Norway; 2019 Genius of the Year – Europe, World Genius Directory (5).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 29.D. http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/norway-5.

Chicago/Turabian, Humanities (16th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott “Norwegians of the High-Range Discussion with Erik Haereid, Eivind Olsen, and Tor Arne Jørgensen: Statistician & Actuarial Scientist; Chair, Mensa Norway; 2019 Genius of the Year – Europe, World Genius Directory (5).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 29.D (March 2022). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/norway-5.

Harvard: Jacobsen, S. 2022, ‘Norwegians of the High-Range Discussion with Erik Haereid, Eivind Olsen, and Tor Arne Jørgensen: Statistician & Actuarial Scientist; Chair, Mensa Norway; 2019 Genius of the Year – Europe, World Genius Directory (5)’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 29.D. Available from: <http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/norway-5>.

Harvard, Australian: Jacobsen, S. 2022, ‘Norwegians of the High-Range Discussion with Erik Haereid, Eivind Olsen, and Tor Arne Jørgensen: Statistician & Actuarial Scientist; Chair, Mensa Norway; 2019 Genius of the Year – Europe, World Genius Directory (5)’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 29.D., http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/norway-5.

Modern Language Association (MLA, 7th Edition, 2009): Scott D. Jacobsen. “Norwegians of the High-Range Discussion with Erik Haereid, Eivind Olsen, and Tor Arne Jørgensen: Statistician & Actuarial Scientist; Chair, Mensa Norway; 2019 Genius of the Year – Europe, World Genius Directory (5).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 29.D (2022): March. 2022. Web. <http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/norway-5>.

Vancouver/ICMJE: Jacobsen S. Norwegians of the High-Range Discussion with Erik Haereid, Eivind Olsen, and Tor Arne Jørgensen: Statistician & Actuarial Scientist; Chair, Mensa Norway; 2019 Genius of the Year – Europe, World Genius Directory (5)[Internet]. (2022, March 29(D). Available from: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/norway-5.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Based on a work at www.in-sightjournal.com.

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https://www.gofundme.com/f/free-mubarak-bala

Humanist Canada calls for release of Nigerian Humanist President

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Humanist Alliance Philippines International (HAPI)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/05

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – May 5, 2020 – PRLog — Canadian Humanists are supporting calls from Humanists International to have Mubarak Bala released from a Nigerian jail. Bala, who is president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, was arrested by Nigerian police April 28 following a complaint the had insulted the prophet Mohammed in a social media post. Bala, who is a former Muslim, has been arrested without formal charges. Bala’s lawyer has not been allowed access to his client.

“The right to be charged within 24 hours of arrest and the right to legal counsel are enshrined in Nigerian law. In addition, we would request: if Mr. Bala is charged with a crime, then the charge is, or those charges are, heard in a secular as opposed to a Islamic court, as he is a humanist, atheist, and former Muslim,” said Scott Jacobsen, international rights spokesman for Humanist Canada. Humanist Canada Vice-President, Lloyd Robertson, said Canadians can support Mr Bala’s defence campaign organized by Humanists International by visiting:

He added that international support is important for the protection of minorities.

For more information contact:

Scott Jacobsen (778) 988-8070

Lloyd Robertson (306) 425-9872

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Copyright

Wider, Broader, Deeper, and Longer: The Banality of Moving the Goal Posts

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Humanist Alliance Philippines International (HAPI)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/01/05

Andrew Sullivan, prominent and long-time essayist, declared every person has a religion. By implication, this would include atheists, as most see themselves, likely, as a-religious within the referent frame of a-theism. This seems more wrong than right, and also appears to miss the basic nature of religion: handed down answers, or, rather, assertions bequeathed with dogma; where with a-religiosity, values become discovered, obviously confined within the cognitive-emotional bounds of living as a human being. Thus, the first-answer as to why everyone leans towards common values and the Golden Rule, within constraints.

He has written and published hundreds of articles in a variety of publications. In the view of Sullivan, the modern atheists take on the garb of a quasi-religion through their “attenuated form of religion,” as this is a “practice not a theory” view of religion (Sullivan, 2018).

He views the denial of God as absolute as others’ faith in God, but, in fact, he contradicts himself with the denial of God as views while the religions of those who believe in God amount to actions. This retains the similar tactical flavor of prominent evangelists of everything becoming referred back, in some manner or other, to Christianity or God.

He points to the values individuals live by in the world, including daily rituals, meditation, and prayer. He even points to secular people with Buddhist practices as part of their view of the world. Atheism does not imply Buddhism or Buddhist practices; it implies a non-belief in God. That’s it.

Sullivan stated, “In his highly entertaining book, The Seven Types of Atheism, released in October in the U.S., philosopher John Gray puts it this way: ‘Religion is an attempt to find meaning in events, not a theory that tries to explain the universe’” (Sullivan, 2018).

Religion becomes Confirmation Bias writ worldview. Sullivan argues for this as part of a self-knowledge of every individual member of the human species of their own individual demise, of absolute finality.

Thus, the reconciliation with the world comes in the form of the assertion of “meaning in events” and not as an attempt to “explain the universe” (Sullivan, 2018). He, quoting Gray, in essence argues for a why rather than a functional-how of the universe, of which religion provides the explanatory filler and, presumably, the evolved necessity of a search for meaning gives the cognitive filter.

He asserts, “This is why science cannot replace it. Science does not tell you how to live, or what life is about; it can provide hypotheses and tentative explanations, but no ultimate meaning” (Sullivan, 2018). Take the temporality of the claims of science, this, to him, likely implies lack of ultimate meaning in time; take the spatial limits of the human body, this implicates a void in ultimate meaning in space; examine the limitations in mentation of all human beings, this derives eventual emptiness to meaning from the self and imaginary inventiveness of human beings.

The gap between the infinite, absolute, or ultimate meaning and any finite temporal or spatial meaning leads to a conclusion that religion gives ultimate meaning. However, when we look closer on the assertion of science not being capable of replacing religion, we can see the finite explanations of religion, in its practices – as Sullivan argues religion is actions.

Meaning does not exist as a constituent element of the universe, but, rather, in the relation of consciousnesses to the universe. Meaning remains derived rather than fundamental in this sense and, ultimately, constructed and finite, as this comes from the fundamental substructure of a mind’s transactional relationship with the cosmos (and other minds).

But even in the theories propounded by some sects of religions as natural world truths, they contradict the knowledge of the natural world provided via science, which remains the largest reliable set of epistemologies to derive better functional explanations of the cosmos. In this, religion becomes non-ultimate too; indeed, its assertions of the ultimate in meaning amount to assertions, of which non-religious people make commitments.

But back to the how of the universe, science works on the level of engineering to a significant extent, to the hows of the universe, but not on the whys. Art, literature, music, and religion comprise – not always practice – but sets of expression of the internal landscape of consciousness and perception in such a way as to have others see the world and feel about the world as the artist or writer sees and feels reality. None of this seems ultimate, including religion and its by-products.

The claims to the ultimate often are wrong as well. An ultimate meaning to the universe with the resurrection of the dead following the forgiveness of sins starting with the Fall in the Garden of Eden and the virgin birth of the Son of God, and then the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ as the Saviour of Humankind.

To this assertion of ultimate meaning in avoidance of an extrapolated heat death of the universe in an immensely deep time into the future, or the ultimate meaning in the transcendence of death via atonement of Original Sin to this, we can ask a question, “What direct empirical evidence for the Garden of Eden?” (Sullivan, 2018) Answer: none. Whence Original Sin?

Outside of literary import, akin to Shakespeare or European folktales and legends, e.g., King Arthur and Merlin and so on, the purported ultimate meaning provided within the, for example, Roman Catholic Christian Church tradition of Sullivan becomes non-evidenced and, thus, probabilistic, at best, and, by implication, non-ultimate, i.e., no ultimate meaning in it.

The sensibility of the transcendent and ultimate in meaning becomes a placeholder for chauvinism in specific religions and particular theological assertions within the faith: “Our faith, our religion, harbors ultimate meaning in theology, in practices, in scriptures, and in community living, unlike the non-religious or, even especially, the irreligious” (Sullivan, 2018).

It simply amounts to arrogance and chauvinism cloaked in another guise of the religious, in this case, Sullivan. Temporal and spatial, and cognitive, limits bound the nature of the discussions, discourses, and dialogues possible for human beings, and then claims to ultimate and transcendent simply tend to mean parochial religious assertions and limits of understanding, and reaffirmations of traditional religious practice.

Characteristic of the fearmongering of equality for others while still the dominant faith demographic by a long shot in much of the West, especially where Sullivan is housed in America. A slight loss in prominence breeds a reactionary tone in addition to the regular unfolding of epithets.

Sullivan states, “Seduced by scientism, distracted by materialism, insulated, like no humans before us, from the vicissitudes of sickness and the ubiquity of early death, the post-Christian West believes instead in something we have called progress — a gradual ascent of mankind toward reason, peace, and prosperity — as a substitute in many ways for our previous monotheism” (Sullivan, 2018).

Secularism becomes post-Christian, which implies theocratic-leaning as more Christian or the reduction in the reliance on faith-based initiatives for health and secular means by which to achieve better material and wellness conditions becomes post-Christian, even with most of the nation adherent to a Christian narrative, as in America.

Even besides these concerns, Catholics may want to work less on demonizing others as a distraction of the horrific sexual scandals and abuses of nuns, of children, and others, and more on the asking of forgiveness of their victims, the national potentials they’ve destroyed through denial of contraceptives and family planning, the women who they have denied livelihoods in their opposition to safe, legal, and equitable abortion – as the Guttmacher Institute shows legalization lowers the rates of abortions (true pro-life, thus, should become pro-choice), imposition of theocratic rule in constitutions, and illegitimate abuse of religious privilege in societies to maintain political power, und so weiter (Guttmacher Institute, 2018).

Non-religion becomes “scientism” and “materialism.” On “scientism,” this term is a covert epithet of the non-religious and started with Friedrich von Hayek in 1943. Materialism relates to the outcomes of public relations and the industry devoted to the fabrication of wants, where I agree with him.

The campaigns to get kids to nag parents for unnecessary junk or to get pregnant women to smoke are evils, and a result of deliberate materialistic advertising and marketing campaigns to delude the public – and vulnerable sectors to boot.

As Sullivan correctly notes, “We have leveraged science for our own health and comfort” (Sullivan, 2018). Indeed, one big impediment to the reproductive health rights and technology of women has been the Roman Catholic Christian Church. Rather than focus on his own backyard, Sullivan, instead, aims at prominent writers and then criticizes abstracts including “reason.”

As has been said by others, perhaps, we need pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will, but we should remain wary or chary of the obvious moral goods being ignored in the real manifestations of their consequences in the directly implicated deaths and injuries of millions of women through simple rejection of contraceptives, abortifacients, family planning and associated educational provisions, safe and legal abortion, sexual education including consent, and so on.

Sullivan argues humans are religious creatures. This seems, in part, true, but, probably, more reliant on superstition and ignorance and myths as we remain an evolved and cognitively flawed species. He also argues humans seek meaning as part of our nature. This, once more, seems to identify a bug in what we may view as a benefit or a plus.

It depends on the orientation of the meaning sought by the individual or the group. As well, he draws attention to some non-religious individuals with too much emphasis on reason. This begs the question as to what reliance on emotionalism can derive for the truths about the world outside of the social relations.

In fact, this Vulcanization of the opposition – the non-religious – seems like another stereotype and asserted with thin evidence, except within the general derogatory statements about and odd opposition to the fundamental premises of rationalism with “reason.”

But this leads back into the notion of religion as actions or practice, mainly; however, Gray and Sullivan seem flat wrong here. Religion, in most contexts, amounts to beliefs plus suggested practices, where core a priori beliefs necessitate the faith and suggested practices can be adhered to varying degrees of seriousness: Jesus rose from the dead (core belief) and can perform miracles with enough serious and sincere prayer (suggested practice). Muhammed is the last Prophet of the one true God, Allah, (core belief) and the Hajj is an incredibly important Pillar of Islam to partake in the life of a sincere Muslim believer (suggested practice).

Someone without these, in either case, simply lacks traditional religion. Otherwise, what defines the boundaries of religions, exactly? If nothing, then religion simply becomes moot as a concept. But we tend to realize the distinctions and, intrinsically, understand religion as real phenomena and the contents of it, and practices from it. The common phrase or description of these actions is the moving of the goal posts.

One can see this angle from prominent pastors and theologians in North America who see the negative implications of the term “religion” and then work to distance their particular denomination from it: “That’s not Christianity. That’s religion.”

Giving the game away, of course, religion is seen as bad by the public more and more, based on well-documented evidence in history and evidence right into the present, and then garners a bad public persona. Christianity then, must, get separated from it. Same for other traditional religions.

Another methodology is simply to denude the term “religion” of context by moving the goal posts to such an extent as to leave anything with long-term adherence as a religion: materialistic pursuits, practicing meditation in a secular context even, or utilization of the tools of science and medicine for the improvement of human wellbeing defined in modern and secular terms.

Selectively quoting some prominent non-believers in history, Sullivan tries to mount the argument with appeals of various forms, including emotional. Without formal religious institutions or, in some modern lines of thought, old Disney films and European folk tales to give structure, order, and meaning, what will become of the world and the nature of being? Are these attacks on traditionalism? Are these assaults on the fundamental substructure of the world, of being itself?

The same as has happened in proportion to the reduction of religious fundamentalism, more freedom of thought and story-making, and meaning-making, and focus on secular notions of well-being: societies become better. Some may point to the United States of America as a high standard of living nation while also retaining high religiosity; we can simply extend the examination internal to the nation.

As it turns out, the most religious states in America have the worst health and wellness outcomes, in general, compared to the more secular ones. Thus, the benefits come with the secular offerings and technological advancements as applied to the standard secular concerns for human wellbeing, e.g., vaccinations, healthcare, better food, easier lives, cleaner working conditions, maternal and infant care, reproductive health technologies, and so on.

This comes, in fact, from a rejection of the non-answers or excuses for the problems of the real world before us, often provided in the form of religious orthodoxy. The argument cropping or popping up more and more is the notion of atheists or non-religious people generally practicing a Christian metaphysics in spite of their protestations to the contrary.

That is to say, from these chauvinists’ views, to behave in a decent and honorable manner, you must be acting in a way reflecting Christianity; therefore, you owe a debt of gratitude to Christianity for behaving well and, in fact, only behave well since you act in a purportedly Christian way.

This is simply a way of saying even ‘atheists’ aren’t atheists because they are Christians or ‘atheists’ who are truly Christians acting out a Christian metaphysics who claim that they aren’t Christian. Assumption: if you act in a good way, then you are Christian; if you act bad, then you are a non-believer. Even if you are a purported or self-proclaimed non-believer, you act as a non-believer with a Christian metaphysics. The chauvinism is “anything Christian good” – presumably, even that chauvinism, though “pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” – and “anything bad is not Christian” (The Bible: King James Version, 2018).

No one should play by the rules set out here because a) they’re false as our values predate the mythology of Christianity and b) it’s a simple dishonest Sophist tactic. Ethics is apart from religion. It can be incorporated into the moral systems, myths as guides, and stipulations of the faith, but hundreds of millions of people act well without religion and build better, more functional, and healthier societies with less religion as a heuristic – based on decades of evidence, thus not a hunch but not an axiom either.

There’s a joke among some Westerners with Indian heritage that their parents claim everything came from India. You point to some discovery in scientific or technological marvel, then the punchline is the parent claiming that this came from India.

One can also hear the notion, by analogy, that – quite astonishingly with a straight face said – separation of church and state came from Christianity, as a ‘miracle,’ seen in the statement, purportedly, by Jesus, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s,” which is from Matthew 22:21 (2018).

This one takes tremendous amounts of gumption and myopia on the part of the speaker, ignorance – if believed – on the part of the listener, and complicity in the gumption, myopia, and ignorance if journalists or others repeating it, at least uncritically.

Following the foundation of Christianity, we find one of the largest theocracies ever founded in the history of the world with the conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity. The same idea can be seen in the analogy. The claim would be this is not true Christianity or real Christianity; that is to say in the former context, everyone behaving good acts in a Christian metaphysics.

Anyone not acting in such a way isn’t a Christian and, therefore, we come to the fallacy known as No True Scotsman. The sloppiness of the arguments is tiresome and the presentation of individuals making these arguments as our public intellectuals and best minds is both a travesty and a shame.

But even taking the issue of homosexuality, one which remains controversial for the hierarchs of the Roman Catholic Christian Church. Not in my words, the church’s own doctrine and positions, richly endowed statements on it, too.

As stated by the Vatican, the proper beliefs are “Sacred Scripture” placing homosexuality and homosexual acts as “acts of grave depravity,” “intrinsically disordered” or “objectively disordered,” “contrary to natural law,” “do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity,” where “homosexual persons are called to chastity” and “under no circumstances can they be approved” (The Vatican, n.d.).

Thus, the hard beliefs behind the firmly suggested practices are chaste sexual lives of homosexuals: men and women. Presumably, anyone engaging in this, within the tradition of Sullivan, become non-Christian; hence, sexually active homosexual (Roman Catholic) Christians becomes an impossibility, especially troublesome as the Good, to some, marks a Christian metaphysics – noted earlier.

Then Sullivan with the banal notions of religion as necessary for human beings states, “Liberalism is a set of procedures, with an empty center, not a manifestation of truth, let alone a reconciliation to mortality. But, critically, it has long been complemented and supported in America by a religion distinctly separate from politics, a tamed Christianity that rests, in Jesus’ formulation, on a distinction between God and Caesar. And this separation is vital for liberalism, because if your ultimate meaning is derived from religion, you have less need of deriving it from politics or ideology or trusting entirely in a single, secular leader. It’s only when your meaning has been secured that you can allow politics to be merely procedural” (Sullivan, 2018).

One need merely look, briefly, at the crypto-theocrats within the midst of the United States creating havoc and suffering in the lives of millions of women through blockades to fundamental human rights, as per a statement by Human Rights Watch, of equitable and safe access to abortion. Women get them anyway. However, in the rather desperate and clandestine process, women die and acquire varieties of injuries from unsafe abortions due to restrictions on the “equitable and safe access to abortion.”

To Sullivan’s (2018) question in his soliloquy, “So what happens when this religious rampart of the entire system is removed?” He asserts illiberal politics. In fact, the affirmation of fundamentalist Christianity has been an impediment to the liberal politics for a long time, straight into the current moment.

Christianity as illiberal in this interpretation, not in some abstracted and idealized notion but in the illiberal implementation of adherents since its foundation, whether now or with the majority of the German populace as Christian decades ago. That’s not “anchored in and tamed by Christianity”; that’s fanned flames of illiberalism by Christianity, from its origins (Sullivan, 2018).

Secular and humanistic frameworks have been the taming force on Christianity. The impotence of Christians’ love, rather than the simple love, has been a force by which the liberalism has flourished; whereas, when they could, Christians were burning people at the stake or imposing their religion as the state religion, including many who wish to impose Christianity as the state religion in the US and elsewhere – to save souls.

Christianity and Christian mythology formed an early cult in recorded history. Now, the more direct attacks on its supremacy are met with some spurious, but not all, arguments posited by Sullivan and others.

Some decent observations by Sullivan come from the idea of “tribalized… religion explicitly built by Jesus as anti-tribal. They have turned to idols — including their blasphemous belief in America as God’s chosen country” (Sullivan, 2018).

He seems correct here. Sullivan takes the stance of reduction in Christianity leading to the Trump Administration and others, or Christian truths. Then he uses this to equate or place on the same platform social justice activists, say a Martin Luther King, Jr., with President Trump.

Plentiful important moral work has been done by individual Christians and mass mobilizations by Christian ethical visionaries, but also in a secular social justice framework as well. The issue here is an ascendance not of social justice but, rather, of the obvious, of which the analogs are not many: Christian theocratic hopes tied to negative nationalism or populism. To link this to social justice activists, it amounts to poor journalism as a false equivalency characteristic of simply not seeing past the prejudices of the time.

One prior example of a Christian theocracy was mentioned, Constantinian Christianity is seen in the Roman Empire with the conversion of Emperor Constantine. Another can be seen in fundamentalist Evangelical Christians within the US.

The Bible is steeped in supernaturalism and with political acts and even concluding on a political execution. It is an ancient cult built over centuries. As a political tract and supernatural mythological, and quasi-historical, text, the orientation of Christianity has been political with the “kingdom of God” not necessarily as an other-worldly spatial location, but as a physical location and “kingdom” of the time as some kingdoms were around at the time, including the Roman.

Christianity never truly saw a split between politics and religion in this sense. Hence, the theocratic impulses seen throughout Christian history is the rule and not the exception.

He, once more, asserts, “It is Christianity that came to champion the individual conscience against the collective, which paved the way for individual rights. It is in Christianity that the seeds of Western religious toleration were first sown. Christianity is the only monotheism that seeks no sway over Caesar, that is content with the ultimate truth over the immediate satisfaction of power. It was Christianity that gave us successive social movements, which enabled more people to be included in the liberal project, thus renewing it” (Sullivan, 2018).

The liberal movements, such as the Enlightenment, were a reaction to the superstition and bigotry of Christianity. The liberalism is anti-Christian in this sense. Now, to the modern fundamental claim of the individual or the purported ‘divine’ individual, or the individual conscience, as bound to the Christian faith, this assertion tends to come from individuals spewing epithets and complaining about identity politics and virtue signaling.

But if we take a moment to reflect, we can note some of the original identity politics in religious identification and virtue signaling prayers and other religious practices. This seems ironic. The Christian identity is one of a group, of a collective in the Body of Christ.

The idea of the social and moral worth of the individual started, in part, with democratic norms and institutions, but, as one can glean from the ideals imagined in Kallipolis by Plato or in the opinions of women by Aristotle, only for a select group of people – most often men.

Plato would be considered progressive for the time; Aristotle would be seen in some of the worst sexist terms today. In Christianity, the focus isn’t on the individual as an idea, but on an individual, Christ, and the collective as an idea, the Body of Christ.

Then the response pivot to this may be a divine spark or soul in each person. But this also predates Christianity, including Egyptians and the Chinese with the conceptualization of a dual-soul and in Aristotle, once more, with a tripartite soul. Epicureans saw the soul as tied to the material body. Platonists saw the soul as an immaterial substance. Duly note, each predating or co-existing with Christianity and having a notion of ensoulment of each individual human being.

The fundamental distinction is in the selection of values and ideas: to the non-religious, they’re chosen; to the religious believer, they’re pre-selected by authority and then given in advance. Sullivan et al simply miss this, often to the detriment of modernity based on their primitivity.

References

Guttmacher Institute. (2018, March). Induced Abortion Worldwide. Retrieved from https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-worldwide.

Sullivan, A. (2018, December 7). America’s New Religions. Retrieved from nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/andrew-sullivan-americas-new-religions.html.

The Bible: King James Version. (2018). Matthew: 22:21. Retrieved from https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+22%3A21&version=KJV.

The Bible: King James Version. (2018). Proverbs: 16:18. Retrieved from https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+16%3A18&version=KJV.

The Vatican. (n.d.). Catechism of the Catholic Church: Part Three, Life in Christ. Retrieved from www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a6.htm.

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The Guardians of Pain

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Humanist Alliance Philippines International (HAPI)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/12/24

The Roman Catholic Christian Church Pope Francis – the guy who thinks he is the only Pope should look into the Discordians, adjacent to the Church of the SubGenius and its SubGenii – remarked on the problems with drug abuse or, less moralistically, substance misuse in the context of Duterte (Romero, 2018).

But this requires some context on Christian conceptualizations of suffering through time right into the present, which will, in due course, include commentary on Christian ideas of suffering, substance misuse, drugs, and the brain, and harm reduction in the Philippines and global context.

The image of pain, suffering, and misery sits at the Cross of the Roman Catholic Christians and other Christians, with the assumption of the redemptive work in a sacrifice of God made flesh, where the Salvifici Doloris states the meaning of suffering “illuminated by the Word of God” and reflected in the words of “Saint Paul” (John Paul II, 1984).

In this Christian context, of the largest sect and others, the meaning of suffering and pain, the purported mystery of suffering evokes “compassion,” “respect,” and intimidation and retains its plumbed linkages to a “need of the heart” and the “deep imperative of faith” (Ibid.).

Within this framework of the world, the alleviation of suffering is seen as only through Christ at the Cross and through no other, as this, simply put, is an emotional need and an imperative of religious faith and, therefore, an inexplicable and mandatory part of faith in Christ for a true Christianity.

Christianity, and its representatives in the largest sect and its highest offices to the supposed Vicar of Christ on Earth become guardians of this suffering, because without such sacrament of suffering and pain the redemptive power of Christ in a fallen world, so-called, would remain unneeded; the Roman Catholic Christian Church would become outmoded and irrelevant to the concerns of a mature and critical-minded, empirically informed, and logically coherent person of the future.

Intimations of this can be seen within the advanced industrial economies of the world which, historically speaking, were predominantly Christian and serious in their faith but, over time, they began to lose hold and slipped in their adherence to the faith, in degree and raw numbers. Throughout the 20^th century, we witnessed a historic rise of the non-religious, of the individuals without the need or even basic want for a traditional religious life.

In this, we also, at least in North America, developed the post-WWII Healing Revival Movement with a wide range of people preaching the Gospel with renewed vigor and proclamations of the end times and purification of the world for the benefit of the Good and Christian – synonyms within the framework propounded for centuries, hence the sociocultural assumption of nonbelievers as amoral if not, worse, inherently immoral – including Rev. Billy Graham, Oral Roberts – who some during the higher heights of faith in Sigmund Freud labeled “Anal Roberts,” William Marion Branham, Jack Coe, Jack Moore, A. A. Allen, T. L. Osborn, Gordon Lindsay, F. F. Bosworth, Ern Baxter, Paul Cain, Kenneth Hagin, and O.L. Jaggers (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018).

All lunatics, charlatans, or ignoramuses in their own rights. The fourth option, of course, is knowledgeable; however, these individuals did not know much about the world but had, as per the statement by Hawking, neither ignorance nor knowledge but the illusion of knowledge, which, in the end, analysis, is far viler and the enemy of real knowledge about the reality abounding around us. To quote the late cosmologist once more, religion is based on authority. Science is based on evidence. Approximately, one can apply the same categorization sweep in the analysis of prominent creationists in history including Ken Ham, Kent Hovind, Immanuel Velikovsky, Duane Gish, and others. A lesson in life, learn to detect pseudoscience and nonsense and then move on, which saves time.

Famously, even the within-the-faith beloved supposed Saint Mother Theresa of Calcutta, also known as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, the writings of the late purported saint remain littered with commentary on suffering and the importance of pain and suffering, as this retains a sense of the redemption of Christ.

Bojaxhiu states, “Suffering, if it is accepted together, borne together, is joy. Remember that the Passion of Christ ends always in the joy of the Resurrection of Christ, so when you feel in your own heart the suffering of Christ, remember the Resurrection has to come—–the joy of Easter has to dawn. Never let anything so fill you with sorrow as to make you forget the joy of the Risen Christ” (Lau, n.d.).

Suffering shall be accepted as a joy; a joy as the “Risen Christ” (Ibid.). The nature of the framework represents an assumption of a resurrection from the dead, i.e., the death, burial, and three days later resurrection of Christ in so-called defiance of death.

The only crux, so to speak, of the issue of suffering from Christian theology, remains with the supposed resurrection and in the power of the sacrifice of a God-man, of God made flesh, on a Cross, through a form of Roman capital punishment.

Without veracity to these claims of a resurrection and to its panacea power for the supernatural moral blights of sin for all time – past, present, and future, the notion of Christian alleviation of suffering, or need for recognition of suffering as joy in realization of its reflection in Jesus’s or Yeshua Ben Yosef’s murder, becomes nothing.

It’s true, then, the Roman Catholic Christians did it: ex nihilo. They created something from nothing, more suffering than necessary through its enshrinement and as guardianship for access to the joy of Christ’s self-sacrifice at the Cross. Unnecessary suffering within a secular referent frame becomes immoral because of the tacit premise of a supernatural moral realm; whereas, to the Roman Catholic Christian Church, the secularly seen unnecessary suffering becomes necessary suffering via reflective qualities with the penultimate sacrifice of Christ for the so-called sins of humankind. That is to say, the well-being moral matrix of humanism stands opposed to the meta-physicalistic ethic of Christianity; although, if one takes the words of the Utilitarian ethicist and political philosopher John Stuart Mill seriously in Utilitarianism, the foundation of the ethics of wellbeing writ broad and deep with a eudaemonistic view of human life and their relations with one another becomes the moral nature of the Nazarene:

I must again repeat, what the assailants of utilitarianism seldom have the justice to acknowledge, that the happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct, is not the agent’s own happiness, but that of all concerned. As between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator. In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. To do as you would be done by, and to love your neighbour as yourself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality. As the means of making the nearest approach to this ideal, utility would enjoin, first, that laws and social arrangements should place the happiness, or (as speaking practically it may be called) the interest, of every individual, as nearly as possible in harmony with the interest of the whole; and secondly, that education and opinion, which have so vast a power over human character, should so use that power as to establish in the mind of every individual an indissoluble association between his own happiness and the good of the whole; especially between his own happiness and the practice of such modes of conduct, negative and positive, as regard for the universal happiness prescribes; so that not only he may be unable to conceive the possibility of happiness to himself, consistently with conduct opposed to the general good, but also that a direct impulse to promote the general good may be in every individual one of the habitual motives of action, and the sentiments connected therewith may fill a large and prominent place in every human being’s sentient existence. (Mill, 1863)

This could lead into commentary on the ongoing and overwhelming sexual abuse of children and nuns entering into the news cycle at a rapid pace; however, this will not be the focus of this article (Dancel, 2018; Gomes, 2018; Pierce, 2018; Regencia, 2018; Macdonald, 2018; Long, 2018). Mill took a naturalistic frame of the Nazarene reflective of the morals of Utilitarianism, where the Roman Catholic Christian Church holds fast to the notion of supernatural lessons and an ethical gradient within this meta-material world of grace to sin.

Of the many foci within the categorization of pain, misery, and suffering of the Roman Catholic Christian Church, we can, also, come to the realization of the ongoing and international problem with the pain and death created through the substance misuse crisis around the world (WHO, 2018a; WHO, 2018b).

If we look at the deaths associated with the drug epidemic around the world, we can find approximately 70,000 to 100,000 people dying from opioid-related overdoses, alone, per annum, and as many as 99,000 to 253,000 deaths from to illicit drug use, circa 2010 (UNODC/WHO, 2013).

The main deaths from these substances are men (NIH, 2018a; NIH, 2018b). These statistics from the National Institutes of Health in the United States replicate to other parts of the world. This does not seem like a spiritual problem, as in some spiritual-moral realm corrupted and influencing the men to become addicted in the short- and long-term. One which damages families and communities, and leaving men to die alone.

The basics of addiction, rather than a spiritual-moral framework in years past filled with theological arguments and references to revelation, comes from a functional comprehension of the architecture of the mind, of the brain as an organic sense input receiver and information processor, as we are evolved organisms with imperfectly coordinated but good enough consciousnesses; where these systems can be hijacked by the substances, the neural networks can be, without context, activated based on the ability of the addictive substances to cross the blood-brain barrier and remain active and suitable for locking into neurotransmitter sites at gap junctions. It is well-known as the “biology of addiction” (NIH News in Health, 2015). One common and among the most lethal substances, and which is legal in several nations around the world, remain alcohol, which makes for a good example.

Dr. George Koob, the Director of the NIH’s National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, stated, “A common misperception is that addiction is a choice or moral problem, and all you have to do is stop. But nothing could be further from the truth… The brain actually changes with addiction, and it takes a good deal of work to get it back to its normal state. The more drugs or alcohol you’ve taken, the more disruptive it is to the brain” (Ibid.).

The Director of the NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse, Dr. Nora Volkow, notes the decreased activity in the frontal cortex in individuals who harbor addictive tendencies or outright addictions, whether to alcohol or other substances; they take the substance in spite of the costs of losing “custody of their children” or real threats of a potential rightful entrance into a penitentiary (Ibid.).

These experts in the functional neurological and behavioral aspects of addiction do not mention the spiritual world or spiritual problems, or alternate and inexplicable dimensions apart from the ordinary, but these medical professionals and research directors at the highest level in the world direct attention to organized matter, a brain, and its malfunctions, e.g., the poor functional capacity of the frontal lobes and, in particular, the frontal cortex of the unfortunates suffering with or through addiction.

As Professor Adele Diamond of The University of British Columbia explains with regards to the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex, the poor functioning of the DPfC, in particular, or the PfC, in general, can impair function in most important areas of personal and professional life, and associated with many mental disorders, including attention and conduct disorders, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorders, even schizophrenia, and can impact physical health with poor health habits in either exercise or diet, reading and writing achievement, dependability, violent and emotional outburst events and degrees of said moments, retaining of a job let alone a career, levels of productivity, and success and harmony in work or marital life, and so on (Diamond, 2012).

A material, physical, or natural structure with impairments expresses widespread life problems, i.e., not a spiritual-moral issue by necessity and, by the principle of parsimony or Occam’s Razor, far more probable as a neurological impairment issue. This leads to some implications in the legal and social, and law enforcement, aspects of substance misuse epidemics. There has been a wide range of calls for the decriminalization of drugs to deal with this international problem, as would be a humanistic orientation based on evidence of the reduction in harms to the general public at all levels. That is to say, compassion- and science-based solution to this international problem. [Ed. I have written on this before and reference common knowledge within the international community on this subject matter, as well as prior references from other articles.]

The calls have been from the UN General Assembly Session on the Approach to the World Drug Problem (UNGASS) in its 2016 unanimous conclusion, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, through drug policy and the Sustainable Development Goals, and others (UNODC, 2018; Yakupitiyage, 2017; UNODC, 2015; Sustainable Development Goals, n.d.).

The United Nations and the World Health Organization issued a joint statement calling for decriminalization of all drugs in 2017 (WHO, 2017). The Former Portuguese Prime Minister and Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres called for the decriminalization of all drugs while the Prime Minister of Portugal; same while the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the prior Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon did the same (Secretariat to the Governing Bodies UNODC, 2018).

Some nations made continuous calls for decriminalization. They enacted the changes, including the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and Portugal, and other countries (Travis, 2014; Vastag, 2009). The questions about this issue of drugs or substances with deadly or addictive potentials around the world remains the ways in which the substances are dealt with via the criminal justice system, the system of jurisprudence, and the assumptions floating within the public consciousness influencing the conscience of the general populace of a nation, including the Philippines.

If we look at the situation with the nation for me, Canadian society, in other words, we can note the ways in which the punitive approach to substance misuse has been an utter failure, even worse in the nation south of our border, i.e., the United States of America.

The punishment of the misusers, in fact, based on the firm and robust evidence showing the increase of the use, the severity of the outcomes, and how this punishment methodology simply leaves more people without support and possibly addicted/deceased, and the prison population filled more than before within the nation-state, based on the implementation of policies set forth with a punitive approach.

Most often, the poor and minorities within a state are the majority of the victims here; thus, if poor, male, and a minority within a nation, then the greater the likelihood of falling victim to injury, addiction, or death via illicit substance intake, whether orally, anally, or injections (Fellner, 2009; NIH, 2018a; NIH, 2018b). In general, this is counter-complemented by an evidence-based methodology towards the issues of substance misuse: harm reduction, which amounts to both a philosophy and a methodology (Harm Reduction International, 2018).

Much akin to the humanistic approach, as noted, harm reduction provides a basis for the implementation in societies around the world with a reason, science, and compassion foundation in the management of substance misuse as a human issue and a social health problem primarily, and secondarily as an issue of law enforcement. For example, if decriminalized, the black market in this sector becomes nullified.

The alternative to mostly punishment is harm reduction (Harm Reduction International, 2018). One major aspect of compassion would be the implementation of decriminalization, as per the national and international calls, and compassion oriented policies, programmes, and initiatives in order to alleviate the suffering of those at the bottom of society.

These methodologies can be as simple as needle exchange programs or safe injections sites. Others, if the population of young postsecondary students, can be an emphasis on naloxone kits on campus, which blocks the opioid receptors of the body and stalls overdoses for time to return the young person to the hospital. These remain solutions bound to a realistic view of a free country, likely, harboring illicit substances or licit substances that will be misused, and then the role of the government should be to protect and help the public in the most evidence-based way possible, which means the harm reduction approaches, while also respecting the bodily autonomy and choices of the Filipino/Filipina.

More than 1,000 Canadian citizens died in the province of British Columbia alone, which prompted an emergency task force to examine the issue and the evidence. This led to the proposals for more extensive harm reduction approaches, not less, where this mirrors the situation with Portugal under Guterres.

Humanistic approaches do not imply for all time or inherent completeness of philosophical foundation, in a symmetry with the logical findings of Kurt Godel about the incompleteness of any standard mathematical system proclaiming consistency or the inconsistency of any mathematical system proclaiming completeness, because the fundamental basis in science – process, discoveries, and substantiated empirical theories – amounts to a philosophy of discovery about the natural world and, therefore, an ethic, by implication incorporating it, becomes one of a wondrous continual searching, probing, retaining, integrating, and refining of inherent compassionate sentiments of the human heart reflected in the Golden Rule to the advanced scientific and technological landscape of the world today.

This brings us back into the subject matter of suffering and the context of Christianity, the Pope, Duterte, and harm reduction. As the Roman Catholic Christian Church from the previous Pope to a saint noted on the Christian conceptualization of suffering, as they live in a worldview of the teleological bound within this notion of God as a Logos or the source of absolute truth without room for deviancy – the Logos way or the highway (to hell, even paved with good intentions, presumably), the suffering in the world must have some God-given purpose.

Suffering comes from a fallen world but is extant due to some ultimate teleological purpose with God’s divine plan, even while the standard position of the Roman Catholic Christian Church is acceptance of Theistic Evolution with, in many eyes, humanity as the crowning achievement of creation. From an evolutionary viewpoint without teleology, a naturalistic worldview, the pain, suffering, and misery remain products of evolution carved via natural selective processes from natural disasters to reciprocal altruism to mate selection to kin selection to punctuated equilibrium and so on, without teleology. Kropotkin noted the factor of mutual aid in evolution at any rate.

The pain and suffering are seen as necessary and, potentially, needing encouragement or even praise as reflective of the joy identified with the notion of a crucified Christ, i.e., the ultimate in suffering and sacrifice then victory over the death of the mortal coil.

However, lacking the evidence or firm evidentiary basis for the claims in the narratives of a Christ who died and rose from the dead a la Lazarus, or the biological evidence to show natural means by which death has ever been forestalled indefinitely and even reversed then or now, the teleological view of suffering becomes less cosmic, more parochial, and akin to the Evolution by Natural Selection posited by Darwin in 1859 (On the Origin of Species) without a teleological lens on the development, adaptation, and speciation of species.

Suffering becomes another unavoidable aspect of the evolved organisms of Earth useful for long-term species survival while also, given the aforementioned sentiments and inquiring ethical discovery linked to science, becoming something human beings can alleviate, not only in themselves but in others as per the Golden Rule.

Some individuals seem to have less of this. Duterte, in particular, admitted to extrajudicial killings, stated, “What is my sin? Did I steal even one peso? Did I prosecute somebody who I ordered jailed? My sin is extrajudicial killings” (Human Rights Watch, 2018a).

In the anti-drug fervor of the nation, of the Philippines, more than 12,000 people have been killed, including men, women, and children (Ibid.), based on conservative estimates from “the nongovernmental groups Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates and the International Drug Policy Consortium, as well as media outlets including the Sydney Morning Herald” (Ibid.).

There has been, also, the efforts to push an independent investigation via the UN into the killings associated with this so-called War on Drugs, which amounts to the punitive or punished oriented approach, in contradistinction to the harm reduction approach, mentioned before (Human Rights Watch, 2018b). This harsh tone and tough talk are not new from Duterte.

In a May 2015 election campaign rally, he, in a strong suggestion of a punitive approach to drugs, exclaimed, “If I became president, you [alleged criminals] should hide. I would kill all of you who make the lives of Filipinos miserable. I will definitely kill you. I do not want to commit this crime. But if by chance per chance God will place me there, stay on guard because that 1,000 [killed in Davao City] will become 100,000” (Rappler.com, 2015).

Golez quoted the Roman Catholic Christian Pope spokesperson, Salvador Panelo, stating, “This is precisely the rationale behind the President’s war on illegal drugs in the Philippines: to save the young and future generations of Filipinos from the drug scourge… Laudable developments have been achieved by the current administration in this regard, notwithstanding the noise coming from the loud minority composed of his detractors and critics here and abroad” (Golez, 2018; Romero, 2018).

In short, Duterte and the Pope speak in different tones but support the same social and law enforcement right-wing ideological perspective, which, in accordance with all evidence available to us, will not only maintain the terrible conditions but make them worse or exacerbate them for individuals and society.

As per the calls for decriminalization and the empirical robust support for harm reduction methodologies, the Pope and Duterte should take a complete about-face in their commitment, as they currently rely on an anti-science conservative agenda that harms the public and has resulted in, potentially 12,000 or more killings when a perfectly functional and evidence-based approach sits before them with support from the international community from the United Nations to the World Health Organization.

The implications of more suffering and then working to stamp this out does not sit apart from the work of mostly male world leaders working to maintain a tough-guy image and in the Christian conceptualization of human suffering as a derivation of a good reflective of the redemptive self-sacrifice of Christ at the Cross; but for God’s sake, the evidence and the naturalistic ethics bound to the sciences of the mind better suit the modern world and will, in fact, do what the purported holy figure and strongman want in their triumphal declarations: reduce the drug abuse or substance misuse problem – so, stop being the guardians of unnecessary suffering and death, and misery, and pain.

Then, maybe, we can thank heaven, literally or metaphorically.

References

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An Interview with Dr. Ronald K. Hoeflin on Theories of Intelligence, Sex Differences, and Issues of IQ Test Takers and Test Creators (Part Three) by Scott Jacobsen

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): USIA Research Journal (United Sigma Intelligence Association/USIA, formerly United Sigma Korea/USK, founded by HanKyung Lee, M.D. in 2007 as United Sigma Korea, published then removed without request after resignation)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/02

Abstract: Dr. Ronald K. Hoeflin founded the Prometheus Society and the Mega Society, and created the Mega Test and the Titan Test. He discusses: faux and real genius; validity to Professor Robert Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of intelligence with practical intelligence, creative intelligence, and analytical intelligence; validity to Multiple Intelligences Theory of Professor Howard Gardner with musical-rhythmic, visual-spatial, verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, existential, and teaching-pedagogical intelligences; validity to general intelligence, or g, of the late Charles Spearman; the general opinion on the three main theories of intelligence; self-identification as a genius; personal opinions on the state of mainstream intelligence testing and alternative high-range intelligence testing; statistical rarity for apparent and, potentially, actual IQ scores of females who score at the extreme sigmas of 3, 4, and 5, or higher; reducing or eliminating social conflicts of interest in test creation; multiple test attempts; data on the Mega Test and the Titan Test; pseudonyms and test scores; and possible concerns of the test creators at the highest sigmas.

KEYWORDS: Charles Spearman, Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius, Howard Gardner, intelligence, IQ, Mega Society, Mega Test, Robert Sternberg, Ronald K. Hoeflin, The Encyclopedia of Categories, Titan Test.

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Before delving into the theories, so a surface analysis, what defines a faux genius? What defines a real genius to you? Or, perhaps, what different definitions sufficiently describe a fake and a true genius for non-experts or a lay member of the general public – to set the groundwork for Part Three?

Dr. Ronald K. Hoeflin: I would say that genius requires high general intelligence combined with high creativity. How high? In his book Hereditary Genius, Francis Galton put the lowest grade of genius at a rarity of one in 4,000 and the highest grade at a rarity of one in a million. Scientists love to quantify in order to give their subject at least the appearance of precision. One in 4,000 would ensure one’s being noticed in a small city, while one in a million would ensure one’s being noticed in an entire nation of moderate size.

2. Jacobsen: By your estimation or analysis, any validity to Professor Robert Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of intelligence with practical intelligence, creative intelligence, and analytical intelligence?

Hoeflin: I like Sternberg’s attempt at analyzing intelligence, but clearly just three factors seems a bit skimpy for a really robust theory.

3.Jacobsen: Any validity to Multiple Intelligences Theory of Professor Howard Gardner with musical-rhythmic, visual-spatial, verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, existential, and teaching-pedagogical intelligences?

Hoeflin: Here we have a more robust set of factors, but Gardner fails to show how his factors cohere within a single theory.

4. Jacobsen: Any validity to general intelligence, or g, of the late Charles Spearman?

Hoeflin: General intelligence was based on the fact that apparently quite diverse forms of intelligence such as verbal, spatial, and numerical have positive correlations between each pair of factors, presumably based on some underlying general intelligence.

5. Jacobsen: Amongst the community of experts, what is the general opinion on the three main theories of intelligence listed before? What one holds the most weight? Why that one?

Hoeflin: These are three theories in search of an overarching theory of intelligence. My guess is that the so-called “experts” lack the intelligence so far to create a really satisfactory theory of intelligence, perhaps analogous to the problem with finding a coherent theory of superstrings.

6. Jacobsen: Do you identify as a genius? If so, why, and in what ways? If not, why not?

Hoeflin: I think my theory of categories shows genuine genius. It even amazes me, as if I were just a spectator as the theory does its work almost independently of my efforts.

7. Jacobsen: Any personal opinions on the state of mainstream intelligence testing and alternative high-range intelligence testing now?

Hoeflin: I’m not up on the current state of intelligence testing. I do feel that it has focused way too much on the average range of intelligence, say from 50 to 150 IQ, i.e., from the bottom one-tenth of one percent to the top one-tenth of one percent. Testing students in this range is where the money is in academia. It’s like music: all the money to be made is in creating pop music, which is typically of mediocre quality. Background music for movies is probably as close as music comes these days to being of high quality, presumably because there is money to be made from the movie studios in such music. I saw a movie recently called “Hangover Square,” which came out in 1945. The title is unappealing and the movie itself is a totally unsuspenseful melodrama about a homicidal maniac whose identity is revealed right from the start. The one amazing thing about the movie was that the composer, Bernard Herman, composed an entire piano concerto for the maniac to purportedly compose and perform, with appropriate homicidal traits in the music to reflect the deranged soul of the leading character, the maniac. One rarely sees such brilliant musical talent thrown at such a horrible film. So I guess genius can throw itself into things even when the audience it is aimed at is of extremely mediocre quality. Maybe intelligence tests, even when they are aimed at mediocre students, can show glints of genius. The fact that I could attain the 99th percentile on tests aimed at average high-school students despite my slow reading due to visual impairment suggests that some psychometrician (or group of psychometricians) must have been throwing their creativity and intelligence into their work in an inspired way that smacks of true genius!

8. Jacobsen: Do the statistical rarities at the extreme sigmas have higher variance between males and females? If so, why? If not, why not? Also, if so, how is this reflected in subtests rather than simple composite scores?

Hoeflin: By “variance between males and females,” I presume you are alluding to the fact that there tend to be more men at very high scores than women. This is especially obvious in spatial problems, as well as kindred math problems, presumably due to men running around hunting wild game in spatially complex situations while women sat by the fireside cooking whatever meat the men managed to procure. But it is also true that men outperform women on verbal tests. On the second Concept Mastery Test, a totally verbal test, of the 20 members of Terman’s gifted group who scored from 180 to 190, the ceiling to the test, 16 were men but only 4 were women. This is a puzzling phenomenon, given women’s propensity for verbalizing. Perhaps chasing game involves verbal communication, too, so that nature rewards the better verbalizers among men in life-or-death situations. Warfare as well as hunting for game probably has a significant role in weeding out the unfit verbalizers among men.

9. Jacobsen: Following from the last question, if so, what does this imply for the statistical rarity for apparent and, potentially, actual IQ scores of females who score at the extreme sigmas of 3, 4, and 5, or higher?

Hoeflin: It obviously would be possible to breed women eugenically to increase the percentage of them with very high IQ scores. Even now, there are more women graduating from law school than men in the United States, which suggests no deficit in verbal intelligence at the high end of the scale. Although, there may be other reasons why men of high verbal intelligence avoid law as a career compared to women. Maybe, they are drawn away by other lucrative careers, such as business or medicine.

10. Jacobsen: In the administration of alternative tests for the higher ranges of general intelligence, individuals may know the test creator, even on intimate terms as a close colleague and friend. They may take the test a second time, a third time, a fourth time, or more. The sample size of the test may be very small. There may be financial conflicts of interest for the test creator or test taker. There may be various manipulations to cheat on the test. There may be pseudonyms used for the test to appear as if a first attempt at the alternative test. There are other concerns. How do you reduce or eliminate social conflicts of interest?

Hoeflin: Some people have used pseudonyms to take my tests when they were afraid I would not give them a chance to try the test a second or third time. There is not much incentive to score very high on these tests, except perhaps the prestige of joining a very high-IQ society.

People cheat on standardized college admission tests, as we know from news reports, by getting other people to take the tests for them, for example. Considering how expensive colleges have become these days, my guess is that they will go the way of the dodo bird eventually, and people will get their education through computers rather than spending a fortune in a college. One guy cheated on my Mega Test by getting members of a think tank in the Cambridge, Massachusetts area to help him. He was pleased that I gave him a perfect score of 48 out of 48. He admitted cheating to Marilyn vos Savant, who informed me, so I disqualified his score. This was before my Mega Test appeared in Omni. Why he wanted credit for a perfect score that he did not deserve is beyond my understanding. I’d be more proud of a slightly lower score that I had actually earned. Another person has kept trying my tests, despite a fairly high scoring fee of $50 per attempt. I finally told him to stop taking the tests. His scores were not improving, so his persistence seemed bizarre.

11. Jacobsen: The highest score on the Mega Test on the first attempt by a single individual with a single name rather than a single individual with multiple names was Marilyn vos Savant at 46 out of 48. Similarly, with other test creators, and other tests, there were several attempts at the same test by others. Do the multiple test attempts and then the highest of those attempts asserted as the score for the test taker present an issue across the higher sigma ranges and societies?

Hoeflin: Some European guy did achieve a perfect score on the Mega Test eventually, about 20 years after the test first came out in 1985. The test is no longer used by any high-IQ societies that I know of due to the posting of mostly correct answers online by a malicious psychiatrist. He probably needed to see a psychiatrist to figure out what snapped in his poor head to do such a thing. I guess it’s a profession that attracts people with psychological problems that they are trying to understand and perhaps solve.

12. Jacobsen: What were the final sample sizes of the Mega Test and the Titan Test at the height of their prominence? How do these compare to other tests? What would be a reasonable sample size to tap into 4-sigma and higher ranges of intelligence with low margins of error and decent accuracy?

Hoeflin: A bit over 4,000 people tried the Mega Test within a couple of years of its appearance and about 500 people tried the Titan Test within a similar time period. Langdon’s LAIT test is said to have had 25,000 participants. His test was multiple choice, whereas mine were not. A multiple-choice test is easier to guess on than a non-multiple-choice test. My tests were normed by looking at the previous test scores that participants reported and then trying to create a distribution curve for my tests what would jibe with the distribution on previously-taken tests. So I did not need to test a million or more people to norm my tests up to fairly high levels of ability.

13. Jacobsen: What are the ways in which test-takers try to cheat on tests? I mean the full gamut. I intend this as a means by which prospective test takers and society creators can arm themselves and protect themselves from cheaters, charlatans, and frauds, or worse. Same for the general public in guarding against them, whenever someone might read this.

Hoeflin: If people’s wrong answers are too often identical with one another and out of sync with typical wrong answers, that is a clue that they are copying from one another or from some common source.

14. Jacobsen: Why do test takers use pseudonyms? How common is this practice among these types of test-takers? It seems as if a brazen and blatant attempt to take a test twice, or more, and then claim oneself as smart as the higher score rather than the composite of two, or more, scores, or even simply the lower score of the two, or more, if the scores are not identical.

Hoeflin: I know of a group of 5 M.I.T. students who collaborated and gave themselves the collective name of Tetazoo. There was also a professor at Caltech who tried the test but did not want his score publicized so he used the pseudonym Ron Lee. In both cases, the score just barely hit the one-in-a-million mark of 43 right out of 48. One person scored 42 right and wanted to try again so he used a pseudonym and managed to reach 47 right out of 48 on his second attempt.

15. Jacobsen: What have been and continue to be concerns for test creators at the highest sigmas such as yourself or others, whether active or retired? This is more of a timeline into the present question of the other suite of concerns.

Hoeflin: I do not know what are the main concerns of test designers, past or present, other than myself. I was fortunate to have Triple Nine members as guinea pigs to try out my trial tests, so I could weed out the less satisfactory problems. One could usually tell just by looking at a problem whether it would be a good one or not, but the inspiration to come up with good problems would involve steady effort over the course of a year or so, yielding for me on average about one good problem per week, plus about four not too good problems per week.

Original Source: Jacobsen, S.D. (2019, September 1). An Interview with Dr. Ronald K. Hoeflin on Theories of Intelligence, Sex Differences, and Issues of IQ Test Takers and Test Creators (Part Three). In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. Retrieved from http://www.in-sightjournal.com/hoeflin-three.

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An Interview with Dr. Ronald K. Hoeflin on High-IQ Societies’ Titles, Rarities, and Purposes, and Personal Judgment and Evaluations of Them (Part Two) by Scott Jacobsen

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/02

Abstract: Dr. Ronald K. Hoeflin founded the Prometheus Society and the Mega Society, and created the Mega Test and the Titan Test. He discusses: inspiration for the Mega Society – its title, rarity, and purpose; inspiration for the Prometheus Society – its title, rarity, and purpose; inspiration for the Top One Percent Society – its title, rarity, and purpose; inspiration for the One-in-a-Thousand Society – its title, rarity, and purpose; inspiration for the Epimetheus Society – its title, rarity, and purpose; inspiration for the Omega Society – its title, rarity, and purpose; the developments of each society over time; communications of high-IQ societies, and harshest critiques of high-IQ societies; overall results of the intellectual community facilitated for the gifted; Prometheus Society and the Mega Society kept separate from the Lewis Terman Society, and Top One Percent Society, One-in-a-Thousand Society, Epimetheus Society, and Omega Society placed under the aegis of the “The Terman Society” or “The Hoeflin Society”; disillusionment with high-IQ societies; notable failures of the high-IQ societies; changing norms of the Mega Test and the Titan Test; the hypothetical Holy Grail of psychometric measurements; other test creators seem reliable in their production of high-IQ tests and societies with serious and legitimate intent respected by Dr. Hoeflin: Kevin Langdon and Christopher Harding; societies helpful as sounding boards for the Encyclopedia of Categories; librarian work helpful in the development of a skill set necessary for independent psychometric work and general intelligence test creation; demerits of the societies in personal opinion and others’ opinions; virtues and personalities as mostly innate or inborn, and dating and mating; and publications from the societies attempted to be published at a periodic rate.

KEYWORDS: Christopher Harding, Giftedness, intelligence, IQ, Kevin Langdon, Mega Society, Mega Test, Prometheus Society, Ronald K. Hoeflin, The Encyclopedia of Categories, Titan Test.

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Perhaps, we can run down the timeline of the six societies in this part with some subsequent questions: Prometheus Society (1982), Mega Society (1982), Top One Percent Society (1989), One-in-a-Thousand Society (1992), Epimetheus Society (2006), and Omega Society (2006). What was the inspiration for the Mega Society – its title, rarity, and purpose?

Dr. Ronald K. Hoeflin: Kevin Langdon had a list of 600 or so people who had qualified for his Four Sigma Society from the 25,000 Omni readers who tried his LAIT (Langdon Adult Intelligence Test) that appeared in Omni in 1979. Four Sigma was given a cut-off of four standard deviations above the mean, which on a normal curve would be about one-in-30,000 in rarity or the 99.997 percentile. So approximately one-thirtieth of them should have been qualified for a one-in-a-million society. I suggested to him that he might ask the top 20 scorers if they’d like to form the nucleus of a one-in-a-million society, but he evidently thought this cut-off was too high to be practical. So when he let his Four Sigma Society languish, I decided to start Prometheus as a replacement for it, with the Mega Society as a follow-through on my suggestion to him about starting a one-in-a-million society, where “mega” means, of course, “million,” indicating how many people each member would be expected to exceed in intelligence. With slightly over 7 billion people, there would be a pool of about 7,000 potential Mega Society members, or slightly less if we exclude young children. I knew of a statistical method by which several very high scores from several tests could be combined to equal a one-in-a-million standard, as if the several tests constituted a single gigantic test. So I accepted members using this statistical method until my Mega Test appeared in Omni in April 1985. I put the cut-off at a raw score of 42 out of 48 initially, but then increased this to 43 after getting a larger sample. The test was eventually withdrawn from official use for admission to the Mega Society because some psychiatrist maliciously published a lot of answers online that others could search out and copy. At this time my other test, the Titan Test, is the only one that the Mega Society will accept, again at a raw score of 43 out of 48.

2. Jacobsen: What was the inspiration for the Prometheus Society – its title, rarity, and purpose?

Hoeflin: The Prometheus Society, as mentioned above, was intended as a replacement for the Four Sigma Society, which Langdon had allowed to languish. Prometheus was a figure in Greek mythology who was punished by the gods for giving fire to humans. I told Kevin, half in jest, that I was stealing his idea for the Four Sigma Society from him like Prometheus stealing fire from the gods! On my Mega and Titan Test, the qualifying score for Prometheus is a raw score of 36 out of 48, roughly equivalent to a rarity of one-in-30,000 or the 99.997 percentile, the same as Four Sigma’s cut-off, i.e., a minimum qualifying score.

3. Jacobsen: What was the inspiration for the Top One Percent Society – its title, rarity, and purpose?

Hoeflin: I wanted to make a living publishing journals for high-IQ societies. I initially was able to do so as the editor for the Triple Nine Society, for which I was paid just $1 per month per member for each monthly journal I put out. When I started as editor in late 1979, there were only about 50 members, but once Kevin’s test appeared in Omni the number of members swelled to about 750. With $750 per month, I could put out a journal and still have enough left over to live on, since my monthly rent was just $75 thanks to New York City’s rent laws. When Kevin heard that I was able to do this, he was not amused, since he thought the editorship should be an unpaid position. So I started the Top One Percent Society from people who had taken my Mega Test in Omni in April 1985 and my Titan Test in April 1990, thus removing myself from any disputes with Kevin or other members of the Triple Nine Society. I liked being self-employed rather than work as a librarian, which had been my profession from 1969 to 1985, because difficulties with higher-ups in the library field could crop up if there were personality conflicts.

4. Jacobsen: What was the inspiration for the One-in-a-Thousand Society – its title, rarity, and purpose?

Hoeflin: I started the One-in-a-Thousand Society when income from my Top One Percent Society started to seem insufficient, even when I put out two journals per month rather than one for the Top One Percent Society. The third journal per month was a bit more hectic, but within my capacity.

5. Jacobsen: What was the inspiration for the Epimetheus Society – its title, rarity, and purpose?

Hoeflin: In Greek mythology, Epimetheus was a brother to Prometheus. I’d let the Prometheus and Mega societies fall into the control of other people, so I decided to create new societies at their same cut-offs but with different names and under my control. I don’t recall the motivation for founding Epimetheus, since starting in 1997 I qualified for Social Security Disability payments due to my poor vision and low income, and that completely solved all my financial worries, even when my rent gradually crept up from $75 to $150 from 1997 to around 2003. It is now permanently frozen at $150 a month due to an agreement with an earlier landlord, who wanted the City to give him permission to install luxury apartments where I live, for which he could charge $2,000 to $4,000 a month due to the proximity to Times Square, which is just ten minutes’ walk away. I think that the Prometheus Society was restricting the tests it accepted to just a very small number of traditional supervised IQ tests, excluding unsupervised amateur-designed tests like mine. I wanted my tests to still serve a practical purpose at the Prometheus and Mega cut-offs.

6. Jacobsen: What was the inspiration for the Omega Society – its title, rarity, and purpose?

Hoeflin: Chris Harding of Australia was forever founding new high-IQ societies with new names but whose existence was largely known only to him and the people he awarded memberships to. He founded an Omega Society at the one-in-3,000,000 cut-off, but I assumed after several years of hearing nothing about it that it must be defunct, so I decided to call my new one-in-a-million society the Omega Society, since “Omega” seemed a nice twin word for “Mega” just as “Epimetheus” served as a twin word for “Prometheus.” Chris wrote to me about this appropriation of his society’s name and I explained my reason for adopting it. He offered no further complaint about it.

7. Jacobsen: What were the developments of each society over time?

Hoeflin: I decided to devote my full-time attention to a massive multi-volume opus titled “The Encyclopedia of Categories,” of which I’d published a couple of one-volume versions in 2004 and 2005. When I noticed that Samuel Johnson’s great unabridged dictionary of 1755 could now be bought for just $9.99 from Kindle, the computer-readable format that avoids paper printing, I decided I could make an affordable multi-volume treatment of my “Encyclopedia of Categories.” I’d also discovered that quotations from collections of quotations could be analyzed in terms of my theory of categories, giving me a virtually inexhaustible source of examples considering how many quotation books there are out there. So I sold the four societies that were still under my control to Hernan Chang, an MD physician living in Jacksonville, Florida, as well as all of my IQ tests. Although, he lets me score the latter for him and collect the fee, since he is too busy to handle that. I began my multi-volume opus in late 2013 and believe I can complete a 10-volume version by the end of this year, 2019. I was initially aiming at a 13-volume version, in harmony with the number of basic categial niches I employ, but it would take until early 2021 to complete the extra 3 volumes, so I’ll publish a 10-volume version in January of 2020. The year 2020 as a publication date appealed to me because of its irony, given that my visual acuity falls far short of 20/20, and the year 2020 rolls around only once in eternity, if we stick to the same calendar. I could still put out more volumes in later editions if I felt so inclined, but I let readers voice an opinion on the optimum number of volumes.

8. Jacobsen: What was the intellectual productivity and community of the societies based on self-reports of members? What have been the harshest critiques of high IQ societies from non-members, whether qualifying or not?

Hoeflin: I think the focus of the higher-IQ societies has been on communication with other members through the societies’ journals. I never tried to keep track of the members’ “intellectual productivity.” As for harsh critiques of the high-IQ societies, the only thing that comes to mind is Esquire magazine’s November 1999 so-called “Genius” issue. It focused on four high-IQ-society members, including myself. I never read the issue except for the page about myself, and it took me two weeks to get up enough nerve to read even that page. I was told by others that the entire issue was basically a put-down of high-IQ societies and their members, although people said the treatment of me was the mildest of the four. I did notice that they wanted a photo of me that looked unattractive, me using a magnifying glass to read. I suggested a more heroic picture, such as me with one of my cats, but they kept taking pictures of me peering through that magnifying glass in a rather unflattering pose, with zero interest in alternative poses. Kevin Langdon was sarcastic about our willingness to expose ourselves to such unflattering treatment. (He was not among the four that they covered in that issue.)

9. Jacobsen: What have been the overall results of the intended goals of the provision of an intellectual community of like-gifted people who, in theory, may associate more easily with one another? I remain aware of skepticism around this idea, which may exist in the realm of the naive.

Hoeflin: I had found that I could not interact with members of Mensa, who generally treated me as a nonentity. I was also very shy and unable to put myself forward socially in Mensa groups. At the higher-IQ levels, however, I had the prominent role of editor and even founder, which made it possible for others to approach me and break through that shyness of mine. So I did manage to meet and interact with quite a few people by virtue of my participation in the high-IQ societies, although the ultimate outcome seems to be that I will probably end my life in total isolation from personal friends except a few people who reach out to me by phone or email, as in the present question-and-answer email format. As for other people, they will have to tell you their own stories, since people are quite diverse, even at very high IQ levels.

10. Jacobsen: Why were the Prometheus Society and the Mega Society kept separate from the Lewis Terman Society? Why were the Top One Percent Society, One-in-a-Thousand Society, Epimetheus Society, and Omega Society placed under the aegis of the Lewis Terman Society? Also, what is the Lewis Terman Society?

Hoeflin: I think Hernan Chang adopted the name “The Hoeflin Society” in preference to “The Terman Society” as an umbrella term for the four societies he purchased from me.

11. Jacobsen: What have been the merits of the societies in personal opinion and others’ opinions?

Hoeflin: Speaking personally, I have lost almost all interest in the high-IQ societies these days, although I am still a nominal, non-participatory member of several of them. One group I joined recently as a passive member named the “Hall of Sophia” unexpectedly offered to publish my multi-volume book in any format I like for free. The founder had taken my Mega or Titan test earlier this year (February 2019) and did quite well on it, and was sufficiently impressed to classify me as one of the 3 most distinguished members of his (so far) 28-member society. I was going to send out my book for free as email attachments to people listed in the Directory of American Philosophers as well as to any high-IQ-society members who might be interested. So for me, the one remaining merit of the high-IQ societies would be to have a potential audience for my philosophical opus.

12. Jacobsen: When did you begin to lose interest or become disillusioned, in part, in high-IQ societies? My assumption: not simply an instantaneous decision in 2019.

Hoeflin: Editing high-IQ-society journals from 1979 onwards for many years, at first as a hobby and then as a livelihood, kept me interested in the high-IQ societies. I gave up the editing completely around 2009. Thirty years is plenty of time to become jaded. Getting Social Security Disability payments in 1997 removed any financial incentive for publishing journals. Over the years I’d travelled to such destinations as California and Texas and Illinois for high-IQ-society meetings, not to mention meetings here in New York City, when I had sufficient surplus income, but all things peter out eventually.

13. Jacobsen: What have been the notable failures of the high-IQ societies?

Hoeflin: There was actually talk of a commune-like community for high-IQ people, but after I saw how imperious some high-IQ leaders like Kevin Langdon were, this would be like joining Jim Jones for a trip to Guyana–insane! That’s hyperbole, of course. Langdon actually ridiculed the followers of Jim Jones for their stupidity in following such a homicidal and suicidal leader, not to mention his idiotic ideas. Langdon advocates a libertarian philosophy, but in person he is very controlling. I guess we just have to muddle through on our own, especially if we have some unique gift that we have to cultivate privately, not communally. Langdon often ridiculed my early attempts to develop a theory of categories, but I’m very confident in the theory now that I have worked at it for so long. Human beings tend to organize their thoughts along the same systematic lines, just like birds instinctively know how to build nests, spiders to build webs, and bees to build honeycombs. My analyses are so new and startling that I’m sure they will eventually attract attention. If I’d been an epigone of Langdon, I’d never have managed to develop my theory to its present marvelous stage.

14. Jacobsen: With the Flynn Effect, does this change the norms of the Mega Test and the Titan Test used for admissions purposes in some societies at the highest ranges?

Hoeflin: A lot of people suddenly started qualifying for the Mega Society, perhaps from copying online sources or perhaps from the test suddenly coming to the attention of a lot of very smart people. So initially higher scores on that test were required and then the test was abandoned entirely as an admission test for the Mega Society. Terman found that his subjects achieved gradually higher IQ scores on his verbal tests the older they got. One theory is that as people gradually accumulate a larger vocabulary and general knowledge (crystallized intelligence) their fluid intelligence, especially on math-type tests, gradually declines, so that if one relies on both types of intelligence, then your intelligence would remain relatively stable until extreme old age. There has been no spurt in extremely high scores on the Titan Test, however.

15. Jacobsen: What would be the Holy Grail of psychometric measurements, e.g., a non-verbal/culture fair 5-sigma or 6-sigma test?

Hoeflin: The main problem with extremely difficult tests is that few people would be willing to attempt them, so norming them would be impossible. I was astonished that the people who manage the SAT have actually made the math portion of that test so easy that even a perfect score is something like the 91st percentile. Why they would do such an idiotic thing I have no idea. Terman did the same thing with his second Concept Mastery Test, so that a Mensa-level performance on that test would be a raw score of 125 out of 190, whereas a Mensa-level performance on the first CMT was 78 out of 190. Twenty members of his gifted group had raw scores of 180 to 190 on the second CMT whereas no member of his group had a raw score higher than 172 out of 190 on the first CMT. His reason was to be able to compare his gifted group with more average groups such as Air Force captains, who scored only 60 out of 190 on the second test, less than half as high as Mensa members. A lot of amateur-designed intelligence tests have such obscure and difficult problems that I am totally unable to say if those tests have any sense to them or not. Perhaps games like Go and Chess are the only ways to actually compare the brightest people at world-record levels. But such tests yield to ever-more-careful analysis by the competitors, so that one is competing in the realm of crystallized intelligence (such as knowledge of chess openings) rather than just fluid intelligence. Even the brightest people have specialized mental talents that help them with some tests but not with others, like people who compete in the Olympic Decathlon, where some competitors will do better in some events and others in other events, the winner being the one with the best aggregate score. General intelligence means that even diverse tests like verbal, spatial, and numerical ones do have some positive intercorrelation with each other–they are not entirely independent of each other. The best tests select problems that correlate best with overall scores. But few if any of the amateur-designed tests have been subjected to careful statistical analysis. Some people did subject my Titan Test to such statistical analysis and found that it had surprisingly good correlations with standard intelligence tests, despite its lack of supervision or time limit.

16. Jacobsen: Other than some of the work mentioned. What other test creators seem reliable in their production of high-IQ tests and societies with serious and legitimate intent? Those who you respect. You have the historical view here – in-depth in information and in time. I don’t.

Hoeflin: I think Kevin Langdon’s tests are very well made and intelligent, but he tends to focus on math-type problems. Christopher Harding, by contrast, focuses on verbal problems and does poorly in math-type problems. For international comparisons across languages, I guess one would have to use only math-type problems, as I did in my Hoeflin Power Test, which collected the best math-type problems from the three previous tests (Mega, Titan, and Ultra). But English is virtually a universal language these days, so perhaps verbal tests that focus on English or perhaps on Indo-European roots could be used for international tests, except that Indo-European languages constitute only 46% of all languages, by population. I think Chinese will have difficulty becoming culturally dominant internationally because the Chinese language is too difficult and obscure for non-Chinese to mess with.

17. Jacobsen: Were the societies helpful as sounding boards for the Encyclopedia of Categories?

Hoeflin: I used high-IQ-society members as guinea pigs to develop my intelligence tests, but my work on categories I have pursued entirely independently, except for the precursors I rely on, notably the philosopher Stephen C. Pepper (1891-1972), who taught at the University of California at Berkeley from 1919 to 1958. Oddly enough, in his final book titled Concept and Quality (1967) he used as a central organizing principle for his metaphysics what he called “the purposive act,” of which he said on page 17: “It is the act associated with intelligence”!!! I simply elaborated this concept from 1982 when I first read Concept and Quality onward, elaborating it into a set of thirteen categories by means of which virtually any complete human thought or action, as in a quotation, can be organized. In my introductory chapter, which currently traces the development of my theory from William James last book, A Pluralistic Universe, to the present, I now plan to trace the thirteen categories not just to the Greeks and Hebrews but back to animal life and ultimately back to the Big Bang, breaking the stages of its development into 25 discrete ones including my own contributions toward the end. I may begin with Steven Weinberg’s book The First Three Minutes and end with Paul Davies kindred book, The Last Three Minutes, if I can manage to extract convincing 13-category examples from each of these books.

18. Jacobsen: How was librarian work helpful in the development of a skill set necessary for independent psychometric work and general intelligence test creation?

Hoeflin: It was mostly helpful to me because I could work part-time during the last ten years of my 15 or 16 years as a librarian, which gave me the leisure for independent hobbies, thought, and research.

19. Jacobsen: What have been the demerits of the societies in personal opinion and others’ opinions?

Hoeflin: There tends to be a lot of arrogance to be found among members of the high-IQ societies, so charm is typically not one of their leading virtues. They generally assume that virtually everyone they speak to is stupider than they are.

20. Jacobsen: How can members be more humble, show more humility? Also, what are their leading virtues?

Hoeflin: I think personalities are largely inborn and can’t be changed much. Perhaps there should be sister societies, analogous to college sororities, for women who have an interest in socializing with high-IQ guys for purposes of dating and mating. In the ultra-high-IQ societies, women constitute only about 6% of the total membership. (Parenthetically, if you look at the Wikipedia list of 100 oldest living people, one usually finds about 6 men and 94 women.) In Mensa, the percentage of women typically ranges from 31% to 38%.

21. Jacobsen: How many publications come from these societies? What are the names of the publications and the editors in their history? What ones have been the most voluminous in their output – the specific journal? Why that journal?

Hoeflin: Each society generally has a journal that it tries to publish on a regular basis. Kevin Langdon puts out Noesis, the journal for the Mega Society, about twice per year. I also get journals from Prometheus and Triple Nine and Mensa. The four societies Hernan Chang operates all function entirely online, and I have never seen any of their communications. Even the journals I get I only glance at, never read all the way through. Due to my very slow reading speed, I tend to focus my reading on books that seem worthwhile from which to collect examples for my “Encyclopedia of Categories.”

Original Source: Jacobsen, S.D. (2019, August 22). An Interview with Dr. Ronald K. Hoeflin on High-IQ Societies’ Titles, Rarities, and Purposes, and Personal Judgment and Evaluations of Them (Part Two). In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. Retrieved from http://www.in-sightjournal.com/hoeflin-two.

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An Interview with Dr. Aubrey de Grey on Longevity and Biomedical Gerontology Research Now by Scott Jacobsen

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/02

Abstract: Dr. Aubrey de Grey is a biomedical gerontologist based in Cambridge, UK and Mountain View, California, USA, and is the Chief Science Officer of SENS Research Foundation, a California-based 501(c) (3) charity dedicated to combating the aging process. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Rejuvenation Research, the world’s highest-impact peer-reviewed journal focused on intervention in aging. He received his BA and PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1985 and 2000 respectively. His research interests encompass the characterization of all the accumulating and eventually pathogenic molecular and cellular side-effects of metabolism (“damage”) that constitute mammalian aging and the design of interventions to repair and/or obviate that damage. Dr. de Grey is a Fellow of both the Gerontological Society of America and the American Aging Association, and sits on the editorial and scientific advisory boards of numerous journals and organizations. He discusses: new research on longevity and longevity escape velocity; promising anti-aging research; research all over the place; advancing research into the Hadwiger-Nelson problem; organizations to look into; books to look into; and final feelings and thoughts on the conversation.

KEYWORDS: Aubrey de Grey, longevity, Rejuvenation Research, SENS Research Foundation.

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is new about longevity escape velocity and research into it?

Dr. Aubrey de Grey: I could spend a half-hour just talking about that question. It has been a while. Remind me, how long ago was our last interview?

Jacobsen: 2014.

de Grey: All right, things are unrecognizable now. There is a private industry in this. In 2014/2015, it was the time when we created our first spinout. We took out a project philanthropically at SENS Research Foundation. An investor found us.

Jacobsen: Is this Peter Thiel?

de Grey: No, no, another person who had been one of our donors. A guy who was our second biggest donor back then. A guy named Jason Hope. He decided that one of our projects that we had been supporting at Rice University in Texas was ready to be commercialized.

Of course, it was early in terms of becoming a project. He felt that it was far enough along to invest as a project with his own money rather than as a donation. He created a biotech company of his own. He hired our people. He gave us a percent of the company and went off and tried to do it.

He did not have the faintest clue to run a biotech company.

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

de Grey: It changed our attitude to the whole thing. Since then, our business model has been to pursue this kind of thing. It is to pursue projects that are too early to be investible. It is to be in parallel with conversations with potential investors and to identify the right point, where the thing has achieved enough proof of concept.

So, it can be spun out into a company and can receive considerable amounts of support, more than can be provided philanthropically. We have done this half a dozen times. We have been able to do this due to increasing investments at an increasing rate, including deep pocketed ones.

Something that happened 3 years ago with an investor named Jim Mellon who had made his money in a variety of other completely unrelated fields decided that he wanted to get into this. It was the next important thing to him.

He approached me. We started talking. We became very good friends, very quickly. The long of the short is he is the chair of a company called Juvenescence. Its model is basically to invest in other companies.

So, they have already put quite a bit of money into quite several start-ups. Some are spinouts of SENS. Others are closely aligned with what we do. It is transforming everything. It is fantastic. Around the same time, a guy came to us from Germany. A guy named Michael Greve who made his fortune in the early days of the German internet.

He made some of the most successful German websites. He has wanted to do this for a while. He has been investing in a variety of start-ups. The good news is most of these new investors, especially Michael Greve, have been also donating to the foundation as well as investing in companies.

That is very, very important, of course. For the near future, there will be projects that are not far enough along to really join the dots to make a profit. They will need to be funded philanthropically. We try to make the case to investors, even if they are inherently more in an investor mindset than a donor.

We try to make the case. Even if they donate a smaller amount than they are investing, they have as much of my time as they want. They will have the opportunity to have the information, so they will be the founding investor of the next startup.

For me, it is extraordinarily gratifying. I am at the nexus of all of this. Everyone comes to me, whether the investors or the founders of companies who want to find investments. I spend a ridiculous amount of my time just making introductions.

What had not changed, we are still woefully low on the money throughout the foundation. Even though, I have been able, as I say, to put some money in; and we have some money from elsewhere. Nevertheless, it is far less than we need.

I am constantly spending my time on the road and camera trying to change that. That is the biggest thing that has changed. The next thing that we are changing is the huge spike in the value of cryptocurrencies. We benefitted quite a lot from that. Several of our investors who used to be relatively penniless and had not funded us financially suddenly became rather wealthy.

They ended up with a lot of money. We had four 7-digit donations adding up to a total of 6.5 million dollars. So, obviously, this was a windfall. That we are making us of now. Only one of the donors is likely to be a repeat donor because the others decided to give away most of their fortune.

That guy created Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin. He, basically, read my book when he was 14. He is now 26.

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

de Grey: He is one of these true children of the revolution who never had to change their mind about anything. They always grew up knowing it was a sad thing and tried to fix it. So, that is cool. My life is largely the same in broad strokes, but, in the specifics, in terms of the ways in which I can bring the right money to the right people; it has improved a lot.

2. Jacobsen: As aging is numerous processes, what programs of anti-aging, given individual processes of aging, seem the most promising within your remit?

de Grey: When I talk about what is more promising and less promising, I am always looking at the research. I am looking at how SENS is moving forward. Of course, there is a big spectrum to how far along things are.

On the easy end of the spectrum, we have hardly done anything throughout our 10-year existence on stem cell research, even though it is a key area of damage repair. It is a place for others too. Almost every area of stem cell research is important for cell damage and aging, which is being done by others and not us.

While at the other end of the spectrum, things like making backup copies of Mitochondrial DNA, hardly anyone else is working on it. That is a big spectrum. But if I look at the rate of progress, it is not the same at all.

One gratifying thing is making great advances in some difficult areas over the last few years. For mitochondrial DNA, we published a paper about 2 and a half years ago that sounded like only a modest step forward.

Basically, out of the 13 protein coding genes that we need to work in the nucleus, we were able to make two of them work at the same time, in the same cell. It sounds modest, but it is a huge progression from before. With the result now, we have a paper in review, which is a huge step forward from there.

We have these genes working now. We are understanding how we are getting them working. It is not so much trial-and-error now. More of the same thing is crosslinking. So, as you know, the extracellular matrix, this lattice of proteins that gives our tissue their elasticity. It gets less elastic over time because of chemical reaction with circulating sugar.

So, in 2015, the group that we were funding in that area, at Yale University, were able to publish a paper – our first paper in Science magazine – on the huge advance in that area. The advance sounded tangential at first hearing with the structure, which is one of the structures responsible for the loss of this elasticity. We want to break it, therefore.

The advance made that was published was ways to create it, to synthesize it, from simple agents. As it turns out, there is an enabling step. It allows us to perform experiments that would be impossible with the very trace amounts of this material that would have been previously available, just making antibody tissue or finding bacterial enzymes that break it down.

That work is proceeding very much faster now, as well. That is one of the companies that we are in the process of spinning out.

3. Jacobsen: If you look at the projections of research that looked very promising, what ones were very disappointing? What ones came out of nowhere and were promising?

de Grey: Of course, they are all over the place. Some of the most important ones were the ones no one cares about. One is pluripotent stem cells created 13 years ago, and CRISPR, which was very much more recent, like 6 years ago.

We have been exploiting those advances. Same with the entire medical profession. But there are also isolated things that have been unexpected. Let us go back to mitochondrial mutations, one thing that we were kicking ourselves over. It will be talked about in the upcoming paper.

It is codon optimization. It is well-known. Mitochondrial DNA has a separate DNA. Codons code different things, different amino acids, compared to the nucleus (in the mitochondria by comparison). One thing is true, which we thought was relevant.

Out of the range of the codons that code for a given single amino acid, let us say the 4 that encode for lysine, there may be one of them used more often than others. This will affect the speed of translation of the messenger RNA among other things.

Nobody had bothered to try to optimize that for expression of these genes in the nucleus. It turns out that if you do then things go far, far better. It was a serendipitous discovery. Science, itself, is full of serendipitous discoveries.

4. Jacobsen: Also, you solved a math problem, recently. What was it?

de Grey: [Laughing] right, that was about 18 months ago. It is a problem called the Hadwiger-Nelson problem named after some mathematicians from 1950s. The question is normally stated, “How many colors do you need to color all of the points on the plane in order that no pair of points that is one inch apart is the same color?”

The answer was immediately shown back in 1950 to be somewhere between 4 and 7 inclusive. I was able to exclude the 4 case. Many, many, many mathematicians have worked on this in the interim. So, it was quite surprising that I was able to do this, as I am a recreational mathematician. I got lucky, basically.

I would describe this as a game. What you do is, you have a two-player game. The playing surface is an initial blank sheet of paper. Player 1 has a black pen. Player 2 has a bunch of colored pens. The players alternate. When player 1 makes a move. The point is to make a new dot wherever player 1 likes.

Player 2 must color the dot. He must take one of his pens and put a ring around the new dot. The only thing that player 2 is not allowed to do is to use the same color as he used for a previous dot that is exactly one inch away from the new dot.

Of course, there may be more than one dot. Player 1 wins the game if he can arrange things so that the new dot cannot be covered. All the player 2’s pens have been used for other dots that are exactly an inch away from the new dot, right?

The question is, “How many pens does player 2 need to have in order so that player 1 cannot win?”

Jacobsen: Right.

de Grey: So, if player 2 only has one pen, obviously, player 1 can win with just two dots. He puts a dot down. Player 2 uses the red pen. Player 1 puts down a second dot exactly an inch away. Player 2 cannot move. If player 2 has two pens, then player 1 can win with three dots by just placing a dot; player 2 can uses the red pen, places another dot an inch away.

Player 2 uses the blue pen. Player 1 uses third dot in the triangle with the two, so an inch away from both of them, then player 2 cannot move. So, then, it turns out. If player 2 has 3 pens, player 1 can also win. It is a little more complicated.

Player 1 needs seven dots. But again, it is not very complicated. It was already worked out back in 1950 as soon as humans started thinking about this kind of question. The natural question would be the number of dots go up in some exponential way, but player 1 can always win.

It turns out that that is not true. It turns out if player 2 has seven pens. Then player 1 can never win, no matter how many dots that he puts down. But what I was able to show, if player 2 has 4 pens, then player 1 can win, but with a lot of dots.

The solution that I found took more than 1,500 dots. It has been reduced by other people since then, but it is still over 500 is the record.

5. Jacobsen: [Laughing] if we are looking at the modern landscape, especially with the increase in funding, what organizations should individuals look to – other than your own as well?

de Grey: Things are looking good. There is a huge proliferation of investment opportunities as well, in this area. They are certainly raising money, as they are investing in more start-ups. In the non-profit world, there are plenty of organizations as well.

I should probably mention the Methuselah Foundation, which is the organization from which SENS Research Foundation arose. They are funding a bunch of research as well as doing prizes. They are choosing well and the right things to fund.

Then there is the buck institute, which is a much more traditional organization on the surface. In other words, it is mostly funded by the NIH and by relatively conservative funding sources. But! They understand the scientific situation. It has become much more acceptable to do work that is overtly translational, even if you are getting money from these types of sources.

We work closely with them. We have two ongoing projects there. We send summer interns there. We have been able to work with them on funding, in terms of bringing in new sources of funding. That is something that I would include.

In terms of the world, one important organization is called LEAF or Life Extension Advocacy Foundation. One in the UK. One in the US. One in Russia. They focus on advocacy and outreach. They are extraordinarily good and play a key role in elevating the level of debate in this whole area.

In Europe, the Healthy Life Extension Foundation was founded by two people from Belgium. They run a nice conference every year, every couple of years anyway. They have a vibrant mailing list and spread useful information about this area. They could use some more money. The list goes on now.

There are increased organizations, now, not just in this space but really know what they are doing. They know what the priorities ought to be. One thing I have always known since the beginning. No matter how good I get at outreach and advocacy. I could never do this all myself, not just for lack of time, but because different people resonate with different audiences.

So, there are people who will overall inspire. Others will not like people with beards.

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

de Grey: People may not like my act. So, there are people around now who are very capably complementing the kind of style that I have in communicating the value of this work. That is also extraordinarily important.

6. Jacobsen: Any new books that can provide a good introductory foundation into this kind of research? Also, what about advanced texts as well?

de Grey: On the introductory side, there is one guy named Jim Mellon. So, Jim, this businessperson, has a very interesting of going about his job. He preferentially gets into very emerging new sectors. What he does is, he creates his own competition.

He, essentially, writes newsletters and blogs and books about this new area whose intended audience is other investors. That is what I mean by making his own competition. The reason he does this is, basically, that when a sector is just beginning. That the faster it grows, then the better.

Essentially, it is floating all boats by increasing the buzz around something. He wrote a book based on conversations with me over the previous year or so. It is called Juvenescence, which is the same as the name as his company. It is targeted to other investors.

It is very good. I was able to help with this a fair bit with the technical part. But it is written in a style that is very, very appealing, which is not a way that I would be able to write. He has a second edition upcoming. This is one that I would highlight.

In terms of advanced texts, I would not move to texts right now. Things are moving so fast. One simply needs to read the primary literature. One needs to identify that, which is not necessarily an easy thing to do. I would point to our community’s effort.

Probably, the most important one is to fight aging in the blog done by Reason. Even though he has become one of the CEOs of our start-up companies, he is running the blog. He is extremely good at highlighting the important points of the research.

7. Jacobsen: Any final feelings or thoughts in conclusion based on the conversation today?

de Grey: I would say, “Thank you for having me on your show again,” and for the opportunity to give an update to your audience. I think, really, the conclusion that I would give is that it is extremely exciting that things are moving much faster than before. But we must not be complacent.

There is still a long way to go. My estimation for how long we must go has gone down, but it has not nearly gone down enough. We still need to be putting in every effort that we possibly can in whatever way.

8. Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. de Grey.

de Grey: My pleasure, Scott, thank you!

Original Source: Jacobsen, S.D. (2019, October 22). An Interview with Dr. Aubrey de Grey on Longevity and Biomedical Gerontology Research Now. In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. Retrieved from http://www.in-sightjournal.com/grey.

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An Interview with Dr. Ronald K. Hoeflin on “The Encyclopedia of Categories,” Family History and Feelings, Upbringing and Giftedness, and Aptitudes (Part One) by Scott Jacobsen

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): USIA Research Journal (United Sigma Intelligence Association/USIA, formerly United Sigma Korea/USK)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/02

Abstract: Dr. Ronald K. Hoeflin founded the Prometheus Society and the Mega Society, and created the Mega Test and the Titan Test. He discusses: family geographic, cultural, linguistic, and religious background; depth of known family history; feelings about some distinguished family members in personal history; upbringing for him; discovery and nurturance of giftedness; noteworthy or pivotal moments in the midst of early life; and early aptitude tests.

KEYWORDS: Giftedness, intelligence, IQ, Mega Society, Mega Test, Prometheus Society, Ronald K. Hoeflin, The Encyclopedia of Categories, Titan Test.

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: In due course of this personal and educational comprehensive interview, we will focus, in-depth, on the monumental life work of the (currently) 10-volume The Encyclopedia of Categories – a truly colossal intellectual endeavour. You founded some of the, if not the, most respected general intelligence tests in the history of non-mainstream general intelligence testing: The Mega Test and the Titan Test. Also, you founded the Mega Society in 1982. Another respected product of a distinguished and serious career in the creation of societies for community and dialogue between the profoundly and exceptionally gifted individuals of society. Before coverage of this in the interview, let’s cover some of the family and personal background, I intend this as comprehensive while steering clear of disagreements or political controversies between societies, or clashes between individuals in the history of the high IQ societies – not my territory, not my feuds, not my business. Almost everything at the highest sigmas started with you [Ed. some integral founders in the higher-than-2-sigma range include Christopher Harding and Kevin Langdon], as far as I can tell, I want to cover this history and give it its due attention. What was family background, e.g., geography, culture, language, and religion or lack thereof?

Dr. Ronald K. Hoeflin: I recently wrote a 51-page autobiographical sketch for inclusion in my upcoming multi-volume treatise titled The Encyclopedia of Categories, a 10-volume version of which will probably be available for free as ten email attachments by January of 2020. I was aiming for a 13-volume version, but I don’t think I can complete that length before the end of 2020. Given that my vision is way below 20/20, I liked the irony of publishing this final magnum opus of mine in the year 2020. I can always stretch it to 13 or more volumes in subsequent editions. I will not quote what I say in that autobiographical sketch, although the information provided will be roughly the same. My mother’s ancestors came from the British Isles (England, Scotland, and Ireland) mostly in the 1700s. My mother’s father was a hellfire-and-brimstone Southern Methodist itinerant preacher in the state of Georgia. He’s the only one of my four grandparents I never met. My mother brought me up as a Methodist, but I asked a lot of questions by my mid-teens and became a complete atheist by the age of 19, which I have remained ever since (I’m now 75). I gave my mother Bertrand Russell’s essay “Why I Am Not a Christian” to read aloud to me so we could discuss it. It seemed to convince her to give up religion, which shows unusual flexibility of mind for a person in her 50s. She had previously read such books as The Bible as History and Schweitzer’s Quest of the Historical Jesus, his doctoral dissertation in theology. My father’s parents came to this country in the late 1890s, his mother from the Zurich region of Switzerland and his father from the Baden region of Germany. His father was a pattern maker, a sort of precision carpentry in which he made moulds for machine parts to be poured from molten metal in a foundry. My father became an electrical engineer, initially working on power lines in the state of Missouri, then becoming a mid-level executive for the main power company in St. Louis, Missouri, doing such things as preparing contracts with hospitals for emergency electrical power generation if the main city-wide power cut off. He had worked his way through college by playing the violin for dance bands, and as an adult he taught ballroom dancing in his own studio as a hobby. My mother was an opera singer. In my autobiography, I list the 17 operas she sang in during her career, usually with leading roles due to the excellence of her voice. My father initially spoke German up to the age of 2, but his parents decided they did not want their daughter doing so, so they started speaking English at home, so she never learned German. My father’s mother became a devoted Christian Scientist and got her husband and two daughters to adopt this religion. My father became an atheist, and when he heard that my brother was thinking of becoming a Methodist minister sent him a copy of Thomas Paine’s book The Age of Reason, which promotes Paine’s deism, in which he accepted a deity and an afterlife but rejected the Bible as a guide, regarding the universe itself as God’s true bible. My brother never read the book but I did, and I told my father I enjoyed the critique of the Bible but did not accept a God or afterlife, and my father said that these two beliefs could readily be discarded, but that Paine should be given credit for his advanced thinking in an era and country that so fiercely rejected atheism. My brother ultimately became a computer programmer for the pension system for employees of the state of California. My sister became a ballet dancer for the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. I list 25 operas she danced in in my autobiography. She went on to teach ballet at an upstate New York college, being honored one year as the college’s most distinguished teacher.

2. Jacobsen: How far back is knowledge of the family history for you?

Hoeflin: I don’t know much beyond what is stated above. My sister has more detailed records. One of my mother’s grandfathers apparently owned over a hundred slaves in the South before the Civil War. My mother was occasionally treated badly in St. Louis due to her Southern accent, but she actually was very kindly toward black people and she once gave a black woman a ride in her car for a mile or so while I moved to the back seat. I do have memories of visits to my mother’s mother in Atlanta, Georgia. She died before my third birthday, but my memories go back much further than is normal with most people. I liked to swing on the swing in my mother’s mother back yard with one of her chickens in my lap. She raised the chickens to sell their eggs, but evidently also killed them for dinner. I am even now very tender-hearted towards animals and would never kill a chicken or cow or what have you. But I still do eat meat out of habit, even though I regard it as not very ethical to do so. If I had a better income I’d arrange to eat just a vegetarian diet, mostly fruits and oatmeal. I loathe cooked green vegetables except in soups.

3. Jacobsen: Some harbour sentiments and feelings based on distinguished family members from centuries or decades ago. Those who died with great achievements or honourable lives in the sense of a well-lived life – whether prominent or not. Any individuals like this for you? Any sentiments or feelings for you?

Hoeflin: A genealogist traced my mother’s ancestors to a close relative of a governor of Virginia. My mother said some of her relatives were distinguished doctors (M.D.s). I have a close friend who lives in Poland now, where she was raised, who is a great-great-great-great granddaughter of Catherine the Great (one of her great-grandmothers was a great-granddaughter of Catherine the Great). She shares a surprising number of characteristics that Catherine had despite the rather distant ancestry: a significant talent for learning languages, a love of art, an imperious attitude, and an embarrassing number of superstitions. I also dated a woman who was an out-of-wedlock daughter of Pablo Picasso, and there again there were striking similarities between the daughter and her father, even though she did not learn from her mother that he was her real father until 1988, some 15 year after his death in 1973. She started out as a virtuoso violinist, but by her 20s became a painter and had works of art in five different museums by the time she learned who her true father was. She also had facial features very much like Picasso’s, even though she was raised in a German family. I am proud that my mother and sister were so gifted in their respective arts (singing and ballet). When I drew up a list of my favourite classical musical pieces for my autobiography, I looked at YouTube to see the actual performances, and it struck me what a lot of amazingly talented people could perform these magnificent pieces of music, and I regret how limited I am in my talents. I can’t even drive a car due to my poor eyesight! It is chiefly or only in these incredible aptitude test scores that I seem to shine way beyond the norm. I read when I was in high school that the average high-school graduate could read 350 words per minute, so I tested myself, and I found that on a few pages of a very easy sci-fi novel I could read only 189 words per minute at top speed, which works out to just 54% as fast as the average high-school graduate. Yet on timed aptitude tests as a high-school sophomore, I reached the 99th percentile in verbal, spatial, and numerical aptitude despite this huge speed deficit. And on the verbal aptitude section of the Graduate Record Exam I reached the top one percent compared to college seniors trying to get into graduate school, an incredible achievement given my dreadful reading speed. As I mention in my autobiographical sketch, if I had to read aloud, even as an adult I read so haltingly that one would assume that I am mentally retarded if one did not know that the cause is poor eyesight, not poor mental ability.

4. Jacobsen: What was upbringing like for you?

Hoeflin: My parents were divorced when I was 5 and my mother went through hours-long hysterical tantrums every 2 or 3 weeks throughout my childhood, which were emotionally traumatic and nightmarish. My father had an affable and suave external demeanour but was very selfish and cruel underneath the smooth facade. My brother pushed me downstairs when I was 3 and I stuck my forehead on the concrete at the bottom, causing a gash that had to be clamped shut by a doctor. It was discovered that I had a detached retina when I was 7 (because I could not read the small print in the back of the second-grade reader that the teacher called on me to read), and I spent my 8th birthday in the hospital for an eye operation, for which my father refused to pay since he did not believe in modern medicine, just healthy living as the cure for everything. So even though he was an engineer, my mother had a more solid grasp of physical reality than he did, as I mentioned to her once. I flunked out of my first and third colleges due in large measure to my visual problems, but I eventually received two bachelor’s degrees, two master’s degrees, and a doctorate after going through a total of eight colleges and universities. So all in all my childhood was rocky and unpleasant. As an adult, I took the personality test in the book Personality Self-Portrait and my most striking score was on a trait called “sensitivity,” on which I got a perfect score of 100%. On the twelve other traits, I scored no higher than 56% on any of them. I never tried sexual relations until the age of 31, and I found that I could never reach a climax through standard intercourse. I had a nervous breakdown after trying group psychotherapy for a few sessions when the group’s criticism of the therapist after he left the room reminded me of my mother’s criticisms of my father, crying for 12 hours straight. When I mentioned this at the next therapy session, one of the other people in the group came up to me afterward and told me he thought I was feeling sorry for myself, despite the fact that my report to the group was very unemotional and matter-of fact, not dramatic. I accordingly gave up group therapy after that session. On the personality test, on the trait called “dramatic”, I actually scored 0%, probably because pretending to be unemotional discourages needling from sadistic people who love to goad a highly sensitive person like me.

5. Jacobsen: When was giftedness discovered for you? Was this encouraged, supported, and nurtured, or not, by the community, friends, school(s), and family?

Hoeflin: At the age of 2 my mother’s mother picked me up when I was running to her back yard upon arriving in Atlanta to grab one of her chickens to swing with it on my lap. At first I ignored her, but then I surmised that she wanted to ask me a question, so I looked at her face, waiting for her question, which never came. Maybe she didn’t realize that my command of the language had improved since my previous visit. She eventually tapped me on the head and told my mother “You don’t have to worry about this one, he’s got plenty upstairs.” My mother told me this story several times over the years, and I finally put two and two together and told my mother I recalled the incident, which shocked her considering how young I had been. I told her that her mother had probably been impressed by my long attention span. My mother then thought that the incident was not as important and mysterious as she has thought, but actually a long attention span at such a young age is probably a good sign of high intelligence. It was not until I was in the fifth grade that I was given aptitude tests and the teacher suddenly gave me eighth-grade reading books and sixth-grade math books. This was in a so-called “sight conservation class” for the visually impaired that I attended in grades 3 through 5. The teacher taught students in grades 1 through 8 in a single classroom because very poor vision is fairly rare even in a city as large as St. Louis, at that time the tenth-largest city in the United States. That gave me plenty of time to explore my own interests, such as geography using the world maps they had on an easel. In grade 8, back in a regular classroom, we were given another set of aptitude tests, and the teacher mentioned to the class that I had achieved a perfect score on a test of reading comprehension, meaning I was already reading at college level. The teacher gave us extra time on the test so I would have time to finish the test. A problem toward the end of the test clued me in on how to solve a problem that had stumped me earlier in the test, so I went back and corrected that previous answer. Then there were those three 99th percentile scores as a high-school sophomore that I’ve already mentioned. When I learned that my reading speed was so slow compared to others, I realized that my true aptitudes (minus the visual handicap) must be well within the top one percent on each of the three tests.

6. Jacobsen: Any noteworthy or pivotal moments in the midst of early life in school, in public, with friends, or with family?

Hoeflin: In the seventh grade I suddenly started creating crossword puzzles and mazes, a harbinger of my later creation of the two tests that appeared in Omni magazine in April 1985 and in April 1990. I also collected lists of fundamental things such as independent countries of the world, the Western Roman emperors, the chemical elements, the planets and their moons, etc., in keeping with my much earlier childhood ambition to know everything. If you can’t know everything, then at least know the basic concepts for important subjects like geography, history, chemistry, astronomy, etc. These lists were a harbinger of my current multi-volume treatise on categories.

7. Jacobsen: Were there early aptitude tests of ability for you? What were the scores and sub-test scores if any? Potentially, this is connected to an earlier question.

Hoeflin: The only other test I should mention is the Concept Mastery Test. Lewis Terman collected a group of 1,528 California school children in grades 1 through 12 with IQs in the 135 to 200 range. To test their abilities as adults he and his colleagues constructed two 190-problem tests covering mostly vocabulary and general knowledge, which are easy problems to construct but are known to correlate well with general intelligence, the first test (Form A) administered to his group in 1939-1940 and the second one (Form B, latter called Form T) in 1950-52. About 954 members of his group tried the first one and I think 1,024 tried the second test. But Terman made the second test much easier than the first in order to make it easier to compare his group to much less intelligent groups such as Air Force captains. So the Mensa (98th percentile) cut-off would be a raw score of about 78 out of 190 on the first test and about 125 out of 190 on the second. I was editor for the Triple Nine Society (minimum requirement: 99.9 percentile) for a few years starting in 1979, and some members sent me copies of the two CMT tests so I could test TNS members. Since the CMT tests were untimed, I was not handicapped by the speed factor. Compared to Terman’s gifted group I reached the top one percent on both tests. According to Terman’s scaling of Form A, my raw score of 162.5 would be equivalent to an IQ of 169.4 (assuming a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 16 IQ points), where an IQ of 168.3 would be equivalent to the 99.999 percentile or one-in-100,000 in rarity. By comparing adult CMT IQs with childhood Stanford-Binet IQs for Terman’s group, I calculated that my adult 169.4 IQ would be equivalent to a childhood IQ of 192. The one-in-a-million level on the two tests (the 99.9999 percentile) would be about 176 IQ on the CMT and 204 IQ on the Stanford-Binet, respectively.

The Guinness Book of World Records abandoned its “Highest IQ” entry in 1989 because the new editor thought (correctly) that it is impossible to compare people’s IQs successfully at world-record level. The highest childhood IQ I know of was that of Alicia Witt, who had a mental age of 20 at the age of 3. Even if she had been 3 years 11 months old, this would still amount to an IQ of over 500! At the age of 7, she played the super-genius sister of the hero in the 1984 movie Dune. On a normal (Gaussian) curve such an IQ would be impossible since an IQ of 201 or so would be equivalent to a rarity of about one-in-7-billion, the current population of the Earth. But it is well known to psychometricians that childhood IQs using the traditional method of mental age divided by chronological age fail to conform to the normal curve at high IQ levels. The Stanford-Binet hid this embarrassing fact in its score interpretation booklet (which I found a copy of in the main library of the New York Public Library) by not awarding any IQs above 169, leaving the space for higher IQs blank! The CMT avoids the embarrassment of awarding IQs of 500 or more by having a maximum possible IQ on Form A (the harder of the two CMTs) of 181. Leta Speyer and Marilyn vos Savant, both of whom I had dated for a time, had been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having world-record IQs of 196 and of 228, respectively, Marilyn having displaced Leta in the 1986 edition. Leta felt that the 228 IQ of Marilyn was fake, but I was aware that these childhood scores could go well beyond 200 IQ because they fail to conform to the normal curve that Francis Galton had hypothesized as the shape of the intelligence curve in his seminal book Hereditary Genius (first edition 1869, second edition 1892). I was unable to contact Alicia Witt to see if she would be interested in joining the Mega Society. I should note that the three key founders of the ultra-high-IQ societies (99.9 percentile or above) were Chris Harding, Kevin Langdon, and myself. Harding founded his first such society in 1974, Langdon in 1978, and myself in 1982. Mensa, the granddaddy of all high-IQ societies with a 98th percentile minimum requirement, was founded in 1945 or 1946 by Roland Berrill and L. L Ware, and Intertel, with a 99th percentile minimum requirement, was founded in 1966 or 1967 by Ralph Haines. I don’t care to quibble about the precise dates that Mensa and Intertel were founded, so I have given two adjacent dates for each. In its article “High IQ Societies” Wikipedia lists just 5 main high-IQ societies: Mensa, Intertel, the Triple Nine Society, the Prometheus Society, and the Mega Society (minimum percentile requirements: 98, 99, 99.9, 99.997, and 99.9999, respectively; or one-in 50, one-in-100, one-in-1,000, one-in-30,000, and one-in-1,000,000; dates founded: roughly 1945, 1966, 1979, 1982, and 1982; founders: Berrill and Ware, Haines, Kevin Langdon, Ronald K. Hoeflin, and Ronald K. Hoeflin, respectively.

Original Source: Jacobsen, S.D. (2019, September 1). An Interview with Dr. Ronald K. Hoeflin on “The Encyclopedia of Categories,” Family History and Feelings, Upbringing and Giftedness, and Aptitudes (Part One). In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. Retrieved from http://www.in-sightjournal.com/hoeflin-one.

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An Interview with Emeritus Professor James Robert Flynn, FRSNZ on Intelligence Research, Evolutionary Biology, and IQ Gains and Advanced Moral Views (Part One) by Scott Jacobsen

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/02

Abstract: Dr. James Robert Flynn, FRSNZ is an Emeritus Professor of Political Studies at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. He discusses: current intelligence research; evolutionary biology; and the correlation between IQ gains and the advanced moral views.

KEYWORDS: evolutionary biology, intelligence, IQ, James Flynn, morals, political studies.

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Let us start from the current empirics of intelligence research. What are the overall findings now? What is the consensus of the field, if there is one?

Professor James Flynn: One of the consensuses of the field is one that I will not explore, that is, the relationship of intelligence to brain physiology. People seem to be inventing all sorts of wonderful new tools to investigate the brain beyond magnetic resonance imaging and see what type of thought processes are going on, and that should be extremely illuminating.

Obviously, cognition has a physiological basis. If we have illusions as to just what the physiological basis of certain cognitive abilities are, they certainly need correcting.

As to other areas of research, many people are not sufficiently sophisticated about the phenomenon of IQ gains over time. They do not seem to entirely grasp its significance and its limitations.

For example, the fact that people are better at generalization often produces a rise in moral reasoning. If you talked to my grandfather about race, he had certain fixed racial mores. But if you take a young person today, they are more flexible. If you ask, “Should you be underprivileged because your skin is black?”, and then ask, “What if your skin turned black?”, they would see the point. You must render your moral principles logically consistent.

They would not do what my father would do. He would say, “That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of. Who do you know whose skin turned black?” He would not take a hypothetical seriously, or the demands it entails for logical consistency. And once you concede that sheer “blackness” does not count, you would have to list personal traits that made someone worthy of persecution. That immediately gets you down to individuals as individuals, not individuals as a member of a particular race.

In my lifetime; students are less subject to racist and sexist stereotypes. That has had a good deal to do with the nature of the IQ gains over time, our ability to take hypothetical situations seriously, our ability to generalize and to see moral maxims as things that ought to have some type of universal applicability, rather than be just a tribal inheritance.

2. Jacobsen: Does a modern understanding of evolutionary biology help with this?

Flynn: They do not need anything as sophisticated as that. However, in saying that people today are better at moral assessments, I may give a false impression. Because they do need basic knowledge about the world and its history. You can have a very enlightened point of view towards social justice, and you can be free of racial stereotypes and yet, you can be colossally ignorant. All recent studies show that Americans are reading less and are less aware of how nations and their histories differ.

I emphasize this point in several of my books such as The Torchlight List and More Torchlight Books. People are surrounded by the babble of the media, Fox News and even CBS News. They are surrounded by the rhetoric of politicians. When people reach false conclusions about what ought to be done, it is often just sheer lack of the background knowledge that will allow them to put their egalitarian ideals to work.

Remember how America was talked into going into Iraq. This was not to wreak devastation on Iraqis, it was going to help Iraqis. This was going to give them a modern, stable society. Put that way, it sounds very good, does it not?

All people would have had to do would have been to have read one book on the Middle East, like Robert Fisk’s The Great War for Western Civilisation. They would have found that no Western power that sent troops into the Middle East has had a credit balance. They have always managed to get more people killed than would have been killed otherwise, and when they left, they left behind nations that had to “nation build” themselves, like every other nation in history.

I have often used an example that any properly educated person would think of immediately. That is The Thirty Years’ War in Germany (1618-1648), between Catholic and Protestant. It killed off half of the population. Let us imagine that a Turkish sultan, who in 1618, looked at Germany and said, “Look at how these Catholics and Protestants are torturing each other. Surely if I go in with a Turkish army, I can punish the wicked ones who do the most drawing and quartering, and I can reward the people who are more tolerant, and I will teach Catholic and Protestant to live to together in a nation-built Germany.”

We can all see the absurdity of this. But we can’t see the absurdity of a “benevolent” America sending an army into the Middle East to punish the bad guys and help the good guys, and make Sunnis and Shias love one another and nation build together.

The Thirty Years’ war also teaches us a lesson about Israel’s policy in the Middle East. What was Cardinal Richelieu’s policy from1618 to 1648? He said, “I am a Frenchman first, and a Catholic second. What I am going to do is meddle in this war and whoever is losing, I will back. I want these wars to go on forever. The more dead Germans, Catholic or Protestant, the better for France.”

This foreshadows Israel’s stand about the wars that rage in the Middle East. Israel believes that the Arabs will never accept them. It will always have to be stronger than the Arab nations to defend itself, and the weaker and the more divided the Arabs the better. This, of course, has nothing to do with the interests of American foreign policy. America must be talked into creating chaos in the Middle East so as “to do good”.

America is going through a trauma now. We backed Saudi Arabia against Iran, and now it turns out that Saudi Arabia is at least as wicked as Iran, killing people by the millions in Yemen. It still lops people’s hands off for theft. The women who pioneered against the restrictions on driving are all in jail. Until recently the Shiite population could not have cellars because they were suspected of conducting filthy rites down there.

Americans do not know enough to assess either US or Israeli policy. The average person’s “knowledge” is limited to what they are told. They may be well-meaning. But they are told that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant. They meet exiles who dress like Westerners and look like themselves. These exiles use the language of democracy and free speech. However, their real goal is to get back into power in Iraq and their only hope of that is American intervention.

Academics are fixated on whether the 21st Century will see IQ gains or IQ losses. The real question for the 21st century is whether we can produce a better-educated population. The odds seem to be all against it.

I have a book coming out this year called In Defense of Free Speech: The University as Censor. More and more of America’s students lack either the knowledge or the critical intelligence to come to terms with the modern world. There is nothing the matter with our hearts but the problem is our heads.

If anyone had told me, 50, 60 years ago, when I began lecturing, that we would double the number of university graduates, and have a smaller elite of well-educated critics of our time, I would say that was insane. But all the studies show that adults today read less serious literature, less history than they did 30 or 40 years ago, that they are at least as ignorant of the same basic facts as they were 30 or 40 years ago.

To some degree, America is a special case – it is strange beyond belief. In other countries, people may not be well-educated. But few of them have an alternative view of the world that challenges science and makes education almost impossible. About 35 percent of Americans are raised in a way that provides them with a kind of world view that makes them suspicious of science.

At least in France, over one-third of people do not believe that the solar system began ten thousand years ago, that dinosaurs and human beings existed at the same time, and that if one species differs from another it was because God designed them that way.

This world-view was typical in many nations in the late 19th century. Take Britain: people were enraged by Darwin and thought their next-door neighbor was going to hell because they didn’t baptize their kids correctly. But slowly this world view faded in Britain, and Canada, and Australia, and England, and Spain, and Portugal. People who thought of modern science as an enemy, and had this 19th-century perspective, began to disappear.

What the hell happened to America? It is as if a third of the population was taken to Mars, and then came back a hundred years later, and their minds had been in a refrigerator. That is a terrible burden America must carry: about a third of its population has a world view that makes them systematically opposed to learning and critical intelligence.

3. Jacobsen: How much is there a correlation between IQ gains and the advanced moral views that you mentioned before?

Flynn: That is hard to tell. I am only familiar with data within the US. The mean IQ is lower in the South than in states like Minnesota, or like Massachusetts. Despite the preaching of the Southern Baptists and Southern Methodists about the value of fundamentalist Christianity, you have more murder, rape, and early pregnancies than you have up north.

You find a correlation that as IQ rises, people have what I would call more enlightened moral judgment. But you must look at all the confounding variables. Ever since the Civil War, the South has been in a state of schizophrenia. Of course, it is a less prosperous part of the nation. It is a more rural part of the nation. It is a more religious part of the nation. How is one to pick out the causes here? I suspect that thanks to IQ gains over time, some kids raised as Southern Baptists, have learned to be skeptical and to think for themselves. But why has the number been so small?

Original Source: Jacobsen, S.D. (2019, June 8). An Interview with Emeritus Professor James Robert Flynn, FRSNZ on Intelligence Research, Evolutionary Biology, and IQ Gains and Advanced Moral Views (Part One). In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. Retrieved from http://www.in-sightjournal.com/flynn-one.

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Boy Stuck by Needle and Father Starts Petition

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/26

One man in Kamloops, British Columbia is working petition on behalf of his son and others for the improvement of needle safety. The father, Jeff Arlitt, was called by his fiancé to find that his son Landon, who is 12-years-old, was pricked by an already-used needle.

Arlitt immediately went to create a petition to ensure better needle safety in the future. The traditional syringes are cheaper, but will be replaced with the VanishPoint syringes known to retract after use. It is safer.

Arlitt is the outreach supervisor for New Life Community. He said, “Obviously working in this field, I’ve dealt with many overdoses and I just see the problem out there with the needles.”

He notes that some of the public including himself have a fear when walking in parks. That you might be poked by a needle. If the needles retract after use, then the pokes are less likely to happen to passersby in the park.

The son, Landon Arlitt, was playing with siblings in spring break in the Kamloops neighbourhood when the group of kids found a bunch of needles simply lying around on the ground.

Landon said, “We grabbed the bag, tied it tight and we walked back and as I was walking back, I got pricked in the leg… I was worried… I thought we would have to go to the hospital.” They wanted to bring the bag home and tell his parents.

Landon went in to have a tetanus shot. He had blood tests too. His state will be monitored through April and May to make sure he is healthy.

References

Norwell, J. (2018, March 26). Kamloops dad starts petition after son poked by used needle. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/kamloops-needle-1.4594266.

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The Globe and Mail on Cannabis Legalization

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/25

The Federal Liberal government has made it past the second reading in the Senate. One Tory senator argued that the marijuana legalization bill “doesn’t protect people.”

The Globe and Mail editorial continued that the ethical implications of the “wrongness” in criminalization of cannabis is no more harmful than alcohol. Prime Minister Trudeau disagreed with the Tory consideration, where the focus is on the protection of the people.

Trudeau focused on the outcome of alcohol prohibition and state coercion in the prohibition of cannabis as well. With legalization, he argues, this can prevent illicit forms of the substance, uncontrolled and unregulated types, from entering the hands, mouths, and bodies of children and adolescents.

“The political appeal of this message is obvious. It’s a savvy way to get nervous parents and cops on board,” The Globe and Mail opined, “And squeezing money out of organized crime is a happy side-effect of legalization that the government has every right to tout.”

The editorial talked about the narrow focus on harm reduction as potentially risking incoherence with legalization magically reducing the consumption of cannabis as potentially successful or worse as making a wish on a penny and throwing it in a fountain at the local park.

One Deloitte study reported that 17% more adult Canadians would use pot once if legalized. They pose a tacit question: How can we be sure kids and adolescents will not do the same? Children and adolescents should not use cannabis. What will stop them? The black market could still be extant post-legalization.

The restriction of the sale of pot to “austere government-run stores” may not work based on a proposal described by the editorial coming from the province of Ontario. “Premier Kathleen Wynne tells us, that parents don’t want weed sold next to candy bars in corner stores (unlike, say, cigarettes?),” the editorial opines.

The main critique is around narrow focus on safety and harm reduction and how this may impede the progress and potential success of the federal Liberal government of Trudeau et al.

“This kind of scare-mongering rhetoric is enabled by a federal position that has made a fetish of safety and restricted access, even as it legalizes the sale and use of a popular drug. No wonder it’s stumbling.”

References

The Globe and Mail. (2018, March 25). Globe editorial: Federal pot law pushes harm reduction at the expense of coherence. Retrieved from

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-globe-editorial-federal-pot-law pushes-harm-reduction-at-the-expense/.

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The First Harm Reduction Symposium in Saint John

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/24

With the continued increase in the number of deaths due to the opioid epidemic throughout Canada, there are increased calls for proactive and assertive, and evidence-based, measures to deal with it.

Those measures tend to be harm reduction methodologies. That means that the main means by which the experts and public can work together to reduce the overall harm of drugs in society while acknowledging these are simply part of the country.

Saint John hosted the first Harm Reduction Symposium to bring together doctors, former addicts, nurses, and social workers in order to converse on the opioid crisis in a group setting.

Public health nurse Penny Higdon said, “A multi-disciplinary approach, not one program or one department can solve some of these issues, we really have to work together.”

A pediatrician for Horizon Health, Sarah Gardner, said that there is a shift from an abstinence perspective and expectation of drug users or potential drug users to the idea that we can, instead, meet people where they are at and then provide harm reduction practices to them.

The Public Health Agency of Canada reports that 90 opioid-related deaths happened in Atlantic Canada. The total number for the country in 2016 was 2,861, which increase in 2017 and will continue to increase, or is extrapolated based on trend lines, in 2018.

Julie Dingwell of Avenue B Harm Reduction in Saint John has seen this growth from professional work. She said, “We’ve certainly seen more overdose deaths and our number of needles that we are providing has increased by almost 100,000 in a year and a half period.”

Harm reduction methodologies have been put in place in order to reduce the associated problems and public health concerns that come from opioid-related overdoses and potential deaths. These measures have included safe injection sites, Naloxone, and so on.

References

CTV Atlantic. (2018, March 24). Saint John conference discusses Canada’s growing opioid crisis. Retrieved from https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/saint-john-conference-discusses-canada-s growing-opioid-crisis-1.3857278.

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A Call for More Calgary Supervised Consumption Sites

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/23

One doctor made a public call for supervised consumption sites. The call is for more of them in suburbanite Calgary.

One of the centers opened in the downtown core of Calgary, Alberta. It is at the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre. The goal is to react to the opioid crisis in order to reduce the number of overall overdoses associated with fentanyl.

Dr. Hakique Virani, an addictions specialist, explained, “There’s not a silver bullet to solving this epidemic… It’s a combination of a number of very strongly evidenced-based public health interventions.”

The Alberta Health Services published a Safeworks Supervised Consumptions Services report for the month and found more people use illicit drugs now with the professional medical supervision of the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre.

470 people, some repeat attendees and others not, have come to the site to mostly use meth/crystal or fentanyl. If divided by sex, the majority of the people in attendance are men with a mean age of 36, which would amount to a young middle aged population of men.

However, those are the ones who placed an address. Others live in a homeless shelter or do not have a fixed address. Based on available data, the call for more supervised consumption sites is justified because these will improve the health outcomes of individual Calgarians. Fentanyl and opioid crisis afflicting Alberta, Virani told the Calgary Eyeopener.

Virani said, “We miss certain populations with this type of service… One of the characteristics of this epidemic is that it’s affecting a lot of people in the suburbs who use substances alone… Harm reduction outside of inner cities, there’s no reason why we can’t do that… If geography is one of the barriers to people accessing that type of site, then offering it in multiple places would be wise.”

Happily, the overall visits to the Sheldon Chumir supervised consumption site are increasing, which will, in the short and long term, improve the health outcomes, as a statistical average, of the Calgarians, mostly ~36-year-old men, having addiction problems.

References

Alberta Health Services. (2018, March 14). Safeworks Monthly Report – February 2018: Supervised Consumption Services. Retrieved from https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/assets/healthinfo/mh/hi-amh-sup-con-chumir-2018-02.pdf.

Bell, R. (2017, May 24). Little pills, big trouble How Alberta’s fentanyl crisis escalated despite years of warnings. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/fentanyl-crisis-alberta/.

CBC News. (2017, November 7). Calgary’s new supervised consumption site already catching drug overdoses, co-ordinator says. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/safe supervised-consumption-sheldon-chumir-centre-calgary-alberta-1.4391235.

Ward, R. (2018, March 23). ‘No silver bullet’ but suburban supervised consumption sites would help, addiction specialist says. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary supervised-consumption-sites-suburbia-1.4590400.

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West Virginia Health Right Distributes Retractable Needles

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/22

There was a brief news article about an American harm reduction programs. It talked about the West Virginia Health Right in Charleston, West Virginia.

The West Virginia Health Right will be distributing retractable needles to further its harm reduction program. This was weeks before the final Charleston City Council vote that made syringes illegal within Charleston.

During emergencies, there is the possibility of dirty needles sticking to firefighters and police, according to the concerns expressed in the report. This proposal stemmed from the concerns there.

West Virginia Health Right wanted to distribute the needles in order to keep the city safe. They wanted safety for the general West Virginia public through the implementation of harm reduction methodologies.

They began some of the harm reduction work in 2011. Its harm reduction program began with the requirement of patients to receive a full medical examination, HIV and Hepatitis screenings, and drug counseling prior to receiving clean needles.

So Health Right says they’re responding with a measure to keep the city safe. Health Right began their Harm Reduction in 2011 after seeing patients asking for insulin prescriptions but simply walking out with the needles.

The CEO of Western Virginia Health Right, Angie Settle, said that the needles cost the clinic three time more than the regular syringes.

References

Meisner, A. (2018, March 22). Health Right Announces Retractable Needles in Harm Reduction Program. Retrieved from http://www.wowktv.com/news/local-news/health-right-announces retractable-needles-in-harm-reduction-program/1066587437.

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Update Opioid Guidelines to Help More Patients

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/21

More than 4,000 people have died from opioid-related overdoses in 2017. The expectation is the same or more in 2018. After the United States of America, Canadians dominate in the consumption of opioids. The Canadian Medical Association Journal publication produced a set of new guidelines for doctors to follow in order to reduce addiction.

The opioids epidemic is a problem throughout the country with more deaths in city centres than in the outlying regions, as far as I know. The deaths seen with the HIV epidemic are surpassed by those in the modern opioid epidemic.

The older guidelines were written by the experts in addictions. Only 20% of those people who need addiction treatment will receive it, the Canadian guidelines should be for the family doctors and nurse practitioners rather than the experts.

As noted in the reportage by Dr. Brian Goldman (2018):

The guidelines say that medications that are readily available are the most effective treatment for addiction. The drug of choice is a combination of buprenorphine and naloxone, which is sold under the brand name Suboxone. Buprenorphine is an opioid medication, and naloxone blocks the effects of opioid medication. When Suboxone doesn’t work or is not recommended, the next option is methadone. If these two drugs fail, the next best option is for the doctor or nurse practitioner to prescribe a slow-release form of oral morphine prescribed as a daily dose that the patient swallows in front of a witness.

The medications reduce the craving in order to assist patients with the withdrawal symptoms and to permit the patients the ability to begin to restart their lives. Methadone has been extant for decades and is riskier for the health of patients than Suboxone.

“Instead of trying [to] reduce or eliminate drug use, harm reduction tries to reduce its negative consequences,” Goldman said, “Dr. Mark Tyndall of the B.C. Centre for Disease Control is setting up a pilot program in which the province will provide the narcotic hydromorphone in vending machines to registered drug users.”

It should be noted that not all addiction experts are in favour of harm reduction with a preference for non-harm reduction methodologies. The fear is the users will be high and sell Suboxone on the street. The problem: little evidence, according to Goldman, exists for this fear-based claim. I do not want to dismiss it, but the evidence supports harm reduction rather than fear. Although, granted, these fears and concerns are not the ideological ones some might find with individuals such as Jason Kenney or other politicians when they denounce some harm reduction measures such as safe injection sites.

References

Bruneau, J. et al. (2018, March 5). Management of opioid use disorders: a national clinical practice guideline. Retrieved from http://www.cmaj.ca/content/190/9/E247.

Donroe, J.H. & Tetrault, J. M. (2018, March 5). Narrowing the treatment gap in managing opioid use disorder. Retrieved from http://www.cmaj.ca/content/190/9/E236.

Goldman, B. (2018, March 5). New opioid guidelines may help more patients get treatment. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat/new-opioid-guidelines-may-help-more patients-get-treatment-1.4562082.

The Canadian Press. (2017, December 18). Opioid deaths in Canada expected to hit 4,000 by end of 2017. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/opioid-deaths-canada-4000-projected 2017-1.4455518.

Ubelacker, S. (2018, March 6). Doctors develop national opioid guidelines. Retrieved from http://www.timescolonist.com/life/health/doctors-develop-national-opioid-guidelines 1.23191514.

Wilhelm, T. (2018, March 6). New guidelines released to combat opioid epidemic call on doctors, hospitals to join fight. Retrieved from http://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/new guidelines-released-to-combat-opioid-epidemic-call-on-doctors-hospitals-to-join-fight.

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Safe Injection Sites are Evidence-Based and Should Trump Ideology

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/20

According to The Gateway, (DeCoste, 2018). Jason Kenney was condemning safe injection sites on March 2. He considered “helping addicts inject poison into their veins is not a solution to the problem of addiction (Karim, 2018).

DeCoste argues that the comments represent how Kenney lacks knowledge and potentially concern “about addiction, mental illness, and the cycle of poverty.” Safe injection sites have reduced the number of addiction-related deaths.

DeCoste sees the main disagreement with Kenney in criminality versus health, where DeCoste views this as a health issue and Kenney sees this as a criminality issue. The health perspective considers drug problems more to do with the environment.

The criminality perspective thinks the problems associated with substances come more from the person. That is, Kenney is wrong by the analysis of DeCoste to view substance abuse as a personality or moral flaw rather than an illness with associated addiction and withdrawal symptoms.

DeCoste reminds the readers that addiction requires long-term solutions with safe injection sites as part of them in contrast to the statements by Kenney. The safe injection sites provide clean needles and professional medical attention at the sites.

Two public health concerns are reduced through safe injection sites with HIV infections and overdoses rates going down. Correlation is not causation, however, since 2003, British Columbia’s HV infections went from the highest to nearly the lowest in the country.

Also, around Insite – a harm reduction facility, the number of overdoses has decreased by 35% (Picard, 2017). In short, the claims about the safe injections sites improving societal outcomes, by which I mean individual Canadian citizens across the board health outcomes, are well supported.

The larger umbrella term for the philosophy and the methodology is harm reduction. Harm reduction is a methodology in which to reduce harm, as the title implies. In fact, MacQueen reported on 40 peer reviewed research studies that supported harm reduction as a legitimate strategy to improve the health outcomes of individuals, and so families, communities, and society.

To deny this is to deny evidence, to deny this evidence is to worsen the health outcomes of those same individuals and potential others as well, this is the implication with the science when ideological and political differences are put to the side.

As DeCoste said, “On April 14, 2016, B.C. declared a Public Health Emergency — one which has little to do with criminal activity, but lots to do with the physical wellbeing of its citizens.”

References

DeCoste, K. (2018, March 19). Jason Kenney’s anti-harm reduction stance helps nobody. Retrieved from https://www.thegatewayonline.ca/2018/03/jason-kenney-anti-harm-stance/.

Karim, M. (2018, March 2). Jason Kenney criticized over safe consumption site comments. Retrieved from https://globalnews.ca/news/4059919/jason-kenney-criticized-supervised consumption-sites/.

MacQueen, K. (2015, July 20). The science is in. And Insite works.. Retrieved from http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-scientists-are-in-insite-works/.

Picard, A. (2017, March 26). Vancouver’s safe injection site cuts overdose deaths. Retrieved from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/vancouvers-safe-injection-site cuts-overdose-deaths/article577010/.

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Fort McMurray First Nation #468 Signs MOU with RavenQuest

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/19

RavenQuest signed an MOU with Fort McMurray #468 First Nation. Ravenquest BioMed Inc. signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Fort McMurray #468 First Nation or FM 468.

The MOU is the basis for the collaboration in the creation, maintenance, and financing of a facility for the production of cannabis lands to be controlled by FM 468.

The sales of the produced cannabis will be on the sovereign land. RavenQuest will provide technical expertise, resources for the staff, and financial opportunities relation to the production facility with an initial size of 24,000 square feet.

RavenQuest will receive about thirty percent ownership interest in the production facility. The original development, over time, will grow from 24,000 square feet to 250,000 square feet.

“We intend to emerge as the trusted provider of choice for Indigenous Peoples’ Cannabis industry partnerships across Canada. Our work in this area reflects a high level of understanding of the concerns and issues facing Indigenous communities across Canada,” he CEO of RavenQuest, George Robinson, said, “With the right partners, we see cannabis as a tremendous opportunity for economic diversification, self-reliance, employment and harm reduction within Indigenous communities. This agreement is designed to deliver on all of these fronts, providing for a mutually beneficial arrangement for FM 468 and RavenQuest moving forward.”

Chief Ron Kreutzer stated: “By participating in the cannabis sector, it will allow Fort McMurray #468 First Nation to take one step closer to being a self-sufficient Nation for the next seven generations and providing world-class services to the Citizens.”

References

Nasdaq Global Newswire. (2018, March 19). RavenQuest Signs MOU With Fort McMurray #468 First Nation. Retrieved from https://globenewswire.com/news

release/2018/03/19/1441816/0/en/RavenQuest-Signs-MOU-With-Fort-McMurray-468-First Nation.html.

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Justin Trudeau Approach Differs from NDP and the Greens

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/18

According to The Georgia Straight, the Liberal Federal (Trudeau) government has been keeping on its path of a war on hard drugs, which contrasts with the approaches of the Greens and the NDP (Lupick, 2018).

The government of Canada will not consider the decriminalization of all drugs based on the opioid crisis throughout Canada, which killed about 4,000 people throughout the country last year. More than 80% of the 2017 deaths were linked to fentanyl.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is far more toxic than heroin. The advocates for decriminalization suggest the removal of criminal penalties for the personal possession of drugs. They argue that it would reduce the stigma and encourage those who have an addiction to seek treatment for the personal problem.

André Gagnon, a spokesperson for Health Canada, stated, “We are not looking to decriminalize or legalize all illegal drugs; but there are important steps we can take to treat problematic substance use as a public health issue—not as a criminal issue.”

Donald MacPherson, the Executive Director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, argues that people in the public are now beginning to understand that the opioid crisis is more serious than they have known before.

Mayor of Vancouver, Gregor Robertson, “We are witnessing a horrific and preventable loss of life as a poisoned drug supply continues to kill our neighbours, friends, and family… More action is urgently needed.”

MacPherson noticed that the NDP and Greens were supportive of the decriminalization while the Liberals will be debating the issue at a party convention in April.

“People are really beginning to understand that the crisis is demanding a more serious look at a more radical shift in our thinking,” MacPherson said, “Municipalities are starting to say, ‘Look, this isn’t working for us anymore.’”

He argues that with the discussion happening at such a large scale in the public, and increasingly more and more in the public, the federal Liberal government will have to look into potential for drug decriminalization.

References

Lupick, T. (2018, March 14). Trudeau government maintains its war on hard drugs as Greens and NDP consider alternatives. Retrieved from https://www.straight.com/news/1044336/trudeau government-maintains-its-war-hard-drugs-greens-and-ndp-consider-alternatives.

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Overdoses in Hamilton, Ontario, and Beyond

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/17

Ontario has been hit, as well, by the opioid crisis sweeping across the nation. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke to one of Ontario’s city about it.

Trudeau has described this as an important goal for his federal government. One municipal officer made a call for more concrete measures to deal with addiction at its source.

Out of the city of Hamilton, there were 70 opioid-related deaths between January and October alone, the situation for the crisis is becoming worse an worse. Only 41 occurred in 2016 in Hamilton.

How many more will happen in 2018? Trudeau was giving a tour of speeches on the various steel-producing communities with commentary on the opioid crisis destroying lives, families, and, some communities.

Trudeau said, “We know that we have to address this. This is getting to be more and more of a problem… We have always put this at the top of our preoccupations as we deal with this public health crisis here in Hamilton and right across the country.”

The Medical Officer for Health for Hamilton, Dr. Elizabeth Richardson, explained the Hamilton area has an unusually or atypical rate of deaths associated or linked with opioid overdoses.

Richardson said, “There needs to be continued focus on what do we do to stop people from being in a position where they are finding drugs as a way of managing their physical and emotional pain… We do need that fundamental support from the get-go … around housing, around income support, around civil society that are really important pieces to underpin it all.”

The province of Ontario had a total of 1,053 opioid-related deaths between January and October of 2017 with only 694 between January and October of 2016. Ottawa will be dispersing $150 million in emergency funding for all provinces and territories in Canada in order to combat the opioid crisis.

The money is in the new federal budget. “The balance will go toward public-education campaigns, better access to public-health data and new equipment and tools to allow border agents to better detect dangerous opioids such as fentanyl before they enter the country,” McQuigge reported, “The Ontario government has pledged to spend more than $222-million over three years to tackle the issue, with money earmarked to expand harm-reduction services and hire more frontline staff.”

Opioids will kill is predicted to kill more than 4,000 lives in 2018 based on projections from the Public Health Agency of Canada.

References

McQuigge, M. (2018, March 13). Trudeau says addressing opioids a top priority as Hamilton sees spike. Retrieved from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-hamiltons-opioid related-deaths-78-per-cent-higher-than-ontario/.

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A Brief Note on Fredericton, New Brunswick and Finances

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/16

The Government of New Brunswick will be contributing $250,000 to the Cannabis Education and Awareness Fund. The New Brunswick government is looking for an advisory committee set of members in order to determine how best to spent the finances.

As recreational cannabis will be legalized later in the year, the Finance Minister Cathy Rogers wants a harm reduction, socially responsible approach in order to keep cannabis away from the hands and bodies of children and youth.

Four cannabis producers and the New Brunswick government signed agreements where 2% of the gross earnings will enter the Cannabis Education and Awareness Fund.

Rogers stated the monetary injections into the fund are starting in order for the education to be jumpstarted. Also, it will take time before sales begin to trickle in more funds.

The Chairman o the Cannabis Management Corporation will be one of the, and senior civil servants will be three of the seven members of the, advisory committee for New Brunswick.

The other members will come from the general public.

References The Canadian Press. (2018, March 13). New Brunswick funding cannabis education and seeking advisors from public. Retrieved from https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/new-brunswick-funding cannabis-education-and-seeking-advisors-from-public-1.3841091.

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Toronto’s Riverdale Riverside Ralph Thornton Centre Hosting Harm Reduction Event

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/14

In Toronto, Ontario, in the Riverdale community, there will be a harm reduction event entitled Community Matters.

On March 19^thfrom 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm, the gathering will take place at the Ralph Thornton Community Centre, 765 Queen St. E., which is east of Broadview Avenue.

The conversation for the neighbourhood event will be on the effects of the ongoing crisis. Its impacts on individuals, families, communities, and the wider society as a result of the severity, and increasing problems, associated with it.

There is a reported increase in fear and concerns (Toronto.Com: News, 2018) around the health crisis with drugs in the country. The conversation on the 19^thwill involve some discussion on the adaptations of “harm reduction, healthcare strategies, and public health policy.”

The South Riverdale Community Health Centre will take part in the event/conversation. The community health centre is the place of the first Canadian supervised injection service as such a neighbourhood centre.

“Those interested in attending should be aware that this meeting may not be accessible due to the replacement of the centre’s elevator,” the news note stated.

References

Toronto.Com: News. (2018, March 14). East Toronto centre hosts talk on harm reduction, overdose crisis. Retrieved from https://www.toronto.com/news-story/8325453-east-toronto centre-hosts-talk-on-harm-reduction-overdose-crisis/.

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One Woman’s Naloxone Training Mission

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/13

One woman is on a harm reduction crusade with naloxone kit training sessions. Abby Blackburn is helping the punk community in Edmonton to be informed and safer about the possibility for overdoses from opioids in the midst of the crisis throughout the province.

In a conversation with CBC Radio Active, Blackburn said, “I realized, after seeing statistics online and everything else, that it’s very far reaching… The fentanyl crisis is pretty intense, so I just wanted to reach out to absolutely everybody.”

The training sessions with Blackburn show how to use the naloxone kits. She has trained about 150 people to date and wants the people that she trains to never have to go through the traumatising experience of seeing a friend overdose in front of her.

Blackburn recalled, “The first time that I saw somebody overdose in front of me was one of my close friends, and I hadn’t even heard of naloxone.” The friend did live, but she recollects that it was a terrifying experience to witness an overdose of a loved one in front of her.

“This past January, when I had an event, I was told by someone that their life got saved by the naloxone training, so that was pretty rad,” Blackburn said, “It was affecting me on a personal level from the get-go, and I just wanted to continue helping people and saving people.”

The next event will be April 13, 2018, at the Aviary open to all ages. Her next event on April 13 at the Aviary is for all age groups.

References

CBC News. (2018, March 12). Edmonton woman wants to reach everybody with naloxone training. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/abby-blackburn-naloxone training-1.4573537.

St-Onge, J. (2018, March 9). Alberta commission recommends more overdose prevention sites across province. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-opioid overdose-commission-1.4570399.

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Is Radical Harm Reduction More in the Spotlight?

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/12

The Times Colonist is reporting on the treatment of alcoholism with bone drink at a time using a radical harm reduction treatment methodology.

Professor Tim Stockwell, a Psychologist at the University of Victoria and the Director of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research said, “Alcohol can kill you in more ways… But somehow it doesn’t deserve the same level of respect in harm-reduction treatments as other substances.”

In his research with colleagues on the efficacy of harm reduction methodologies incorporating doses of alcohol for alcoholics at regular intervals has proven effective, Stockwell explains that these managed-alcohol programs continue to be a radical idea 25 years after their inception.

The Executive Director of Our Place in Victoria, Don Evans, described the activities and initiatives of his own organization with managed-alcohol programs.

Evans explained that the group with those kinds of organizations, but failed to have sufficient space in the organization and resources in order to maintain and fully develop the program at Our Place in Victoria.

Evans states that severe alcoholics may resort to mouthwash and rubbing alcohol in order to satisfy the addiction but that these are brain-damaging substances. That makes the manage alcohol programs as an initiative or program for those “meant for people who have tried everything else, and so it’s a last resort,” Evans explained.

The programs are best given within a therapeutic community with “housing, food and fellowship.” The programs finish within 30 to 60 days. Those programs that have been operational have worked without much notice, according to Stockwell.

The social norms and mores do not permit the allowance of alcohol given in this way. It is taboo, verboten. It is a radical harm reduction program in light of that fact that those with addictions that are homeless or in danger of dying are the ones they are for because abstinence programs simply have not or do not work for them.

If these are programs combined with food and shelter, they can help rebuild the livelihood and potentially family and social networks that these people need. An increase in anxiety is the most noticeable sign of withdrawal in the individual not having their drink.

References

Watts, R. (2018, March 11). Harm-reduction programs help alcoholics one drink at a time. Retrieved from http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/harm-reduction-programs-help alcoholics-one-drink-at-a-time-1.23183082

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https://www.alberta.ca/assets/documents/opioid-commission-minutes-february-2018.pdf.

Alberta’s Entrance Into Harm Reduction

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/11

An Alberta Commission has called for more harm reduction sites in the province (Gerein, 2018). The Government of Alberta released a new report on the level of deaths associated with opioid overdoses (Government of Alberta, 2018a). This has come alongside recommendations as well (Government of Alberta, 2018b).

Indigenous groups have been declaring emergencies in some of their communities due to the overdose crisis (Cameron, 2018). There have been interventions such as fentanyl tests, which have been shown to reduce the number of overdoses (Meuse, 2017).

Alberta’s supervised consumption sites should be permitted to offer drug testing to help users learn what dangers might be lurking in their illicit narcotics, the province’s opioid commission recommended Friday.

Some in the general public continue to question the efficacy of the fentanyl-sensing strips as well as associated devices to detect fentanyl. However, these devices help give insight into the contents of the about-to-be used drugs in the drug user community.

Elaine Hyshka, the Co-Chair of the Minister’s Opioid Emergency Response Commission, said, “Anytime you can give people a bit more understanding than absolutely none about what’s in their drugs, I think that’s a positive.”

Six consumption sites were approved for the province of Alberta with one opened in Calgary, in Lethbridge, and four in Edmonton to be opened. 562 Albertans have died from the fentanyl related overdoses in 2017 alone.

The problem with fentanyl is that is continuing to show up in methamphetamine and heroin. The users, who may not even be regular misusers, can be caught unaware in a fentanyl overdose because their used substance has been inadvertently laced with fentanyl, potentially leading to an overdose and a death.

British Columbia and Ontario, two provinces with high death tolls associated with the opioid crisis. One prominent place that uses the fentanyl-sensing strips is Insite based in Vancouver. 80% of the substances, in the first year of testing at Insite, were found to contain fentanyl.

Those Insite clients with a positive result were an order of magnitude, 10 times, more probable to reduce the chances of an overdose.

A medical heath officer at Vancouver Coastal Health, Dr. Mark Lysyshyn, noted that the strips can falter in their prediction of fentanyl. In that, they are not foolproof. One other issue is the potential for the strips to be able to detect associated fentanyl substances such as carfentenil.

The first Alberta overdose prevention site opened for the Kainai First Nation in Southern Alberta. The Kainai First Nation declared the first state of emergency based on a recent spike overdoses there.

The site is open for eight hours per day. According to Gerein’s article, there are other recommendations:

∙ Ease restrictions for prescribing methadone and medical heroin, which are used as treatments for opioid use disorder.

∙ Organize a national conference in Edmonton in October to discuss drug policy and harm reduction.

∙ Approve a mobile supervised consumption site in Calgary.

∙ Open supervised consumption services in Medicine Hat, Red Deer and Grande Prairie.

∙ Develop guidelines around protective clothing and safety practices for workers who may come into contact with fentanyl.

∙ Expedite consumer protection legislation, to ensure people seeking mental health and addiction services receive proper care. (2018)

References

Cameron, E. (2018, March 9). Calgary applying to offer mobile supervised consumption services. Retrieved from http://www.metronews.ca/news/calgary/2018/03/09/calgary-applying to-offer-mobile-supervised-consumption-services.html.

Gerein, K. (2018, March 9). Offer drug testing at safe consumption sites, Alberta opioid commission recommends. Retrieved from http://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/test drugs-at-safe-consumption-sites-alberta-opioid-commission-recommends.

Government of Alberta. (2018b, February 14). Minister’s Opioid Emergency Response Commission Record of Discussion: February 14, 2018. Retrieved from

Government of Alberta. (2018a, March 2). Opioids and Substances of Misuse Alberta Report, 2017 Q4. Retrieved from https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/1cfed7da-2690-42e7-97e9- da175d36f3d5/resource/78ceedbd-ddc9-4a33-834b-8668a3ad5b31/download/Opioids Substances-Misuse-Report-2017-Q4.pdf.

Meuse, M. (2017, May 15). Insite fentanyl test reduces overdoses, study finds. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/insite-fentanyl-testing-1.4115500.

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Will Moss Park Volunteers Stay in Place?

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/10

Trailer houses constructed in the Moss Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada are illegal and volunteer overdose prevention sites (Gray, 2018).

It will continue to remain open. There are many users anxious to have their fix of substance and volunteers itching to help them. Zoë Dodd, a prominent harm reduction activist and proponent of good repute, has been at the site for about 7 months with a small group of volunteers (Tierney, 2017).

They are working and have been working to reduce the number of overdoses in the park. They started out in flimsy old tents that could not stand tall to a wind storm. Many drug users would use in the community would die alone in the past as they shot up.

Their corpses would be found later. One Health Canada approved supervised injection site has opened at the Fred Victor Centre for the homeless. Many former volunteers of Dodd work there.

Mayor John Tory said that many of the volunteers at Dodd’s illegal site should transfer to the clientele to the legal site simply across the road. Dodd still considers the illegal Moss Park trailer an integral part of the harm reduction efforts there.

Therefore, they will be staying in place. “Even though Fred Victor opened, we’re still so inundated with the need… This is the epicentre of the overdose crisis, Moss Park,” Dodd explained.

The province released the new numbers for the week on the deaths associated with opioids. It was more than 1,000 from January through to the end of October in 2017. Dodd recommends the governments begin to increase the number of injection sites based on the increasing number of overdoses in order to appropriately respond to the opioid crisis.

The St. Stephen’s Community House sent letters off to the Kensington Marker with an announcement that they earned approval for an overdose prevention site on a temporary basis at the community house.

The process began after pressure from activists. The Ontario Ministry of Health obliged them. A similar site is open in London, Ontario. Applications for other temporary harm reduction sites will be emerging, or are predicted to arise, in other parts of Toronto, Ontario.

The Dodd trailer is running without a permit, washrooms, or water. Joe Cressy, a City of Toronto Councillor and the Chairperson of Toronto’s Drug Implementation Panel, said that they were looking to find the Dodd group a new place in the community to continue their work (City of Toronto, 2018).

Tory wants the harm-reduction site removed because of the park. “Look, I believed from Day 1, and you can go back and look at all my prior public statements, that a public park is not an appropriate place to any kind of a harm-reduction site,” Tory stated, “It’s a public park.”

Dodd wants to move people, but there are as many as 40 or more people who come and use her service each night. No one has died of an overdose on her site – a good track record. The Director of Programs for Fred Victor, Jane Eastwood, stated that between 7 and 23 people use her services each night.

References

City of Toronto. (2018). Councillor Joe Cressy. Retrieved from https://www.toronto.ca/city government/council/members-of-council/councillor-joe-cressy/.

Gray, J. (2018, March 9). Moss Park harm-reduction volunteers staying put. Retrieved from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/moss-park-harm-reduction-volunteers-staying put/article38267790/.

Tierney, A. (2017, April 25). Meet the Harm Reduction Worker Who Called Out Trudeau on the Opioid Crisis. Retrieved from https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/ez3m5a/meet-the-harm reduction-worker-who-called-out-trudeau-on-the-opioid-crisis.

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Vancouver Calls for Decriminalization of All Drug Possession

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/01

The rising overdose deaths in Vancouver, British Columbia continue to wreak havoc on communities and families. Vancouver made a call to the federal government to decriminalize the personalized possession of drugs (CBC News, 2018).

Mary Clare Zak, the Managing Director of Social Policy, described the call as new while at the same time consistent with the Four Pillars Drug Strategy of Vancouver. Some have claimed that even harm reduction innovations cannot get rid of the opioid crisis in total (Ghoussoub, 2018).

“What we’ve learned from countries, for example like Portugal, is that when you decriminalize then people are feeling like they’re actually safe enough to ask for treatment,” Zak explained, “People who are dying are more likely to be indoors and struggle with accessing help or assistance because of their illicit drug use.”

Vancouver advocates and users are in agreement with the call for immediate decriminalization of all drug possession (Lovgreen, 2018). Bellefontaine (2018) notes that the decriminalization has been rejected as on the table by Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau based on a town hall held in Edmonton, Alberta.

Here are Zak’s recommendations:

∙ Rapidly roll out funding for evidence-based treatment programs.

∙ Support the scale up of innovative programs that provide access to safe opioids for those most at risk for overdose.

∙ Support the de-stigmatization programs that are co-led by people with lived experience of substance use.

∙ Continue to roll out innovative overdose prevention services in areas where users remain isolated. (CBC News, 2018)

In January alone, Vancouver had 33 overdose deaths, which was the highest number since the May of 2017. In short, the number of Canadian citizens in Vancouver dying from the opioid crisis continues to rise as a trend line. People are dying, and more and more by the month.

Zak points to a need for a “clean drug supply for people who are struggling with addiction” and decriminalization, which would likely mean regulation, would be an important part of this. The federal government is already working on the decriminalization and legislation around the legialization of marijuana.

“Decriminalizing harder drugs is not a step that Canada is looking at taking at this point,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. The NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has been publicly quoted in support of the decriminalization of personal possession of all drugs.

References

Bellefontaine, M. (2018, February 1). Decriminalization won’t be part of opioid fight, PM tells Edmonton town hall. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/decriminalization-not-part-of-opioid-fight trudeau-edmonton-1.4516177.

CBC News. (2018, March 9). City of Vancouver calls for decriminalization of drug possession. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/city-of-vancouver-drug possession-1.4570720.

Ghoussoub, M. (2018, February 3). Innovations in harm reduction can’t curb ‘catastrophic’ overdose crisis, say experts. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british columbia/innovations-in-harm-reduction-can-t-curb-catastrophic-overdose-crisis-say-experts 1.4509136.

Lovgreen, T. (2018, February 20). The answer to Canada’s opioid overdose crisis is decriminalization, say Vancouver drug users and advocates. Retrieved

from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/multimedia/the-answer-to-canada-s opioid-overdose-crisis-is-decriminalization-say-vancouver-drug-users-and-advocates-1.4544182.

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Jason Kenney Speaks on Harm Reduction

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/08

Jason Kenney, the Alberta United Conservative Party, made comments in previous weeks about opposition to the supervised injection sites if he became the premier of Alberta. Of course, this is changing more recently.

Alberta is constructing sites for safe, healthy consumption of drugs in order to deal with the deaths linked to opioids. Kenney has expressed direct opposition to harm reduction methodologies including the aforementioned.

Kenney thinks treatment and enforcement would be a better solution because the other methods, which do amount to harm reduction methods, would assist in the spending of money for more consumption of drugs by Canadian citizens in Alberta.

In a Twitter post, Kenney tweeted, “We absolutely need to show compassion for those suffering with addiction, and we need to help them get off drugs. But helping addicts inject poison into their bodies is not a long-term solution.”

Following this, potentially based on the reaction and feedback from some sectors of the public, he said, “I’m not saying I’m opposed to reasonable harm reduction efforts, but I am saying that we need to be realistic about this… We obviously respect the authority of the court in this respect, with one caveat. I would want properly to consult with local communities about the placement of facilities.”

He is noted to have acknowledged that the Supreme Court of Canada ruled “governments have the obligation to license supervised consumption sites.”

One of the UCP leader’s objections was to the density of the consumption sites in Edmonton, where he says that the local business owners and residents should have the right to decide on the sites being established in their local communities or not.

He does disagree on the harm reduction methodologies as the preferred means to solve the opioid crises, especially the deaths, but has taken, recently and in contrast to prior weeks, a light “tone” on consumption sites in particular.

One of Kenney’s preferred methods would be harsher penalties for drug dealers, more associated with the punitive rather than the harm reduction approaches to substance misuse.

“The notion that this is a panacea for the consumption of some of these really toxic opioids is, I think, a bit naïve,” Kenney opined.

Health Canada approved several consumption sites in Calgary, Edmonton, and Lethbridge as well as needs assessments ongoing in Edson, Fort McMurray, Grande Prairie, Medicine Hat, and Red Deer.

“Activists and public health officials have hailed supervised consumption sites as a life-saving, if stopgap, component in the response to the overdose crisis,” Little reported.

References

Bellefontaine, M. (2018, March 8). Kenney to take his seat as UCP leader, as Alberta legislature starts spring session. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/kenney-seat-ucp leader-alberta-legislature-spring-sessin-1.4566967.

Bennett, D. (2018, March 2). Alberta government, Opposition clash on ethics of safe drug consumption sites. Retrieved from https://globalnews.ca/news/4059488/alberta-government-safe consumption-sites-opioids/.

Karim, M. (2018, March 2). Jason Kenney criticized over safe consumption site comments. Retrieved from https://globalnews.ca/news/4059919/jason-kenney-criticized-supervised consumption-sites/.

Little, S. (2018, March 5). ‘I’m not saying I’m opposed’: Kenney walks back tough talk on supervised consumption sites. Retrieved from https://globalnews.ca/news/4064454/im-not saying-im-opposed-kenney-walks-back-tough-talk-on-supervised-consumption-sites/.

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Dr. Anne Wagner on the Psychedelic Career Day Panel and Her Work

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/07

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was the outcome of the panel for Psychedelic Career Day?

Dr. Anne Wagner: It was an interesting and well-received conversation. Lots of different questions in terms of the folks taking part and attending on diverse ways in which careers can be had in the field.

There was a lot of interest on clinical applications within the field, e.g. becoming a clinical psychotherapist in the field. We were there for 3.5 hours. We had a presentation by Dr. Ben Sessa and then answered folks’ questions.

Jacobsen: With respect to your own presentation, what were some of the questions asked of you in particular?

Wagner: Unfortunately [Laughing], I did not take notes, so this will be a bit harder to answer. Folks were asking me about the training to be a psychedelic researcher, the opportunities available regarding the research, the trajectory to becoming involved in this area, and so on.

I talked about how I am a PTSD development researcher. As a clinical psychologist, primarily, we were invited – my mentor and I – to develop this protocol that combined Cognitive Behavioural Conjoint Therapy with MDMA to see if that would yield helpful results.

The idea being that I did not seek this out but landed in this area. I was very clear that if this area is of interest, develop a skill-set that will support the work that you want to do in this area, therapist training or training in some other area that might be helpful, e.g., lots of lawyers work in this area or other folks with different skill-sets like project management.

I gave an overview of my trajectory.

Jacobsen: When it comes to some of the MDMA research in a clinical setting, what are some of the more cutting-edge aspects of the research that may be of interest to undergraduates looking into that area and even high school students?

Wagner: One area that is interesting is the combination of MDMA with psychotherapies that are already stand-alone psychotherapies. A lot of the work with MDMA and psychotherapy up until now has been with non-directive supportive psychotherapies, which would draw upon the skill sets and the best clinical skills of the providers – but they are not based on a treatment in and of itself that would be, for example, used to treat PTSD.

The theorizing I am doing is about combining things we know that work for a good segment of the population and adding MDMA into that as an adjunct to see if we can improve outcomes. It is to deepen and create breadth in our understanding how MDMA and other compounds work in terms of the psychotherapeutic process.

With MDMA, the offer of the opportunity to have this optimal zone of arousal, where you are activated enough to be able to experience emotion and sit with it and so that you are not fearful of those emotions, which is helpful with PTSD.

PTSD is clearly linked with avoidance, so to be able to feel your feelings and to have that experience in an MDMA session potentially adds something important to a trauma-focused treatment. I think that is a particularly interesting way forward for the treatment.

We did this pilot trial of this couple’s treatment, Cognitive Behavioural Conjoint Therapy for PTSD. I will be doing another pilot study with Cognitive Processing Therapy, which is an individual treatment for PTSD, with MDMA.

Then there is team in the US lead by Barbara Rothbaum who is going to be combining prolonged exposure with MDMA. All three of those protocols with Cognitive Behavioural approaches will be interesting to triangulate the data to show how these different interventions that we already use in practice that do have effects: what will happen when we combine with MDMA?

Jacobsen: What are the common variables or factors – I guess we can precisely say – positively correlate with preceding PTSD – or more colloquially – cause PTSD? What are those pathways for someone ending up with PTSD? With MDMA in particular, what are the pathways in the brain to reduce those symptoms of that disorder?

Wagner: We conceptualize PTSD as a disorder of impeded recovery. The idea is that when someone experiences a traumatic event, many people will develop symptoms that look like PTSD right away if the event is severe enough. Many will continue on this course of natural

recovery, and will go back to baseline. Some will not follow that natural recovery as a trajectory. The idea is that conceptually, especially with Cognitive Behavioural treatment, is that there have been difficulties with memory reconsolidation but also making meaning of the event.

There is something that has gotten stuck in terms of that recovery trajectory. The idea with our current best treatments is that they are both exposure-based like CBCT (that offers approach assignments to things that people avoid when they have PTSD) and prolonged exposure (which offers an exposure literally to the memory of the event), and use cognitive approaches that make meaning of the trauma and associated thoughts that might be associated with it: blame, acceptance, trust, control, power, intimacy, and the like. The idea with combining the treatments with MDMA is that MDMA has strong effects on the brain with the release of certain neurotransmitters that allow a more easeful experience.

As well, there is activation of the prefrontal cortex and a quieting, if you will, of the amygdala. The amygdala is very heightened in PTSD. It is the fight, flight, freeze response that goes alongside a traumatic event or stimuli.

It is like this alarm system that does not go off afterward with PTSD. When that is quieted with the help of MDMA, it is experiencing and feeling what it is to not have that alarm system go off at quite the same rate and to experience the feelings that go alongside the trauma.

We facilitate this with treatments without MDMA. But the question is, “Can you help more people or others who have not been helped with these treatments using MDMA as well?”

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Wagner.

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http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/news/bulletin/2018/hb_20180111.aspx.

Ontario Expansion of Addiction and Harm Reduction Services

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/06

The province of Ontario is beginning to expand the axis to harm addiction and addiction services throughout the province. The latest data does represent the increase in opioid-related deaths. Year-by-year, the number of opioid-related deaths continues to rise in not only Ontario but across this large, underpopulated nation.

From January to October 2017, there were 1,053 opioid-related deaths. It was an increase of 52% from same range of time in 2016. In order to combat the opioid crisis, over 85 addiction and mental health providers throughout Ontario have begun to enhance the supports and treatment services for those with an opioid use disorder, or more properly a misuse disorder.

12 of those more than 85 are directed towards youth. More than 20 of those more than 85 are devoted to help with withdrawal management services. As well, more than 30 communities will be benefitting from expanded Rapid Access Addiction Medicine (RAAM) clinics in their communities.

As part of the Ontario’s Strategy to Prevent Opioid Addiction and Overdose, there will be a collaboration with Health Quality Ontario on three new opioid-related quality standards based on the most up-to-date evidence, and has been developed by people who have had addictions as well as clinical experts.

There will be a naloxone nasal spray as well as injectable kits available for free at participating pharmacies. There will be expanded public education on the access to naloxone as well as posters and brochures with various information about the prescription opioids.

More details from the release below:

Ontario has approved nearly $7 million in funding for seven supervised injection services. Five of these sites (three in Toronto and two in Ottawa) opened between August 2017 and February 2018. The province continues to accept applications.

Overdose prevention sites provide core harm reduction supports and services such as supervised injection and access to harm reduction supplies and naloxone.

On February 12, 2018, the first Overdose Prevention Site (OPS) opened in London, Ontario. The province continues to accept applications.

Health Quality Ontario and the Council of Academic Hospitals are helping to support the provincial rollout of the Rapid Access Addiction Medicine model, with funding from the province.

Over the next three years, Ontario is investing more than $222 million to combat the opioid crisis in Ontario, including expanding harm reduction services, hiring more front-line staff and improving access to addictions supports across the province.

References

Government of Ontario. (2018). Recognize and temporarily reverse an opioid overdose. Retrieved from https://www.ontario.ca/page/get-naloxone-kits

free?_ga=2.77091733.1855539337.1512070906-126235441.1484859155.

Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. (2018, March 7). Ontario Moving Quickly to Expand Life-Saving Overdose Prevention Programs. Retrieved from

https://news.ontario.ca/mohltc/en/2018/03/ontario-moving-quickly-to-expand-life-saving overdose-prevention-programs.html.

Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. (2016, October 12). Ontario Taking Action to Prevent Opioid Abuse. Retrieved from https://news.ontario.ca/mohltc/en/2016/10/ontario-taking-action to-prevent-opioid-abuse.html.

Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. (2018, January 11). Applications Now Open for Overdose Prevention Sites. Retrieved from

Public Health Ontario. (2018, March 7). Opioid-related morbidity and mortality in Ontario. Retrieved from https://www.publichealthontario.ca/en/dataandanalytics/pages/opioid.aspx.

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https://www.uvic.ca/research/centres/cisur/projects/map/index.php.

Radical Harm Reduction Out of the Woods

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/05

According to the University of Victoria, some radical harm reduction practices have begun to be brought into the public eye.

For examples, and a contrast, one methodology of harm reduction can be considered non-radical, which is the provision of safe needle exchange programs in specific areas of a neighbourhood. Another aspect could include on-site trained staff and Naloxone in case of overdoses for those in need of it.

The other, or as is called radical harm reduction in some reportage, is the use of the substance, at least in the case of alcohol, to curb the negative side effects of the substance in an individual’s unfortunate addiction.

A peer-reviewed academic journal has been compiling, and is reported to have completed the task, a list of the peer-reviewed literature on MAPs or Managed Alcohol Programs, which amount to the provision of measured doses of alcohol throughout the day in individuals with severe addiction to alcohol.

Given the descriptor “radical,” this, of course, does amount to a controversial program of action or branch of harm reduction methodology. But this goes back to a question about the evidence, especially the high quality peer-reviewed evidence. What does it say about MAPs in particular and radical harm reduction methodologies in general?

Drug and Alcohol Review published a special issue with four papers by researchers “at the University of Victoria’s Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research (CISUR, formerly CARBC) from the Canadian Managed Alcohol Program Study(CMAPS), which looks at data from approximately 380 individual MAP participants and controls across the country—the largest study ever conducted.”

Bernie Pauly and Tim Stockwell at the University of Victoria, the CMAPS Principal Investigators, reported that these amount to the most significant set of publication findings in relation to the work of MAPs.

They wrote, “It’s intended to stimulate debate and focus future research on strategies to improve outcomes for this vulnerable and often under-serviced population.”

Pauly said, “The initial results are promising in reducing acute and social harms as well as economic costs… We also need to take a closer look at how we can better provide culturally appropriate care to Indigenous people and more relevant services for women.”

The work by CISUR through MAPs is seen as a “made-in-Canada harm-reduction approach,” which continues to gain recognition in the local and global arenas. Community partners are assisting with their work.

References

Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research. (2018). Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research. Retrieved from https://www.uvic.ca/research/centres/cisur/.

The Canadian Managed Alcohol Program Study (CMAPS). (2018). The Canadian Managed Alcohol Program Study (CMAPS). Retrieved from

Shore, R. (2018, February 20). Radical harm reduction for illicit alcohol may save lives, studies find. Retrieved from http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/radical-harm-reduction-for illicit-alcohol-may-save-lives-studies-find.

University of Victoria News. (2018, February 19). Radical harm reduction: coming out from under the radar. Retrieved from https://www.uvic.ca/news/topics/2018+cisur-managed-alcohol programs+media-release.

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Moderate, Regular Alcohol Doses Help Severe Alcoholics

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/04

The regulated doses provided to severe alcoholics may be a solution to help the individuals suffering from alcoholism. The methodology is part of radical harm reduction, associated with harm reduction in general, and can assist in the stabilization of the lives of the alcoholics.

Four studies published by researchers from the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria showed that radical harm reduction through the highly structured managed alcohol programs (MAPs) program can help patients in residential facilities with doses given hourly or every hour and a half.

The CISUR Director, Tim Stockwell, said, “(MAPs) can achieve significant harm-reduction objectives for this very vulnerable population… These people are experiencing a lot of harm and creating a lot of cost.”

Those who use alcohol products that are cheap tend to be the homeless, where they can fail to access the shelters available in their locale due to the extreme intoxication at times. There have been reduced harms from the MAPs methodology including “violence, alcohol poisoning and death due to exposure.”

Stockwell continued, “This solution is for a small population of people who are without housing, who can’t keep housing due to explosive drinking patterns… The program must include strategies to manage outside drinking to maximize harm reduction.”

The participants should be in the facility for an hour before receiving a dose. There is support, but highly structured access and delivery. It discourages supplementation by the severe alcoholic with “outside sources of alcohol.”

Canada has 14 MAP programs with numerous probably informal setups throughout the country. Vancouver has a formal MAP program on Station Street and an informal one several blocks away through the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users.

There are many programs like this, formal and informal, throughout the country structured within a harm reduction and, less often, a radical harm reduction provision methodology.

References

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from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/overdose-deaths-bc-2017-1.4511918.

Harm Reduction Effective and Incomplete

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/03

In terms of the overdose crisis, some experts claim that the innovations in the harm reduction methodology in practice do not suffice in order to reduce the opioid crisis efficiently or are limited.

Of course, harm reduction policies save far more lives and reduce the harm caused from the drug misuse throughout the country, especially, in contrast, stark contrast, to the punitive approach currently in vogue within the country akin to the American system.

British Columbia is host to some of the more progressive policies and practices of harm reduction including the distribution of prescription grade heroin in addition to supervised injection sites tied to vending machines.

However, British Columbia is also facing one of the highest rates of death if not the highest rate of death due to overdose out of all provinces or territories with more than 1,400 people dying of illicit drug use in 2017 alone.

Donald MacPherson is the director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. He said, “The envelope is being pushed because of the desperate situation and no one really knows what to do, because we’ve never seeing anything like this before… But if we had another public policy that had failed as dramatically as our drug policy over the past few years, we’d say this is a catastrophic failure.”

The toxicity of the drug supply is one major concern. Another major concern is the stigma attached to the drug use and misuse throughout the country.

It makes the discussion difficult. It makes public action also difficult. But harm reduction, especially in British Columbia, has been a direct reaction, proactive reaction, to these for deaths in the province.

References

CBC News. (2018, January 31). More than 1,420 people died of illicit-drug overdoses in B.C. in 2017, the ‘most tragic year ever’: coroner. Retrieved

Ghoussob, M. (2018, February 3). Innovations in harm reduction can’t curb ‘catastrophic’ overdose crisis, say experts. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british columbia/innovations-in-harm-reduction-can-t-curb-catastrophic-overdose-crisis-say-experts 1.4509136.

Turner, G. (2017, July 31). City, On Drugs. Retrieved

from http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ondrugs/city-on-drugs-1.4230969?autoplay=true.

Wilson, D. (2017, December 20). Could vending machines help solve B.C.’s opioid overdose crisis?. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/dilaudid-vending machine-solution-opioid-overdose-tyndall-1.4458358.

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Naloxone Training Provided By UFV in Chilliwack and Abbotsford (BC)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/02

The University of the Fraser Valley is offering a harm reduction initiative with provisions of naloxone training as well as take-home naloxone (THN) kits. This initiative’s training in Naloxone use will happen in Abbotsford and Chilliwack.

The Opioid and Naloxone Awareness Day event will take place on March 5. The University of the Fraser Valley Project is a student-driven Project grounded in harm reduction philosophy and practice.

This is becoming an increasing phenomenon throughout the country. The event will include interactive educational booths. UFV Social Work students will help with the event. One of their social work students, Amanda Ellsworth, considers this the most important time in order to equip and educate undergraduate peers.

“Students are coming out of high schools, or from international schools,” Ellsworth explained, “who have never been trained on recognizing the signs of an opioid overdose. If they see one happening, and have a naloxone kit with training, we might save lives.”

There has been prior naloxone training on campus through the UFV Peer Resource and Leadership Centre in addition to guidance from Bethany Jeal who is a UFV Nursing faculty member. Jeal hopes this event will provide training and reduce stigma as well.

The general public is allowed to attend, but the emphasis is on university of the Fraser Valley faculty, staff, and students. Preference is for RSVPs. However, people that want to drop in can do so as well. RSVPs will simply amount to a courtesy. The naloxone training will happen with trained UFV nursing students.

Event information here:

“Monday, March 5 at 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. in B121 on the Abbotsford campus, 11:30 a.m. in A0014 on the Chilliwack Canada Education Park campus, and 1:30 p.m. in Room 1001 on the Chilliwack Trades and Technology campus.”

If you would like to RSVP, please go to the link here:

mycampuslife.ufv.ca

If you would like to contact the PRLC coordinator, please send an email here: Ashley.WardHall@ufv.ca or thn@ufv.ca

References

The Chilliwack Progress. (2018, March 2). UFV harm reduction initiative offers free Naloxone training and kits. Retrieved from https://www.theprogress.com/news/ufv-harm-reduction initiative-offers-free-naloxone-training-and-kits/.

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The Death of Raffi Balian

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/27

There was the death of a harm reduction worker. The man was Raffi Balian who died, recently. There was the Drug Users’ Memorial on Friday February 16th at the South Riverdale Community Health Center or SRCHC.

Many spoke about the impact of this harm reduction worker and lifelong advocate for those who are users and even misusers of drugs. Balian was one of the founders and the coordinator of the SRCHC award-winning COUNTERfit harm reduction program.

Recently, it had expanded to include a safe-injection service called KeepSIX. Unfortunately, at the age of 60, Balian died on attending a national about supervised consumption. The day of death was February 16^th.

There were about 50 people who mourned the death in the Leslieville centre. There were songs, prayers, a smudge ceremony, as well as the reminiscences of the good times. Carol Lee who is the person who runs the SRCHC Drug Users’ Memorial Project talked about the “ruthless war on drugs.”

Lee read a few lines that Balian wrote in May of 2012 as well. A well-known harm reduction worker in Toronto who co-founded the Moss Park overdose prevention site name is Zoe Dodd talked about the untimely death of Balian as well as the loss of others that she knew and cared for.

Often, there is a focus on the people who misuse drugs, overdose, and even die without appropriate trained care and naloxone present. However, there are the long-term advocates and workers.

Here we are dealing with the death of a highly valued member on the other side, someone who impacted the lives of the users that worked to improve their own livelihood, even hoping to save some lives.

Unfortunately, those who are helping those who misuse substance can die in the midst of their own advocacy at work as well. “Today we are remembering people who have been lost to us. … people who have been prematurely robbed of their lives,” said Lynne Raskin, SRCHC’s executive director.

References

Lavoie, J. (2014, February 21). Harm reduction worker remembered at Leslieville memorial. Retrieved from https://www.toronto.com/news-story/8145017-harm-reduction-worker remembered-at-leslieville-memorial/.

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https://torontopsychedelic.net/events/

Psychedelic Career Day: March 3, 2018

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/26

Psychedelic Career Day is hosted by the Toronto Psychedelic Society on March 3, 2018 via Zoom in a webinar. There will, in addition to the Zoom webinar, be a live event hosted at the University of Toronto.

The Keynote address will be by Dr. Ben Sessa. After the keynote address by Dr. Sessa, the Psychedelic Career Day will be hosted by Daniel Greig from Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy. The panel will include individuals including Rita Kočárová, David Wilder, Dr. Anne Wagner, Trevor Millar, and Alison McMahon.

Many people interested in psychedelia can go by the title “psychonauts.” One reason for this event is to discuss and present the experiences of those who have gone into the world and build a life for themselves in areas less well-trodden. How do you build an academic or professional career in the realm of psychedelia?

Psychedelic Career Day is one effort to bridge that gap and define some paths forward, especially in the university research system for work and investigation in-depth into psychedelics.

You can find more information out about the event here:

Good wishes and see you there!

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David Wilder Interview on Psychedelic Career Day

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/25

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you become interested in the discipline of psychedelia?

David Wilder: I was actually pretty opposed to all drug use when I grew up and it wasn’t until I got to college and began experimenting with drinking alcohol that I loosened up enough to try cannabis a few times. It didn’t have much effect on me the first few times (probably because I wasn’t actually inhaling properly), and eventually the people I was hanging out with bought some salvia divinorum to try. Without any knowledge of what I was getting into, I joined them one time while they were smoking the extract and ended up having an extremely intense out-of body experience where I was looking down on myself from above. That experience threw me for quite a loop and gave me a lot to think about. Later that summer I traveled to Europe and purchased some psilocybin mushrooms from a smart shop in Amsterdam. I ate them and had a life-changing transformative trip which showed me quite a few things that I needed to work on. When I got back to America, I became somewhat obsessed with learning as much as I could about psychedelics, reading lots of books, watching tons of videos, and listening to podcasts about psychedelics. It’s been over ten years since that summer back in college and I’m still consuming a lot of psychedelic content to learn as much as I can.

Jacobsen: What is the purpose and content of Psychedelic Career Day?

Wilder: This event is designed to facilitate a conversation about how people can create a career related to psychedelics. I’m a freelance writer that spends a significant amount of time writing about psychedelics, and the rest of the panel consists of psychedelic researchers, an event organizer, an entrepreneur, and a Ibogaine facilitator. I’m very interested in what these panelists have to say about their own careers, and hope that as a group we are able to give some inspiration to people out there who are wondering what type of psychedelic career they can create.

Jacobsen: You have a wide range of interests including “music, reading and writing, plant based diets, fitness, meditation and yoga, psychoactive drugs, gardening, alternative economics and self-development.” How does Think Wilder provide an outlet these?

Wilder: My blog Think Wilder is a place where I can write about my interests in an effort to spread information to others. I have a weekly “This Week in Psychedelics” column where I link to a wide variety of psychedelic-related articles that show up each week in the news. Some of these articles focus on the risks that can come from taking psychedelics, while others delve into their benefits. The column is intended to catalogue how psychedelics are presented by the mass media, which includes everything from the latest scientific research to misinformation. I also write a weekly “Weekend Thoughts” column, which briefly talks about some of the things that have happened in the previous week. That column tends to focus a lot on news about technology, which is another topic I’m very interested in. In addition to those two weekly columns, I have published a few “how to” articles about various meditation techniques and several book reviews that cover the topics that you mentioned. Ultimately, my blog is a place for me to work on my writing ability and express the things that I’m thinking about to the wider world.

Jacobsen: What will be your own contribution to the panel?

Wilder: I will be speaking for 5-10 minutes about my personal background and history with psychedelics before diving into some of the tips and tricks that I wrote about in my “Continuing Further Education with Psychedelics” article that is published on Psychedelic Times and then talking about a few psychedelic careers that are options for people who want to create a psychedelic career. Although I don’t have the same wealth of professional experiences with psychedelics that the other panelists have, I’m hoping that talking about my story as a freelance writer will help upcoming psychedelic content creators to think about how they can carve out their own careers.

Jacobsen: How do you hope to help the younger generations explore the world of psychedelia?

Wilder: My hope is that we see a lot of different types of careers bloom out of the psychedelic community. One potential path that younger people can take is to study psychedelics in college and become psychedelic researchers or trained therapists that can help people integrate their psychedelic experiences. In addition, some people may want to get involved with drug policy work, while others could become content creators and help expand the conversation about psychedelics even further. It’s an exciting time to be involved, because although there are a ton of options available to pursue.

Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?

Wilder: I think that about sums it up for me. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today, and I am looking forward to participating in the webinar!

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Interview with Daniel Greig of CSSDP on Psychedelic Career Day

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/23

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Psychedelic Career Day, what is the event? Why is it important for those interested in entering the career of the discipline of psychedelia?

Daniel Greig: The career day is a panel of a bunch of people who are working within the field of psychedelic research and, more broadly, they research with substances traditionally considered either recreational or not useful given the history of drug laws.

So, we do have one panelist focusing on cannabis. But the majority are focused on doing the research or writing about the research in the Psychedelic Rennaissance. It is the reintroduction of psychedelics into research settings.

There will be many jobs opening up in relation to this field of study. It has been rocky trying to do this research over the last 40 or 50 years because of the strict legal restrictions on utilizing a lot of these compounds.

Those have been loosened. The general public has moved to from away from being fearful about psychedelic compounds. The benefits are becoming known about for e.g. DMT, Ketamine, and MDMA.

MDMA has been given breakthrough therapy status by the FDA in the United States, a huge change compared to the approach in the 90s where MDMA was demonized as the rave drug.

The common example of that is where you would see: “This is your brain on drugs. These drugs make holes in your brain.” That is the discourse we have been having to put up with for a long time.

Nowadays, there is less of that and more positive information coming out, more objective information coming out. The objective case is these are positive for wellbeing in a number of ways.

A lot of people and students especially are interested in that. This panel is important for giving people the tools they need to pursue careers in this field within legitimate institutions, within Academia and therapeutic contexts.

This panel is about bringing the information to a bunch of eager and willing people who want to work in this field, making it more possible that they can do that effectively.

Jacobsen: With respect to the panelists who were invited to the one you will be hosting, what will be the things that they will be bringing to that panel in general?

Greig: A lot of these people are new for me to talk to. I am familiar with Ben Sessa’s work. He is a longrunning and published author on the effects of MDMA in psychotherapy.

He even started the Breaking Convention Conference in the United Kingdom. I am really interested to talk to him and see his experience in the field and the things he has been able to get up to in this fairly restricted field up until this point.

David Wilder, he is a blogger. So, a bit more of a casual perspective on what sorts of jobs are available in the field because there are plenty of people interested in psychedelics as a philosophical starting point.

He explores psychedelics, spirituality, technology, and self-development. He does a lot of educational events related to his writing work. That is also an interesting avenue for people to be engaging in this research. What are the implications of psychedelics more generally for our technological society?

Also, Anne Wagner, I am familiar with her work. She is a great speaker and has an excellent perspective on this.

She works out of Ryerson University. She is working on research work with MDMA and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. She is more of an institutional figure, someone with a research and medical background. This is what a lot of people are going to be looking for when having careers of this kind.

Then we also have Trevor Millar who is an entrepreneur. He does his own Ibogaine facilitation as far as I understand. He makes that available to people. It will be interesting to get that perspective as well because there are people looking for legal ways to integrate people into having psychedelic healing, which isn’t quite on the table right now for the widespread population – in typical legal avenues.

We have a little bit of everything here. A good diversity of focus on different areas, different subsets, of psychedelic research. The Ibogaine experience is different from the MDMA experience is different from the cannabis experience.

As a result, there are a lot of different pathways for people to work with those compounds in different ways. We have a good array of voices to look forward to.

Jacobsen: For those with an interest in following through on not necessarily attendance at Psychedelic Career Day, though that will be a valuable venue for them to gather some information as well as meet some of the personalities, what other resources can facilitate their own self-exploration into the psychedelic world?

Greig: I would start with recommending with getting on the mailing list for all of the research institutions that are working on this stuff. You have MAPS Canada. If you give a donation, you will receive information on their research and events they are affiliated with.

That is a good way to keep in the loop. There is also The Beckley Foundation. You can keep up with them for updates on their research and events. they often collaborate with the organization MAPS as well.

They were both major contributors to the Psychedelic Science Conference that happens regularly in California. On top of keeping up to date with these research bodies, it is also important to stay in the know and connected to the community around you.

Whether that means attending conferences in your area that are related to psychedelics, in Toronto, there is more of that happening. I host the Mapping the Mind with Mushrooms Conference every September. It happens at the University of Toronto.

There was a recent one called From Microdosing to Mystical Experiences hosted by the Toronto Psychedelic Society. Those things are a great way to keep in the loop. I know there are similar events in Vancouver because MAPS Canada has their headquarters in Vancouver.

It is a fruitful ground for a lot of educational events and community integration events. If you do not have access to those things, there are more psychedelic societies popping up.

One started in Hamilton, Ontario and another in Toronto, recently. One of the reason this career panel is so widespread and available across the globe is because of the interactive network of psychedelic societies.

Getting involved with that is a good way of linking into the network and fostering ideas about psychedelics, self-exploration in regards to that, and the network is the most important thing, I think.

If you want to do the work in this field, you have to know the people; it is a great way to facilitate the efficacy of the psychedelic movement.

If you are a student at a university and want to be working in this, it is good to be open to the potential professors and supervisors in your area. One of the best resources you have, if you want to be working for psychedelics, is yourself. You as an individual can help bring psychedelic compounds back into the institution by being forward about the backing that we have from empirical research, proposing an independent study or research projects that you can be collaborating on with your supervisors or professors. That will ultimately be the most helpful thing. It is taking those steps to make things happen.

Jacobsen: The end. Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Daniel.

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Interview with Trevor Millar – Founder, Liberty Root Therapy Ltd.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/22

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was the basis for the invitation to the panel for Psychedelic Career Day? What are you hoping to bring to it in general terms?

Trevor Millar: I was a speaker at the Psychedelic Psychotherapy Forum held in October a couple of years ago in Victoria. That is where I met Bradley Foster who invited me to be a part of the upcoming Career Day. My company is called Liberty Root Therapy Ltd. (www.libertyroot.net) We have been operating it for the last 4 years providing the psychedelic plant medicine Ibogaine to those who feel called to it and qualify.

We work mostly with opioid addicts, as it is a powerful addiction interrupter. Since last May, I have not been doing much hands on work as there have been some regulatory changes in Canada. I have been focused on the big picture on how we can make this medicine available to more people.

To what I give to this panel, I have the unique experience of actually running a business in Canada giving psychedelics to people, legally, with Health Canada knowing about it. I bring a unique perspective having operated a company that has given psychedelic therapy to more than 200 people.

Jacobsen: How does Ibogaine work to be an addiction interrupter?

Millar: The backstory is that it comes from the Iboga shrub. It has been used ceremonially for centuries in Africa in the Bwiti tradition. They claim the pygmies gave it to them. It is used ‘in the jungle’ for healing on many levels as well as initiation into adulthood and the tribe in general.

In 1962, a heroin addict in New York City by the name of Howard Lotsof had a chemist buddy who knew that he would try anything. He asked him to try Ibogaine, and he did. This sent him on a long psychedelic trip, it can be as long as 36-hours, but when he came out the other end he realized he hadn’t wanted heroin the whole time he’d been on it, nor did he want it

anymore. That is when its anti-addictive properties were discovered.

He became a champion for the medicine and got the right people to pay attention to some degree. He founded the Global Ibogaine Therapy Alliance and established some standards of care. I was recently the Executive Director of that organization. (www.ibogainealliance.org)

It seems to scrub the opiate receptors and bring people to an opiate naive state. We treat mostly opioid addicts; it helps to interrupt any negative pattern a person wants to overcome including most drugs.

But it works especially well for opioids. It helps people get off the drug without the pain of withdrawal, which can drag out for months and months. We bring clients in for 10 days.

We have a doctor working with us to prescribe morphine. a short-acting opioid, so they would be on that for the first day or so to stabilize.

Then we tend to low dose with Ibogaine for one or two days. The way that works is somebody wakes up in the morning, has a bit of withdrawal, and then we give them a small dose of Ibogaine and the withdrawals are taken away for 4-6 hours.

When the withdrawals come back, we put them back on morphine. Because the Ibogaine has done some of its work, we only need to go in with about half as much of the opioid. We do that for a couple of days and ween them off the opiate as much as possible before the next day, which is when we bring in a registered nurse and do the ‘flood dose’ of Ibogaine.

This is the full 36-hour long experience. As I said, we bring in a registered nurse. Ibogaine is potentially deadly. There is a big screening process prior to bringing any clients come in, including an ECG to check their heart as well as blood work.

During that 36-hour long experience, it is, as far as I as a non-patient is concerned, a person lying on a bed. But the first 8-12 hours a person will go through something that’s been called an oneiric experience, or “as related to dreams.”

As with many psychedelic psychotherapies, you may relive past traumatic events, but see it from a different context so some forgiveness may happen there. It is hard to describe the experience adequately.

The first 6-12 hours contains most of the ‘bells and whistles’, then the following 24 provides a lot of time to reflect. Eventually they’ll get some sleep and if we need to do it, we can give some booster medicine if there are any other withdrawals.

For the most part, after the flood, they are physically free of opiates. Generally, the cravings have disappeared. Withdrawal from opiates is normally dire pain for anywhere from a couple days to a couple months with some of post-acute symptoms often extending six months or more. With Ibogaine most of this is addressed in a few days. It’s such a gift.

It is amazing to see. People still to have decisions to make out the other end of the treatment, so it is not a 100% success rate overall. We see long-term in the unscientific studies that we have done out of Liberty Root a 60-65% success rate treating these addicts.

It blows regular addiction statistics out of the water. That number correlates with the general consensus around the success of Ibogaine. Some of the more scientific studies done tend to show around a 50% success rate on average.

Jacobsen: How might this apply to the opioid epidemic ongoing in the country at the moment?

Millar: It is a really great solution!

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Millar: The way Ibogaine has been classified for the last 4 or 5 years when I was working with it. It was classified as a natural health product within Canada. That meant that it was regulated to a certain degree, but wasn’t regulated to the point where a person would be breaking a law by using it.

In May, it was put on the prescription drug list. I think it is where it should be because it is potentially dangerous. A natural health product should not be potentially dangerous. It is good that it was put on the prescription drug list.

But in order to be available, it needs to get a drug identifier number. To get that drug identifier number, you need to have the stage 1, 2, 3 clinical trials in order for Health Canada to say, “This is how the drug should be used.

It is currently in a regulatory Twilight Zone. My aim is to move it beyond that Twilight Zone. But it would be huge in piece in trying to fix this opioid crisis. It is definitely not for everybody. The way I started to use this medicine was to look for ways to help the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver.

It was a passion project that I started in 2001, and in 2009 Ibogaine came on the radar as a potential solution. The right synchronicities happened to have the right doors open. I was able to put together a great team for this.

Our philosophy was we will take paying customers and then use some profits take people from the Downtown Eastside and help them. We helped a good few people out of that neighborhood.

The people we’ve helped from that hood are doing great from what I know; I am in touch with a couple of them. One has a job and an apartment. He told me that he has $5,000 that he wants to invest in something [Laughing]. To go from being homeless on the Downtown Eastside, staying in a shelter; going through this process, getting on his feet enough that now he’s asking me about how to invest $5K in cryptocurrencies. It’s pretty amazing. [Laughing].

Ibogaine is not for everybody. I work with people on the Downtown Eastside for months before I give them medicine. You do not want to pluck somebody out, give them Ibogaine, then drop them back in. That will not work. But it can be a big piece of the puzzle in fixing this opioid crisis with the proper pre-care and aftercare. It deserves some attention. That’s my goal.

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Interview with Alison McMahon – Founder & CEO, Cannabis at Work

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/20

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You are going to be presenting at the Psychedelic Career Day on a panel. What will be your angle of presentation? What will you be bringing to the panel?

Alison McMahon: The panel is talking about how the various panelists got into their careers. In my case, it is focused on cannabis and cannabis legalization. I will be sharing my journey of how I got into this sector.

Jacobsen: With regards to the field of psychedelia, some of the conversations around Psychedelic Career Day is that the university system does not necessarily see the psychedelic field as a legitimate discipline or field of study. Why do you consider psychedelia a legitimate field of study?

McMahon: I will talk from the cannabis background, which crosses over and is relevant. To be frank, I am not an expert in the psychedelic field. I was asked to participate in the panel and I find it very interesting. I am happy to share my background as a much as possible.

When we look at cannabis, given the scheduling of cannabis as a schedule 1 drug in the US and a schedule 2 drug in Canada, it has lead to a lot of limitations in terms of studying cannabis for medical purposes.

We are starting to see some movement and some change now. But what that means, is we are behind when it comes to the science of cannabis and being able to speak to its medical benefits and medical efficacy.

With some of the psychedelic drugs, it is a similar situation; there have been limitations on studying them for medical purposes. So, that limits the amount of knowledge that we have on the medical benefits or the medical potential and the amount of application that we have seen of those substances for medical or therapeutic reasons.

Jacobsen: Taking on step away from the particular panel, as well as Psychedelic Career Day, though associated with it, you found Cannabis at Work. What inspired you to found it? In other words, where did you see a need that you could found an organization that could fulfill that need?

McMahon: I was a human resources specialist and an entrepreneur prior to this work. I was involved in human resources. I helped employers with a variety of human resources topics. In 2015, in the Summer, I started to see and hear more about cannabis in the news.

It started along with what was happening in the US at the state level. It was pre-Trudeau, but, he was running and marijuana was part of his platform. It was a time when cannabis started to hit my radar more.

I realized that it was, on the one hand, one big opportunity for drug reform. I realized that there is a really big challenge for employers, especially, in the sectors that have employees that may have been prescribed cannabis medically, but the employer is really uneducated about the complexities between strains with THC or CBD in them – and how that affects impairment or not.

I realized there was a gap in knowledge. That there was something they were grappling with. It was helping employers gain knowledge and also update their own drug and alcohol policies while maintaining workplace safety and being respectful of human rights for individuals who are using cannabis for medical purposes.

Due to our participation in the cannabis sector in Canada, around Cannabis at Work, in the Spring of last year with the legalization of marijuana announcement, that is when we launched our staffing division. That makes us Canada’s only staffing agency focusing exclusively on the regulated cannabis sector in Canada.

Jacobsen: Often, with psychedelics and non-psychedelics, there are myths in the public mind. You mentioned some. What are one or two of those bigger myths that float around? What are the empirical truths that dispel them?

McMahon: I think that the biggest myth or point of fear for employers is using medical cannabis is that the employee will be high all of the time and be a huge safety or productivity risk in the workplace. Employers and the general public do not understand some of the nuances of medical cannabis.

Somebody, if they are taking it in the evening and they do not work until 12 or more hours later the next day, they may not be impaired, but they may be able to continue doing their job. There may not need to be any formal accommodation of that.

I think that is probably the biggest challenge, which is the lack of nuance in knowledge about cannabis. Everyone views cannabis as an impairment causing substance. But people can be using these strains with very little THC in them.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Alison.

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First Nations Conference in Vancouver, BC

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/08

The first First Nations mental health and wellness conference will be taking place in Vancouver, British Columbia. Mental health and substance abuse are major issues for the First Nations Community within Canada.

Elders, educators, well as community leaders and care providers amount tohundreds of people

will meet in Vancouver to discuss these issues in a formal conference setting. The difficulties can be focused on children as well provincial care.

The number of suicides from opioid overdoses in First Nations communities are farhigher than the rest of the general BC population. Some note that things we see with things like suicides and deaths are symptoms of things such as century of assimilation policies and racism.

Grand Chief Doug Kelly, chair of the First Nations Health Council, said, “I’m full of good feelings and I’m full of hope because there’s 600 leaders and caregivers that want to make a difference… We’re dealing with some very difficult things.”

The conversations will focus on pragmatic concerns, i.e., the tangible solutions to deal with mental health issues including those that could lead to a suicide or coping with opioids that are actually laced with fentanyl leading to an overdose death.

Mark Matthew, the manager of Engagement and coordination health authority,

considers this a praiseworthy conference. He said, “It’s important that we talk about these difficult things because if we don’t start talking about them, how can the healing really start?”

References

Bellrichards, C. (2018, February 8). First of its kind First Nations mental health and wellness conference takes place in Vancouver. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/first nations-mental-health-wellness-conference-1.4525865.

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Karmik is Here to Help with Nightlife

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/04

British Columbia harm reduction organizations are hoping to improve the safety of nightlife in Victoria, British Columbia. Organizations such as Karmik. The new chapter will be in Victoria, British Columbia.

There will be provisions of drug checking services, eeducation and training in order to reduce the stigma of drug use in order to help with the prevention of overbose deaths, as well as help with the peer support at the events.

Given the severity of the fentanyl crisis throughout 2017, and arguably earlier, the organization is important for the improvement of the safety standards in the nightlife scene. Young people want to have fun in a responsible and safe manner.

Uunfortunately, these substances can be laced with things like Fentanyl. But organizations run by decent people such as those at Karmik are providing a way for safer nightlife.

If you want to help out with the organization, you can look into the website in order to look into various ways of contributing to the organization and in a way to the community of nightlife substitute is looking for a safe, responsible, and mutually respectful environment to enjoy a good party.

References

Dimoff, A. (2018, February 4). B.C. harm reduction organization hopes to improve nightlife safety in Victoria. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/karmik harm-reduction-victoria-1.4518129.

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Mothers Gather as a Force for Harm Reduction

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/22

You go about daily life, wander from the kitchen to grab coffee, and back to the fridge for some foodstuffs to make the sandwich for your son’s lunch before he heads off to school. He is in grade 12, but having troubles.

Communication, though good in the past, has gotten worse over the high school years. You begin to lose contact on the what’s what of your son’s activities. You go to his room to wake him up: knock, knock, knock, in a gentle rhythm.

No answer, curious panic, you turn the knob, push gentle on the door, and peek in. He’s not there. You are worried, don’t know where he is or where he went last night. You hear a knock, knock, knock – solid, loud, authoritative, at your door.

A rhythm reminiscent of that which you knocked at your son’s door. You feel a sting of uncertainty and panic. You rush to the front door, peek through the eyehole as you press your face to the door.

It’s the RCMP. You open the door and get the news. Your child, your son, died from an opioid overdose the night before. This, of course, is a tale. But the theme of the experience is becoming a common death experience on the part of families across the country. Parents losing children.

Mothers do not want to have to deal with this anymore, as the public reaction is not swift. Some are mobilizing for the implementation of the only methodology with evidence behind it. That being harm reduction.

One mother is Tina Kavanagh, who’s son is David. He left rehabilitation in September of 2017. “I was really worried knowing he was out because fentanyl was introduced to Cambridge [Ont.] six months prior to him getting out of rehab.”

On October 12^thof 2017, only two weeks after David left the halfway house in Kitchener, Ontario. Kavanagh received a call. His cousin’s wife had found David’s lifeless body at 6:15 am.

You see the thematic similarities. There was a syringe in David’s hand. Harm reduction is a needed methodology for the improvement of community health and to save individual lives like David.

Kavanagh suspects there was an injection of heroin laced with fentanyl that lead to the death of Death. Although, the toxicology report, at the time of the article, had not come out (Ibid.). Fentanyl is 100x more powerful than morphine.

The expected deaths from 2017 were 4,000 in 2017 alone. There was a plan of action launched in November of 2016 to help deal with the ongoing crisis through the territories and provinces of the country.

The number of opioid-related deaths was expected to hit at least 4,000 by the end of last year. In November, 2016, the federal government launched an action plan to address the far-reaching crisis with the provinces and territories.

In Wabana, Bell Island, Kavanagh and other mothers of intravenous drug users are gathering together to work for the benefit of the general public through “stocking an RV with clean needles and information on harm reduction, recovery options, rehab programs and drug counselling.”

Other women, such as Susan Boone, have undergone a similar tragedy with the almost overdose death of her 24-year-old daughter. Boone says, “Harm reduction is paramount. If they’re sick and dying of disease, they’re never going to get better.”

Another mother named Sheila Lahey has a son who is a drug user. She runs a needle exchange program out of her home. She, of course, gets support, which comes from the Safe Works Access Program, as well as a local activist named Brian Rees.

Rees takes a 4-hour trip to exchange dirty needles for the clean ones. About a dozen people use the service per day. Over 12,000 needles were collected and disposed – for the public good and deserving commendation – of, by the community of Wabana.

“I was shocked at how much they’re going through – how really bad this situation is,” Lahey said. Her own 33-year-old son went from full-time work as an electrician to heavily indebted and on social assistance based on a cocaine habit.

Wabana Mayor Gary Gosine lost a 35-year-old nephew from an overdose. The mayor is leading a grassroots harm reduction movement as well.

Kavanagh said, “As long as I keep myself busy with keeping David’s memory going, I’m okay…I just want to keep his memory alive.” That is at least a start, and definitely a driving heart behind the compassionate efforts of harm reduction.

References

Jones, L. (2018, January 16). Mothers band together for harm reduction. Retrieved from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/amid-opioid-crisis-mothers-band-together-for harmreduction/article37631505/.

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Needles Potentially Placed Deliberately in Victoria, BC

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/20

One Victoria Island Health official speculated on the potential of sabotage by opponents of harm reductions based on reportage by the Victoria, British Columbia police of an increase in the quantity of discarded syringes (Britten, 2018; CBC News, 2018a).

This did have consequences because a three-year-old child on Pandora Avenue was pricked with a needle as well as a similar event with a woman finding two needles. The needles, according to the local police, were deliberately placed (Ibid.; CBC News, 2018b).

The Chief Medical Health Officer for the health authority, Dr. Richard Stanwick, speculated that some Canadian citizens with misgivings or disinclinations for support of harm reduction philosophy and methodologies planted the objects.

“What we are really concerned about is that this isn’t some sort of effort to discredit efforts around harm reduction,” Stanwick stated. As well, he noted that there is legal and research evidence to strongly support the claim that drug use has a huge stigma.

Linked to the stigma, the opponents, based on the many cases of academic and legal evidence, may be ‘activists’ of a sort and plant the needles in opposition to the harm reduction gaining further public acceptance.

Stanwick stated the public finds fewer deliberately discarded needles. “The events are so basically scattered,” Stanwick said, “It doesn’t appear that there is any distinct pattern to them other than they happened over time.”

The concern still remains about public safety hazards with the potentially deliberately placed needles in public places, as in the case of the 3-year-old. The Director of Solid Outreach, which is a drug user network, said, “Within the street community, most people would be very upset with people for leaving needles behind even just in the street, let alone in a more threatening manner.”

References

Britten, L. (2018, January 18). Health official suggests Victoria syringes may have been placed by harm reduction opponents. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british columbia/victoria-syringe-discarded-island-health-1.4492552.

CBC News. (2018a, January 17). Victoria officials concerned by spike in discarded needle prickings. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/victoria-officials concerned-by-spike-in-needle-prickings-1.4490762.

CBC News. (2018b, January 15). Victoria woman finds syringe police believe was ‘deliberately placed’ in planter box. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/victoria police-vicpd-syringe-1.4488965.

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Bundale on the Upcoming Market for Cannabis

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/01

Brett Bundale talked about the end of cannabis prohibition in the Hamilton Spectator (2017). He proposes the thought experiment that the new providers for cannabis, the seller, will have outlets that are “very chic, very modern” with a clean look to them.

Only 6 or 7 months to go – 7 at the time of the article – before recreational cannabis begins to be legalized throughout the Canadian provinces and territories. The sellers are looking to capitalize on the days right after legalization, as there surely is a dormant market for cannabis that is bond to flourish in a Canada where marijuana use is widely accepted.

But the details as to what the purchase of over-the-counter recreational cannabis will look like is much in discussion and not certain. A lawyer from Ottawa, Trina Fraser, said, “Think more like tobacco as opposed to alcohol…It’s not going to be like you’ll walk in and there are samples.”

There are some hints such as New Brunswick’s with the retail scheme apparently “the most advanced among the province,” Bundale notes, “The province has issued construction specs featuring a standalone brick store with a black awning featuring the CannabisNB logo.”

The staff in the building will inform the potential customers about safe and responsible recreational cannabis use tied to harm reduction. The explanations will include the law of the area.

“In a single day, buying cannabis will go from a black-market purchase, steeped in surreptitious dealings and paranoid dealers, to a modern shopping experience,” Bundale stated, “A drug long condemned as the stuff of street gangs, organized crime and outlaw motorcycle clubs will be branded, packaged and displayed in stores.”

There will be an excise tax as well as consumption taxes too.

Saskatchewan wants or is looking into a private model. Yukon may limit the selling to the outlets run by the government; whereas, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut remain in consultations with the public.

Bundale said, “Governments are also still hammering out exactly how much the product will cost, how much it will be taxed, the minimum age for buyers, where smoking pot will be legal and driving impairment rules.”

A policy analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute in Toronto, Ontario – which states that it is most influential think tank in the nation, in Canada. – named Rosalie Wyonch said, “For the provinces that will go Crown corporation for retail, it’s probably going to be a very polished experience.”

Wyonch stated that the privately sold cannabis outlets will have a variety or a “spectrum” of provisions based on the price tags. CSSDP’s own Jenna Valleriani, who is a University of Toronto Ph.D. candidate said that buying cannabis must be more convenient in order to fulfill the original goal of eliminating th black market.

“For people who have purchased from a friend or acquaintance for 15 years, those are really hard purchasing patterns to shift,” she says. “If you did have to go to a retail shop and wait in line for an hour, that’s likely going to deter people from going there.”

Bundale, B. (2017, December 26). What legal weed stores will look like: ‘Very chic, very modern, very clean-cut’. Retrieved from https://www.thespec.com/news-story/8022569-what legal-weed-stores-will-look-like-very-chic-very-modern-very-clean-cut-/.

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Safe Needles for Southeastern Manitoba

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/31

Southeast Manitoba has been encouraging some of its injection drug users to take advantage of a new program developed to reduce the risk to their health and wellness, which appears to be based on harm reduction principles (MacLean, 2017).

The free needle exchange program will have made available through Southern Health-Santé Sud in order to expand harm reduction programs in rural areas. recently rolled out its free needle program at all public health offices across the region in an effort to expand harm reduction programs to rural areas.

Regional Director Public Health-Healthy Living, Stephanie Verhoeven, said, “We don’t have specific information on what’s happening in our region but we do know that drug use does exist in rural Manitoba, and we know that we’re a small province and people tend to move around a lot.”

Much of Manitoba becomes – and in particular Winnipeg – the comparison case for this sector. With the offer of the service in rural areas, Verhoeven says, the service which Winnipeg has been providing for a long time, then the service will be provided to the rest of the province as well.

The Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority also has needle exchange program since 2015’s summer. The concern tends to come from concern about the cleanliness of the needles used and potentially reused by users, and so the same in this case.

Without proper supplies, clean stuff, the substance users and unfortunately the misusers will continue to use discarded needles. This increases the probability of the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C.

“It’s hard to say exactly how many people’s lives you’re touching when you make supplies accessible in this way,” she said.

The health region advises the public, if they come across discarded needles to do the following:

∙ Use a sharps container, or a thick plastic bottle like a bleach container. Don’t use glass, which can break.

∙ Put the container on a stable surface.

∙ Wear thick gloves.

∙ Use tongs, pliers or tweezers to pick up needles.

∙ Put the needle in the container and tape closed.

∙ Wash your hands.

∙ Drop off the container at a public health office or a pharmacy that accepts used needles. ∙ Do not put the container in a recycling bin.

If you are pricked by a needle:

∙ Allow the wound to bleed freely.

∙ Don’t squeeze to encourage bleeding.

∙ Quickly wash the area with soap and water.

∙ Go to an emergency department.

References

MacLean, C. (2017, December 29). Southern health region launches safe needle program for drug users. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/injection-drugs-needles southern-health-1.4467128.

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http://thestarphoenix.com/news/local-news/harm-reduction.

Harm Reduction Helps Indigenous Populations in Saskatchewan

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/20

Erin Petrow of the Saskatoon Starphoenix wrote on Indigenous communities within Saskatchewan showing signs of improvement with harm reduction practices implemented inside of the community (2017).

Dr. Ibrahim Khan, the chief medical health officer for Health Canada’s First Nations and Inuit Health Branch in Saskatchewan, noted a 10 % increase in HIV, while at the same time there has been a “massive increase of HIV testing in these communities.”

“The whole point in the HIV and Hepatitis C story is the earlier you can diagnose, the better you have a handle on stopping the spread,” Khan said, “but we want to increase that number — we want to even double that number in the coming years — so that testing is not an barrier.”

Harm reduction’s focus on the lowered harm to communities in spite of drug use becomes an important part of the message from Khan. Where the improvement in community outcomes comes from prevention, one big part of prevention is testing to identify in order to diagnose and treat, which can reduce negative long-term outcomes.

19 Indigenous communities throughout the province of Saskatchewan care for patients with the harm reduction approach through non-judgment. Other aspects of harm reduction relevant to the current opioid crisis include safe drug injective sites with safe needle exchange programs in addition to naloxone kits to avoid the potential fatal consequences of overdoses.

One big barrier for Indigenous populations around public services for drugs is the stigma associated with drug use and misuse in general. Khan says that is the biggest hurdle to access and treatment. HIV infection in Saskatchewan reserves sits at 14.5 people per 100,000. Southern Saskatchewan reserves have the highest rates at 108 per 100,000 people.

References

Petrow, E. (2017, December 4). Massive increase in HIV testing contributes to effective harm reduction programs in Sask. Indigenous communities. Retrieved from

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Travis Lupick Speaks to Decriminalization and Legalization

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/15

Travis Lupick in the The Globe and Mail argued that decriminalization of some drugs does not go far enough. On Vancouver Island, construction workers completed a safety class. There weren’t ‘instructions on steel toed boots for proper lifting.’

Rather, it was on overdose responsiveness. That overdose responsiveness oriented towards drugs or substances. Clubs and Bars in British Columbia, Canada, have been undergoing similar workshops or trainings.

High schools are also engaged in similar training for teachers. There were 23 fatal overdoses per month in British Columbia in 2012. That was as high as 162 in December 2016. That number is significant across the country, with higher numbers coming out of British Columbia.

Overdoses mean death of family and friends of loved ones in Canada. The overdose epidemic is not to be taken lightly as far as I am concerned, especially for the disproportionately impacted Indigenous population. Overdose prevention sites and naloxone on-site through the streets of British Columbia are one measure to prevent overdoses that could lead to fatalities.

In terms of harm reduction as part of the solution set, it is an important part of it. Lupick spent over three years interviewing allies of drug users and drug users themselves. Some of the views expressed were that even though legalization may not become a reality then decriminalization would be a secondary consideration.

It will be better than nothing in other words. The process of decriminalization would take away penalties for possession of all drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and marijuana. This would look at the demand-side the market. On the supply side of the market, legalization would look at production, distribution, and sale of heroin and cocaine. New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh said Canada should decriminalization personal possession of all drugs in order to divert people away addiction issues from police in prisons

References

Lupick, T. (2017, December 15). Decriminalization doesn’t go far enough. Retrieved from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/decriminalization-doesnt-go-far enough/article37345776/.

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The Sensible Cannabis Education Toolkit

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/27

In September of last year Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy organized a youth roundtable discussion on cannabis legalization in order to gain insights from youth on aspects of legalization that would affect them directly: age restrictions, criminalization, preventative education, and distribution. Attended by 25 diverse youth, and a member of the Task Force on Cannabis Legalization and Regulation, CSSDP produced a final report which highlighted ten main recommendations to emerge from our discussions.

The 2016 Roundtable Results

CSSDP was happy to see some of our recommendations adapted in the Cannabis Act introduced by the federal government. For example, at our roundtable, youth really emphasized the idea that age restrictions should be as low as possible, but not exceeding the age of access for alcohol. This recommendation was made based on the over-criminalization of youth, particularly minority youth, for cannabis related charges.

Many youths felt that an area severely lacking was access to realistic and evidence based cannabis education. The roundtable highlighted how overwhelmed youth feel in an ‘internet age’ where they have access to a plethora of (not always reliable and often competing) information.

Our Cannabis Education Project

Our resulting education project aims to help educators and parents have more effective dialogue with kids that will develop their cannabis and health literacy.

CSSDP hopes to provide a starting point on cannabis education, and we are bringing in diverse youth to help us create, review and edit the final product. Starting with real and honest dialogue based in evidence and harm reduction, CSSDP hopes to gather more input from young people around the country on how to create a comprehensive strategy for cannabis education.

To accomplish this, we need YOUR help. Learn more.

The Toolkit

We hope the Cannabis Education Toolkit will support the development of new cannabis resources, and help educators and parents approach meaningful discussions with their kids about responsible use.

The toolkit is divided into two major sections: the first looks at ten evidence-based recommendations to approaching cannabis education with young people, and the second section presents a pull-away cannabis curriculum which covers Cannabis 101, reasons for use and non use, current evidence around common youth cannabis claims, such as brain development and mental health, as well as harm reduction.

Canada has some of the highest rates of youth who use cannabis, and its time to talk about why people use cannabis, the common health claims around youth cannabis use, factors that lead to misuse, impaired driving, and why cannabis is a social justice issue, among other things, in a non-judgemental and inclusive manner.

And we need youth to be at the heart of this discussion. Interested? Here’s how to get involved.

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CCSA Hosts 7th Harm Reduction Conference

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/14

One of the largest harm reduction conferences is being held, recently. It was in Calgary, Alberta. This is the seventh conference devoted to issues and concerns around substance use and addiction. It is being hosted by the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA).

It is bringing numerous prominent individuals within the relevant fields together for the conference. This included “addiction workers, healthcare professionals, researchers, policymakers, knowledge brokers, and those with lived and living experience from across the country to address the harms of substance use and addiction.”

The main topic area or the thematic orientation of the conference was “Addiction Matters.” It is a three-day conference. The conference is sold out as well. It will have an attendance of 480 people. The presentations and workshops will look at prescription drugs as well as the opioid crisis involving fentanyl.

The Federal Minister of Health Ginette Taylor and the Alberta Associate Minister of Health Brandy Payne will be coming to the conference for 2017. They will be giving short speeches on the first day. The conference is actually paralleling national addictions awareness week, which price to enlighten about substance use an addiction. That is, the stigma surrounding them.

Executive Director of the CCSA, Rita Notarandrea, said, “Addiction and problematic substance use touches us all…This conference brings together representatives of a fragmented, but passionate system of services and supports dedicated to helping the six million Canadians — our mothers and sisters, fathers and brothers, neighbours and friends — touched by this health disorder.”

References

Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction. (2017, November 13). Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction Hosts Canada’s Largest National Conference on Prevention, Harm Reduction, Treatment and Recovery. Retrieved from http://www.newswire.ca/news releases/canadian-centre-on-substance-use-and-addiction-hosts-canadas-largest-national conference-on-prevention-harm-reduction-treatment-and-recovery-657184933.html.

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Homeless, in Winnipeg, and Indigenous Populations, in Canada, at Higher Risk of Substance Associated Deaths

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/12

Harm reduction is an important part of the prevention of deaths associated with drug use, overuse or abuse. In Winnipeg, the vulnerable are the main victims of the opioid crisis. Throughout the country, the most vulnerable are the main victims.

The homeless and the indigenous population within Canada are the typical individuals who you will see dying daily. Various nonprofits, according to Elisha Dacey, are in a panic and rush to be able to cope and deal with the deaths associated with opioid overdoses sourced in substances laced with fentanyl.

The homeless in Winnipeg are the main subjects of death. They need housing. Local advocates for the homeless say this. But they aren’t getting it. So, the homeless are the ones dying daily, as per usual.

Various business owners in West Broadway are frustrated about a homeless camp that sprung up in Winnipeg. The business owners see this area of Winnipeg as profitable, and the homeless as a nuisance to the potential for profit because it is a lucrative area for the business owners.

There can be bike thefts and petty crime in the area. This has been a concern for the Winnipeg Police Service as well as the mayor of Winnipeg too. Many have been saying that the drug use and abuse issues have been getting worse over time.

When it comes to looking for housing solutions for the homeless population, there is tremendous resistance to it. Much of the discussion is looking for ways to have the various public and private businesses and organizations come together within the communities of Manitoba, in particular, to be able to solve the increasing problem of homelessness as well as overdoses associated highly with the homeless population.

In Canada as a whole, a large portion of the homeless population is also indigenous. This is also a major concern. In fact, for me, it is a tremendous concern. Not only in the presence of historical crimes, but also in immediate experience and sympathy for the broken communities and hearts now.

As noted by others, this is the time of reconciliation, so most hope. Indigenous youth who take drugs in British Columbia, for example, will be 13 times more likely to die than any other same age group.

This means both women and men are at a much higher risk of death due to overdose and drug use than every other population, the non-aboriginal population. Many are trying to break the cycle.

But it is a hard struggle. Not only because of their ongoing deaths, but also the ease of access to drugs can be an issue too. Many want to get over the abuse and trauma from the past. However, many do not have appropriate public services.

References

Bellrichard, C. (2012, November 6). Indigenous youth who use drugs in B.C. dying at an alarming rate, study finds. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/indigenous-youth drugs-death-1.4388450.

Dacey, E. (2017, November 12). ‘Survival economy’: Winnipeg’s homeless struggling amid opioid crisis, lack of housing, say advocates. Retrieved

from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/homeless-winnipeg-opioid-survival-support 1.4392958.

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Fentanyl Positive Sample Tests Increase 2,000%

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/12

There has been a surprising increase in the number of positive tests for fentanyl in samples of heroin, which have been seized by the law enforcement agencies throughout the country. It was less than 1% in 2012, moving to about 60% or more in 2017.

In other words, there has been a two thousand percent increase in the percentage. For all street drug samples, it is not a small sample size. The samples tested are about 120,000 in number. Health Canada has not provided an in-depth breakdown of the details for every type of drug test.

However, they have noted that heroin is a particular area of concern.

Of the 2337 heroin samples tested by the drug analysis service of Health Canada, less than 1% had fentanyl or any of its analogs, such as Carfentanil.

That grew to 39.4% out of 3658 samples. In only the first nine months of 2017, of the samples tested, totaling 3,337, the total testing positive for Fentanyl has “jumped” to 60.1%.

It is a substantial increase in the percentage of fentanyl that is part of the samples tested. Other common drugs tested by the service are marijuana, cocaine, oxycodone, MDMA, and many others. It was not found in any marijuana samples, but there have been increases found, of Fentanyl, in cocaine and methamphetamine.

This rapid increase in fentanyl contained within street drugs is a marked concern for the general public as well as Health Canada. Dr. David Juurlink, the head of clinical pharmacology and toxicology at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, found that this was not shocking for him.

This is, simply according to Juurlink, a mirror of the opioid crisis overdose deaths. They are paralleling the increase of positive fentanyl drug test samples. In 2016 alone, Health Canada reports that 2,816 people died from opioid-related causes.

Juurlink says that some of the factors associated with the rapid increase of fentanyl use is due to a general over-prescription of opioids for the reduction of pain. Money is being made by preying on people who need help. This is the opinion of Juurlink.

References

Miller, A. (2017, November 9). EXCLUSIVE 2,000% rise in street drug samples testing positive for fentanyl. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/shocking-rise-of-fentanyl-in-seized street-drugs-1.4393906.

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Abuse of Opioids Does Not Discriminate

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/11

Jesse Stein from The Link wrote about the hard lessons from overdoses (Stein, 2017). Amélie Goyette, who has worked at CACTUS for 13 years (a harm reduction service), described the learned lesson.

The lesson that overdoses inflict themselves upon all sectors of society from the homeless to high-ranking professional people.

CACTUS is organized in Montreal. Some issues with overdoses and drug use in Canada are the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C. For example, CACTUS states that 68% of substance users, who intake the substances via injection, have Hepatitis C.

Harm reduction organizations such as CACTUS offer clean needles and are for safe injection, including appropriate support too,

One of the offers from CACTUS from 2010 was the introduction of “Messagers de rue” devoted to hiring people with financial problems in order to provide clean needles as well as clean the areas with substance users.

Saint Laurent metro is the new place for the services. As per usual, it is an area for substance users to inject in a clean context with trained personnel to assist with, for example, the administration of “naloxone in the case of an overdose” (Ibid.).

Two other harm reduction sites have been opened in Montreal in June, 2017.

Naloxone is an important part of harm reduction services because this provides the possibility for reversal of an overdose, which, effectively, saves lives, saves substance users, and abusers, from the potential of immediate death.

“In her experience, Goyette sees that people often begin with prescription opiates like oxycodone,” Stein said, “before moving on to harder drugs like heroin, since doctors prescribe opiates less than they used to. Goyette says that in general, once a person starts injecting heroin, they never go back to pills.”

Fentanyl has been the main killer, recently, as it is a synthetic opioid. Fentanyl is 10,000 times more potent than morphine (Ibid.).

In addition to trained personnel, experiential background is an important factor too, as CACTUS hires “peer workers” who are those that have prior experience with heroin abuse.

One barrier in communication and prevention of overdoses is the stigma surrounding drugs in Canada. CACTUS is working to reduce the stigma to more effectively combat the crisis, ongoing.

References

Stein, J. (2017, November 7). Community Group CACTUS Strives for Harm-Reduction With Newly-Opened Safe Injection Site. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british columbia/drug-testing-machine-pilot-vancouver-overdose-crisis-1.4396886.

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New Device to be Piloted in British Columbia

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/10

In the midst of the opioid crisis in British Columbia, and arguably across Canada, Vancouver is testing a first-of-its-kind drug examination device.

The drug testing device may help in the reduction of opioid associated overdoses and deaths.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and the British Columbia Addictions Minister Judy Darcy made an announcement about the machine.

This pilot for the device will be through Insite and Powell Street Gateway. It is called the Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectrometer (FTIR).

The new device has the ability to have individual submit anonymous samples of street substances in order to be tested for potential opioid content.

You can also test for stimulants, MDMA, and other drugs. These substances can be today found within minutes. Also, all supervised injection sites within British Columbia will now have Fentanyl test strips, according to Darcy.

She said, “Tackling this overdose crisis takes a whole province … it will take an entire province to turn this around.”

In the province, so far, more than 1,100 people have died based on illicit substance use overdoses.

In September alone, there have been 80 suspected elicit overdose deaths, which is up more than 30% from September in 2016.

Also, the ministry is beginning to ramp up the campaign to reduce stigma. More than nine out of 10 people who are dying from overdoses are using substances while at home, alone.

References

CBC News. (2017, November 10). Drug testing machine to be piloted in Vancouver as overdose crisis continues. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/drug-testing machine-pilot-vancouver-overdose-crisis-1.4396886.

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Red Zones Block Harm Reduction Service Access

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/10

Henry Tran, a Contributor to Simon Fraser University’s The Peak, reported that a new study found the bail conditions on alleged offenders including substance users can prevent overall access in Downtown Eastside Vancouver to harm reduction services (2017).

Professor Nicholas Blomley from Simon Fraser University and a master’s student, William Damon, published the study that said the “red zone” or the “no-go” bail conditions can prevent access to those services.

Based on the reportage from the study, “more than half of the bail conditions for drug offences included a no-go zone, 92 per cent of which were concentrated in the Downtown Eastside.” This is stated, by Tran, to have implications for the well-being and health of substance users in Vancouver.

The red zone blocks access to harm reduction services including overdose prevention and safe injection sites.

The lead researcher in the study, Marie-Eve Sylvestre, said, “Our study reveals that conditions of release are too frequently used in Vancouver in ways that are counterproductive, punitive, and frankly unlawful, threatening fundamental constitutional rights.”

Purported drug use offenders can be susceptible to recidivism, so they can go back into the criminal justice system. “Between 2005 and 2012, 97 per cent of all bail orders in Vancouver included conditions of release,” Tran stated, “which contradicts the Criminal Code requirement of unconditional release, the study outlined.”

The current system, with bail, would violate the right of the individual and others including their security, according to Blomley.

The Government of British Columbia has no address these problems within the criminal justice system.

References

Tran, H. (2017, November 8). Study finds bail ‘no-go’ zones block access to harm-reduction services. Retrieved from https://the-peak.ca/2017/11/study-finds-bail-no-go-zones-block-access to-harm-reduction-services/.

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The Public Have Concerns About Discarded Needles

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/08

Harm reduction continues to grow throughout Canada. With this, there is the provision of Naloxone kits, harm reduction trailers and sites, as well as clean needles for injection drug users. But there have been some reactions from the public on the government to clean up problems with drug use waste, especially intravenous drug user waste such as needles and syringes. There are discarded syringes, which some see as posing a health risk to the general public.

There have been volunteers in parks. They have been tasked with cleaning up various paraphernalia of drugs. Some suggest needle exchange programs are part of the problem with the waste. However, the experts and the public health workers such as social workers and nurses, and researchers, on the ground state that those programs are in fact part of the solution.

There have been rubber gloves and garbage bags put out by volunteers in Ontario and New Brunswick. Some citizens have been taking pictures of needles in some of their local areas and posting them on social media, for public commentary and complaint.

Vancouver Coast Health, as a public agency, is providing needle exchange is as well as safe injection sites for drug users who inject.

That agency provides healthcare for about 1/4 of the British Colombia population. Even though they have been more needles discarded, there has been a “dramatic decline in HIV cases” among the British Colombia drug user population. Those that inject.

Professor Carol Strike from the University of Toronto said, “I’d be concerned if I found a needle in my community, and if I didn’t know a lot about the programs I might make assumptions about where the needle came from and how many there are … the programs that I’ve worked with across the country … don’t want needles in the community either. That’s why they exist, not only to give out needles, but to dispose of them properly,”

This is part of an ongoing public conversation.

References

Goffin, P. (2017, November 7). Residents raise concerns about discarded needles, public health workers say harm reduction programs part of solution. Retrieved from

http://www.metronews.ca/news/canada/2017/11/07/residents-raise-concerns-about-discarded needles-public-health-workers-say-harm-reduction-programs-part-of-solution.html.

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Harm Reduction Trailer Approved for Murray Street

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/08

Health Canada approved the supervised injection site in Ottawa, recently. CBC News reported that the trailer was approved for the Shepherd’s of Hope in Byward Market (Trinh, 2017).

This nearly another unsupervised injection site at Raphael Brunet Park. The Government of Canada published a press release on the importance of harm reduction measures such as supervised injection sites.

Volunteers in Ottawa have said that this supervised injection site is in the centre of the opioid crisis in Ottawa.

The trailer is open 24/7 and stocked with clean needles and naloxone kits. At the moment, the trailer is used for the injections but in the future could be used for drugs users who smoke their substance.

The federal government in a press release said, ‘Supervised consumption sites are an important harm reduction measure and part of the Government of Canada’s comprehensive, collaborative, compassionate and evidence-based approach to drug policy,”

There is a total of eight injection stalls within the trailer for clean drug use by users. The press release continued, “International and Canadian evidence shows that, when properly established and maintained, supervised consumption sites save lives and improve health without increasing drug use or crime in the surrounding area.”

The harm reduction trailer is at the corner of Murray Street and King Edward Avenue. There were 10 overdoses within 24 hours in Ottawa in this part of the city.

The Inner City Health of Ottawa is the government arm responsible and equipped for the “training and hiring the nurses and social workers who will staff the injection trailer.”

For governmental permission for illicit substances with the trailer, the executive director for the group, Wendy Muckle, said, “We had to show what measures we would take to prevent the trafficking of illicit drugs inside the trailer … and how we would make sure clients were safe and secure and staff were safe and secure.” It is a 24/7 trailer.

Inside of the trailer, there have been 50 nurses and social workers hired and trained in the possibility of an overdose, as well the trailer has clean needles and naloxone kits on site.

References

Trinh, J. (2017, November 6). Health Canada approves supervised injection trailer at Ottawa shelter. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/sanctioned-supervised-injection site-trailer-shepherds-of-good-hope-overdose-1.4389413.

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Harm Reduction Tent No Longer Usable in Moss Park

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/06

An, technically, illegal overdose prevention site in the Moss Park of Toronto halted use of an its heated medical tent (Giovannetti, 2017). The heated medical tent was provided by the provincial government, or the Government of Ontario, but the officials on behalf of the government said that there should be no open flames inside of the harm reduction structure.

The Minister of Health and Long Term Care, Eric Hoskin, for Ontario said, last week, that there will be an increase in the provision of resources for dealing with the opioid crisis through the installation of a “military-style tent” (Ibid.).

With windy and cold weather, the warmed harm reduction structure was a refuge for activists and drug users alike. But the commander of the Emergency Medical Assistance Team, or EMAT, of Ontario sent a message to the activists in Moss Park that no flames should be used in the tent. Even though, drugs need heat to be consumed.

The lead organizer of the Toronto Harm Reduction Alliance, Zoe Dodd, said the medical tent had to be abandoned. Now, the activists and users are based to using old tents without insulation.

Dodd said, “I don’t know if they just don’t understand how drugs are prepared. You have to heat up a drug to break down bacteria and the drug itself. I just don’t understand how this happened.”

Hoskin’s office said that oxygen tanks are stored in the tanks in order to assist with resuscitation if needed at any time, but there is a risk with the possibilities of an open flame.

Laura Gallant, who is a spokesperson for the office of Hoskin, said, that there has a lack of communication between activists and the government since the opening of the site in August.

Gallant said the government is looking to provide industrial grade appliances such as hot plates, which would be safe for a tent. But Dodd rejected the proposal because “people do not use got plates to heat up their drugs.”

Dodd’s volunteers, to date, have apparently reversed 85 overdoses and monitored 2,000 injections.

In the nearly three months the site has been operating, volunteers have reversed 85 overdoses and monitored almost 2,000 injections.

Overdoses in Abbotsford

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/06

Canadian citizens have been losing family members, friends, colleagues, and fellow Canadians to the ongoing opioid crisis (CBC Radio, 2017).

A guest on As It Happens, Jolene Greyeyes, said that she has lost over 100 friends due to the crisis (CBC Radio, 2017). Greyeyes is a former addict and harm reduction worker. She may have lost more with five more people dying in Abbotsford, British Columbia (Schmunk, 2017). All within the span of nine hours.

Greyeyes said, “And if I don’t, I know other people that most likely will know them…It’s just a never-ending cycle.” Of the five victims to the crisis in Abbotsford, there were two women and three men.

“It’s another five families impacted by this crisis happening in our city,” Greyeyes said. They ranged in age from 40 to 67; each dying alone. Police are working to find out if the contribution to the deaths was from carfentanil or fentanyl.

The toxicological tests have yet to come back. Between the first and the eighth month of 2017, 1,013 Canadian citizens died from illicit drug overdoses in British Columbia alone, which is according to the British Columbia Coroners Service (CBC News, 2017). It is 91 more deaths than in 2016.

Greyeyes spoke to the need for further education on overdose signs as well as naloxone training. “They have to know the signs of an overdose and they have to have naloxone training and naloxone kits on hand and [know] not to use alone.” she said, “Nobody’s safe out there anymore.”

“We need to really educate the public, even if they don’t think that addiction is something they need to know about, because it’s happening in communities right across British Columbia and it’s not just isolated to people who are homeless or living on the streets. It’s people from all walks of life who are being impacted.”

She iterated that she, personally, would never give up on someone that struggles with an addiction in her own community because she was an addict and knows the pain that these people go through, especially hose losing a loved one.

References

CBC News. (2017, October 12). B.C. overdose deaths now surpass 2016 total, coroner says. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-overdose-deaths-now surpass-2016-total-coroner-says-1.4351608.

CBC Radio. (2017, October 30). After 5 overdose deaths in 9 hours, B.C. harm-reduction worker says ‘nobody’s safe’. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-monday edition-1.4378456/after-5-overdose-deaths-in-9-hours-b-c-harm-reduction-worker-says-nobody s-safe-1.4378464.

Schmunk, R. (2017, October 28). 5 people die of overdoses in Abbotsford within 9 hours on Friday. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/five-overdose-deaths nine-hours-abbotsford-1.4377068.

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Ottawa Vending Machines, Success Plus Concern

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/30

Ottawa’s program for harm reduction, which is a pilot, for needle and pipe vending machines as well as safe injection sites has been a success while make one resident feel unsafe in the neighbourhood now.

There have been more than 250 stems for drug smoking and 600 needles dispensed since the middle of September, according to Ottawa Public Health.

The point for the program was to reduce the number of infectious diseases spread including Hepatitis C and HIV (CTV News, 2017). The infectious diseases can be spread through drug users’ needle and pipe exchanges with one another.

Ottawa Public Health’s communications, Donna Casey, said that the feedback from the ‘clients’ or the clientele was positive. The clients said that the access to the supplies is there when other potential providers are closed.

This is apparently during the night, according to John Becvar who is a harm reduction outreach worker. The most popular harm reduction vending machine is the one in Byward Market by the Ottawa Public Health’s Clarence Street facility.

Laura MacDonald, who is a long time resident of the community, is in support of the harm reduction movement, but finds the new drug users make the community less safe than before. It is a concern to her.

People have used drugs, at her doorstep. MacDonald said, “There’s more people who are dealing drugs. There’s more prostitution. There’s more … things you wouldn’t see on a regular basis, but they’re happening on a daily basis.”

In 2016, Public Health Ontario reported that there were 40 opioid-related deaths in Ottawa (2017).

References

CTV News. (2017, October 29). Ottawa needle-vending machines called a success, but resident says area’s now unsafe. Retrieved from http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/ottawa-needle-vending machines-called-a-success-but-resident-says-area-s-now-unsafe-1.3654205.

Public Health Ontario. (2017, September 19). Opioid-related morbidity and mortality in Ontario. Retrieved from

http://www.publichealthontario.ca/en/dataandanalytics/pages/opioid.aspx?_ga=2.178827748.153 9913755.1495651174-1137714540.1478537187.

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Regina Harm Reduction Advocates Call for Safe Injection Sites

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/22

Harm reduction advocates are looking to have safe injection sites in Regina (Knox, 2017). Many of them or make-shift in places such as homes and alleyways. Saskatchewan, as a province in Canada, has the highest per capita opioid overdose hospitalization rate.

The argument from the group making the calls is that the safe injection sites provide a space that is stigma free. Some have praised the efforts but state more data is needed on them.

In other words, it is a statement about the praiseworthy or laudable nature of the safe injection sites that are popping up in houses and alleyways because they help and afflicted minority population, such as youths or addicts

But the evidence is not necessarily in in terms of the benefits of pop up safe injection sites as opposed to stable ones.

Executive Director for Carmichael Outreach, Cora Gajari, said, “I really applaud the efforts of the people who set up in front of city hall. In terms of safe injection sites, though, I don’t know that we really have enough evidence to prove that we need them here in Regina.” (Ibid.)

“There’s always this tendency to be reactive and see what others are doing, bide our time. I think perhaps it’s the place of Regina to be a leader in the province to get something like this started,” Councillor Andrew Stevens said (CBC News, 2017).

The President and Co-Founder of the White Pony Lodge, Shawna Oochoo, estimates between 80 and 100 needles are picked up by volunteers per month by the White Pony Lodge.

Stevens continued, “I can’t just see us sitting around and waiting, I think we need to get ahead of this.”

In the past, in 2016, the freezes on harm reduction efforts have coincided – though correlation is not causation – with an increase of HIV rates (Fraser, 2016).

Reference

CBC News. (2017, October 9). Time to talk about supervised injection sites in Regina, councillor says. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/supervised-injection-regina 1.4346191.

Fraser, D.C. (2016, June 16). Sask. HIV rate goes up as harm-reduction expansion remains on hold. Retrieved from http://leaderpost.com/news/politics/sask-hiv-rate-goes-up-as-harm reduction-expansion-remains-on-hold.

Knox, J. (2017, October 9). Harm-reduction advocates call for safe injection sites in Regina. Retrieved from https://globalnews.ca/news/3793429/harm-reduction-advocates-call-for-safe injection-sites-in-regina/.

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Toronto Board of Health Considering New Measures

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/15

The Toronto Board of Health is considering a set of measures in order to push back against the crisis of overdoses. There was a plea from Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne for immediate declaration of a health emergency in the public.

There has been a huge spike in overdoses and deaths related to opioids across the country, as well as Ontario. The Board of Health for Toronto met after a report was published by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).

Five people were hospitalized every day between April, 2016, and March, 2017. Toronto had the highest opioid-related hospitalizations in the province. More than a year ago, British Columbia made a public declaration of a health emergency in the province.

Councillor Joe Cressy, Chair of the city’s Drug Strategy Implementation Panel, said, “If the province declares it an emergency, as a result of that, dollars can flow quickly to the people who need it and the organizations that are responding.”

There was collection of real-time data about overdoses. This is to identify areas of risk. Of course, unfortunately, the data comes with the assumption of deaths or overdoses. There was an open letter to the government of Ontario.

Harm reduction advocate, Zoe Dodd, said, “The province said to us when we asked for it few weeks ago that there was no end in sight, that they weren’t going to call [an emergency]. But that is exactly why you call a public health emergency, because there needs to be an end in sight.”

Subsequently, $222 million in funding is being provided for the next 2 1/2 years for the hiring of front-line harm-reduction workers. This is also in order to create addiction clinics with quick access as well as the supplies of Naloxone, which can help with the prevention of overdoses.

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FDA Considering New Enforcement With Implicit Focus on Harm Reduction

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/08

According to the CSP Magazine’s Angel Abcede, the FDA is considering new enforcement policy, which would include harm reduction policy. One aspect of the policy is geared around nicotine addiction as one core strategy. The research will focus on electronic cigarettes as an alternative to combustible cigarettes

Many have been curious as to the new US FDA position and strategy with President Trump’s new administration. Gottlieb’s document provided some insight.

The new Commissioner of the FDA, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, issued a document on nicotine addiction and breaking it:

“Our approach to nicotine must be accompanied by a firm foundation of rules and standards for newly regulated products. To be successful, all of these steps must be done in concert and not in isolation.”

He argued for more research and public discussion with combustible and electronic cigarettes (as an alternative to combustible cigarettes, for example). The other option to combustible cigarettes was to argue for an engineering of the low-nicotine options of cigarettes, not simply e-cigarettes.

This is to reduce the probability of youths becoming involved in addictions to cigarettes.

In response to this need, the FDA has, in the past, extended deadlines for new-product applications – for several years, apparently. There is a pronounced crisis in addiction that threatens American families.

As noted by Gottlieb, “Envisioning a world where cigarettes would no longer create or sustain addiction, and where adults who still need or want nicotine could get it from alternative and less harmful sources, needs to be the cornerstone of our efforts.

This is of concern to the FDA generally. The focus on nicotine levels was found to be among the most unexpected announcements. In accordance with this, there will be the issuance of an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) for input on pluses and minuses for the introductive of lower-level cigarettes.

There will be public-commentary on lower-nicotine cigarettes as well as public-commentary on the dangers around various alternatives such as e-cigarette batteries, e-liquids for youths, and the potential for traditional cigarettes to be more harmful than easy e-cigarettes.

“A key piece of the FDA’s approach is demonstrating a greater awareness that nicotine—while highly addictive—is delivered through products that represent a continuum of risk and is most harmful when delivered through smoke particles in combustible cigarettes,” Gottlieb said.

Groups with traditional anti-tobacco stances, such as Campaign for Tobacco-free Kids in Washington, D.C., agreed with as well as having healthy scepticism against comments made by Gottlieb. These conversations incorporate harm reduction philosophy in a high-level organization with potential for positive impacts on the lives of North Americans.

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Nikki Sullivan, of the Cape Breton Post, on Harm Reduction

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/01

Nikki Sullivan, of the Cape Breton Post, reported on harm reduction. She described this as something possibly confusing for those were not more familiar with the philosophy, methodology, and the practice. It was a way to help people with substance abuse disorders. Part of it can include absence. Another part of it can include the reduction of the potential harm to people who happen to use substances, or drugs more colloquially.

The main aim is to reduce the harms associated over the long term with substance misuse, or abuse. Where the focus is the individual user, the problems boil down to the individual but incorporate community and societal consequences.

So, the reduction in overall harm of the individual can boil down to an overall reduction in harm to the community and society. There are many strategies. There is a tremendous amount of empirical support for this, according to the experts, and the Canadian Medical Association has intervened in the past to support harm reduction. The principles include, with a focus on the individual, the dignity of the individual.

The dignity and respect for their own choices plus helping with the reduction of harm. It is a realistic view incorporated into society, with the idea that drugs cannot be eliminated but their negative effects can be reduced.

There could be things like safe needle distribution sites and consumption sites, as well as therapy and treatment, and Naloxone programs that you can take home. Naloxone can help prevent overdoses of particular substances, which is important in the current context of the opioid overdose “epidemic” in British Columbia, Ontario, and elsewhere in the country.

Harm Reduction is a non-judgmental approach and less punitive one, too, to the traditional hard drug enforcement model. The traditional approach is mostly punitive, which, according to the evidence and experts, has contributed to an increase in the amount of drug use and abuse and, therefore, cost of the individual to the community and society.

Take, for example, the introduction of harm reduction to improve the lives of users. It has been proven to reduce the case of hepatitis C, HIV, and the levels of a drug overdose. In the words, it is effective in important domains for the health of citizens who have used drugs or substances. This is in stark contrast to the punitive approach. If you go punitive, the drug use and abuse go up; if you use harm reduction, the drug use goes down and abuse goes down.

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http://www.heretohelp.bc.ca/visions/aboriginal-people-vol5/harm-reduction-and-abstinence.

Harm Reduction Philosophy and Drug Use in Vancouver – Problems, Solutions, and Outcomes

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Harvest House Ministries

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017

Harm reduction philosophy is associated with social justice based in rights and respect for drug users.^[i] The focus is, as the title implies, to reduce the harm to drug users. According to the Center for Addiction and Mental Health, it states, “Harm reduction is any program or policy designed to reduce drug-related harm without requiring the cessation of drug use.”^[ii]

Its framework emphasizes theory-to-practice with comprehensive strategies. It contrasts with the zero tolerance approach and its big four consequences. Rodney Skager in a publication for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says, “Proponents of the “big four” consequences – exclusion from extracurricular activities, transfer to another school, suspension, and expulsion – believe that harsh consequences…will deter other students…”^[iii]

Unfortunately, according to Rodney Skager, zero tolerance approaches worsen the problem. It “lacks credibility” and is backed by “punitive measures” that foster “resentment and oppositional behavior.”^[iv] In short, zero tolerance approaches don’t work. Colloquially, zero tolerance is absolutist, or ‘black-and-white’, and harm reduction is more ‘grey’ by implication. This is the divide between zero tolerance and harm reduction approaches.

The harm reduction philosophy has impacts. Why? Its philosophy and theory imply practice. Those that live in British Columbia know about the drug problem in Vancouver. Therefore, the main question narrows in approach and location, “What have been impacts of the harm reduction philosophy in Vancouver?”

Bear in mind, harm reduction philosophy is a non-idealistic view of drug abuse and use. No society will ever be drug-free. That means the philosophy is pragmatic. The focuses are the harms of drugs and the means through which to reduce them. That requires more background because the case study in the harm reduction philosophy applied to Vancouver has nuance.

That means there are numerous facets to the implementation phases of the program. For examples, these can include (non-exhaustively) the Four Pillars, the Insite program, Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), Karmik, Simon Fraser University (SFU) community engagement research into if food programs can be used for harm reduction, and Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) education on safe drug use, safe sex, Neighbourhood Needle Recovery Program, and the Safer Smoking Pilot Project, and so on.^[v]^{,[vi],[vii],[viii]}Multiple avenues for solutions.

One sub-tenant of harm reduction philosophy is harm minimization, which means the aim to reduce or prevent harms associated with psychoactive drug use. Those psychoactive drugs can be illicit or licit. A number of programs have been put in place to combat this issue. Take, for instance, the Four Pillars drug strategy of the City of Vancouver.^[ix]

It is based on a 1990s model implemented in Europe with four principles or Four Pillars.^[x] Those are the following:

harm reduction

prevention

treatment

enforcement^[xi]

In major cities such as Frankfurt, Geneva, Sydney, and Zurich, the Four Pillars or principles had the results of reduction in number of drug users, overdose deaths, and infection rates of hepatitis and HIV.^[xii] In short, harm reduction as the central philosophical tenet. Prevention, treatment, and enforcement as the practice in the Four Pillar strategy.

All good things with success on important metrics with tallies of the number of people and the drug use consequence severity, in Europe. The assumption based on the association of success with the Four Pillars is the general applicability from Europe to North America. Each done in major cities. Vancouver is one as well. There’s good reason to predict success, or improvement.

Some areas, writings, and discussions might seem familiar residents and visitors of Vancouver. For instance, Vancouver’s Supervised Injection Facility, or Site, (SIF/SIS) gathers media attention.^[xiii]^,[xiv] Insite works, too.^[xv] Harm reduction policy has not been comprehensive enough with reports on the inattention to crack as one case, though.^[xvi] However, VANDU focuses on heroine and crack. There’s a meshwork of organizations devoted to harm reduction.

Some individualization occurs with publications emphasizing women’s health via women centered harm reduction.^[xvii] Depending on the peoples, some First Nation, Inuit, Métis might find harm reduction policies against beliefs, customs, and traditions.^[xviii] These issues come into consideration as the program is implemented and expanded via networking.

This takes cultural awareness and sensitivity, specification of the drug type, number of people, and severity of use and abuse. Also, it might require tailoring the principles and program to the community and situation, and conducting outreach to the media to improve public perception of the issues of drug abuse and use in the public sphere. It can be grassroots too. On the ground, the homeless in Vancouver created tent city to advocate for social housing.^[xix] What does this mean?

Overall, and without an exhaustive description of the various aspects to the problems of drug use, from the general theoretical ethics and concerns of harm reduction to the particular organizations (grassroots and formal) and publications, harm reduction philosophy has been a net good in terms of outcomes in Vancouver.

Footnotes

^[i] Principles of Harm Reduction (n.d.). states:

Harm reduction is a set of practical strategies and ideas aimed at reducing negative consequences associated with drug use. Harm Reduction is also a movement for social justice built on a belief in, and respect for, the rights of people who use drugs.

Harm reduction incorporates a spectrum of strategies from safer use, to managed use to abstinence to meet drug users “where they’re at,” addressing conditions of use along with the use itself. Because harm reduction demands that interventions and policies designed to serve drug users reflect specific individual and community needs, there is no universal definition of or formula for implementing harm reduction.

Harm Reduction Coalition. (n.d.). Principles of Harm Reduction. Retrieved from http://harmreduction.org/about-us/principles-of-harm-reduction/.

^[ii] Erickson, P et al. (2002, May). CAMH and Harm Reduction: A Background Paper on its Meaning and Application for Substance Use Issues. Retrieved from http://www.camh.ca/en/hospital/about_camh/influencing_public_policy/public_policy_submissions/harm_reduction/Pages/harmreductionbackground.aspx.

^[iii] Skager, R. (2016). Beyond Zero Tolerance: A Reality-Based Approach to Drug Education and School Discipline. Retrieved from https://www.unodc.org/documents/ungass2016/Contributions/Civil/DrugPolicyAlliance/DPA_Beyond_Zero_Tolerance.pdf.

^[iv] Ibid.

^[v] Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. (2016). Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. Retrieved from http://www.vandu.org/.

^[vi] Karmik. (2016). Karmik. Retrieved from http://www.karmik.ca/.

^[vii] Simon Fraser University: Department of Geography. (n.d.). Food as Harm Reduction (FaHR): The Health Effects of Food for People Who Use Drugs. Retrieved from https://www.sfu.ca/geography/community-engagement/food-harm-reduction.html.

^[viii] Vancouver Harm Reduction. (2014). Harm Reduction. Retrieved from http://www.vch.ca/your-health/health-topics/harm-reduction/.

^[ix] City of Vancouver. (2016). Four Pillars drug strategy. Retrieved from http://vancouver.ca/people-programs/four-pillars-drug-strategy.aspx.

^[x] Ibid.

^[xi] Ibid.

^[xii] Ibid.

^[xiii] Dell, C.A. (2008). Harm Reduction and Abstinence—More Alike Than Different?. Retrieved from

^[xiv] Vancouver Coastal Health. (n.d.). Insite – Supervised Injection Site. Retrieved from http://supervisedinjection.vch.ca/.

^[xv] MacQueen, K. (2015, July 20). The Science Is In. Insite Works.. Retrieved from http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-scientists-are-in-insite-works/.

^[xvi] Lupick, T. (2014, September 6). Advocates say Vancouver’s harm reduction push has left out crack users. Retrieved from http://www.straight.com/news/722916/advocates-say-vancouvers-harm-reduction-push-has-left-out-crack-users.

^[xvii] British Columbia Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health. (2010). Women Centered Harm Reduction. Retrieved from http://bccewh.bc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/2010_GenderingNatFrameworkWomencentredHarmReduction.pdf.

^[xviii] Harm Reduction and Abstinence—More Alike Than Different? (2008) states:

There is likewise confusion when harm reduction measures are considered by Aboriginal peoples. Some First Nation, Inuit and Métis people maintain that harm reduction policies and practices go against their customs, traditions and beliefs. They believe using mind-altering substances causes a person to be “out of balance.” Others, however, consider that there are similarities between a harm reduction philosophy and traditional Aboriginal values. For example, respect is a traditional Aboriginal teaching—and respecting the choices of individuals, families and communities and “where they are at” is a premise of harm reduction.

In fact, the concept of choice underpins a harm reduction philosophy. Harm reduction policies and programs acknowledge that people and their communities are the ‘experts’ on their own experiences. As experts, they are best positioned to decide how to reduce the harm they experience because of substance abuse. Consider, for example, the Quesnel Tillicum Society Native Friendship Centre in northern British Columbia. Based on a need identified within and responded to by the community, the centre provides needles, condoms, swabs and needle exchange containers at no charge to community members.

Harm reduction, at its core, is simply a practice or strategy that reduces the harms individuals face because of their problematic use of substances.

Dell, C.A. (2008). Harm Reduction and Abstinence—More Alike Than Different?. Retrieved from http://www.heretohelp.bc.ca/visions/aboriginal-people-vol5/harm-reduction-and-abstinence. ^[xix] Dolski, M. (2016, July 12). Vancouver’s homeless create new tent city to advocate for social housing. Retrieved from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/homeless-create-new-tent-city-to-protest-vancouvers-social-housing/article30898440/

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Meet Andrew “AJ” our Outreach Counsellor

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Fresh Start Recovery Centre

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017

From your perspective, what is Fresh Start Recovery Centre?

Fresh Start is a unique place where recovery is possible in an empathetic and understanding environment that strips away some of the stigma that gets attached to treatment centres in general. Fresh Start walks men through all twelve steps, which in my mind gives them a better base to start recovery.

What is the typical stigma for treatment centres? What truth or truths dispel that?

At first, I think I need to be clear that I know and believe that all treatment centre’s do tremendous work. The stigma that is attached to some treatment centres, from my view and experience, is that the centre will teach people a few things, some concepts, and then refer them to an outside 12-step agency or other organizations/counsellors. You carry on recovery from there.

Whereas Fresh Start has an approach, that is about recovery for life. You begin once entering the front door; you are part of a community rather than a place for strictly treating disease of addiction. It’s not simply a few short weeks or months of information, Fresh Start is a movement.

As a counsellor, what tasks and responsibilities come with it?

It is facilitating groups. That’s one of the biggest ones. The next one is the 1-on-1 counselling and support of each individual in that group. We are tasked within the mandate to take them through the twelve steps and support them in all major life areas.

We have 12 as the focus. Basically, they are the major life areas, which require support for them. We help them achieve their goals in all areas of their life and providing them with a strong base within the twelve steps to support their recovery.

As the outreach coordinator, what tasks and responsibilities come with this position?

In addition to the 1-on-1 counselling and support with the goals of the men in the case load (my case load), it is monitoring and supporting our various levels of housing, and the various levels of treatment in Fresh Start.I would be responsible for the phase II and the phase III men in the program for the step II and the step III housing. It is a continuum of care that continues indefinitely. They can stay with us indefinitely.We’ve had men with us over many years. They continue to receive support from me. In addition to that, I serve and support the alumni to achieve their goals.They might need support and drop in to see me with anything. It could be recovery housing, employment, financially, relationship-wise, and so on. It is a wide scope for the outreach coordinator position.

With the indefinite continuum of care, statistically, there should be some long-term attendees. Without breach of privacy of particular individuals, what are some of the most heartwarming stories seen by you?

I can think of one guy. Last month he achieved his 5-year milestone of clean time. I’ve known this gentleman in the recovery community for longer than that. He has never been able to be able to stay abstinent until now.This was an unemployable person. He had ruined his life. Now, he’ll be taking the 5-years. He is part of a major not-for-profit health enterprise. He is supportive and active in the Fresh Start alumni for the 5 years that he has been clean.Although, he is not in one of the phases or housing. He continues to receive support from the staff here. It’s one of those things. It is encouraging to see the men receiving residential treatment continue to use the resources available to them.It is successful, especially for this individual with a very successful life.

When entering situations with 1-on-1 or group as a counsellor, there are different methodologies and counselling streams – theory and practice. What theory and practice are the main ones used in counselling sessions by you – based on prior training?

Usually, I like to use the peer support. Within the group, as the outreach coordinator, I am responsible for the mentorship program as well. We assign a specific man further along in the program to new men. There’s the peer support model. In actual facilitation, it’s more psycho-informational rather than process-group. I present the information. I field any questions. Usually, for me, I will use a lot of information from our manual. I also share my personal experience with the men. I have that lived experience. I am in recovery. It can be part of what I do in facilitating.

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Connie’s Interview from Fresh Start Recovery

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Fresh Start Recovery Centre

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017

As you sit at the front desk and work away, you may have a unique insight into the first evaluation, the “face value” of people coming to FSRC. What do you first notice of people coming into recovery? What about them leaving back into mainstream society?

The first thing I notice is relief (that they are finally in the facility) and nervousness (what’s coming?) If they are a returning client, they are grateful to be back and know what is expected in the coming weeks. Some men are physically unwell and unkempt and arrive with next to nothing while others arrive with everything. New clients arriving are welcomed by the other residents in treatment and they become comfortable quite soon. Clients come from different places, i.e., Corrections, Detox, Northern Canada, self-referrals and other geographic locations and they all display nervousness and relief upon arriving.

When Alumni leave us, they are excited about where they are going and the plans they have. Each and every one of them has expressed they will miss FSRC and the peer support, meals, sharing…Some of have said they miss going to “group” because of the structure and sharing.

What is the biggest myth about addictions in the public mind?

The biggest myth is that a short stint in “rehab” will fix you up! Treatment can provide tools and knowledge for the addicted but it cannot provide the motivation for long term recovery. The desire for change must come from within the individual and he will need to build his support system for his success. We can all agree that certain activities will promote recovery and some of them are attending 12 step groups, helping others, doing service work.

How can Canada do better by our addicted and downtrodden citizens?

Canada needs to provide capital and operating funds for treatment centres to help those who are addicted. Not all of them are downtrodden (yet) because of addiction. We have such a high proportion of people who suffer from mental health issues and addictions, incarceration and addictions, and with specific groups of youth, seniors and families who are affected by the disease. The current Federal government needs to look at providing support in housing, rental subsidies and addiction and mental health services.

How can religious institutions help addicts? How can secular institutions assist addicts?

While 12 step groups do not promote religion, they do refer to a “higher power.” The “higher power” can grow to be “God” and have the effect of belief, faith, peace, serenity, and prayer on the individual. Not all people will agree to the “God” idea but will find what works for them. There are many different agencies and organizations that provide counselling, other support groups, meditation and physical training. All of these offerings are available to everyone and different ideas or activities will help everyone. Now, if I may, I want to add one note with some concluding questions, please. You are free to answer or skip them. You are in long term recovery. When you did become an addict? When did you realize over time that it was a problem? Where did you first get help?

I first realized that I had become alcoholic when I was 30 years old and had to go to Detox after being on a two-week binge. I went to a short term treatment facility and had 3 years clean and sober. During this time, I had moved twice and married for the second time. Unfortunately, my new husband was also an alcoholic (we unconsciously search out fellow alcoholics) and we enabled each other for fifteen years. When it finally ended, I again ended up in detox and fortunately I was able to go to the same short term treatment, and then onto to a 4-month treatment program for women. After that I lived in sober housing for close to eight years. My recovery was “grace given” and it took a long time. I had lots of support and attended many meetings during that time. I am now in my 17^th year of “recovery.”

What is long term recovery? How does it look from the recovering addict’s perspective?

I don’t know what long term recovery means to others, other than the length of time a person has been clean and sober. There are those who have many years of sobriety and yet have found no joy in life. I do not believe that’s long term recovery. For me, it means I no longer want a drink or to be around people who are “under the influence.” I feel free from any obsession or desire to drink…my life is good!

What is your main message of hope for those that have fallen through the cracks of society as addicts and fear for their lives, are destitute, downtrodden, psychologically bruised, and nearly emotionally broken, even physically emaciated and socially isolated? Just keep trying! You can’t fix everything – but you can start to fix yourself…get into detox or get help to stop using/drinking. We all care about you and what you’re going through. We want to help but sometimes we can’t (for any number of reasons). Start going to meetings and start listening. We do love you…and hope you just keep trying!

Thank you for your time, Connie.

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An Interview with Tony Kokol

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Fresh Start Recovery Centre

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017

*This audio interview edited for clarity and readability.*

Scott Jacobsen: To begin, how did you come into the world of addiction services? Was it a personal reason, or a professional reason and public concern?

Tony Kokol: It comes out of my personal story. I am in recovery. Due to my addiction, I ended up in prison. I got released to a treatment centre/halfway house. It was there that I cleaned up. It was through that process of recovery through that treatment centre that my journey on this side of the fence started.

Jacobsen: Given your personal experience, if I may ask, and given your experience with Fresh Start Recovery, are the demographics divided between men and women slanted more towards men than women – addiction and recovery?

Kokol: I don’t know if they are slanted. I know my personal experience. That women, when they are out there in the real world, they are more susceptible to abuse and being taken advantage of – just given what they are. Their physical presence. They are susceptible to that. They probably can’t protect themselves as much or as easily out there. I would think on the treatment end of it. It always has been a struggle to afford the women courtesy as much as the men have in regards to treatment.

I think a lot of the time with women too. Their struggle lies with a family or having children. They have to go to treatment. What do you do with the children? They will break up the family to help this woman get better. I think that’s where a big struggle lies. I think it would be fantastic to have a treatment centre where the children could be with the mother, and not break up that family.

Jacobsen: When it comes to the process of recovery, from addiction, what stages tend to be the most emotionally difficult, even physically painful in terms of withdrawal?

Kokol: It would probably be the initial. That initial detox, the first 90 days or the first year. There is a continuum. They talk about a three-year continuum for the process of recovery. We touch base on that physical aspect. We are still physically detoxing. The cells in our body are rearranging and getting back to normal. The toxins are leaving our bodies. Once we detox, and are able to focus, and our memory comes back, the mental capability will start to be able to place our emotions a little better, and to prioritize them.

In third year, they talk about touching base with the spiritual aspect, where we learn to think of others and aren’t so self-centered and start placing other people ahead of us – and start understanding empathy and compassion a bit more.

Jacobsen: What has been one of the more emotionally touching stories that you’ve heard in your time at Fresh Start Recovery?

Kokol: I’ve heard a lot. There’s a fellow in my group right now. His wife has cancer. She wants him to complete treatment. She wants him to remain at Fresh Start. It is an extended program. It is 4 months long. His heart breaks. His wife is sick. She’s taking care of everything. She has a job. She’s a real go-getter. It is a realization that she might not get better. She wants him to stay there. It might be a cold reality that she wants him to be there because she might not be there when he’s done.

So he can be a good dad, when she’s not there. It can get pretty deep. You can go a few layers down. It can get heart wrenching. We live a crazy life there. I have been at work. Where in the morning, we get news of one of our men passing – one of the alumni, then in the afternoon or evening there is a celebration of a gratitude ceremony. Men are laughing and reuniting with their family.

That morning, we were shedding a tear with a mother who lost a loved one.

Jacobsen: Of course, there are many factors. But if you could target not one cause, but one strong positive correlate, of addiction in Canadian society, what would it be? How would you recommend Canadian policymakers and even on-the-ground activists help deal with what seems like a growing issue, in this country?

Kokol: That’s a tough answer. I think probably the biggest situation that I’ve seen is accessibility. There are many layers to it. It can get really deep. I am only one level. I am at the frontline, almost the frontline. These are the struggles that I see. There are many more when it comes to policies and laws. That sort of thing. What I see is the individual that is ready for treatment, but not having that opportunity due to bed availability, we have 100 people on the wait list.

What happens when an individual will come to his senses, hit that dark point in life, be ready, and is in the vulnerable point, on the cusp, it can go either way. He is on the edge and seeks help. He knocks on the doors of recovery and there isn’t a bed. It is disheartening. I run into it all of the time. All of the time. People reach out to me, “Hey Tony, help me.” I know a lot of people, but I am not in charge of the intake or who gets a bed.

But I know, we never have enough. If there was anything that we could do, it would be the politicians and the powers that be to raise an eyebrow about this. If we want to do something, they need to get well. From there, I don’t think there is a 30-day program or a 90-day program. There isn’t a quick cure. We need to embrace these people. It is a long-term solution. Let’s provide some structured housing after that.

Let’s not throw them back on the street after that. Let’s make sure they are gainfully employed and trained in the program, and get them some assisted housing, so they can get back on their feet – to see them until the end. That’s what I think.

Jacobsen: You noted long-term care. The continuum of care, and I am not an expert, seems like a growing part of recovery, officially, where recovery centres will deal with recovering addicts for the long-term. How has this been for you – if you’re undergoing this process yourself?

Kokol: I’ve done it. I’ve lived it. I’ve seen it on the other end. I’ve seen men go through it. I believe it is the only way to go. The truth of the matter is that the time most people hit a bottom and are ready for treatment. Most life areas have been dampened. They have annihilated them. They annihilated their financial resources, family, and social support. It is a time in their life when they not only need to recover from addiction, but all areas of life.

You can’t sober someone up, and then boot them out to the door, especially when they are unemployable, have financial issues, housing issues, and so on. All you’ve done is sober up the person who is still afflicted. It is a social fact of social return on investment. It is something like every dollar we invest, then we get seventeen dollars back from that person giving back to society. I proved it myself.

I was the guy that needed treatment. I came in so broken that I needed someone to help house me, clothe me, help me get into the workforce, help me to text, to run a computer. I lost these skills over fifteen years of being on the street. I lost living skills even. I needed a hand. So I embraced that support net and structure. It turned out fine for me. It is ironic you phoned. Today is my nine years clean.

Jacobsen: [Laughing] It is the anniversary?

Kokol: Yes, it is the anniversary.

Jacobsen: For those that are just reading this, basically, we’ve had trouble calling [Laughing] and it is basically a random call. So congratulations.

Kokol: I know it. I know when I come to treatment that I am broken. All major life areas are annihilated. Nine years later, I live a happy, productive life. I have a home. I have all of the things that people would want. I have a career. People are important to me. Family is important to me. I don’t break hearts no more. I’m not a burden. I contribute. I have self-esteem. I have purpose. Thank God nobody gave up on me, I was forty-six-years-old by the time I hit a bottom to be willing to change.

It was forty-six years of screwing up, screwing up. Thank God for Fresh Start, there were parole officers, counsellors, and people in the twelve-step community too – and certain family members. Thank God, they didn’t write me off.

Jacobsen: By analogy, people see problems with volunteers for international organizations. Young people, for instance, in college will travel to another part of the world to volunteer, but they might be a little reckless in the way they volunteer. They might have good intentions, but they can do some damage. Sometimes, more damage than good.

To draw that analogy over to the context that we’re talking about, for those that want to help volunteer in the homeless community or those that are addicted, or their family members or extended family members in their own recovery processes, what are possible landmines in their path that they can avoid to reduce the amount of harm that they might cause, even for the best of intentions? What tend to be the more effective ways of volunteering for the recovery community, and the addicted community?

Kokol: Landmines, I think the only landmine the person would have is themselves and the attitude they approach to work with this demographic of people, and to realize this is someone’s brother. This is someone’s father. This is someone’s mother. This is someone’s sister. To always exercise empathy and compassion, and to prepare yourself, they are not less. They are not less. They’ve got the disease of addiction. The brain doesn’t work the way everybody’s else does.

They’ve indulged in a substance for an extended period of time. That was their own choice. Just like everybody else, but that was their choice, for certain individuals, they cross the line. The brain becomes hardwired after doing it for an extended period of time. Sometimes, it is only a couple times. Other times, it s a few months. Everybody is different. That is where this line is drawn with this disease of addiction.

People scoff at it, or they don’t understand it. But it is true. The phenomenon of craving occurs. Other people can do it. They don’t cross the line. They don’t experience this craving. It is not that they didn’t make bad choices. Maybe, not more than any other teenager who chose to experiment. I think everybody has to have empathy and understanding, and to realize that we’re not all exempt from a perfect life.

I think, as a society or as a healthy person, we owe it to the less fortunate to assist them and to enhance their quality of life. If there is any landmine, it would be: How do you approach the task at hand. And how do you go about it? And what’s your motivation?

Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Tony.

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Kyle Williams Interview

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Fresh Start Recovery Centre

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So let’s start off of family background. What’s the short of the long?

Williams: So, I was born in Ontario in Ottawa. We’re all good Canadian folks; dad was born in Halifax, mom was born in Ottawa, and we’re all basically your run-of-the-mill Canadians when it comes down to it. I was a family of four; I have a younger sister and my folks, and my sister is three years younger than me. My dad comes from a family of five boys, so you’ve got four uncles on side and on my mom’s side she has a sister and a brother, so a couple uncles and an aunt on side. We’re not too exciting when it comes to family background.

Jacobsen: And I mean you were a typical kid sports and things. How was elementary school for you or the things would you do the time?

Williams: Elementary school; my parents and teachers always used to joke my favourite subject was recess. I was always an active boy, spent time playing hockey, riding my bike. I was always an active outdoorsy kid, and in elementary school. It was around the time my parents got divorced and as most young boys do I was trying to fit in and have fun and then next on the priority list was to do well at school.

Jacobsen: Junior high and high school, how did this then transition into life?

Williams: Junior high and High school, we moved a little bit, but in Calgary. My dad had the same house, but we, my sister and I, were transitioning back and forth between houses week-on-week-off. My mum moved around Calgary, so we were always either closer or farther from friends. I learned to be independent, whether hopping on the bus or riding my bike somewhere and with independence came of drinking and drugs. For the most part, junior high was spent trying to be as good an athlete as I could, but I would experiment in parties with alcohol, and then high school athletics took a back seat to the partying and to the good times lifestyle. I was a wizard at skipping classes and managing to scrape by, but it was an interesting time for me. It was what I thought was fun but I didn’t take anything all seriously.

Jacobsen: And do you think your parents’ divorce was a significant factor on this?

Williams: No, I don’t think so. I went to a couple therapy sessions. I believe when my folks got divorced. I was seven years old and by the time I had made it into high school; from Elementary School to Junior High to High school, I’d seen so many of my friend’s parents get divorced. It wasn’t a… something I saw taking a toll on my life, it was something happened and I recognized it was happening everywhere, so I don’t think it was bearing on me at point.

Jacobsen: As you were a young experimenter with drugs and alcohol, you did attend university, but you have noted this was at a time of being a “Full blown alcoholic.” What was the first note, the first story, or a realization you had this was indeed the case?

Williams: I’m on a bike ride right now, riding across the country. I had time to think, and so I think the first time it was ever apparent to me was earlier than that, but, while in university, I carried the same party lifestyle I wanted in high school. But now, I wasn’t living under my parents’ roof. I wasn’t answering to anyone, except for teachers and the grades I had to pull. There wasn’t a whole lot of motivation and ambition left. I became interested in partying and getting drunk or high all the time. And I think is it was apparent when I was blocking out almost every time I drank, or disappointing friends, disappointing family. I have been in the hospital twice; once to get my stomach pumped, once to get re-fuelled up on saline solution, I was in the first week or two weeks of university. So it was apparent from the get-go.

Jacobsen: Given you were partying in university; was this a common set of friends you had that you were partying with?

Williams: I think down in Lethbridge there are parties every night of the week if you want. There’s something going on, so I was constantly able to find someone to hang out with. So there were common denominators along the way, I think. I would be the most common out of all of those. It was a large group of friends. I also had many groups of friends.

Jacobsen: Do you find yourself being the encourager as well as the one being encouraged to use alcohol?

Williams: I think peer pressure, especially in age, as well as setting is pretty apparent. It is pretty prominent amongst groups of friends even if it’s the old adage: “Let’s go for one beer.” I think that’s super common. Everyone does it. So it was how I would peer pressure people into it, and how other people would pressure me into doing it, but I had a rubber arm; it was pretty easy to twist.

Jacobsen: How did you, or when did you, find ‘Fresh Start’ as a way to bring you back into a more stable life?

Williams: I wish I found ‘Fresh Start’ earlier, but I went to university from the age of 19 to 23 I think, then I was down in Lethbridge until 2014. When I came back, I was working in night clubs in Calgary. It was a continuation of the lifestyle. I called for myself down in the university. I didn’t find Fresh Start until last year, until last April, and it was from series of hospital visits, series of people, who maybe hadn’t seen me in a long time calling me up and saying, “Hey, I saw you the other night and you aren’t doing so well.” As well, a strong family support network. I have an uncle who is familiar with Fresh Start; he’s been in recovery for 15 years now, and I was lucky he brought me in there to show me around and to introduce me to some people and that’s when I realized it was probably the smartest decision for me to go in there and turn it around.

Jacobsen: And now, you’re doing the Journey to Recovery. There are two hash tags; one is #journeytorecovery, and the other is #freedomthroughfitness. What was the inspiration for this, and what is the intent and purpose?

Williams: So last year, I did a cycling trip on a much smaller scale, not without challenges, but I was fresh out of treatment. I was on a little family vacation down in Kensington and through treatment though I wasn’t living there. I woke up every morning and rode my bike to Fresh Start. It was about 12 or 13 kilometres depending on which way I went. I would sit down in Penticton and I had my bike with me, and instead of packing my bike up and flying it home I decided I was going to ride it home. I was riding at the time with a single speed bike. So, I trekked through the Rockies about 625 kilometres or so. I’ve called this ride “Changing Gears” because I have a bike with gears on it, but I’ve also helped through this past year. I have changed gears in my life and have gained what has kept me in the right head space and kept me going. Freedom through Fitness, it’s a fitness community and being able to go for a workout and have extra people who have a common goal. It’s any meeting, but it is people from all walks of life. And I think it’s a strong wellness model and the purpose of this tour, this ride, has been I want to show anything is possible. Riding across the country is no small a feat, but I want to show people and talk to people at treatment centres along the way about how an active lifestyle and a fitness regimen you can be a strong levelling tool when you’re not feeling great, or when you are feeling great. It’s something I would to see more people and more places incorporate into their programs Fresh Start did.

Jacobsen: You have noted the ride itself does embody four principles; one was kindness, second was authenticity, third was reliability, and the fourth was love. I do note those four words in order spell the name K.A.R.L. Why these principles and why acronym?

Williams: So when I was living in the height of my partying and addiction days. I had a friend who used to say I would take on a drunk alter ego or an alter ego that wasn’t as pleasant as the person I was when I was sober. It wasn’t necessarily I was an angry, mean, or a hateful person, but I wasn’t the person I would want to be known for. And it wasn’t until I moved back to Calgary a friend of mine said, “Hey, when you get drunk or when you get high you aren’t Kyle anymore, you’re Karl.” It almost became a big joke. It almost became an action word people were getting. At one point, I was lying in bed and I was either in treatment, started treatment, and my uncle and I had been talking about developing a code to live by. I started looking at the opposites of the way I used to be. I said I wasn’t an angry person, but I was not also a kind person. I wouldn’t help someone if they asked, so kindness was something I wanted to try and embody. Authenticity was something I wanted to try and embody because when I was drinking or using drugs. I felt I was constantly being or trying to be someone I was not. It seems to be tiresome all the lies and the thoughts I had to protect this person I thought I was. I was lying to family, I was lying to friends, and it became exhausting. So I wanted to be authentically me without worrying about people judging or without worrying about what others might have thought. So that was an important piece. Reliability, I wasn’t a reliable person. I was drunk all the time. People would ask today if we wanted to come to some sort of function or if I wanted to help them move or with their regular daily life things. I would say, “Yes,” and then not show up. I’ll find an excuse to not be there, and so I think reliability is such an important piece of life in general when you say you’re going to do something, then you do it. So that’s something I wanted to live by. And then finally, love is when you can truly and wholeheartedly love, I think that’s the only way to live, and doing so in day to day life whether that’s your family, friends, relationships. I want to be able to love with no holds barred, nothing holding me back. And I kid you not. It’s hit me like a ton of bricks when I recognized this way of life has became the acronym for K.A.R.L. It was something I knew that I needed to share. I knew I wanted to live by those words and that’s how it became a piece of the ride, how it’s become a piece of my life. And I wake up every day grateful I’m now this Kyle as opposed to the old Karl.

Jacobsen: Thank you for that. And do you find almost this ride you changing gears is almost a riding away the old Karl? So you can say you can then more embody the newer one?

Williams: I hope so. It’s a piece of my life I wouldn’t change. It has made me the person I am today, but I think this ride for sure will be the start of bigger things to come, and the memory of the old Karl in the minds of friends and family will be less apparent and this new version will be more prominent.

Jacobsen: And for those would to help donate, or become involved in another way, how can they do so?

Williams: Donations are always greatly appreciated as well as a simple follow on Facebook or Instagram. I have a website. It’s changing-gears.ca. You can read my blog, post comments, ask questions, check out some of the pictures. We’re trying to get as many of those as possible when it’s not raining. There’s also a link there if you want to donate. It’s a donation through Fresh Start Recovery Center. They’ve been gracious and super helpful when it comes to partnering up with me for this. I also have a Facebook page and an Instagram page you can get to through the website.

Jacobsen: How important do you find working in community for recovery?

Williams: If you look at it in some terms of a 12-Step way, it’s extremely important. People say working with the newcomers keeps them sober and keeps them on a path of recovery. I think working in the community doesn’t necessarily have to be with the new comer. It can be with anyone. And so one of the ways I’m working in the community is I help lead a grassroots fitness movement called November Project in Calgary; they’re popping up all over the world. It’s a way you get out and interact with people who have a similar view on the world, but also all kinds of walks of life. So I think it’s important for anyone’s psyche to be out in the community and working with people. That’s what I’m trying to do.

Jacobsen: Do you have any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion based on the conversation today?

Williams: First, I’d like thank you so much for doing the interview. I also appreciate the support from Fresh Start; they’ve given me a great opportunity. I want to thank some other sponsors, an oatmeal company is sponsoring me called Stoked Oats as well as some help from Muscle Milk Canada without all of the support and all the donations have poured in this wouldn’t have been able to happen. I’m so incredibly lucky to have this opportunity. And the same goes for some of the media and the interviews I’m able to do. I want to thank you again and it’s been a pleasure.

Jacobsen: Thank you very much for your time, Kyle.

Williams: Yeah, thank you.

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An Interview with Mr. Stacey Petersen, RSW (Part Two)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Fresh Start Recovery Centre

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017

With respect to Zig Ziglar, personal experiences, professional work, and observations of others going through ‘tough times’ in life, what are some of the most heartwarming stories seen by you?

Ah, man. I have been to over 300 funerals. On the flip side, I’ve seen far more recovery. When I think about recovery, I think about no more absent fathers and lost sons and daughters. I’m watching a guy on Facebook. He’s a single father. He’s got custody of his kids. My God, it is so heartwarming to see this. He’s with his two kids. They’re 12 and 13. His son and daughter, the process of him working every weekend building the yard, putting fences up, and laying down patio blocks.

He’s building a space to have campfires with his kids. He’ll come home from work one day. Both of his kids are working on the fence. I think about what it must have been for those kids before recovery happened for the father. I’m watching a 16-year-old kid present his father with a 4-year medallion. Obviously, his dad became sober at the age of 12. Those are some of the things.

For every parent watching a child go through the process of addiction, my friend, Scott Oake, from Hockey Night in Canada. Him and his wife, Anne Oake, are working to build a treatment centre for their son who passed away. Scott said, “We are only as happy as our unhappiest child.” If you have a child that has an addiction, it is part of your daily life. It is with you every day.

When they get clean, the parents think, “Please let this be the last time.” I sat with a colleague of mine. I came across him in a parkade. He was crying. I said, “What’s going on?” He said, “His son had overdosed and died.” The one thing that he said that he would do in a heartbeat is that he would take it all back in terms of always being on him about the drug use. He would have taken it all back and spend that time loving him.

When I think about that, I think about our family healing program. It isn’t about fixing the addict in your life. It is about learning to live with your own feelings. Addiction is a family illness. Everybody in the family is affected by it.

I was in Washington last October at the Unite to Face Addiction Rally. It was huge. There were thousands and thousands of people on the national mall with huge concerts. Barack Obama spoke, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, Joe Walsh, Steven Tyler, it was fantastic. I got to meet Steven.

Subsequent to that, the Obama Administration released $1.1 billion to the recovery movement. I think that what is happening is the stigma is being broken because people are tired of keeping things quiet. Their loved ones. Their families. Their friends. They are suffering and dying. When our government can accept that addiction is a chronic illness, that’s fantastic, but we have some ways to go before the general public can have the same level of acceptance and treat addiction as you would any other disease.

If you look at families, communities, and even individuals, at the socio-cultural level, what can they do to assist in the prevention of this problem in society or in helping those suffering get through those ‘tough times’ in their lives?

First and foremost, they can have the conversation and not be afraid to have the conversation. I know that many parents probably don’t know. It’s scary. I have to tell you. With the advent of the internet, our kids know more about what’s out there than we do. I had a conversation with my son one day. I am reasonably on top of him about personal responsibility and this is what I see every day.

He looked at me. He said, “Dad, I know what’s out there. I know where they are. I don’t go near them.” I had to go back and have the conversation and say, “You know what, I trust you. I know you’re going to make some good choices.” I think a lot of parents don’t know. You’ve got some progressive schools. They are going to gladly put that out on the table.

People across the country are talking about mental health and addiction. We worked with Rob Nash. He put on some concerts here. He is fantastic at spreading the message. We’ve got Sheldon Kennedy out there right now. He is doing an amazing job around addiction, abuse, and trauma. It is about continuing to have the dialogue. We don’t, or we haven’t in the past, because of fear. It is fear of judgment. Who is going to speak about the fact that their son has a mental illness or their daughter has an addiction?

Now, I got to tell you. I sat in my office with another gentleman here. He is the CEO of an oil company. He is talking to me like I’m talking to you. He told me for the third time that he had to perform CPR on his son to keep him alive from an overdose.

The third time he had to do it for 45 minutes until help arrived for them. Can you imagine having to perform CPR on your child for 1 minute?

You mentioned President Barack Obama put out $1.1 billion for this movement. With respect to Canada and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, what could be done at the federal level – outside of groups, communities, and individuals?

That’s the National Advisory Committee work and the CCSA. In January 2015, there were 60 organizations from coast to coast to coast. We hammered out a commitment to recovery for Canadians. That went to the House of Commons in March, 2016. That was read in the House of Commons. That got a standing ovation from the House of Commons. I think what needs to happen is that the transfer payments that go to the provinces need to have a trajectory on them that isn’t in your regional health ministry.

The Feds can make determinations on how funding should be spent within the provinces. I would suggest at least 50% of the funding for addiction treatment should be directed towards funded agencies within the provinces. Maybe, that’s a bit high, Scott. I would say an equitable percentage. The truth is the organizations on the ground are producing excellent outcomes.

The social return on investment is staggering. There’s a group out of Washington called Success Market Inc. They calculated ours and some others. They have a link to Charity Intelligence. The return on investment to the community is $17 to $29 based on $1 investment in programming. That is phenomenal.

Cost avoidance, when we were working on the 10-year plan to end homelessness, we calculated conservative numbers at approximately $100,000 per person per year stay. That speaks nothing of the return, unless the dollar is spent. The priceless impact of returning a father to his family, or a son to his family, or to a community. That is priceless.

What does that mean for generations? They look at an ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) for a child’s first experiences and how that affects children’s resiliency, and the implications surrounding addiction later in life. So, when you start to heal families and people, you start to heal communities.

Why do I do what I do? I am blessed, fortunate, whatever words you want to choose, to be able to do this. I get to see kids get their dads back. I get to see families get their children back. I get to see employers have phenomenal employees again. I get to meet some of the most incredible and talented people that I have ever met in my life. Not just those in recovery but also those that support us and my crew. Like I said they are amazing!

My kids talk about doing what I do in profound ways. They are young but they get it. We have so much in our lives. We get to make a difference. We don’t do what we do for the recognition or for money. I can’t imagine doing anything else. I think we are some distance from the recovery movement being as big as it should but we are headed in the right direction.

Thank you for your time, Mr. Petersen.

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An Interview with Mr. Stacey Petersen, RSW (Part One)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Fresh Start Recovery Centre

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017

What is Fresh Start Recovery Centre?

We provide addiction treatment. We own a 40,000 square foot purpose-built addiction treatment centre for men and for families through which we offer an intensive 12- to 16-week live-in program as well as outpatient. We have our family healing program, which is open to anybody in the city, in the country. That’s been affected by someone else’s addiction. They do not have to have somebody in our facility to attend it.

Also, we have second-stage housing. This long-term housing is intended to be safe, sober and affordable. We have a very strong alumni association. They meet here weekly. They celebrate birthdays here monthly. They hold their own events. They also support the main house event. Our 12-stop Ride for Recovery, which happens this August 27^th. That’s an absolutely amazing event. It is probably one of the most incredible motorcycle runs that you will do because it is not a typical motorcycle run. There is something to do at every stop. This year’s fourth stop will blow people’s minds.

We have our BBQ, which is July 15^th. Also, we have a satellite office in Niagara Falls. We are involved in recovery on a lot of different levels. I sit on the National Recovery Advisory Committee, the Alberta Addiction Service Providers, and the Canadian Research Institute for Substance Misuse. We are involved with Faces and Voices of Recovery Canada. A lot of community partnerships that we are involved with seek to provide greater solution and awareness surrounding addiction recovery.

One of them is MESH, Mental Health, Employment, Substance Abuse, and Housing; hence, MESH. That’s with Prospect Services, Horizon Housing, Aventa Addiction Treatment for Women, Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), and, of course, Fresh Start Recovery Centre (‘Fresh Start’). The impetus of that is to help individuals enter any one of those organizations with a central agreed-upon intake process. Someone can be accepted into any one of those agencies and then enter into the mix of whether they need employment through Prospect Services, housing through Horizon Housing, women’s treatment through Aventa Addiction Treatment for Women, mental health through CMHA, or men’s treatment through Fresh Start Recovery Centre.

We won a Calgary award in 2012 for community advocacy. We’ve been chosen by the Fraser Institute out of Vancouver as the #1 treatment centre in Canada in 2010, 2013 and 2014. 2014 was the last year they held the awards program. We were also chosen as the #1 social service agency in Canada in 2014. In addition, overall, we earned the Drucker Award for not-for-profit management.

We’ve been in that top 3 every year since 2006. We were chosen since 2007 as a recommended Canadian charity by Charity Intelligence, a four-star agency. Also, Bhayana awards from the United Way supporting our partnership with MESH. So, all of that. Those were all great. However, the story that it tells is that I have the best people in the world working together with me.

These people have hearts the size of cars. All of us together. The Fresh Start crew has about 350 years of recovery under their belts as well as the paper work on the wall. It varies from there. It ranges from 29 to 25, to the 20s, some 15s, a smattering of 10s. I hire people based on their ability to reach another human being.

If you cannot build a genuine relationship with another human being, there’s no point being in this work. The most therapeutic tool you have in a helping relationship is the relationship.

What are some of the factors that might play into that screening of individuals for their ability – in terms of predictive validity – to work with people, reach out to people, and build that relationship?

I’m going to look at transferable skills. I’m going to look at the paperwork. I’m going to sit down and have a conversation. I am going to meet with them. You can tell somebody in a heartbeat if they are genuine, isn’t motivated by fear. I usually have a way of making people feeling comfortable. I try to focus my energy from a loving perspective.

Same for the rest of my crew. I don’t want to work with people that are fear-based. We are guiding people to stay sober and clean so we had better be driven from a place of love rather than fear ourselves. I am not saying we are perfect, far from it, but we strive to be the best we can to serve these men and their families.

Is fear a big problem there? You mentioned it, twice.

I think fear is a big problem in society, Scott. We have two sources through which we govern ourselves on any given day at different levels of intensity. That is either fear or love. I was asked to do a TED talk in 2014. They said, “Do it on innovation and change.” I spoke on fear and love, and how that affects our resiliency and ability to cope day-to-day in life. The key to all of that is a simple thing. Everybody tries to get that hole filled from outside sources. It is an ‘inside job.’ There are a few things to do this gig. That is love who you are and love what you do. From that, you cannot fail. I like what Zig Ziglar said, “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want”.

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The Future of… 13 – T-1000

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Future of…

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/07/22

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: It may be all part of one entity that is to a greater or lesser extent—That will apply to a lot of stuff. People can be their own cars as physical forms become more flexible and information processing systems including consciousness become more fungible and more transferable.

People will be more and more their own tools. We will be our own transformers, but not as clunky – unless it is expensive to do so. I am sure there will be – at different periods of the future – different costs to morphing yourself.

We are not all going to be T-1000s to be able to take on any form at any time. Unless, we’re living in cyberspace completely. Even there, whatever cyber societies that we have, there will be sets of traditions and rules that will provide some limits.

[End of recorded material]

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The Future of… 12 – 7 of 9

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Future of…

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/07/15

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: People will probably be modified in sleek ways with their minds and bodies modified without necessary external and obvious representation, like the Borg, for instance. It won’t be 7 of 9.

Rick Rosner: We send people into deep-ish space, into interstellar space. If they have human forms, it will just be out of sentimentality, or the feeling that we need to maintain some humanity rather than—because that is going to be the aesthetic choice because humans are somehow the best thing to send into space.

We will send people via packages, but those packages will do more than humans do, even partially. Also, there is a lot of science fiction that has slight difference between the ship and the crew. There may be a situation where the ship is the crew.

[End of recorded material]

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The Future of… 11 – Starship Enterprise

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Future of…

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/07/08

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: Will we have a future utopia or dystopia where everyone is dirty or hiding underground? Either a utopia or a dystopia will be—the future of human stuff is going to be altered by our ability to alter, and the will be influenced by the convenience and power of altering ourselves as we continue to merge with technology.

Scarlett Johannsen is part of a movie called Her is like a movie in the future, where things are just slightly different than reality. But that’s about as far as people are going to consider these things believably.

We will not have the Starship Enterprise. I talked about the idea of half-tronauts, who will get blown up in the war, and then those people will be the astronauts because you don’t need the lower half as much. You won’t have that. But the entities who will pilot our spacecraft will not be purely human.

Unless, those spacecraft are launched in the next 50 or 80 years from now. The grand exploring expeditions that set off for Alpha Centauri and other nearby stars won’t be staffed by people who staffed the Starship Enterprise. Everyone will be super modified.

[End of recorded material]

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The Future of… 10 – Quantum Stuff (Part 2)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Future of…

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/07/08

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: We already time travel with cognition. To some extent, we simulate the future, what will happen, according to certain actions. I’m not sure the entire math and mental space involved in all of this because whenever we come up to a red light.

We don’t see what would happen if we crossed the street on a red. WE DON’T SIMULATE THAT IN FULL. We just don’t do it. So, I don’t know how much that counts to be prediction of the future rater t simulation of the future.

But not doing it doesn’t preclude us having a model of the world that incorporates knowledge about the world that is applicable to the future, which is some kind of – I want to say tacit, but I overuse “tacit” – simulation that we’re always running.

You don’t walk into the wall. You have a model of how doors and walls work as you plot your course from one room to another. I assume that as our cognition gets better via AI, then our understanding of the world. Our modelling of the world will get better.

We may be able to anticipate more and more of the future, but our best course of action will not be necessarily time travel.

[End of recorded material]

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The Future of… 9 – Quantum Stuff

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Future of…

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/07/01

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: However, we’re talking about quantum events and the universe consists of macro objects, which are composed of quantum particles acting in quantum ways. Where everything calms down to Newtonian behaviour, the macro world is like the 32-year-old compared to the 19-year-old.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What I am imagining is a 2-dimensional grid, then you flip it 90 degrees, so it is perpendicular to your vision, then you make it bubbly along that plane for the 3-dimensional part of it. Whatever is the highest peak or lowest valley are the point at which there is the most emphasis, and that is the current moment, Kind of like that?

Rosner: Yea, yea, it’s also like a rubber band with a bundle of sticks with the rubber band pulling the sticks together. One each side, it looks like teeth sticking out. But since we live in a macro world, it lets us have relatively certain knowledge about macro events that happened in the past.

We focus a lot of information according to its storage on the world. It is basically what we do anyway. We get better and better at it. Which means that in the future, we will get better and better at simulating and replicating the past.

Which means that if you make a list of the reasons as to our inability to know the world, it might not preclude us from having the benefits of time travel. One benefit of time travel is to correct past mistakes.

A massively recordable simulatable world. There’s not reason why future people couldn’t get the wish-fulfilling aspects of time travel by going back and seeing the way things would be lie if they had done something differently.

And then another purpose of time travel is to know what the future will be like – and to avoid doing the wrong thing, testing courses of action—

[End of recorded material]

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The Future of… 8 – Future, Present, Past

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Future of…

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/06/22

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Because the implied past and set of possible futures is a set or a larger set of possible nexts, it is probabilistic.

Rick Rosner: I see the present as the way in which existence—I see the present moment as always, the most defined moment in a timeline, and before and after the present moment. You have probable past and future moments.

People build whole theories about one of those possible moments have real existences, like Multi-Worlds Theory, even Multi-Futures theory. You can talk about Multi-Pasts Theory.

Jacobsen: Also, to clarify, we should probably say world line rather than timeline.

Rosner: Yes, sorry, world line. The limited amount of information that we have—we have limited information about the present. There are many possible presents. We don’t know what is happening on another planet or in another country at this moment.

Same with the universe. It is basing judgments on limited information. The idea that you can get exactly back to a past moment. I don’t think is admissible under the laws of quantum mechanics. There are some instances in which you can do that under General and Special Relativity.

[End of recorded material]

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The Future of… 7 – Thoughts on Time

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Future of…

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/06/15

[Beginning of recorded material]

Jacobsen: Maybe, we’ve been thinking about time the wrong way then.

Rosner: How are you thinking about time?

Jacobsen: When we take time, we take a number line with integers, so you can go positive and negative. In Newtonian Mechanics, or Classical Mechanics, you can go backwards or forwards and it won’t make a difference. You’re at T=0, and can move from there.

In quantum mechanics, there is a different backwards if you go forwards or backwards. Maybe, the proper representation is sets of paths where even the past is another possible path.

Rosner: Yea! Okay, I think that’s the right way to think about it.

[End of recorded material]

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The Future of… 6 – Ultimate Travel

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Future of…

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/06/08

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: I’m sure there will continue to be fancier ways of transport, but the emphasis for transport will shrink. We will still build a bullet train to Vegas eventually, so California or LA idiots can get there quicker. Transportation is interesting.

Another thing you just brought up is time travel.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: It is the ultimate form of travel.

Rosner: Yes. Some will say it is the worst because most shows assume you will be anchored to your spot-on Earth as you time travel, even though the Earth is travelling around the Sun and rotating and the Sun is in the Solar System and moving in the Milky Way and the Milky Way is moving in among billions of galaxies.

All that movement is something you must track. It is another reason time travel is goofy. Every moment is a quantum web, a quantum event. It is non-replicatable. Under Newton, who thought the universe, or theorized as if the universe had absolute space and time, which includes infinite precision in objects’’ locations, you can imagine the universe being an experiment in billiards, where you can just run back the world.

But the world is incompletely defined and information about the past that you might use to replicate the past is not completely recoverable as we move into the future. Everything wobbles, even if you could run times backwards.

There are particles like positrons and whatever you call negative protons.

[End of recorded material]

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The Future of… 5 – Travel Inefficiency

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Future of…

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/06/01

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: Because travel is super inefficient in a lot of ways, where the person weights 120-300 pounds. What a person travels in and in America that is often a loaded car, they will weigh 2 to 4 thousand pounds. So you are already wasting a lot of resources by transporting more than 10 times your weight just to run errands and stuff.

Plane travel while efficient in subways is very polluting. Eventually, there will be a pain where a lot of things will be more easily achieved by just remote conferencing. Consider the amount of business we do via phones.

I don’t know what percent of our communicative life is based around a device rather than face-to-face. It has got to be for the average person now, over 75%. Once we get past some uncanny valley, which we’re not approaching via telepresence, more and more people will virtually do more and more of their lives.

I just saw an article without reading it about how much of retail—without seeing an article, that is obvious. Malls and retail strips are just getting eviscerated. So anyway, people are going to move away from transportation.

[End of recorded material]

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Advice to Gifted and Talented Youth 8 – SAT and ACT

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Advice to Gifted and Talented Youth

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/08

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What can students and parents do to prepare for the SAT, which is becoming less important, and the ACT, which is becoming more important?

Rick Rosner: The SAT is becoming less important because it measures a bunch of skills that are not needed in other areas of school, whereas the ACT tests knowledge that you should be picking up in your class. That’s why, I would guess, there is an increasing preference for the ACT.

For both of them, or either of them, the best thing you can do is to take as many practice tests as you possibly can so that you are as familiar as you can get with the materials and the questions that they will throw at you.

If you can, you should take 12-20 complete practice tests. You don’t have to take them all at once – take them section by section when you have 25 or 30 minutes. You should really end up work. You will gradually see improvement. That strategy is a little more applicable to the SAT. The SAT doesn’t test knowledge as it measure the ability to think on your feet a little bit in SAT terms, whereas the ACT measures knowledge that you picked up in English, Math, Science, and a whole bunch of science and math for taking a whole bunch of ACTs.

If you already have a decent grounding in those subjects, it will at least give you a good picture about the landscape of the knowledge that they’re testing. So, where my advice for the SAT is to take 12-20 practice tests, ACT maybe do half of that and supplement in between the practice tests studying the material that you didn’t get right on each test.

What you didn’t get right should point you in the direction of where you need to study more, what goes along with this is not paying $100/hr times 20 or 30 or 40 hours, or however many hours, for a private tutor, you can get all sorts of feedback from SAT and ACT books on why the correct answers are correct.

You don’t need somebody walking you through everything all of the time. You definitely don’t need somebody sitting there picking up the hourly charges while you take practice tests. You can have a tutor in for an hour or two once a month or every six weeks to help to get you to go through some of the stuff that you got wrong, didn’t understand, or don’t know how to tackle on the tests, but it shouldn’t be a weekly thing.

You should be able to get more taking practice tests than sitting with a tutor going through problems, especially on the SAT. The SAT, it helps if you see thousands of SAT math problems and you know every kind of problem that they throw at you.

You may not be able to solve every one of them, but at least you’ll have an idea about whether you want to skip the problem or not.

[End of recorded material]

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Advice to Gifted and Talented Youth 7 – Bullying

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Advice to Gifted and Talented Youth

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/07/01

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: Now, even though there’s still a lot of bullying and there are new ways to bully people online, it’s a much more, I think, diverse personality types are more accepting. One reason is that people who were once geeks have completely reshaped the world through technology, and everybody enjoys the fruits of technology, and entertainment that focuses on stuff that was once geeky like superheroes is some of the most carefully and expensively wrought entertainment there is.

And thanks to social media, people are less isolated and can find support from each other even if their social situation at school isn’t great, but I think overall people are better informed. I mean yea everybody looks like an idiot on their cell phones.

But I think people are a little bit more grown-up because there is more information and people have more information about life. Back in my childhood, even TV was useless at telling you anything real, there were shows like or classic/beloved shows like the Brady Bunch or the Partridge family.

They barely touched on any real issues and offered no help or no real help with how to deal with stuff. They offered easy situations and platitudes, and were just kind of terrible to watch because they were so lazy.

[End of recorded material]

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Advice to Gifted and Talented Youth 6 – Mom Doesn’t Know

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Advice to Gifted and Talented Youth

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/06/22

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: My mom didn’t know what to do with me. She was afraid of not properly dealing with a kid with, a gifted kid, a kid with gifts. She thought the best way to deal with that was to treat me like a normal kid in the hopes that I would turn out normally, which to some extent was not the worst thing.

I was tested in first grade to see if I should be kicked up a grade. And I had the academic and intellectual skills to do it, but then they saw me on the playground as a loner, and correctly realized that putting me with kids a year older than me would’ve further isolated me socially.

So, and then going to school in the sixties and seventies in America, at least, there was not – the era in general and me specifically – there was not a lot of push to excel academically beyond getting good grades. It was nothing in terms of academic push compared to now. I didn’t get homework until junior high, and it was minimal.

There were few AP classes offered and few people took them. The highest you could go in math in school was calculus, and few people made it that far. And there was much less competition to get into selected colleges, which meant that people didn’t have to work very hard at all to demonstrate academic performance strong enough to get into a really college.

The acceptance rate for Harvard during my era was four times the current acceptance rate. 20% of applicants got in compared to 5% now. So, my generation was not pushed enough and the current generation is probably pushed too hard.

Also, it was much less socially acceptable to be a geek. Geeks got bullied and persecuted more. And didn’t get to go out with girls, the current era is much, much more accepting of geeks and nerds and nerd interests.

[End of recorded material]

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Advice to Gifted and Talented Youth 5 – Nerd Societies

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Advice to Gifted and Talented Youth

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/06/15

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We have issues to do with high levels of dropout, low levels of performance, and high levels of diagnoses for ADHD for boys.

Rick Rosner: Before you move onto this whole other thing, society has become very geeky and nerdy, where I’m sure there’s still lots of schools where the football players run the schools and nerds get thrown in the garbage can on a semi-daily basis, but the overall culture is more accepting and embracing of geeks and nerds than it was in the 80s and before.

I was born in 1960. People born in my era were given a lot of IQ tests. I was an early reader and good at math, but there was very little in the way. there were few enriched educational opportunities. Occasionally, I would have a teacher that saw I needed more challenging material and they would set me up with that stuff, and that would keep me out of trouble for a year or two.

One of those teachers, I had for 5th and 6th grade. it gave me two years on not fucking up. But back then, the default assumption was that everybody was being served well by public schools. Most people went to public schools at least where I went to public school in Colorado, and people assumed everything was fine and everybody turned out okay.

[End of recorded material]

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Advice to Gifted and Talented Youth 4 – John Hughes Movies

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Advice to Gifted and Talented Youth

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/06/08

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: To start your study of these kids, you want to watch John Hughes movies. He’s said that his classic movies of the 80s like Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Breakfast Club – probably have more characters in them that are asynchronously developed than any super popular movies ever. You can probably throw Lucas in there. The 80s were kind of the era for high school movies and movie characters who were frustrated because they were smart, but immature, and didn’t know how to work around that.

Hughes talked about the difference between geeks and nerds, where a nerd is going to be a little weird and off for their whole life. But a geek just needs a couple years to level off physically and emotionally to where they are intellectually.

But from what you’re saying, a geek who doesn’t get the right kind of support or doesn’t develop the right life strategies could freeze into a nerd, permanently maladjusted and at odds with society.

[End of recorded material]

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Advice to Gifted and Talented Youth 3 – James Flynn

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Advice to Gifted and Talented Youth

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/06/01

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You’re pointing out tremendous amounts of stress growing up. You pointed to one major event can cut you out of the story altogether. What about small things that can small, but persistent, effects over time such as stereotype threat?

Rick Rosner: If you look at James Flynn, he’s the Flynn Effect guy. he says most of the differences for IQ are due to upbringing and environment.

Jacobsen: What percent? What ratio?

Rosner: I don’t know. And pinning down percentages with that stuff is a ticket to ugly arguments. You can go ahead and say 50/50 to 40/60 or 60/40 one way or the other. You can say that the outcomes are better if you grow up in a sophisticated, educated, and affluent, safe household.

Jacobsen: They talk about asynchronous development. Kids emotionally at their age, but intellectually say they’re 5 and at the intellectual age of 10. Even when they grow up, and they are in their circumstance, they will be in substandard housing, poorer nutrition, worse schools, and high stress environments and may not necessarily emotionally understand what’s going on or be able to emotionally cope with the circumstance – even though they have the high ability.

[End of recorded material]

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Advice to Gifted and Talented Youth 2 – Age and Ethnic, and Class, Differences

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Advice to Gifted and Talented Youth

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/05/22

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What age?

Rick Rosner: Super early for back then, 3 3/4, I was ready and able to read anything, just any adult stuff. There are stories about me at the barber shop reading the magazine and asking what premature ejaculation is. And me at around the same age reading a magazine while at the table when my mom had the Bridge club over, and asking her what tampax was. Amd back then, very few kids came into kindergarten being able to read.

Now, there are entire school districts where highly invested parents make sure their kids learn stuff super early.

Jacobsen: Are there ethnic differences and socio-economic class differences for these kids – then and now?

Rosner: Sure, people of different ethnicities are always sitting on a knife edge of falling into trouble. If you’re a black kid from Chicago, you can be gifted as hell and stll get shot, still live in some terrible neighbourhood.

[End of recorded material]

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Advice to Gifted and Talented Youth 1 – Introduction

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Advice to Gifted and Talented Youth

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/05/15

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Gifted and talented youth decades ago did not have as much support as they do now. Gifted and talented have tremendous amounts of support now, but can fall through the cracks.

They are spotted more often, but fall through the cracks. That leaves room for parents and gifted and talented youths to dodge those cracks that they might fall into in their life course.

Let’s jump into your history, through some non-standard ‘power tests,’ you seem to score in the top or at the top of the intelligence test score scales with an IQ of 199 at the highest performance – if assumed credence to these alternative, untimed tests.

You seem to be one of the most gifted people in the Western hemisphere on an average day.

Richard Rosner: Alright, so – not every gifted kid grows up to be a gifted adult. And it’s arguable whether or not I’ve grown up to be a gifted adult. I’ve been a pretty successful TV writer, but I don’t know if that qualifies at giftedness or just extremely hackiness.

But by any standard, I qualified as a gifted child because I taught myself to read super early.

[End of recorded material]

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USA: Interview with Amitabh Pal, Freedom From Religion Foundation

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Secularism is a Women’s Issue

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/11

Amitabh Pal is the Director of Communications for the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). Here we talk about his work and views with the FFRF.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you become involved in the secularist movements?

Amitabh Pal: I’ve been at the intersection of progressive politics and journalism my entire professional life. The separation of state and church has been always of importance to me. (I’m extremely proud of the fact that the three countries I’m from — the United States, India and Germany — are all secular.) We were ardent defenders of secularism at The Progressive magazine, where I was at for a long time. One of the main projects we had during the Bush years, for instance, was calling out his “messianic militarism” and the damage it did the world as a chief cause of the Iraq War. We also had regular exposés of the Religious Right and its harmful influence. Anyone who cares for a better society has to work for secularism, and this is something I’ve done with zeal.

Jacobsen: How did you become involved in and work at the Freedom From Religion Foundation?

Pal: After many years at The Progressive, I was in the mode of transitioning out. I had worked with FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor as the editor of The Progressive’s op-ed service (the Progressive Media Project), for which she had a written a number of columns. So when I saw an opening at the Freedom From Religion Foundation, an organization I was familiar with and deeply respected, I immediately applied for the position. I was delighted when, after the selection process, I was offered the job.

Jacobsen: Now, as an important footnote to this conversation, you are highly educated, which includes two master’s degrees. One in journalism; another in political science, these are important accomplishments. How does this inform your work as the director of communications at FFRF?

Pal: Obviously, the journalism degree impacts and informs all that I accomplish here at FFRF. The writing and editing I engage in were seeded at UNC-Chapel Hill (Go Tar Heels!). The coursework there gave me the skills I’m applying at the job day in and day out. But the political science degree has been very handy, too. The work we do is by its very nature political, and having a good grasp of the underlying dynamics helps me be a better writer and editor. I have a special interest in international issues, and so I’ve written blogs and press releases dealing with such matters (for example on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo). The more you learn, the more it comes in useful.

Jacobsen: Also, you wrote at the Progressive for many years. How did you work there? What did you do? What were the results of your writing and work there? (What did you learn?)

Pal: I was at The Progressive for almost two decades — and it taught me a whole lot. I started off as the editor of the Progressive Media Project, an op-ed service associated with The Progressive that sends out columns on a regular basis to hundreds of newspapers all over the United States and abroad. This prepared me not only to write and edit on a wide range of subjects but also to quickly turn around pieces, qualities that have come in very handy here at FFRF. Then, for more than a decade I was Managing Editor of The Progressive magazine itself. I specialized in doing long-form interviews for the magazine, interviewing such folks as Mikhail Gorbachev and Jimmy Carter, among many others. I wrote a lot of web columns, feature articles and book reviews. And, certainly, I further honed my editing skills. It was an incredible experience at The Progressive.

Jacobsen: You have a Hindu background. You can understand the religion and potentially the mix-up with politics too. The ways in which religion get involved in politics are complicated, but, nonetheless, they differ on a number of metrics and in different nations. Hinduism is prominent in India and mixed up with the Modi leadership.

If you have any knowledge and can compare and contrast between the mix-up of Evangelical Christian and Roman Catholic Christian religion in American politics and Hindu religion in Indian politics, how do these differ? How are these similar? How are these the same?

Pal: I could go on and on about this! This is because I am literally writing a book on the populist majoritarianism of President Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Their attempted dismantling of the secular setup in their countries as a part of their political projects is a big focus of my book. The Religious Right In India is in command right now, just like its counterpart in the United States. The ironic thing is that in spite of its supposed hatred of Islam and Christianity, the Hindu political movement is trying to make Hinduism like these religions by imposing a central dogma and belief on a faith that has historically lacked these features. The result is proving disastrous — both for the religion itself and for India at large. The implications of the world’s two largest democracies heading in a calamitous direction should make us all very worried.

Jacobsen: Any final feelings or thoughts in conclusion based on the conversation today? Any updates to the communications activities of the FFRF?

Pal: The Freedom From Religion Foundation is experiencing a tremendous growth spurt, and this is reflected on the communications front. We have a new TV interview show, “Freethought Matters,” which is broadcast in the Madison area and is posted on our YouTube channel. Among the people we’ve interviewed are Steven Pinker and New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg. We have a weekly Facebook Live “Ask an Atheist” feature, which can also be seen on YouTube. We have a pithy “Newsbite” segment discussing the highlight of our week that we post online. Our long-running radio show is going strong. (Check all of this out at www.ffrf.org.) And our endeavors and triumphs in the service of freethought are getting more and more attention from major media entities and local outlets all over the country. Exciting times indeed!

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Amit.

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USA: The Existential Risks and Trauma of Leaving a Cult

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Secularism is a Women’s Issue

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/10

Scott is the Founder of Skeptic Meditations. He speaks from experience in entering and leaving an ashram. Here we talk about existential risks for an individual leaving a cult, views of the world only knowing the cult, leaving psychologically and physically from the cult, places for transition, and some who never get over their trauma.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What bigger existential risks exist for the individual who leaves the cult, immediately?

Scott from SkepticMeditations.com: The more the group members lived in the ashrams the greater their self-identity was broken and reformed as part of the group. In other words, group members’ existence was attached to monastic identity, name, and position within the spiritual-organizational hierarchy.

Cloistered spiritual groups are most undemocratic and unequal. The superior, powerful members are those closest to the leaders. Group members learn quickly how to please and fight their way to maintain or climb up the spiritual-corporate ladder. It’s a kind of spiritual-ego formed within the context of the organization.

It is difficult to describe what a member feels and thinks after leaving their relationships within a group that for years or decades destroyed, then reformed and maintained their spiritual-ego or self-world identity. Members who leave the group psychologically, first, before they leave physically, probably have a lower risk of failing to reintegrate into society outside.

When you think about cults, the aim of these groups and the members who join them, is to break down the old self-world identity. Labeled as spiritual training, the aim of groups based on ideological thought-reform leads to abuses of its members: whether political, social, or religious groups.

For religious cult-groups, the aim is to remold members into the image of the God, Guru, or perfection as idealized in the spiritual practices of the group. In cults with an Eastern enlightenment-bent, the path is purportedly divinely designed to bring follower-practitioners to perfection, to realize self as Self, soul, or God or Nirvana.

The practice and progress to the aim are measured by degrees of selfless service and obedience to the spiritual teacher, and distrusting self. Through the aims and ideals of the group’s spiritual training, members allow themselves to be destroyed, broken, and in the old self’s place a new self is created, fashioned to fit the group.

This is not a secret. It’s openly discussed by members that the outside world is dangerous, evil, or deluded and inside the group, close to the master-teacher is spiritual safety and illumination. Psychologically cult groups break the member’s sense of self and then reframe follower’s self-world identity.

Essentially members surrender their existence (their self-world image) to the authority of someone who claims to know what is best for the disciple-follower. For members who’ve lived for years and decades inside, psychologically these groups, the damage is irreparable.

Jacobsen: How does someone view the world if the cult or cult-like group is all they have ever known in life?

Scott from SkepticMeditations.com: Long-time cult-group members fear to leave the group for many reasons. In the SRF ashrams, for example, we were taught that as ordained monastics we were somehow special, were chosen by God and Guru to help with his divine dispensation of SRF teachings and meditation techniques.

Our belief in our specialness made us feel superior and powerful–with the weight and authority of Creator of the Universe behind us, who could ultimately be against us?

Surrender and obedience to external authority become easy when you are told you are special, superior, and forerunners of a new race of spiritual beings destined to raise the consciousness of humanity and the world.

The darker side of our belief in this story is that if we ever left the guru-teacher or broke our vows of loyalty then we were told we would not only risk losing everything spiritually but would possibly have to wander in darkness, suffer, lost in delusion (Maya) for seven future lifetimes (future human incarnations).

That is heavy fear and pressure to stay physically and psychologically with the group and its leader-teacher.

There is a certain degree of an annihilation of self that occurs upon entering, staying, and psychologically leaving the cult doctrine. That is perhaps why many former members who leave cults hold onto the underlying beliefs that led them and kept them in the group in the first place.

We humans have a deep need to create meaning in a seemingly meaningless universe. Our cultures (cults: familial, social, economic, political, philosophical or theological) breed and offer meaning, which we seldom take time to examine carefully.

I think this is why existential philosophers, like Nietzsche, declared God is dead but acknowledged the fact that the natural world was a nightmare of horror tinged with moments of art and beauty.

When a member of the cult group, that pretends to offer the ultimate answers to life and purpose of existence, when that member psychologically or physically leaves the group or ideology that creates for him or her a crisis of existence.

Jacobsen: How can members who are thoroughly entrenched in the doctrine of the cult’s worldview leave mentally and then physically?

Scott from SkepticMeditations.com: If a member of the ashram left or was asked by group leaders to leave the ashram, and yet they didn’t psychologically leave behind the SRF monastic ideology, then leaving physically didn’t make much if any change in their cultic worldview.

Perhaps, the members who left physically but not psychologically have to struggle with guilt and shame of not being good enough to stay, even if they “chose” to leave.

There are numerous former monks who I talked with after I left, though they physically left the ashram, clung psychologically to the Yogi-cultic doctrines of the teacher Yogananda, SRF, or kept revolving their worldview around devotion to God and Guru and spiritual liberation through yoga meditation.

Some former ashram members told me that their experiences in meditation prove the existence of kundalini (astral energies) awakened in their spine (a Yogic doctrine espoused by SRF and many Eastern-styled meditation groups), as if that is somehow meaningful and real beyond doubt.

When their understanding is these mystical experiences (mystical interpretations of the natural world), which were implanted into our minds in the first place by the external authority, teachings, or teacher, how would they know that is kundalini in his spine?

Didn’t some external authority tell him that and give him that distinction and interpretation? He’s psychologically trapped in the teacher’s ideology, though he left the ashram a decade ago.

Clearly many former cult members have not “left” the cult psychologically. They don’t leave behind the underlying premises that brought, kept, and controlled them while they physically lived inside the cultic group. Many continue to believe and practice the underlying teachings or doctrines of the external authority.

My own leaving psychologically unfolded gradually. For years and perhaps a decade or more starting while I lived in the SRF ashram. Then when upon physically leaving the group I at first believed that my reason for leaving was flaws of organized religion, of imperfect humans.

I continued to meditate and believe in the underlying premises (God, guru, meditation powers and energies) espoused by SRF and mystical, spiritual yoga meditation or enlightenment. Though I could not make sense at first of why I failed to interpret my experiences as special or mystical and enlightening as the teacher and group had promised.

Eventually, I saw that what I’d believed in was a false doctrine. That the whole thing was a fraud, and that we’d simply been abused. It really hurts to admit that. But to admit I was a victim of abuse has helped me to process, learn, and get through the trauma.

Jacobsen: Do halfway houses or safe transition houses exist for ex-cult members as with women who were victims of domestic abuse?

Scott from SkepticMeditations.com: I’m not aware of organized, physical safe houses for victims of cult abuse in the United States. Though there are some online support groups. In U.S. society, I think, pretends there are no victims of abuses.

Self-reliance is sometimes insufficient. In the U.S., there is an underlying premise in society everybody should be able to pick themselves up by their bootstraps and not expect anyone, certainly not society, to take care of us.

Perhaps the heartlessness of self-reliance is one reason why in the U.S. we have so many religious factions, fundamentalists, and cults vying for mindshare. And, why there seems to be no end to the supply of members joining and leaving religions and cults.

So, for the most part, cult members in the U.S. when they leave the group, they pretty much are on their own. Some are fortunate to have supportive family and friends. But, as I noted above, many cult members abandoned or destroyed their former relationships upon entering and obeying the rules of the cult.

However, I do know of a few informal halfway houses for former religious clergy or cult-members to transition back into society.

The Clergy Project, a nonprofit for clergy who no longer believe in the supernatural, provide online resources and sometimes training and funding for former clergy to reintegrate back into society.

There’s Recovering From Religion that provides a toll-free hotline, but it is not focused on cults per se, but on people struggling to come out of religion (which as I mentioned above physically leaving a cult group is not the same as psychologically leaving the religion or underlying doctrine of the cult).

I’ve heard that Leah Remini, producer, and host of the TV documentary series Scientology and the Aftermath, is trying to organize a nonprofit to support Scientology Sea Org (e.g. clergy) who want to leave and to reintegrate into society.

When I left the Self-Realization Fellowship Order, never to return physically, I was fortunate to find the informal support of several members and former monastics of SRF.

Without their material (donations of household items to stock my new apartment) and psychological support (listening and understanding), I may have had a much more challenging reintegration back into society.

Or, if I had left without their support would have felt perhaps totally isolated and alone. (Self-reliance is mostly a myth. We rely on support from others, especially during our crises.)

I sometimes feel alone in my experiences but then I occasionally meet former cult members who I can identify with. But there seems to be a little more public conversation in the mainstream, but mostly alternative media about cult-groups and members who exit cults.

That kind of vulnerability, feeling isolated and alone, is often what cults and their leaders prey on and target in recruits. So whatever we as society can do to support our members to be independently interdependent; to be part of a supportive community not conditioned by conforming to a set ideology is, I believe, extremely important for social progress and for the survival of the natural world of which humans are part.

Jacobsen: Do some never ‘get over’ their experiences, the trauma for example?

Scott from SkepticMeditations.com: Yes. It breaks you to be a committed member of a cult or psychologically-controlling group. Members join, knowingly or unknowingly, for the promise of spiritual training, which begins by breaking down the ego, self-identity. There’s much trust placed in God, Guru-teacher, and spiritual truth.

When the promises turn out to be false, that breaks members too. As the member’s self-identity softens, breaks down, the member submits to the cult’s reforming, reshaping into a new self-identity.

The break-down of self at first can often feel exhilarating, elating, ecstatic, liberating. But this breakdown and reshaping of self-identity is at best a waste of time, at worst dangerous. Members may never regain the lost years in the group: time wasted, not spent building useful skills, relationships, family, career, intellect, and so on.

Many former members never really seem to get over their trauma. Many turn inward on themselves: to guilt, shame, or depression, sometimes suicide. Again, the guilt and self-world break-down is part of the conditioning, or spiritual training, underlying membership in cultic groups.

Members blame the victim, even if it’s them. The underlying premises are the spiritual teachings and teachers are perfect and if anyone doesn’t find that perfection in them then it is the member’s fault.

They are not spiritual enough or too blinded by ego-self and so on. Many former members are perhaps damaged for the remainder of their life. Often current and former members have huge trust issues: lack of trust in self and others.

A need for existential meaning and a need to seek answers from external authority. I have been working for years since I left the ashram cult to rebuild self-world identity and regain the relationships that I had abandoned with family and friends.

A huge motivation for my doing this interview with you is to speak out about the harms of such groups, to process my experiences, and hopefully help by telling my story and perspectives.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Scott.

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Sudan: How to help Noura in Sudan and similar cases?

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Secularism is a Women’s Issue

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/17

Scott Douglas Jacobsen interviews Marieme Helie Lucas on how best to help Noura in Sudan and other similar cases

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How are the gender roles and legal rights different and unequal for men and women in many Islamic theocracies?

Marieme Helie Lucas: I feel that your question presupposes that so-called Muslim countries – or Muslim majority countries – are automatically theocracies; that is definitely not the case, they are mostly democracies, technically speaking. And as far as knowing whether they are ‘Islamic’ i.e. really in conformity with Islam, or not – it would be for theologians to say so… This is why I do not use the term ‘Islamic’ which refers to a doctrine, a philosophy, an ideology, a vision of the world, a faith, and I use the term ‘Muslim’, which refers to human beings who claim faith in this ideology, and to what they do in the name of their faith. We are not here debating at the level of ideas, but of actions, laws, practices, i.e. of sociology and politics. In actual fact Muslim majority countries are anything but homogenous; they range from theocracies to democracies, from ultra conservative to socialist in name.

The rights granted to citizens in general and to women in particular therefore vary from country to country; factors that account for these differences are essentially political, economical – far more than religiously grounded.

If you read the Koran – or the Bible for that matter -, you will find both the god of wrath and punishment, and the god of mercy and tolerance. You can endlessly oppose progressive and conservative theologians in Islam, all armed with their antagonistic quotes from the holy book…But isn’t it similar to what happens in Christianity, between those who have a progressive reading of the text and their opponents?

The problem indeed is political: who makes what political use of religion, where and when, in which circumstances – that is the real question. What is the balance of forces between those – and the defenders and advocates of secularism is the next question. This is what really determines the status of women, among others. In Muslim contexts like anywhere else.

The real problem is that for some time already, ultra conservative political forces have been steadily growing and they are now taking over in many regions in the world (a good number of countries are led by the far-right in Europe at the moment – with Catholics and Orthodox Christian fundamentalists next to it -, and both far-right and evangelicals are rising hand in hand in Trump’s America, to start with). The particular form the rise of the extreme right is taking in some countries is through religions (See Modi’s India with the rise of Hindu fundamentalists to power and the ensuing backlash on minorities, see also the Buddhist far-right terror in Myanmar and Sri Lanka). This is definitely the case in Muslim majority contexts – but this should be analyzed, not as a specificity of “Islam”, but as part of the broad rise of the far-right the world over.

Indeed, in predominantly Muslim contexts, gender roles and legal rights are different and unequal for men and women – but more so under conservative governments and less so under democratic ones; and even less so in socialist regimes. Even though Islam was still the religion of the vast majority of people in Libya, Iraq, Syria or in the Central Asia Republics, women had the right to vote (sometimes long before some European women did, French women for instance only gained voting rights in 1945, i.e. after WWII; as for Swiss women, a last canton gave them voting rights in the last decade – would you believe it?), girls went to school (virtually 100% in primary schools in Libya, and those who went to university received state grants). Meanwhile, in some rich oil countries in the Arabic peninsula – and not just in impoverished isolated Muslim communities in Asia and Africa – women were secluded and maintained in illiteracy…
In the so-called ‘Muslim world’, one can find all the political shades vis a vis women: for instance, from quasi equality in marriage laws to the most horrendous submission of women to their male relatives, – father and husband first and foremost.

If we want to fight it, we better be clear that we are being confronted to a far-right movement working under the guise of religion. In our case it is Islam, but in other cases it is Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc… To believe that ‘Islam’ is the cause of inequity between men and women is to look at the tip of the iceberg. At the moment, for instance, many countries in Europe are facing reiterated attempts at curtailing reproductive rights, from Spain to Poland, you name it…

Would you say religion is the cause or would you name the far-right forces (eventually backed by Christian fundamentalists) that use Christianism and fear of god to prevent women’s access to contraception and abortion?

Let me clarify one thing: this is NOT a defense of ‘Islam’, I’m just trying to position ourselves better in understanding the political forces we are confronting, whether or not they pretend to represent Islam. We should not fall into the trap they set for us.

Jacobsen: What are the rights violations and gender inequality in the situation for Noura Hussein Hammad?

Helie Lucas: Traditionally, ‘marriage’ in Muslim contexts usually takes place in two parts: one is the signature of the marriage contract and the other is the consummation of the marriage – these are two occasions of festivities. The time span between these events can be from a few days to a few years. In Noura’s case, it was a few years. She was married against her will, i.e. her father signed the contract as her legal tutor, her wali, when she was 16. This is legal in Sudan and in a number of Muslim countries, especially those following the Maliki school of thought – but not in all predominantly Muslim countries. The bride does not even have to be present during this signature, as she is ’represented’, as a minor, by her wali. Then Noura was sent to her husband’s house for the consummation of the marriage when she was 19. She never flinched in her refusal of this marriage. Both Sudanese laws and international law prohibit forced marriages. The problem is that it comes in conflict with the institution of wali, which maintains women in a status of forever legal minority, with male tutors signing contracts in women’s place. The institution of wali is specific to the Maliki ritual that prevails mostly in North Africa; it is not practiced in all schools of thought in Islam.

Although forced marriages are generally prohibited under the law of the land, not all countries take it to heart to implement these laws.

This is also a child marriage. However under the growing influence of fundamentalist preachers, the actual – and sometimes also the legal – age of marriage has been decreasing to actual puberty of girls; in many places today, girls are married off as early as age 9 or 10.

The second violation committed against Noura is rape – and not just, if I may say, ‘marital rape’, but it is gang rape, as – in order to crush her physical resistance -, husband sought help from several of his male relatives in order to pin her down and hold her arms and legs while he was raping her in front of them. From what her lawyers said, she had bruises and scars from the fight. The day after this horrendous ‘marriage’, when the ‘husband’ tried to rape her again, she defended herself with a knife and killed him. She then went to her father’s house, but he disowned her and took her to the police.
She was convicted with murder and sentenced to death. With no consideration for the circumstances, and for a case of self defense. Hence Amnesty International’ recent demand that this judgment be annulled and for a more equitable trial to take place.
Apparently, Sudan, like some other Muslim countries – not all – have a legal provision for ‘blood money’: the family of the victim can demand a financial compensation for their loss, – rather than a death sentence for the culprit. In Noura’s case, the late husband’s family refused compensation and demanded the death sentence.

Jacobsen: How can gender roles advance within Islam? How can progressivism provide a better foundation for the rights of women compared to conservatism and traditional religion?

Helie-Lucas: I am afraid that it is not ‘within Islam’ that we should all fought together for advancing women’s rights – but within each of our societies. I feel no responsibility for changing Islam from within, or Christianity or any other religion for that matter. As a citizen, I feel responsibility for changing laws in democratic ways, towards more equality between all human beings, regardless of class, age, sex, beliefs, etc…. As a secularist, I do not want to live under non-voted un-changeable a-historical supposedly-divine laws. This is the essence of democracy.
Many activists in predominantly Muslim contexts work hard and take enormous risks to fight conservatism, to promote progressive ideas – including for women’s status in society – , to change regressive laws. In Algeria, women have been fighting since 1984 to put an end to the institution of wali, so that women be finally considered legal adults and not forever minors who cannot enter into a contract, by themselves, without a male tutor. So far, they have not succeeded. The courageous women’s rights organization “20 ans Barakat !” (‘20 years is enough!’) promoted this struggle with a powerful clip that you all should watch in order to realize how many women (and men) are engaged into this type of struggle, on the ground, in our countries.

Vidéo here: WACHDAK :collectif “20 ans barakat”par www.algerie-femme.com …
▶ 4:33
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNkHmEN0IlI

The clip shows for instance, women’s demonstrations in the capital-city, Algiers, during which fundamentalist threw home-made bombs at demonstrators.
These initiatives need to be supported – not led – from the outside. In Sudan, on the forefront are the women’s rights and human rights organizations that are leading the struggle for Noura’s rights. They do so at great risk for themselves.

These progressive forces exist everywhere in Muslim contexts, just as they do elsewhere. But they are little considered outside their countries – especially in the West which globally tends to ignore them. Noura’s case is a good opportunity to reach out in solidarity to progressive, feminist, humanist, secular forces in our parts of the world. It is an opportunity to create working links that would last even after we save Noura’s life – as I am now convinced we will, collectively, manage to do.

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Sudan: Marieme Helie Lucas on the Case of Noura Hussein Hammad

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Secularism is a Women’s Issue

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/11

Marieme Helie Lucas is an Algerian sociologist, activist, founder of ‘Secularism is a Women’s Issue,’ and founder and former International Coordinator of ‘Women Living Under Muslim Laws.’ Here we talk about the case of Noura Hammad. Noura has been sentenced to death and has 15 days to appeal the decision.

The hashtag for the campaign: #JusticeForNoura. Email name and country if you would like to sign the petition: daajisodfa.pr@gmail.com.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How come is this inequality in the law for women?

Marieme Helie Lucas: As you know, Scott, in many – but not all – instances women in predominantly Muslim contexts are never considered as coming to adult age; and they are considered, in the law, as forever legal minors – it took a long time everywhere (including in the West, of course) to grant women legal equal rights.

As in Noura’s case, we can be given in marriage by our matrimonial tutors or wali (most of the time our fathers but otherwise any male guardian in the family); interestingly enough, this wali can even be our youngest son: being a male is what is being considered…

It is important to note that many so-called Muslim countries do not hold these conservative views, do not try to hide patriarchal ideology under the guise of religion, and that their national laws grant women citizens a lot more rights, including the right to sign a contract ( marriage or commercial) – and in some countries equal rights in marriage.

However, the global trend in the past few decades has been a political tightening by broad alliances ranging from conservative to extreme right forces, which, among other undemocratic provisions, severely curtail women’s rights – legally and otherwise.

Jacobsen: Why are women having to resort to extreme measures in self-protection from sexual violence in forced marriages?

Helie Lucas: Certainly because they do not have the protection of the law, but moreover, as can be seen in Noura’s case, they do not have the protection of their immediate family either. Religiously sanctioned patriarchy is prevalent everywhere.

So-called honor crimes exist over all the continents (last year, one woman died under the blows of her male partner every three days in France) – even when the law criminalizes such crimes.

Hence the importance of pushing for changes concomitantly – at the same time: at the level of changing laws, of course, but also at the level of changing society, where there is a crucial need for support for women’s rights, and for human rights work in general. Right now, funding for women’s organizations has drastically fallen, everywhere.

But even where there are organizations for the defense of women, it is difficult for ordinary people to access them. Women are most often left to fend for themselves, and, in desperation, they usually attempt to their lives; the cases where they physically defend themselves against the aggressor are much fewer.

From age 15, Noura has steadily refused a forced marriage for four years before taking arms against the husband imposed on her against her expressed will, and she only resorted to self-defense after having suffered a first public rape in the name of marital rights and being threatened with a second one.

She is a hero. She deserves to be supported the world over.

Jacobsen: How does the family, community, society, and religion conspire to restrict women?

Helie Lucas: I think I answered that question first. What I want to underline here is that, against all these regressive forces, there are – everywhere, always, I can testify to it, very courageous women’s organisations and progressive individuals, male and female, who stand up for universal human rights at the risk of their liberty and sometimes of their life; they affirm that this human rights stand in no way contravene to their interpretation of their religion; that in no way does it contradict their being deeply rooted in their local culture, nor does it conflict with their national identity.

These voices are rarely heard outside the national context and they need to be heard, in order to confront ideological simplifications of ‘ they’ (barbaric ones) and ‘us’ (civilized ones) that still prevail.

The danger in Noura’s case is that it would be used to stigmatize specific countries (‘backward’ Africa) or a religion (‘violent’ Islam) and reinforce racism; this can be avoided by simply supporting the work of Sudanese and African local human rights and women’s rights advocates and organisations, by giving them the visibility and credentials they hardly ever get.

It will also help progressive westerners to overcome their ‘white guilt’. We need them now: they should not avoid supporting Noura for fear of being labeled ‘Islamophobic’ or ‘racist’. Support the existing local women’s rights and human rights work and the young courageous Noura.

One cannot even think that Noura deserves fewer rights than any other human being, just because she is Sudanese and was raised in a Muslim context: this is sheer nonsense… No cultural relativism here, please…

Jacobsen: What is the current state of Hammad’s case?

Helie Lucas: Noura will be delivered a sentence today; she admitted to her crime in self-defence and willingly went to the police station with her father to explain the circumstances; women’s rights organisations which have taken up her defence in Sudan think she will be sentenced to death today, but still hope international pressure will save her life and avoid execution.

She has 15 days to appeal the judgment.

Jacobsen: How can people best help her, and others like her in the future?

Helie Lucas: Support local organisations standing in her defence – follow their advice, they know the context best; write to Noura in the prison; alert your local human rights and women’s rights organisations; send letters to Sudanese authorities; and to the African Union, the UN and special rap on violence against women; speak to the media about the case: 15 days is a very short time to save Noura’s life…

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Marieme.

The hashtag: #JusticeForNoura. Again, the email if you would like to sign: daajisodfa.pr@gmail.com.

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Sudan: Global solidarity with Noura Hussein Ahmed, child bride forced into marriage

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Secularism is a Women’s Issue

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/14

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Noura Hussein Hammad is a new case of a woman with the death penalty. What is her brief story?

Helie Lucas: She has been given in marriage by her tutor (wali) (in this case, her father — as this is legal in Sudan) at age 16, against her expressed will. She even fled her father’s house and lived for three years at her aunt’s, hundreds of kilometers away to make it clear she was not accepting this marriage… This actually means that her father signed a marriage contract with the husband to be, eventually out of the presence of the bride to be. The consummation of the marriage may take place at a different time during another ceremony.

After three years, the father sent a message asking her to come back home, stating that he abandoned the idea of marrying her off against her will. He lied about it. When she arrived, she found out that everything was ready for the 2nd stage of the ceremony. She was then forced to go to her husband’s house, where she steadily refused to allow for the consummation of the marriage, for several days. The husband then requested several male family members to hold her down and he raped her in their presence. The day after, he tried to rape her again, but she ran to the kitchen and defended herself with a knife. He died.

She then went back to her father’s place, but he disowned her and took her to the police. She admitted the facts.

She has been judged and sentenced to death by hanging, for murder.

This is a case of child marriage, forced marriage, gang rape, and killing in self-defense. Sudanese law as well as international law both criminalize forced marriage of underage girls. Rights defenders are calling for an annulment of the judgment and a due process, taking into account all the mitigating circumstances that surround the husband death, including human rights abuse, rape, forced marriage, child marriage. They also ask that the state of terror and mental instability in which she must have fallen after the gang rape be considered.

Jacobsen: How can people help her in particular and others in similar situations in general with advancing their ability to fight theocratic laws and violations of human rights?

Helie Lucas: Sudan is a signatory of several international treaties and conventions regarding human rights. It must be held accountable vis a vis international law. It seems that this is the best avenue at the moment to save Noura’s life. On the ground, Sudanese rights groups are creating a climate of awareness for women’s rights and children rights. There is also a growing mobilization in Muslim countries in support of Noura, which denounce a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam as well as contradictions inherent to the discrepancies between the constitution and some institutions like that of wali (tutor), which deprived women of a number of rights otherwise guaranteed under the Constitution. Internationally AI is demanding a revision of the judgment and due process taking into account the specific circumstances of the husband’s murder and the various forms of violence and human rights abuses suffered by Noura.

It is absolutely crucial for supporters outside Sudan to understand that they should first and foremost support the efforts for justice from within. Women’s and rights groups in Sudan know how to best fight for Noura’s life and for women’s and children’s rights. They should keep the lead in this struggle. The mere existence of such progressive forces need to be given visibility, their courage in fighting for justice and human rights in such dire circumstances should be given a well-deserved appreciation, and their expertise fully acknowledged. We should also publicly acknowledge Noura’s courage, for resisting all pressures and for, in the end, not turning to self-destruction but to self-defense. In similar circumstances, many young women commit suicide or fall into mental illness. She is one of these rare cases, publicly fighting for her freedom and that of other women and girls till the end.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Marieme.

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https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/LAWYERS_HUMAN_RIGHTS_ACTIVISTS_SAVE_NORA/?wEvafnb&utm_source=sharetools&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=petition-518899-LAWYERS_HUMAN_RIGHTS_ACTIVISTS_SAVE_NORA&utm_term=Evafnb%2Ben

Sodfa Daaji on the Urgent Case of Noura Hussein Hammad in Sudan

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Secularism is a Women’s Issue

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/10

Sodfa Daaji is the Chairwoman of the Gender Equality Committee and the North Africa Coordinator for the Afrika Youth Movement. Here we talk about Noura Hussein Hammad’s urgent case.

The hashtag: #JusticeForNoura.

Daaji’s email if you would like to sign: daajisodfa.pr@gmail.com.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is the baseline description of Hammad’s case?

Sodfa Daaji: Noura is a 19 years old Sudanese woman, victim of gender based violence, marital rape, domestic violence and forced child marriage at the age of 15 years old. At first, Noura tried to change her fate by escaping to stay with her aunt in Sinnar city, but her father convinced her to come back at home.

He has promised her that the wedding was called off, but she has found herself married against her will. She has spent her in Khartoum. The first three days she stood and didn’t want to give up on her right to say no to any intercourse with her husband. Her refusal brought her husband to call his brother and his cousins and on the 4th day he raped her while they were holding her on the floor.

The next day he tried to rape her and, as stated by Noura during a conversation with the activist and director of SEEMA – the organization that is following directly Noura’s case in Sudan – she took a knife and told him “I die or I will die tonight,” while he replied, “Let’s see who will die tonight.”

Noura stabbed him twice and escaped to her parent’s house. After admitting what she committed, her father took her to the police station.

Jacobsen: What is the likely outcome for Hammad?

Daaji: At this point, in my opinion, we should take in consideration different factors. First of all, the condition of human rights in Sudan. We are talking about a case that came out just few days before her trial, and the main reason is behind the way the government is continuously silencing the freedom of press. Secondly, Sudan is under sharia Law and there is not that much space for the judges for interpretation.

Noura was charged under the article 130, even if in Sudan is recognised the marital rape, but they have not taken in consideration her complete case. Another point that I would like to highlight is the fact that she is a woman. We are pressuring for the way women are perceived in the Sudanese society, and how the rape is justified as a normal act, a sexual intercourse between husband and wife.

The fact that Noura stood for her right as a young girl is not taken in consideration. And, most importantly, what is taken in consideration is the fact that a woman dared to say no, and in some way to break and go against that fate that was written by her parents, and a culture dominated by combined weddings. In Sudan wedding is possible from women’s puberty.

Last point is the husband’s family: According to Sharia, to resume we can say that “you can pay or you can die”. The husband’s family is wealthy and they do not need Noura’s money to compensate their loss. That is why during the upcoming trial on the 10th of May 2018 they will surely condemn Noura to death penalty.

The lawyers of the husband’s family are pressuring for the economic help that Noura’s family has received during the years of the wedding. With just this sentence we can see how Noura was and is perceived: an object sold which duty was just to obey to her husband.

Unfortunately, no matter how much we have pressured on the last days, we acknowledge that time is short and in 15 days will be hard for us to save Noura’s life. In order to do so we need to reach the Sudanese president, who’s bad track record on human rights is not making us positive about her case.

Jacobsen: How can people get the word out or help out?

Daaji: We are trying to make some noise with the aim to be heard by United Nations, Africa Union and African head of states, who are in touch with the Sudanese president. That is why we have an official hashtag #JusticeForNoura and a petition is online:

Anyone is free to join the official FB PAGE

https://www.facebook.com/Justice-For-Noura-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A9-%D9%84%D9%86%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%A7-1261677983968203/

and to join us on twitter @sodfadaaji @ENoMW @AfrikaYM

Last, we want to address a letter to the High Commissioner of OHCHR. That is why, we kindly ask to human’s rights organizations to read the letter and to sign it with the name of the organization and the name of a representative of the organization. Individuals as well can join by providing us a short bio, their full name and country of origin.

To receive the letter, feel free to contact me at daajisodfa.pr@gmail.com

I have learned in this last two days that the power is on us, if we just try to work together without borders. We have a voice; we just have to learn how to use it in order to be heard.

Thank you very much for the opportunity, and for taking your time to talk about Noura’s case.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Sodfa.

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The Problem of ’Faith Schools’ in Britain

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Angelos Sofocleous

Publication (Outlet/Website): Secularism is a Women’s Issue

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/10/16

In the United Kingdom, a faith school is one that teaches a curriculum based on a particular religious denomination or sect. This means formal associations with religion in education for the young. Whilst the United Kingdom may not be governmentally secular, the UK is a secular culture, and this can be an issue, even a major problem, and continues to be a source of contention among the young, adult, and elderly sub-populations. What are the issues?

In this piece we will try and address the main issues we think are paramount to the discussion about the legitimacy of having faith schools here in the UK. Here is the first: the public at large pay for faith schools, which they do without the consent of other citizens, even citizens who may have no formal religion. Now, why should non-religious citizens pay for religious education rather than a non-discriminatory education, especially for the young and vulnerable sub-populations? In other words, those without a formal religious background, or even at-a-distance advocacy, and with kids, are having their children sometimes indoctrinated into formal religious education as per the general curriculum associated with a particular religious denomination or sect, at times against their wishes.

Indeed, these schools can actively discriminate against parents that are humanist, atheist, agnostic, apatheist, and so on, by selecting children based on religious association. What is the justification? This can limit the number and type of schools available to the non-religious in the United Kingdom. Thus, in case parents want to send their kids to a specific school, they will not be allowed to for reasons based solely on religious grounds, which is a form of religious discrimination against the non-religious in a secular society.

In addition, there are assumptions about the beliefs of children in relation to the beliefs of their parents or guardians. That is, the children without particular ideological stances, economic, political, religious, socio-cultural, and so on, are asserted in the socio-cultural milieu to have the same stances, ideologically, as their parents. This is a logical fallacy, a few in fact such as “argument to the people” with the bandwagon approach, appeal to tradition, appeal to biased authority, and, of course, the fallacy of division.

The argument to the people with the bandwagon approach takes the form of many, even most, people are doing this with their children and, therefore, it is the right thing to do. The appeal to tradition is that “everyone’s done it”, and “it is tradition”, and, thus, we should support faith schools (because it’s tradition). Appeal to biased authority comes into effect when the parents, the religious, or religion’s membership are taken into account on the decision of the faith school, who are, well, rather biased on the matter. The core of the arguments come from a fallacy of division, which is that the children are a part of a family with one or both parents that are one particular religion (or lacking them) and that means, therefore, children (being a part of the family unit) are a part of that religion (or lack thereof).

It should not be promoted. Children should be encouraged to think for themselves and not just be put into a specific ideology, either if that is promoted by the state or if it’s the ideology their parents follow.

Now, in light of the qualms we just details, we will argue for the following necessary approach which will, we believe, stave off the dangers that faith schools invariably pose, a position that will hopefully substantiate as the article develops: (good) schools without religious association should be increased in addition to the decrease of independent faith schools. Schools should be a place for secular education apart from religious denomination or sects. Schools should not advocate for a particular religion. As the Secular Charter of the National Secular Society states: “Religion should play no role in state-funded education whether through religious affiliation of schools, curriculum settings, organised worship, religious instruction, pupil selection or employment practices.”

Children do not seem old enough to have ideological stances considered and chosen – let alone have them imposed upon them at youth. In fact, some say there should be no compulsion in religion and others tell the Parable of the Hypocrite, or all speak of the Golden Rule (positive or directive form, negative or prohibitive, or empathic or responsive forms) which seem like good principles to uphold, whether religious/irreligious, and worthy of enactment at the national level down to the individual (the young and the old). In other words, school should be a safe place for children apart from, at times and to a degree, the indoctrination from authority figures, whether educational or parental.

Now, in light of our suggestion just detailed, we want to preempt possible responses. some might argue that children behave better in faith schools as they have better morals. In this manner, faith schools might try to enforce certain moral values, consequently managing to impose the idea that religion is sufficient and necessary for morality. In fact, quite the opposite takes place. According to the Social and Moral Development index, religion around the world, instead of promoting equality, respect for human rights and toleration of non-religious individuals and institutions, as some say it preaches, it greatly suppresses them and in most cases it punishes them.

Children may be seen as unable to develop their own moral code at a young age, or it’s substantially inchoate, but that’s no legitimate reason to impose a specific moral code to them. Undoubtedly, they should be taught to respect, tolerate, develop their way of thinking, be open-minded and do not discriminate. And these can not take place in an institution that discriminates on students in its own admission process.

Now, there’s another reason why we think the approach we pose should supplant the status-quo: there is little evidence that faith schools will do any good for the whole community. They will decrease, rather than increase, children’s knowledge on religious education. Rather than taking religious education through humanist manners, where all religions are equally considered and are treated wholly through a sociological perspective, faith schools will be biased towards their religion, and even if they teach about other religion, there is great doubt that they will not do this in a proper way.

Moreover, there are fears that faith schools will not take the scientific approach in science classes, but instead, teach what they believe themselves to be true. This will happen as, unfortunately, there is little control or inspection on what faith schools can teach. As a result, each faith school will be free to teach children about creationism and abstinence before marriage, and also promote their homophobic and anti-abortion ideologies as facts rather than mere beliefs.

Faith schools definitely have no place in a secular country. Not only this will create segregation between preadolescents and teenagers but they will act like a dogma, imposing to them certain ideologies, rather than teach them to think for themselves. In addition, education will be put in the hands of people who are not much regulated or controlled by the state, and this creates an unsure future for our society. Faith schools, by their very own nature, will discriminate on children, their parents and teachers, as they will not accept children who themselves or their parents are not members of a specific religion, or will prioritise over religious children or parents. The same applies to teachers.

What makes our suggestion viable? Unlike the status quo, our position is not based on illogical premises and logical fallacies. What is more, our suggestion can, through manifesting secular society in education, restrain outmoded theological immorality against children, and the abuse of educational, parental, and religious authority. Schools should be open to all, have fair admission policies and respect and promote each student’s individuality. Trying to dogmatize education will undoubtedly bring disastrous results to our society and bring it a step away from being secular. As a result, a society where faith, not reason, and discrimination, not acceptance, will prevail.

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Ghana: The story of a de-conversion (Interview with Roslyn Mould)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Secularism is a Women’s Issue

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/17

You grew up as a Catholic. You went to Holy Child School, Cape Coast as well. What is your story as a youth growing up in a religious household? What was the experience?

I attended Catholic schools, St. Theresa’s School in Accra from primary, junior high school and in Holy Child School I got my Senior high school education. They were one of the best schools at the time and provided us with the best teachers in all subjects. The major criteria for admissions was to be a Catholic and I was baptised at the St. Theresa’s Parish so it was easier for me to gain admission. In primary school, we had ‘Worship service’ on Wednesday mornings as part of our curriculum and from 1st grade, we were read the Bible and taught to understand it.

In the beginning, I did not really understand it, especially when it came to topics on the afterlife since my mother had died when I was 4 years old and I had still not come to understand the concept of death by then. I must have tried to discuss the existence of God once to my classmates, but I was told that I could go mad (mentally ill) so I stopped. I then made it a point to understand and accept Christianity because I felt that everyone believed in it and it was the right thing to do. By 6th grade, I attended catechism classes and had received my First Holy Communion.

My Senior High School was an all-girls boarding School and was built by the Catholic church in a town called Cape Coast in the Central Region of Ghana in 1946. It had been run initially by British nuns for decades and later by alumni of the school. It was strict and aimed to form students into ‘women of substance’ who would grow up to be the best in the country at home as good wives, at work, and in the Catholic church.

Obedience, discipline, and morality were the core teachings there with religion and especially Catholicism at its core. It was compulsory for all students to attend Mass at least 3 times a week and observe ‘The Angelus’ prayer’ 3 times a day. Most of the students were Catholic, but we had Anglicans and Protestants of various denominations as well. I became more exposed to Christian Charismatic teachings, joined nondenominational prayer groups and underwent a period of ‘being born-again’, which cemented my belief on God. It was there I had my ‘Confirmation of the Holy Spirit’.

Due to my mother’s death, I was brought up partly by my mother’s family and later by my dad’s. My mother’s family is mostly Catholic and conservative who encouraged and supported me to be a good Christian and was proud of me whenever I hit a milestone in my religious life. My father’s side of the family is mostly Anglican and also went to church often, but were more liberal and reformed.

I was encouraged there to think for myself and I learnt to care for myself and my sister at an early age since there was no mother-figure and my dad was not really ‘there’ either. Staying at my dad’s, my sister and I grew up with lots of books and educational programs on satellite TV, which at the time was expensive for most homes to have. As my mother’s side taught me to be obedient and subservient in their understanding of being respectful, my father’s side of the family encouraged me to ask questions and express myself freely.

You de-converted and became an atheist in 2007. What were the major reasons, arguments, evidence, and experiences for the de-conversion?

I had finished University where I acquired my BA in Linguistics and Modern Languages and I had made lots of friends in the expat community. At the time, I had come to realise that I had certain views such as feminism that a lot of Ghanaian men were not interested in due to cultural and religious reasons so I seemed to connect well with foreigners. Dating a Serbo-Croatian then, I became familiar with the Eastern European community in the Capital, Accra.

I came to realise that most of them were non-religious as most people from Europe tend to be including my partner although they were baptised in the Orthodox church. I also started to notice that whenever I made religious statements, there would be a short awkward silence and a change in topic. I felt then that I was not doing my job properly as a Christian if I could not teach them about the Word of God and pass on the teachings of Christ. It was at this juncture that I set on a personal course to do objective research on the origins and importance of religion, especially Christianity, in order to properly inform my friends about it. We had Satellite TV then as well so I gave more attention to programs on channels like the HISTORY channel, which at the time showed objective documentaries on the life and times of Jesus Christ and the origins of the Bible.

This was eye-opening because all my life, I had watched the same type of movies and documentaries which were shown every Sunday and especially on Christian Holidays, but those ones had certain relevant information left out of it and they also did not give archaeologically documented information so came my first ‘shocks’. I also watched the Discovery and National Geographic channels for scientific documentaries on evolution the possibilities of life on other planets and these baffled me further because I had been taught to believe in only Creationism and I did not know there was another way of explaining how humans exist. At that point, I had not gotten any information to preach with and I had no one to talk to about my findings.

I went through stages of grief, disappointment, sadness, anger, and finally stopped going to church. Even when I stopped going to church I felt that God would strike me with lightning for disobeying him or ‘betraying’ him, but as time went by and nothing bad seemed to happen, my fear lessened. I did not know how to explain it to my family and friends. So for years, I kept my non-belief to myself and gave excuses for not attending church and sometimes hoped that I could be proven wrong with my non-belief so I could go back to worshipping God but that time never came.

You studied French at the University of Ghana for a Bachelor’s degree in Linguistics and Modern Languages (French and Spanish). Was this education assistive in personal and professional pursuits during postsecondary education and post-graduation?

Yes, it was. Actually, at the time, the University of Ghana did not give much room for choice by students. They mostly took subjects you excelled in from High School and gave you subjects in that field to study and since I passed exceptionally in English, French and Geography, I was given the Language subjects. I grew to enjoy Linguistics which was a social science program and it interested me greatly as its history taught me a lot about who we are as humans and how far we have come in terms of communication in our development as a species.

I studied various courses in pragmatics, phonetics, syntax, linguistics in Ga (my local language) and Linguistics in English. In Spanish, history and literature formed a big part of our studies and French grammar as well. As Ghana is the only Anglophone country in Africa completely neighboured by Francophone Countries, it became integral that I learnt it as it could get me a long way in the job market although I never really used it much in my career. It came in handy in translating for visiting clients, contractors. I loved studying Spanish for the love of it and linguistics helped me in my career as an administrator in creating and reviewing company documents. I speak 3 local languages and knowing 3 more foreign languages came in handy in my social life meeting people from all over the world.

How did you become an activist?

I became active in activism after joining the Humanist Association of Ghana. I gained confidence to ‘come out’ then as atheist and I wanted to help share what I knew now just as I was as a Christian but this time, based on evidence. I also realised how religion was destroying my country and continent due to ignorance, lack of education, and human rights abuses, and I felt I had to do something to help change things for the better. I felt that if I knew of an alternative to the dogmatic teachings I was given, I might have been atheist earlier and maybe, I could give someone else the opportunity to be a freethinker, which I was never given.

Were parents or siblings an influence on this for you?

My family had no idea that I would turn out to be atheist/humanist. I used to know that my uncle (father’s brother) who moved to the USA over 40 years ago was a deist by then, but never got the opportunity to discuss it with him until now. My sister’s godmother was also a German atheist, but it was never discussed perhaps because I felt it would be rude.

My sister left the Catholic church to become an Evangelical youth prayer group member while I was turning atheist. It was not until 2 years later that she became atheist. Even though we are so close and tell each other everything, it wasn’t until 3 years after her de-conversion that I got to hear about her story during a HAG group meeting. I definitely had no influence from Family. The best they helped was by giving me a good education and logical reasoning skills.

Did you have early partnerships in this activist pursuit? If so, whom?

Not really. I did not know about humanism until after I joined the Freethought Ghana group from which HAG came. Once I was introduced to it and I was able to recognise that humanism describes my personal philosophy of life, I began to identify as a humanist. The group then organised the 1st ever West African Humanist Conference in 2012 and after learning what steps other groups across the West African region were taking, we started to realise the importance of organising and formalising our group from a social group to an activist group.

The conference also gave the group the opportunity to meet other groups and their representatives that are working on humanitarian projects on human rights activism such as now Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Honourable Mrs. Nana Oye Lithur who spoke to us on the LGBT situation in Ghana at the time, Mr. Gyekye Tanoh of 3rd World Women’s rights group, Mr. Leo Igwe a renowned African humanist from Nigeria who was then doing his research in Ghana on Witchcraft accusations in the Northern region for his PhD in Germany and other humanist groups from Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria. They gave us an insight on what they had been doing and gave us ideas from which HAG was inspired to join in.

Do you consider yourself a progressive?

Yes, I do. I am of the view that as a humanist who bases her ideas and decisions on logical reasoning and human value, I have had to rethink a lot of negative dogmatic beliefs, superstitions, and culture. I believe that Ghana, and Africa as a whole, is knee deep in ignorance and social dogma, and that is why we remain undeveloped for the most part. I love my country and my people of various tribes and cultures and for that, the need to create a better future for our next generations urges me on to fight age-old systems that stagnate our progress as a people.

Does progressivism logically imply other beliefs, or tend to or even not at all?

Progressivism, in my opinion, has not got to do with any belief in the supernatural or deities. There has been no proof of that and so moving forward for me, would mean totally discarding those beliefs and critically thinking of ways people can create better systems of living as a civilised nation that takes into account the responsibility of the well-being of its people.

However, I personally believe also that people have their right to association as enshrined in our constitution and therefore, need to have their rights respected but monitored so that its members and the general public are not badly affected by negative religious practices that would infringe on their rights. Rather, the religious can also be freethinkers with progressive views using religion as their source of inspiration.

How did you come to adopt a socially progressive worldview?

Personally, I have always been progressive since I was young. I was a member of the Wildlife club and Girl Guide Association since Junior High School and in Senior High School, I became President of the Wildlife Club of my school as well as held the position of Public Relations Officer of the Student & Youth Travel Organisation (SYTO) in 2002. With these organisations, I advocated for the rights of animals and the plight of near-extinct species, the rights of girls, participated in various donations and awareness campaigns such as HIV/AIDS and Breast Cancer.

I believe that becoming atheist made me more aware of my passions and my part to play in advocacy and the promotion of human rights based on the realisation that there is no one and no god to help us other than ourselves as people.

Why do you think that adopting a social progressive outlook is important?

It is very important since our lives and our well-being depend on the environment and the kind of society we are in. Having bad cultural practices, harmful traditions, and laws could lead us backwards rather than providing us with a bright future for ourselves and the next generations around the world. I have grown to witness and live with hearing cases of child abuse at homes and in schools, seeing child trafficking on my streets, the handicapped begging, the mentally ill left naked to roam the streets, people dying of diseases that could have been prevented or cured, the loss of trust in policing and the judicial system and the effects of bad governance, bribery, and corruption on a populace.

People are growing ever so desperate that they are falling for the con of others using religion as a means of using them for their sexual perverted desires and money. Poverty is driving people to abandon their loved ones or accuse their own mothers of witchcraft in order for them to be put to death or banished from their communities for life. It is important that we do away with these in our societies as we have come to know better and rather look to our past which in the Akan language has a term called “Sankofa” which teaches us to learn from our past to build a better tomorrow.

As a progressive, what do you think is the best socio-political position to adopt in the Ghana?

A major investment into Ghana’s educational system and the review of our school curriculum. Almost all government and private schools are influenced or owned by religious institutions and they dictate what should and should not be taught to our children. It is in schools that major indoctrination starts and stifles freethinking in children. It is also there that teachers are given a right to beat up children to enforce ‘god’s will’ of the “spare the rod, spoil the child’ culture. If our educational system is revamped as our 1st President, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, a humanist himself, started and envisioned it to be, Ghana could have a well-educated and empowered workforce to develop the country in all the other sectors.

I attended the first University built by Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, The University of Ghana.

You became a member of the Humanist Association of Ghana (HAG) in 2012. You helped organised the first ever West African Humanist Conference (2012), which was sponsored by the International Humanist and Ethical Youth Organisation (IHEYO). What tasks and responsibilities come along with volunteering and organising for the HAG?

At the time, our group was quite small but vibrant.

It was an exciting time to meet other Ghanaian atheists and agnostics and we were very pleased that IHEYO would entrust us with organising such a big event despite us being so new as a group. We did not have any formal leadership or an Executive Committee at the time so most of this was planned by volunteering members especially Graham Knight who helped to bring us together and started the Freethought Ghana group. I was then working for an Australian Mining Company out of Accra so I made myself available to attend and help with last minute preparations like picking up delegates from the airport to their hotel and vice versa after the event.

During the event, I volunteered to be at the information desk where I helped to register attendees, distribute pamphlets, notebooks, pens and provide drinking water. I also took it upon myself to film the conference since the funds were not enough for photo and video services. I also represented the group for interviews by local and international media. To be a volunteer, to me, is about helping however, wherever and whenever you can. Whether financially, using your skills or socially, any help at all goes a long way to achieve a successful event and team effort makes it even more motivating, fun and organised.

In Ghanaian culture, what are some of the more effective means to teach critical thinking within the socio-cultural milieu?

Ghana is made up of a culturally diverse population. It consists of roughly 100 linguistic and cultural groups. These groups, clans and tribes, although very different from each other, have certain similarities in various aspects of their culture. In Ghana, a child is said to be raised by the whole village rather than just the nuclear family. Traditionally, information was passed on from generation to generation mainly through song and dance. However, in modern days, education not only begins from home but in schools, mainstream media such as TV, radio and religious institutions. As humanists, our focus has been with the youth in schools and social media.

What about modern scientific ideas?

Most of the understanding of things around us are taught from home by parents and extended family members who usually pass on what they learnt from their elders. This is mostly dogmatic and superstitious rather than scientific even though the end result is meant to educate. Educational institutions are good grounds to teach modern scientific ideas. Ghana can boast of some of the best science institutions such as the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology as well as research centres such as the Noguchi Memorial institute.

We also have some of the most renowned Medical Teaching hospitals in the West African region such as the Komfo Anokye and Korle-Bu Teaching Hospitals. Ghana has the only Planetarium in West Africa which is 1 of only 3 on the continent, which HAG members patronise and promote. There are also science programmes and quiz competitions amongst schools on TV.

What are the main barriers to teaching critical thinking and modern scientific ideas?

Lack of infrastructure, dedicated science teachers who are poorly paid, medical personnel and government interest has made our science sector struggle as compared to more developed countries. The average Ghanaian sees science as more theoretical and career-specific than practical. The understanding of science is seen mostly as a ‘Western’ construct than a global one. This could have stemmed from the fact that most modern inventions known to us came from Europe and the USA.

As a Ghanaian and African, what seem like the positives and negatives of religion and religious fervour on individuals and communities in Ghana and Africa in general?

Using the major religions like Christianity, Islam and Traditional worship, the positives of religion are that they give a sense of community, feelings of love, boosts self-esteem and gives hope and inspiration. The negatives however, are countless. Many of which include spiritual leaders taking advantage of people financially and sexually, having delusional thoughts out of superstition and religious indoctrination, self- loathing, and guilt from unnecessary thoughts, a sense of false hope, illogical reasoning, lazy attitudes towards work and charity, a false sense of entitlement, mandates to abuse yourself and others most of which turn out to be fatal, etc.

What big obstacles (if at all) do you see social-progressive movements facing at the moment?

1. Lack of governmental/State support
2. Lack of funding or insufficient funds
3. Mismanagement of funds
4. Lack of public support
5. Inadequate and outdated rules of law
6. Insufficient legal backing and law enforcement

How important do you think social movements are?

Social movements are very important especially in 3rd world countries in being the voice of the people and putting pressure on government and the people to review and approve the living conditions of people and the state of affairs of a country and its environment in the best interest of everyone. This is because despite democracy being adapted as a system of rule in most African countries, most of the time, cultural, traditional and religious biases steer the governments in the wrong direction and also because most of the countries may not have enough funding to care for its citizens and infrastructure.

In November, 2015, you became President of the HAG and in July, 2016, the Chair of the IHEYO African Working Group. What do these elected-to positions mean to you?

In the beginning of joining the humanist movement, I honestly never really saw myself as a leader. I just wanted to contribute my quota. However, I started to realise I had it in me to do great things for my group when I wrote my first article and got the most hits online! I received over 200 comments within days of posting it.

Most of the comments were negative but I felt I had left a mark and got people thinking. It also got the group recognised. I was recommended to IHEYO for a position as Secretary of the African working group in 2014 and at the time, I did not have much on my portfolio as an activist so I was so surprised and over-the-top excited when I got the news that I had been elected by international humanists who barely knew me from a record number of nominations!!! I was grateful that they read through my nomination and entrusted me with the position, which I held for 2 years.

I took it very seriously and had a lot of guidance from the IHEYO EC whose President was Nicola Jackson. I saw how long the working group had been dormant, and so many things I could do to bring it to life and so many ideas started coming to me. I increased social media presence on our Facebook page for the African Working Group and membership increased from 12 to 183 members within 2 years (It is now over 230). I also started a new Twitter page, @IheyoAfwg, with 130 followers including local and international humanists and humanist organisations. I helped create a network of African humanists and humanist organisations that are in regular communication via email, skype and WhatsApp and I discovered several African humanists and organisations that I am in constant contact with to advise and guide.

In December 2014, I together with the Humanist Association of Ghana, hosted the 2nd West African Humanist Conference (WAHC), sponsored by HIVOS and IHEYO. Please see below for links to the videos of the 2-day event which was aired live online setting a record for my group: Day 1 — Day 2– I founded the HAGtivist podcast project and started it with other volunteering members of HAG.

I had been a contributor to the IHEYO newsletter Youthspeak personally and from various member organisations in Ghana and Nigeria, and I represented the working group at the recently held General Assembly (GA) in Malta this year. I was part of the team that helped to organise the first ever continent-wide humanist conference held in Kenya called the African Humanist Youth Days (AHYD 2016) in July. This year, I knew that if I won the election as Chair, there would be so much more I could do to lead the Working group and despite a new resolution to have only Working group MOs voting this time, I came out victorious once again.

I am grateful to my fellow African humanists for their support and belief in me. It was on the same day I also received news of our election from HAG that I had also gained the position from Interim President in November 2015 to President elect in July 2016. It was truly humbling that my work was recognised and my fellow members had given me the responsibility of representing our group of highly intelligent, creative and wonderful people. These 2 positions come with the responsibility of representing Africa positively, dedicating a lot of time and resources, being passionate, bold, charismatic, firm, principled, professional, discerning, and diplomatic.

I believe that history is to be made this time round with young African humanists, and I am really happy to have the opportunity to be one of the ones at the forefront of change at this time setting a foundation for generations to come.

Who are personal heroes within the culture?

Historically, there are many personalities that are celebrated in Ghana. Some of my personal heroes are Yaa Asantewaa, an Ashanti Queen mother who, in 1900, led the Ashanti rebellion known as the War of the Golden Stool, also known as the Yaa Asantewaa war, against British colonialism. Her courage and bravery for a woman of her time inspires me.

Our first President of Ghana, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah is also one of the most renowned figures in Africa. He was born in a small village in Ghana and was able to finish his education in 1 of the most prestigious institutions in the world at Oxford University, returned home a humanist and fought for Ghana’s independence from the British, making Ghana the 1st African country to be free from colonial rule in 1957. He was able to transform Ghana by providing us with our first and largest Hydroelectric dam, free basic school education, universities, science centres, Highways, our only International airport, our biggest port, etc. which we enjoy to this day.

In modern times, I have come to admire the work of our current Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur. Although Christian, even before her Ministerial appointment, as a Lawyer, she has helped fight for the rights of the LGBT community despite serious opposition, worked Pro bono to solve many domestic cases especially those against women and children and is working tirelessly through her Ministry in assisting alleged witches banished from their communities.

What is your favourite scientific discovery ever?

Electricity! It forms such an integral part of modern day living that I cannot imagine where we would be without it.

What philosopher(s), or philosophy/philosophies, best represent your own views about aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics, and politics?

I do not follow any philosophers in particular because I have not read about any. Instead, various documentaries have helped shape my thoughts on various aspects of life. I am a lover of nature, science and art. I am not interested much in politics and I derive my ethics from logic, constant research and debates amongst friends and members of HAG.

Who seem like the greatest anti-scientific representatives in Ghana?

Religious leaders!

What about the greatest anti-scientific and anti-humanistic movements within Ghana?

Ghana’s greatest enemy in the progress of science and technological advancement is religion. It is the only and greatest barrier because it allows for so much wrong to go on with little or no opposition. From faith healing, false prophecies, work ethics, illogical theories, women’s oppression, authoritarianism, human rights abuse, bribery and corruption, etc. Ghana is highly religious in the sense that everything that happens is attributed to a deity or superstition or both! If something good happens, it is “By His (God’s) grace”, if something bad happens, it is “God’s will” or “the devil’s work” or “a bad spirit” or “angry ancestors”. It is almost impossible to argue with people no matter how educated because of this train of thought.

Religion is not a private matter as most religious countries practice. Here, it is allowed everywhere and anyone who stands in the way of their ideology or spiritual leader is an enemy of progress to them. Most homes force relatives to pray at odd hours loudly and some go on the streets at midnight to pray or preach. In the public buses, herbal medicine traders who also double as Christian pastors are allowed to stand and preach for hours during the journey. At work, highly religious entrepreneurs and Managers force employees to sing and pray before and after work. All official meetings and occasions, private or public begin and end with a prayer. Our entire lives are circulated around prayer and worship of one deity or another. There is little space for intellectual conversations and critical thinking.

What can external associations, collectives, organisations, and even influential individuals, do to assist you in your professional endeavours in Ghana?

I implore all external associations, collectives, organisations to partner with legitimate, active organisations here especially HAG. I advise that not only should they support the work of HAG, but also keep following up on our work. You may support the activities of HAG through bringing in substantive ideas, financial aid, materials such as books, clothes, Resource persons, promoting our activities on social media and mainstream media and influential people can also visit to help promote our work and start fundraising campaigns that would be widely reached.

International women’s empowerment, equality, and rights are important to me. What is the status of women regarding empowerment, equality, and rights in Ghana?

I am very happy to be born at a time when women empowerment is starting to benefit the masses. However, there are several factors that are hampering empowerment and gender equality in Ghana, which include Cultural and religious beliefs. I wrote an extensive articleregarding this issue in March 2016.

Can humanism improve the status of women in Ghana more than traditional religious structures, doctrines, and beliefs?

Most definitely it can! This is because, humanism emphasises the value of all human beings regardless of gender and promotes wellbeing of people whereas religion and superstition creates an illusion of differences between the gender making men feel superior than women. Humanism also brings about a sense of selflessness and working to better the lives of the deprived in society which are mostly women.

Thank you for your time, Roslyn.

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The Future of… 4 – Time Travel

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Future of…

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/05/22

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We were taking off-tape about the future of time travel and how it will not be a thing.

Rick Rosner: We talked about what will and won’t happen. Those aren’t practical for a couple of reasons. One is being that there is not infrastructure for the first topic we talked about, flying cars. One is that you can’t get aloft by hauling ass off your street.

Two, there is not much cost savings for using a system like that. It is not like if you’re so into flying that you need a plane that you’ll somehow save money by buying a combination car-plane. The instances you need a car will not be the ones in which you need a plane.

There is not much of an overlap for most people. So, there is no market for it, little infrastructure for it; In general, in the mid- to far-future, say 50 years and beyond. The amount of travel per person on average, I am guessing, will decline as a telepresence gets better and better.

[End of recorded material]

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The Future of…3 – Food (Part 2)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Future of…

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/05/17

Rosner: That stuff hasn’t been in US vaccines in a decade. And it’s… Even that has been proven not to cause Autism. And if there are prudent ways to deal with vaccinations. If you have a certain amount of fear of it, you just… If you’re worried about it, you still do the socially responsible thing, and you get your kid vaccinated, you just space out the vaccinations, so the kid doesn’t get three or four on the same day, and you’re doing the right thing, the prudent thing, for both your kid and for society.

And, you’ve taken a small measure of… Exercised a small measure of prudence if the lunatics are right. But yeah, there’s the anti-GMO people, genetically modified organism people, who think that anything that’s been genetically engineered is gonna kill you. But I buy the alternative argument which is that all the food we eat has been genetically engineered through centuries of human… Millennia of human breeding programs. Yeah, we couldn’t get in and directly tweak genes. But, we tweaked it… Endless tweaking…

Corn was this weird wheat-like stuff thousands of years ago, before we bred it into these fat ears of golden kernels. And a lot of food is like that, where it was fairly edible until we bred it into something that’s hyper-edible. And so, if you wanna be anti-GMO, don’t do it on scientific grounds, do it on the grounds that maybe companies like Monsanto have somewhat obnoxious business practices.

Jacobsen: I got two minutes.

Rosner: Okay. So, and then, yeah, there’s food snobbery. Like there’s… LA is full of lifestyle snobbery with yoga moms trying to outdo each other. And there’s fattery and I don’t know, that’s all I have on that.

Jacobsen: I mean, to me it just seems like, it seems to me like something corrosive of culture. It makes culture, in a way, less valuable because it’s less… It reduces the well-being of people in it.

Rosner: Well, it’s, Matt, because some of it goes back to information, where people can only absorb a certain amount of information about stuff. And people’s behavior towards food and lifestyle is to some extent influenced by information, and there’s a lot of information now. And a lot of the information is bullshit and people have to shop around for what… People don’t have to, but people will shop around for what fits their prejudices and fears.

So, anyway, everything is optimal strategies for dealing with food is it’s a probability cloud like a lot of other stuff where you can, trying to optimize stuff but you’re trying to aim at the center if you have the patience for it. Well, everything’s a function of people’s patience and prejudice, discipline and snobbery, and all this forms a cloud of, an end space of food-related behaviors, where some people are gonna be towards one end of the cloud in terms of hyper-disciplined behavior which encompasses hyper-discipline plus dumb-faddish or under-informed behavior like people who use homoeopathic medicine which is basically paying a lot of money for water.

Jacobsen: Okay.

Rosner: And then on the other end, there are people who, in the hyper-undisciplined end of things, the super resigned people or belligerently indulgent people, and I’m sure there are people who, at the lunatic end of conservatism, eat unhealthily as a gesture of defiance of the liberal dictators of what’s good for you. So, that’s it.

Jacobsen: Okay. Okay.

Rosner: Okay.

Jacobsen: I’ll leave you there and thanks for that.

[End of recorded material]

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The Future of…2 – Food (Part 1)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Future of…

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/05/16

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Continuing on the future of food. And there’s an aspect of people that should know better, who are into raw food-ism, non-GMO-ism, organic food-ism. You know the deal? And, you…

Rick Rosner: Yeah.

Jacobsen: You noted off tape, it’s a bit of snobbery. And to me these people should know better because, they’re actually at, probably risk for health problems because they’re using older methods. And these older methods are worse. They’re less good than current ones.

Rosner: Let’s put it in a larger framework.

Jacobsen: Okay. What’s the larger framework?

Rosner: I consider it part of the larger framework of liberals versus conservatives where, right now in America, there are more idiots among conservatives, because idiocy has been cultivated by… By conservatives. Because they… It’s politically expedient. But there’s still plenty of idiocy on the liberal side. And you see it in taking Kumbaya principles to an extreme. Being nice to yourself, being nice to the planet, embracing alternative ways of healing.

So, you were talking about raw food people and vegans and… There are plenty of good reasons to be vegan or vegetarian, but once you join that cohort, you put yourself in the company of a lot of lunatics and/or idiots, including like the… I consider part of that kinda general demographic, like anti-vaccers, anti-vaccination people, who… People who buy, who… A lot of conservatives fall for conservative bullshit.

But there are a bunch of liberals who fall for hippie bullshit, which can include the whole thing about vaccinations causing Autism and maybe some other stuff, even though it’s been well substantiated that vaccines don’t cause Autism, and even the thing that, in vaccines, which was thought to cause Autism hasn’t been… The derivative of mercury, I forget the name of it, but… Amerisol, I think.

[End of recorded material]

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The Future of…1 – Welcome to the Future

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Future of…

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/23

Rick Rosner: We don’t think much about the future. The reason being that the future has looked much like the present. In the 14th century, if you lived in a village and made shoes, there was a good chance that your kids and grandkid would make shows, and things moved slowly. The future wasn’t a threat. Now, of course, the rapidly approaching and rapidly changing future is here. Of course, the increasing pace of change means that the future is a threat.

We started to think about the future more, if only for entertainment, but I think we can benefit from doing a lot, a lot of thinking about the future. One way to start is to look at the different flavors of possible futures. That is, look at visions of the future that are already out there, one version is technological paradise, technological utopia, or the Kurzweil future. Kurzweil being an inventor who believes in the Singularity, which he says will be an era of practically infinitely powerful synthetic thinking, AIs.

He thinks that in the 2040s or sometime in the 2040s that we’ll be able to build AIs that build each other and AI will have made itself so smart that it will be able to answer any questions. So we essentially become gods via technology and can make all of our wishes come true. Another flavor of the universe is the technological dystopia, which is the world of terminator. That AIs get really smart and decide to eradicate us.

And in between the technological utopia and the dystopia are various technologically dominated futures that are take your pick of futures that anywhere along the range of horrible to awesome. There’s still some main features of those. The augmented human future, where everybody is modified technologically and biologically so that we have a bunch of people running around with superhuman characteristics.

Or if you are setting a movie in the future, you have a few people with those characteristics having adventures. Aside from those utopias and dystopias are apocalyptic futures, some are related to climate change or other fiddling with the environment due to human malfeasance. Others are like if you have zombie—in addition to different flavors of future, there are different degrees of seriousness or plausibility of the possible futures.

So on the implausible end of the apocalyptic futures are the zombie futures, the zombie apocalyptic with the entertainment value. Nobody is seriously questioning whether or not zombies will be a thing. Also, on the implausible end, but possibly slightly less implausibly because we can’t set up the possibility of this happening are the alien invasion versions, but they are still towards the unbelievable end.

Then there are ongoing apocalypse futures and then there are he miserable post-apocalypse futures and relatively peaceful agrarian and often with aspect of medieval culture post-post-apocalyptic futures. Society has rebuilt itself, but on a smaller scale and not in tune with wrecking the world. Either because we don’t have the resources to wreck the world or have found a way to live in more peace with the world.

Other soft-soft post-apocalypse futures are the Renaissance fairs and such, the green utopia futures with occasional cars around, humanity has made the decision to live more with the environment. We’ve left our rapacious technology for green technology. We’ve been rejiggered to be more gentle creatures too, away from the war-like aggressors that we evolved to be and humans are gentle and better able to co-exist.

That would be the range of boring-ass futures. Then there’s stuff that can be extrapolated from the crap that politicians say. On the Make America Great Again side. What could be presented as the Conservative-Republican future, where Christian values and culture has won out and established that a Godly shining city in the hill, I don’t know if anybody has fully fleshed this out in terms of utopia.

There is a Handmaid’s Tale, which is the most famous example of a Christian dystopia, but alternately. There should be a Christian utopia, where America stands as a bastion of traditional Christian values in defiance of a Godless world. On the other side, there would be Liberal political utopias. The futures presented by politicians tend to not be fleshed out. Because politicians aren’t in the business of creating worlds and politicians are in the business of getting votes in the here and now.

So a lot of their bullshit about the future is not well thought through or relates to specific policy positions. That’s a problem for all presentations of the future. It is hard to put together a cohesive world or a cohesive set of predictions given that changes in culture into the future will affect every aspect of culture. All of culture will change. Most projections about the future. Whether rhetorical or serious by politicians or the United Nations, whether they are statistical projections of science fiction presentations of the future, most pictures of the future are incomplete because they only take a few different factors into account.

There are only a few writers who have impressed me by making convincing attempts to address all aspects of the future in creating their worlds. There is Neal Stephenson who created a series of future worlds 10, 100, 1,000 years into the future with Accelerando. There’s the guy who wrote The Wedding Album. Doctorow is decent at this sometimes. Very few writers are interested in writing plausible, convincing future worlds.

Most are interested in telling entertaining stories. The guy who wrote The Wind Up Girl, which has a semi-plausible future. But it takes place in one city for 2 weeks undergoing a technological battle in the aftermath of what has been an unfolding ecological crisis that has devastated the Earth, but the adaptation of new green technology is there.

[End of recorded material]

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George Mayor Melvin Naik Argues Pride Parade Against His Christian Principles

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Cornelius Press

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

According to AllAfrica, George Mayor claimed the Gay US choristers are considered against his personal religious beliefs or his religion more generally.

Nonetheless, the pride and the march will continue onward. The Georgia Gay Pride march will be singing “Hallelujah” and “When the Saints go Marching In.” This will be a first for South Africa, as far as I know.

George Mayor Melvin Naik made the statements about the homosexual pride parade beinga against his personal Christian principles.

“I simply wanted to bring the point across that just because the municipality supports an event, people must not take it for granted that that support reflects my own personal beliefs,” Naik stated, “As mayor, in my official capacity and personally, I support the Constitution and its values completely, but personally, as a Christian, I hold certain beliefs regarding LGBT people.”

He further states that this means he does not necessarily discriminate against them but, rather, views everyone as God’s children who remain loved equally by his Christian God.

DA Provincial leader Bonginkosi Madikizela said, “His utterances do not represent the views of the party. Therefore, the federal executive chairperson, James Selfe, will be referring this matter to the party’s federal legal commission (FLC) for further investigation… You can’t use your position in public office and make the kind of comments Melvin did.”

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Choice of Women Versus Religious Conscience in Healthcare

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Cornelius Press

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

AllAfrica wrote a wonderful piece on religion and women in healthcare considerations.

When religion trumps science in medicine, women’s bodies and Constitutional rights may be caught in the crossfire.

South Africa’s Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act legalises voluntary abortion at different stages of pregnancy. Although viewed as a generally liberal law, the Act has not effectively enabled broad and consistent access for women seeking to terminate their pregnancies.

One of the reasons has been some health providers’ and facilities’ refusal to treat women who need abortion care.

Within South African law, specifically the termination of pregnancy Act, no health care provider – irrespective of the category – is ethically allowed to refuse to provide emergency treatment and care.

On Tuesday, the health and human rights non-profit the International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC) and partners released a report, titled “Unconscionable”. The research argues that there is a growing trend globally, including in South Africa, of health care providers who are refusing to deliver abortion and other sexual and reproductive health care. This phenomenon violates the ethical principle of “do no harm,” the coalition argues.

Historically, the United Nations has defined a conscientious objector as an individual who refuses to perform military service on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. This moral stance against military service has been recognised not only by the UN Human Rights Council but also in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

But the term “conscientious objector” has recently been co-opted by anti-choice movements to refer to health care providers who refuse to provide abortions.

In South Africa, those who refuse to provide terminations of pregnancy do so in terms of section 15 (1) of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion.

But health workers’ refusal to treat women seeking abortions pits their right to freedom of conscience, religion and belief against a woman’s Constitutionally-enshrined right to equality and dignity.

Constitutional rights are guaranteed to everyone, which means that rights must co-exist. Healthcare providers’ right to freedom of religion should not negate women’s right to access health, equality and dignity. To the extent that these rights cannot co-exist, then a balancing exercise must weigh up, for instance, the impact of refusing abortion services on women versus the consequence of providing abortion services to religious values. This calculus should also factor in healthcare providers’ ethical and legal obligations – something that too few within our healthcare system have been trained on, shows the IWHC’s latest report.

There is a similar death of education regarding the fact that Constitutional rights are not absolute and can, therefore, be limited for a number of reasons.

At the same time, medical students’ training in abortion provision is often inadequate, reveals the coalition’s latest research. In South Africa, we have received reports from students noting that they are sometimes taught how to avoid performing abortions instead of about their ethical and professional obligations under the Choice of Termination of Pregnancy Act.

In a clear violation of the Act, some medical students object to learning how to treat women who need life-saving emergency care after incomplete abortions.

Meanwhile, workers’ refusal to treat is mostly based on non-verifiable personal beliefs, usually religious, that posit life begins at conception, argue researchers in a 2017 article published in the European Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Reproductive Biology.

In some instances, the refusal to treat is premised on the notions that women must always want to be mothers, and when they fall pregnant, they must cheerfully embrace the opportunity to raise a child even though this may not be something they want.

Read more: Why it pays to watch your words when reporting on abortion

The national health department has not taken any action to counter the negative implications of introducing religion into medicine, which significantly undermines clinical best practices that depend on scientific evidence and medical ethics. The department’s human resource strategy outlines its responsibility to ensure capacity at national, provincial and district levels to develop human resources that meet government needs and improve health care access for all.

The national health department must, therefore, take decisive and adequate steps to ensure that all the healthcare providers it employs work towards achieving this.

It is undeniable that the impact of conscientious objection has dire consequences for women in need of abortions – for some, it is the difference between life and death.

This is not acceptable by any standard.

Read more: Government to get tougher on doctors with moral objections to abortion

All healthcare professionals – doctors, midwives and nurses – should be aware of their responsibility to provide safe and beneficial care. The first principles of “do no harm” and offering the best care possible should guide every health provider.

When continuation of a pregnancy poses a grave danger to the life or health of women or fetus, regardless of gestational age, health workers cannot recuse themselves from duties to provide safe and legal health care.

A healthcare worker cannot legally or ethically object to rendering care in cases of life-or-death emergencies associated with abortion whether procedures were lawfully performed or not.

Facility managers must ensure that their clinic or hospital is designated to provide abortion services, measures must be taken to ensure staff can competently offer those services.

Should the facility not be able to provide abortions, management must ensure that the patient is provided with the necessary support to reach an alternative service provider and planning needs to guarantee services become available. Health facility managers need to be stewards of the health system to ensure there is consistent access to health, referrals of services are effective and timely, and that patient-centred care is provided at all times.

Our health department is currently severely challenged but leadership, such as that envisioned in its human resources strategy, is crucial to assuring that healthcare workers are trained to become competent providers of reproductive health services, including abortion. This kind of leadership extends to the national health minister and director general.

We cannot continue to allow women to be forced out of facilities after being refused access to safe abortion and walk straight into the care of informal and dangerous providers. To do so is a severe reproductive injustice.

What are we saying to poor black women who are disproportionately affected by the refusal of service providers to offer abortion care? It is time that the department of health and abortion services providers stand up and show them that they too matter and that their bodies and needs will be taken seriously.

Marion Stevens is the chairperson of the Sexual and Reproductive Justice Coalition. Follow her on @marionwish. Mandi Mudarikwa is an attorney with the Legal Resources Centre.

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Potential Changes to the South African Constitution

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Cornelius Press

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

According to Bloomberg, South Africa’s government made a decision around a change to the constitution of the nation.

It is reported the African National Congress, or the ANC, has decided to amend the national constitution with regards to the laws of the land. The purpose is to further explain the conditions upon which land can be expropriated and then have no compensation for it.

The ANC becomes closer to the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in this sense. The ANC will only do this under the condition that this does not harm the economy, agricultural sector, or the food security of the nation because these could be consequences of any amendments related to land.

As reported, “The purpose of the amendment is to promote redress, advance economic development, increase agri

cultural production and food security, the ANC in an emailed statement after a meeting of its National Executive Committee in Pretoria, the capital.”

Legal experts are working on the processes necessary for alterations to the constitution as we speak. The idea was and is to speed the process of giving black people more land. More access to land is one symbol of inequality between members of the nation along the racial lines.

President Cyril Ramaphosa stated, “…it has become patently clear that our people want the constitution be more explicit about expropriation of land without compensation, as demonstrated in the public hearings.”

The proposals now are bringing forth concerns for investors and others about the potential for a radical land-reform strategy and then the fear that there may be Zimbabwe-style farm seizures. The ANC will be contesting national elections starting next year with the first ballot since the time of the opposition winning several municipalities deemed “key” by the reportage. That include Johannesburg and Pretoria.

The Executive Director of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution, Lawson Naidoo, stated, “This is a surprising and premature announcement by the ANC because parliament is still in its review process on changing the constitution… Parliament still has to gather and evaluate the many submissions that have been made. We are in a pre-election phase and the ANC announcement is part of that.”

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#TotalShutdown

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Cornelius Press

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

According to IOL, the South Africa Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) spoke in support of a large number of women and non-gender conforming people who will be marching. It is a march in South Africa against gender-based violence.

The SAHRC stated:

Gender-based violence violates the fundamental rights enshrined in our Constitution, especially the right to equality, dignity and freedom.The commission urges all South Africans to recognise the constitutionally-entrenched right to protest peacefully, acknowledging how this right is inextricably linked to other rights in our Constitution…

The commission calls on the government to implement its obligation under section 7(2) of the Constitution to particularly vindicate women’s rights to life, dignity, equality, bodily integrity, freedom of movement and freedom from violence.

It further emphasized the need for the Government of South Africa to work with immediate and decisive steps to tackle violence against women within the nation. Because women deserve and reserve the same right to enjoy a happy and fulfilling life as the men without harm to harm to health or well-being.

The #TotalShutdown march will occur in nine provinces on August 1. The organizers of the march are planning to shut down the major cities in order to make explicit statements with numbers about the need to reduce and eliminate the violence against children and women, and gender-based violence in general.

The article concluded, “Trade union organisations such as Federation of Unions of SA (Fedusa), SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) have also pledged their support. The ANC Women’s League (ANCWL) said earlier this month that it would march alone and will not be joining the #totalshutdown marches after organisers banned it from taking part.”

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David Mabuza on Women’s Rights

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Cornelius Press

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

David Mabuza, the deputy president of South Africa, talked about women. He wrote an article in News 24.

The parliamentary questions in recent weeks have noted the concern for women. Mabuza pointed to the ANC government emphasis on the “full emancipation of women.”

Mabuza described the patriarchal structures and sexism in society. The violent deaths of women by intimate partners. He asks a question from Katrine Marçal, who is a feminist writer.

In Adam Smith’s market fundamentalist text The Wealth of Nations, he asks: Who puts dinner on the table? Smith argues the “economic man.”

Mabuza thinks “our grandmothers, wives, sisters and the girl-child.” He points to childbearing by women and work in the home. That these drive the wealth of nations, “for free.”

Mabuza talks about the Women’s Charter, too, from 1954. It states that women stretch the dollar for the children, hear the children’s cries. That women bear the burden of caring for children.

The land too, when men are gone, are women’s domain. Mabuza points to the civilised and democratic nature of a society. That it relates to the social and economic liberation of women.

“It depends on how we empower women to demand their inherent rights to take the advantages,” Mabuza explained, “responsibilities and opportunities of a civilised society.”

Mabuza considers women paying the highest price far above any of us as mothers. “Freedoms we have earned freely on their unpaid labour,” he notes.

In his opinion, we need to view women as special. That women are complete human beings ans treated and respected as such.

In the South African Constitution, it says, “Human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms.”

Though “racial hatred and discrimination, sexism and patriarchy,” are present, we can develop. The Constitution, according to Mabuza, provides that basis.

Any discrimination and violence against women violates the spirit of the Constitution. Mabuza sees violence against women as a violation against the founding principles of South Africa.

He said, “A nation that undermines the aspirations of women and oppresses them can have no peace, no social cohesion and no development.”

He points to the extreme prejudice against black women based on class, gender, and race. Mabuza points to the “omnipresent [patriarchy] in our language, idioms, metaphors, stories, myths and performances.”

Mabuza argues that we have to make internal changes, to our individual selves. Those changes helping free women from sexism and oppression, and discrimination.

However those biases come packaged, individual alterations can help with women’s emancipation. That radical revolution comes with the emancipation of women through individual change.

He notes the ANC is for gender parity “as a precondition of the economic freedom in our lifetime.” He describes how men are “absconding from parental responsibility, yet are available for power, leadership and economic opportunities.”

How do we close that gap, reduce those biases unbalanced benefits? He states women have to work and make a home together. Mabuza argues for a reordering of social relations in order for equality, parity.

One “that castrates the power, income and class of men from having an overriding influence on women’s choice of sexual partners.”

Mabuza considers this the foundation of a society with mutual respect and equality.

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Lilly Singh and Bullying in Classrooms

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Cornelius Press

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

A UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, Lilly Singh, went to South Africa in order to meet with children who are working to speak out call out, and reduce bullying and violence in the classroom.

Singh is a Canadian. She led a discussion with students aged 13 to 19. This was in Johannesburg, so she could hear the stories and narratives of the children. Their personal experiences of violence and bullying inside and outside of the classroom.

Singh stated, “I met with children and young people who have experienced a range of violence, from bullying and physical attacks to corporal punishment, sexual assault and harassment… No child should have to face violence at school, a place where they should feel safe and protected.”

This event with Singh was the first to start for UNICEF of the #ENDviolence Youth Talks.These are a collection of student-led dialogues on their experiences of violence and bullying in the classroom.

There is a collective effort – not only in South Africa but also around the world even the advanced industrial economies – to tackle the problem of bullying and violence related to the classroom: on and off the campuses. Who better to know about it than from the young people experiencing it?

There are a variety of organizations devoted to this cause including “UNICEF, the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children, DFID and UNESCO, and others in different ways.

They will help inform the work of global leaders with a set of recommendations. More than half of students in South Africa have reported being bullied or subject to some form or peer-to-peer violence – mean age of 15. There are even many who report sexual abuse by their peers.

“In my work with UNICEF, I continue to see first-hand how this generation is coming up with creative and innovative ideas to help end violence in their own schools and communities, through forming peer-led groups, as well as speaking out and creating safe spaces for students to tell their stories,” said Singh. “As I listened to the children and young people, it underscored how vital it is that we involve them in problem-solving and continue empowering them to use their voices.”

The Government of South Africa including the Department of Education along with several partners are working to reduce the level of bullying and violence the young experience at their schools.

The Department of Education founded the Girls Education and Boys Education Movement (GEM/BEM) clubs to help curb the level of bullying and violence experienced by students. There have student-led clubs through these programs devoted to more than 2,000 schools with 975 trained club members.

Their emphases are the promotion of both dignity and mutual respect between the girls and the boys on each school campus. The students are then encouraged to not only to identify but to call out the various forms of discrimination against their peers and themselves that may arise for them.

This seems important as this may precede some action to the violence and bullying of the young. The article concluded, “UNICEF and Lilly Singh are encouraging young people around the world to use the hashtag #ENDviolence to share what they need to feel safe in and around school. Comments will inform a set of recommendations to global leaders.”

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Choice of Women Versus Religious Conscience in Healthcare

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Cornelius Press

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

AllAfrica wrote a wonderful piece on religion and women in healthcare considerations.

The three points of contact for the reportage centered on religion, women’s bodily autonomy, and the Constitution of South Africa. There is the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act, which legalizes voluntary abortion for different stages of a pregnancy.

It is seen as a liberal law. However, it has not been given a pervasive and consistent implementation or access for women who want to terminate their pregnancies. One reason comes from the health providers and facilities not treating women who need or want the abortion.

The article states, “Within South African law, specifically the termination of pregnancy Act, no health care provider – irrespective of the category – is ethically allowed to refuse to provide emergency treatment and care.”

The International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC) published a report entitled “Unconscionable.” It notes the increase in the global refusal of healthcare providers to provide abortions in particular, and sexual and reproductive healthcare in general.

South Africa is the same as the rest of the world in the violation of the ethical precept of “do no harm.”

“Historically, the United Nations has defined a conscientious objector as an individual who refuses to perform military service on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. This moral stance against military service has been recognized not only by the UN Human Rights Council but also in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” the articles states.

The idea of a conscientious objector had a prior meaning and context. Now, this is being utilized by the anti-choice movements to refuse provision of basic human rights via sexual and reproductive rights or sexual and reproductive healthcare.

The article continued, “In South Africa, those who refuse to provide terminations of pregnancy do so in terms of section 15 (1) of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion.”

However, the refusal to treat women who want to acquire abortions becomes a freedom of conscience and religion, and belief, issue against the right to dignity and equality given in the South African Constitution for women. Religion and rights conflict here.

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South Africa Among the Most Inclusive Nations

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Cornelius Press

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Business Tech wrote on how South Africa is one of the most inclusive nations in the world outside of Canada and the United States.

In accordance with this ranking from the Ipsos Global Advisor, the factors incorporated into the overall ranking were the criminal background, gender identity and sexual orientation, political views, religion, and immigration.

The article stated, “Notably, while South Africans are near the top of the rankings when it comes to religion, immigrants and LGBT Inclusiveness – we top the rankings when it comes to being the nation most inclusive of people with criminal backgrounds and extreme political views.”

Basically, the study reflected the Inclusiveness Index of the Ipsos group. In the research study, more than 20,700 people were included from 27 countries, where they asked questions of about 28 “types” of people.

The questions about the different types were correlated with the level of inclusion of that person into the society. Where the person is seen as a real “[fill in the blank nationality],” that became a test for the level of inclusion with the research.

The final constructs for the research were religious inclusiveness, naturalized-citizen inclusiveness, second-generation inclusiveness, LGBT inclusiveness, criminal background inclusiveness, and extreme political views inclusiveness.

With these average, one arrived at the score of inclusiveness within the Inclusiveness Index. In that, South Africa is among the inclusive societies in the world.

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The Possible Decriminalization of Sex Work in South Africa

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Cornelius Press

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Skye Wheeler in Human Rights Watch reported on sex work in South Africa.

It remains a political and social hard issue for the public and the politicians because of the wide variety of extreme reactions in response to the possibility of its decriminalization. A decriminalization, of course, would be different than a legalization in some ways.

A decriminalization would remove the blanket penalty for it. While the legalization would permit what was not there or be in effect after the decriminalization; however, this amounts to a straightforward decriminalization possibility.

As stated by Wheeler, “South Africa’s Law Review Commission late last year recommended that sex work remain fully criminalized, i.e. a criminal offense to both sell and purchase sex. Now, eyes are on the justice ministry to see whether it will follow this recommendation or whether a radically new approach and law are needed.”

There was a panel on sex work entitled “Is it work, and is it a choice?” The was convened by the Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office and the Hanns Seidel Foundation. The event happened on June 21 in Cape Town.

The individuals who took part were “South Africa’s Deputy Minister of Justice and Correctional Services John Jeffery; former UN Human Rights Commissioner and judge Navi Pillay, a global luminary of women’s rights; and long-time warrior for South African sex worker rights, Kholi Buthelezi.”

The issue of sex work and its ethical implications are hard problems around the world. Do we outlaw it? Do we legalize it fully? Do we do a bit of both depending on issue? This remains a quandary around the world. Is it a violation of women’s rights? Or is it an example of women’s economic and social self-empowerment? I have heard many views. As with any complicated matter, I note legitimate ethical and moral precepts in each view.

However, the principles conflict and the dialogues are needed to suss them out for the values of the country. What seems appropriate for most people most of the time in a democratic society?

“Sex work is a contentious issue everywhere, tearing the global women’s rights movement in two. One side believes sex work – they prefer the term “prostitution” – is inherently abusive and should be eradicated through criminalizing the purchase of sex,” the article stated, “At the panel, the group Equality Now shares this view. The other side believes sex work as a whole should be decriminalized to better enable sex workers to avail of protection of the law from beatings, harassment, rape, and other abuse (a position held by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International). At the panel, South African sex worker organizations Sisonke and SWEAT hold this view.”

The reportage talked about 40 sex workers being interviewed during the month of publication. Where the obvious answer to them is not pure criminalization; also, the arrests for simply standing around in “hot spots” should stop too.

It forms the basis for legitimizing police harassment of civilians. The sex worker has some hard conditions in which they work. In fact, the majority of the sex workers supported the full decriminalization of sex work.

The article concluded, “Public discussion like this panel is crucial. But more crucial is the direct involvement of sex workers themselves who need to be consulted and whose needs, realities, and perspectives should be taken fully on board. Such an informed discussion should lead to decriminalization of sex work.”

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George Mayor Melvin Naik Argues Pride Parade Against His Christian Principles

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Cornelius Press

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

According to AllAfrica, George Mayor claimed the Gay US choristers are considered against his personal religious beliefs or his religion more generally.

Nonetheless, the pride march will continue onward. The Georgia Gay Pride march will be singing “Hallelujah” and “When the Saints Go Marching In.” This will be a first for South Africa, as far as I know.

George Mayor Melvin Naik made the statements about the homosexual pride parade being against his personal Christian principles.

He further states that this means he does not necessarily discriminate against them but, rather, views everyone as God’s children who remain loved equally by his Christian God.

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Julius Malema Claimed to Make Racist Remarks

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Cornelius Press

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Julius Malema made remarks. Now, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC)) will examine the remarks. Malema, the Economic Freedom Fighters Commander-in-Chief, in the Constitutional Court submitted an application.

The application submitted was intended to make a bid to impeach President Jacob Zuma on the 30^th of March last year. With Cope, the UDM, and the EEF joining forces, they filed an application to “order the Speaker of Parliament to institute disciplinary proceedings against Zuma.”

The SAHRC will investigate the DA complaint lodged against Julius Malema based on statements deemed racist. The reportage stated, “The DA took exception to two statements made by the leader of the EFF. One relates to a recent address during Youth Day, whereas the other relates to Juju’s language towards Nelson Mandela Bay Mayor Athol Trollip.’

With the complaint Floyd Shivambu was brought into it, the red berets’ deputy leader stated that Ishmail Momoniat undermines African leadership. It was seen as a racially charged remark by the DA.

Malema is under scrutiny from the SAHRC. During the EFF Youth Day rally, he exclaimed, “The majority of Indians are racist, and we must never be scared to say that. They are racist. The same thing applies to so some of the coloured brothers.”

With the unseating of Athol Trollip as mayor, Malema declared the intention to “slit the throat of whiteness.”

“The DA strongly condemns these remarks and we are of the view that these utterances by Malema and Shivambu are prejudiced, divisive and have no place in a democratic society,” Luyolo Mphithi, to the Commission, said, “No South African should ever have to face the humiliation of such an assault on their dignity and it is now becoming evident that the EFF is not ready to govern a diverse society, such as South Africa.”

The SAHRC will be making the decision soon. The decision will be decided on whether or no the issue is within the purview of their mandate. If this is not successful, the DA will work to “pursue another legal organisation to hear their complaints.”

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South Africa’s Third UN Security Council Seat

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Cornelius Press

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Humanist Rights Watch (HRW) reported on the secure position at the security council for South Africa.

The seat at the council offers South Africa to restore a human rights-based foreign policy. The next term will last from 2019 to 2020.

This is the third time South Africa secured a seat as a non-permanent member on the United Nations Security Council. At the January Summit, the African Union endorsed the South African seat at United Nations Security Council.

South Africa Remains the only country supported and endorsed by the African Union for the UN Security Council. The nation of South Africa declared its intent of peace and security on the African continent.

However, there is an uncertainty of the backing of a variety of tough measures for countries that violate human rights. The former South African prime minister Jacob Zuma had military cooperation with the South Sudan government including the use of child soldiers.

For its first two terms on the UN Security Council, South Africa went away from the Mandela hope of “human rights will be the light that guide our foreign policy.”

Africa in its first term on the UN Security Council in 2007 voted against a resolution for the cessation of military attacks against various ethnic minorities in Burma.

China and Russia also vetoed the decision in its second term during 2011, South Africa abstained from every vote in relation to the global south. It was criticized “championing a Western agenda” when it voted to authorize a no-fly zone in Libya.

100 years after the birth of Mandela, South Africa may have the possibility for the creation of a new Legacy respecting human rights on the UN Security Council.

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Cardinal Argues for Negotiation with Terrorists

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Cornelius Press

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

According to Religion News Service, John Onaiyekan, a Nigerian cardinal, made a proposal. It caused some controversy.

The proposition is to negotiate with the terrorists. Onaiyekan is the archbishop of Abuja. He has been working to have some talks with the violent Islamist – political Islam – group called Boko Haram. This would happen in the northern parts of Nigeria.

Numerous governments in Africa are against any negotiations with terrorist groups, including Boko Haram. The fear is the backlash from any discussions and so further violence and militancy on the part of the terrorist groups.

Onaiyekan said, “My position is no matter how extremist a person is, there must be somebody who can talk to them and others… Then eventually talking will start taking place. That will be an easier way of handling grievances than guns.”

He has argued that Muslim groups can help with this effort as they share the same faith tradition. Even though, Boko Haram takes a rather extreme interpretation of the faith.

A Kenyan homeland security consultant and counterterrorism expert, Richard Tutah, explained, “We cannot negotiate with terrorists as long as they continue to use violence to achieve their motives… They are terrorists because they use violence to terrorize civilians, whether they base it on their religion or otherwise.”

Tutah stated one of the only times for negotiation is in kidnapping situations or when the terrorist groups are open to putting down their weapons. Boko Haram, for nearly one full decade, has been bombing churches, mosques, and government installations in West Africa.

Women, boys, and girls have been kidnapped. The Quran is cited as a source for these attacks and kidnappings. Now, the group is spreading to the north of Nigeria, and Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. Boko Haram has killed thousands in its work to establish fundamentalist Islamic law as the law of the land regardless of the borders.

President Muhammadu Buhari, in 2015, stated that 10,000 have been killed by Boko Haram, which is a tragic number. It has been widely using girls as suicide attackers or bombers. “Roman Catholic Church figures estimate more than 5,000 Catholics have been killed in Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim northern region. More than 900 churches have also been destroyed, according to the Christian Association of Nigeria,” Religion News Service stated.

The government of Nigeria has been reluctant to have any negotiations with the Islamic terrorist group while also have some discussions at some points. There was a negotiation of the release of 276 kidnapped schoolgirls in April of 2014.

“Onaiyekan painted the Nigerian government’s response as primarily a military bombardment that has cost millions of dollars, some of which came from foreign assistance funds,” the reportage stated. The cardinal argued for better use of the funds for better relationships and the improvement of dialogue between the terrorist group and everyone else.

Onaiyekan stated, “The aim is not to kill all Boko Haram, but to arrive at reconciliation so that people can go home to their families.” Based on the analysis of the African Union’s Continental Conflict Early Warning System, 31 conflicts are rooted in the unresolved colonial past of Africa, e.g. “interethnic wars to Islamist campaigns, border disputes and civil wars.”

The leaders of religious movements are often the targets with as many as 30 ordained clergypersons killed in South Sudan in since only December of 2013. The Central African Republic had four church leaders murdered since January of this year.

The general secretary of the African Council of Religious Leaders affirmed, “Unless we confront that past, we shall not resolve these conflicts… Religion is part and parcel of that.”

The deputy chief Kadhi and Sheikh Rashid Omar, as well as the higher ranking religious judges in the Islamic courts of the country, argued for the need to comprehend the religious texts of the other faiths. This may help with interfaith understanding, provide a basis for talks, and so peace.

The cooperation between African Christians and African Muslims is not strong. Bishop Alfred Rotich said, “We must have the voice and prophesy, but first we must work on our inner selves… Once we are comfortable, we must strongly speak against violence.”

Much of the conversation is by and from religious leaders and religious lenses. In some ways this is not helpful, and in other ways this can be helpful, it can assist with the cross-belief understanding for those who speak the language and metaphor of the holy books when they talk with extremists because they have a firmer foundation upon which to do so.

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Restrictions on Tobacco in South Africa

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Cornelius Press

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

According to eNews Channel Africa, there will be further restrictions on tobacco consumption in South Africa. Aaron Motsoaledi, the South African Health Minister, published a new tobacco control bill. If this bill becomes a law, then this will restrict the means by which cigarettes and tobacco products are sold and regulated in South Africa.

Catherine Egbe was asked about the implications for tobacco control. The article reports, based on a question-and-answer with The Conversation Africa’s Health and Medicine Editor Candice Bailey, that the implications are for five areas.

One is the targets of a smoke-free policy, plain cigarette packages, regulation of e-cigarettes, “points of sale marketing,” and then the removal of the vending machines for cigarettes. Some, reportedly, as already covered within the current tobacco control law of South Africa.

The nation does not comply with the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which was signed by South Africa signed in 2005. One example of implementation is the smoke free public areas.

With the current laws around tobacco control, there are designated areas to permit smoking. The WHO convention states the need for 100% smoke-free public spaces in order to protect the non-smokers of the world.

There is a ban upcoming on the advertising of cigarettes at tills and for their being sold at vending machines. There are health warnings on the packages too.

“So the new law mandates standardised packaging with graphic health warnings to make tobacco packages less attractive to new smokers and to discourage old smokers from continuing to smoke,” Egbe stated, “The bill is also significant because it attempts to regulate e-cigarettes for the first time in South Africa. To date e-cigarettes have been freely marketed and sold anywhere to anyone, including children.”

With the question about the evidence for the efficacy of the planned interventions by Bailey, Egeb stated that there is a “great deal of evidence from the rest of the world,” which means a tremendous amount of evidence to support the increased set of restrictions of the sale, marketing, and distribution of tobacco in South Africa with examples internationally.

Egbe explained, “Let’s start with smoke-free policies. In countries like South Korea and the US where they are in place, research shows that they led to an overall improvement in health, particularly children’s health. Incidents of smoking-related cancers went down and there was a reduction in childhood smoking.”

More smokers wanted to quit too. If you discourage smokers to quit, then this can discourage young people from wanting or desiring to smoke in the first place. Then there are the cases of the standardized and simple packaging such as those introduced in Australia in 2012.

E-cigarettes may encourage young people to start smoking cigarettes, unfortunately. 18 studies point to no quitting rate increases of smoking. They may reduce the numbers of those who do quit smoking if they have a desire and intent to quit smoking in the first place.

“There are 83 countries that regulate e-cigarettes and about 27 that have completely banned their sale. These include Brazil, Singapore, Uruguay, Seychelles and Uganda,” Egbe explained, “The advertising, promotion and sponsorship of e-cigarettes are regulated or prohibited in 62 countries.”

The importance of the legislation comes from tobacco smoking being the single most preventable cause of death in the entire world, which makes this especially incredible and important. Much of the world is working to implement the WHO recommendations.

It seems well within the ability of South Africa to do the same. In fact, Egbe notes that smoking makes the TB and HIV outcomes far worse. However, 37% of men and 6.8% of women in South Africa use tobacco.

“Before the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, South Africa was a leader in tobacco control in Africa and across the world because of strong tobacco control legislation it had put in place. But the laws weren’t updated according to current WHO’s standards and the country now lags behind some other African countries,” Egbe opined.

The big pluses from interventions like this include the helping of people to live healthier lives, to discourage young citizens from starting smoking, protecting millions of South Africans from second-hand smoke, and the prevention of young people being manipulated by the tobacco industry.

Egbe concluded, “Once the bill becomes law, the health minister will have to draw up several regulations to guide its implementation. These will ensure that the law is interpreted correctly and not manipulated by the tobacco industry and that the potential gains of the legislation are not watered down.”

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Abortions Legality Does Not Necessitate Safe Abortion Use in South Africa

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Cornelius Press

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

The Guardian reported on the need to considermore than the pro-choice laws in South Africa in order to prevent unsafe abortions for women, which can lead to the death of women. Abortions have been legal in South Africa since 1997.

There are advertisements for abortion in Johannesburg. However, the experts on the subject matter think about half of the terminations in South Africa occur external to the safe abortion areas. That is, the safer places known as the designated health facilities.

One doctor, Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng, talked abut being an abortion provider for as long as being a qualified medical doctor. However, in the previous five years as a doctor and abortion provider, Mofokeng’s email, social media, and calls have been from many women, from every area of life, desperately requesting help from Mofokeng.

“I will never forget one young woman who came to the public clinic in the West Rand township near Johannesburg, panicking about massive blood loss from her vagina. It was only after some prompting that she and a family member admitted to using abortion pills purchased outside a shopping centre. She bought the pills after being denied an abortion by the local clinic, where health workers told her ‘We don’t do those things here,’ and shamed her for being young and sexually active,” Mofokeng stated.

The paramedics had come by and then the woman needed resuscitation. She was then transported to a close by private hospital. A couple hours later, the 17-year-old woman went into the operating theatre. She underwent a hysterectomy because of sepsis and haemorrhage. This was in South Africa. Abortion was liberalized 21 years prior, as noted in 1997.

Mofokeng used this as a warning of the referendum victory in Ireland. By which Mofokeng means, the laws can be passed. However, the implementation of those laws can be another hurdle off the books rather than on them – so to speak.

“The Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act (Ctop) came into effect in South Africa in February 1997, with hopes it would promote female reproductive autonomy by providing free access to abortion. It has been described by the Guttmacher Institute as ‘one of the most liberal abortion laws in the world’ and secured all South African women – and minors – the right to decide to have an abortion,” Mofokeng explained.

The Act was seen as a historic moment for women. Nonetheless, the reality remains different on the ground, especially with the example provided before. One main factor comes from the lack of access to information. It creates a layered problem. Women have the right in the law. However, the information exists without access to the information.

It amounts to a socio-cultural restriction on the reproductive rights of women regarding safe and equitable access to abortion. Women and young women deserve the right to equitable and safe access to abortion as a human right. Then if someone has a religious objection, they can have access while not having to use it.

Mofokeng described, “The formal health system does as little as it can to comply with the law. A recent survey by Bhekisisa, the Mail & Guardian newspaper’s health journalism centre, found that less than 5% of public clinics and hospitals offer the procedure. The National Department of Health’s website fails to list any information on abortion and neither do its four mobile apps.”

Women will acquire an abortion with or without the abortion access. One 2017 study noted that approximately 1/3 of South African women do not know that abortion is legal in South Africa.

“Illegal abortion flyers have become recognisable on many lamp-posts across the country, including at the entrance of the Department of Health. They promise same-day abortions, which can include an indiscriminate concoction of pills and procedures that risk incomplete abortions, sepsis and even death,” Mofokeng stated.

Little political will exists for the upholding of the law, especially with the lack of information among women in the community. By implication, the authorities will not take measures in order to control or prosecute the provision or advertisement of illegal, or mostly unsafe and illicit, abortion services.

The Minister of Health, Aaron Motsoaledi, was named a champion within the She Decides movement, which is, obviously, a progressive movement. However, there has been concern about an unresponsiveness to the concerns of women in the last decade.

Mofokeng stated, “As a doctor, I have seen what lack of access to abortions means: too many South African women suffer needless complications and preventable deaths. But I cannot get much more specific than that, as the Health Systems Trust said in its 2011 report that the government’s abortion statistics are ‘increasingly unreliable.’”

With the United States’ Global Gag Rule, this has impacted the ability of South Africa to develop its abortion services as well. “Trump’s expansion of the rule further restricts NGOs to using their own funds to save lives. This will lead to preventable deaths and life-long ill health from complications due to unsafe procedures,” Mofokeng explained.

Mofokeng concluded with a question about the things that will be needed for the country to step up to the plate.

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In Conversation with Dr. Leo Igwe on South Africa, Humanism, Mandela, Africa, and Critical Thinking

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Cornelius Press

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: South Africa in particular and Southern African, in general, seems more known than other parts of the world to the entire world, especially with the history of individuals such as Nelson Mandela in South Africa and apartheid.

Of course, religion continues to play a role in the existence of the country after the death of Mandela. However, the legacy continues onward for the country and religion continues to influence the nation insofar as I understand it. Others know the situation better than me.

What seems like the progression of the liberalization of religion in Southern Africa and increase in space for those who do not have a religion in live safely and healthily in South Africa?

Dr. Leo Igwe: Post-apartheid South Africa has a mixed religious and cultural heritage and that leaves an ample space for a healthy mélange of cultures, religions, and philosophies. It is against this background that the progress in terms of liberal religion in South Africa could be understood. In spite of the region’s progress, supernaturalism continues to play an overbearing role in the lives of South Africans, especially among black South Africans. This is evident in the reports of witchcraft accusations, witch persecution, and killings in the provinces. Abuses by South African pastors who spray insecticide on their church members or order them to eat grass have made international headlines. Questionable medicinal claims by traditional healers, called Sangoma abound. However it must be noted that the government of South Africa has taken measures to combat religious abuses. It constituted a committee that inquired into the commercialization of religion. Some of the erring pastors have been sanctioned. However, time will tell if contemporary South Africans will build on the secular legacy of Nelson Mandela or allow those hard-won gains to be eroded by magico-religious beliefs. So while progress has been made to further the liberalization of religion, a lot of work needs to be done to stamp out religious exploitation and abuses in Southern Africa.

Jacobsen: How are other regions of Africa in terms of the freedom for the people to be able to find their own way within the continent and to be able to live free from religion if they so choose?

Igwe: The situation varies across the region but is quite dire in the north of Africa where Islam is the dominant religion or in other parts of the region where de facto or de jure sharia law holds sway. Interestingly, African countries have constitutions that guarantee freedom of religion or belief. But in actual fact, there is no freedom of religion in much of these places. In muslim dominated areas, what applies is ‘freedom’ to profess and practice Islam or some other nationally recognized religions. Those who are born into Muslim families are not allowed to change their religion; they cannot leave the faith of Islam because apostasy is a crime that is punishable by death. So in regions across Africa freedom from religion is not an option and without freedom from religion, the right to freedom of religion or belief makes no sense. It is utterly meaningless.

Jacobsen: Does science education tend to moderate or religious belief in African education?

Igwe: Actually religion is hampering science education in schools because religious owners and managers of the educational system treat science with suspicion and mistrust. The impression is that much scientific knowledge is corrupting. It will make students to become atheists. So to prevent this from happening, religious controllers of schools disallow or water down aspects of scientific knowledge that they consider to be in conflict with their religious teachings and traditions. So schools produce scientific illiterates. They graduate scientifically half-baked students, who believe that the dogmas of their various religions are superior to scientific explanations. Simply put, religious belief trumps science in Nigerian schools. And I think this applies to many schools across Africa. The irony is that while Christian and Islamic religious zealots who manage these schools limit science education, they send their children to study in western countries where there is a better delivery of science education. African masses need to wake up to the hypocrisy of their ruling elite and demand an optimal delivery of science education in schools.

Jacobsen: How often is critical thinking encouraged in Nigerian formal education? For example, we have some trouble in Canada as far as I know, but the general tone is one of critical thinking as good about certain topics. Religion tends to be off-limits for deep criticism.

Igwe: Critical thinking is not expressly encouraged in the Nigerian educational system because of the potential of applying the skills to forbidden topics such as religion. So Nigerian students become critical thinkers by default. With the advent of the Internet, the trend will continue as the religious grip on the educational system loosens.

Jacobsen: As you are in your fifth decade of life, you have seen many changes in Nigerian culture and education. What have been the most prominent changes in the educational system there?

Igwe: The most prominent change is the Internet, the attendant massive flow of information and the liberation of students, seekers and learners from the tyranny of teachers, clerics and other custodians of knowledge, truth, and wisdom. It is most liberating to know that today people who seek knowledge or answers to some basic questions don’t have to wait till they go school; they don’t need to consult a priest, a diviner or an Imam. Learners and seekers don’t have to rely solely on what they were told or taught, they only need some Internet access. For me, this is one prominent change that will drive other educational and cultural changes in the years to come.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Igwe.

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Marieme Helie Lucas on Noura Hussein Hammad

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Cornelius Press

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Cornelius Press is located in South Africa. It is the first progressive publication, as far I as I am told, in South Africa and Southern Africa for that matter.

Noura Hussein Hammad has been given the death penalty for murdering a husband who she was forced to marry and who raped her within the marriage. How common is this story the MENA region? Does this tend to extend within the fundamentalist religious group in general, e.g. those found in Southern Africa too?

Marieme Helie Lucas: First of all, it is not just a marital rape, it is also a gang rape insofar as she was held down by several of the husband’s male relatives on the 5^th day of their legal marriage, after steadily refusing first of all to get married to him and then to have sex with him.

She did not sign her marriage contract and was given in marriage by her matrimonial tutor or wali,- in this case, her father. It is only the day after this first rape, when he attempted again to rape her that she stabbed him in self-defense. I think we need to spell out these horrendous circumstances.

Now, marital rape is common the world over and women and rights defenders – always – had to struggle for a long time before having it criminalized. It is neither specific to a region, nor to Islam or to a school of thought in Islam.

However, it is true that bad practices and ultraconservative interpretations of Islam that legitimize patriarchy in all its forms are on the rise everywhere and facilitate the extension of the worst cultural practices: for instance, the concept of wali, which was unheard of in many predominantly Muslim countries, is now being propagated in the name of Islam; so is FGM, an Egyptian practice of sexual mutilation of women that predates Islam (as it originates in Ancient Egypt), which fundamentalist preachers, right now, are trying to expand to South East Asia and the Maghreb in North Africa where is was unknown till recently.

Jacobsen: Hammad has less 15 days to appeal the case. What external pressure can come from other countries in order to change the highly punitive and gender discriminatory legal system found in many Islamic theocracies or Muslim majority countries for that matter?

Helie Lucas: First of all, there is internal pressure, both from within Sudan where women’s rights and human rights defenders are on high alert and from within predominantly Muslim countries where progressives started defending Noura and her lawyers.

It is essential that external pressure come in support to those progressive forces from within, and in alliance with them. Ignoring the high level local protest would be totally counter productive, and will amount to putting such a blatant denial of fundamental human rights – self defense in a case of rape – into a political context of ‘good West’ against ‘bad Islam’.

The so-called Muslim world is very far from being homogeneous, hence marriage laws range from granting no rights at all to women within the marriage to granting equal rights – and responsibilities – to both spouses in more democratic countries.

In all countries, whether predominantly Muslim, Christian, other or secular, democratic forces struggle long and hard in order to defend fundamental human rights – especially but not exclusively for women.

Jacobsen: If Hammad dies, what will this symbolize as with other potential tragedies in loss of life simply fighting for their well-being and dignity?

Helie Lucas: I do not want to believe for one second that we, the progressive forces the world over and especially those within Muslim contexts, will allow for death penalty to be a applied to such a young woman, a victim of child marriage, forced marriage, rape, and many other violations of universal rights.

We should just keep actively fighting for her rights till her life is saved. Appeals for pardon have already been sent to the Sudanese president, petitions have popped out on Aawaz and on Change; they are massively signed. There is a very active and courageous Sudanese website in defense of Noura.

Vocal progressive theologians of Islam started speaking up. Sudan’s Constitution and international human rights treaties that Sudan signed should be called upon to protect Noura’s life.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Marieme.

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Call to Action on Noura Hussein Hammad from Sodfa Daaji

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Cornelius Press

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

Sodfa Daaji is the Chairwoman of the Gender Equality Committee and the North Africa Coordinator for the Afrika Youth Movement. Here we talk about Noura Hussein Hammad’s urgent case. The hashtag: #JusticeForNoura. Daaji’s email if you would like to sign: daajisodfa.pr@gmail.com.

Hammad has 15 days to appeal the decision for her execution.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is Noura Hussein Hammad’s current crisis?

Sadfa Daaji: Ms. Noura is a 19-year-old Sudanese woman who, on 10th of May 2018, has been sentenced to death penalty according to Sharia Law. Today was her last trial, and the family’s husband decided for Qasas (death) instead of Deia (payment, and consequently forgiveness). Noura is condemned under the article 130, for intentional homicide, and from now we have 15 days to appeal and to try to save Noura’s life.

Noura is a victim of forced child marriage, as her father got her to get married with her relative, and no one of her relatives heard her refusal. Noura managed to escape to her aunt’s house, but her father tricked her, and she has found herself married against her will. Ms. Noura is a victim of rape, as on the fifth day of her honeymoon, after refusing to have any intercourse with her husband, she has been raped by him with the help of his brother and his cousins, who held her.

Noura is also a victim of gender-based violence and domestic violence, as her husband threatened her with a knife, and she has on her body scars made from his bites and his violence.

We are urging Sudanese authorities to take in consideration the multiple factors, and to treat Noura as a victim of violence, who is psychologically affected by her earlier experience, and she is now facing the misery of being condemned to death.

Jacobsen: What is the purported crime? What may be the punishment for this?

Daaji: Noura is formerly accused of intentional homicide, under the article 130 of the Sudanese Law. According to Sharia Law, the punishment is Qasas (death) or Deia (payment of the loss to the family and some time to spend in prison).

The decision is made, at the ending, by the family of the husband. And today the family has decided for death, even if the judge recommended them to take in consideration the opportunity to forgive her and to make her pay a fine.

The family has not accepted the advice from the judge, and according to our volunteers, at the end of the trial the husband’s family was clapping and celebrating outside the courtroom for their decision.

Jacobsen: How can she be helped?

Daaji: We are now running against the time, and we are trying to catch the attention of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, but also the head of States of African Union. Who wants to support us can join our official hashtag #JusticeForNoura and find on twitter further information.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Sadfa.

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Dialogue with Mandisa Thomas: Founder, Black Nonbelievers, Inc.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Cornelius Press

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

Mandisa Thomas is the Founder of Black Nonbelievers, Inc. One of, if not the, largest organization for African-American or black nonbelievers or atheists in America. The organization is intended to give secular fellowship, provide nurturance and support for nonbelievers, encourage a sense of pride in irreligion, and promote charity in the non-religious community. Here we talk about the recent transition from full-time work to full-time activism for Thomas and building community.

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: If you look at the American context of religion and the level of religiosity, how seriously people take their faith, and if you look at the South African case on similar factors, what do you see as similarities in terms of the state of religion and the level of religiosity?

Mandisa Thomas: Unfortunately, through colonialism and the indoctrination and imposing of religion among the people of color, particularly black folks and Africans on the continent, it is similar.

Colonialism and Christianity was a force among the Indigenous peoples. Unfortunately, it has taken on a life of its own in both areas, where many African-Americans are highly religious due to the historical nature of the church and the role it played during and after slavery and before and after the Civil Rights movement.

I also think Evangelical Christianity has taken over the continent of Africa as well. Certainly, in the eastern part of Africa Islam dominates there. But there is certainly a similarity in the way it was imposed on blacks in Americ and Africa.

Jacobsen: Regarding the effects of the ways in which religion is represented on the continent of Africa and in southern Africa in particular, how does this lead to human rights violations, whether wittingly or unwittingly used to enact violations of human rights?

Thomas: It has been a tool to get the oppressed to accept their oppression. That God or Jesus will deliver you from oppression, will come and save you. We will go to heaven once we die.

Unfortunately, it has allowed many people to accept this idea of suffering or oppression as [Laughing] something like God’s Will.

Jacobsen: [Laughing] Do you think that culture of “accept your suffering, take it, and you will have a better life in the hereafter” is taken seriously by most people who identify as Christian or Muslim in the continent of Africa?

Or do you think they take it more as a marginal belief that doesn’t necessarily influence their day-to-day lives?

Thomas: I think it is a mixture. I think people have been conditioned to believe that because there are many believers who live their lives like everyone else, except when it comes to going to church on Sunday.

Or if they go to church, they just don’t believe, but a huge factor of that is fear. Many are scared to not believe. It is an insurance policy. They may not know for sure that it is real, but, just in case, they will err on the side of belief because they do not want to be wrong and end up on that wrong side once they die.

So, fear is often a huge factor when it comes to espousing the belief or truly believing it.

Jacobsen: When it comes to the case of South Africa or southern Africa generally, it is not only fear about a hereafter as an insurance policy motivation. It is a fear of being socially unaccepted. You are cast out of the group simply by not taking on the label of “Christian” or “Muslim” or attending mosque or church on a particular holy day.

Thomas: Absolutely, people do have this fear, ostracism. I think in the Muslim faith or the secular Muslim faith. You are considered an apostate, and the punishment is death. So, many people fear for their lives.

If they break away from the religion or the temple and such, in Christianity, there might be the sense of exorcism. In the continent of Africa, I think people fear more for their lives. People definitely face social outcasting from their churches or their communities if they stop believing.

Unfortunately, it does lead to a sense of alienation because you feel that you cannot relate to the people that you once socialized with. It is very uncomfortable for many who break away.

Jacobsen: Not only on the personal and social aspects, what about professional life? Does this make potential professional life difficult? Could these impact promotion opportunities, the ability to get certain types of employment, if you do not hold a particular faith, whether in the United States or in other places?

Thomas: I do absolutely believe that to be true. There are many nonbelievers here in the United States who are business owners or entrepreneurs. They absolutely cannot say they are atheists or nonbelievers because they would alienate their Christian clients.

I have seen a shift in our members, where they are speaking about it more. But they still do fear that loss of livelihood. They also feel the loss of families, but also in the professional world; it could possibly hinder progression if you come out and speak openly about your non-belief.

In the US, there are employment discrimination laws that should prevent that, but I am not sure about the continent of Africa. Certainly, in the US on paper, there are laws to prevent that. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Mandisa.

Thomas: No problem! Thank you.

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Saudi Activist Ghada Ibrahim on the Islamic Educational System

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Cornelius Press

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

Ghada Ibrahim is a Former Muslim and Saudi Activist. In particular, the rights of women in Islam. Her emphasis in activist work comes to women’s rights in Islam and talking about her former faith. Here we talk about the Islamic educational system in Saudi Arabia, the use of fear, and the religious mental health system in education.

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: If you look at the Saudi Arabian educational system, how does this system look to you? How does this rank in international metrics?

Ghada Ibrahim: I can only speak to what I have been exposed to. I was in the education system until 2006. I watched as the girl’s education merged with the boy’s education in the Ministry of Education (before, there was General Administration for Girl’s Education. It was run by a group of religious fanatics who wanted to control what girls were exposed to in the school system.) Even after the merger, there were distinct differences. For example, girls were not allowed a physical education class and were not permitted to study geology, whereas the boys did.

The education system was government owned and distributed. All schools, public and private, had to teach the same core courses. The only difference was “Extracurricular” classes such as additional English language classes, physical education, and computer classes. These were not counted as part of our GPA.

The classes we took were heavy on religion. We began with 3 main religion classes from 1st to 3rd grade (Quran, Theology, and Jurisprudence). Afterwards, more classes were added. These were: Hadeeth (The sayings of the prophet), Tafseer (The interpretation of the Quran), and Tajweed (The preferred method of reading the Quran). We also took science and math (Physics, Chemistry, biology), English, Arabic (This included literature, writing, grammar, etc..), History (Mostly Islamic history and the history of Saudi Arabia), and Geography. The only thing I can honestly say was good in the education system was math and Arabic. Everything else was extremely poor or religion classes. After graduating from high school and going to college in the US, I felt how useless those religion classes were. We could have had more time in literature (Arabic or English), more emphasis on research and writing, more science, but that would take away from the religious studies, wouldn’t it?

Jacobsen: If you look at the educational system in South Africa, as an example, most South African Muslims are Sunni Muslims. How would this then compare the educational system in Saudi Arabia and in South Africa?

Ibrahim: I am not aware of what they teach in South Africa, but most Muslims in Saudi Arabia are Sunni Muslims. Saudi Arabia is also the birthplace of Wahhabi Islam. This is what we were taught in our religion classes. We were taught the most extreme version of an already extreme religion, including that the punishment for apostasy is death, the punishment for stealing is cutting off limbs, and the punishment for fornication is lashing.

Jacobsen: How early does the indoctrination start in Islamic schools in Saudi Arabia?

Ibrahim: Grade School. I remember some of the “rhymes” we were taught back then. “Man rabbuk” (Who is your god?) “Man nabiyyuk” (Who is your prophet?) “Ma deenuk” (What is your religion?) This was taught to us at 6 or 7 years old. Then we are taught what is halal (permitted) and haram (Not permitted) and also that there is a group of people called Kuffar or infidels that are not Muslim and they are not our friends. During this time, we also begin to memorize the short chapters in the Quran and also learn how to pray. Some of the “group activities” that we did when we were children was go to the bathroom together to perform “Wudu” or ablution before prayer then going to the prayer room and praying together.

Once girls reach 4th grade, they are required to wear the black cloak or “Abaya”. After they reach middle school, not only are they required to cover their hair with a hijab, they are required to cover their faces. As the years progress more religious studies are imposed on us. “You can’t love a non Muslim” is a big thing they taught us pre-9/11. It mysteriously disappeared afterwards. I saw it disappear from my younger siblings books. We were also taught to hate capitalism, communism, socialism, nationalism, and ism that isn’t Islam.

Jacobsen: How is fear used to intimidate the children into the belief system?

Ibrahim: Oh boy, how does it not? Imagine this with me. You’re maybe 11 or 12, just starting to mature, and every week in the morning you have a morning assembly lecture from a religious teacher or a visiting religious scholar. What is today’s lecture about? Positive thinking? Don’t bully? Be good to your neighbor? No. It is about punishment in the grave for those that miss prayers. Cautionary tales of how an otherwise good person died, but every time they dug a grave, they found a huge snake. Finally, they decided to bury him despite the big snake. Afterwards, the people in cemetery heard bones crushing and a blood curdling scream. That is the punishment for missing prayer. A snake will crush your bones after death. Also as punishment: Your face will be as black as coal (don’t get me started at how extremely racist this notion is) and that your body will reek after death. In contrast, if you were a pious Muslim that prayed on time, you will smell like Musk after death, your face will be glowing and white (again, the racist undertones), and no snake in your grave. This is just one of many scare-tactics.

Other tactics used: Scaring girls into hijab by telling them that they will be held by their hair in hell. Scaring people who listen to music by telling them that molten lead will be poured into their ears in hell.

Jacobsen: How does the religious mental health system deal with modern knowledge about depression and the real cases in the young?

Ibrahim: I don’t think it does at all. The religious, whether it be Muslim or otherwise, look at depression as a sign of a weakened faith. Depression is dealt with by more prayers, reading more Quran, and return to the faith. I’ve struggled with depression for a long time and every time I mentioned feeling down, the answer was always the same: Read the Quran. At first, that was exactly what I did and it never worked. I prayed. I recited. But nothing. Seeing a mental health professional was frowned upon and a HUGE taboo in my culture. Only “insane” and “crazy” people go to a mental health professional.

What was even worse is the state of mental health institutions. I have known people that were put in institutions and medical professionals that worked in them and it is atrocious. There is no real definition of mental illness in there. A friend was put in there for being gay and her “treatments” were memorizing the Quran. The same can be said for patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other serious diseases. Orderlies regularly abuse patients. It is horrific.

Jacobsen: What impact does this likely have on the mental health of children?

Ibrahim: Children that have actual mental health needs do not get the help they need. This isn’t just about depression, but also learning disabilities. Everything is taboo. Children with learning disabilities are called stupid for not being able to catch up to their peers, which in turn, cause other harms such as low self-esteem and fear of expressing themselves. This has profound effects on building one’s self. In addition, children with depression or anxiety disorders are completely dismissed instead of addressing the very real disease they are suffering from. Untreated depression and anxiety only intensifies with time.

Jacobsen: Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion?

Ibrahim: As I said, I can only speak of the education system as I had gone through it and from the girls side only. Everything is segregated in Saudi Arabia. The girls schools are surrounded by tall cement walls and there is always a guard the prevents girls from leaving between classes and who makes sure everyone is covered up appropriately. The curriculum has changed and I believe is still changing to try and meet international standards. I have seen the sciences improve from my time to my siblings. Religion classes are not as emphasized, or at least I hope they aren’t. The new generation doesn’t care as much about religion, thanks to social media, the internet, and their parents who traveled and took them outside of the country with them.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Ghada.

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New Church in Celebration of Alcohol

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Cornelius Press

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

Religion News Service reported on the new church in Orange Farm, South Africa. A clergyperson poured whiskey into a cup to anointed a man.

The congregation of the Gabola Church swig beer and dance. A rite of passage initiated for the newcomer. Less than one year old, Tsietsi Makiti, said, “We are a church for those who have been rejected by other churches because they drink alcohol.

Those drinkers get seen as sinners, who Makiti helps save. The line of argumentation amounting to the Holy Spirit through drinks. Other South Africans claim Gabola Church does not qualify.

It does not amount to a church. Archbishop Modiri Patrick Shole said, “They are using the Bible to promote taverns and drinking liquor. It is blasphemous. It is heresy and totally against the doctrines.”

Gabola Church is a non-member of the South African Council of Churches. No affiliations exist with the church. It stands alone as the whiskey-chalice and beer-congregation church.

56 million people live in South Africa. Approximately 80% of the population identify as Christian: Catholic and Protestant. Some other sects sprinkled in the mix.

30 worshippers, recently, held a service in an Orange Farm township bar. It is south of Johannesburg. That service had a pool table as an altar with, of course, whiskey and beer.

Six ministers blessed cold beer bottles. Other alcoholic beverages included brandy, whiskey, and others. Hymns got sung. All in praise of drinking and its good side.

Makiti said, “Our aim is to convert bars, taverns and shebeens into churches… And we convert the tavern-owners into pastors.” The churchgoers get encouraged to drink in a responsible, mature manner.

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Survey examines how to expand campus mental health services

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Ubyssey (The University of British Columbia)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2015/05/25

For May’s mental health awareness week, a UBC-founded mental health organization, Walkalong, surveyed students to find out what they wanted from the university’s mental health services.

Walkalong, which describes itself as dedicated to young Canadians’ wellness through empowerment, posted a call for UBC students to take part in a research survey asking what they wanted from possible expansion of mental health services.

There is a pressing need for greater access to mental health experts given the demand for them, according to psychiatry professor and the survey’s principle director Michael Krausz. The survey considered how best to expand resources given that current services aren’t meeting the demand.

“[With] long waiting times and very limited resources we see an urgent need to build capacity,” said Krausz.

According to the most recent AMS academic experience survey, only 36 per cent of UBC students were satisfied with their experience at UBC counselling services while 35 per cent said they weren’t.

John Ward, project manager for the online survey, would not comment on the findings, saying that releasing preliminary results may contaminate them.

However, mental health services may expand to include a virtual clinic, according to Krausz. A virtual clinic would be a web-based platform that gives students the chance to connect with mental health experts via video conference, email or chatrooms.

“The idea is to provide access to any kind of mental health services and to add to the existing services,” said Krausz. “We hope that a virtual clinic component, and other components can help to build capacity to make it easier for students to access expertise.”

Web-based mental health services already exist elsewhere, both in Canada and internationally. Krausz calls the online services “much appreciated” by users and says there is a lot of positive feedback for the platform.

According to Krausz, users enjoy the virtual clinic because it offers an easy means of access to mental health experts while also giving users a sense of being in charge of their experience, as well as offering more opportunities for information on mental health and treatment options.

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F-Word Conference aims to increase dialogue on feminism

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Ubyssey (The University of British Columbia)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2015/05/07

The 6th annual “F-Word” conference was held May 2 to create a forum for open dialogue and discussion.

The sixth annual F-word conference took place on May 2 in an effort to increase UBC’s dialogue on feminism and activism.

The event featured presenters, workshops and keynote speakers, including UBC’s own Lau Mehes and Phanuel Antwi.

Fourth year GRSJ students and conference co-chairs Emma Kuntz and Zoe David-Delves scheduled various activities to examine issues relating not only to gender and sexuality but also to racism, colonialism and activism.

“Feminism, activism and community, and a way to bridge the gap between the academic work that we do in class and the community work and activism that happens through organizations to create a space of dialogue,” said Kuntz.

David-Delves also said that the conference could assist with “the sort of general undermining of feminist thought and discourse in the university…. I think UBC students are sometimes not encouraged to critically analyze the world around them.”

“[Attendees] can come together and discuss and share ideas,” Kuntz said, speaking to the purpose of the conference. “We can work together to think through these issues and to build a bridge between academia and activism.”

According to David-Delves, feminism takes a stance against the oppression of marginalized group but is necessarily about more than one group.

“What the conference does is raise awareness to the intersectional approach of feminism,” she said. “I think UBC sometimes does not take feminism seriously, and I think there are a lot of misconceptions around feminism.”

An intersectional approach to feminism means considering multiple points of oppression. In other words, intersectional theory examines how various social prejudices are interrelated.

“[The conference is] also a place to bring together these ideas and discuss what we’re going to do to create a better world that is fighting oppression…sexism, racism, and colonialism,” Kuntz said.

According to David-Delves, a common misconception about feminism is that it relates the complete liberation of all women. She argues that that the reality is that different women have different problems and must be addressed differently.

“As people who are fortunate enough to have post-secondary education, we should be engaging with ideas and critically thinking about how we want the future to look.” Kuntz said.

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Researchers looking into the reality of ‘chemo brain’

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Ubyssey (The University of British Columbia)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2015/05/06

UBC researchers examine the effects of chemotherapy on the brain.

A team of UBC researchers are looking into the reality of ‘chemo brain’ by studying chemo patients who reported the symptoms.

The researchers studied chemo patients who reported the symptoms of chemo brain, which include mind wandering and impaired concentration. However, the results of this study are in line with the kind of subjective complaints often found in chemo brain patients.

“We actually don’t show [that] chemotherapy can cause chemo brain,” said UBC psychology professor Todd Handy, one of the researchers. “Rather, we show that chemo patients who report symptoms of chemo brain have brains that seem to be chronically mind wandering, even when they say they are paying attention to what they’re currently doing.”

According to Handy, other symptoms of “chemo brain” include bad memory, clouded thinking and other problems associated with cognitive impairment.

“One parallel might be how some people feel after a hard night of partying,” said Handy. “You wake up the next morning, and you just feel like your brain’s in a fog.”

According to Handy, there are no tests that can directly measure chemo brain, which becomes a problem when patients have complaints but no standardized diagnostic assessment exists to assess their mental state.

“In some cases, chemo brain can last for multiple years post-chemo treatment, again highlighting the challenges it poses,” Handy said.

Handy said he is unsure whether this research would change chemotherapy treatment but said it does give promise for addressing chemo brain symptoms, post-treatment.

“Our findings suggest that treatments targeting the brain’s default mode network, which is involved in mind wandering, may be promising to pursue,” Handy said.

According to Handy, an EEG can perform an easy test that would the first measure to track improvements.

The researchers’ work provides a glimpse into possible ways to treat the condition and into observing the outcomes.

In reflection on the possibility of the keeping track of improvements in a “chemo brain,” Handy said, “In the end, that’s what makes this particularly exciting.”

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VV Vancouver groups trying to create transition program for sex workers

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Ubyssey (The University of British Columbia)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2015/05/17

Vancouver organizations like the WISH Drop-In Society are working together to create a transitional program for sex workers.

Several organizations in Vancouver are working together to create a means for sex workers to leave the profession if they want to.

“Because most sex workers don’t have pensions or robust savings plans, and some carry the burden of a damning criminal record, exiting for many is not straightforward,” said Becki Ross, a UBC professor in gender, race, social justice and sexuality.

The WISH Drop-in Society and Battered Women’s Support Services are among the organizations collaborating on a transition program. The groups took part in a consortium for sex workers who want to exit the sex industry. According to Kate Gibson, executive director of the WISH Drop-in Society, the various organizations provide some tools for individuals wishing to transition out of the sex economy.

“There isn’t anything dedicated specifically to that at the moment. That is why we got together to see if we could make something happen in a new way,” said Kate Gibson.

According to Angela Marie MacDougall, executive director of Battered Women’s Support Services, the groups provide assistance for migrant and immigrant workers as well as those with their own adult entertainment businesses.

“What we’ve wanted to do is to bring our knowledge, our skills, our understanding of this population and prepare and fill gaps in services that would provide options for those within sex work,” MacDougall said.

According to Gibson, there has not been an organization to take on the particular work since the closing of Prostitutes Empowerment Education and Resource Society (PEERS) in 2012. Historically, sex workers have had to do a lot of their own advocacy, according to Ross.

“For four decades across Canada and elsewhere, sex workers have organized their own support, service provisions, and advocacy groups,” said Ross. “Some have made a priority of service delivery concerning sex workers’ health and safety while others have emphasized support for sex workers who seek to transition out of the industry.”

The more the sex workers are pushed underground in society the less safe they become, according to Gibson.

“There are new laws in place that very much affect those that engage in sex work…. All kind of people criminalized because of the work they do,” Gibson said.

According to Ross, a federal mandate that seeks to abolish prostitution does not honour the diverse and complex needs of a diverse community of sex workers.

“Sex work activists argue that only broad-based ongoing consultation among those who live this experience will expose the limits of anti-prostitution legislation,” said Ross. “Any attention to transitioning programs must be accompanied by initiatives to enhance sex workers’ safety and well-being, on the terms that sex work professionals devise for themselves.”

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Philosophy professor awarded international research grant to study responsibility and morality

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Ubyssey (The University of British Columbia)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2015/04/15

Philosophy professor Paul Russell will be spending the next decade studying questions of morality and free will thanks to a $12 million large grant from a Swedish research group.

The grant, which is worth 80 million Swedish kronor, or approximately $12 million, and has been awarded by the Swedish Research Council, will go towards Russell’s research on moral responsibility and global issues.

Russell will now be dividing the next 10 years of his life between UBC and the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, where he will be examining how free will influences human responsibility in both local and global issues.

In Canada, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) receives significantly less funding than its counterparts in science, engineering and health research. In the past eight years, SHHRC’s budget has also shrunk by 10.5 per cent.

According to Russell, the Swedish government is more geared towards promoting support and research opportunities to academics in humanities. He also said that this is the first program of its kind in Sweden, which attracts researchers in all fields to the country.

“[The Council] started a new program to attract what they call ‘leading researchers’ to Sweden,” said Russell. “This is, I believe, the first one in the humanities area, so quite a few of them are in other areas like medical research, engineering, things of that sort.”

According to Russell, the University of Gothenburg established a research project with a group led by Gunnar Björnsson. Björnsson, once he heard of the project, began talking to Russell about the possibility of his coming on as an international researcher for the project.

Most of the funding will go towards hiring and establishing a team of researchers to collaborate and assist in the initiative. Russell said that even $12 million can go away quickly when hiring postdoctoral researchers and other project assistants.

Russell’s research considers ethical issues, including traditional philosophical questions regarding the moral responsibility of human beings and the relation of this responsibly to law. According to Russell, such an issue splits into questions of moral psychology, personal values and people’s feelings of responsibility to other human beings.

“What is it about human beings and human agents that makes it intelligible to regard ourselves and other human beings as responsible agents?” said Russell.

Russell’s team will also be looking into how moral questions regarding law, criminal and legal responsibility interact with people’s feelings of accountability for their actions.

“What makes them valid and makes us think they are not fully responsible and not liable to punishment?” said Russell.

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Astronomy professors look to rare stars for answers on space-time warp

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Ubyssey (The University of British Columbia)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2015/02/03

Astronomy prof Ingrid Stairs looked at the space-time curvatures of a binary star.

UBC astronomers were able to look at the space-time curvature warp inside a binary star before it slipped out of view.

Ingrid Stairs, professor of astronomy and astrophysics, studied the binary pulsar system J1906 along with a team of other researchers in the hopes of measuring the mass of the two neutron stars, which are the most dense and small stars in the universe, and the degree of the space-time curvature warp to determine how they interact with each other. J1906 is located 25,000 light years from Earth and will not come into view for observation for the next 160 years.

The research team also wanted to figure out the nature of the companion star, which serves as the centre of orbit for the two neutron stars.

“We were interested in measuring the masses of the two stars, in part hoping to figure out what the companion star is. The result is still a little ambiguous as the object could be either a white dwarf or another neutron star,” said Stairs.

White dwarf stars are very small, very dense stars that emit thermal energy and have low luminosity.

According to Stairs, the research team measured this binary pulsar system to clear up ambiguities about J1906, which is a largely unexplored area of our solar system, and determined the mass of astronomical objects within it.

The team found that the mass of the binary pulsar (a neutron star that rotates at high velocity and emits radiation) was 1.291 +/- 0.011 solar masses and the mass of the companion star to be 1.322 +/- 0.011 solar masses.

Astronomers usually use this unit of measurement to determine the mass of stars, but it can also extend to measurement of the mass of nebulae and galaxies.

Stairs also said that while the research team did not measure the spin axis or change in orientation of the stars, they did look at how their shapes changed based on the theory of general relativity. According to the research team’s predictions, the pulsar disappeared from view after they were able to calculate the mass of the two stars.

“We didn’t derive a measurement of the rate of precession of the neutron star’s spin axis, but the profile shape changes and near-disappearance of the pulsar are qualitatively in agreement with the predictions of warped spacetime due to general relativity,” said Stairs.

In the future, Stairs hopes to use the knowledge gained about the pulsar star to get a clearer understanding of the types of stars that exist within J1906.

“In the medium term, we should be able to make a map of the radio emission beam of the pulsar, because we’ve been seeing different slices of that region as the spin axis precesses,” said Stairs.

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Researchers launch SPIDER telescope to study universe expansion

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Ubyssey (The University of British Columbia)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2015/01/07

UBC researchers have launched a telescope into space to study the origins of the Big Bang Theory.

Mark Halpern, a UBC professor of physics and astronomy, along with a team of researchers, is studying patterns of the early universe with a specialized airborne telescope.

Their SPIDER telescope will be searching for Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR).

According to Halpern, “this is radiation from the early thermal glow of the plasma that filled the universe for the first few thousand years.”

The team’s primary goal is to study the primordial process known as inflation.

According to Halpern, the early universe expanded extraordinarily rapidly. Halpern says the math describing this phenomena would not produce a stable universe over billions of years, even the age of our universe at about 13.77 billion years. A variable is missing.

“What you would expect is, essentially instantly, the universe would fly apart and be empty, or re-collapse and vanish. By instantly, I mean a tiny, tiny fraction of a second,” said Halpern. “We’re missing part of the physics that makes the thing be stable for a really long time.”

To explain, Halpern suggested an analogy. If you were to roll a marble down the top of a downward sloped cylindrical surface such as a pipe, you would assume that it would veer to the side and fall off after a few centimetres.

“I push a marble down the top of the pipe, and a quarter of a mile later it’s still on top of the pipe, you’re going to say I’m missing something,” said Halpern, who said the research team draws this analogy with respect to the origin and growth of the universe and the missing variable.

SPIDER was launched to search for this variable.

“We’ve built, what we think, are the most sensitive telescopes in wavelength regime anyone has ever made. They can be so sensitive because they are up out of the atmosphere.” Halpern said.

The balloon-borne SPIDER telescope took 10 years to construct and will operate for 20 days over Antarctica. It operates with two distinguishing characteristics: extraordinary sensitivity and high vertical range above the atmosphere, 40km above the Antarctic, in the stratosphere.

According to Halpern, the researchers do not have explicit predictions as to what SPIDER will find.

“There is one concrete story for what happened early on, which is that in the first 10-34 seconds, the universe expanded,” said Halpern. “The thing we’re trying to measure is, essentially, how long that lasted and just when it stopped.”

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Longterm effects of low oil prices uncertain, says Sauder prof

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Ubyssey (The University of British Columbia)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2015/01/04

The price of oil in Canada is the lowest it’s been in years.

The recent drop in oil and gas prices in Canada is shaping up to be part of a larger, worldwide trend.

Anming Zhang, a Sauder professor who focuses on transport economics and policy and industrial organization, said the major factors in the drop in oil prices have to do with global supply and demand.

According to Zhang, the recently decreased prices for oil in Canada come from the nose dive in the crude oil prices worldwide since 2014.

“In July 2014, the crude oil price reached around $108 USD per barrel,” said Zhang. “If you look at today’s price, it’s $53 per barrel. It is half of what he had a half-year ago. Canada will just follow that.”

Zhang also said that the world economic crises, including the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, the 2011 European Debt Crisis, and the reduction in growth of the Chinese economy, could also all be attributed to the low oil prices.

“On the demand side, there’s some slowing down in the world economy and trade, international trade, and the world GDP over the last few years,” said Zhang.

Zhang said that the drop of China’s GDP from 10 per cent in the early 2000s to seven per cent now had its effect on the price of oil and gas.

“The demand side has been dropping,” said Zhang. “Naturally, economic activity is slowing down, and demand for oil has been going down as well.”

According to Zhang, there are a number of theories that try to predict the future economic consequences of the drop in oil prices. As another example, Zhang said that the price decrease could create problems for the Russian economy, which is heavily dependent on its oil and gas sector.

“60 per cent of the [Russian] government revenue is from the oil and natural gas activities,” said Zhang. “So this will put a lot of pressure on Russian economy.”

As the big drop in oil prices came quite unexpectedly for many Canadian customers and companies alike, the effects that the drop will have on longterm prices, including the fuel surcharges that plane companies currently charge passengers, are still uncertain.

“Essentially, the price of oil dropped too quickly,” said Zhang. “It’s been a shock to the airlines, and they’re wondering if the price might go up again soon. Things are still uncertain, so they’re being cautious in case it’s only a temporary drop.”

Still, Zhang also said that it is unlikely that plane companies will get rid of the fuel surcharges altogether, as the global demand for oil and gas is still disproportionate to the supply.

“The airlines will most likely decrease the surcharges – but not get rid of them altogether,” said Zhang. “That would only be if the price of oil stayed this low for a long time – which I doubt.

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Province commissions book commemorating history of Chinese Canadians

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Ubyssey (The University of British Columbia)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2015/01/04

The province has commissioned a book that celebrates the achievements and contributions of Chinese Canadians to B.C.’s history.

The province of B.C. has set aside $100,000 for a book that celebrates the achievements of eminent Chinese Canadians.

The book, which follows an official apology to the Chinese Canadian community from the province in May 2014, is meant to highlight underrepresented aspects of B.C.’s history and make amends for a number of racist policies that were implemented against Chinese Canadians in the past.

UBC history professor Henry Yu said that the publication of such a book is meant to provide a more comprehensive history of Chinese Canadians in B.C.

“The focus should obviously be, in the legacy, addressing a lot of the anti-Chinese legislation, and a lot of things were done to the Chinese in terms of racist legislation, exclusion, head tax,” said Yu.

Still, Yu said that the book is meant to also celebrate the accomplishments and contributions of Chinese Canadians to B.C.’s history rather than solely focus on the discrimination that they faced.

“There’s a long history of anti-Chinese legislation, discrimination, and racism, but there’s also this long, enduring, and very under-told story of what the Asian Canadians were doing in British Columbia,” said Yu.

As an example, Yu explained that from the time the British first came to B.C. in 1788 with the John Meares expedition, there were also many Chinese on the ship who helped build the fur trading fort in Nuu-chah-nulth territory and establish the B.C. that we know today — a fact that is commonly overlooked in history books.

According to Yu, the book and the project are highly important, as the history of B.C. that most people know today does not often focus on the broad spectrum of communities who lived here.

“We need a much more rounded common history,” said Yu. “For instance, the long history of relationships between Chinese Canadians and First Nations was often ignored because ‘pioneer histories’ of British Columbia usually focused on European migrants.”

The book will be approximately 150 pages long and bring to light interesting stories, photos and documents related to the history of notable British Columbians of Chinese descent. While the exact details of what the book will look like are still being established, Yu looks forward to seeing how it will present stories about Chinese Canadians as part of the larger history of B.C.

“We can create a ‘usable past,’ that we can help us live together moving forward,” said Yu. “It’s not about just looking backward. It’s also about looking forward.”

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Cardiovascular disease researchers developing anti-aging skin treatment

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Ubyssey (The University of British Columbia)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2015/01/04

A UBC pathology researcher is using research from mice to create a potential anti-aging skin product.

UBC Pathology and Laboratory Medicine professor David Granville made a chance discovery that may lead to the creation of a drug to defy skin aging.

Granville researched the effects of Granzyme-B (GzmB) on atherosclerosis, an artery disease, and heart attacks. His research coincidentally found resistance to skin aging.

“Essentially, my research is focused on aging and blood vessel health in the context of atherosclerosis, which causes heart attacks and strokes,” said Granville. “As we aged mice, when this gene was knocked out, we were finding an unusually good benefit to the skin.”

According to Granville, skin with more GzmB looked older in the experimented upon mice, while skin with less of the enzyme looked younger.

“It is one of those exciting times as a basic scientist. Sometimes, this is ignored,” said Granville. “In research these days, there are these sort of serendipitous discoveries in different areas that were unexpected.”

Granville said that sunlight causes 80 to 90 per cent of aging in the skin.

“We wanted to study this in more detail because a study had come out showing that Granzyme-B could be induced by ultraviolet light in skin cells.”

Granville’s research team worked with experts in the biological application of engineering principles to develop a solar-simulated light box, using bulbs that mimic the ratios of ultraviolet radiation in sunlight.

“We exposed the mice for 20 weeks, just three times a week, to very low levels of sunlight,” Granville said. “They were exposed to three minutes of light. Temperature is all regulated, so [it] did not go up.”

“We looked at the skin. There was a marked difference in wrinkling that was evident on the mice with Granzyme-B compared to those without Granzyme-B,” Granville said.

He explained skin aging in further detail, pointing out that the skin’s collagen becomes “lost and disorganized,” and its quality becomes reduced.

According to Granville, many cosmetics simply throw collagen at the skin in hopes of restoration of the aged skin. He said this is ultimately ineffective.

“The body produces collagen and assembles it in a sort of basket-woven form, very similar to looking at a blanket. That requires other proteins as well. Obviously, things that would hold it together like the nails and brackets that would hold together a wall,” he said.

Granville’s research may allow for the creation of a drug that could block the aging enzyme. He formed viDA Therapeutics, Inc. in 2008 to research and make such a product.

“We’re excited about the fact that if we inhibit the Granzyme-B, we could inhibit this degradation and loss of organization of the collagen that holds the skin intact.”

Granville said there are also important health implications of GzmB.

“With respect to people in long-term care facilities, I’ve been working with the wound-healing clinic at St. Paul’s Hospital,” Granville said. “We’re hoping that by inhibiting this, and allowing, we might be able to increase the tensile strength of skin and prevent this skin tearing that occurs, plagues these patients in long-term care facilities.”

Granville hopes his research will be used for benefits beyond better-looking skin.

“We’re not hoping to become cosmetic experts,” he said.

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Examining the psychology behind Black Friday and Boxing Day

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Ubyssey (The University of British Columbia)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/11/30

Sauder professor JoAndrea Hoegg studies the presence of mob mentality in shoppers.

A Sauder professor says that mob mentality is behind much of the pushing and shoving we see see during shopping days such as Black Friday and Boxing Day.

JoAndrea Hoegg, UBC associate professor and Canada Research Chair in consumer behaviour, studies the science behind consumer shopping behaviours.

Hoegg’s current research centres around prominent shopping days such as Black Friday, which has recently started gaining in popularity in Canada, and Boxing Day.

According to Hoegg, many shoppers get so caught up in finding the best deals that they do not think of what they are doing as mob psychology.

“When you have a large group of people together engaging in some behavior, you have something called deindividuation, which means they have a feeling of anonymity,” said Hoegg. “They feel less responsible for their own actions.”

Deindividuation creates a sense of energy in the crowd en masse. Individuals become more carefree about the consequences of their actions and can start engaging in aggressive behaviours.

“[The shoppers] start engaging in behaviours that they would not otherwise do,” said Hoegg. “Of course, that can lead, in a shopping environment, to what you sometimes see on the news.”

At the same time, Hoegg said that popular media sources tend to show the more extreme cases of such behaviour. Still, the presence of large crowds also contributes to creating an environment where people feel like they have to push aside others for the best deal.

“If it was just a regular shopping day and not this large crowd, a normal human would not do this in such a large crowd,” said Hoegg. “That’s mob psychology.”

According to Hoegg, stores will often use such techniques to give off the appearance of the scarcity of their products. That way, people will be more likely to think that they need to rush off and buy a particular item before everyone else.

“Stores make it seem like the products that people may want to buy is scarce,” said Hoegg. “There is a chance the product will run out. There is a sense of urgency.”

Hoegg said that while such shopping days can be fun for most people, they also create an environment where people’s competitiveness can come out in ways that are harmful.

“People want to be the one to get the product, get the deal and beat everyone else out,” said Hoegg. That, combined with so many people, can lead to this sort of more aggressive behaviour.”

Correction: A previous version of this article said JoAndrea Hoegg studies mob psychology. In fact, she studies consumer shopping behaviours. The Ubyssey regrets the error.

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UBC Law student Braden Lauer competing to be Canada’s smartest person

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Ubyssey (The University of British Columbia)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/10/01

Braden Lauer is competing to be Canada’s Smartest Person

UBC Law student Braden Lauer is vying for the title of the smartest person in Canada.

Hosted by Jessi Cruickshank and Jeff Douglas, Canada’s Smartest Person is a CBC show that aims to get rid of the idea that you need a high IQ to be smart and has contestants compete against each other in a series of musical, physical, social, logical, visual and linguistic intelligence categories.

These six categorizations of intelligence derive from the Multiple Intelligences Theory of Professor Howard Gardner of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education.

Lauer, who went to University of Alberta for his commerce degree and is now going into his second year at UBC Law, applied for Canada’s Smartest Personon a whim in the middle of a downturn in studying for law examinations.

“I was in the middle of exams last semester,” said Lauer. “The middle of first-year exams, which are considered the hell, so to speak, of Law school, is terrible. I saw a commercial on TV and was feeling down on myself.”

As a result, Lauer decided it would be interesting to apply to the show and see if he would be selected.

“In a very sassy way, I filled out an application,” said Lauer. “From there forward, I went through a pretty long process until they called me to be 1 of 32.”

According to Lauer, the turning point of his audition came from his big smile.

The show has a total of 32 participants, with four of them going head-to-head each week. At the end of nine weeks, there will be a competition among the finalists, with the winner being announced in November.

While the show was filmed over the course of the summer, contestants are not allowed to comment on the results until the final episode is released.

Still, Lauer is confident that the show will prove to be both interesting and surprising in the weeks to come.

“Winning is in the cards for me,” said Lauer.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article stated that the show has been filmed over the course of two days in August. It has actually been filmed over the course of the whole summer. The article has been updated to reflect this fact.

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UBC Theatre and Opera merger promises a triumphant 2014/2015 season

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Ubyssey (The University of British Columbia)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/09/01

Last year’s production of Ubu Roi was a hit.

A new fall season, a merger of UBC Theatre and Opera productions and a suite of new pieces for the upcoming 2014/2015 season. Does this sound exciting? It better. UBC Theatre and Opera productions have a fantastic lineup in a first-ever union.

For 2014/2015 season, productions begin with Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and work through Bartered Bride, Naked Cinema, The Bacchae 2.1, The Marriage of Figaro, The Triumph of Love, Choir Practice, ending with La Traviata. With themes of freedom, triumphant women and love, the common threads tie the pieces together into a beautiful web. Nancy Hermiston is directing four pieces: The Marriage of Figaro, Bartered Bride, Choir Practice and La Traviata. Two of the productions are directed by UBC MFA candidates: The Bacchae 2.1, directed by Denis Gupa, and The Triumph of Love, directed by Barbara Tomas.

Deb Pickman, communications and marketing manager for the UBC theatre and film department, and Hermiston feel thrilled with the upcoming productions.

In Twelfth Night, escapades ensue of unrequited love and sexual confusions. “It’s been set to take place in modern day in New Orleans during Mardi Gras,” said Pickman. “It’s a romantic comedy.”

Bartered Bride sets itself in the springtime of a Bohemian village. Much of the story revolves around arranged and unarranged love. Pickman recommends this for opera first-timers.

Naked Cinema features a work of art inspired by DOGMA 95 Manifesto by Lars von Trier. In this original feature length film, alumni and award winning filmmakers Tom Scholte and Bruce Sweeney provide something “raw, naked, and uncompromising,” according to critics.

The next piece of the season, The Bacchae 2.1, relates to the Euripdean celebration of the Greek god, Dionysus, with works by Klaus Theweleit’s Male Fantasies, Lesbian Herstory Archives by Joan Nestle, and The S.C.U.M. Manifesto of Valerie Solanas. Amidst this, it is “injecting this ritualistic Philipino dance,” said Pickman.

“[The Marriage of Figaro is] a scheming, romantic intrigue. It is considered one of Mozart’s greatest operas ever written,” said Pickman. Servants Suzanna and Figaro find themselves in an imbroglio involving everyone attempting to save two marriages.

Next in the season, The Triumph of Love, originally written by Pierre Marivaux in the 18th century. This romantic comedy deals with the love of Leonide, a brilliant princess, for Agis, the rightful heir to the kingdom.

Choir Practice is a comic opera in one act. It is an hour of slapstick comedy and innuendos following a conductor failing to conduct with ensuing vocal duels. “It takes people back to an opera ensemble in 1985,” said Pickman.

The season’s finale, La Traviata, presents a doomed love tale between Violetta, the courtesan, and a handsome man, Alfredo. It contains love, deceit, heartbreak and flourishing parties.

“All of these operas are first-timer friendly because they are very engaging popular operas, comedies, and tragedy in one case,” said Pickman.

Pickman said the merger will benefit both the UBC Theatre and Opera.

“There is this area of the campus that is a hotbed for art and creativity,” said Pickman. “It’s also a place where some of the world’s most treasured artists come to exhibit.”

The first show of the 2014/2015 season, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, premieres on September 24 and runs from September 25 to October 11 in the Frederic Wood Theatre

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Construction setbacks delay opening of The Pit and The Perch in the new SUB

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Ubyssey (The University of British Columbia)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/09/01

Delays in the construction of The Pit and The Perch are not expected to affect the general opening of the new SUB.

Several setbacks in the construction of The Pit and The Perchmay cause the businesses to open later than expected.

“It is a little bit different for each of the outlets,” said Ava Nasiri, AMS VP admin. “The reason The Perch is lagging behind a bit is because we had some foundational changes that occurred in February.”

Nasiri said the construction workers needed to raise the ground of the spaces to become level, which caused the delays in the building process. Both the Perch and The Pit are expected to open within a few weeks of the opening of the new SUB in January 2015. The Perch will open sooner as construction of The Pit must stop for a week if the space is to be used for the opening ceremonies celebrations.

“As a student, it is unfortunate and disappointing, obviously, that The Pit and The Perch are delayed, but on large student projects like the Student Nest … it is something that can be foreseen,” said Jenna Omassi, a fourth-year international relations and religious studies student and Arts Undergraduate Society president.

Still, Omassi feels satisfied by the efforts of the AMS to make sure the new SUB opens on schedule.

“The fact that the AMS is planning for a way to use the SUB for the first week back will be important from a student perspective,” said Omassi.

Nasiri considered the construction’s long-term benefits in addition to the short-term costs.

“It was in the best interest of students to make that decision now rather than four years from now,” said Nasiri.

According to Nasiri, the decision to open these spaces later comes from balancing the provision of a quality space for the entire lifespan of the building.

“We are really well-aware and understand this is student money,” said Nasiri.

As such, Nasiri notes the acute awareness of cautious, informed spending of student money while balancing the need for keeping student excitement about the new space.

According to Nasiri, they have looked into a conditional operating license for the first week of second term for The Pit but the exact details regarding the license are still unclear.

The Perch and The Pit construction delays will not affect the rest of the building, which is scheduled to open January 5.

UPDATE: An earlier version of this article said that The Perch was expected to open within a few weeks of the opening of the new SUB while The Pit had no set opening date. In fact, both student spaces are scheduled to be open within a few weeks of the opening of the new SUB. The article has been updated to reflect this fact.

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RCMP Wreck Beach patrols more friendly than expected

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Ubyssey (The University of British Columbia)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/08/25

The RCMP has developed a somewhat friendlier relationship than many anticipated with the frequenters of Wreck Beach.

Judy Williams Chairperson of the Wreck Beach Preservation Society, wasn’t pleased when she heard about plans for a police tent on the beach, which she says is the safest beach in B.C.

“I have spent the last 45 years advocating for Wreck Beach as accepting, tolerant and loving,” said Williams. “We did not need that kind of negative publicity from an officer new to the beach intent on cleaning it up.”

Sgt. Drew Grainger of the UBC RCMP said the police tent was put in place mainly to have officers on hand in case they were needed on the beach.

“UBC is a small detachment,” said Grainger. “We only have two or three members patrolling at any given time of the day.”

“The tent was essentially a thing of shade for our officers,” said Grainger. “Our strategy down here was to enhance public safety, mitigate the need for call service for some of our officers up top.”

According to Grainger, this was a strategy to foster mutual understanding about what is responsible and respectful behaviour.

Williams, however, compared the frequent visitors of Wreck Beach to a family that can get by without the additional police presence.

“Like all families, we have our squabbles, but when push comes to shove, we are there for one another,” said Williams.

Williams further described the more relaxed stance of the police, even joining in some of the beach activities activities such as the Bare Buns Run on Aug. 10.

“At some point, I would imagine we will have a more tolerant attitude,” said Williams.

Still, Grainger said that the RCMP will continue to focus on preventing the overconsumption of alcohol and selling of illegal drugs on the beach.

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AMS to release mobile app in place of student handbook

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Ubyssey (The University of British Columbia)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/07/08

The AMS will be releasing a mobile app for the fall 2014 semester.

The app will replace the AMS student handbook, including features intended to connect UBC students to their campus community and student society.

The AMS has been working in coordination with the app production company OohLaLa to manufacture the application. AMS Council approved the app with a budget of about $1,800 per month over the course of two years.

Core features of the application will include AMS club, service and business listings and a calendar of AMS events.

According to AMS communications manager, Abby Blinch, “all [AMS] clubs are getting access to put all of their information on the background of their club, who their executives are and any events they are having.”

Like the paper handbook, the app will also feature deals and coupons for AMS businesses.

Virtual tours of campus hotspots for various activities will also be featured in the app, intended to help students find the best places to study, hang out and exercise, among other things.

According to Blinch, students will also be able to tour the new AMS Student Nest, and navigate major sections of the building with the app.

 To help new students through their first week, the app will also include a to-do list for settling in, including information such as how to navigate campus.

Because of this, the AMS hopes to have the app ready to use in time for orientations. According to Blinch, it is planned to be available for download by mid August.

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UBC student uses satellite technology in elephant conservation effort

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Ubyssey (The University of British Columbia)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/08/19

UBC PhD candidate Jake Wall is tracking elephants with the hopes of improving conservation

UBC PhD candidate Jake Wall has adapted satellite tracking technology to help protect endangered African elephants.

Wall’s research looks into elephant needs of food, space, connectivity with the environment, security and water.

According to Wall, his research, and that of the Save the Elephants organization which he works with in Kenya “focuses on the movement ecology of elephants — their spatial distribution, range and habitat.”

The researchers attach satellite tracking collars around the necks of the elephants. Wall’s tracking system monitors the animals through live data feeds that detect changes in their behavioural patterns.

The data funnels through Google Earth into a network of Kenyan and South African conservation and management partners.

“We hope this technology will help deter poachers because they know we are monitoring these elephants closely,” Wall said.

The data feeds can quickly alert rangers of animals in danger through changes in their daily patterns of movement.

According to Wall, upgrading to lighter and more efficient tracking equipment could improve coordination with rangers for conservation efforts.

For example, the use of heart monitors could provide more detailed information on tracked animals’ health.

According to a study by the Wildlife Conservation Society, 65 per cent of Central Africa’s forest elephants died between 2002 and 2013.

“It’s really important for the world to know what’s happening to elephants right now,” said Wall. “It’s tragic that many people in this world don’t see the inherent value of keeping a wild elephant alive versus killing it for its tusks.”

Wall hopes to continue his animal conservation efforts outside of Africa.

“I’m hoping we can start to work with other researchers and adapt [the tracking technology] to monitor blue whales swimming in shipping lanes, or polar bears walking into Churchill, Manitoba,” he said. “Or we could know right away when migrating birds break a virtual ‘geofence’ boundary and fly near wind turbines.”

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AMS Primer: VP External Bahareh Jokar

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Ubyssey (The University of British Columbia)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/08/17

Bahareh Jokar is working to make transportation easier and more accessible to students.

As the current VP External, Jokar’s job includes dealing with the political aspects and outreach of the AMS.

When asked about her new duties and responsibilities, Jokar said the the majority of her work will focus on thematic issues that the AMS will continue to focus on throughout the year.

“Those issues include addressing student needs on a provincial level, public transportation, and the U-Pass program,” said Jokar.

Jokar also manages aspects of government relations to post-secondary students. Some of these services include childcare, education, immigration, financial aid and transportation.

Other initiatives include the OutreachAMS, the Alliance of B.C. Students and the Financial Aid/Student Debt Advocacy.

But in what is perhaps her biggest project of the year, Jokar will continue working towards making the transition from the U-Pass to the Compass Card.

“For me, specifically this term, I am focusing on the upcoming municipal election, the potential public transit referendum,” said Jokar.

Jokar said that she will be looking at the Broadway corridor and the mayor’s council proposal to have a Broadway line that extends beyond Arbutus and out to UBC.

According to Jokar, this will include “working with UBC administration and the City of Vancouver to push to have the line extend out to UBC.”

During her time as VP External, Jokar hopes to divide her time efficiently between all these different commitments. A few of these commitments include chairing Get-On-Board B.C., a coalition of stakeholders advocating for greater funding for public transit, and the Alliance of B.C. Students.

Through her participation in many different projects and initiatives, Jokar hopes to address some of the overarching concerns of UBC students.

“I see large trends, which seep into various issues that we are trying to address like public transportation, like student issue reform around accessibility and affordability,” said Jokar.

At the same time, Jokar feels that addressing these concerns comes down to learning more about the core issues of civic process and student engagement.

“If we put in more today, future AMS members will be able to reap the benefits of uniting and engaging in the process to push for student issues, and making our communities a better place,” said Jokar.

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New course opens entrepreneurial avenues

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/09/08

A new course offered this fall by two SFU professors will open entrepreneurial avenues to undergraduate students in all faculties.

The 200-level introductory course, BUS 238: Introduction to Entrepreneurship and Innovation, emphasizes cooperative, team-based approaches to entrepreneurship and innovation. Available to any student who has 12 or more credits, the course will make upper-division business classes accessible.

Taught by Sarah Lubik, lecturer in the Technology Entrepreneurship@SFU program, and Andrew Gemino, professor of management information systems, BUS 238 demonstrates that you don’t have to take courses in business fundamentals — such as finance or accounting — to learn about entrepreneurship at SFU.

For the duration of the course, Lubik and Gemino intend to bring in multiple guest speakers from differing disciplines to discuss team-based approaches. As of yet, the guest speakers have not been confirmed.

Lubik told The Peak, “The course looks at empowering students in understanding themselves as entrepreneurs and innovators. It looks at studying problems, going deep into problems.”

According to Lubik, this type of course instruction will allow all students to develop basic, core skills necessary for any innovator or entrepreneur. “This course is important because entrepreneurship and innovation skills are important no matter what faculty you are in, no matter what you think your future is,” Lubik said.

She added that the course will help students develop “the ability to come up with an idea that actually meets needs [as well as] the ability to execute on an idea and to iterate, and to pivot.”

In addition to these benefits, Lubik said the course is important for the university and its students because it brings together all of the different faculties involved in entrepreneurship and innovation. “It is open to everybody, regardless of faculty,” she said.

According to Lubik, one of the most important skill sets in entrepreneurship and innovation relates to the ability of people to work in a team and cooperate to succeed at an entrepreneurial goal.

“The reason I keep saying ‘team’,” she told the Georgia Strait, “is because traditionally, business schools have tried to teach entrepreneurship to business students, not realizing that as soon as you get out into the real world, you’re going to be working with people who don’t speak that language — who are completely different from you.”

Lubik emphasized the importance of involving students who have the ability to work across disciplines because of the challenges — such as communicating in different languages — that are encountered in different fields.

In such situations, it becomes important to find a common language or conversational style which allows everyone involved to bridge disciplinary jargon.

She concluded, “No matter what your discipline or interests are, entrepreneurship and innovation skills will give you greater flexibility, more value for many potential employers and the security of knowing you have the ability to create and seize your own opportunities.”

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University Briefs (2014/09/08)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Chris Spangenberg, and Leah Bjornson

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/09/08

Widower Powel Crosley has gone back to school at University of Alberta to study the rare form of ovarian cancer that killed his wife.

After taking introductory courses in biochemistry and oncology, one of Crosley’s professors asked him to do lab research alongside masters and doctoral students. Recently, he was awarded $50,000 in grants to continue studying granulosa cell tumour of the ovary, or GCT.

“[My wife’s] motto was: the answer lies in the lab,” said Crosley. “She was pretty persistent about things she believed in. And so I’m just basically completing her mission.”

With files from Canadian Press

U of T student successful on the world stage

University of Toronto fourth year history and political science student and research fellow of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Council of Canada, Jozef Kosc, made waves in the foreign policy world this summer at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris.

In addition to researching economic development policies for the OECD Observer, Kosc was published in international journals such as Atlantic Voices and The Journal of Political Studies.

He intends to serve his country in the future through work in the Canadian Foreign Service. “Having met diplomats during my time abroad, their duty, drive, and perseverance are qualities I’ve come to strongly admire,” Kosc said.

With files from The Varsity

Campaign raises awareness of mental health issues

The Canadian Federation of Students — Nova Scotia (CFSNS) launched Mental Health Matters this week, an awareness-raising campaign to improve mental health services for university students.

The CFSNS expressed concerns over a lack of services on campus, which can negatively impact students. This is especially important for first years, who face stress from a plethora of issues, such as being away from home, student debt, personal relationships, and their studies.

According to David Pilon, program leader for Special Mental Health Services at Capital Health, 75 per cent of mental health illness starts before the age of 25, meaning university students are particularly vulnerable.

With files from Global News

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Third generation Italian-Canadians return to their roots

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/09/02

Using an online survey entitled “Being Ethnic: Third Generation Italian Identity in Vancouver,” SFU research associate, Eva Sajoo, has moved one step closer to understanding the implications of being a third generation Italian immigrant in Canada.

Sponsored by the Institute for Diaspora Research & Engagement and the Centre for the Comparative Study of Muslim Societies and Cultures, the research project conducted various interviews with Italian-Canadians in order to better understand how they describe their identity and sense of community.

Sajoo’s preliminary results indicate that third generation immigrants may have an increased interest in their lineage than prior generations, who often distance themselves from what they see as their parents’ old country.

Sajoo initially observed her brothers showing an increased interest in personal roots, and after expanding into other ethnic groups, began to see a trend. When she spoke with Mauro Vescera, the director of the Italian Cultural Centre (Il Centro), he noted the same phenomenon in Italian immigrants, which sparked a collaboration on the study.

Sajoo told The Peak that the study involves a brief online survey. “We are asking third generation Italians — anyone whose grandparents came to Canada from Italy — what Italian identity means to them,” she said.

Sajoo continued, “The most important question is how they describe themselves. Do they think of themselves as primarily Italian, Italian-Canadian, Canadian, or something else? We are trying to understand what factors affect how a person relates to their family history in constructing their own sense of identity.”

She also noted the variety in immigrant communities across the country, saying that “this study attempts to provide some insight into how identity evolves over time in one community.”

The Italian Cultural Centre will use the research to adapt to the changing needs of their community. Sajoo said, “Ultimately, the results will not only tell us something about Italian-Canadian youth in Vancouver, but will be a point of comparison for future studies of other communities.”

She concluded, “The research is important because we live in an increasingly mobile, globalized world. Diaspora groups — communities which live in one country but retain some kind of connection to their country of origin — are going to be increasingly common.

“As a result, understanding how individuals preserve parts of one identity while also participating and belonging to their local community is going to be of ongoing interest.”

The online survey will be open until the end of September, with results likely published by the end of the year.

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University Briefs

Author(s): Jonathan Pabico, Melissa Roach, and Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/09/02

Former UBC kinesiology professor charged with voyeurism

Former professor of kinesiology at the University of British Columbia, James Rupert, faces charges of voyeurism based on accusations of observing and recording nudity in private places without consent. He began in-court proceedings on August 19 and will appear once more on September 16.

According to UBC spokesperson Lucie McNeill, “The University of British Columbia remains one of the safest academic communities in North America [. . .] We are committed to maintaining a secure and respectful environment for all, and we investigate and address all incidents that threaten the safety of our students, faculty or staff.”

With files from The Ubyssey

Film program at UFV explores First Nations culture

The University of Fraser Valley has recently established a program called the Lens of Empowerment, aimed at using film to celebrate and accurately represent First Nations culture, the Sto:lo nation specifically.

The project not only aims to teach students how to create their own films, but also to change the focus of film as a medium in regards to First Nations representation, which in the past has been stereotypical in nature. These films are meant to promote a more clarified view of the Sto:lo as a diverse culture.

With files from The Cascade

U of T researches link between insomnia and old age

Research from the University of Toronto looks to explain the connection between age and the ability to get a good night’s sleep.

Findings show that the loss of a specific cluster of inhibitory neurons in animals is responsible for sleep disruption. The number of these neurons found in humans decreases with age.

“These findings may one day lead to novel treatments for insomnia and other patterns of sleep disruption in old age, thereby improving quality of life,” said U of T researcher Andrew Lim.

With files from University of Toronto Media Room

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Social housing provides shelter from mental illness and addiction

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/07/21

SFU health sciences professor Julian Somers recently released new findings that demonstrate the effectiveness of supported housing in assisting those with drug addictions and mental illness in Vancouver neighbourhoods.

Conducted by Somers along with the Mental Health Commission of Canada, the five-year study provided apartments to participants throughout Vancouver. Results showed that the situation of formerly homeless people improved both in a financial sense and in overall health.

These improvements included fewer emergency department visits, reduced time spent in institutions due to criminal convictions, improved quality of life, and less time on the streets. Overall, these indicate an across-the-board improvement caused by the new interventions that were introduced by the study in Vancouver.

The research showed that the costs of providing these individuals with housing and support versus leaving them on the street where they may end up in shelters, emergency rooms, and jails, were roughly equivalent.

For every $10 invested in providing housing, there was an average savings of $8.55 in avoided use of social services.

In discussing the overarching research program, Somers stated, “We conducted some experiments to try to discover effective housing and support models for people who had been excluded from existing services.”

The study looked at 500 participants who had been homeless for roughly 10 years — people that were chronically homeless and oftentimes experiencing mental illness.

Analyzing each individual’s mental status, Somers said, “The most common diagnosis that people met criteria for was schizophrenia. The majority also had significant problems with substance abuse.”

Somers described the living conditions for the participants of the study: “The housing itself is market housing. It isn’t the house that is built for homeless people or anything of that sort. It is just regular housing from the existing stock. And in order to make that work, people are provided with support.”

Somers continued, “[That support can manifest as] a team, individuals with different expertise, or, if individuals do not have needs that warrant that, they could be a case manager.”

A large aspect of the research was giving people some choice in their circumstance. Somers explained, “It is client-centered in the sense that it gives people choices in [. . .] getting involved in health or mental health treatment. It also gets them involved in places around their home.”

Somers spoke to the importance of the study, but mentioned its limitations in a population that can often find itself trapped. “Homelessness includes a diverse group of people, most of whom, fortunately, will find their own way out of homelessness, but there is a subset [. . .] who don’t find their own way,” Somers said.

“Neighbours being able to welcome people into their mix, accommodate people who happen to have been homeless. That is an example of the stigma of mental illness being overcome. [. . .] Simple and straightforward acts like talking to people.”

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Social housing provides shelter from mental illness and addiction

Satellite Signals (2014/07/20)

Author(s): Leah Bjornson and Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/07/20

Vancouver

From July 15 to 20, SFU co-hosted Mathematics Education at the Edge, which brought together participants from 48 countries to discuss the future of mathematics education research.

Some of the topics included the relationship between gestures, language, and diagrams for bilingual math learners, the ‘flipped classroom’-style of teaching in undergraduate calculus classes, and emphasizing thinking classrooms.

Djavad Mowafaghian

A conference titled The Frankfurt School: The Critique of Capitalist Culture, posed questions on July 17 to 19 about the capacity of Frankfurt Critical Theory to explain the cultural landscape of contemporary capitalism.

SFU’s Institute for Humanities worked in conjunction with Douglas College, UBC, and SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement to explore the helpfulness of the concept of the “Culture Industry” in the context of global neo-liberal order.

July 21st, 2014 by Scott Jacobsen

For every $10 invested in providing housing, there was an average savings of $8.55 in avoided use of social services.

The study looked at 500 participants who had been homeless for roughly 10 years — people that were chronically homeless and oftentimes experiencing mental illness.

Somers continued, “[That support can manifest as] a team, individuals with different expertise, or, if individuals do not have needs that warrant that, they could be a case manager.”

Somers said that one of the biggest challenges to homelessness is the stigma surrounding mental illness. “Stigma concerning mental illness is profound. It is evident, not only among members of the public — it is evident even among health care providers. “Neighbours being able to welcome people into their mix, accommodate people who happen to have been homeless. That is an example of the stigma of mental illness being overcome. [. . .] Simple and straightforward acts like talking to people.”

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University Briefs (2014/07/19)

Author(s): Melissa Roach and Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/07/19

Judge overturns decision in favour of soup thieves

Three University of Saskatchewan cafeteria workers were fired in March, 2012 for reportedly pilfering soup on the job and smuggling gravy and expired fruit cups home with them.

The majority of the university board later decided that the firing was an “excessive disciplinary response,” due to the fact that dismissal of thieves was not outlined in their policy.

A Saskatchewan judge has just overturned the new decision, citing it as, “unreasonable and outside the range of acceptable outcomes.” He sided with the minority of the board in thinking that the three were “involved in a series of deliberate thefts,” this being made worse by the fact that they initially denied the charges.

With files from National Post

U of A research looks to artificial movement

University of Alberta professor Jaynie Yang has been researching the possibility of returning mobility through the use of fully functioning robotic exoskeletons. Her research has been enabled by a four-month lease of the ReWalk, the first robotic exoskeleton in Canada.

The ReWalk was initially designed to aid in the rehabilitation of people with spinal cord injuries. Yang’s team hopes to conduct a 12-week study of people with various spinal cord injuries and capabilities to find out what the technology is capable of.

“We want to know what’s possible with this exoskeleton, because people can walk in it for extended periods, and that’s what’s needed to provoke changes in your nervous system,” Yang said.

With files from The Gateway

Upright MRI helps UBC researchers treat osteoarthritis

Using an upright open magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, UBC researchers hope to make advancements in the treatment of osteoarthritis: the machine found at the Vancouver Coast Health Research Institute’s Centre for Hip Health and Mobility is the only one of its kind in Canada.

These machines have advantages over the traditional closed machine that requires the patient to lie still on a flat surface. Their unique design allows for the imaging of joints in their full range of motion, the significance being that imaging the joint under stress could help doctors provide more targeted treatment for their patients.

With files from The Vancouver Sun

UBC students climb mountains for charity

A group of University of British Columbia students from the school’s Tanzania Hearts Babies Project spent several days trekking up to the bases of both Mount Everest and Mount Kala Pattar for charity. The students recently released a montage of their trip, which took place in May.

With their climbing, the students aimed to bring awareness to the problems of heart defects among Tanzanian children. The group initially intended to merely climb the mountains, but the idea rapidly grew into a humanitarian effort through Tanzania Hearts Babies Project.

With files from The Ubyssey

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University Briefs (2014/07/12)

Author(s): Sabrina Chiu and Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/07/12

Beyonce course coming to UVIC

Starting in January, students at the University of Victoria will be able to study the pop singer Beyonce.

This new music department course will be taught by Melissa Avdeeff, a musicology researcher who has lectured at both the University of Alberta and the University of Edinburgh. Avdeeff has written on how women are portrayed in popular music, specifically focusing on Beyonce, for her MA thesis at Hamilton’s McMaster University.

For the course, Avdeef considered other singers such as Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber, but eventually picked Beyonce since a variety of pop-music studies could be included.

With files from The Globe and Mail

Five Alberta university-colleges now called universities

Five university-colleges in Alberta have received provincial permission to name themselves universities.

Recently renamed schools such as Concordia University and The King’s University have already started making plans to change billboards and letterhead. Concordia President Gerald Krispin noted that these post-secondary institutes have been pushing to get their names changed for years.

Bill Diepeveen, chair of King’s board of governors, believes this will help with campus recruitment: “You are coming to a university. Don’t have any doubt in your mind.”

With files from Edmonton Journal

Michael Ignatieff leaves U of T for Harvard

The former leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and a professor at University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, Michael Ignatieff, is leaving the university to pursue another post at Harvard University.

At Harvard, he will teach a variety of topics ranging from human rights, to sovereignty and interventions, to political life, to responsibility and representation as the Edward R. Murrow Chair of Press, Politics, and Public Policy.

“[Harvard] is an exciting and dynamic place where our future leaders are engaged in the very real process of gaining a greater understanding of the challenges they will face and the tools they will need to confront them,” said Ignatieff.

With files from The Varsity

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Satellite Signals (2014/07/06)

Author(s): Samaah Jaffer and Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/07/06

Woodward’s

On July 4, SFU’s Woodward’s campus hosted CreativeMornings/Vancouver, an international breakfast lecture series for the creative community. The event featured Charles van Sandwyk, an award-winning author of the limited edition book, A Selection of Neighbourly Birds. He advised attendees that, “If you are after some sense of meaning in your work, then your true character will shine through regardless of how hard you are trying to copy someone else.”

Vancouver

From July 2 to 4, the 9th Imaginative Education Research Group (IERG) Conference on Imagination and Education allowed teachers, parents, academics, and others to collaborate on what motivates children to learn.

The conference, hosted by the faculty of education, addressed “the real power of the imagination to equip students to learn, understand and apply knowledge to real-world problems.”

Downtown

On July 1, the Indian Students Federation in collaboration with UBC’s Ustav Club partook in the 6th Annual Canada Day Parade. Their dance performance included around 30 students from both SFU and UBC.

The performance hoped to communicate the idea of “indulging in the spirit of the day and showcasing cultural diversity.”

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University Briefs (2014/07/05)

Author(s): Samaah Jaffer and Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/07/05

UBC requests liquor license for concerts

UBC has requested an amendment concerning their liquor license in order to provide alcohol at concerts in Thunderbird Arena. This request was approved on June 27 by the Metro Vancouver board of directors.

UBC Athletics’ Kavie Toor told The Ubyssey that this change would greatly increase the popularity of concert events. He explained that not being able to serve liquor is a deterrent for promoters looking to host events at the university.

Based on the recommendation of the Metro Vancouver board of directors, the final approval will be considered by the BC Liquor and Control Licensing Branch and announced by the end of the summer.

With files from The Ubyssey

U of O men’s hockey team still suspended

The University of Ottawa’s men’s varsity hockey team will remain suspended over alleged misconduct of some of its players. Their head coach and program manager, Réal Paiement, has also been fired after failing to report the incidents, which he attempted to deal with internally.

Members of the team allegedly engaged in excessive drinking and sexual misconduct while in Thunder Bay for two games on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, 2014. While there were isolated incidents, a private investigation concluded that “the behaviour of some players was unacceptable and failed to meet university expectations for varsity athletes.”

With files from The Fulcrum

Canada takes the gold in wheelchair basketball

At the end of June, Ryerson University hosted the 2014 Women’s World Wheelchair Basketball Championship at the Mattamy Athletic Centre. This tournament, which occurs every four years, was hosted in Canada for the very first time.

After winning four straight championships in a row, from 1994 to 2006, team Canada finished third in 2010. This year, they redeemed themselves and took the gold on home soil.

Tracey Ferguson, who has been with the team for 23 years, welcomed the experience of being the home team. “I like the pressure,” said Ferguson. “I also love the fact we got our family and friends [here to support us].”

With files from The Eyeopener

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Love is 224 tweets away

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/06/23

New research reveals that couples are falling in love faster than their parents, and it’s all thanks to technology. According to Pixmania.com, the use of social media is reducing the amount of time required for young couples to fall head over heels.

The courting process now takes a mere 224 tweets or a simple 163 text messages. It can happen after a casual 70 Facebook messages. Even a handful of emails or phone calls at 37 and 30, respectively, can have young lovers falling hard.

The study showed that previous generations took much longer to enter into a relationship. For participants aged 55 and older, the average time it took to begin calling one another boyfriend and girlfriend was 78 days. Compare this to the age group of 25 and under, for which the time taken to fall in love was 24 days on average.

Modern communication technology has essentially halved the time to fall in love.

Researchers attribute this to the fact that previous generations were not able to communicate with each other constantly. Instead of following the “three day rule” to contact a date, research revealed 68 per cent of respondents would text someone a mere four hours after a date.

The differences in communication patterns were also seen across gender. On average, a man sends approximately 517 Facebook messages and tweets per year—compared to a woman’s 386—in hopes of wooing a potential suitor.

Technology also proved a useful tool during break ups. Thirty-six per cent were willing to end a relationship with a phone call, 27 per cent by text, and even 13 per cent by base social media.

This research suggests an important shift has occurred in traditional dating practices. According to the marketing director of Pixmania.com, Ghadi Hobeika, “The days of penning a simple love letter to woo your new beau are over.”

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University Briefs (2014/06/20)

Author(s): Melissa Roach and Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/06/20

Luminato Festival explores sex and sensuality

Lasting from June 6 to 15, this year’s annual Luminato Festival in Toronto focused on the steamy theme of “sex.” According to Luminato Festival artistic director, Jorn Wesibrodt, the erotic theme incorporated many boundary-pushing performances including one portraying strange, and even lethal, animal mating practices by actor Isabella Rossellini.

In addition to sex, the festival’s theme covered subjects such as as birth, love, pain, and passion. Love was explored as the second-most important theme, “as the sister phenomenon of sex.”

With files from The Varsity

Social media syphilis in Saskatoon

After a serious syphilis scare earlier this spring, Saskatoon may be in the clear. As of April 2014, there were nine confirmed cases, six more than were reported in all of 2013. The outbreak appears to have ended, however, with no new cases as of May.

Saskatoon Health Region’s deputy medical health officer, Johnmark Opondo, pointed to the increased use of social media sites and apps in searching for a sexual partner as a possible reason for the outbreak.

“It seems individuals are able to get to that point where they want to have intimate contact a lot faster,” he said. “[They] don’t always remember that sexually transmitted diseases can still be present and they still need to use caution.”

With files from The Sheaf

Teen angst affects future love life

Research from the U of A shows that depression in young adults may impact their future romantic relationships. Findings showed that those with high rates of depression and anger at age 18 struggled with intimate relationships 25 years down the road.

Assistant professor of human ecology and study author Matthew Johnson stressed the importance of providing aid for these issues in adolescence: “This speaks to the need for addressing those problems early, because they don’t just necessarily go away and even those early experiences will still affect you in the future.”

With files from The Gateway

UK universities score on sexual health

A national report ranked each of the UK’s most prominent universities based on sexual health. The report was in response to cuts to public services that have lead to increased rates of STIs across the country; this was clearly reflected in the results, with some schools not reaching a passable grade.

Schools were graded on a scale from A to F in various categories, such as, “sexual health information services near or on campus,” “clinic drop-in availability,” “sexual assault service,” and “sexual health information on website.” This report card aimed to shed light on how universities can better serve their communities when it comes to sexual health.

With files from The Exeposé

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“We have people come from all over the world to play in the band.” – Alan Bevan, pipe major

Pipe Dream

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/06/16

SFU contains a host of hidden wonders; one of them, in particular, is dear to my ear. As far back as I can remember, I have felt enamored by music of Scottish origin — in particular, the tradition of piping combined with drums.

I stumbled upon SFU’s Pipe Band one day during a short stroll across Burnaby Mountain. Literally, all it took was walking by the Pipe Band practicing, and I was hooked. Without a second’s hesitation, I plunged head-first into the bagpiping, drumming goodness.

For over 30 years, the SFU Pipe Band was organized, led, and conducted by Terry Lee.

Recently, Lee stepped down and was replaced by Alan Bevan, a world class piper and member of the band since 1995. I had the opportunity to interview Alan about the SFU Pipe Band and his prior involvement with Terry and Jack Lee.

“I started when I was seven and a half in Abbotsford in the local Pipe Band, eventually reaching Grade 1 and competing against the SFU Pipe Band,” Bevan remembers. “Grade 1” is a term connoting the highest level of performance within the world of piping. After facing off against SFU, Bevan soon joined the team’s ranks, and rose to become one of its most prominent pipers.

Replacing Lee as SFU’s pipe major was a daunting task for Bevan, especially in light of the band’s six-time World Champion status under the former’s leadership. However, Bevan has a wealth of experience, both with piping and with the Lee family.

“I started taking lessons from Jack Lee [pipe sergeant of the SFU Pipe Band and Terry’s brother] as a young teenager. That was a turning point in my career. I did well in the amateur ranks, and I turned pro after studying under Jack for a year,” Bevan explained.

He continued, “They [Terry and Jack Lee] are both excellent players. Terry was the first one to be asked to join the Pipe Band. Jack has been the number two guy in the pipe core. They have a symbiotic relationship.”

Despite leaving his grand legacy to Bevan, Terry Lee is still involved with the SFU Pipe Band; however, his level and degree of involvement has lessened, with Alan taking on many of Lee’s previous tasks. Though he has big shoes to fill, Bevan is confident in his level of expertise as a piper.

Speaking to his experience at the highest level, Bevan said, “You can only win the gold medal once at each of those contests [which SFU Pipe Band competes in]. I’ve now won each of those gold medals.”

But it’s not just Bevan raking in the medals. Besides meeting the pipe band’s exceptional leadership, I have also experienced first-hand the high-quality drummers and pipers that make up the band, each of whom is passionate about both the music and the team — living up to the impressive standard Bevan has set.

“It’s a tough band to get into in the first place,” Bevan admitted, referring to the group’s high standards. “We have kids come up through the ranks of the Robert Malcolm Memorial Organization [and Pipe Band]. Not all of those guys get into SFU. A few have, they’re pretty fired up by the time they get there, obviously.

“We have people come from all over the world to play in the band,” Bevan continued. The Pipe Band’s international and local performers throughout the last few decades have performed at such venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center in New York, the Salt Lake Tabernacle, and the Sydney Opera House.

The pipe band has an unique way of preparing for a given season; it’s a process Bevan describes as the band’s way of always having something to work towards. Rather than focusing single-mindedly on one big performance at the World Championships, the band works towards other contests, while keeping their eventual goal of a championship in mind.

This kind of preparation keeps the band’s spirits and motivation high throughout the year. In fact, it may be the secret to their world class success. Not many universities can claim to have a pipe band; even fewer can claim to have one as talented and successful as ours. As the band’s proud new pipe major, Alan Bevan has high hopes for the future — and with everything he has going for him, why shouldn’t he?

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University Briefs (2014/06/16)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/06/16

UBC to build new aquatic centre

The University of British Columbia is investing $40 million in the construction of a new aquatic centre, construction of which is set to begin in late July.

The new aquatic center is a response to the poor state of current facilities. Just recently, the current aquatic center had a steam room failure, resulting in its closure for three weeks. The current aquatic center’s problems have persisted for several months to the concern of university officials. According to Kavie Toor of UBC athletics’ facilities and business development, the indoor pool may soon be unsafe to use.

With files from The Ubyssey and Vancouver Sun

U of R deported students return

Two Nigerian University of Regina students have returned to the university after their deportation eight months earlier. Victoria Ordu and Favour Amadi were deported after violating their visa restrictions by taking jobs at Walmart.

“It’s still like a dream to me you know. It still hasn’t set in yet. We’re very, very happy to be back here to complete our education,” said Amadi.

Some have defended Ordu and Amadi, seeing the punishment as too severe for their mistake. Following rallies held all across Saskatchewan, the Canadian government has changed its policy to allow international students with study permits to work off-campus.

With files from CTV News

Four vie for U of A presidency

Professors from across the country are vying for the opportunity to become president and vice-chancellor of the University of Alberta. The situation is an open joke on current affairs because 56 people have applied, all in teams of four.

Current U of A president Indira Samarasekera’s salary is ranked among the highest in the country; in 2012, she earned almost $1.2 million in salary and benefits. By applying together, the groups are insinuating that this salary is high enough to support four people, and are protesting the high salaries of university administrators across the country

With files from The Gateway

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Satellite Signals (2014/06/15)

Author(s): Samaah Jaffer and Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/06/15

Woodward’s

On June 7, the first citizen festival called 100 in 1 Day was hosted at SFU Woodward’s. The event focused on raising awareness of social issues through acts of social change and was intended to motivate various leaders to re-evaluate old problems and issues.

The event invited anyone interested to “come in with an idea or simply an open mind and a hunger for change. We’ll help you work that into an action plan and meet like minded people who might want to participate.”

Surrey

Last Friday, the fifth issue of the Lyre magazine — a literary publication produced by world literature students — was launched at the Central City pub. Lyre accepts submissions from undergraduate students around the world, including places as far as India, Mexico, and Australia. “Fever” was the theme of this year’s magazine.

Vancouver

Ian McCarthy, Kate Dilworth and Jan Simon of the Beedie School of Business hosted an event on entrepreneurial leadership and innovation called E-Merge! from June 9 to 12 at the Segal Graduate School.

They hosted the day-long seminars to teach attendees from various organizations how to create value for people and communities, as well as how to start and launch new ventures to advance ideas for improving health and healthcare.

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SFU student selected for Harvard summer internship

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/06/14

SFU undergraduate student in computing sciences and molecular biology and biochemisty, Jasleen Grewal, recently embarked for Boston; she was selected for a summer internship at Harvard University’s prestigious Stem Cell Institute.

Grewal edged out multiple other students from around the world who also applied for this position. Although the institute does not accept many international students — giving priority to American students — Grewal synched a spot.

In a phone interview with The Peak from her lab on Harvard’s campus, Grewal said, “I am soaking everything in, and it is quite an enriching experience to be working alongside such excellent peers.”

The position at Harvard will allow Grewal to pursue her core interest in stem cell research; this is an area of study with great promise as research has shown many potential uses for stem cells, including the generation of cells and tissues, and the treatment of heart and blood-based diseases, among others.

Grewal has research experience in the biological sciences, particularly concerning cancer growth, evolution, and cancer stem cells. According to Grewal, her lifelong passion for science began with her parents. She recounted, “My parents were teachers in mathematics and chemistry, and I think having a childhood where curiosity was constantly encouraged and satiated with mind-blowing explanations greatly contributed to my keen interest in science.”

She continued, “While in elementary school, I was learning about atoms and orbitals, and Fibonacci numbers and the golden ratio, while penning my pet dog’s biography, and it was just a really enriching atmosphere to grow up in. I am really grateful to my parents, and [. . .] high school biology teachers.”

Growing up in a curiosity-driven environment provided the bedrock for scientific inquiry that led Grewalto become involved in research work as a young scholar. “I was briefly involved in research work at the Genome Sciences Centre, Vancouver, on an ongoing project in collaboration with the Terry Fox Research Institute, on the Glioblastoma Multiforme, an acute form of brain cancer,” Grewal said.

When Grewal came across the internship program at Harvard’s Stem Cell institute, she recognized that their summer internship program fit well with her prior research experience and realm of interests.

She explained, “It was such a perfect program: 10 weeks of research under leaders in stem cell research, at Harvard, of all places — I figured I’ll give the application a shot, though it seemed like a long one at that time.”

Grewal’s internship will be spent working with Winston Hide’s lab at the biostatistics department of the Harvard School of Public Health. The work will involve practical elements, such as testing and creating a “cellular pathway printing tool that integrates genomic data to provide a quantifiable measure of gene expression” — in other words, Grewal hopes to understand how interactions between cellular pathways influence different cell behavior in an organism.

Grewal gushed about the benefits of the program: “One [benefit] most definitely is the exposure to such diverse arenas of research, and to see how research occurs! I hope to keep an open mind and learn everything I can about the avant-garde research being pursued here in Boston [. . .] and in general to get a firmer direction for my future career and to experiment with it a bit too.”

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SFU student humanizes translation troubles

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/06/09

SFU alumna Rebecca Wolfe is calling for human assistance in machine-translation, among other improvements, after conducting research at both the United Nations and SFU regarding multilingualism at international institutions.

Wolfe suggests that, in addition to promoting multilingualism, international institutions such as the UN need to effectively use emerging technological tools while better incorporating the human aspect of translation.

During her undergraduate years, Wolfe took an interest in linguistics, which eventually led her to an internship in the UN editorial department during her Master’s of Publishing degree at SFU.

She explained, “For me, it was interesting see how they handle multilingualism in a multinational, multilingual organization. So I had some first-hand research I was able to do to actually observe what they do for publishing practices multilingually and then to gather information about the state of multilingual publishing today.”

Although the UN is committed to publishing materials in multiple languages, due to obstacles such as historical precedent and a lack of resources, they are not always able to do so. Wolfe argues that, while we do need to translate under-read works from other languages into English and bring them to an English-speaking audience, “English as an only option, or as a default, or as a source for most publication around the world, is problematic.

“The UN has an opportunity to promote multilingualism, and [. . .] they have a responsibility to protect linguistic diversity around the world,” said Wolfe.

In addition to discussing the issues of anglocentrism, her thesis contains insights on the modern fascination and mass-use of machine translation as well as its error rates and efficiency.

Wolfe explains that machine translation has improved drastically over time, and organizations such as the UN should take advantage of these advances to more readily incorporate multilingualism into their publishing practices.

Although Wolfe believes that improvement will likely continue to occur, she feels that human intervention is required alongside machine processing to enhance clarity of the translations.

“As anybody who’s tried to use google translate or any other online translators, there’s going to be mistakes. You will get some crazy results. It is good to get the right translator and have some human translating at the other end of it,” Wolfe explained.

Wolfe concluded: “I hope [my work] will be used by big organizations, universities, by academic publishers, because my main point is that multilingualism should not be an afterthought, and we shouldn’t lose linguistic diversity because it is a pain in the butt to translate things.

“A lot of languages are dying today,” she continued. “My main point is that I hope people will not be afraid to take the time to do translating and to pay attention to other languages besides English.”

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Student assembles artists for day-long Buskathon

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/06/09

Performers busked, danced, and sang at the first annual Buskathon, founded and organized by SFU philosophy student Samantha Dowdell.

According to Dowdell, the idea arose from her prior musical interests and through her band Alluvium. As a result, the day-long Buskathon occurred on May 31 from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at Rocky Point Park in Port Moody.

Dowdell explained the nature of the event: “Busking is simply taking your talent out on the street, laying out some sort of spot where people can drop money for you, and sharing whatever with the world. If people like it, people will give you something.”

She described the event as a genuine “opportunity for the new and unknown artists to have a voice and present their work.” To make the event happen, Dowdell approached local artists, “seeking them out, [and] bringing them out into the open.” She continued, “Not a lot of people know this small community exists.”

Dowdell used her musical connections to put together a lineup: “I [asked] my musician friends, my band Alluvium, and another band called Blue Smoke.” Most of the bands in attendance were acoustic. “We [didn’t] want them to blow out the park,” Dowdell said, laughing.

She also reached out to local high school music programs, with which she was involved before coming to SFU. “I [had] been trying to contact them and have them and students do promotions,” she explained.

Many places in the Lower Mainland require a license to busk, and only allow musicians to perform in a spot for one hour before requiring them to move on. There are exceptions when it comes to certain side streets, parks, and the sea wall. However, Port Moody supported Dowdell’s event by relaxing its restrictions.

To keep costs down, Dowdell decided to keep things simple. “It was funded by the city, really simple.” she said. She also reached out to many businesses such as COBS Bread and David’s Tea for sponsorship.

She explained, “[The community has been] printing posters for me, helping me out with contacts. [There’s been] a lot of email communication with people involved with the park — not much from the province, mostly from the city of Port Moody.”

Dowdell explained to The Peak that community building was her primary focus. “I plan to make [the Buskathon] an annual thing, building it up,” she said. In light of the support she received from the community, she feels this could be a reality.

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Rising sea levels threaten Vancouver

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/06/02

Rising sea levels are a global issue, but research shows the danger is greater closer to home.

Karen Kohfeld, SFU assistant professor and Canada Research Chair in Climate Resources and Global Change explained, “We can expect a global sea rise of 70 to 100 centimeters if we do nothing to change our carbon emission. If we do something about it, we can reduce it to about 40 to 60 centimeters.”

Vancouver is one of the more threatened cities, and mayor Gregor Robertson is calling for more aid from the federal and provincial governments to help save the coastal city from the impacts of rising sea levels.

According to Global News, a local study estimates $25 billion worth of real estate will be at risk from sea level rise in Vancouver by the end of the century.

“The low-lying areas will be most affected,” Kohfeld said. “If we look at just our global topography in places like Vietnam, any place that has a major industrial port by the sea, will be affected by this. The southern coast of North America and the east coast of North America will be affected.”

Preventative work is already underway in some places around the world. Kohfeld continued explaining that, for example, New York and Tokyo are likely to spend billions to erect dikes and other defenses.

However, not all cities can afford this. Kohfeld said, “[For] other places in the world, island nations around the globe, this a serious concern. Whenever we have international climate treaty meetings sponsored by the UN, the island nations are always there because part of the problem is it is not just looking out and seeing the sea level rise. It is that when the sea level goes up, and you have any kind of storm coming over top of that, that’s when you see the large problems.”

Recent findings have shown that a key glacier in west Antarctica is melting, which researchers suggest will contribute to an additional sea level rise that may reach a couple of feet in this century.

According to Kohfeld, the outlook seems bleak: “One of the studies suggest it is beyond the point of return for this particular glacier. The concern there is that where that glacier is located, it is kind of a lynch pin for all of western Antarctica, that ice sheet. The question is, ‘How stable is the ice sheet behind that glacier?’”

In particular, for BC, the extensive dike system would have to be modified. “If we are to account for a one metre sea level rise, one option would be to raise those dikes. That is very costly,” Kohfeld warned. Kohfeld reflected on mistakes of the past and asked, “What should we have done already?”

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Satellite Signals (2014/06/02)

Author(s): Freya Olson and Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/06/02

Woodward’s

One of Canada’s most successful documentaries had an additional screening on May 26 at SFU Woodward’s. The Corporation is a 2003 Canadian documentary written by University of British Columbia law professor, Joel Bakan. The film, which was presented by SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement, explores the corporate world and the tremendous pursuit of profit as the sole motive in business.

Surrey

Wednesday, May 28 saw the launch of a new group called SFU WordPress Community of Practice (CoP), based out of SFU’s Surrey campus. Led by the Teaching and Learning Centre’s interaction specialist and community administrator, Jason Toal, the CoP aims to be a voice for SFU’s WordPress user community. The event was a continuation of the Teaching with Technology series for faculty members, instructors, and TAs at the Surrey campus.

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University Briefs (2014/06/02)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/06/02

Self-folding paper created at UBC

UBC mechanical engineering master’s student Ata Sina has created a new kind of paper using a thermoplastic polymer that self-folds when exposed to heat; the idea came out of an interest in origami. This polymer is special because it will contract in the presence of heat, and fold itself along computer-cut origami designs. Along with its potential uses as a packing material, Sina is looking at the possibility of using the paper as pop-out art in children’s books.

With files from The Ubyssey

Enrolment numbers cause space issues at U of W

Students at the University of Waterloo have raised concerns about increasing enrolment rates and the resulting lack of space. The biggest issue is the loss of social space for students, which has been decreasing over the last 15 years.

Vice president, academic and provost Geoff McBoyle said that administration hopes to tackle this issue with initiatives like the new student residence and updates to UW Place, as well as efforts such as adding desks in the hallways.

With files from Imprint

Criticism for federally funded internships

The federal government is putting $40 million into 3,000 post-secondary internships centered around science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, including skilled trade jobs. The core criticism against this funding is that it doesn’t address the problem of the 300,000 unpaid internships that currently exist, and do not provide adequate compensation.

Claire Seaborn, president of the Canadian Intern Association, said “If the federal government wanted to address the issue federally, they would have amended the federal labour code and have gotten Statistics Canada to start tracking internships.”

With files from The Varsity

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Ancient beetles provides climate change insights

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/06/02

SFU professor Rolf Mathewes and researcher Bruce Archibald, among others, have gained critical insights into climate change while investigating 50 million-year old palm beetle fossils.

In establishing the existence of palm beetles during this period, the team was able to hypothesize as to the existence of palm plants — the beetles’ food source — even without fossil evidence of the palm plants themselves. Mathewes summarized, “Finding [the beetles] basically proved that there had to be palms, even though we did not have the fossils.”

Furthermore, their existence proves that during a period of global warming in the geological past, there were mild, frost-free winters in North America.

Mathewes explained, “To give you some background, palms are very important climate indicators. We are particularly interested in the climate of this period called the greenhouse earth, which was the warmest period since the extinction of the dinosaurs in the last 65 million years. This was around 50 to 53 million years ago.”

He continued, “In the Eocene greenhouse world, the whole world was very warm and almost tropical everywhere, except for some of the upland areas.” Because the palms cannot survive in regions with significant frost days, the existence of palm beetles in North America indicates moderate temperatures.

The team investigated fossils from a number of sites in central British Columbia, in an area called the Okanagan Highlands. In the Okanagan Highlands, fossil lake deposits formed during a period of mountain building and volcanism that preserved plants, flowers, and insects, among other things. “The fossil record is wonderful,” Mathewes said.

Mathewes has been making fossil collections for over 30 years. Archibald discovered beetles called bruchines in these collections; it was in these collections that he found a set of beetles of a certain family called palm beetles, which feed only on the seeds of palm trees.

Archibald researched and found one specimen at first, and thought there must be more. He “found three sites, possibly a fourth, that have these palm bruchine, which span about over a 1,000 kilometres of latitude from northern Washington to Smithers in the center of BC, and everywhere in between,” Mathewes said.

Looking at climate change clues in the distant past, the team hopes to provide greater insight into the future as the world increasingly experiences the effects of global warming.

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SFU pipe band prepares for the world stage

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/05/31

Coming off of its first big win of the season, SFU’s pipe band looks forward to representing the university at world competitions.

Earlier this month, the team swept the competition at the Victoria Highland Games, placing first in all four of its events. The team even beat out the L.A. Scotts — the top pipe band in the US.

Individual awards were seized by Coquitlam piper Alastair Lee, who won first place in the professional piping category, and Grant Maxwell and Gavin MacRae, who tied for first in professional side drumming.

According to SFU student and pipeband member, Kevin McLean, the season is just getting started. After the competition last week in Victoria, the team is getting ready to travel to Bellingham on June 7, and then to the Coquitlam highland games on June 21. After that, the team will play in Seattle at the end of July.

On an international scale, the team is also preparing for the World Championships, to be held in Glasgow, Scotland, in mid-August. “We play two events there: the [March, Strathspey & Reel event] (MSR) and we also play a medley event, which is more contemporary. You could say [it’s] more exciting, musical, and creative,” said McLean.

The team has finished top two in the world in 15 of its 28 years competing at the championship; however the band will have to adjust this year as its leadership has shifted. “Terry Lee was the pipe major for over 30 years. Terry retired,” McLean said.

Taking his place is Alan Bevan, who has been a member of the Simon Fraser University pipeband since 1995. In addition to winning awards such as overall winner at the Masters’ Invitational (2009), Bevan has won the World Championship with the band on several occasions.

“I’m quite well-versed in what the band’s expectation is and what the direction is, and I don’t see really changing that in any radical way,” Bevan said in a video on PipesDrums.

“We have a very strong young core in the band,” Lee said in the same video. “It’s there to be made a new era.”

McLean described the unique contribution of the pipe band to SFU: “The pipe band in general is a unique trademark of the university. Not many universities have a pipe band. No other university in the world has a pipe band as high a quality as ours. We bring the university to the world stage: Sydney Opera House, Carnegie Hall, Mormon Tabernacle choir, and the Lincoln Center in New York.”

As the team continues to prepare for the world stage, students are invited to hear them performing on Sunday mornings on Burnaby Mountain across from the library in the contemporary theatre.

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Walking stick bugs provide evolutionary insight

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/05/30

In researching the walking stick insect, SFU biology professor Bernard Crespi is able to analyze how new species evolve in new environments and become genetically diverse from their original species. This type of evolution is called speciation.

According to Crespi, “[Speciation] is the origin of new species, when you go from one species to two species. It is the evolution of new biological diversity. People may not have an appreciation for what a species is, except maybe an intuitive one.”

He continued, “A species is a group of organisms that only breed amongst themselves. They don’t breed with other groups. What is evolving is a new breed or group of species that is isolated reproductively, that means it can evolve independently on its own.”

The main finding of the work has to do with natural selection in facilitating speciation, explained Crespi.

It is important to understand, as Crespi explained, that “natural selection is special because it is the only process that specifically gives rise to adaptation to a fit between organisms and their environments [. . .] Natural selection is only one of the mechanisms of evolution,” he continued, “There is a variety of mechanisms including mutation, migration, and genetic drift.”

Crespi’s research is unique in that he used 160 whole genomes, fully sequenced, whereas previous research has dealt with incomplete sequences. He explained the significance of this: “This is the first study to use whole genomes in combination with experimental analysis to understand the causes of speciation.”

The research involved an experiment that placed walking stick insects into different environments, each with its own host plant. Crespi elaborated, “This work showed a role for natural selection in speciation in these walking sticks in terms of their adaptation to different host plant environments.” Insects with certain characteristics will thrive in their respective environments, this is how natural selection plays a role in organisms genetically diverging through reproductive isolation.

In other words, “Natural selection, in terms of the host plant, pulls them apart genetically and phenotypically,” said Crespi.

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Political party emerges from leftist fractures

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/05/26

Out of the recent fracturing of Vancouver’s left-wing Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) party, a new political party has emerged to grapple with other civic parties. Although this change could affect leftist voting preference, SFU city program director, Gordon Price, questions whether it will effectively challenge the current party in power.

The new contender, called OneCity, was announced on May 12 by RJ Aquino — a former COPE city council candidate who has been backed by prominent Vancouver leftists — and aims to reduce the growing inequalities in the city. Aquino previously sat on the Vancouver City Planning Commission and is currently on the board of directors for Collingwood Neighborhood House.

The formation of a new party can be complicated, explained Price. Many difficulties — such as fracturing — exist for a host of reasons within a political party, however, overcoming this problem can be crucial. Price said, “If the party itself does not fracture, they have a real advantage in incumbency.”

Price attributed the fracture within the COPE party, resulting in the creation of OneCity, to “personality-based” issues, as opposed to policy-based. Price noted a few past instances of personality-based fractures: “You can make the case that it happened in 1972 with the [Non-Partisan Association (NPA)], when the team council came in here. It certainly happened in 2000 [. . .] Then, it happened with Larry Campbell. It happened again with the NPA!” Price said.

Even so, fractures do not necessarily represent a prevalent phenomenon — trends show that one party tends to maintain power for at least a couple of decades. Price explained, “The norm since the 1930s has been for the NPA, for one party, to stay in power for very long stretches of time. For the time I was on the council, 15 years, we only had two mayors: Gordon Campbell and Philip Owen.”

He continued, “The voters seem to go for incumbents. It goes up and down a bit. But they’ll stick with what they know unless the party itself fractures. But that tends to coincide with politics.” In other words, slight variations exist in the political power spectrum, but voter consistency reflects a persistent voting trend of citizens individually. People tend to vote one way — unless the political party of the voter appears to fracture, as is happening now.

Price said, “The public doesn’t like the internal fracturing that the personalities [create] within the parties [. . .] So [voters] tend to look for an alternative or are, at least, more open to it.”

Price commented on the general political landscape: “What we have at the moment is a fracturing of the political spectrum, but the party in power seems very much to be solid: [Gregor Robertson is [a] strong mayoral candidate insofar as he is known, [the] party shows no signs of division, [a] great deal of internal discipline, [we] certainly don’t hear of an councillors going after one another.” He mused, “Will that be enough? We will see.”

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Experts investigate ambiguous amphibian future

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/05/26

New information warns of increasing survival pressures on amphibian life in the Pacific Northwest as a result of climate change and non-native fish.

SFU researchers Wendy Palen and Maureen Ryan considered the threat climate change poses for these amphibians. Palen, assistant professor of biology and tier two Canada research chair in aquatic conservation, explained, “For natural resource conservation issues, you cannot make the ocean less acidic. You cannot turn down the temperature on something, but in this case it has to do with these different mixes of aquatic habitats.”

According to Palen, “Fish were introduced into these mountainous landscapes and really large lakes. What that means is amphibians and a lot of the native species are restricted to other, more at-risk habitats in the landscape where fish cannot exist.”

Currently, 95 per cent of lakes in the Pacific Northwest are stocked with non-native fish.

Palen and other researchers from the University of Washington and the University of Notre Dame began their research in US national parks with high elevations, such as Mount Rainier National Park, North Cascades National Park, and Olympic National Park.

Palen found reason for concern: “We found that stability is likely to change in the future if some large percentage of their habitat disappears because of climate change,” she said.

“Basically, they call it the climate squeeze. If we are squeezed in one direction by fish present and then in the other direction by climate change, then the question is, ‘how much are they going to be left with in the end?’,” Palen explained.

The ponds where most of these amphibians live are going to be 50 to 80 per cent more likely to dry up in the next 50 to 100 years as opposed to present conditions. In essence, “[There] are these shallow ponds and wetlands that you see if you have ever been hiking in these mountainous areas, like a little wet meadow,” Palen said. These may be a site for exploration as fish have difficulty living in them because of the shallow nature of these ponds.

In this climate squeeze, many questions arise about the potential solutions to the problem. “How do we go in and strategically remove fish from these landscapes?” Palen posited.

“Here we might be able to forestall the effects of climate change for these amphibians by removing trout where we think there will be the biggest impact,” she continued. “We can restore some of the large, more resilient habitats and make native wetland ecosystems in the surrounding area more resilient again.”

By removing these fish — which were originally introduced for recreational purposes — Palen hopes to prevent the destruction of amphibian populations.

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University Briefs (2014/05/25)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/05/25

UBC dental program suspected of fraud

One of the University of British Columbia’s residency programs is under scrutiny for the possibility of fraud involving approximately $5 million. UBC administration was alerted of inconsistencies in the finances of UBC’s Faculty of Dentistry’s General Practice Residency.

Following this discovery, the university’s internal auditing system began an immediate investigation. Upon completion of the investigation, a report was submitted to the RCMP for further examination. As of yet, the police have not announced any updates to the further investigation.

With files from The Ubyssey

Controversy leads to resignation of U of S provost

University of Saskatchewan provost Brett Fairbairn has resigned his position, following controversy over the dismissal of a professor speaking out against budget cuts. Professor and executive director of the School of Public Health, Robert Buckingham, was removed from his position and from the university campus after reaching out to government officials about financial restructuring at the school.

Fairburn mentioned in his resignation letter that he acted in the, “genuine interest in the well-being of the University of Saskatchewan.” Buckingham was subsequently offered back his tenure position, excluding his standing as executive director.

With files from The Star

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Astronomy event considers our place in space

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/05/20

Staff, students, faculty, and community members considered our place in space last week when SFU and the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) hosted two events — Science Rendezvous and International Astronomy Day — on May 10 at the Burnaby Campus.

According to professor Howard Trottier from SFU’s Department of Physics, the event “had representation from all science departments and applied science, as well as the local astronomy group.”

The merged events occurred on the same day as 300 to 400 other space-related events across Canada. “The overall event today [. . .] is organized around something like the National Science Day, called Science Rendezvous,” explained Trottier. The event also offered SFU its first opportunity to partner with RASC, which was planning to host a similar event. “Coincidentally, we were going to do it on the same day and [at] the same place. So, we decided to team up! It’s packed!” Trottier commented.

The dual-hosted event had a wide range of activities, discussions, lectures, and displays of science. In one area of the event, attendees could look through telescopes of 30x to 100x magnification to see the moss growing on the edge of a campus building. In another section, they could peer down the hexagonal honeycomb patterns of material used in the siding of rockets. Visitors even learned about the dairy industry by milking a dummy-cow.

Participants who wanted to come back down to Earth and public policy could talk to Mark Eburne, a man with a passion for the prevention and reduction of light pollution. Eburne works, along with organizations such as Lite Bright, to campaign on behalf of citizens concerned about light pollution. Attendees could also listen to a free lecture on a various science topics including Apollo space missions and the Aurora Borealis.

Trottier considers these events of high importance in two respects: community and outreach. The event occurred at the location of SFU’s new observatory called the Trottier Observatory and Courtyard, named for and funded by Trottier’s brother, which will be built later this year. According to Trottier, this observatory is meant to build both a passion for science and a greater community spirit; it is meant for students as a gathering place and as a place to learn about astronomy.

Concerning outreach, he stated, “The RASC is a national organization [. . .] They strongly support outreach at SFU. They bring their telescopes out here to show to the public. They also provide volunteers.” Trottier believes the RASC will help build outreach and community by encouraging families and their children to learn, ask questions, and build genuine interest in the operations and productions of science.

Many of these kinds of events come from an internal drive to educate the public on the importance of science through communication and community. Trottier concluded, “We’re living in a golden age of astronomy. And almost nobody knows about it.”

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Partner abuse affects new mothers’ mental health

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/05/20

A new study from SFU graduate student Ashley Pritchard suggests that partner abuse may have adverse effects on the mental health of new mothers.

Published in the journal, BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, Pritchard said, “The study examined the associations of different types of intimate partner abuse and postpartum mental health problems.” The research brought to bear a few findings on the mental health of the women studied.

Pritchard, a master’s student in SFU’s clinical forensic psychology program, explained the research team’s findings: “Higher levels of postpartum mental health problems were reported by women who experienced intimate partner abuse either before or during pregnancy. In addition, the negative effects on postpartum mental health increased as a function of the number of types of intimate partner abuse — psychological, physical and sexual — experienced.”

Furthermore, the effects of different types of abuse were varied after pregnancy. “Psychological abuse [. . .] was associated with symptoms of PTSD and stress in the postpartum period. Physical abuse [. . .] was associated with symptoms of depression, OCD and PTSD in the postpartum period. Sexual abuse [. . .] was associated with symptoms of OCD in the postpartum period,” Pritchard said.

Of the 100 women who participated in the study, 61 per cent experienced mental health symptoms in the postpartum period. Forty-seven per cent had mental health symptoms at “clinical” levels.

The research also found that two thirds of the women “had a familial income of $60,000 or more, [suggesting] that intimate partner abuse is not constrained to households of lower socioeconomic status.”

The scope of trauma in these findings is significant; however, Pritchard suggests there are things women can do to help themselves in these situations. Pritchard recommends that “healthcare providers should conduct routine screenings for intimate partner abuse” and “foster strong rapport with their patients so that mothers-to-be feel comfortable enough to discuss such issues.” Additionally, she said that it is “important that healthcare providers are informed about the prevalence and consequences of intimate partner abuse.”

In the end, it all comes down to greater information. Said Pritchard, “Informing both women and their healthcare providers about findings like these will further help to open lines of communication, reduce stigma, and work to prevent harmful mental health problems.”

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Launching artists into their careers

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/05/20

It’s time to launch your artistic project! Why? There is a multidisciplinary festival for young professional artists.

According to festival coordinator Mallory Gallant, the festival “was created as an opportunity to give artists in the Lower Mainland the chance to get to showcase their work as well as make those much-needed connections with other artists as well as industry professionals.” This is the second annual Launch Festival and it will focus on presenting innovative multidisciplinary arts.

The festival is a space for young professionals to have the opportunity to showcase their own works. “When we say young professional we mean someone that has made a personal commitment to a career in the arts. Professional, in our opinion, is someone that has a history of creation and presentation but is not yet recognized by professional associations. We are looking for the up and comers. The ones that are right on the edge and need that extra push,” Gallant said.

One great aspect of the festival is its accessibility for local artists. Gallant says, “The event is only open to artists in the Lower Mainland and there is no fee to apply and there is no age limit.”

In addition to the opportunity to present personal works with no cash concerns or age restrictions, the event will provide mentorship opportunities, workshops, and the chance to connect with professional associations.

Gallant said, “By including mentorship and workshops we are not just giving [the artists] the stage to perform on, we are also giving them the chance to connect with professionals that have been in the industry for years.”

Some such mentors include Gary Cristall (music and career mentor) the co-founder of the Vancouver International Folk Festival, Murray Gibson (film and theatre mentor) a talent agent for over 25 years who works for RED Management, Vanessa Goodman (career mentor) a company member for Dancers Dancing, Emma Lancaster (career mentor) a communications professional with over 20 years of experience and faculty member at Capilano University, and Jim Smith (dance mentor) the Producer for DanceHouse and former president of the Canadian Dance Assembly.

The festival is presented by the 149 Arts Society in partnership with SFU Woodwards. Gallant describes the society as dedicating “itself to arts programming that is provocative in nature, and programming that serves to engage, challenge and inform.”

Looking beyond the second year of Launch, Gallant says, “We have high hopes to see the festival grow into a really strong legacy program. There is nothing quite like witnessing a budding artist at the beginning stage of their career.”

“The connection that can form between an emerging artist and a mentor is priceless and will be valuable for the rest of their careers. To be able to say that we had a hand in launching a long lasting artistic career is something we are proud of and we will continue to value our emerging artists,” she concluded.

Applications for Launch will be accepted until May 22. The festival will run June 19 to 21 at SFU Woodwards.

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University Briefs (2014/05/20)

Author(s): Melissa Roach and Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/05/20

Digital health for expectant mothers

The University of British Columbia has begun a program for prenatal education through text messaging. The digital health program, called SmartMom Canada, is headed by Professor Patti Janssen of the School of Population and Public Health in conjunction with the Child and Family Research Institute.

Educational prenatal health information is sent by the agency to expectant mothers via text message. The service will connect pregnant women with health services and educate them on how to care for themselves and their babies before birth. According to Janssen, one of the main goals behind SmartMom is to provide educational information to individuals seeking knowledge, but who are unable to attend the classes.

With files from The Vancouver Sun

Poodle sculpture removed from Capilano U

Capilano University has seized a piece of art from its campus grounds. The work in question, named “Blathering on in Krisendom,” is a sculpture of university President Kris Bulcroft, toting a poodle and wrapped in the American flag.

Capilano professor and creator of the piece, George Rammell, is calling for the return of the sculpture. “It’s ridiculous,” he said. He was informed by campus security that the administration had given them the authority to remove the piece from campus. “I called the RCMP to report the theft. The officer arrived and he said he had been talking to administration: they had asked him if they would be liable if they destroyed the sculpture,” said Rammell.

With files from The Georgia Straight

Grads at U of M to pay three times more

The University of Manitoba intends to increase graduate student fees by almost 330 per cent. As it stands now, students pay an initial program fee in their first year and then pay an annual continuing fee of $700. The plan is to increase that continuing fee to $3000.

Dean Jay Doering says that the fees will go toward support for graduate students as well as administrative and library services. Despite the reasoning behind the tuition hike, a survey done by the University of Manitoba Graduate Student’s Association showed that the majority of students are concerned about the increase.

With files from Yahoo News

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HIV continues to adapt to human hosts

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2014/05/12

Using evidence from HIV evolution in North America, SFU researchers have discovered that the virus is slowly adapting over time to its human hosts. Nevertheless, assistant professor of health sciences at SFU and lead author of this study, Zabrina Brumme asserts that the evolution is not progressing fast enough to be a danger to humans.

Brumme explained, “The purpose of our study was to investigate the adaptation of HIV to immune selection pressures in the North American population. To do this, we studied HIV specimens dating back from 1979 to the present day. From these specimens we extracted human immune information as well as virus sequence data and looked for evidence that the virus was adapting to our immune systems over time.”

With funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (MSFHR), Brumme’s lab was able to collaborate with scientists at UBC, the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, and sites across the US.

Although HIV-1 specimens used in the study were from 1979, the oldest specimens sequenced date back to 1959 and 1960. “Both are from Central Africa. With respect to North America, the oldest sequences date back to 1979 and were collected as part of our study.” Brumme said.

The findings of the study, she stated, were evidence that the virus is indeed slowly adapting over time to its human hosts. However, Brumme says there is no need to panic: “This change is so gradual that it is unlikely to have an impact on host immunity to HIV — or vaccine design — on a relevant timescale.”

She continued, “Basically, we’ve got the tools now, in the form of potent anti-HIV drugs, to turn the tide of HIV globally. These drugs do two things: a) they save lives and b) they reduce the risk of HIV transmission essentially to zero.”

The research team hopes that by collecting and sequencing historic HIV-1 isolates, they will be able to achieve a deeper understanding of how HIV has spread around the world. “Understanding how HIV evolves in infected persons and host populations is also relevant to HIV prevention, notably development of an HIV vaccine,” Brumme said.

Although the evolutionary side of HIV is just one piece in a much larger puzzle, the team says they have reasons to be hopeful. Brumme explained, “A major global priority is the delivery of HIV treatment to the millions of people worldwide who need it — to save lives and eliminate new infections. While we do the above, we also need to continue to invest resources and scientific efforts towards finding an HIV vaccine and an HIV cure.”

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Ask Mendy 6 – User Interface

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Mendy Marcus

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

In terms of the terminology used in some of the prior interviews, one of them is the initialism UI standing for User Interface. What is UI? How does this play an important role in the creation of an app?

I’m not a developer, so I will probably do a bar job explaining this but here I go.

The user interface (UI) is the visual aspect that you interact with, that then communicates with what’s known as the backend, I like to call this functions because I use Firebase Cloud Functions.

Although, all the user sees is the UI, the functions, or backend is the brain that know what needs to happen when the user interacts with a specific part of the UI, then there is the database.

This is where information is kept, so even though you are seeking a nice looking button, what it says in the button can be in the UI code itself or it can check in the database for some text to display in the button.

Mostly, an app deals with these three parts, but sometimes there can also be APIs used like if you want a map in your app; you’re not going to build mapping technology just so you can have one small map. You use Google Maps API. That lets your app communicate with Google Maps.

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Ask Mendy 5 – Small Businesses

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Mendy Marcus

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

When you’re thinking about an app, what areas do you tend to focus on?

It always starts with an idea, I think of a better way to do something that is already on the market or I think of something completely new and solves a problem not solved yet. Side note, the worst way to start a business or project is to think about the money, many people would think, “Wow look at these guys they make so much money, that must be a good business.”

That’s wrong. It’s a good business for them because they are doing something right, if you want in just for the money you’ll bet board of it. You won’t have anything new and innovative to bring to the market.

This is precisely why I try to hold off on thinking anything about the business strategy until I have completed my ideas, the way I go about that is I think about how do I solve the problem and how dose the user want to interact with my app.

I get to my laptop ASAP. I start designing the UI. I tent to think about more things that can go wrong in my idea when I have something visual in front of me. Also, I don’t have any design skills like Photoshop or illustrator. I use Google presentations. They have all the features of Google drawings, which I used in the past.

But I made the switch, so I can have all the variations of the same page in one file. I’m getting ready technical here, but the point is you don’t need much to get your idea down. The important part is to focus on what dose the user want.

Yes, it’s your solution. The user wants that, but the user wants just that; the user knows how they want to interact with your solution/app. You have to put yourself in their shoes to design and build a good UI and UX. Plus, this points out for me all the things and scenarios I didn’t about when coming up with my idea. Sometimes, it is a few hours later. Sometimes, it can be days later when I have a 90% complete app I get developers involved. I also try to write down as much details as possible and paint the best picture possible for the developers working on the app.

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Ask Mendy 4 – Sales

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Mendy Marcus

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

What are the business models of the biggest companies including Apple, Google, Tesla, and others?

What makes each truly exceptional in their approach to R&D, marketing and sales, and the delivery of their products/services?

I don’t work for these companies so it’s impossible to know what is going on internally, however from observation alone I think it’s apparent that Google’s main source of revenue is from Google ads, here the business model is to offer as many free service like Google search Gmail etc in order to display ads, however I think Google is actively trying to change that, even though for has many products they primarily have one source of income and that can be a dangerous think, especially now that Facebook and pretty much everyone else is trying to invade Google’s space.

Google now has many revenue models and they will be working to grow each one of them to take a larger percentage of their overall revenue as well as keep adding new revenue streams. With YouTube they now offer a monthly subscription to make that product less dependent on ad revenue, android is also no longer funded by ad revenue with the into hardware, however the made by Google hardware revenue streams is probably the most exciting one and most promising for Google.

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Ask Mendy 3 – Online Companies

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Mendy Marcus

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

Online companies seem to have become the norm. In fact, there appears to be a reduction in the number of retail companies in favour of online replacements. Does this seem to be the trend? If so, what can entrepreneurs keep in mind when building newer businesses and business models?

When approaching the conceptual, early stages of business development, such as an app, what are some of the critical thinking, reflective steps to keep in mind?

Where can the early stages of the development of an online company go wrong?

It’s true retail is dying but that’s a good thing not a bad, because we are replacing it with something much better. I wouldn’t say it’s a trend thought, that implies that is popular at the moment and has the option of fading. This started with someone or many people who were tech enthusiast who probably told things online just to show it can be done, then you had the internet boom where everyone wanted to sell something online because it was so new but they didn’t know how, even Google has blamed the boom on people who wanted to sell food online, at the time they just didn’t know how. Then you had Amazon, Google Book and other forms of industry being completely digitalized or at least the sales aspect became digital, now we are finding more and more business models and technologies that allow

I don’t have a billion dollars in my account so I’m not going to pretend I have all the steps figured out on how to create a successful startup, instead i will focus on something I find very few entrepreneurs and businesses do and is also a personal annoyance when not done right and that is create a great user experience, whether it’s digital or not UX is the most important thing.

People tend to structure the UX according to how they want to do business or how they think they would do business instead of doing business according to their user experience.

I’ll use a tech business as an example but this can apply to a restaurant as well. Whether you are building the walls of an app for the walls of the restaurant doesn’t make a difference. The first think you want to do once you have decided to open a business or have an idea is figure out the user experience, how does the customer wants to experience what you are selling or offering.

Don’t go right to researching how the market work, that tends to make you want to do what the market is doing or “follow the rules of the industry in order to succeed”, what you should do is close your eyes, imagine yourself as your first customer that walks into the restaurant/uses your app, what experience do you want, not what you are expecting because you are expecting what you are used to and you are used to what all the other restaurants and apps are doing but that doesn’t set you apart neither does it satisfy them or they wouldn’t need you, so take yourself through the experience you want as a user/customer not what you are expecting, now do the same as the 1000th user here for the first time and a user who’s used the app many times.

Once you have figured out what the user experience should be, talk to a lot of people, annoy some strangers with some really bad UI designs or describe what your restaurant looks like and get honest feedback, don’t ask your friends or polite people who don’t want to hurt your feelings. Now you can research the market and figure out how you can create a business model and strategy according to the user experience. Many places sell pizza and there will be a lot of apps like yours even if you have a new idea, many will copy, people choose you because of the experience.

If this wasn’t the case Tesla would be all about the technology, the electric vehicle itself is pretty cool but Elon knew it’s a matter of time before there’s another few electric car companies so he had to make the driving experience amazing, the car has to look sexy, the website experience had to be just perfect, picking up your car had to be a thrilling experience, even the test drive had to feel like a big deal, every detail was carefully thought out and even thought the customer is having the time of their lives and living in the moment and is all so natural to him/her, it is all created moments by Elon and his team, even the marketing has a user experience.

When I have an idea I don’t turn it into a business and figure out how to make money from it right away, first I think about the user experience, then I play around with the UI, this tends to point out the flaws in my UX, once I have that down I try to figure out whether I can make some money from it as well. I suggest always starting out a project as a hobby, this way you’re not in a rush, you are not chasing the money you’re just having a good time perfecting something that may or may not be monitisable later on, but for now it’s all about having a great idea, an excellent user experience and eventually a good shot at a business idea.

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Ask Mendy 2 – Going Solo

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Mendy Marcus

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

Why are we doing this series?

I want to share my entrepreneurial experiences, I want to share my ideas the ones I’m working on and the ones that I’m not working on, I’m hoping to build a community of loyal readers, listeners and watchers who will give me support when I need it and constructive criticism when it’s due, overall the result will be better products and better ideas, and hopefully I can also inspire other people to become entrepreneurs.

What is the point of it?

Part of it is just to have fun, find common minded people, I wanna put myself and my ideas out there for the world so I’m not frustrated with all of it in my mind, in a way I’m also trying to open source myself because there’s only so much I can do in one lifetime.

How will your experience and upcoming projects be informing the work in this Q&A series?

I’m hoping that my mistakes and creative solutions will be transparent for others to notice and improve their own projects and hopefully point out and improve flaws in my projects.

It’s kind of hard to explain but I guess the work I’m looking for is bond, I would like to establish a bond between me my ideas and the community we will create

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Ask Mendy 1 – Startups

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Mendy Marcus

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

Who are you?

I was given three very Jewish names but only go by one because it rings well with my last name. I was born in London England and have been living in Canada since I was 8. Currently I am a young entrepreneur who is trying to create exciting technology and earn a living that will allow me to break out of the societal Norm of living paycheck-to-paycheck while at the same time bettering the world through innovation.

What are your main areas of entrepreneurial interest?

I’m mostly interested by projects that can help people, better their lives, by projects that are Innovative and futuristic.

What are your upcoming projects for 2018/19?

Currently I am working on an app that is an Uber like service for your laundry dry clean and other related services.

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Science and Faith: Is There Really a Conflict? — A Conversation with Professor Tom McLeish

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Science (Medium)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/10

Professor Tom McLeish, B.A., Ph.D., is Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Department of Physics and works at the Center for Medieval Studies and the Humanities Research Centre at The University of York.

Scott Douglas Jacobson: Where do you stand on the perceived conflict between science and faith?

Professor Tom McLeish, B.A., Ph.D.: I stand on the extreme non-conflict end of the spectrum. I am off-spectrum because I don’t recognize the question of conflict as a real one, in this sense. I am a scientist. I am a theoretical physicist. I am a Christian. Occasionally, I preach at my local church — but all these things are of one life, not two in conflict.

I have some theological training as well. When I am asked, “How do you reconcile your science with your effects?” it sounds to me like the question, “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?” There is no good answer to this.

The question presumes a whole mindset. I am not there. The question of conflict doesn’t even mean anything.

Jacobsen: So, we shift that conversation to where those questions become meaningless. It is like people trying to resolve some paradox in philosophy between being and non-being. It shifts the question.

McLeish: How do you resolve a conflict between your religious faith and your gardening? You grow tomatoes. Then you believe this extraordinary stuff about God creating the tomatoes and the gardener and you. Do these conflict? Well, no, they don’t.

Because your story, if I am talking to someone who is a Christian or a Jew, is not a made-up story. It is a real story. It is a true story. It has a beginning and a middle and an end. You are reading it somewhere. You are in it, with lots of other people.

Also, you believe you are here for a purpose. You might think, “Tomatoes are purposeless. Nonetheless, here you are doing your gardening. The reason there is no conflict is that your gardening rests within your largest story.”

Science is from God. So, I see science not as a threat to faith, if you like, or a threat to belief in God. I see science as a gift from God. God is a rather particular, rather advanced, way in which we know the universe in which we find ourselves.

Jacobsen: When it comes to formal argumentation for a god, in particular, a Christian God, what arguments do you find more appealing or convincing?

McLeish: So, I haven’t always been a Christian any more than I haven’t always believed in quantum mechanics either. So, if science is evidence-based, based on reason and experience, then to a large extent, faith must be as well.

Faith is supposed to be believing in ten impossible things before breakfast. Or maybe six. Of course, it isn’t like that to me. It doesn’t feel like that to me. The sense of religious commitment feels like being in the middle of a scientific project.

This is how it works: you have a strong hypothesis that looks very possible, but the only way to test it is to get inside it and start experimenting. So, if that is not a direct answer to your question, it puts it in context. Living the life and thought of a Christian is a bit like doing a large experiment.

On the other hand, you want the truth. Let’s look at four or five categories of things that make me suspicious that theism should be taken seriously. So, the fundamental issue is ontology. Why should there be things? Why should anything exist?

In an atheist’s worldview, that is a non-question. You will never know why things exist. They exist, live with it. But it is entirely legitimate to ask about the reason that things exist. The ground of all being, if you like.

The second, we find mind and structure in the universe wherever we look. It is rather extraordinary, the deeper we look in the atom, the furthest out to the furthest galaxies. Or into the structures of life, we see structures, anticipate structures that can be grasped by our own minds yet are not simply echoes of our own minds.

We’re finding ourselves stretched. Quantum mechanics, whatever it is. Even Feynman says no one understands it! It is a feature of the physical world that we did not expect to find, but we have the mental equipment to begin to approach it. That is miraculous in the old sense of the world. It makes me wonder absolutely.

The third reason is an odd one; not many people quote reasons for believing in God as this, as normally it is a problem for them. But for me, the existence of evil is a strong pointer towards God rather than away.

To the objection that there cannot be a great God out there, in the face of terrible, evil things, I say, “What did you say? How do you know that evil? How is it that one of our human observations is wanting to point to things that are irreducibly bad, horrors that we want to be unrepeatable? Particularly after the 20th century?”

That is almost like observing the Big Bang. Looking at worldviews that are honest about evil was one of the reasons that attracted me to Christianity in particular. Because it made a realistic account of the existence of non-relative evil.

Another reason I was attracted to Christianity when I began to understand it, was that it is an anti-religion in an important sense. Its whole dynamic is completely inverted to all that is ‘religious’ — rather than humans attempting enlightenment and perfection across a huge divide, God makes the move in the opposite direction. I was rather attracted to that.

Then you have the witness of history. You do have things, documents, individuals through history, the extraordinary creative power of this revolution. The unbelievably humble and never recorded little thousands of miracles a day of people who tell you that they’re doing this in obedience to this person.

This person they might call Jesus or might call God.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Professor McLeish.

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Interview with Professor Gordon Guyatt on Critical Thinking and Medical Advice

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Science (Medium)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/02/01

Professor Gordon Guyatt, MD, MSc, FRCP, OC is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact and Medicine at McMaster University. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

The British Medical Journal or BMJ had a list of 117 nominees in 2010 for the Lifetime Achievement Award. Guyatt was short-listed and came in second-place in the end. He earned the title of an Officer of the Order of Canada based on contributions from evidence-based medicine and its teaching.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2012 and a Member of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2015. He lectured on public vs. private healthcare funding in March of 2017, which seemed like a valuable conversation to publish in order to have this in the internet’s digital repository with one of Canada’s foremost academics.

For those with an interest in standardized metrics or academic rankings, he is the14th most cited academic in the world in terms of H-Index at 222 and has a total citation count of more than 200,000. That is, he has among the highest H-Indexes, likely, of any Canadian academic living or dead.

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What should the public keep in mind about critical thinking with regards to some health recommendations, those that can come their way. It can come from reliable sources including experts in the country, from non-governmental sources, and others of similar weight. That’s one class of information resources.

But then there’s another set of them. They can include, for instance, pop up ads on Facebook or questionable publications giving medical advice. What are some tips you might have in mind for some the general public?

Distinguished Professor Gordon Guyatt: If I were getting one thing, or even anything, if it comes off the internet, it is safest not to believe it. That would be the first thing. They should critically evaluate interventions. It is not easy. It’s not an easy thing and what is an easy thing is to present a much rosier picture of an intervention than the truth.

You have these real catastrophes like multiple sclerosis, the vein hypothesis about vein obstruction causing multiple sclerosis, and so on; people got terribly excited about this and went off to various places in the world.

And it turns out to be completely bogus. So, you have big disasters, and you have smaller disasters. And the thing is the bottom line, there are reliable sources for patients, so that many major organizations and reliable textbooks up to date have sections for patients and those would be the sort of source that would be reliable.

But ultimately, it may look good in general, but things are always specific to individual patients and wherever else you get your information talk about it with your doctor.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Professor Guyatt.

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J50 and the Desperation for the Save

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Science (Medium)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/05

American and Canadian scientists are working feverishly, together, to save an orca. It is endangered.

The killer whale is called J50. It is quite emaciated and lethargic and has lost approximately 20 percent of total body weight. J50 is one of only 75 southern resident killer whales that travel between British Columbia and California.

She is a 4-year-old whale and, as a female, is important for thee reproductive capabilities of the low level population there, with only 75 left. However, according to Michael Milsten from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the United States, there has not been an observed orca of this type come out of this rather low survival level before.

One potential solution proposed is to feed chinook salmon to the killer whale while having medication in the chinook salmon. However, this strategy has not been used before.

This indicates the rather desperate measures considered for the overall health of the orca. The purpose is to nurse the whale back to health in order to not have J50 dependent on people for sustenance and proper feeding.

However, in despair over the poor health of her, many are worried about the proverbial clock that they’re racing against.

“They feel the situation is dire, that she probably has potentially a matter of days. Nobody knows for sure, (and) if we were going to attempt something that we would need to do it pretty soon,” Milstein said.

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The Search for Fundamental Particles by Canadian Scientists

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Science (Medium)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/20

The Globe and Mail talked about the search for new particles by Canadian scientists.

With 10 quadrillion high-energy collisions in the world’s largest particle accelerator, there may be some answers to questions about the potential for other missing fundamental particles in thee Standard Model of Particle Physics or elsewhere. This raises questions.

The questions about the potential for discoveries by Canadian scientists and researchers through international collaboration. “Canada is one of dozens of countries participating in the project, which will eventually see the collider’s performance increase tenfold by the middle of the next decade,” CBC News stated, “Researchers hope the higher number of collisions that result will increase the likelihood that they will spot some extremely rare clues to a more fundamental theory of matter than the current standard model of particle physics.”

The TRIUMF accelerator in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, associate director Oliver Krestor, talked about this as the next big stage in the work of the LHC. The LHCm or the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland empirically verified the existence of the Higgs Boson.

There seems not much left to see for the Standard Model of Particle Physics. However, as things have progressed, there has been hope to develop a theoretical and eventually empirical framework for the incorporation of dark matter into the Standard Model of Particle Physics.

“The situation has perplexed physicists who are looking to replace the standard model with a new theory that can encompass dark matter, a substance whose existence has been inferred by astronomers through its gravitational influence on stars and galaxies, but that has never been directly detected,” the article explained.

The Director-General of CERN, Fabiola Gianotti, wants to find the smallest potential deviation from the current evidence to see if there are other portions not accounted for in current theorization.

“The LHC works by accelerating protons in two opposing beams around a 27-kilometre-long circular tunnel. The beams cross at only four points where protons that are travelling at nearly the speed of light can collide and release enough energy to spontaneously form new particles, such as the Higgs,” the reportage explained, “These decay in an instant, but they leave their traces in the building-size detectors built around the collision points. Canada supplied hardware for one of those detectors, called ATLAS, and is currently developing new components for an intermediate upgrade that will begin after the beams are shut down for two years starting in November.”

It is a complicated affair. The round of data gathering take place between 2021 and 2023 with the overhaul happening to incorporate a more potentially ground-breaking series of experiments through the collider’s superconducting magnets being replaced.

The purpose is to increase the amount of data coming from the experiment of the collider. 150 researchers work at the LHC. They are working for the improvement in the future of the particle physics research.

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AI for Africa Through Google

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Science (Medium)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/14

Quartz reported on the developments of artificial intelligence in Africa due to Google with the develop of more AI research through an infusion from Google with the Africa AI research center.

It will be based on Accra, which is the capital of Ghana. Ghana’s Accra is known for a vibrant technology industry. This may be a surprise to some compared to the other African cities of Lagos and Nairobi, in Nigeria and Kenya, respectively.

The report stated, “Google had been laying the pipeline, both figuratively and physically, for future developments in Accra for a few years now. Back in 2015, the Mountain View, California tech giant started work on a fiber optic network, called Project Link, across the city to improve internet speeds.”

It seemed like the workings of a larger plan in order to develop the computer industry in Africa through infrastructure provision and construction from Google.

“Ghana also has good a font of young talent from its public universities and newer centers like the computer science program at the highly-regarded private institution, Ashesi University,” the article continued.

The team lead for Google Brain, Jeff Dean, had difficulty in the selection of a location for the project.

Dean stated, “In the end, we chose Accra because of a strong ecosystem of local universities and its proximity to a branch of the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and our experience in the country.”

The intention, or hope rather, is to develop these things further into the future. The developments of more AI research center locations through the continent of Africa.

“The company says it’s trying to bring together top machine learning researchers and engineers at the new center dedicated to AI research and its applications,” Quartz said, “Google is making a big bet on AI for its future. In 2016 alone it invested $30 billion on AI and machine learning research.”

If AI begins to take hold and gain traction, as is increasingly the case, in Africa, then the developments of its industries will increase quite a lot, arguably. The curve in Moore’s Law makes things much cheaper for the computer hardware for people to do things.

If cheaper, then the space, finances, and team or company staff sizes are not needing to be as big. That is, it means less volume taken by computers, fewer finances to buy the hardware, and fewer people in order to make strides in science and technology with the power of AI in a shorter period of time, too.

“In Nigeria, machine learning is being used by doctors for the early detection of birth asphyxia — the third highest cause of under-5 mortality in Africa. China, on its way to become the leader in artificial intelligence, is using Zimbabwe as the test ground to help its facial recognition systems identify faces with dark skin,” the article explained.

With the taking away of manufacturing jobs, the AI industry may provide for those with the talent and education in Africa, and in particular Accra at the moment, to be able to gain jobs, finances, and contribute to the wealth of continent.

The article concluded:

Research from PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated “artificial intelligence technologies could increase global GDP by $15.7 trillion, a full 14%, by 2030 of which $1.2 trillion would be added for Africa.”

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Research on Sex-Change Mice

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Science (Medium)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/14

The Guardian reported on the change of the sex of some mice.

The removal of some DNA strands cause some previously normal males to grow ovaries and female genitalia. This, some think, may provide some insight into the development of human sexual disorders.

With those DNA strands gone, the mice then became males with female genitalia. The may explain why the XY chromosomes can miss some of the similar strands of DNA for the female mice’s sexual organs or physiology. Men get XY and women get XX.

“Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute in London showed that they could reverse the sex of male mice by deleting a chunk of DNA called enhancer 13, or Enh13 for short.” the reportage explained, “Like 98% of the genome, this section of DNA does not carry any genes that are used to make proteins, the crucial building blocks of living organisms.”

Robin Lovell-Badge, who is a geneticist at the Francis Crick Institute, stated, “For the first time we’ve demonstrated sex reversal after changing a non-coding region of DNA… We think Enh13 is probably relevant to human disorders of sex development and could potentially be used to help diagnose some of these cases.”

The problem with the research into the sexual development disorders comes from the unexplained set of causal pathways from the genes or sets of genes acting in coordinated fashions for various sexual development disorders to emerge.

Lovell-Badge stated, “The analysis of such patients has mostly focused on the parts of genes that encode proteins, ignoring the parts that control the activity of the gene.”

In examination of the mammalian embryos, there are ones destined to grow ovaries and other with tests. The former point to females. The latter to males, on a biological and not sociological analysis — though these do not separate from one another.

“In the earliest stages of development, levels of SOX9 are driven by a gene on the Y chromosome, explaining why males typically develop testes,” the article stated.

Enh13 in the genome is coordinated to boost boosts SOX9 to produce testes at the correct time in development. If these are clipped off the genome, then the male mice become for biological and sexual organ purposes female.

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Bees Know Zero

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Science (Medium)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/10

Science Magazine reported on one of the important and foundational concepts in the human mathematical arsenal comes in the form “0” or zero; based on the newest research, some experiments indicate bees understand the concept or idea of zero.

The idea of zero relates to the concept of nothing, nada, and zilch. However, what about the intuitive idea of nothing or zero?

Something at the base of the mathematical conceptual universe for human beings. Zero exists for other organisms, not in symbolic representation but in internal processing

Others in previous research have been monkeys and parrots. Now, bees joined the pack, or the hive as it were.

Honey bees know 1, 2, 3, and 4. These bees can count. This may help in territorial marking. An adaptive evolutionary function for better survival. Imagine not marking anything then functioning in daily life. No mental map, yikes!

The recent research extended the previous scientific initiatives into the world of zilch, littler than little nothing.

The research team trained 10 bees to identify the smaller amount of two numbers. In a series of trials, insects were shown two pictures. One with some black shapes and a white background. When bees flew to those with the smaller number of the shapes, they were given a “delicious sugar water.”

If they went to the one with the larger number, they were punished with the worst of the worst, quinine. “Once the bees had learned to consistently make the correct choice, the researchers gave them a new option: a white background containing no shapes at all,” the article explained.

Even with never seeing an empty picture, they chose this option 64% of the time rather than those pictures with 2 or 3 shapes on them (with a white background). The article concluded, “This suggests that the insects understood that “zero” is less than two or three. And they weren’t just going for the empty picture because it was new and interesting: Another group of bees trained to always choose the larger number tended to pick the nonzero image in this test.”

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Evidence for Democracy (E4D) Launches Budget Toolkit

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Science (Medium)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/06

Evidence for Democracy or E4D has been a recent bulwark of scientific education and support of the work for evidence-based policy making and decision-making.

Many researchers, science-enthusiasts, and scientists came out in 2017. They came out to represent science, or ask for it to be represented, in Budget 2018. They talked to their MPs. They went to the social media land.

They submitted briefs.

With Budget 2019 close by as well. It is now time to begin the advocacy process once more, from the ground up. There has been the launch of the Budget Toolkit now.

E4D is putting this out as its latest training document. It is to help people find out how the pre-budget process works, especially in regards to advocating for funding.

The Budget Toolkit is crucial for the process of advocating to the government. The government uses information from the public to make decisions about the priorities for the entire year.

So, it is, as the kids say, kind of, sort of, maybe, like, like, you know, a super-big deal. It is in this substantive process that makes letting the government know that the public considers science important integral to the investment in science and evidence-based decision-making.

Another item launched was the recent issue of the volunteer newsletter:

the Catalyst

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Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on the Frequently Asked Questions About the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (6)

Interviewer: Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Numbering: Issue 29.A, Idea: Outliers & Outsiders (24)

Place of Publication: Langley, British Columbia, Canada

Title: In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Individual Publication Date: February 22, 2022

Issue Publication Date: May 1, 2022

Name of Publisher: In-Sight Publishing

Frequency: Three Times Per Year

Words: 3,419

ISSN 2369-6885

Abstract

Paul Cooijmans is an Independent Psychometitor and Administrator of the Glia Society, and Administrator of the Giga Society. He discusses: Frequently asked questions; not attempting to force one’s way into a high-IQ society; other patterns of illegitimate action to try to enter into high-I.Q. societies; Glia Society’s admission policy; tests accepted for admission; the minimum requirements for a test to be “valid in the high range”; the number of high-I.Q. societies focused more on quantity; “a lack or absence of psychometric expertise”; the prime examples of the void in psychometric expertise; the prime examples of profound ineptitude; false impressions from rejection or exclusion of take-home tests by some high-I.Q. societies; take-home tests; and the rarer types of articles submitted to Thoth.

Keywords: frequently asked questions, Glia Society, I.Q., I.Q. tests, intelligence, Paul Cooijmans, take-home tests.

Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on the Frequently Asked Questions About the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (6)

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: “Frequently asked questions The Glia Society” (n.d.a) contains three questions and three answers. The first question asks, “I am not able to qualify for high IQ societies but still feel I can make valuable contributions to society. How do I get IQ societies to accept me?” (Ibid.) You deconstruct and concisely answer the question while correcting assumptions in it. To expand on the first question (the one at the top of the web page), is a higher I.Q. indicative of a higher potential to contribute to society? So, if an individual can “do that perfectly outside of the I.Q. societies, via universities, science, business, politics, and so on,” (Ibid.) can one have a higher potential to do that more if they have a higher I.Q.? In other words, they can contribute more, theoretically, if they have proven Glia Society level or higher intelligence and take part in business, politics, science, universities, and so forth.

Paul Cooijmans[1],[2]*: Yes, I am certain that persons of higher I.Q. levels have greater potential to contribute to society, and are in practice indeed contributing more. I am then talking about the full range of intelligence, not necessarily about the situation within the high range, as it is still being studied whether intelligence can be meaningfully measured at all there. I mention this because I know many stare themselves blind on nuances within the high range (“Can I contribute to [this or that field] if my I.Q. is only 143? Or should I try a few more tests to see if I can score over 150?”) but really it is differences within the range 60-140, maybe 55-145, that determine people’s functioning. I dare not say with certainty that even higher I.Q.’s add something extra, although they may.

Having said that, I should add that “intellectual” types of work are hugely overpaid nowadays compared to manual labour, and that is a problem. This gap has grown over time, and is related to the takeover of all vital institutions by certain species of intellectuals, who despise physical work.

Jacobsen: You mentioned, in the first answer, not attempting to force one’s way into a high-IQ society. There was a famous case of Paul Maxim trying to get into the Mega Society, for instance. As others have stated to me, though anecdotal, this is a pattern in the high-I.Q. societies, or, more properly, in the attempts to get into particular high-I.Q. societies by people in and out of the high-I.Q. communities. What is the ethic behind these efforts, as such?

Cooijmans: I think people want to derive social status from belonging to groups with very high admission standards. For illustration, it has happened that someone tried to join the Giga Society with screen shots of online games that reported I.Q.’s over 200 (without even containing the name of the candidate) saying something like, “You really have to admit me now because I have already told all my friends that I am a Giga Society member, please please please do not make me look like a fool before my friends.” That betrays the kind of motivation of such people, although most of them are not that explicit about it.

Jacobsen: What are other patterns of illegitimate action to try to enter into high-I.Q. societies? What are some of the famous cases known to you? You have a long history in this world, not many can stake that claim of longevity and activity.

Cooijmans: A pattern that I have observed is, for instance, very repeatedly sending the same type of “proof” of qualification, of course some test result not on the list of accepted tests. What has also occurred more than once is demanding entrance based on a mainstream psychological test score way beyond the usual ceiling of the test; most typically this is some form of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scales, and apparently, some psychologists are in such cases willing to provide reports with absurdly extrapolated scores, like way over I.Q. 200. I am quite certain that some people are fully aware of the contents of the test and its intended solutions, and practise extensively before taking the test, and there may also be cases where the report itself is fraudulent.

I think it is not ethical to name names of these individuals as they are mostly teenagers when starting this behaviour and stop later on when growing up. Sometimes there is also a psychiatric background.

The most common way to force oneself into a society is cheating when taking a high-range test. Those responsible for the unauthorized spreading of test answers, however evil, are not necessarily the ones trying to enter I.Q. societies, so in the context of this question I need not discuss the former. “Creative” ways of “entering” societies are to forge a membership certificate using a specimen that an actual member showed publicly on a social medium, or to add oneself to the listed members in the society’s entry in an online do-it-yourself encyclopedia. I even suspect that such entries are sometimes created purposely by people in order to put themselves in and pose as members.

Jacobsen: The second question asks, “Why is the Glia Society so liberal in its admission requirements, in that it accepts a lot of take-home tests rather then [sic] just official standard tests?” (Ibid.) As you state, the Glia Society’s admission policy is more stringent than other high-I.Q. societies. Let’s expand on this, why are “mainly regular tests” or “regular psychological tests” without much validity below I.Q. 70 and above I.Q. 130, presumably on a standard deviation of 15?

Cooijmans: Regarding below I.Q. 70, people in that range, and especially under I.Q. 60, tend not to be able to take tests in the usual format, and their I.Q.’s are mostly assessed in other ways, such as by observation and interview in direct personal contact. There are special tests for that. And yes, I know there are people who will now bark, “What?! Are you serious?! Why would people below a certain I.Q. not be able to take tests in the usual way?!” These are the ones that deny the real-world relevance of intelligence and I.Q., the ones who claim that someone of I.Q. 65 can just as well be a mathematics professor as someone of I.Q. 165.

The lack of high-range validity of most regular tests is due to the absence or lack of truly difficult problems in those tests. If you include such problems, you may get validity in the high range, but at the expense of violating certain paradigms of the current academic climate, wherein it is unthinkable to create tests and publish data that show significant sex differences in important behavioural variables like intelligence. And on really hard problems for mental ability, there is one sex that does better than the other. This taboo is hidden by leaving out such problems.

Another way in which sex differences in mental ability are hidden in science is by using childhood data when studying sex differences; in childhood, the later-to-develop adult differences do not show up because the hormones of puberty have not done their work yet. In fact, before puberty, girls mature faster than boys, so that childhood studies yield a biased result compared to the state of affairs among adults, favouring girls. The use of childhood studies to “debunk” sex differences in mental ability is a form of scientific fraud.

I suspect that a mainstream scientist who published data on high-range mental tests like I do would be banned for life from the academic world.

Jacobsen: How do tests accepted for admission (Cooijmans, n.d.b) to the Glia Society tap into its minimum required I.Q., and higher, better than the regular intelligence tests?

Cooijmans: By containing sufficiently hard problems.

Jacobsen: What are the minimum requirements for a test to be “valid in the high range” (Cooijmans, n.d.a)?

Cooijmans: When it comes to high-range validity in the psychometric sense, “valid in the high range” means that the test has positive loading on the general factor “g” in the range beyond the 99th centile, so within the top 1 % of the general population. But validity alone is not enough; robustness (resistance to score inflation) is just as important, as is mere hardness.

If “beyond the 99th centile, so within the top 1 % of the general population” is not precise enough, one may read this as “whatever one defines as the high range”, or, when it comes to society admission, “around the intended pass level”. Of course, a test never starts measuring exactly at a given level like the 99th centile; high-range tests typically have a threshold somewhere around the 90th centile but more than half of the scores exceed the 99th centile.

Jacobsen: If you had to estimate the number of high-I.Q. societies focused more on quantity, or growth of membership, than quality of membership, what percent or ratio of extant high-I.Q. societies fit into this identification?

Cooijmans: That is difficult for me to answer because obviously I avoid looking at such societies, if only to prevent vomiting over the keyboard of my electronic computer. I can only make a rough estimation: the majority of them.

Jacobsen: Why is there “a lack or absence of psychometric expertise” in many high-I.Q. societies, even “a deep incompetence” (Ibid.)?

Cooijmans: I imagine the following reasons exist for this: People who feel called to start I.Q. societies tend not to be experts in psychometrics. For instance, when Mensa, the largest I.Q. society, was conceived, its founders thought they were selecting at the level of 1 in 6000. Later they found out it was only 1 in 50. This was related in an issue of the Mensa journal, possibly in the 1990s, in an article about the early history of that society. In more recent years, it has been obvious that some I.Q. societies are founded on a whim by people who were not able to qualify for existing societies, and without having any knowledge of psychometrics.

Then, when people are delegated the task of admissions officer or test psychologist in a society, those who offer to take on this job tend not to be bona fide experts in psychometrics and tend not to be interested in a strict admission policy. Some seem to have “liberal” inclinations and really just want to please and admit anyone regardless of their intelligence level. They secretly despise selecting by intelligence, and it may even be that, when becoming active in I.Q. societies, they did not fully realize they were getting involved in something that went against their moral principles. On the other hand, they may have joined purposely to sabotage the selection procedure and destroy the elitist nature of the society. Such infiltration and corruption of policies would mirror the undermining of democracy that we have seen in Western societies in general, where cultural Marxists have gradually occupied all institutions, resulting in exceedingly liberal immigration and other destructive policies.

Early examples of lack of expertise were observed by me in the first few years of my Mensa membership, when I had some correspondence with the test psychologists of the Netherlandic and International branches, and had to conclude, to my shock, that they were incompetent.

Another reason I believe to be behind the silly admissions policies of many societies is that a strict admission policy, unfortunately, produces fewer female members the higher one sets the pass level. This can be countered by accepting tests without validity in the high range, as on those tests, the possible scores in the high range are meaningless (random, having huge error margins), thus containing more females as well as more unqualified people.

Jacobsen: What are the prime examples of the void in psychometric expertise?

Cooijmans: A list of accepted tests containing tests that can not discriminate, have no validity, in the range where the society’s pass level resides. A list of accepted tests containing scores based on long outdated norms (Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices is notorious for that). A list of accepted tests that appears to be more or less copied from other societies (which betrays a lack of independent research). A list of accepted tests that is not updated and adapted based on feedback from the evaluation of incoming members; that is, the functioning of the admission tests is not monitored by assessing whether the members who qualify through those tests are indeed at the required level.

Also, testing potential members with tests that require supervision, but without supervising the test administration. So: simply sending the test by mail and letting the candidate supervise and time oneself (supervised tests tend to be timed, for practical reasons). This causes serious problems in case it concerns a test with heavy loading on vocabulary and knowledge while prohibiting reference aids; candidates can then cheat easily by looking things up. It also causes problems because the self-reported time taken may be off. Mensa International used to do this in countries where they did not have a testing infrastructure in place; early members of Mensa Singapore have told me they received the Raven test by mail from Mensa International and took it unsupervised and self-timed. The International Society for Philosophical Enquiry, too, has a long history of testing for willingness-to-commit-fraud rather than intelligence. Wait, I have to clean my keyboard now.

Jacobsen: Following from the previous question, what are the prime examples of profound ineptitude?

Cooijmans: Hm, I should have waited with cleaning my keyboard I see. Here we go again. An early example took place in the early 1990s after joining Mensa, when I published an article in their journal in which I explained that, when selecting the top 2 % on each of a number of tests as Mensa did, one is really selecting more than 2 % of the population because of the imperfect correlation between the tests, in other words, because the top 2 % scorers on the respective tests have only a partial overlap. To my dismay, the society’s test psychologist replied in the journal, denying me in words that betrayed that he was not able to comprehend the reasoning set forth in the previous sentence. Ineptitude does not get more profound than that (incidentally, I had to look up the word “ineptitude” in order to answer this question).

Other examples of ineptitude I have observed, in people dealing with high-range test and I.Q. societies:

Publishing score histograms consisting of a mixture of first attempts and (multiple) retests, without explicitly mentioning this mixed nature, just to give the impression of more data than there actually is.

Incorrectly computing full-scale reliability of a test from its constituent subtests, resulting in a much too low value; this happens by taking the simple average of subtest reliabilities. This is wrong because, ceteris paribus, reliability increases in proportion with the square root of test length and is therefore not a simple average. Spearman and Brown have provided a set of formulas for correctly computing the reliability coefficient of a test based on partial (subtest, odd/even) reliabilities.

A recent hilarious example concerns an individual who was founding one society after another and charging money for entrance, accepting his own tests as well as many others. He presented himself as an I.Q. test designer, and claimed that the validity of his tests was “insured” by computing the “Pearson R”. A higher density of error is hardly possible: The Pearson correlation coefficient is known as “Pearson r”, not “R”. While it is an informative statistic, computing it in no way affects the validity of a test. Finally, one wonders which insurance company would issue such a policy. Inevitably, such a person puts himself on the member lists of his self-founded societies, even if the nominal requirement is some 70 I.Q. points above his real level. The maxim “fake it until you make it” comes to mind in such cases.

As it does in the case of the one who maintains a counterfeit Giga Society web page, of course listing himself as a member as well as a number of others. At least some of those members are (were) listed there without their knowledge; apparently he has used names and biographical information found on the Internet to fill his fake society, which is perhaps more fraud than ineptitude. Such cases make me think of the current hype of having one’s face injected with silicone, botulinum toxin or whatever, or even have surgery to create a certain appearance. These people focus on appearance rather than essence when striving for success. Seen from the front, they may have nice voluminous lips; but from the side, they look like ducks because their lips are sticking out like a bill. Some even quack.

An extreme case of felonious ineptitude was reported to me by a candidate; a test constructor had invited him to take one of said constructor’s tests, with the guarantee that the result would remain confidential (which should be standard). However, right after the test had been scored, this test constructor, who purports to be a certified psychologist and a PhD, published the score, including the name of the candidate, on a social medium. This is so serious that I consider it my duty to warn the unsuspecting public of characters like this.

In general, the publishing of candidates’ scores including their names and without their permission is typical of inept test scorers. I have received more than one complaint about that. On one occasion, such a bungler even published a list containing only one name (mine) with a fictitious (too low) score behind it, apparently to discredit me.

Publishing item analysis data is another form of ineptitude; it helps future candidates because it reveals the exact hardness of each problem of a test.

And then, congratulating or praising the candidate with one’s score! Those idiots do not understand that an I.Q. score is an objective datum, not an achievement. You praise someone for a scientific discovery, invention, or work of art; not for an I.Q.!

Jacobsen: To some members of the general public with an interest in I.Q. and high-I.Q. societies, as you state in the second answer, they can get false impressions from rejection or exclusion of take-home tests by some high-I.Q. societies. A false impression of a “strict entrance policy” (Ibid.). Why is this the current culture or norm with high-I.Q. communities?

Cooijmans: I think this is already answered sufficiently in the question ‘Why is there “a lack or absence of psychometric expertise” in many high-I.Q. societies, even “a deep incompetence” (Ibid.)?’

Jacobsen: Why should take-home tests be considered part of respectable high-I.Q. societies?

Cooijmans: Because those are the tests meant to measure intelligence with validity in the high range. Most regular I.Q. tests fail at this. And for the minority of regular tests that do possess validity in the high range, a problem is that those who administer the tests in practice are sometimes not able or willing to do so correctly and to report the score correctly and honestly, despite their formal degrees in psychology or psychometrics. Looking at what some psychometrics “doctors” have done in the world of high-range tests, I have to say that such a degree is virtually a guarantee for incompetence and fraud. I am then talking about providing super-high scores to unqualified idiots, publishing names and scores without the candidates’ permission, and leaking out scoring keys of tests. The fingers of one hand barely suffice to count the high-I.Q. “doctors” who have done exactly that.

Another problem with regular psychological I.Q. tests, rarely mentioned but oh so real, is that one can usually buy them as a “kit”, including the intended solutions naturally, if one is at least something like a student of psychology. And I suspect that some of the “certified psychologists/psychometricians” who perverted the admission policies of I.Q. societies have entered those societies with scores obtained thus, and would never have qualified on proper high-range tests or without fraud altogether.

Jacobsen: The third question asks, “What kind of articles are you looking for when taking submissions for the Glia Societies journal Thoth?” (Ibid.) You answer with the values covered before on absolute freedom of speech and no taboo topics for the Glia Society. As a short side question, what are the rarer types of articles submitted to Thoth?

Cooijmans: Esoteric interpretations of works of literature, conspiracy theories about historical events, a few unusual novels, and seven submissions by an early member who was quite brilliant but withdrew from the high-I.Q. world after seeing proof that God existed.

References

Cooijmans, P. (n.d.a). Frequently asked questions The Glia Society. Retrieved from https://gliasociety.org/faq.html.

Cooijmans, P. (n.d.b). Qualification: The Glia Society. Retrieved from https://gliasociety.org/qualification.html.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] Administrator, Giga Society; Administrator, Glia Society.

[2] Individual Publication Date: February 22, 2022: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/cooijmans-6; Full Issue Publication Date: May 1, 2022: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

Appendix II: Citation Style Listing

American Medical Association (AMA): Jacobsen S. Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on the Frequently Asked Questions About the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (6) [Online]. February 2022; 29(A). Available from: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/cooijmans-6.

American Psychological Association (APA, 6^th Edition, 2010): Jacobsen, S.D. (2022, February 22). Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on the Frequently Asked Questions About the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (6). Retrieved from http://www.in-sightjournal.com/cooijmans-6.

Brazilian National Standards (ABNT): JACOBSEN, S. Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on the Frequently Asked Questions About the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (6). In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 29.A, February. 2022. <http://www.in-sightjournal.com/cooijmans-6>.

Chicago/Turabian, Author-Date (16^th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott. 2022. Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on the Frequently Asked Questions About the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (6).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 29.A. http://www.in-sightjournal.com/cooijmans-6.

Chicago/Turabian, Humanities (16^th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott “Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on the Frequently Asked Questions About the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (6).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 29.A (February 2022). http://www.in-sightjournal.com/cooijmans-6.

Harvard: Jacobsen, S. 2022, ‘Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on the Frequently Asked Questions About the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (6)’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 29.A. Available from: <http://www.in-sightjournal.com/cooijmans-6>.

Harvard, Australian: Jacobsen, S. 2022, ‘Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on the Frequently Asked Questions About the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (6)’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 29.A., http://www.in-sightjournal.com/cooijmans-6.

Modern Language Association (MLA, 7^thEdition, 2009): Scott D. Jacobsen. “Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on the Frequently Asked Questions About the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (6).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 29.A (2022): February. 2022. Web. <http://www.in-sightjournal.com/cooijmans-6>.

Vancouver/ICMJE: Jacobsen S. Conversation with Paul Cooijmans on the Frequently Asked Questions About the Glia Society: Administrator, Glia Society (6) [Internet]. (2022, February 29(A). Available from: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/cooijmans-6.

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What’s in a good business?

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Mendy Marcus

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Online companies seem to have become the norm. In fact, there appears to be a reduction in the number of retail companies in favour of online replacements.

Does this seem to be the trend? If so, what can entrepreneurs keep in mind when building newer businesses and business models?

Mendy Marcus: It’s true retail is dying, but that’s a good thing and not a bad thing. Retail is being replaced by something far greater. Retail takes physical space software doesn’t; retail costs an enormous amount of money while digital doesn’t (sometimes).

Over the years, the opening of a business has become much more expensive, tedious, and difficult. For example, what you would be able to do out of your home, you now need licenses; what you’d be able to do by hand, it is now done by machines; what you used to do with your brain, it is now done by software.

This is great for those who started by hand and have graduated. It allows them to do more with less; however, this is terrible for newcomers because the options to start are no longer there.

In order to start that same business, you now need to buy expensive machinery or build software etc. The move to the digital market can, sometimes, help lessen the new versions of opening a business.

But if your business is completely new, you may have to build a lot of software. It may be even harder to start up. There is still a lot of work to do, just like opening an ecommerce or starting a website.

It needs to be affordable and easy with platforms like Squarespace and Shopify. We now need to have similar platforms for building app and more complex software so that we can do back to the days of doing it yourself and being able to start a business with only $1000.

Although, I wouldn’t write off retail so fast it is here to stay, however, in a very different form. I see retail as the physical side to a digital world, a showroom of sorts, a grocery store.

A grocery story you only go into to see the food, but why shlep at home when you can have it dropped off before you even make it home yourself or a place you can sit and play the video game before you download it to your TV at home.

I also see startups, lawyers, and accounts and order types of officers occupying the “retail” spaces. Of course, we won’t be calling these retail; however, these will be what we will walk down the street to, and these will make our cities modern, hip, and lively.

The boring old stores will move into warehouses and sell strictly through apps and showrooms.

Jacobsen: When approaching the conceptual, early stages of business development, such as an app, what are some of the critical thinking, reflective steps to keep in mind?

Marcus: I don’t have a billion dollars in my account. So, I’m not going to pretend I have all the steps figured out on how to create a successful startup. Instead, I will focus on something I find very few entrepreneurs and businesses do, and is also a personal annoyance when not done right.

That is, the creation of a great user experience, whether it’s digital or not; UX is the most important thing. People tend to structure the UX according to how they want to do business or how they think they would do business, instead of doing business according to their user experience.

I’ll use a tech business as an example, but this can apply to a restaurant as well. Whether you are building the walls of an app, or the walls of the restaurant, it doesn’t make a difference.

The first thing you want to do once you have decided to open a business or have an idea is figure out the user experience: how does the customer want to experience what you are selling or offering?

Don’t go right to researching how the market works, that tends to make you want to do what the market is doing or “follow the rules of the industry in order to succeed.”

You should close your eyes, imagine yourself as your first customer that walks into the restaurant/uses your app, what experience do you want, and not what you are expecting.

Because you are expecting what you are used to, and you are used to what all the other restaurants and apps are doing, but that doesn’t set you apart; neither does it satisfy them.

They don’t need you, so take yourself through the experience you want as a user/customer and not what you are expecting. Now, do the same as the 1000th user here for the first time, a user who’s used the app many times.

Now, you can research the market and figure out how you can create a business model and strategy according to the user experience. Many places sell pizza. There will be a lot of apps like yours even if you have a new idea, many will copy it; people choose you because of the experience.

If this wasn’t the case, Tesla would be all about the technology. The electric vehicle itself is pretty cool, but Elon knew it’s a matter of time before there’s another few electric car companies, so he had to make the driving experience amazing. The car has to look sexy.

The website experience had to be just perfect, picking up your car had to be a thrilling experience, even the test drive had to feel like a big deal. Every detail was carefully thought out.

Even though, the customer is having the time of their lives and living in the moment and it’s all so natural to him/her. It is all created moments by Elon and his team, even the marketing has a user experience. When I have an idea, I don’t turn it into a business and figure out how to make money from it right away.

First, I think about the user experience, then I play around with the UI. This tends to point out the flaws in my UX. Once I have that down, I try to figure out whether I can make some money from it as well.

I suggest always starting out a project as a hobby. This way you’re not in a rush. You are not chasing the money. You’re just having a good time perfecting something that may or may not be monetisable later on, but for now it’s all about having a great idea: an excellent user experience and eventually a good shot at a business idea.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Mendy.

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T+A=S: The end game for intersectionality is individualism

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Science, Technology, and Philosophy (Medium)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/11

Intersectionality as a theory may result in the practical realization of individualism. It’s seen as a means by which to view oppressive structures of society.

Oppressive structures including ableism, classism, homophobia, racism, sexism, and transphobia. These focus on groups. Groups bound by loose definitions.

This reduction of society into sections and their intersections summarizes the method. Intersectionality, as a method, cuts society into parts. Then those parts become examined based on their intersections.

A poor, disabled Canadian First Nations trans man sits at cross-sections. These cross-sections of society bring analysis on oppression.

Oppression against the person as a low socioeconomic status person and disabled person. And so on, these provide the framework and the method.

Within the farther Left social and political spectrum, intersectionality reigns. Left-Liberal types love it. Many Right-Conservative types hate it, or feel indifference, even ambivalence.

But since this method garners wide praise, it deserves attention. But let’s pause there, another idea comes from individualism. Or the individualist perspective, the emphasis on the person.

The person as sovereign, as unassailable. Individualism amounts to a focus on the independent individual. All gradations, nuances, and subtleties respected and honored.

Intersectionality, if taken to the limit, would imply individualism of a kind. Each person as a potential infinite set of intersections. But only a functional set of cross-sections, often.

Too many then the intersectional lens becomes cumbersome for the Left-Liberal types. It also becomes self-parodying for the Right-Conservative types. Both views valid.

Same with the intersectional view associated with the Left-Liberal spectrum. Identical with the individualism of the Right-Conservative range.

The main differences remain the focus on oppression and the level of analysis. The level of the analysis in popular discourse. Oppression as the focus for the intersectionalist view, not for the individualist.

The plane for scrutinizing the oppression are groups. Hence, the decrying of “neo-Nazi,” “racist,” on campuses. Campuses dominated by Left-Liberal administrators, faculty and staff, professors, and students.

Other terms include “sexist,” “Marxist,” “feminist,” “Men’s Rights Activist,” “Capitalist,” and so on. These are terms to defame to dismiss an opponent. They do not engage the empirical evidence or arguments.

On campuses, the Intersectional Central, the oppressors, by default, become Right-Conservative types. Insofar as I can tell, many claims against Right-Conservatives seem illegitimate.

Those Right-Conservative types tend to not like illegitimate claims of being oppressors. Of being unwitting sexists, racists, and so on, how would others feel? You become defensive. Imagine rampant declarations of Left-Liberal types as oppressors of various types.

It is not a fear of becoming called out as such. It amounts to indignation over often false claims about character: character assassination and attacks. If you want to critique someone, then look at the ideas and arguments.

Left-Liberal discourse continues to forget this. Sometimes, unquestionable assertions plus violent tactics replace conversation.

Right-Conservative types continue to dismiss legitimate philosophy of the Left-Liberal types. And that leads back to the intersectional views seen on the Left-Liberal spectrum. It brings back individualism of the Right-Conservative suasion too.

In the final claims of intersectionality, the individual will reign. The group broken down into constituents, into elements. That becomes an individual, a person. It remains in between groups and individuals at this time, in the academic and popular discourse, but this is progressing.

Each person brings different facets of a self, as individual human beings. Sometimes the oppressor; sometimes the oppressed. Group politics will dissolve into individual politics.

Individual politics means personal votes, translates into more democratic institutions. Those democratic institutions form the basis for proper democracy.

All votes count, not by group or cross-sectioned identity but, by individual. The relationship between fundamentals of Right-Conservative individualism and Left-Liberal intersectional philosophy sits idle.

This may be the future of the debate. A bridge between worlds opposed now, and more opposed soon. Besides, at the end of the day, most people want empowerment.

They want recognition as individuals. They want merit for their individual accomplishments, characters, efforts, and talents. Those will come hand-in-hand with recognition of their evil and good sides. The failures and accomplishments of theirs.

The vices and virtues of character of theirs. The efforts and lack thereof of theirs. The talents or failings of theirs. Every individual as a set of intersections. But acknowledged, they do not need excessive definitions.

Their names and regular language and talk can bridge that gap too. Many people do not like the disconnected and pompous rhetoric of the intersectionals. But they do not like the elitism of some of the individualists.

Simplify the language as much as need be, you can bridge the gap. The end game of intersectionality may be individualism. With this, the emphasis may be oppression.

At times, this new individualism will not be focused on oppressor-oppressed. It will be the empowerment of people with a non-victim (non-oppression focused) perspective.

That synthesis of these opposed ideologies and views. It will bring Left-Liberal and Right-Conservative types to the same table. We will be better for it; so with it, our public and academic discourses on persons and groups.

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Allegation and demonstration, and #MeToo: short commentary from Noam Chomsky

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Science, Technology, and Philosophy (Medium)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/20

Scroll.in interviewed Noam Chomsky. He made an intriguing remark on the #MeToo movement, or the broader phenomena. Some points often made. Other points never made, except with condemnation and epithets.

His language remained different on the issue, though. The interviewer asked:

One of the most positive social and impactful movements of 2017 was the #MeToo movement. It has begun a sudden revival in the 21st Century Feminist movement and it has had profound effects on societies worldwide. What do you think of it?

Chomsky points to the critical issues talked about in the public domain. One with the “real and serious and deep problem” indicative of a “social pathology.” He sees this movement growing out of calling out this social pathology.

Another is the clear danger for many women in professional domains with powerful men, but this, especially, comes out, with almost no comparison for the United States than, in Hollywood.

But Chomsky continued, he went on to talk about the dangers of the #MeToo movement, but he, it seems, talked about the wider phenomenon of calling out bad behaviour or, more properly, making claims about bad behaviour in the public domain.

Chomsky sees the danger in “confusing allegation with demonstrated action.” That is, there needs to be care with making sure the allegations are demonstrated, which has more often been a conservative point, interestingly enough.

A point elaborated about the uncovering of “improper, inappropriate and sometimes criminal activities.” Where, “there always has to be a background of recognition that there’s a difference between allegation and demonstration.”

The full statement below in response to the interviewer’s question plus preface:

I think it grows out of a real and serious and deep problem of social pathology. It has exposed it and brought it to attention, brought to public attention many explicit and particular cases and so on. But I think there is a danger. The danger is confusing allegation with demonstrated action. We have to be careful to ensure that allegations have to be verified before they are used to undermine individuals and their actions and their status. So as in any such effort at uncovering improper, inappropriate and sometimes criminal activities, there always has to be a background of recognition that there’s a difference between allegation and demonstration.

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Singularities, What is Inside a Black Hole and Behind the Big Bang?

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Science, Technology, and Philosophy (Medium)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/01

Sunday Express reported on the possibility for research in standard Big Bang cosmology into areas before not empirically researched. That point being before the singularity at the moment of creation or the Big Bang as it is sometimes called.

It has been notoriously thought as something outside of the realm of empirical physics and only left to theoretical physicists to speculate and compare with moments of the universe after T=0, when time began — literally came into existence.

One international team of researchers is proposing a different picture of a before of creation, of a time before the Big Bang. Apparently, the singularity of black holes is akin to the Big Bang because the laws of physics appear to break down.

With some complex math and quantum strangeness, the international team of researchers claim the origins of the universe and the center of a black hole can be explained, comprehended, and not seen as a sort of known unknown.

Professor Mir Faizal at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada and the University of British Columbia, Okanagan in British Columbia, Canada explained, “It is known that general relativity predicts that the universe started with a big bang singularity and the laws are physics cannot be meaningfully applied to a singularity.”

Faizal co-authored the paper with Salwa Alsaleh, Lina Alasfar, and Ahmed Farag Ali. Faizal said that the current theories show the singularities, in black holes and at the Big Bang, are built into the interpretations of the math to make the theories. They follow from the math.

However, if they include quantum effects to remove the singularities, then the standard theories based on work by Roger Penrose, Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics in the University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and Stephen Hawking, Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge, can be modified.

Those changes to remove the singularities imply new models. Those old models without the quantum effects to the remove the singularities relied on specific models with problems. One model includes string theory, which, as noted, has its own problems.

Only “very general considerations” rather than a specific model is needed to ‘prove’ the proposal in the paper by Faizal and others. The paper concludes that the centers of black holes do not amount to singularities, but, rather, to empirically testable areas of future research.

“The absence of singularity means the absence of inconsistency in the laws of nature describing our universe, that shows a particular importance in studying black holes and cosmology,” the paper said.

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Climate change is a necessary discussion

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Science, Technology, and Philosophy (Medium)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/03

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) says, “97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities” (NASA, 2016b).

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the Climate Change 2014 Synthesis Report says, “Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems.” (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2015).

The British Royal Society says, “Scientists know that recent climate change is largely caused by human activities from an understanding of basic physics, comparing observations with models, and fingerprinting the detailed patterns of climate change caused by different human and natural influences.” (The Royal Society, 2016b).

And the Government of Canada says, “The science behind man-made climate change is unequivocal. Climate change is a global challenge whose impacts will be felt by all countries, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable. Indeed, impacts are already occurring across the globe. Strong action is required now and Canada intends to be a climate leader.” (The Government of Canada, 2015b). What do these mean, plainly?

In short, the vast majority of those that spend expertise, money, and time to research the climate affirm that global warming is a reality, and a looming threat to the biosphere (Upton, 2015; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2015). So that means, in general, if you know what you’re talking about regarding the climate, you understand it’s changing. You know it’s warming globally — not necessarily locally, wherever any particular local is, which would be weather. What does this imply?

Well if it is inevitable and ongoing, then its solution or set of solutions is a necessity, which should be the center of the discussion. Not if, but when, and therefore, how do we work together to prevent and lessen its impacts? There can be legitimate disagreement about the timeline and the severity within a margin of error based on data sets, or meta-analyses, but legitimate conversation starts with an affirmative. So why is it significant?

Because most of the biosphere exists in that “extremely thin sheet of air” (Hall, 2015) with a thickness of only “60 miles” or ~96.56 kilometers called the atmosphere. It is happening to the minute sheet of the Earth, and in turn affects the biosphere. So small, globally speaking, contributions to the atmosphere can have large impacts throughout the biosphere and climate, as is extrapolated from current and historical data. What is the timeline, and why the urgency?

Because, in general, it will cause numerous changes in decades, not centuries (Gillis, 2016). That translates into our parents, our own, our (if any) children, and our (if any) current or future grandchildren. In other words, all of us, present and future. What kind of things would, or should, we expect — or even are witnessing?

For starters, we’ll experience average increases in global temperatures, impacts to ecosystems and economies, flooding and drought, and affected water sources and forests such as Canada’s (David Suzuki Foundation, 2014b; David Suzuki Foundation, 2014d;David Suzuki Foundation, 2014e).

It affects the health of children and grandchildren, and grandparents, through heat-related deaths, tropical disease increases, and heat-aggravated health problems (David Suzuki Foundation, 2014c). It is adversely affecting biodiversity (Harvard University School of Public Health, 2016) and threatening human survival (Jordan-Stanford, 2015).

Recently it was reported that the Arctic winter sea ice is at a record low (Weber, 2016). There’ll be sea-level rise and superstorms (Urry, 2016). And it affects all, not just our own, primate species, according to primatologists (Platt, 2016). So even our closest evolutionary cousins, via proximate ancestry, will be affected too. This is a global crisis. What are major factors?

Population and industrial activity are the big ones. Too many people doing lots of highly pollution-producing stuff. It’s greatly connected to the last three centuries’ human population explosion and industrialization, which was an increase from about 1 billion to over 7 billion people (Brooke, 2012). So life on Earth is changing, in part, because of human industrial activity with increasing severity as there are more, and more, human beings on the planet (Scientific American, 2009). What’s being done to prepare for it?

Nations throughout the world are preparing for the relatively predictable general, and severe, impacts of it (Union of Concern Scientists, n.d.). The international community is aware, and that explains the Paris climate conference (COP21) during late 2015 (European Commission, 2016), which Prime Minister Trudeau attended for our national representation at this important global meeting (Fitz-Morris, 2015).

Alberta is making its own preparation too (Leach, 2015). And, apparently, small municipalities in Canada are not prepared for its impacts (The Canadian Press, 2015; The University of British Columbia, 2014). But there are those in Alberta such as Power Shift Alberta, hoping to derive solutions to climate change from our youth (Bourgeois, 2016).

So there’s thoughtful consideration, and work, from the international and national to the provincial and territorial, and even municipal levels, for the incoming changing crisis. Whether something can be done about it at one magnitude or another, it is being talked about more with concomitant changes to policy and actions following from them.

All of this preparation, or at least consciousness-raising, is relevant and needing further integration. Climate change will only get more severe unless we do something about it. So, again, that means it’s all a question of when, not ‘if’.

If we want a long-term, robust solution to assist in the reduction of CO2 emissions, a carbon tax fits the bill for a start. Then there’s future energy resources including Hydro, bioenergy, wind, solar, geothermal, and ocean (Natural Resources Canada, 2016). And the flip side of the coin for an energy source is a place to put that energy via future storage technologies also (Dodge, 2015).

But there’s something needed prior to and alongside all of that, which leads back into the original point. Talk about it. Discussion and conversation is the glue that will bind all of these together. The energy sources and storage-devices of the future, the preparation for the effects of climate change that is happening and will continue to happen, and so on, need chit-chat throughout democratic societies for even more awareness of it.

So let’s do something about it, by talking about it more through a national discourse.

Here and now.

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Dr. Katsioulis’ Interview on In-Sight (2015)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Katsioulis.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2015/01/01

ABSTRACT

Interview with Dr. Evangelos Katsioulis, MD, MA, MSc, PhD. In the following, he discusses: childhood through adolescence into young adulthood with extraordinary giftedness, some activities and memories from youth, and some distinctions in physics and medicine; highest national and international intelligence scores, first place in the Physics National Final Exams (Greece, 1993), Cerebrals NVCP-R International Contest (2003), and the Cerebrals international contest (2009), and examples of philanthropy through creation of high-IQ societies of varied rarity for entrance (first through fifth standard deviations); proposal for alteration to the educational system; identity crisis as the main global problem with discussion; building and running a society in the design of Plato; moral, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual development; the merger of machines and biology; the ultimate relationship between mind and reality; Genius of the Year Award – Europe in 2013 with reflection on desire for improving the life quality of others; and clarification on the term “miracle” and thoughts about the maximization of every moment in life.

Keywords: biology, Dr. Evangelos Katsioulis, Europe, giftedness, high IQ, genius, machines, medicine, national, philanthropy, Physics, Plato, standard deviation.

American Psychological Association (APA, 6th Edition, 2010): Katsioulis, E. & Jacobsen, S.D. (2015, January 1). Dr. Evangelos Katsioulis, MD, MA, MSc, PhD: Giga Society, Member; Consultant Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist, and CEO & Founder, Psycall.com; World Intelligence Network, Founder & CEO; QIQ, GRIQ, CIVIQ, HELLIQ, OLYMPIQ, IQID, GREEK IQ Societies, and Anadeixi, Founder; Scientific Associate, School of Medicine, Medical Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, 7.A. Retrieved from http://in-sightjournal.com/2015/01/01/dr-evangelos-katsioulis-md-ma-msc-phd-giga-society-member-consultant-psychiatrist-psychotherapist-and-ceo-founder-psycall-com-world-intelligence-network-founder-ceo-qiq-griq/

Chicago/Turabian (16th Edition): Katsioulis, Evangelos & Jacobsen, Scott D. “Dr. Evangelos Katsioulis, MD, MA, MSc, PhD: Giga Society, Member; Consultant Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist, and CEO & Founder, Psycall.com; World Intelligence Network, Founder & CEO; QIQ, GRIQ, CIVIQ, HELLIQ, OLYMPIQ, IQID, GREEK IQ Societies, and Anadeixi, Founder; Scientific Associate, School of Medicine, Medical Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 7.A (2015). http://in-sightjournal.com/2015/01/01/dr-evangelos-katsioulis-md-ma-msc-phd-giga-society-member-consultant-psychiatrist-psychotherapist-and-ceo-founder-psycall-com-world-intelligence-network-founder-ceo-qiq-griq/.

Harvard: Katsioulis, E. & Jacobsen, S 2015, ‘Dr. Evangelos Katsioulis, MD, MA, MSc, PhD: Giga Society, Member; Consultant Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist, and CEO & Founder, Psycall.com; World Intelligence Network, Founder & CEO; QIQ, GRIQ, CIVIQ, HELLIQ, OLYMPIQ, IQID, GREEK IQ Societies, and Anadeixi, Founder; Scientific Associate, School of Medicine, Medical Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 7.A. Available from: http://in-sightjournal.com/2015/01/01/dr-evangelos-katsioulis-md-ma-msc-phd-giga-society-member-consultant-psychiatrist-psychotherapist-and-ceo-founder-psycall-com-world-intelligence-network-founder-ceo-qiq-griq/.

Modern Language Association (MLA, 7th Edition, 2009): Katsioulis, Evangelos, and Scott D. Jacobsen. “Dr. Evangelos Katsioulis, MD, MA, MSc, PhD: Giga Society, Member; Consultant Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist, and CEO & Founder, Psycall.com; World Intelligence Network, Founder & CEO; QIQ, GRIQ, CIVIQ, HELLIQ, OLYMPIQ, IQID, GREEK IQ Societies, and Anadeixi, Founder; Scientific Associate, School of Medicine, Medical Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 7.A (2015): Jan. 2015. Web. http://in-sightjournal.com/2015/01/01/dr-evangelos-katsioulis-md-ma-msc-phd-giga-society-member-consultant-psychiatrist-psychotherapist-and-ceo-founder-psycall-com-world-intelligence-network-founder-ceo-qiq-griq/.

1. How did you find developing from childhood through adolescence into young adulthood with extraordinary giftedness? Did you know from an early age? What events provided others, and you, awareness of your high-level of ability?

Thank you for your question. Well, I didn’t have any forehead mark indicating that I have any special abilities, so my childhood was mainly full of activities that I enjoyed, such as reading literature, solving math, logical problems and puzzles, getting involved in discussions with adults and having rather many questions. I can recall an instance that I was a little boy and I made a reasonable for me at that point assumption that given that the white sheep produce white milk, the black ones should produce cocoa milk. I should emphasize that I enjoyed more spending my time on my own instead of socializing, which lasted till my adolescence. Teachers’ feedback was positive and promising at all stages of my education. At this point, I should mention that I am very grateful to my parents, both teachers of the Greek language, who provided me a variety of mental stimuli and a proper hosting setting for my interests. During my adolescence, I had a distinction in the national Math exams in 1990 and in the national Physics Final exams in 1993 among some thousands of participants. I was successful to enter the School of Medicine on my first participation in the entrance exams in 1993 and I was one of only six successful candidates who sat for the exams for the first time.

2. You scored some of the highest intelligence test scores on record, nationally and internationally. In many cases, you scored the highest. For some of your scores on these tests, I recommend readers to your website: katsioulis.com.

You competed in the Physics National Final Exams(Greece, 1993), Cerebrals NVCP-R international contest (2003), and the Cerebrals international contest (2009). You earned the best performance in all three. In light of this, when did you find your first sense of community among fellow ultra-high ability individuals?

Thank you for the impressive introduction to your readers. My ranking on the Physics National Final Exams is mainly the result of hard work and personal interest in Physics. Having scored quite well in some IQ tests and contests, I joined many High IQ Societies since 2001. I noticed that there were some difficulties in their proper functioning minimizing interactivity and subsidizing creativity. Therefore, I took the initiative in 2001 to form a pioneer organization focused on promoting communication and enhancing productivity for the individuals with high cognitive abilities. This organization is the World Intelligence Network, (http://IQsociety.org), standing as an international collective entity dedicated to foster and support High IQ Societies. Currently, 48 High IQ Societies are affiliated with WIN. Furthermore, I formed 5 core High IQ Societies covering cognitive performances from the 1st to the 5th standard deviations above the mean (IQ 115 to IQ 175, sd 15), (QIQ, http://Q.IQsociety.org), (GRIQ, http://GR.IQsociety.org), (CIVIQ, http://CIV.IQsociety.org), (HELLIQ, http://HELL.IQsociety.org), (OLYMPIQ, http://OLYMP.IQsociety.org), one High IQ Society only for children and adolescents (IQID, http://Child.IQsociety.org) and one only for the Greek people (http://IQsociety.gr). Last but not least, I started a Greek NGO about abilities, giftedness and high intelligence named Anadeixi (http://aaaa.gr).

>3. If you could, how would you change the educational systems of the world? In particular, how would you develop an educational system to provide for the needs of the gifted population?

The development of a more personal, more accurate and proper educational system is one of the target goals of Anadeixi. I strongly believe that not even 2 different persons can have the exact same profiles, characteristics, needs, personalities, interests, abilities, backgrounds and goals. Imagine the diversity and variety of the students’ profiles if you expand this hypothesis including all the students of any educational system. Any person is different from any other and should be treated as such. It is rather an unfair, conforming generalization all of the students to participate in the exact same educational program. There should be an introductory level of the basic sciences offered to anyone and on top of this an additional specialized education program based on the personal needs and potencies of any of the participants. Anyone should know how to read and write, to make simple math calculations and to have some basic awareness of history, geography and the rest main fields of knowledge. However, some of the students have specific preferences and interests and the educational system should take these into consideration and respond accordingly. Regarding the structure of such an educational system, there could be a 2-dimensional. The horizontal axis may include all the special fields of science, knowledge and interests and the vertical axis may demonstrate the various levels of performance and awareness. Thus, any participant can be allocated to the proper horizontal and vertical places based only on his interests, preferences, goals and current expertise and awareness. In such an educational system structure, there is no place for any age or other restrictions or limitations.

4. What global problems do you consider most important at the moment? How would you solve them?

Identity crisis is the main global problem. People lost their identity, their orientation, their life quality standards. They don’t care about who they are, they develop personalities based on the mainstream trends, they play roles and they waste their lives in their attempts to adjust to what some few others expect from them and their lives. People have neither time nor any intention to realize what life is about. They are born and live to become consistent and excellent workers, minor pieces of a giant puzzle for some few strong people’s entertainment purposes and benefits. Therefore, they don’t care about the quality of their lives, about other lives, about relationships and the society in general, about our children’s future. It is indeed a pity, however it is a fact. Education could be helpful towards self-realization, awareness, knowledge, mental maturity, overcoming any external restrictions and limitations. As I usually say to my psychotherapy clients, the solution to any problem is to make a stop and one step back.

5. Generally, many interacting systems operate in societies: political, economic, religious, corporate, educational, and so on. If you could build and run a society, how would you do it?

I would say no more than what a great ancestor said 25 centuries ago. Plato suggested an ideal society based on the special abilities of the citizens. The most capable ones should be leading the society functions, the strongest ones should help with their physical powers, a meritocracy should be in place. We should all contribute to the society well-functioning, if we intend to live in the society and benefit out of it. The definition of one’s prosperity should be defined only in the context of the society prosperity. If we act against our nest, how should this nest be beneficial, protective and supportive for us. We often see people who have no other than marketing skills or powerful backgrounds to guide societies, decide about millions of people, control people’s future, when many capable and talented others live in the shadow. The most important element in any society is the citizen and people should realize their power. There is no society without citizens, there are no rules without people to follow them. People can claim their right to live their ideal society.

6. If you do consider a general moral, intellectual, spiritual, and emotional progression or development, how do you view development from the basic to most advanced levels at the individual and collective level?

[This is covered above]

7. Do you think biology and machines will merge? If so, how might this happen? Furthermore, how far would integration occur?

We do control machines (for now), however we cannot control or overcome biological rules. Machines could substitute some missing, mistaken or dysfunctional biological structures, however we are in no position to support artificial life at least for now. Having in mind the science progress and knowledge advancement within the last century, we may soon manage to understand much more about life and even copy biology principles creating a kind of life. There are no limits in this integration. From your question, I could assume that we both like science fiction movies.

8. What is the ultimate relationship between mind and reality?

Mind is an advanced personal processor, responsible for the perception, reaction and adjustment in reality. We need mind to live our reality. I suppose we all know what is the condition of a body with a non-functioning mind. Reality is an objective and independent set of conditions, events, happenings, incidents, people, principles, facts. Our mind personalizes this objective information to a subjective representation in us. Mind function is influenced by factors, such as perceptual ability, reasoning, previous knowledge and experiences, psychological status and mental state. For instance, we have all been present in an event and our understanding of what happened may significantly defer from what anyone else present states. So, we need mind to live our reality and we need reality to use our mind.

9. You earned the Genius of the Year Award – Europe in 2013 from PSIQ. In your one-page statement on winning the award, you say, “I believe in the power of human mind and my works contribute to the facilitation of mind expressions, promotion of creativity and enhancement of productivity for a better life quality for everyone. Maximizing outcomes based on the appreciation and utilization of people’s potentials for the benefits of any individual and humanity in general.” What motivates this passion for improving the lot of others?

Life is a continuous claim of happiness and satisfaction. There are plenty of distractions and attractions in life which can mislead and redirect people causing disorientation, targeting fake goals and resulting to low life quality. I am passionate with people and communication and that is the main reason I chose to be a Psychotherapist, Psychiatrist and a Founder of some communities and networks. I believe in self-awareness, self-appreciation, self-confidence and self-determination. Offering people an opportunity to look into themselves and grab the chance to evaluate their lives, attitudes and interests, is a challenge for me. I have undertaken this procedure myself and I offer the exact same to anyone interested. I support people and I believe in their abilities, talents and specialties. Psychologically speaking, I may provide what I would appreciate to have been provided.

10. As a final note to your award statement, you state, “Humans are biological beings, life is a mystery, creation is still unknown. We live a miracle and we can only maximize this miracle’s impact in every single moment of our existence.” What do you mean by “miracle”? Can you elaborate on the maximization of every moment of our existence?

Allow me to clearly mention that I do not wish to support any specific religion with my statement. I have the feeling that the advanced and complicated structure and function of life, considering even only a single cell, is itself a miracle. I am using the word ‘miracle’ since mathematicians have proved that it is rather impossible all cell components to accidentally find themselves in the proper position and start functioning as a cell within the total duration of universe existence. So the time elapsed since the creation of universe supports the non-accidental, thus miraculous nature of life. The specific rational for this miracle, a specific power, God, destiny, even the nature itself, has been a fascinating topic for many other specialists throughout all human history.

The maximization of our life moments is a quality term, used to define appreciation of our time, life satisfaction and happiness. Since we know nothing about the reasons of our existence, we may solely take advantage of the fact that we are alive and experience the most out of it. In this context, we need to define what makes us excited and content and we should target and claim satisfaction and happiness.

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The Greenhorn Chronicles 3: Nadine Bollig on Equestrianism and Reaching Strides Equestrian Centre

Interviewer: Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Numbering: Issue 29.E, Idea: Outliers & Outsiders (24)

Place of Publication: Langley, British Columbia, Canada

Title: In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Individual Publication Date: February 22, 2022

Issue Publication Date: May 1, 2022

Name of Publisher: In-Sight Publishing

Frequency: Three Times Per Year

Words: 1,817

ISSN 2369-6885

Abstract

Nadine Bollig is the Owner – and a Trainer, Coach, and Instructor – at Reaching Strides Equestrian Centre. Her biography states: “Reaching Strides Equestrian Centre has been successfully owned and operated by Nadine Bollig since the spring of 2000. Nadine has been involved with horses since the age of 9 when she started to take lessons at a local stable, and within a year had her own first pony, an Appy mare named Sassy who is still a successful member of the school string at the ripe age of 24. Having nearly 20 years of horse experience, Nadine is a current certified Instructor, Equine Behaviourist and Trainer through the Nova Scotia Equestrian Federation and Equine Canada, a certified Level 1 Coach with NCCP Canada, and is currently working to achieve competition coach status. Nadine has been showing competitively since she was a child and showed in many disciplines including dressage, western pleasure, reining, english, hunter, jumper, driving, and even some barrels and poles. She was an active member of Pony Club and 4-H well into her teens. She uses her extensive experiences and her own training, and puts her heart and soul into the operating of the stable to bring out the best in all of the students and horses at Reaching Strides. Nadine has worked with several trainers throughout her career on the methods of non-resistance training through Natural Horsemanship and implements this into every horse or pony that comes through the training program at RSEC. Nadine acts as head coach and trainer for the stable and continues to enjoy competing, now mainly in the hunter discipline. She acts as competition coach and travels with students at all levels and disciplines to competitions from fun/schooling shows to Provincial Bronze and National Gold competitions. Horses and Equestrian are her business and her passion, and she is proud to provide to the stable an environment that is family-like, safe, and friendly, and treats all clientele – whether they are horses or people – with open friendship. One of her biggest beliefs is ‘you walk into the stable a stranger, but you leave as a friend’.” She discusses: the first lesson in riding or working with horses; best moment with Sassy; formal qualifications; long periods of work; the “feel” of working with or riding a horse; the Pony Club and 4-H; the method of non-resistance in natural horsemanship; Reaching Strides Equestrian Centre; educating different students; the state of horsemanship/equestrianism in the far East Coast of Canada; proud moment of competing as an equestrian; and the importance of the provincial/territorial/national equine organizations.

Keywords: Canada, equestrianism, equine, Nadine Bollig, Reaching Strides Equestrian Centre.

The Greenhorn Chronicles 3: Nadine Bollig on Equestrianism and Reaching Strides Equestrian Centre

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Since age 9, you have been involved with horses. What was the first lesson in riding or working with horses for you?

Nadine Bollig[1],[2]: I loved horses all my life, it was the first thing I drew as a young child, I was hooked from the first moment. My neighbour in Germany had two ponies. I had my first pony ride on one of them. I used to walk all on my own to the local stables to see the horses. They didn’t offer riding lessons, so my first actual riding lesson experience was once I moved to Canada.

Jacobsen: What is your best moment with Sassy over all these years?

Bollig: My best moment with Sassy aside from seeing all the smiles she put on thousands of lesson students once I started using her in the riding school over all these years, was the fact that my son got to ride her in a lesson before she passed away. I lost her last summer at age 36 and knowing that I gave her the best possible life a horse could have made the passing a bit easier.

Jacobsen: How does an individual in the Canadian equine industry acquire formal qualifications as, for example, an instructor, equine behaviourist, and trainer? How do the federations (councils, etc.) and Equine Canada set the standard for qualifications?

Bollig: Unfortunately, in Canada there is not a actual requirement to become certified in order to teach lessons. However, in order to be an actual certified coach or instructor, we follow the Equestrian Canada guidelines of completing the rider level program (10 levels in total, 8 of which must be passed to become a coach or 6 of them if to become an instructor). Following along with a mentor and taking training clinics both on line as well as in person, and always remembering that we must continue to learn no matter how much knowledge we acquire. With horses, you never stop learning.

Jacobsen: What can one never learn about horses, except through long periods of work with them?

Bollig: When it comes to horses, the learning never stops. They have their own individual personalities, and they are each their own unique character. What works for one, doesn’t necessarily work for others. Horses communicate through body language and for those willing to open their hearts and minds and really learn to listen, the experience is something so profound, it’ll blow your mind. They are intuitive, they mirror back our own emotions and force us to live in the now. Horses don’t lie, being around them and really allowing them to open our hearts and soul, is an experience that is more rewarding and more eye opening than anything else I’ve experienced in life.

Jacobsen: In the interviews and in informal conversations with equestrians, they, often, talk about the “feel” of working with or riding a horse. How would you describe this? I recall Ian Millar speaking to this, too, in media clips.

Bollig: When they discuss the “feel” it can be as simply put as in us as humans learning to let go. Our number one goal as riders is to learn to work in unity with our horses. Humans are very much control freaks, for lack of a better word. We find it difficult to allow ourselves to get into a situation where we are not fully in control. Learning to have a “feel” is learning to trust your equine partner and move with them in harmony. What I mean by that is, we want to always control what the horse is doing and make them move and work in a certain frame or pace, etc. but if we allow ourselves to move with the horse and feel what that horse is doing under us, and staying out of the way and become one with that horse, your ride becomes a dance of you and that horse moving together, feeling what each other is thinking even before one of you moves in the direction of asking for it. That’s feel!! Some folks are born with the feel and others have to work their butts off to get there. The one thing that is for sure is, the second you feel it, you’ll never forget that moment.

Jacobsen: How were the Pony Club and 4-H helpful in developing as an equestrian?

Bollig: Both of these are excellent programs. There is always so much stuff to learn when it comes to horses. Both Pony Club and 4-H have a set standard of levels to go through where you gain the knowledge of not only riding, but also all the other stuff. In my opinion the biggest problem in the horse world is a lack of the basic knowledge. The off the horse stuff is way more important to learn than the riding portion. But of course, most kids, especially now a day, want to learn how to ride, but feel the rest is not as important. A lot of facilities are so busy that they skip these vital lessons of horsemanship, stable management and the basics of horse care. Programs such as these, are an excellent way to teach our budding equestrians the importance of those steps.

Jacobsen: What is the method of non-resistance in natural horsemanship?

Bollig: So, when it comes to horse training there’s your traditional trainers that work on breaking the horse, which in turn breaks their spirit and turns them into almost a trained machine, because they quickly learn that pain or fear happens if they don’t cooperate. A lot of the time with this type of training, they rush through the process and don’t give the horse a chance to learn at their own pace, forcing them to cooperate or else. Basically, the trainer is the aggressor and because horses are prey animals they tend to give in to the abuse. With Natural Horsemanship we work with the horse at their own pace, and we communicate with them through body language. We establish trust, respect and a bond, and move forward when we know they’re ready to learn more that day, or we take the pressure off if they’ve had enough. The non-resistance part is that they are not forced to do something if they’re not ready for it. It’s all about applying pressure when needed, and backing off and releasing that pressure when they tell us. Reading their body language allows us to know when to apply it and how much of it to apply. In turn once you’ve established that trust, and the horse is not afraid that if they make a mistake that they’ll get punished, they become a willing, loving partner.

Jacobsen: What inspired founding Reaching Strides Equestrian Centre in the Spring of 2000?

Bollig: I always knew I’d do something with animals when I grew up. I had thought about becoming a vet for a while and upon graduating from high school and after checking out several vet programs, I decided it wasn’t for me. I worked at a few big stables and started teaching lessons at one of those. Doing this made me realize my passion was to teach people to become the best horse people they can be.

Jacobsen: As a head coach and trainer at Reaching Strides Equestrian Centre, how do you approach educating different students?

Bollig: Over the past 21 years I’ve worked with students of all kinds. Kids, adults, seniors, folks with physical and mental exceptionalities, troubled teens, Veterans suffering from PTSD etc. One thing I’ve learned from this and from working with horses is that patience is a virtue. Not everyone learns the same way, and certainly not at the same pace. If one way doesn’t work, it’s my job to explain it, show it, or approach it in different ways until it clicks in.

Jacobsen: What is the state of horsemanship/equestrianism in the far East Coast of Canada?

Bollig: Here on the east coast the horse world has become HUGE, especially in the last 10 years. I feel even though there’s been such an increase in involvement, we are in a bit of a crisis when it comes to actual Horsemanship and basic horse care. There has been a lot of big, beautiful barns with expensive horses and tack that have popped up everywhere as well as some back yard stables that only teach a few etc. The biggest thing that has been brought to my attention, especially in the last few years is that there is a HUGE lack of proper education when it comes to the basics of horse care. Even just proper feeding, hoof care, a total lack of understanding of how important it is working with the horse on the ground to ensure their manners are in check before climbing in the saddle. I feel that we need to train students not just to be riders, but to be horse people that understand the importance of all the stuff it takes to look after these beautiful creatures, and not just learning to ride.

Jacobsen: What is your most proud moment of competing as an equestrian, or a moment – or set of them – of greatest accomplishment, to you?

Bollig: My proudest moments in the show ring have been showing up at these big competitions with our rescue horses and students and beating the butts off those with $40,000 horses, that laughed at us as we got there. They soon learned it’s not how expensive your horse or tack or horse trailer is, it’s the proper training, and hours put in to perfect that training and our riders’ skills that wins the ribbons. As an equestrian myself, I guess I can say some of my proudest moments is when I look up at the smiling faces of my students when they finally figure out a challenge they’ve been working on and when there’s that lightbulb moment and you can see it all over their face. Also, working with rescue horses, my proudest moments is when I finally break through that fear and terror and see them for the first time in their lives allow themselves to trust a human. IT still gives me goosebumps every time.

Jacobsen: What is the importance of the provincial/territorial/national equine organizations?

Bollig: The importance of these organizations is that they are there to help educate folks. They offer programs and learning opportunities and do extensive research on the sport to improve our knowledge on an annual basis. Education is key! I always say, that the second we think we know it all, a horse comes along and teaches us otherwise. I’ve been involved with horses for over 30 years now, and I haven’t stopped learning yet. If anything can be said about them, it is they truly ensure we stay humble and in the moment.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Nadine.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] Owner, Trainer, Coach, and Instructor, Reaching Strides Equestrian Centre.

[2] Individual Publication Date: February 22, 2022: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/bollig; Full Issue Publication Date: May 1, 2022: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

Appendix II: Citation Style Listing

American Medical Association (AMA): Jacobsen S. The Greenhorn Chronicles 3: Nadine Bollig on Equestrianism and Reaching Strides Equestrian Centre[Online]. February 2022; 29(E). Available from: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/bollig.

American Psychological Association (APA, 6th Edition, 2010): Jacobsen, S.D. (2022, February 22). The Greenhorn Chronicles 3: Nadine Bollig on Equestrianism and Reaching Strides Equestrian Centre. Retrieved from http://www.in-sightjournal.com/bollig.

Brazilian National Standards (ABNT): JACOBSEN, S. The Greenhorn Chronicles 3: Nadine Bollig on Equestrianism and Reaching Strides Equestrian Centre. In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 29.E, February. 2022. <http://www.in-sightjournal.com/bollig>.

Chicago/Turabian, Author-Date (16th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott. 2022. “The Greenhorn Chronicles 3: Nadine Bollig on Equestrianism and Reaching Strides Equestrian Centre.” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 29.E. http://www.in-sightjournal.com/bollig.

Chicago/Turabian, Humanities (16th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott “The Greenhorn Chronicles 3: Nadine Bollig on Equestrianism and Reaching Strides Equestrian Centre.” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 29.E (February 2022). http://www.in-sightjournal.com/bollig.

Harvard: Jacobsen, S. 2022, ‘The Greenhorn Chronicles 3: Nadine Bollig on Equestrianism and Reaching Strides Equestrian Centre’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 29.E. Available from: <http://www.in-sightjournal.com/bollig>.

Harvard, Australian: Jacobsen, S. 2022, ‘The Greenhorn Chronicles 3: Nadine Bollig on Equestrianism and Reaching Strides Equestrian Centre’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 29.E., http://www.in-sightjournal.com/bollig.

Modern Language Association (MLA, 7th Edition, 2009): Scott D. Jacobsen. “The Greenhorn Chronicles 3: Nadine Bollig on Equestrianism and Reaching Strides Equestrian Centre.” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 29.E (2022): February. 2022. Web. <http://www.in-sightjournal.com/bollig>.

Vancouver/ICMJE: Jacobsen S. The Greenhorn Chronicles 3: Nadine Bollig on Equestrianism and Reaching Strides Equestrian Centre[Internet]. (2022, February 29(E). Available from: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/bollig.

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(All Druidry-related Writing) Published interview by Insight Journal

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Enchanting the Void

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/07

An Interview with J.J. Middleway. He discusses: geographic, cultural, and linguistic background; pivotal moments leading into druidism; responsibilities to the druid community with public exposure; “the love of all existences” and its meaning; the ways in which “the love of all existences” affects thinking and behavior in personal life; and broad-based interests and convergence on the druid path.

1. In terms of geography, culture, and language, where does your family background reside?

That’s an interesting question. Each of us being so strongly influenced and moulded by these factors.

I was born and brought up in Birmingham, the second largest city in England, after London. My early years were in Handsworth, a very multicultural environment and immigrant area, near the centre of the city. It was a very poor area financially, yet very rich culturally, and – as I now see it – spiritually. The majority of the neighbourhood were of Afro Caribbean or Indian subcontinent origin, with a smattering of Irish and Polish immigrants. And then there was us. Handsworth offered cheap accommodation in an industrial city needing labour.

My Mother was effectively a refugee of the Second World War and originated from a small village in the mountains of Tirol in the Austrian Alps. I can trace my ancestors back several hundred years in the same valley; in the same farmhouse even; with the glaciers and mountains all around. I was deeply influenced and affected by my visits there; once as a three year old, then twice in my teens, learning the local dialect by living with my uncle and aunt and my four cousins, on their farm with cows and hens and pigs living under the old wooden farmhouse. Also spending days in the high pasture, as my uncle and three sons scythed hay and I raked and helped bring it in on huge wooden sledges to a log cabin where we slept in the new mown grass. My Father came from Kinross in central Scotland, a small town near Perth, with the lochs and Highlands of Scotland nearby: Very scenic and rural – yet a distinctly impoverished background, with his ten brothers and sisters in a very small two bedroomed house. At 14, he left school and went down the local coal mine to work. So, I found myself as an outsider amongst outsiders – a white child living in a predominantly black community. An Englishman with no English blood on either side whatsoever. Brought up a Catholic, because that was my Mother’s faith, yet with a staunchly Atheist Father. I learned through that, how love transcends religious boundaries: My parents loved each other deeply and I was fortunate in being deeply loved by each of them. I thought at the time that this was ‘the norm’; I have learned since, how relatively unusual it is.

So, into this world of paradox and opposites, add the fact that my Father was 21 years older than my Mother, and thus had personal experience as a signalman of fighting in Afghanistan in the early part of the 20th century (the first time round, with the British Army) He also served in India while it was still part of the British Empire, and in Palestine before the formation of Israel.

I gained a range of perspectives on the Second World War from my parents’ direct experience and found that each was very different. My Mother’s experience of loss and deprivation in particular, gave me the ‘outsiders’ view. I see now how my whole life was shaped and based on ‘walking between worlds’ – I was an outsider who somehow learned the capacity to ‘go anywhere’ and be comfortable wherever that was. I learned how to cross bridges and how to be a bridge myself.

2. What seem like pivotal moments in personal life leading into druidism?

I have always felt extremely close to nature, even though I was brought up in the middle of a city with very little greenery around. I think it fair to say that as a child I was a natural mystic. I could seemingly ‘feel into’ persons or situations. I could somehow ‘almost become’ and therefore ‘understand from within’, pretty much anything or anyone – because I sensed how deeply we are ultimately ‘all one’. What I later learned in Sanskrit – Tat Tvam Asi – ‘That Art Thou’ – I somehow knew intuitively as being true from birth. Although this capacity became less vivid and somewhat attenuated as I grew older, I have never lost that sense of connection: So my birth is perhaps the pivotal moment in my Druidry.

However, I have learned since, how a series of experiences shortly after birth may have shaped my life and my Druidry. My parents lived in a rented room in an old house with a number of other occupants. As a baby, if I cried, my Mother would take a lot of flak from one woman in particular, who equated crying (a natural childhood expression) with maltreatment. And of course, if I cried at night, it caused resentment among other residents who couldn’t sleep. So my Mother, frightened and scared, developed a technique of putting her hand over my mouth and stopping me crying by suffocating me. I can still recall that very early experience. My Mother felt terrible about it in later years and we used to joke about it. However, I think in retrospect it gave me a link to the otherworld. In the weirdest and strangest of ways, it gave me an unintended initiation. I think it is perhaps another reason I am comfortable ‘between worlds’.

3. You have mention in a number of listings, publications, and reports.What responsibilities to the druid community come with public exposure to you?

It’s a funny thing; Public exposure seems to have somehow ‘come to me’ and not ‘me to it’. So, for a large part, the listings, publications and reports you refer to, are at others behest, and often a surprise to me. The responsibilities that come with any ‘public exposure’ as you put it (though we need to be careful, since ‘public exposure’ can have a different connotation over here – and possibly with you too ) – are no less than if that public exposure were not there. I suppose that my responsibility to Druidry, the public and all I care for, starts and ends with responsibility to myself.

It is perhaps worth saying here, that Druidry is part of rich framework for me, encompassing and embodying a whole tapestry of other threads and colours. For instance I am privileged and grateful to be part of the MKP (ManKind Project) community. There, my mission statement is “I create a world of authenticity, courage, laughter, love and song, by daring to fully open my heart and by taking the risk of fully revealing my soul”. The shortened form might read ‘I create a world of love, by living a life of love’. That pretty much sums up my intention and what I aspire to. It doesn’t mean I get it right all the time. Far from it: – Perfection for me, is in the imperfection.

Similarly, Druidry for me (and if you ask a hundred Druids what Druidry is, you’ll likely receive a hundred and one answers ) – is an aspiration – something to work towards. In that sense, I believe that titles such as Druid and Poet are maybe best regarded as being posthumous.

4. In your LinkedIn profile, you write, “The love of all existences.” You define personal work in this manner beginning on January, 1994, and continue to say, “Honouring and healing ceremonies for the Land. Naming, Handfasting and Parting ceremonies for the people. Blessing and celebration of all that lives.”What does “The love of all existences” mean, in full, to you?

Wow; there’s a question and a half!

My involvement with The Order of Bards Ovates and Druids (OBOD) began in 1994. You could say that was manifesting my Druidry in the world, although as I’ve said, Druidry (though I didn’t know it by that name at the time) has been ever present in my life.

I’ve alluded to my innate sense of connection ‘with all that is’, when talking of my early childhood. It is what mystics have always talked of, and something that I have naturally felt – both simply yet deeply – from very earliest memories and experience. I took it that everyone would naturally feel similarly (what child doesn’t think that what they experience is ‘the norm’?). Clearly it is not the norm.

What hasn’t come out particularly thus far, is that poetry is also a key part of my ‘tapestry’. So the best way of me answering such a profound question, is perhaps not best done via prose, but rather through a poem I wrote around twenty to twenty five years ago:

A Passion for this Earth I feel

Compassion which is so, so real

My blood flows through Earth’s laval veins

My tears reflected in her rains.

The winds which circulate this Earth

Breath in and out of me from Birth

The cyclic rhythm of her tides

Is matched by how I feel inside

Yet most remarkable of all

Open your heart to hear the call

The essence which I know is me

Is here in everything I see.

– – – – –

The term “the love of all existences” is part of the Druid Prayer, so that is why I quote it.

Here is the prayer in full:

“Grant oh God/dess thy protection

And in protection, strength

And in strength, understanding

And in understanding, knowledge

And in knowledge, the knowledge of justice

And in the knowledge of justice, the love of it

And in the love of it, the love of all existences

And in the love of all existences, the love of the god/dess and all goodness.

It is for each of us to find what works and what best reflects who and what we are. For me, ‘the love of all existences’ is what it says. I think that all that is perhaps truly left of us when we die is our legacy of love. (Or not of course) So the question for me might be along the lines of “How much love can I generate, recycle, return, during my lifetime?”

5. How does this affect thinking and behavior in personal life?

It brings the challenge of being aware. Or rather of trying to bring awareness of that statement into being. Of course it is relatively easy for me to love trees and streams and mountains as part of my shared existence; who wouldn’t? – (yet some don’t). Less easy perhaps for me to love a concrete building or a drunken lout or a murderer. Yet that is where the challenge lies for me. To at least bring into awareness, that at some level we are all connected. It doesn’t mean condoning actions which might be branded evil or wrong. However, it does challenge me to at least consider that ‘there but for fortune, go you or I’ as the Joan Baez song so eloquently puts it. Or to at least try and open my heart to love and compassion in respect of the less loved and less loveable aspects or members of ‘planet earth’. In seeking to love everyone, it doesn’t mean I necessarily have the capacity to like everyone. And that’s ok.

It also means that in taking risks in life I will be foolish or even downright stupid on occasion.

“It takes so much to be a human being,

That there are very few who have the love and courage to pay the price.

One has to abandon all together the search for security,

And reach out to the risk of living, with both arms.

One has to embrace life like a lover”.

That quotation has been one of my guiding aphorisms in life. I think it originates from someone called Morris West- but I’m not sure, and the full name eludes me these days.

I aspire to bring compassionate awakening into being through my thoughts actions and deeds. It doesn’t mean I get it right – like everyone else, I screw things up regularly; however I try. At least some of the time.

It means for me, allowing for ‘not knowing’; of respecting others views if not always necessarily agreeing with them; of responding to situations with as much heart as I can summon in the moment. It’s not always easy, but without it life loses purpose and meaning.

6. Your interests remain broad-based in involvement with the druid community. These include “Ritualist, Celebrant And Master of Ceremonies,” “Ceremonies,” “Healing,” “Meditation,” “Wellbeing,” “Energy Healing,” “Parties,” “Personal Development,” “Stress Management,” “Coaching,” “Teaching,” “Chakra Balancing,” “Energy Work,” “Reiki,” “Relaxation,” “Mindfulness,” “Wellness,” “Holistic Health,” “Life Transitions,” “Self-Esteem,” “Stress,” and “Treatment.” Each spreads across the landscape of relevant conceptual overlap with the druid and pagan paths. How does each of these come together to influence the personal druid path developed by you?

Many of those terms are what I might call ‘gifts from others’. I didn’t particularly choose them. Others have allocated them and I’ve chosen to accept that. In part this is a reflection and limitation of web-world, (in balance to its many benefits.). What it does reveal is the diverse and interlinked nature of a life; my life in this instance. It is also interesting for what it leaves out. For example Buddhism has played and continues to play a significant part in my life. I have come to see Druidry as a Western form of Buddhism and Buddhism as an Eastern form of Druidry. That’s just my take on it; others might disagree, and that’s fine. Despite obvious differences, I find that Zen Buddhism in particular embodies the Druid ethos and Druid way. What I particularly value, is that neither put much store on dogma.

A key phrase from the Buddhist side of my learning, which may help answer the question you ask, is “Love says I am everything. Wisdom says I am nothing. Between those two, my life flows freely”. The first sentence was a given in my life (unusual but true). The second sentence has been the the journey of much of my life. The third sentence seeks to bring it all together in balance – which ties in with the Druid prayer and the answers to previous questions.

How it perhaps relates to this question, is that in seeking to put everything into practice that I have talked about, has somehow resulted – almost magically as I look at it now – in the manifestation of all the streams referred to above. And others which aren’t referred to there. I don’t so much ‘bring all that together to influence my Druid path’; rather, it seems as though, ‘all that brings me together to reflect it’.

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Interview with Amanda Parker on the Ayaan Hirsi Foundation, Violence Against Women, FGM, and Child Marriage – In-Sight Journal

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ayaan Hirsi Ali Foundation (AHA Foundation)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/05

Amanda Parker is the Chief Financial Officer and Senior Director of the AHA Foundation. She discusses: background; tasks and responsibilities; prevalence of FGM, clitoridectomy, infibulation, and so on, other organizations; mental health and physical and sexual health problems, and negative outcome for girls and women who have undergone FGM; parsing of the context, or the environment in which this occurs, whether within the US or around the world; moving into 2019 and 2020; and final feelings and thoughts.

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is background life, e.g., geography, culture, religion or lack thereof?

Amanda Parker: I am originally from Southwest Kansas. I am a Christian, Protestant. I moved from Southwest Kansas to New York City after college. I worked in finance. I worked in Residential Mortgage-backed Securities before the Subprime Crisis.

My entire department closed. I was telling a girlfriend of mine. I was interested in doing something more warm and fuzzy in terms of the content of the work. I was thinking of going into publishing or the nonprofit world. Because I could imagine getting out of bed for either of those things in the world.

My friend said, “Oh! You have to meet my friend, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She is a New York Times bestselling author. She has a women’s rights foundation.” She introduced me to Ayaan. Ayaan and I hit it off right away.

The foundation, however, didn’t yet have staff. It was still in the process of getting itself organized. The board was forming. They were getting all the necessary insurance and bylaws. Those sorts of things.

I have been working with Ayaan personally to help her be organized on a personal level. Then when the foundation had seed money, I shortly moved over to the foundation. I have been there since.

2. Jacobsen: If you’re looking at some of the tasks and responsibilities of the position, what have been the impacts of those on the development of the organization?

Parker: That’s a great question. Our primary focus is to protect women and girls here in The United States from honor violence, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, and child marriage. We have a second wing of work. It deals with Islamism in the United States.

My focus is the women’s rights side of the work. I oversee all of our women’s programs. Those include honor violence, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, and child marriage. Within those areas of focus, what we do, we work to raise awareness, particularly with professionals, but also in general or with a general audience.

Those professionals who are likely to encounter survivors or at-risk individuals of the specific nature of these types of abuses and best practices for handling cases, and how to work with communities in a culturally sensitive manner.

We also work to educate legislators and encourage them to put in place laws that protect women and girls from these issues in the U.S. That is both on the federal and the state level. Our focus in those two areas are, really, mostly female genital mutilation and child marriage legislation in the U.S.

We do some research. It is new. We have done preliminary studies on forced marriage and honor violence in the United States. Finally, we work directly with women and girls facing these issues in the U.S. to find appropriate services, wherever they are.

To clarify, when I say women and girls in the U.S., it is primarily women and girls in the U.S. It is a sweet spot. But we have worked with men and boys who are facing these issues in the U.S., forced marriage and honor violence.

We also occasionally work with individuals who are overseas, because there are so few organizations working to fight these issues that we do have individuals coming to us from overseas to find support in whatever they are looking for.

I am going to bring this back to the U.S. It could be anything from someone needing legal help to get an order or protection or looking for a domestic violence shelter, or it could be someone who has been taken overseas for help to get repatriated to the United States and getting back on their feet here.

It could be someone facing a crisis of honor violence who needs immediate law enforcement help. All of this is based on a case-by-case, never know what you’re going to get, when people reach out for help.

We do not know what to expect every time. It is a lot of problem-solving and figuring out what each individual needs and then supporting them. That is the overall of our women’s program. I do a lot of policy work.

I do a lot of the training myself, whether working with professionals on how to handle these cases. We have had a lot of successes in all the areas that I mentioned. We worked with a number of states to put in anti-female genital mutilation laws.

We have, recently, worked with Michigan to put in place the most comprehensive laws on the books to protect women and girls from female genital mutilation. We have also worked in a number of states to encourage them, and successfully so, to limit or ban child marriage and have done some federal work on these issues as well.

We have had a lot of successes there. We have trained between 2,000 and 3,000 professionals on how to appropriately handle these cases. I know that those professionals are saving lives. One of the things that we talked to them about is that an individual facing these issues might only have one chance to ask for help.

When they do, they need to encounter a professional who understands the danger that they facing and to take them seriously. That is the main issue in working to protect these girls. There have, unfortunately, been these cases in all the ones mentioned.

People reach out to teachers, law enforcement, or some adult; that should have been able to help them or find help. Unfortunately, that is just not happening in every case. It is raising awareness and helping every professional in the United States understand that these should be taken seriously, which is important.

I used to be the person who handled help requests. Now, we have a couple of therapists who work with us to do that, which is terrific. In all of our programmatic areas, we have had a lot of success. I am proud of each of the individuals we have worked with.

I know the laws we are helping to put in place are having a big impact, and so is the training of the professionals.

3. Jacobsen: I have seen statistics of female genital mutilation of women and girls running from 100 million and 200 million in the world.

This also relates to the general categorization of FGM, of clitoridectomy, of infibulation, and so on, as, in essence, extreme forms of violence against women committed by families, communities, men and women elders within the family even, and so on.

With the United States, as this is the focus of the AHA, what is the prevalence of FGM, clitoridectomy, infibulation, and so on? And what other organizations are impactful in coordination against this extreme form of violence against girls and women?

Parker: Unfortunately, we cannot know exactly how prevalent FGM is, because it is held so much behind closed doors. It is so underground. However, the CDC estimates there are 513,000 women and girl in the US who have gone through FGM or who are at risk of the procedure.

That is and should be shocking to most Americans. That there are half of a million women and girls in this country. There are a number of organizations doing really terrific work on the ground in the United States on this.

One is SAHIYO – United Against Female Genital Cutting. It is founded by a survivor and works particularly with those looking for community. It does amazing work around helping survivors to get their stories out and to empower them.

They also do some legislative work as well. There’s an organization called Equality Now. It does international work and on the federal herein the US. They are doing great work to end FGM. Then there are some smaller players.

There is an organization called Forma founded by Joanna Berkoff, who is an amazing psychotherapist who has done a lot of really amazing work to support women and girls who have undergone female genital mutilation.

There are a number of organizations working on this and we’re coordinating to be complimentary and supportive of each others’ work.

4. Jacobsen: Even with the difficulty of finding those estimates, and even though we have those approximations at an international level, or in the US with 513,000 through the CDC, if we look at the mental health and physical and sexual health problems that follow from this extreme form of violence against women, what are they?

What provisions seem to work for the very negative outcome for girls and women who have undergone FGM?

Parker: I think that that’s a really important topic to talk about. I think that one thing that we should clarify is, as you mentioned, the WHO said this is an extreme form of violence against women and girls. An extreme form of gender discrimination.

We’re not talking about male circumcision; I am not suggesting that we’re pro-male circumcision at the AHA Foundation. The underlying reason for FGM is to control the sexuality of women and girls.

There are no health benefits and potentially lifelong health and psychological consequences that come along with it. Immediately following the procedure, it can include extreme pain, shock, hemorrhage, sores, infection, injury to nearby tissue, and so on.

Long-term women and girls suffer from urinary and bladder infections, infertility. Obviously, if you have gone through a more severe form of FGM, there is scarring, difficulty during childbirth, and so on. There are higher rates of death for babies born via women who have gone through FGM.

Even in a world where FGM is not causing any form of physical impact on the individual, which happens but it is difficult, if you speak with a medical provider about how possible and easy it is to perform the least physically invasive form of FGM, e.g., pricking, nicking, and piercing types labelled Type IV by the WHO, it is very, incredibly difficult to even those less severe forms to perform on an infant girl without causing scar tissue or some more of damage to the area – in a way that is not intended.

Back to the WHO, they make it very clear that it is a procedure that is not to be done in any of its forms, even by a healthcare provider. With that as an understanding, even if there are no physical impacts to a woman or girl who has gone through FGM, she could undergo lifelong psychological consequences, e.g., PTSD, depression, suicidal ideation, anxiety, guilt.

Obviously, this is not in every case, but in many cases, I’ve seen. Women face retraumatization in many different instances throughout their lifetime following FGM. That first instance of trauma was when they were cut initially. Following that, they may be retraumatized when they get first their period or when they’re married.

Their first sexual encounter could be an event that is traumatizing to them. Going to an obstetrician or gynecologist can be difficult. We have heard horror stories when they go to a gynecologist.

When they are being examined, the physician, if they are not expecting to see a girl who has undergone FGM, they have audibly gasped or made a facial reaction, a normal human reaction, to something disturbing to them.

We have had doctors have their colleagues come in to be an educational experience to them. All of this can be incredibly traumatic to them. Women and girls who come to us following FGM are seeking medical care and psychological care in many cases.

In looking for medical care, they are looking for someone who can alleviate the symptoms of what I am looking for, in the cases of infibulation. All possible flesh is removed: clitoris and inner and outer labia are removed. The wound that is left is almost entirely closed except a small hole for menstruation or urination

Many women experience an infection due to urine and fluids being backed up, and not released. Many women will have symptoms. There are women who go to doctors that provide something called reconstructive surgery following FGM.

If you have had the tissue removed, obviously, it is not something that you can add back to someone who has had healthy parts of their anatomy removed. You cannot put it back. There are doctors do what they can, doing great work, trying to restore a woman back to the way she was born to what was originally formed, as well as helping alleviate the physical symptoms.

Certainly, psychological support is called for, in many cases. We have women and girls reaching out to us to have a therapist to help with the trauma and the PTSD, and the guilt, anxiety, and other issues that I have talked about.

5. Jacobsen: If we look at the parsing of the context, or the environment in which this occurs, whether within the US or around the world, some will claim this happens within the context of religion. Others will claim this happens within the context of culture.

What is the general ratio there in terms of the context as a source of this form of acceptance in many subcultures or in many cultures around the world?

Parker: FGM is a practice, or a cultural practice, that predates all major religions. It is not mandated by any major religion. But there are certainly patriarchal societies and religious sects that have picked this up and promote it.

It is not required by Islam for example. However, the Bohra sect of Islam has picked up this practice in India. It now has that as part of their religious practices. When you talk to families about why they are doing this, the underlying reason for FGM in almost all cases is to control sexuality of women and girls.

They are trying to prove virginity on the wedding night, in the more severe forms. They are trying to curb a woman’s libido, so she is not having sex outside of marriage. Even given these ideas, there are a number of old wives’ tales that the families think are their reason behind why they need to perform female genital mutilation.

That can include things like removing body parts that are considered unclean. They are afraid the clitoris will turn into a tail if not cut. This is what they think of as far as what beautiful women look like; someone who has been cut.

In many cultures where FGM is practiced, a girl is not considered marriageable until she has been cut. So, I think that’s something that we should talk a little bit about, because when I started working at the AHAH Foundation.

I would wonder how a mom could do this to her daughter – the moms, grandmoms, and females perpetuating the practice, and the men and boys, the family, and the society. How is it that a mother can do this to her child? Why would they ever do this?

After working in this field for a while, I realized they do not do this to hurt their child. They love their children. They are not trying to do something harmful to them. They are doing what they think is best as a parent.

Someone who has undergone FGM. This might seem like the only instance of abusive experience in their family. It can be a completely loving family. It can be mothers do what they think can do to ensure a future for their daughters.

In these cultures, they’re not considered marriageable until they have been cut. It is important for the daughter and her future, and the family as a whole. Marriage is, in addition to being a way to provide for your daughter’s future, an alliance between families.

It is important for the family as a whole. These are families doing this to protect their daughters and to do the best for their families as a whole.

6. Jacobsen: Looking ahead into 2019 and even 2020, what seem like some of the more and major initiatives and programs, and partnerships, of the AHA Foundation?

Parker: We are, this year, working on a number of initiatives in terms of policy; that we are feeling really hopeful about. There is a trial happening in Michigan of the doctor who has been accused of cutting girls in the state of Michigan in a medical clinic there.

This went to trial and the doctor may have cut over 100 girls over the course of a decade according to the prosecutors. There are 9, I think, involved in the case. The judge in the federal female genital mutilation charge said that it is the anti-FGM law is unconstitutional due to federalism. It is the job of the states, they said, to outlaw and ban FGM.

During that case, the AHA Foundation submitted an amicus or friend of the court brief to support the prosecution, which, in this case, is the government. The government is appealing the case. We will submit another brief.

The result of the case is, certainly, going to be hugely impactful in the US. This is something that could be appealed up to the Supreme Court. If it is, and if the law is struck down, which we are very hopeful that it won’t be struck down, it could render the federal anti-FGM law to be null and void, which would be sad and send a horrible message.

The judges initial ruling, I think, already sends a bad message; that the US is not serious enough about protecting girls and women from this abusive practice. The appeals will be hugely impactful on women and girls in the US.

From working with women and families in the US through the AHA Foundation, the law will be something they use as an excuse or as family members, even if they are on the fence. They can get in trouble. It could be a ‘great’ tool for families to avoid cutting their girls.

One result that we have seen from this case. There is some great momentum on the state level. We have worked all along on the state level to encourage lawmakers to put in place state anti-FGM laws. This is something important for a lot of reasons.

It sets precedence in law that is not filled. It is law enforcement and prosecutors who have the tools to deal with this on a state level, which is most likely where this would be handled. Following the judge’s ruling in Michigan, that the anti-FGM law is unconstitutional; we have seen some good momentum.

Some lawmakers realizing that this is something that they need to pick up and run with if they want to protect the girls in their state. This is something that we’re excited about, including Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California which has a law and we’re helping to strengthen it, and Utah.

We’re working with a lot of states. We are working with them to make sure that they are putting in place strong laws that act as the punishment for the perpetrators and also include education and outreach for professionals and communities to prevent this practice.

We are also putting in measures to help survivors in the court of law and empowers them to take action when they become an adult if they want to do it. There are more pieces of the legislation that we would like to see put in place.

That is a big part of our work in 2019 and beyond, to make sure that the girls are protected from FGM to the extent that we can; we are also working on the state level on the child marriage issue as well.

There are also federal efforts as well; that are hugely important to us. One is to clarify the existing federal anti-FGM law. That it is okay for Congress to put in place due to the commerce clause of the constitution.

We are also looking to include FGM as part of VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) in 2019. Even though, as we discussed, this is an extreme form of violence against women and girls. It is not eligible for VAWA funding. It is a huge thing for us, and definitely a priority.

7. Jacobsen: Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion based on the conversation today?

Parker: Honestly, I just want to say, “Thank you,” to you, for bringing awareness to this. Every person that understands that this is an issue in the United States, understands that there are no health benefits and lifelong health and psychological benefits that can come along with it.

It is one more person that we can reach with this message who can talk about this with our president, hopefully, share on social media, and, maybe, call their congressperson and say they want to see the end to this in the United States.

I am super grateful to you for helping to raise awareness about this, because it is personally important to me; it is something that is really under-recognized in the US as something that might be impacting our neighbours, our classmates, our coworkers, our colleagues.

It is not something simply happening overseas. It is happening here. It is happening to American citizens. It is something that we should care about. It is something right on our doorstep and to people that we care about. We really need to start acting like it.

8. Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Amanda.

Parker: Thank you so much, Scott.

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How I Got Mixed up in This Atheist Clergy Business

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Rational Doubt

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/20

Editor’ Note: This is an excerpt from a recent interview that Scott Jacobsen of Conatus News did with me. He has generously offered to conduct interviews with Clergy project members for the Rational Doubt blog, so I offer this excerpt as an example of his work. Please note that I have kept the original Canadian spelling.

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By Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Founder of In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal and In-Sight Publishing

In brief, what is your familial background and personal story?

I think of my own story as being very boring, compared to the stories of the people I interviewed in the non-believing study I conducted with Dan Dennett. I was raised, the youngest of three children, as Roman Catholic in an Italian-American family in a small town in Western Pennsylvania.

I had a happy and very stable childhood. Although we went to church every Sunday, we weren’t very religious. My mother refused to send us to Catholic schools. She didn’t go to church much herself, claiming “claustrophobia,” and my father guiltlessly skipped holy days.

I attended church less in college and just stopped going as an adult. Though I still believed in God, there was too much silliness in Catholicism for me to take the religion seriously. After about 20 years of marriage and without children, my husband, an agnostic, and I started attending an Episcopal Church, to fill his need for community.

We both enjoyed it – especially singing in the choir. There was no pressure to believe anything – the pastor himself was openly agnostic – and the music was beautiful. About ten years ago, I realised I didn’t know much about religion from an academic point of view, so I decided to fill that gap.

After about a year of reading and taking adult education classes at church, I realised there was nothing to believe and we left. My husband, who, like me, now identifies as an atheist, has since joined an Ethical Society and a Unitarian Church. I stay home and read the paper.

What was the original interest in clinical social work and psychotherapy for you?

I once had a job as an American Red Cross caseworker that I really liked, so when I was thinking about graduate school, I decided on Social Work. Also, I had taken what was meant to be a short-term job as a tour guide at the US Capitol.

After two years, the repetition started driving me crazy. In my boredom, I couldn’t help but notice how people reacted in groups and I wanted to understand more about that. …

Most of my work as a social worker was in alcoholism counseling, which involved a lot of group work, and employee assistance programs – workplace counseling and referral….

What about in qualitative research and analysis for you?

Qualitative research, which is conducted in the form of focus groups and in-depth individual interviews, seemed like a natural outgrowth of my work as a group and individual psychotherapist. It offered more variety, flexibility, and higher pay. What’s not to like?

Would you consider yourself socially progressive? If so, why? If not, why not?

Yes – it’s just something that I eventually realised about myself as an adult. My family of origin did not guide me in any particular direction. I found myself supporting liberal rather than conservative causes. Of course, this would apply to most people who choose to go into social work. We think of ourselves as being empathic and interested in improving society for people less fortunate than ourselves.

Social progressivism tends to involve women’s rights and secularism. If advancement of women’s rights and secularism seem like the right values and movements to you, what is their importance in the early 21st century in America to you?

I’ve seen huge advances in women’s rights in my lifetime and know that many more are needed, e.g., equal pay for equal work, protecting abortion rights, and continuing the fight for LGBTQ rights. As for secularism, of course, I support that as well, and also see it as something that is happening on its own. People are naturally leaving religion, in many cases thanks to the free-flow of information and emotional support they can receive anonymously on the Internet.

Secularism “happened” in Europe and is happening here in the US, albeit more slowly and with resistance from the strong Christian Evangelical movement. The clergy I interviewed are examples of people who left religion even though the initial decision had a negative impact on their careers and relationships.

What was the original research question and methodology conducted by Professor Dennett and yourself?

Excerpted from the proposal for our original research: “It’s understandable that atheist clergy would exist, considering that academically-trained clergy routinely learn about the mythical foundation of the Bible as part of their seminary education.   What would allow clergy to present these myths as truth to their congregations and what causes some of them to reject this position? What other factors are involved when clergy “lose their faith?”  What price do they pay for this change of heart and what price does society pay? The effects of the cognitive dissonance needed to preach faith in concepts that clergy themselves no longer accept is unknown and requires study.”

What was the conclusion of the original research?

There was no formal conclusion because it was a pilot study to gauge the difficulty in finding non-believing clergy to interview and to try to figure out how best to engage them in conversation about their experiences as their beliefs changed. The larger study, chronicled in Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind, also does not have a conclusion, but rather describes the experiences of non-believing clergy.

In Preachers who are not believers (2010) published in Evolutionary Psychology, you describe the spectrum of God’s definition, as follows:

…frank anthropomorphism at one extreme – a God existing in time and space with eyes and hands and love and anger – through deism, a somehow still personal God who cares but is nevertheless outside time and space and does not intervene, and the still more abstract Ground of all Being, from which (almost?) all anthropomorphic features have been removed, all the way to frank atheism…

Actually, Dan Dennett wrote that part! But I agree with it. This is his formulation of the various ways all kinds of people define God. It’s not a specific finding of our research with clergy.

Does the elasticity of the definition of God support the unanimity and cohesion amongst the preachers and the congregation in church life? That is, everyone believes everyone else believes the same thing without believing the same thing.

I won’t opine on what people (members of religious congregations) I’ve never talked to in depth are thinking about but not saying. I can guess that among religious fundamentalists there is an assumption that clergy and congregants hold the same beliefs – the ones written as the inerrant word of God in their Holy Book.

More progressive congregations focus more on community and in acting in ways that reflect the goodness of their religion. Speaking from my personal experiences in two progressive Episcopal churches, exactly what people believe is not so important.

Can the research findings expand to local temples, mosques, synagogues, and cathedrals as well?

Again, I can’t say. In our larger study of 35, we did interview two rabbis, but we could not find any imams to participate. Anecdotally, in conversation with Jewish lay people, they don’t seem to think believing in “God” is important to being an observant Jew and were not surprised or concerned to learn that some Rabbis do not believe. Christians, in contrast, were often shocked and disturbed by the very concept of a preacher who did not believe.

The Clergy Project is intended to “provide support, community, and hope to current and former religious professionals who no longer hold supernatural beliefs.” What have been the notable impacts of The Clergy Project?

… I have heard from members that the forum discussions often involve members who left the clergy years ago who are now helping new people navigate their feelings, their relationships, and their plans for the future.

Another popular feature of TCP is the outplacement program, provided by RiseSmart, which helps clergy write resumes and find secular jobs. Carter Warden, a founder, was the first member to use the service, which helped him find a good administrative position in a state university near his home.

You edit the blog called Rational Doubt. It is a place where the “public and non-believing and doubting clergy can interact.” What are some emotionally touching aspects common to many of the stories from those told in either Rational Doubt or The Clergy Project or via your clergy research?

People go into the clergy to “do good”, but because of their changing beliefs, they feel they have to leave a profession which they otherwise enjoy and are good at. They may love the music, the counseling, doing “good works” in the community, and comforting the ill or the grieving. These are activities that don’t require belief in a deity, but that belief is expected of clergy. They are so sad to have to leave the good parts of the job behind, that many try to believe, or to act as if they believe.

Many suffer greatly in the process of realising they don’t believe. Many try mightily to hold on to their beliefs, going through periods of doubt that don’t return to belief (as is supposed to happen). They may consult many people or books in the process. Changing from belief to non-belief is not something that they ever imagined and when it starts to happen, it’s not something they actively want.…

On the positive side, when I asked research participants what they felt they had gained and lost as a result of their beliefs changing, they all felt they had gained much more than they lost, often citing being at peace with themselves and seeing and appreciating the world as it really is. I remember seeing their faces light up when they told me what they had gained, despite losses they experienced in relationships and income. It was very gratifying to know that they felt they had come to the right conclusion and that their struggles ultimately had great value.

Any recommended thinkers or authors on the subject of non-believing clergy other than Professor Dennett and yourself?

Many members of The Clergy Project have written their own books – Jerry DeWitt, David Madison, Fernando Alcantar, Drew Bekius (coming in 2017), Dan Barker, Bart Ehrman, etc. Also, Catherine Dunphy wrote a book in 2015 about The Clergy Project, called From Apostle to Apostate.

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Interview with Terry Plank, Past President of The Clergy Project

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Rational Doubt

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/30

Editor’s Note: As promised, here is another interview by the journalist who interviewed me for Conatus News. This time he talked to TCP’s most recent past president. I’ve known Terry for a few years now, but must say, I learned a lot I didn’t know by reading this interview. Maybe you will too.

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By Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Founder of In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal and In-Sight Publishing

You published the story of the personal transition “from agnostic to believer to atheist” on The Clergy Project public website on October 25, 2014. In a prior time, you were a “Christian in the Church of Christ,” and earned an M.Div. at Fuller Theological Seminary and were a pastor in 5 churches. Since that time, other activities, initiatives, insights, and relationships could have developed for you. Let’s explore some of the updates. Those leaving a main source of communal and social activities tend to need a replacement. What have been some important developments in initiatives for the recreation of a social world for those transitioning out of pastoral duties, where you directly participate or indirectly advocate?

Terry Plank

I had no communal or organized social activities before joining the church after meeting and marrying a Christian. So, basically, I returned to my pre-Christian state. There have been stints in organizations like Rotary, our local semi-professional theatre, social activism, Humanist Society Board, but those were not a replacement for feeling a loss or seeking community, but commitments to the goals and objectives of a particular organization of meeting a need in our area. Except for the early years when our children were young, even my work in the church was not really based in any way on a desire or need for communal life, it was commitment to God’s work in the world.

Let me situate this, I grew up as an only child in a home where we had no social life outside of the three of us. I was very involved in theatre, music and such, but not out of a desire for relationships or being with people. I had few close friends in HS or College. Now, I’ve recaptured that triad with my wife and our dog! Actually, we have great relationships with our grown daughters and grandchildren, but they don’t live locally so it’s not a regular involvement in person. My wife and I are of like-mind in nearly everything and have a very meaningful relationship. That said, we are both introverts and value alone time greatly. She is a different kind of introvert, having many close women friends she spends time with. I, on the other hand, am kind of a gregarious loner, a personable and friendly recluse.

I have been very involved in leadership at TCP, most recently President of the Board. I have some terrific relationships with other TCP leaders and workers, but those are online, distance relationships centered around accomplishing the Mission of TCP.

As time has passed since the last report, any new insights into the post-pastoral life?

Basically, I just stepped back into a pre-pastoral life. Eventually, I began to study and read more about science, philosophy, history, Skepticism, Freethought, & Humanism. That didn’t strengthen my rejection of religion, just validated what I had discovered for myself trying to make sense of the Bible, myself, and reality.

What is the single greatest professional difficulty in serving the church as an atheist and leaving the church?

For me, there was no difficulty. I had a degree in Theatre Arts and a previous for another advanced degree and career in retail management before becoming a pastor and returned to that. Within a couple of years, I returned to Graduate School and became a psychotherapist, eventually moving on to consulting as a Search Marketing Professional and operating a wedding business. I retired from Search Marketing & still operate the wedding business.

What is the single greatest personal, emotional difficulty?

Dealing with aging and physical limitations due to having Diffuse Idiopathic Skeletal Hyperostosis & Arthritis. I don’t have the same mobility and stamina that I’ve had over the years. So, hiking is more limited, backpacking and snowshoeing are out. Experiencing my stiffness and limited mobility, walking/hiking looking down at the pavement, dealing with fatigue, it’s taking a lot of introspection on what it means to be human in the world. Fortunately, my mind is unaffected and as long as I slow down the pace, I can still do meaningful work at the computer and out in the world performing marriages. We still camp and I take road trips. I don’t fear death, but am aware each day that at 75 my life will end any day now, definitely within the next 20 years. That’s not something I dwell on, but it influences making decisions on how I want to live my remaining years.

Are the sacrifices different for men pastors than for women pastors?

I don’t know if you mean during ministry or after, but either way I’ve never had a relationship with a woman pastor so I don’t have any experience to draw upon.

Thank you for your time, Terry.

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Interview with John Harkey Gibbs

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Rational Doubt

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/20

Editor’s Note: Here is another profile of a Clergy Project member by Conatus News reporter Scott Douglas Jacobsen. Note that he cleverly noted and investigated an odd word that the former minister used in his Twitter profile.

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By Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Founder of In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal and In-Sight Publishing

Jacobsen: You published the story of your personal transition on The Clergy Project website on October 25, 2014. You described how you were in seminary, but became more involved in the Joseph Campbell orientation towards theology and mythological narratives and themes. You said you had been in ministry for 14 ½ years when you left it. What have been some notable activities in the last 2-3 years for you?

Gibbs: In the last few years, I’ve become more involved with The Clergy Project. I serve on its board and am the chair of the communications committee. I also am a screener. Screeners interview applicants who desire to become participants. Also, I’m working on a book whose working title is Recovering Humanity: Finding our hearts without losing our heads.

Those leaving a main source of communal and social activities tend to need a replacement. What have been some important initiatives for re-creating a social world for people transitioning out of pastoral duties, where you directly participate or indirectly advocate?

I agree that community involvement is often one of the main things that those who have left the church miss, and I (at least theoretically) support the idea of building secular communities. I have participated some with a local group of atheists, agnostics and freethinkers, but didn’t really click with it so much. I participate in several virtual communities, most notably The Clergy Project, where I have found much connection. I’m an introvert, so I tend to prefer intimate settings over more public venues. I have lived in the same city for over twenty years now and have friends, many of whom are atheists, who more than meet most of my social needs.

You use the term “Humanuality” in your Twitter profile, which you describe as “spirituality sans anything ghostly.” Before that reference, I never heard or read the word. What is it? Who invented it? Why is the neologism important for others, and for eventual common use?

“Humanuality” is a word I made up. It removes the root of the word spirituality, spirit-, and replaces it with human-. The word is intended to fill the void left when use of the word spirituality is abandoned. Not everything associated with spirituality is supernaturally spooky, but there are enough problems with the word to move away from it. However, humanuality is more of a shift in focus than a rejection of spirituality. It is more of an affirmation than a negation. The insertion of human- into the word is more significant than the removal of spirit-.

Any new insights into the post-ministerial life?

Yes, it is less about filling a void than it is about establishing a new equilibrium and finding a new identity. That can take a long time.

What is the single greatest professional difficulty you experienced in serving the church and then leaving the church?

Being a pastor is a role that roots itself deeply in the psyche and is thoroughly embedded in a fairly insular community. Leaving such a role can be very disorienting. And not being able to really use most of the social network I had built up made the career transition difficult. In addition, a lot of people are suspicious of former ministers. They either don’t like religion or they think something must be wrong with me for leaving.

What was your single greatest personal, emotional difficulty in this process?

I was left with a sense of failure for getting into ministry the first place (which felt like a mistake in retrospect), for how impaired I was as a minister due to a lot of inner turmoil, and for the years I spent pursuing a dead end rather than more promising avenue.

Are the sacrifices different for men pastors than for women pastors?

Women in ministry are more marginalized than men. I’m not sure what that means in terms of the sacrifices they make. I think men tend to have their identities more linked to how successful they are in their careers, so a loss of a career can be harder for men.

Thank you for your time.

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Interview with “Scott” of Skeptic Meditations

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Rational Doubt

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/27

Editor’s Note: Rational Doubt is grateful to have another Clergy Project member interview done by Scott Jacobsen of Conatus News. This one is a little different in that the member being interviewed is not what you immediately think of when the word “clergy person” comes to mind. Read on.

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Founder of In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal and In-Sight Publishing

Scott Jacobsen: You published the story of your personal transition from being part of a monastic order called the Self-Realization Fellowship Monastic Order to not being a part of it. The story is on The Clergy Project website, dated May 27, 2015. You were known as Brahmachari Scott. Now, you’re just Scott (me, too). For those leaving monastic orders, what are important things to keep in mind?

“Scott”: It was a big deal to leave the Self-Realization Monastic Order (the Order or SRF) after 14 years. It was a pivotal decision in life. I joined the Order when I was 24, expecting to be a monk for the rest of my life. I took vows of loyalty, obedience and chastity. All, purportedly, for finding God and self-realization. My justification for being a monk was that purpose. But it was complex.

For reasons as complicated as life can become, I felt out of place. I realized the monastery was not for me. This wasn’t the end, though. In the most important ways, my journey unfolded when I chose to come back to the world.

Before leaving the Order, I spent months acclimating myself to the outside world. It was like dipping toes into cold water before the plunge.

Instead of attending the regularly scheduled monastic classes, I joined a local Toastmasters club. I practiced public speaking. Rather than turn my doubts and fears inward—as I did for decades, I visited an outside psychotherapist, and confided my hopes and fears to her. Before seeing that psychotherapist, I spent years weighing the pros and cons of staying in or leaving the Order. I built an underground support community of trusted current and former monastics, church members and biological family.

At the time, I had a motto:

“I’m not moving away from anything. I’m moving towards something.”

Something great, I hoped. I did not know, but I felt I was moving towards something great based on a vision. I was developing a plan for a new life. That energized me. The pain of feeling “stuck” was greater than my fear of leaving the Order. I was one of the lucky few. I escaped. When I say “escaped,” I mean physically and psychologically.

Many monks from the Order I lived with still live in the monastery. Many others left. However, some of those who left still psychologically stuck within the Order. The monastery is still with them. It is more important where one resides psychologically rather than physically, in my opinion, speaking now from over a decade of experience. Some people have the privilege to move. Several monks stayed in the Order who were instrumental in helping me become who I am today. For me, leaving the Order was about moving towards, rather than away, from something.

What are some expected difficulties—personal, familial, and professional—in transitioning out of a monastic order?

The difficulties included learning how to reintegrate into society. We had extremely limited access to the outside world. The monks were allowed to watch one movie a month, and even that was censored. The Monks’ Library contained only censored materials: books of saints and yogis, the LA Times newspaper and magazines like National Geographic and Sports Illustrated. Access to the internet, during my tenure, was blocked or filtered and our phone calls were monitored for ‘billing’ purposes. We were charged for long-distance calls, which discouraged outside contact. Censoring of our exposure to the world, we were told, was for our own spiritual development.

Life inside was like a cult.

Upon re-entry into the world, I felt woefully inadequate in practical matters of daily life.

To transition, I learned how to be an adult, and to be assertive, to negotiate and pay my bills. I had to reintegrate into society, rebuild my life, relationships, and start a career. When I left, I had no job, no home and no family to live with. I had to prove to myself that I could make my way in the world. Within two years of leaving, I enrolled in university and graduated with a bachelor’s and a master’s degree while working for a corporation.

Have there been substantial changes in the last 1-2 years?

Yes, after nearly 10 years at the corporate job, my department was eliminated. Since then, I started a successful business consulting practice. Also, I’m teaching at a local college, while looking for my next corporate job.

I was intrigued by your description of monastic life on the Clergy Project Website:

…monks didn’t just sit all-day chanting, praying, and navel-gazing.

Monastery routine consisted of meditation, classes, recreation, 9-to-5 jobs: ministering to a worldwide religious congregation at the Self-Realization Fellowship churches, temples, meditation centers and groups, and spiritual retreats. Each monk received $40 per month cash allowance, room and board, paid medical care, and all-you-could-eat lacto-ovo-vegetarian buffet.

You were working in rather extreme conditions. What was running through your mind? What is the insight gained since you left about monastic life, e.g. working conditions?

I was convinced by church doctrine and the spiritual mythologies. They stated that renunciation and self-sacrifice was an exalted path to God, self-realization and spiritual freedom. However, a few years after leaving, I was able to step back and take a stern look at the conditions of the Order.

In the monastery, I lived inside a closed, cult-like system. SRF is a Hindu-inspired meditation group.

The followers—consciously or unconsciously—buy into false premises taught by the church. Once one believes the false premises, it becomes easy to surrender to the work and spiritual routine for hours, days, weeks, months and years. You hand over control to teacher, guru, church or religion.

SRF puts a premium on meditation techniques as the highest way to spiritual development or self-realization. Examples of some of the premises we believed:

“You are unaware. Meditation is the way to unbroken awareness. If you are not fully aware, keep meditating. Or, you are a god, but don’t know it. Meditation is the path to know you are a god. If you don’t know you are a god, keep meditating. Or, you are asleep (ignorant of your delusion) and don’t know it. Meditation is the way to wake up from delusion. If you are in delusion, keep meditating.”

Now, I look back and regret having spent precious years in the pursuit of the Order’s false premises. But, better late than never, I outgrew them.

The Scientific American article was the linchpin to becoming an atheist within your social circle, friends and family. What seems to be the main reason for transitioning out of monastic life?

There’s so many reasons why I left.

Mostly, I needed to change and grow. The Order wasn’t about change or growth. Lord knows, I tried. Ultimately, the church and its leader were about perpetuating the revealed teachings of the teachers. I was lucky; I saw through the false premises of the church. I never regretted leaving it.

There are local agnostic, atheist, humanist, and freethinker organizations to provide support for people. How can friends and family give support?

Family and friends play a vital role in supporting people like me who leave extreme religions or cult-like groups. My family accepted me. I can not think of anything special that family and friends can do that is different that what true friends and family do: laugh, care, and do things together. Naturally, different friends and family serve different needs for us. It was most helpful for me to connect with a variety of people from different cultures or worldviews. Having a good therapist helped, I did not become a burden for friends and loved ones with my issues.

You created Skeptic Meditations as well. It is a general resource on skepticism with a blog. How can people become involved with Skeptic Meditations?

I created Skeptic Meditations to critically examine the supernatural claims of yogis, mystics, and meditators, and to muse and critique my experiences inside the SRF/the Order.

Christians have many resources to question and doubt, if they choose. After coming out of the Order, which is a Hindu-inspired meditation group, I found precious few resources for people like me who had left Christianity and questioned Eastern religion, especially yoga meditation. Skeptic Meditations explores the hidden, sometimes darker, side of yoga, mindfulness, and meditation.

Thank you for your time, Scott.

I’ve enjoyed your questions and chatting with you. Thank you.

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Interview with Producer of Atheist Clergy Documentary

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Rational Doubt

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/05

Editor’s Note: Here’s another Jacobsen interview, with great pleasure. It’s with Leslea Mair, of Zoot Pictures, the only person besides me who has done extensive in-person interviews non-believing clergy. Many of her subjects also participated in the Dennett-LaScola study. A major difference is that Leslea did her work on camera and made a documentary out of it! She was also able to do something I couldn’t — capture a wife’s reaction to a de-converting pastor husband. Fascinating. /Linda LaScola, Editor

*[This is a portion of the original post and is edited for clarity and brevity.]

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By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Tell me about your family background.

Leslea Mair: I grew up in Regina, Saskatchewan, out on the prairies. My family belonged to the very progressive United Church of Canada.

Nobody believed much of anything. You stand up and say the nice creeds, but you don’t put much into it. It’s all about how you interact with the world. The way you treat people. It’s basically,

“Try to be nice and try not to hurt anybody.”

I did have a relationship with a fundamentalist family in my early adult life, which was the first time I saw the more extreme religious end of the scale. I’ve always been interested in religious people because they believe in a way I don’t seem wired for.

Jacobsen: Can you expand on that?

Mair: I think some people are more wired to belief and other people aren’t. If it doesn’t make logical sense to me, it’s not something I can put a lot of store by. As a young child, I thought ghost stories were pretty thrilling, but ultimately, I have say the evidence doesn’t stack up.

Some people are more inclined to be more evidentiary in their beliefs and others are more inclined to magical thinking.

Jacobsen: Can you recall any people or events that influenced you away from belief or away from the United Church of Canada?

Mair: I don’t think so. We never believed any of the supernatural stuff, so I guess you could say I’m a deeply agnostic or functionally atheist person and have been my entire life. I never shifted to or from religion at all, but I do find religious people interesting.

Jacobsen: Tell me about Losing our Religion, which is a new documentary film about people who have lost their faith.

Mair: The film is essentially about preachers who are not believers and what atheists do without a church community. The inspiration for it was general curiosity — a handy trait for a documentary filmmaker.

I read Dennett and Linda LaScola’s initial research paper when it came out, and I thought,

“Well, that’s interesting.”

I’d read lots of deconversion stories on atheist blogs, but hadn’t ever read a preacher’s deconversion story. A few years later they did a follow-up study and The Clergy Project was formed, making me realize that non-belief is affecting a lot of clergy, not just Christians. I contacted The Clergy Project, told them I was documentary filmmaker interested in pursuing this subject and they agreed to tell members about it.

Jacobsen: What have been some of the more difficult recollections of people transitioning out of pastoral life?

Mair: The hardest thing is you’ve got the panic of having to find a job and trying to redefine yourself. Because being clergy is not just a job; it’s an identity. Hiding your beliefs is very stressful. It’s tied to your economic, family and social wellbeing. It becomes overwhelming.

We followed a married couple, Brandon and Jen Murphy, through their life in the ministry and all the way to getting their lives back on track after leaving. It was a tough time for them. It was incredibly generous of them to let us in on a difficult part of their lives.

Jacobsen: How do people’s social relationships change?

Mair: When you stop believing, you’re still the same person you were when you were a believer. Just one of the details about you has changed. But people see the lack of belief, especially if you’re a minister, as a tremendous betrayal. They react badly a lot of the time. There’s a special cruelty saved for de-converts that’s ten times worse for ministers. But while a minister may have stopped believing in the supernatural, the way they speak, especially Evangelicals, may not change.

Jen in our documentary describes it as “Christianese.” It’s as if being part of a religious community seeps into us at almost a cellular level. We don’t even realize how invested we are with it or how it shapes us, even after we no longer believe in the supernatural.

Jacobsen: Gretta Vosper made the difficult transition in real time, in the national news.

Mair: Yes. Gretta is in our film! She is a member of The Clergy Project and has served on its board of directors. Gretta is interesting because she is still in the pulpit. She is not willing to walk away from it. Her United Church of Canada congregation is fine with it, but the larger church organization is not. This surprised me. Having grown up within the institution, it never seemed like we were heavily invested in belief anyway. I think a lot of progressive churches stand to gain if they could find a way to accept secular people into their congregation.

Churches are dying out. The numbers don’t lie. And the progressive churches are dying out faster than other churches. So they need to start embracing people who embrace science. Many churches do a good job of accepting science, but they’re still hanging on to those threads of the supernatural that don’t make sense anymore to a lot of people.

People seem fearful of taking the leap into the next thing, which Gretta is pushing them to do. Our film was reviewed in the United Church Observer. The review didn’t say anything about us being wrong, but it did mention that I lacked “nuance” in my view of religion. I found that incredibly funny because it’s like,

“I’m not going to attack you on the substance of what you said. I’m going to say you don’t get it.”

It’s similar to how a lot of church organizations reacted to Dan Dennett and Linda LaScola’s study on preachers who weren’t believers. They said,

“We knew that. It’s not a big surprise to us.”

But then they don’t want to talk about it.

Jacobsen: It seems like a situation where someone knows that a person they don’t like hasn’t broken the law, but they can say, “Well, they went against the spirit of the law.”

Mair: Yes, something like that. It’s a bit of a vague thing, like –

“I don’t like where you’ve gone with this.”

Jacobsen: What have some of the early reactions to the film been outside of the United Church Observer?

Mair: We’ve had actually quite positive reviews from lots of people. Surprisingly, I haven’t heard much from people who are religious, or from churches or people who are believers. What I get from people in the atheist community is they quite like the film. We’ve had lots of positive feedback. A few people who are pastors or former pastors have sent me messages, saying things like:

“Thank you for making this film, this is great. It was so nice to see a story that is partly like my story out there.”

People want talk about other ways we can organize ourselves into communities. What happens when you do stop believing? Where do you go from there?

We tried to have that conversation. We didn’t want to say that all religion is bad and religious people are stupid. It’s been done to death quite frankly. It’s not a positive message. It’s not something I was interested in exploring. But the idea of “What now?” appealed to me.

The more I talked to ministers who didn’t believe anymore, the more I realized they’re still ministers. Some of them, like Mike Aus, who started Houston Oasis, are continuing to be ministers in a secular way. I found utterly that fascinating. Bart Campolo is a humanist chaplain. There are people doing positive things outside of belief to provide what people have gotten from religion. It was so cool.

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Conversation with Atheist Minister Gretta Vosper – Current Context

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Rational Doubt

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/01

Editor’s Note: I think you’ll enjoy this update in the ongoing saga of Clergy Project member and United Church of Canada minister, Gretta Vosper. In a recent interview with Scott Douglas Jacobsen, she tells us about her thoughts on preserving and propagating the values (not the supernatural beliefs) that progressive religious communities have provided up until now. I think she has an important point. This interview is lightly edited. We thank Scott, who has posted here before, for sharing his interviews with the Rational Doubt Blog.

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By Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Founder of In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal and In-Sight Publishing
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You have been a controversial in Christian culture in Canada, willingly or not. For those that do not know your background and activities, please fill us in.

Gretta Vosper: I am currently a minister in the United Church of Canada. This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of my ordination and I’ve been serving a congregation in West Hill – the very east end of Toronto – since 1997.

A few years into our work together, I realized that the church language I had grown up with was problematic. I had been taught to use such language to describe concepts and ideas that could be better described using plain English.

It misled my congregants to think I believed in a supernatural, theistic being called God, which I did not. It also prevented people without such beliefs from experiencing what I call the “off-label” benefits of the church community – belonging, recognition, affirmation, and an increased sense of well being that comes with those things.

After engaging my church community in a conversation about that dissonance, we began the work of creating a theologically barrier-free space. West Hill is now a haven for those who do not believe any religious concepts as well as continuing to serve those who believe, but do not need theological language.

Unfortunately, rather than my denomination recognizing that it had, over the past many decades, trained leaders to serve this constituency, my denomination chose, instead, to retreat to a more conservative theology.

In doing so, our work at West Hill became controversial among those who did not know what we were doing or why. Their complaints led to a heresy trial, which is currently being conducted under the guise of a “Disciplinary Review.” The end result may be that I am stripped of my credentials and no longer able to serve my community in leadership.

Jacobsen: You are involved in an organization called The Oasis Network. There is a brief statement of values on the website:

People are more important than beliefs.

Reality is known through reason.

Meaning comes from making a difference.

Human hands solve human problems.

Be accepting and be accepted.

What does the organization do in the community of the formally irreligious or the formerly religious?

Vosper: The Oasis Network has grown thanks to people experienced the “off-label benefits” of church. They do not hold religious beliefs, but they want to create meaningful community. Also, there are others who have no experience of church who are also looking for a place where meaningful dialogue happens and deep friendships can be nurtured.

Each Oasis community operates autonomously but collaborates with all the others. Research indicates that in order to provide the kind of experiences that allow people to flourish, communities need to meet weekly; so Oasis communities do that. They can pick whenever they want to meet but most of them have found that Sunday morning is the best time – it’s not a school or work night and most people have it free.

Oasis gatherings replicate the church gatherings without the doctrine and, for the most part, without the religious trappings you’d expect to find in church. For instance, there is a speaker each week, but most Oasis communities don’t sing. They welcome a variety of local musicians who are happy for a gig with a really attentive audience.

West Hill still sings, because it grew out of a tradition that the congregation adapted beyond doctrine. So we sing songs and hymns that have no mention of God or Jesus but reflect the humanitarian values we espouse. And people don’t, of course, pray to an interventionist God but some of them – not all – like West Hill, allow for a time for participants to share stuff happening in their lives – good or bad.

And there is a coffee time when some of the most important stuff happens: people get to know one another, become involved in one another’s lives. It’s magical, if I can use that word!

Jacobsen: What is the relevance of such as organization now? How did you become involved with it?

Vosper: I think Oasis communities are filling a very important need in a world that is emerging from social experiments for which we cannot predict the outcomes. As I’ve noted, there are serious off-label benefits to religion related to personal well being. This may sound self-centered, but personal well being is related to our ability to engage in our communities and the world beyond our front doors. We have built our social democracies with the input of people who felt good enough about themselves and confident enough about what they had to offer that they engaged beyond their own “tribe” in the wider community.

Liberal Christianity transfers positive social values in a way that conservative iterations do not. As a result, the great liberal Christian institutions of the twentieth century helped embed those social values we cherish in our communities.

We are now watching the demise of those Christian institutions. And it is easy for those who do not hold religious beliefs to dismiss the death of these institutions as a good thing. But it isn’t. Liberal Christians helped negotiate the social fabric of our nation, mitigating the effects of the fundamentalist versions of its own story and the individualistic relativism of an unchecked libertarianism.

What the loss of institutions like United and Anglican Churches of Canada might mean for the future of Canada’s social democracy is unknown but I’d be willing to bet it will be a meaner, and less comfortable country than what I was privileged to grow up in. Also, it will be subject to the influences of those two powers – religious fundamentalism and individualistic libertarianism. That isn’t a pretty picture. So I think the loss of these institutions might be tragic.

Jacobsen: With a very rapidly growing, and often young, irreligious population in the country, what can or should be done to accommodate them? (e.g., developing secular or atheist churches, or Sunday Assemblies, or organizations such as The Oasis Network, etc.

Vosper: Building on my concerns for Canada’s social democracy, I think it is very important that we find ways to engage individuals in communities that present humanitarian values as central to each person and every neighborhood.

Liberal Christian institutions that are closing churches every week need to assess the cost of those closures which, as I’ve said, go far beyond their statistical and revenue losses. Perhaps their legacy could be using money from the sale of those buildings as an investment in the future. They could lay the foundations for secular communities like Oasis, by taking the ethos that those institutions have nurtured that define this nation, and craft it in ways that speak to and engage new generations and their emergent needs.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Gretta.

Bio: Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Founder of In-Sight Publishing and In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal.

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References

The Oasis Network. (2017). http://www.peoplearemoreimportant.org/.

Vosper, G. (2017). http://www.grettavosper.ca/about/.

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An Interview with Houzan Mahmoud — Co-Founder, Culture Project

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Dabran Platform

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017

Houzan Mahmoud is the Co-Founder of Culture Project. She is a women’s rights activist, campaigner, and defender, and a feminist. In this wide-ranging and exclusive interview, Mahmoud discusses the Kurds, Iraq, women’s rights, and more.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You are a women’s rights activist, feminist, and an anti-war activist. You were born in Iraqi Kurdistan. What were the moments of political awakening for you?

Houzan Mahmoud: One of the things I’ll never forget is the break-out of war between Iraq and Iran. I was only six-years-old at the time. Iraq’s bloody dictator Saddam Hussein coming to political power in 1979 changed our lives in Kurdistan and Iraq forever. Being Kurdish poses all sorts of problems as it is, and living under the fascist regime of Saddam made things incredibly hard for my family. Prior to Saddam coming to power, my brothers took up arms during late 70’s against Iraq’s regime, I was too little to remember the particulars. However, what I do know is that from 1973 to 1991 I grew up and lived under one of the most horrendous regimes in modern history.

I am forty-four years old now, but I still live with the horrors I faced during my childhood and adolescence years living in Iraq. From the day I was born, all the way to this moment, all I have witnessed is war, a never ending war in Iraq. That’s why even my life in London is very much shaped and affected by the events that have and are still unfolding in Iraq and Kurdistan. I have many shared memories with my own people from the region, memories of struggle, loss of loved ones, horrors of genocide, and the pain of having to leave our homes again and again. I live like a nomad; even if I live in a home I always think to myself “I am not sure how long I will be living here — where next?”

Jacobsen: How did you come to align with the principles inherent in feminism and anti-war activism?

Mahmoud: I grew up in a warzone, a climate of long lasting and bloody wars, a constant exodus and displacement. I am strongly opposed to war because it only brings devastation and abject poverty. It destroys homes, it destroys entire lives. However, I wouldn’t say that I am a pacifist largely due to the environment in which I was born. As Kurds, we are always subjected to the horror of war, occupation, and repetitive cultural, linguistic and physical genocides. For example, I support the armed struggle of Rojava against the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS). In such cases, you can have one option: you either take up arms or be ruled by the monstrous forces of ISIS.

As for my feminist principles, there were various reasons that are personal, social and political. Of course, when you grew up in a socially-conservative society, a place in which every move you make somehow amounts to either shame or honour, if you adopt progressive views there is considerable backlash, you become a ‘rebel’. The mentality that women are ‘inferior’ and men are superior is somehow imbued within almost every aspects of daily life — politics, art and literature. The language we speak carries a great deal of words that reinforce women’s subordination. I must admit that from a very early age, I was aware of my own position in my society, I felt trapped, powerless and lonely. I felt stranded on a small planet that was destroyed by war. Making the smallest demand for women’s rights felt like a crime. Everything was about war, killing, survival and political-struggle against the enemy. There was little room for feminist ideas. Even when I joined a leftist political party, hoping that it provide the equality I sought after, I felt it was a man’s club. I left it and started reading feminist books intensively, as well as the history of feminism and the different schools of thoughts. I found within feminism a home, a place in which an ideology truly spoke for women. So, yes, going through a painful life journey full of loss and being a woman was and still is not easy. That’s why feminism is vital to me, to my thinking, activism and worldview.

Jacobsen: What are the more immediate concerns for women’s rights relevant to the Iraqi Kurdish community?

Mahmoud: There are many issues to fight against, such as so-called ‘honour killings’, female genital mutilation (FGM), forced and arranged marriages, and other forms of violence — like many other societies in the world. Kurdish women are fighting against all of these issues, and they’re fighting outside invaders too — such as ISIS. So the problems are not limited, but are changing and are varied in addition to the political instability that, as we know, forays into the lives of women and their rights.

Jacobsen: You co-founded Culture Project, which is a platform for “Kurdish writers, feminists, artists, and activists.” What inspired it — its theme and title?

Mahmoud: I am one of the founders of Culture Project and have supported it, as well as having worked with various organisations and campaigns that highlight and assuage violence against women. One thing that was missing was a holistic approach to the important need of raising awareness about gender and feminism and challenging cultural productions that are patriarchal and male dominated. So I discussed the idea with a couple of friends and supporters about creating such a platform, a platform that supported those people who have non-conformist views, as well as challenging regressive/conservative norms and values which are “traditional”. This platform is open for all regardless of sex and gender. We would love to bring forward new faces, young writers and others in order to create a debate and produce new knowledge that challenges the old schools of thought. As for the name, I thought that if we give it a name that gave our organisation the appearance it is female-only, it will just limit our scope of work. We decided to call it Culture Project in order to be inclusive of all people: activists, writers, philosophers, feminists, novelists, poets, etc.

Jacobsen: What have been some of its more popular articles — title and contents?

Mahmoud: We have various writers on both our Kurdish and English websites — websites proving to be very popular. Of course, on the Kurdish website we have far more writers, poets, feminist writers, philosophical essays, art and cultural reviews, etc., as well as short stories. On our English website we have a very well-informed new generation of young Kurds who are active politically and are critical of the status-quo in Kurdistan. They challenge existing gender relations. You can find some very interesting poems, short stories, artistic-writing, and essays. One of the important pillars of our project is that we have gender and feminist awareness at its core. We promote and motivate our writers to be gender sensitive and champion feminist positions. When we were in Kurdistan in May, we hosted a debate on Feminism and Art, which was very well attended and created a very interesting debate.

Jacobsen: As a secular feminist have there been threats to your life, or others involved with the project?

Mahmoud: There have been several threats directed at me when we launched our Anti Sharia Campaign in Kurdistan and Iraq back in 2005. Even now when I write and criticise Islamism and advocate for feminist ideals I get hate mail, threats and expletive diatribes on Social media. Also, one of our writers who openly writes against Islamism received letters containing death threats. The fact is that those of us who are non-compromising and are open in our criticism of Islam and Islamism our lives are automatically in danger. We are not safe in either the Middle East nor in the UK.

Jacobsen: What are the unique concerns of women and girls in war in contrast to boys and men, in general?

Mahmoud: One of the major features of all wars is the use of rape as a weapon of war. Most of the times women in war situations end up becoming victims to rape, trafficking, sexual slavery and dealing with the consequences of the devastations that war brings to their societies. For example, women who become widows in socially conservative societies who have very little welfare are living in dire conditions. Conversely, men and boys, who are fighting, face death, injuries and other war traumas. However, in some cases men who are caught as prisoners of war are sexually assaulted as an act of humiliation in order to breakdown their ‘manhood’. The case of the Yezidi genocide committed by ISIS symbolises this horror. Women were taken as spoils of war; they could be raped, sold and turned into slaves. Men who did not convert were killed.

Jacobsen: Looking into the past a bit, you were one of the speakers for the March, 2003 London, United Kingdom anti-war rally. What was the content of, and the reaction to, the speech?

Mahmoud: I used to take part in anti-war demonstrations against US-lead wars in Afghanistan. Later on, when the US and its allies decided to attack Iraq in 2003, I became more involved and active in the anti-war efforts in UK and elsewhere. I asserted my opposition to the war on Iraq, despite the fact of being Kurdish and someone who has suffered immensely under Saddam’s regime. I still didn’t think that any foreign intervention was going to improve our lives. I also emphasised that this war will only bring more terrorism because it will strengthen political Islam, i.e. Islamism. Some people on the political Left liked my opposition to the war but disliked my opposition to political Islam, as they view them as an “anti-imperialist” resistance. To me, however, this is absurd — how can a terrorist force that kills, beheads, and oppresses women have anything to do with resisting imperialism?

There is no doubt that we all wanted an end to Saddam’s totalitarian regime, but I was opposed to foreign invasion. In this region we don’t have a good experience with foreign interventions and colonialism throughout history. Imperialist powers invade, destroy and support or install puppet regimes to serve their interest only. Look at Iraq and Afghanistan — since the invasion we are faced with much more terrorism, instability, poverty, displacement and mass migration of people. There is a humanitarian disaster and an endless tragedy of war and bloodshed.

Jacobsen: As well, you have been on major news media such as The Guardian, The Independent, BBC, CNN, NBC, and Sky News. You have campaigned strongly against Sharia law in addition to the oppression of women in Iraq and Kurdistan. Does this campaigning against Sharia law extend into the international domain?

Mahmoud: Yes, because political Islamist groups are now everywhere seeking to impose Islamist ideals on people and restricting freedom of speech and expression. Even in UK we have problem with religious schooling, Mosques that advocate for Jihad, and hate speech. We have Sharia councils that violate women’s rights. I am part of the One Law for All coalition that seeks to expose these violations and influence government policy makers. The struggle for women’s rights, secularism and universal values is an international struggle. I always felt I was part of this worldwide struggle even if we are confined to local issues, but we fight with a universal vision for rights, gender equality, secularism and an egalitarian alternative to patriarchal capitalist system.

Jacobsen: What religious/irreligious worldview and ethic makes the most sense with respect to the proper interpretation of the world to you?

Mahmoud: I am not interested in any religions that seek to convince me of another world. I live here in the now, that is what it matters to me. I take a stand against injustice, class division and the gender apartheid that is currently taking place. We need to replace the horrendous climate that has been created by capitalism and corporate profit-making by creating a heaven on this earth, one in which we are all treated equally, fairly and with justice for all. I have no time for tales of heaven and hell in another world. There is no evidence of such realms. However, I have experienced very similar places here in this earth. After having lived in war zones and having had fought for survival, being in London is to me like heaven. I felt human again. I can enjoy the freedoms I am entitled to as a woman. I owe it to the struggle of generations of powerful feminist movements in this country.

Jacobsen: Does this comprehensive activism — women’s rights, Kurdish culture, feminism, anti-war, and, I assume, others — come from the religious/irreligious worldview at all?

Mahmoud: To me, they come from an irreligious worldview. This is because religions limit our imaginations and they limited our freedom of thought. Religion restricts human creativity, it restricts our freedom of ideas. It subjects people to an outmoded dictates — be they from the bible, the Quran, or any other holy book. The notion of sin, guilt, shame and honour create a gender divide and it imposes a heteronormative narrative that is shamefully discriminative. As a woman, I felt I was half human when I was religious. I felt everything I do was loaded with guilt, and that I am somehow inferior to men. When I started to question and dislike all the restrictions I realised that religion is not for me and that it is a man made and merely in the service of men. The more I read into world-religion, the more I realised it is extremely patriarchal and oppressive towards women.

Jacobsen: How can people become involved with the Culture Project, or in the advocacy and promotion of Kurdish culture, even donate to initiatives relevant to their advocacy and promotion?

Mahmoud: Well, we really need help and support from talented people, people who have editing skills, who can review and analyse art work, who can write reports, proposals, and we need people who have design skills. Any support through volunteering would be deeply cherished.

Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Houzan.

Mahmoud: You most welcome, it is my pleasure.

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The power of positive thinking

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The National Youth Internet Safety and Cyberbullying Task Force, Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

Life can suck. Life can also be pretty darn awesome. In fact, the clouds are more often spread out with lots of sunshine and sometimes life gives you nothing but sunshine.

The people who tend to get nothing done are those who sit around and complain, moan, blame others, engage in self-pity, and feel at odds with the world.

Those who tend to get things done are those who have an optimistic outlook on the world because you have to think that the world can be better.

So, the fundamental difference between the power of positive thinking and the weakness of negative thinking comes from the practical reality.

Those who can get things done think that the world can be better than it was the day before. If someone keeps that up day after day after day, they are more likely to produce a world worth living in, because the world they produce is more positive than the prior one.

It is a fact that the negative thinkers can sometimes think of themselves as hard-nosed realists. However, they are more often cynics, which is not to be confused with a realism.

A realist will look at the situation and analyze it relatively objectively within the information that they have on hand at the moment. A cynic will give up any sign of problems.

A realist will give up half the time because half of the time the situations do seem bleak. However, they maybe have limited information.

Whereas, the optimist will continue forward in any case. So, in any of those cases of bleak and not bleak, the optimist will persevere and continue on to make that better world. The world needs optimists. That’s the power of positive thinking.

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Physical and digital bullying

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The National Youth Internet Safety and Cyberbullying Task Force, Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

Bullying, physical and digital, is taken as if a simple fact of life. It does not have to be a part of life.

Even if one experiences it, you do not have to be a victim to the circumstance. You can overcome the associated difficulties involved in the kinds of the bullying received in everyday life and in professional life too.

Say you are working at a fast food joint or restaurant, you begin to feel as though the boss is picking on you or a co-worker is being mean and vicious with you. The first thing to do is try to stay from the people who are the bullies. Or you can double-check and identify if this is really the case or if this is simply perceived.

They probably want some attention, and negative attention. They may feel insecure and need to take people down and so you become an unfortunate semi-random target needing taking down. If you are stuck with those individuals due to work constraints or to the particular context, then take a proactive and constructive attitude, this is a way in which to assert yourself in life.

It can be a testing ground for developing those skills. You will encounter and experience difficult people in this culture. It is important to be able to deal with them and neutralize the situation in a proactive way to defuse the tension and continue on with your day, be of service to others who may encounter that person later in their day, and have that person feel respected while you defuse the situation as much as is reasonable in the context.

This can be for digital or physical bullying. Physical bullying may be the pushing and shoving of you at work, or in public, or other areas of life. It becomes more direct. It becomes more physical in other words.

However, you can report these people to the proper authorities in the school, in public life, or gain support from those around you at the moment to be able to defuse the situation. It is not a good idea to escalate an already obnoxious or unpleasant person who is being physically bullying.

For the digital bullying, it amounts to the same the psychological state for a victim and victimiser here. However, the main issue comes from the asynchronous nature of it. That is to say the bully or you may leave a message at one point in time.

Then you can receive it at a far distant or an immediate time after sending of the message. That is the nature of the digital media. It is asynchronous.

It does not care about the particular time. If someone is continually bullying you, it is good to have a record of the bullying and to be able to then substantiate any claims made to the school authorities such as the vice principal or principal as well as police authorities if it is particularly inappropriate.

Otherwise, as a general rule in life, you want to surround yourself with those who support you, love you, and vice versa.

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How to identify and overcome anxiety

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The National Youth Internet Safety and Cyberbullying Task Force, Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

Anxiety is a modern problem. It can be a particular issue in youth. If you are a teenager, and if you suffer from the consequences of excess anxiety not channeled well, it can make the already uncertain, at times hellish, and the finding-yourself phase of life known as being a teenager even worse.

Your thoughts race. Your blood pressure rises. Your heart rate increases. You feel the sense that the world is caving in on you due to all of the internally produced pressure. Often times, this is apart from real pressure.

It does not amount to real pressure. It’s simply a subjective perception of the world that triggers anxiety and general discombobulation, physically and mentally. It can be very disconcerting. Some people, they can suffer over the long term from a generalized form of anxiety. It’s not a fun life. It is not a healthy life.

The question becomes, “How do you deal with anxiety, especially in early life as a teenager?” in order to be healthier and have a better youth, you need to be able to stop and take one step back. Need to hold the escalation at the moment, need to take a step back, then you can begin by respectfully removing yourself from the situation of particular anxiousness.

If you need to ask someone for the time, you can do so. If it just happens to be a triggering situation, you can simply remove yourself from it. You hold that right. Some basic techniques of dealing with the anxiety in the moment, if temporary, are to count from 10 to 1.

Another is to take it deep breathes, breathing from the belly and the diaphragm, and slowly relaxing. It is crucially important to not have the additional stress involved from anxiety in daily life. Anxiety can impair school performance.

Anxiety can impair professional performance. A generalized anxiety can harm general performance throughout life. Because it detracts emotional and therefore mental resources needed to be able to handle things that life throws at you.

Another important thing is to have a good support network, with her family or friends. If you have a good set of family members, you can confide in them to help quell some of the anxiety-producing things. It helps to talk out your problems, especially for the young guys out there where this is frowned upon – by themselves or others.

Talking it out, it is an effective methodology. If you have friends, and if you trust them sufficiently enough, you can talk to them as well. These are known as social and emotional skills. They are necessary for a higher quality of life.

We all know the feelings of anxiety, but dealing with them takes practice. Those are some ways to know how to help with the temporary and the long-term versions of it.

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Building your self-esteem in a changing world

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The National Youth Internet Safety and Cyberbullying Task Force, Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

Everyone needs a pep talk once in a while or reason to get out of the bed.

If you want to build self-esteem, you will need to work within yourself. You should try to also work in community. The better ways to build self-esteem or to behave in ways that are deserving of them and are self-respectful.

Self-esteem comes from doing things and thinking in ways, and so feeling in ways, that are most representative of your better self. Do you want to work to limit yourself, or expand yourself? Fundamental presuppositions around self-esteem are helpful. Because the development of the self comes from behaviours and thoughts.

With thoughts and behaviour as the foundation for a proper self-esteem, the basis comes from within you. It starts with taking responsibility for your own actions and thinking. It has to do with what is sometimes termed the internal locus of control.

If someone can develop in themselves a sense of control over what they can and cannot do, and if they can develop this within a framework of self-knowledge, they can begin on the process of self-discovery, and so greater self-esteem.

Proper self-esteem comes from accomplishment not simply from thinking abstract thoughts. You have to be bold in enacting things in your own life. This is especially true for you younger men out there. If you’re driving a car, and if someone else has the steering wheel, you are living a life on the coast mode of the car.

You are not driving your life. You are being driven. No one wants that but so few of us realize that. To simply have positive thoughts about yourself and to not take into account real successes and honest failures, you are, and to be blunt here, living in outer space.

You need to get down to the dirt and live your life and have a plan for it. That basis of a plan and working towards especially a long-term plan provide a basis for a better life. As you begin to accomplish that, you will naturally develop a certain self-efficacy and self-esteem.

It is an important part of keeping in touch with the real world while achieving things and so feeling a real sense of accomplishment and not simply an unwarranted sense of achievement. This is all part and parcel of proper and healthy self-esteem.

You earn things. You feel better. One really effective way to feel better and achieve things is to do it in community. It could be a little church. If you go to a mosque, synagogue, or a Sikh or Buddhist temple, it could be any of those things. It could be a soccer club.

It could be a yoga studio. All of these provide basis for community. Everything based on a common activity, at a minimum. When you work within that community and achieve something, whether being more flexible in a yoga position or donating time and finances to the food bank through the place of worship external community, you accomplish something for others and yourself with others.

It is really that simple to feel self-efficacy and to develop that healthy sense of contribution to the community and self-esteem about being worth something.

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How to overcome adversity in life

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The National Youth Internet Safety and Cyberbullying Task Force, Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

Hard times are an inevitability of life. You will encounter difficulties. You will be broken down. Somethings will go well while other things are going wrong. Life is an admixture.

The main questions or issues to consider are how are you going to react to those difficulties when they arise. How are you going to also celebrate when the times are really good?

Life will come in waves and sometimes waves will crash together and make a very difficult situation, those are flashpoints in a personal life. This makes it crucial to understand the nature of yourself in the relationships of the world.

The best means by which to overcome the difficulties or hardships in life are through assiduous personal development. The hard work in developing resilience.

Resilience will stand you in good stead in times of difficulty. It’s a skill set, an emotional and social skill set, to allow you to persist in spite of the difficulties.

Another way is to have a good and healthy social network. That network provides a solid foundation for people to fall back on who love you and who you trust and respect.

In addition to that, you can look into professional help from counselors or psychologists or psychiatrists depending on the severity of the need at a time in life.

The benefit of the first one is that it is free and it comes with the benefit of personal development. The benefit of the second option with friends and family comes from external sources when internal resources are not enough.

The last one is helpful for severe cases, but does come at a higher cost, especially financially.

You never be able to avoid the hard parts of life. You will never have the opportunity for that one extended period of time, probably. In the country that we live in, you will have an easier time than most people. Nonetheless, you will have relative difficulties within the North American context at some point.

It is extremely important to bear in mind the basics of health too. You need to be healthy. You need to focus on proper sleep for your age.

You need to focus on quality and full sleep; that also means at a good time in a quiet place. There needs to be proper exercise with aerobics, strength training, and stretching.

Also, there needs to be proper diet. If you are physically healthy, and if you’re mentally healthy, then you can withstand the difficulties in life that come your way better. So, here you go: personal development, friends and family, and professional help, and sleep, exercise, and diet.

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The power of knowing your worth

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The National Youth Internet Safety and Cyberbullying Task Force, Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

The immediate empowerment of yourself may come from the knowledge of your worth. This does not mean an excuse for undue self concern or absorption. Nor does this imply the unwarranted self assessment of being better than other people.

It may be true. However, what is the probability? The real power in knowing your worth comes from realistic assessment of yourself. You need to know your strengths. You need to know your weaknesses. You should understand the basis upon which you were able to perform well in the world.

You should also know the ways in which you do not perform as well. On the ways to perform well, you should make a steady effort in maintaining excellence there. On the ways to perform not well, you should work to ameliorate the problem areas as you can. It is never easy.

Nonetheless, the focus on strengths will be the greatest asset in your life because your strengths are where fewer people perform well.

This can lead to questions about personal worth. Your worth should be grounded in something. If you have an idea about yourself, and if the idea is simply theoretical, it detaches you from the real world. You can lead an unhealthy life because you lead a false one with it.

Worth should be grounded in something. In particular, your worth should be grounded in things of lasting value, which do not necessarily equate to the more temporary things such as beauty and popularity. As you leave high school, and college, the looks and popularity will become less and less important as intelligence, conscientiousness, and morals become more important. In general, the best thing to inculcate in yourself and others, and if you have children then those, is character for a long and good life.

Your worth should be grounded in character. My main advice about the power of your worth comes from knowing that you have worth and something that will last throughout your lifetime, which is your own character. You may not be the smartest. You may not be the prettiest or most handsome. You my not be the richest. You may not have the most status. However, if you have character, you can earn the love and respect of others, which will outlast, often, many of the more transient things of a person, of yourself. In that, you can find power and longevity of that power.

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Overcoming peer pressure

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The National Youth Internet Safety and Cyberbullying Task Force, Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018

Peer pressure is both a good and a bad thing. The question as to the good of peer pressure inexorably comes with its bad side. To avoid the bad side of pressure is to, in essence, take part in the good of it, what is it, though?

It is, to me, simply the degree to which the social group influences your own perception of what you should and should not do, and then also how this leads to what you do. The good is what is good for you and the bad is what is bad for you. Then it is only a matter of how good and how bad on net based on the peer influence.

Let’s say you’re at a party, and you’re having a good time, but one peer or friend is known to be involved in illicit substances, drugs, and uses them before a safe age or more than a safe, responsible amount even if at a safe age, they offer the drug to you.

Do you take it? Or do you pause, reflect on the possible harms, and say, “No, thank you”? What do you do?

These are tough decisions at a young age. For those who are subject to the peer pressure of drugs, the possible harms are increases in fatalities or addictions, especially with the recent rise in the deaths associated with opioids connected with fentanyl.

Even those increase risks aside, the pressure of the friend is bad pressure because there are more harms than benefits associated with the peer pressure. Bad peer pressure is your friends or peer wanting you to do something that is not for your best interest in the long-term.

Okay, now, let’s switch up the script and have some good friends who come with you to the party and then the other drug-using peer is already at the party and offering the drug to you – bad peer pressure, but then your other friends who do not use substances or use them safely and responsibly come to your aid.

They decline on your hesitant behalf in order to help you. They give you boost, bolster you, to take the high road and support you in it, so you do not feel rejected while doing the short-term fun thing in favour of the long-term beneficial thing.

Peer pressure can be good or bad. But the point is to avoid the bad pressure, have good friends who have your back when the bad peer pressure can come forward, and so you can have a better time in the long-term.

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Reliance on External Authority

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Skeptic Meditations

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/25

An interview with a former monastic about entering and leaving Self-Realization ashrams. Here we talk about the traps of reliance on external authority.

Below is an interview with Scott of Skeptic Meditations.

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen of Conatus News and Founder of In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal and In-Sight Publishing.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: With regards to the tactics to keep members in a cult-like organization, what seem like the more prominent examples?

Scott from SkepticMeditations.com: There’s many tactics that cult-like groups, like Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) Monastic Order, use to trap followers. First, is the ideal of renunciation, which is unrealistic and unlivable. The ideal of renunciation of self is a trap because its irreconcilable. No human can ever be totally selfless. Nor can they ever be perfect. Despite the claims by SRF members who idealize their supposed selfless yogi-guru and SRF founder Paramahansa Yogananda.

“I killed Yogananda long ago. No one dwells in this body now but God.” proclaimed Paramahansa Yogananda.

Another tactic used by cult-like groups is the practice of meditation techniques. Meditation is often prescribed as a means to enlightenment. Or, the path to some kind of exalted state of spiritual awareness. Why? Meditation is supposed to still thought, to quiet the mind, which is a way to kill the ego, to become selfless. Ultimately, disciples of SRF are indoctrinated that they ought to become like Yogananda or God-conscious. It’s another tricky psychological trap for followers.

Jacobsen: What runs through the mind of a believer to keep them bound to the cult or cult-like organization?

Scott: People in cult-like organizations are trapped in a double bind. The get trapped inside the prison of beliefs built with no-win communications designed to keep followers obeying the authority figure. (Remember the examples above of unlivable ideals of renunciation and irreconcilable beliefs in selflessness?)

Cult-like organizations, like SRF, implicitly or explicitly communicate to their followers:

“You are asleep or ignorant. Meditation is the path to awakening or knowledge of God. You are asleep or ignorant, so keep meditating.

You are ego/self-centered. Meditation is the path to ego destruction/self-transcendence. If you are not yet egoless or selfless, keep meditating.

You are racked with desires. Meditation is the path to fulfillment of all desires. If you are not yet desireless, keep meditating.”

The double bind is the inability to see the traps, for instance, that desiring to be desireless is desire.

In each of the above examples, the cult-like group keeps you psychologically trapped in the double bind. You keep meditating. You keep trying to follow the given techniques for enlightenment but do not still your thoughts or become enlightened (beyond a momentary and temporary experience). The teachers, teachings, and techniques are never to be blamed for fault, say the group. Your ego got in the way and that you just need to keep trying more. Essentially, followers in these groups are tricked into thinking they can attain some unlivable ideal and they keep going in circles inside the double bind. Filled with self-doubt and mistrust in self, what do you expect followers to do? They tend to surrender and follow even more the external authority–the guru and his cult-like group.

Jacobsen: How is the inculcation of self-doubt and reliance on an external authority part and parcel of the maintenance of the follower mentality in a cult?

Scott: Mental or psychological control is easy when people doubt themselves.

Cult-like groups and gurus use many methods to instill self-mistrust in followers. They patronize followers (treat them with kindness while betraying superiority). Or, they assume superiority (claim to know what’s best for followers). Or, they use methods that instill fear, guilt, or shame in followers which fill them with more self-doubt and self-mistrust.

Cult-like groups label independent thinking as “ego” and also devalue reason, analytical thinking, and personal feelings. Whereas, it is supposedly superior for followers to give blind obedience and selfless service to guru or external authority versus taking care of one’s self-interests, such as family.

In cult-like groups, if followers question any abuse they are told that it is spiritual “training” and it is beyond understanding in a rational way. “God works in mysterious ways”. And of course, they assume the leader of the group is attuned or at-one with God. So no one can question the guru’s or the group’s abuses without being ostracized or even excommunicated from the spiritual community.

The SRF monastic ashram environment is very closed. Everything the monks did had to be approved by the monk’s spiritual counselor or by the ashram superiors. Everything offered inside the ashrams the monks were expected to accept as if it was coming from Guru, from God. If you question or resist anything (even moldy cheese served in the dining room), then you’d be labeled as disloyal, egotistic, or self-centered. In this setup the SRF leaders and monastic superiors could do no “evil”, abuses went unchecked. Victims of physical and psychological abuses, like myself, endured for decades in the name of “training” wondering what the hell was wrong “with me”.

For years allowed the abuses because I too believed they were “training” for my own good. Eventually I saw through the control and manipulation and left the ashram. Though I’d left physically the abusive monastery, psychologically I’d retained many of the manipulative double bind beliefs in spiritual external authority.

Jacobsen: Even if there aren’t formal methodologies on some levels for the individual follower, how does the follower make excuses for the abuse and bad behavior of some of the leaders of some cults and cult-like organizations?

Scott: There are formal rules and vows of the SRF Order. I’ve shared these on my website. In addition, the SRF Lessons–which are available to the public for a nominal subscription fee–contain 100s of “official” SRF rules and procedures regarding “how to live”, such as following a strict vegetarian diet, abstaining from sex, and practicing esoteric meditation rituals.

There’s something called the “sunk-cost” fallacy. When we invest so much of our time, energy, and possibly money into something that is failing and we tell ourselves we can’t give up or we can’t cut our losses now. We try to convince ourselves if we persist in our efforts and beliefs (despite the evidence) that we will make a successful comeback and be a hero or a saint. Psychological investments, including attachments to the people inside the community, also plays a huge role in why followers have a difficult time escaping the traps of abuse in cult-like organizations.

Jacobsen: What is the general marketing that cults or cult-like organizations present to the outside world, i.e. the warning signs and signifiers of a potentially harmful organization?

Scott: Eastern, Hindu- and Buddhist-inspired, groups often use meditation techniques as a way to entice and keep followers. Meditation is scientized. That is, it is promoted as a practical and scientific method. Meditation practice is supposed to bring the faithful practitioner peace, material success and happiness, and ultimate enlightenment.

Cult-like ideologies also promote their unlivable, utopian ideals. Which are appealing to people who may be suffering or looking for something to fill the existential vacuum in their lives. People who are most vulnerable are those who are going through a challenging life transition. That’s why you often find young, college-age disciples who join cults. During college is when I first was attracted to SRF. By escaping into an idealized model of the world as “spiritual training” gives meaning to people who are confused or suffering.

Also, cult-like leaders and groups often claim to have special dispensations from God. Of course, each particular cult-group claims to have the “right” answers. Groups like Scientology often charge exorbitant fees to clear themselves of evil thetans through a method Scientologists call auditing. I recommend watching the documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief. Many of the psychologically controlling and cult-like behaviors and tactics used by Scientology are also used by other cult-like groups, like SRF. The groups don’t differ in kind but only in degree of attempted control over followers.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Scott.

Scott: Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to share my thoughts and experiences about what I believe is an important topic.

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Trapped in Post-Christian Spirituality and Meditation Beliefs

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Skeptic Meditations

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/21

Post-Christian spirituality and secularization of meditation beliefs in the West has transformed thinking God’s thoughts to thinking “right” thoughts, stilled thoughts, or no thoughts.

Scott is the Founder of Skeptic Meditations. He speaks from experience in entering and leaving Self-Realization Monastic Order, a Hindu-inspired ashram headquartered in Los Angeles and founded by famous Yogi Paramahansa Yogananda. Here we talk about meditation beliefs, and Westerners who are Post-Christian and consider themselves atheist or spiritual but not religious.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You were in a cult-like group devoted to meditative practice and a monastic living. What was it? How did you become wrapped up in it?

Scott from SkepticMeditations.com: I was an ordained monk for 14 years in Self-Realization Fellowship Order, founded in 1920 by famous Yogi Paramahansa Yogananda. It is essentially a Hindu-inspired religion with a heavy blend of Christianity. I discovered SRF and Yogananda while I was in college. As musician, at that time, I was looking for ways to be more creative, more intuitive. To tap into the hidden, unknown creative powers within myself. At a party, when the band took a break I spoke to my buddy’s Uncle who was a Yogi meditator. He recommended I read Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda.

Long story short: I read the Autobiography and had a “come to Yogananda” experience. At the time I felt that everything I wanted was promised to followers of Yogananda’s teachings, which were articulated by his organization Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF). Within 12 to 18 months I ran away leaving college, job, friends, and family without notice to go live at SRF Hidden Valley Ashram. My aim was to see if I could be an SRF monk for the rest of my life.

After two years as a resident-lay disciple at HV Ashram I was excepted into the Encinitas (San Diego County CA) Ashram for postulant (bootcamp) training for new monks. I was transferred 18 months later to the SRF Mother Center, the International Headquarters, on top of Mt. Washington, in Northeast Los Angeles.

I took Novitiate vows within two years and three years later took Brahmachari vows. Each vow required of the monk greater commitment to the SRF monastic vows of loyalty, obedience, celibacy, and simplicity to God, guru, and the SRF. My dream to become a monk eventually turned out a nightmare. Fortunately, I was able to leave.

Jacobsen: How did you get out of it, following from the previous question?

Scott: As life gets, it was complicated. After a decade and a half of struggling to make the monk life work, I realized the monastery wasn’t the right place for me. What I needed was to grow, to try new things. During the last couple years, I’d secretly obtain and read books on escaping religious cults. Also, I hired a couple life coaches and talked over my challenges with a certified psychologist–all outside the ashram.

During my last few years in the ashram, I gradually worked up the courage and the resources to be able leave the Order, the ashram. Prior to leaving I cashed out my savings so I could rent an apartment in nearby Glendale. With the help of an ex-monk I bought a new car. I lined up some part-time work helping a friend in her business. What I discovered was the longer followers lived in the ashram the harder it was to leave. What held us from leaving were many fears: “Where will I go? What kind of work will do to support myself? Would the SRF’s threat of wandering lost in darkness for seven lifetimes for leaving the guru and his ashram come true?” Fears, at first, often shot through my heart whenever I thought of leaving the ashram.

Fortunately, my family and friends also gave me the psychological support I needed to leave. I’ve never regretted leaving.

Jacobsen: Now, with this foundation, the “I have been there” framework for this series. I want to delve into a variety of topics. For a first one, which was your idea in correspondence, the idea of post-Christian spirituality. What is it? Why is it a relevant, timely, and intriguing topic to you?

Scott: What I mean by post-Christian spirituality I’m referring to Western puritan ideals that transfer easily to Eastern spiritual worldviews, with aims of self-sacrifice, stilling thought, and emptying the mind. In the process of secularization, meditation turns from focus on god to mind cure. Post-Christian spirituality or secularization changes thinking God’s thoughts to thinking “right” thoughts, stilled thoughts, or no thoughts. As if having no thoughts is something attainable. (Most of our thoughts are preconscious and always will be. I wrote about reasons why our unconscious in inaccessible in my post Meditation techniques offer illusion of control). Secularized meditation practices are often based on authoritarian frameworks of enlightenment. This is why I called it post-Christian or Western secular spirituality.

Jacobsen: These explorations post-Western Christianity can lead to many areas including meditation, yoga, Buddhism/Hinduism, the New Age philosophy, and Eastern cosmology. What are some cognitive-behavioural traps from the post-Western Christianity explorer’s side?

Scott: Lots of booby traps. We will never escape them all. But we can perhaps avoid falling into them endlessly. Everyone must untangle their own cognitive traps themselves. Looking to authoritarian leaders quickly becomes a trap. Underlying our cultural indoctrination, our schools and family upbringing, is a framework of Protestant puritan ideals, or of enlightened authorities or scientists who have all the answers. We are products of the culture of the West. Having atheist or secular beliefs does not automatically free us from our own preconscious reliance on authorities within the Christian-Western religious lens. The modern moral or ethic “work hard and you will succeed” or “control your thoughts and you control your destiny” are beliefs which must be taken on faith (in other words, are scientifically verifiable and rooted in myth or secular-religious authority).

Jacobsen: What are some of the traps from those who wish to bring those post-Western Christianity explorers into their particular fold?

Scott: The scientific research into the benefits of meditation are inconclusive. There is not even consensus among researchers on how to define mindfulness. Mindfulness is one another one of those benefits we have to take on faith. For meditation is a creed based on a value system which cannot be measured objectively. Faith is required, even if it is a secular-religious faith in the scientific authority. Yet, many people scan and read only the headline that says meditation is beneficial for everybody. It takes time and effort to dive deep into a topic like religion, meditation, or spirituality or morality. Whatever. Those are just labels. I think we should not take headlines and labels too seriously without first doing our homework and diving deep into the authority and faith underlying our premises and assumptions.

Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?

Scott: Well, I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you today. I enjoyed your questions and grappling with how to respond. I really like your conversational and interview style. I think back and forth dialogue is one of the best ways to try to understand ourselves and others. Thanks.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Scott.

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Needs Fulfilled from Cults, and Benefits for Leaders and Followers

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Skeptic Meditations

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/23

What are some of the benefits for ashram residents and their leaders? What keeps followers stuck inside an abusive relationship or cult?

Skeptic Meditations has edited the original for the article below.

Scott, Founder of Skeptic Meditations, speaks from experience in entering and leaving Self-Realization Monastic Order, a Hindu-inspired ashram headquartered in Los Angeles and founded by famous Yogi Paramahansa Yogananda. Here we talk about some of the benefits of ashram residents and their guru-leaders. Also, we discuss the drivers that keep people stuck inside an abusive relationship or cult.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I want to take a 25-degree slant on the conversation around cults. What small benefits came from the extensive training found in the ashram?

Scott from SkepticMeditations.com: Yeah, you’d hope there were some benefits from spending a decade and a half of my life in an ashram. A few benefits were: I got exposed to people from all over the U.S., Canada, India, Australia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, England, Scotland, and Ireland. Interestingly, other than India, there were no monks from other parts of Asia. Of course, the SRF monks in the ashrams were similar in their spiritual beliefs and renunciate worldview. But I got to enjoy traditional recipes from around the world.

Some other benefits while in the ashram: I learned to prepare and cook food, to cut hair, to grow herbs and vegetables. The ashram routine taught me how to be orderly and tidy, to clean toilets, clean dishes, and community areas of the ashram. The monks lived the cliche’ “cleanliness was next to godliness”. Mostly though the ashram rules and duties to clean and be orderly reflected the unlivable renunciate ideals of living a life of perfection, sanctity, and purity.

Jacobsen: Did any big benefits come to you? It seems odd to ask because the focus is on the negative, but, with a hint of humor, only a small percent of all things are ever all bad.

Scott: The monks, individually and in groups practiced meditation for four hours everyday. The monastic routine [1] forced me to introspect, to go within, to meditate and police my thoughts. There was nothing like a meditation chapel full of stilly sitting monks to force you to sit still, though often times my mind could be racing. Sometimes I quieted my thoughts. There were times when I had so-called mystical experiences. Many altered-states of consciousness I understand now have alternative explanations [2] that are more natural than supernatural.

Perhaps there’s no other human experience quite like living as an ascetic, like a hermit or a monk. Professional monkhood demands total self involvement. Taken to extremes monkhood becomes about being self-absorbed. Despite much rhetoric about how spiritual aspirants must be selfless and surrender ego to a higher authority, frankly my experience was most ashram residents were pathologically self-absorbed. We just relabelled self-absorption as spiritual, blissed out, or communion with God. Later I learned that meditation can sometimes have negative side effects [3], like depersonalization and psychosis.

When the honeymoon wears off, after the first two or three years, the routine in the ashram became mindlessly deadening. The ashram is a place where people go to let individuality, creativity, and intellect die.

Any benefits become traps. The ashram routine of meditation and renunciation stifled psychological growth. In the SRF ashram, developing intellect and self-expression is considered egoic. There might be a few exceptions but ashram residents had to seek their own secret outlets for creative self-expression. I remember one monk telling me he’d listen over and over to Jimi Hendrix ‘All Along the Watchtower’ to relieve his frustrations. Another monk got emotional outlet by listening to Opera. (Only SRF approved music was considered spiritual, and opera was not). Most long-time monks had to live a secret inward double life to cope in a stodgy ashram.

Jacobsen: What is the need fulfilled by the joining of a cult for those that do join them? What need does this serve?

Scott: Well for me, joining the SRF ashram and becoming a monk was a way to escape the world on the pretext of spiritual searching. It’s not that I was insincere in my search. It’s just that looking back I realized what I searched for was answers. The kinds of answers where I no longer had to search. No longer had to think or grapple with difficult questions. It was, in a warped way, an exhilarating freedom to hand over my authority and responsibility to a divine master and his spiritual predecessors who presumably had all the answers. All I had to do was follow, to obey, and everything would be bliss and roses. A culture of non-thought is rewarded with its own benefits. Ignorance is bliss: until disillusionment sets in.

Outwardly the ashramites presented themselves as pious disciples. As ascetics, hermits, monks they were special or different from most people in Western culture. Inwardly though the monks were no different really, or perhaps different in the worst ways, loaded with desires, neuroses, and insecurities. Renunciates are forced to pretend outwardly that everything is wonderful. Else their ashram existence is a sham. Outwardly monks had to present themselves as holy, pious, and pure. Inwardly though many monks felt empty or worse, doomed to suffer for the master, and unworthy of happiness in the present life. At first the double life of an ashram resident starts with little violations of ashram rules: They install a coffee maker in their bedroom (consuming caffeine is against the rules, even though chai tea was served on special occasions). They’d secretly install a TV in their room or sneak out to the movie theatre. Or, in some cases the vows of outward celibacy (no sex or romance with mortals) occasionally erupted into sex scandals. There were several incidents when renegade monks ran off with nuns and others who sexually exploited SRF lay members. (In this context, lay member is pregnant with double meaning).

I digress. Back to your question. The needs change for members who join these groups. Followers of cult-like groups join for idealized, starry-eyed, spiritual purposes: to transform the world, to bring techniques for self-realization to the planet, to spiritualize self and humanity. On the outside these motives for joining appear to be peaceful, harmonious, and noble. Inside though there is a psychological battle with many contradictions. Spiritual advancement is often equated with position, power, and authority over others in the ashram. Self-importance is tied to outward markers in how often one is recognized, promoted, or praised by the leaders or members. So the ashrams become a nasty breeding ground for bringing out the best and more often the worst, passive-aggressive behaviors, in residents. It’s a psychological trap that once followers invest in psychologically becomes difficult to get out [4]. It’s a very confused existence really because of the contradictions inherent in the unlivable ideals.

Jacobsen: Obviously, the main benefits of cults come to the leaders, whether finances, followers, or, apparently, people to have sex with for an extended period of time. These seem like casual observations of consistent phenomena. What seems like the main driver for the highest leadership in a cult?

Scott: In a recent blog post I wrote how the supreme leader-guru gains his superpower from his devotees. The guru needs disciples for his identity. The disciples need guru for theirs. The guru-disciple relationship is based and maintained in this power exchange.

Allegations of sexual impropriety are common among Hindu gurus in the U.S. The guru-disciple relationship is built and maintained on a power exchange and often by sexual attraction. Here’s some examples I will quote.

“Yogananda was also formally accused of impropriety by Swami Dhirananda in 1935 and Sri Nerode in 1940; these two men worked originally with Yogananda to spread Kriya Yoga” wrote Lola Williamson, a religious studies professor at Millsaps College in Jackson, MS and researcher of Hindu-based groups in the US, in Transcendent in America: Hindu-Inspired Meditation Movements as New Religion.

Yogananda was apparently never found guilty of abuses by a court of law. However, there’s been numerous out of court settlements and testimonies of disgruntled former followers.

One disillusioned female student of Yogananda wrote in a letter dated 1938:

“…After we started living at Mt.Washington [ashram], Swamiji [respectful for Swami Yogananda], whether at Encinitas or here, had me come to see him every night….On these nightly visits to his rooms he always had me lock the door or he did it; then all he’d do was either to sit and look at me or talk about his experiences with beautiful women on his tours and of sex….Before this time he had me take an oath of unconditional friendship to him promising never to reveal what he tells me to another person. He says there should be no conditions, no barriers between us now that I took the oath…He said I was creating a barrier between us by not letting him kiss me, or at least not wanting him to. He kissed me every time I went to his rooms after the first time although it was against my liking. Sometimes he tried to stick his tongue in my mouth but I wouldn’t stand for that! He says that nothing he would ever do to me could possibly hurt me but bless me since it was God manifesting through him.

“He has told me that any place his hand touches that person is blessed. At times he has placed his hands on different parts of my body and made suggestive movements to put his hand inside my dress and would have if I had not pushed it away. If he would do such things as this on just a few months friendship, what does he do with the girls who are with him constantly and wait on him like slaves?

One afternoon up in his office here at Mt. Washington we were sitting on the couch and he pulled me back on his big lotus pillow and kissed and held me so tight I had to fight to get my breath. This was not an unusual occurrence however. We had been discussing the barrier which he said I had erected by resisting him (he always brought this subject up until finally I got so sick of discussing it I refused to say any more on it) when he told me this about Jesus Christ. He said that a spiritual man can touch a woman and it won’t be in the physical plane. He said Jesus “had” Mary Magdalene in a certain way.”

These allegations are not surprising. I would expect disgruntled students to come forward to testify of abuses. No matter how sincere the leader-guru, students get used for the master’s own self-interest. The followers make the master. And the master needs the students. Whatever abuses occur within that dynamic of self-interest exchange between master and disciple [5].

Jacobsen: When it comes to followers somewhere in the privileged circle of the leader, what benefits accrue to them? Why do they keep following when they must see the hypocrisy and faults of the leader more closely than others at the bottom of the cult pyramid?

Scott: The inner circle of followers, those closest to the powerful leader, have much control of the followers further outside the circle. They often act as the conduits of the master. They have the information power over disciples who have lesser access to the master. I don’t believe followers can remain long in the inner circle of the leader if they focus on the leader’s hypocrisy and faults. There would be too much cognitive dissonance (inner psychological conflict) for the follower who disbelieves in the infallibility of the leader. Or, in some rare cases some monks or follower disciples might be able to go through the outer motions, pay lip service, while inwardly not believing in the teachings, doctrines, or edicts of the church and its leaders. The guru-disciple relationship demands total obedience to the master. Otherwise, it won’t work.

What keeps “followers” following the master or cult is complicated. The longer followers follow–especially an ascetic, renunciate, monastic life that is dependent on the church or spiritual organization–the harder it is to break free of the group. It’s extremely difficult for to abandon one’s entire psychological identity and the community that props it up. In the SRF ashram monks were given food, clothing, and shelter from the horrors of the “outside world”. Remember these groups, like SRF, paint the outside world and the people in it as dangerous or “evil”.

The Clergy Project [6] is a community of current and former religious clergy who no longer believe in god or the supernatural. As a member, I have heard many, many stories of clergy who can’t leave or who finally left but couldn’t without support from groups like Clergy Project, other former cult-members, family and friends. Having left a high-control group, the SRF ashram, I understand how difficult it is for followers inside these groups and the longer they stay inside the group the more difficult it is to leave. Is it really surprising that people stay in abusive relationships? Relationships are powerful and difficult to break from the longer we are in them and the more our identity (i.e. psychological survival) is tied to them. It is often an existential fight for survival to question or to break away from an abusive, long-term relationship.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Scott.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the Founder of In-Sight Publishing and In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal.

Notes

1 For more on the inside of SRF Order, read my post A Monks’ Ashram Weekly Routine.

2 There’s many natural explanations for mystical experiences. Read my post Re-Interpreting Mystical Experience.

3 My index of posts Adverse (Side) Effects of Meditation contains numerous examples and research studies.

4 My post Double Bind of Eastern Enlightenment goes into details about the psychological traps inherent in renunciate worldviews.

5 For more details, read my post Sexuality in Guru-Disciple Relationship. 6 The Clergy Project website: For current and former religious professionals without supernatural beliefs.

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Existential Risks and Trauma of Leaving an Ashram

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Skeptic Meditations

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/11

The closer members got to the supreme leader in the ashram the more it would break them. Even after leaving the group physically, many never psychologically escaped. It could take years, even decades, to recover from the trauma.

SkepticMeditations.com has republished the interview with edits from the original.

Interview by Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Scott, the Founder of Skeptic Meditations, speaks from experience in entering and leaving an ashram. Here we talk about existential risks for an individual leaving a cult, views of the world only knowing the cult, leaving psychologically and physically from the cult, places for transition, and some who never get over their trauma.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What bigger existential risks exist for the individual who leaves the cult, immediately?

Scott from SkepticMeditations.com: The more the group members lived in the ashrams the more broken was their self-identity. Their self-identity was dismantled and remolded to fit the image of the leader and group. Group members attached their existence to ashram identity, name, and position within the spiritual-organizational hierarchy.

Cloistered spiritual groups tend to rule over followers in an undemocratic and unequal way. Those deemed superior are those closest to the supreme leader [1]. Group members learn quickly how to compete for the leader’s attention and to climb the ladder of the spiritual-corporation. The ashram members sought power, position, and competition for the attention of the leader.

It is difficult to describe what a member feels and thinks after leaving their relationships within a group that for years or decades destroyed, then reformed and maintained their spiritual-ego or self-world identity. Members who leave the group psychologically first, before they leave physically, probably have lower risk of failing to reintegrate into society outside.

When you think about cults, the aim of the leaders and the members who join them, is to break down the former self-world identity. It’s presumed the egoic self is bad, wrong, or evil. In the name of spiritual training ashram residents allowed the leader and his henchmen to abuse, to break the self, the ego of followers.

In cults with an Eastern enlightenment-bent, the spiritual path is purportedly divinely designed to bring follower-practitioners to perfection, to realize self as Self, soul, or God or Nirvana. It doesn’t really matter what the ideal. For the external authority dictates the goal, the path, and everything in between. The ultimate devotee-disciple then is the one who is selfless, egoless, and thoughtless. There were many disciples of meditation gurus who I saw who had the thousand-yard stare. Shining eyes and toothy smiles but behind them was not themselves as individual personality but robots, parrots of the teacher-masters words and thoughts.

The aim of selflessness in the Eastern enlightenment sense is by degrees to offer one’s self in total service and obedience to the spiritual teacher. In the SRF ashram we called this attunement. The more we became like the leader or his ideology the more in-tune, spiritual we became. Gradually over years and decades of spiritual training our identity broken. Fashioned in the old self’s place is some new self made to fit the image of the guru and group.

To members inside the outside world is dangerous, evil, or deluded. To be close to the master-teacher is spiritual safety and illumination. The way to get close physically or psychologically (spiritually) was to kill the self and attune to the master. Psychologically cult groups break the member’s sense of self and then reframe follower’s self-world identity. Meditating, chanting, visualizing, affirming one’s Oneness or Unity with some Higher Power, these are cult-like practices. For when coupled with an ideology of seeking perfection or enlightenment the practices break down self-identity, corrupt the senses, and one’s ability to analyze and act independently.

Jacobsen: How does someone view the world if the cult or cult-like group is all they have ever known in life?

Scott from SkepticMeditations.com: Long-time cult-group members fear more than anything to leave the group. It was drilled into the monks in the SRF ashrams that we were special, chosen by God and Guru, just one more meditation away from ultimate self-realization. Divine carrots dangled with a spiritual stick.

The darker side of the story was that if we ever left the master-teacher or left the ashram we not only risked losing everything spiritually but were likely to wander in darkness, suffering, lost in delusion (Maya) for seven future lifetimes (future human incarnations).

The annihilation of self occurs when entering, staying, and leaving the cult. That is perhaps why many former members who leave cults hold onto the underlying beliefs that led them and kept them in the group in the first place. Psychologically it’s all one has known, the cult of an external authority. That’s why many who left the ashram joined other cult ideologies, such as Landmark Forum, Buddhism, spiritual but not religious, or energy healing.

We humans have a deep need to find meaning in a seemingly meaningless universe. Our cultures (cults: familial, social, economic, political, philosophical or theological) breed meaning.

I think this is why existential philosophers, like Nietzsche, declared God is dead and acknowledged that the natural world was a nightmare of horror tinged with moments of art and beauty. Men seek to escape from nature’s horror into an imaginary perfection.

When a member of the cult group, that pretends to offer the ultimate purpose of existence, when that member psychologically or physically leaves the group or ideology, that creates for him or her a crisis of existence.

Jacobsen: How can members who are thoroughly entrenched in the doctrine of the cult’s worldview leave mentally and then physically?

Scott from SkepticMeditations.com: Ashram members who left or who were asked to leave often were not able to leave psychologically. Meaning they did not leave behind the SRF ashram ideology. Which meant then that leaving the ashram physically didn’t make much difference to their underlying self-identity. The held psychologically onto their identity with the ideology of the group.

Several former monks who I talked with after I left, though they physically left the ashram, they clung psychologically to it. Their worldview continued to revolve around Eastern mysticism, spirituality, and meditation practices. They’d tell me their experiences in meditation prove the existence of kundalini (astral energies) awakened in their spine (a Yogic doctrine espoused by SRF and many Eastern-styled meditation groups), as if tickling sensations are deeply meaningful and proof beyond doubt.

How would they know those sensations are what they believe they are? Did they actually come to mystical experience by themselves? Or, did some external authority tell them about it?

Gradually, decades after leaving physically I finally psychologically left the ashram cult; I saw that what I’d believed in was a false doctrine. That the whole thing was a fraud, and that we’d simply been abused. It really hurts to admit that. But to admit I was a victim of abuse has helped me to process, learn, and get through the trauma.

Jacobsen: Do halfway houses or safe transition houses exist for ex-cult members as with women who were victims of domestic abuse?

Self-reliance is sometimes insufficient. Pick yourself up by the bootstraps, is the attitude in the U.S. society. Members who leave controlling groups or cults seldom get public assistance.

Perhaps the heartlessness of self-reliance is one reason why in the U.S. we have so many religious factions, fundamentalists, and cults vying for mindshare. And, why there is an endless supply of incoming and outgoing members to religions and cults.

However, I do know of a few informal halfway houses for former religious clergy or cult-members to transition back into society.

The Clergy Project, a nonprofit for clergy who no longer believe in the supernatural, provide online resources and sometimes training and funding for former clergy to reintegrate back into society.

When I left the Self-Realization Fellowship Order, never to return physically, I was fortunate to find the informal support of several members and former monastics of SRF.

Or, if I had left without their support would have felt perhaps totally isolated and alone. (Self-reliance is mostly a myth. We rely on support from others, especially during our crises.)

I sometimes feel alone in my experiences but then I occasionally meet former cult members who I can identify with. More public conversation seems to be happing in the mainstream, but mostly alternative media about cult-groups and members who exit cults.

That kind of vulnerability, feeling isolated and alone, is often what cults and their leaders prey on and target in recruits. So whatever we as society can do to support our member I believe is extremely important for our societal, human, and natural survival.

Jacobsen: Do some never ‘get over’ their experiences, the trauma for example?

Scott from SkepticMeditations.com: Yes. It breaks you to be a committed member of a cult or psychologically controlling group. Members sign-up for the promise of spiritual training, which begins by breaking down the ego, self-identity. Those who take it deadly serious place their entire trust in God, Guru-teacher, and spiritual path. Those who don’t take the group so serious probably will not be broken.

The break-down of self at first can often feel exhilarating, ecstatic, liberating. But this breakdown and reshaping of self-identity through external authority is at best a waste of time, at worst dangerous. For me, I experienced the harms. And, the waste: the many years I spent meditating and in the group was precious time lost. Time that I can never regain. Time that I would’ve instead spent learning skills, building relationships, family, career, intellect, and so on. The ashram cult didn’t just take away my time or money; they robbed me of my right to experience my self-world as it is.

Many former members never really seem to get over their trauma. Many turn inward on themselves: to guilt, shame, or depression, sometimes suicide. The guilt and self-world break-down is by design. It is part of the conditioning, or spiritual training, underlying membership in psychologically controlling groups.

A huge motivation for my doing this interview with you is to speak out about the harms of such groups, to process my experiences, and hopefully help by telling my story and perspectives.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Scott.

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Leaving Psychologically a Cult-like Meditation Group

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Skeptic Meditations

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/10/21

Leaving, physically, an abusive group is not the hardest part. It’s leaving the relationship psychologically, recovering your psyche.

Our interviewer is Scott Douglas Jacobsen of Conatus News and Founder of In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal and In-Sight Publishing.

Interview by Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What big existential risks are there immediately for the individual who leaves a cult-like group?

Scott from SkepticMeditations.com: Based on my experiences of leaving the cult-like ashram of Self-Realization Fellowship, I would say the big existential risks immediately upon leaving:

1) Feelings of despair and meaninglessness upon leaving the group.

A huge attraction for joining is the promise of ultimate meaning and purpose in life. Gurus and authoritarian leaders short-circuit or bypass our natural process of individually grappling, struggling, and resolving for ourselves the meaning or meaninglessness of existence. After I left and later read Nietzsche, Camus, and Kierkegaard I understood the value of seeing life and the universe as ultimately meaningless. Each of us ought to grapple individually with the meaninglessness of our existence, and create what meaning is in our lives. Otherwise, we either sink into emptiness and despair or mindlessly follow some external authority who tells us what our purpose in life is.

2) Leaving a cult-like group only physically.

There is leaving physically, which is perhaps easiest to see, to grasp. You split from the ashram and move out. Although the longer you are in the group the harder it is. In the ashram I lived members were given $40 a month total and were dependent completely on the group for food, shelter, clothing, and relationships or community.

Leaving the group psychologically is much more complicated. For reasons cited in my response in #1 above about our human desire to find ultimate meaning, purpose, answers.

The existential challenge of leaving a cult-like group includes:

Loss of psychological identity: Years inside a cult-like group makes followers ideologically consciously and unconsciously fit into the group’s doctrines or worldview. Leaving psychologically will likely take as many years as it did to stay in it to unbind the language, worldview, and subtle manipulations of the group.

Leaving the group physically is no guarantee of leaving the group psychologically. Close proximity to the group’s “headquarters” or “center” puts follower-disciples at greater existential peril psychologically.

Fear of not being “good enough” from being kicked out or leaving the group, not living up to the group’s ideals of spiritual or ideological perfection, obedience, and loyalty.

There’s an excellent collection of essays titled: The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power by Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad which I recommend and have written about in my articles, including: Manipulation Techniques of Meditation Peddlers, Escaping the psychological trap of meditation techniques, and Double Bind of Eastern Enlightenment.

3) I prefer to use the term “cult-like” instead of only cult. For cult-like encompasses the attributes of common behaviors, such as:

Unquestioning obedience to authority,

Promising ultimate purpose and meaning in life,

Dismissing or berating anyone who questions or challenges the group, leader, ideology.

Cult-like behaviors are on a spectrum. They are common in our society and manifest in degrees, like a bullfrog that is first comfortable in a cooking pot of lukewarm water. Gradually as the flame burns underneath and boils the water the frog is cooked. We are all born into cult-like influences. But each of us is influenced in various degrees by these external authorities.

Jacobsen: How can they — those for who the entrenchment and indoctrination are arguably the most thorough — leave mentally and then physically?

Scott: The way I left mentally or psychologically the SRF systems of undue influence was through a gradual, years-long process. I lived in the SRF ashrams as a monk for 14 years. I believe it took me the same amount of time, 13-14 years, before I was able to psychologically come to grips with what had happened to me. During those 13-14 years I was engulfed mostly in catching back up with decades of my life lost while living in a closed-cloister. I was reintegrating back into the world: getting professional training and experiences, going back to school to complete college education, building a home, paying the bills, and learning about being in the world outside the ashram.

The harder part, in hindsight, was unpacking the layers of psychological manipulations that go way beyond just one cult-like group experience, like SRF. I’m talking about layers of cultural and societal indoctrination since birth. The education of youth in being obedient to authority and so on. Of being raised Catholic and being asked to have faith in the Church, Pope, and God, Jesus. The whole thing about unquestioning authority feeds into an entire worldview, an existence, psychologically. Like a fish in a bowl of water. The indoctrination is the bowl but more critically the unconscious water all around the fish.

In some strange twist of chance, it actually was the fellow members of the ashram where I’d lived that allowed me to openly begin questioning ashram authority and the teachings of SRF.

The monks at that time started these encounter-like groups. We had begun to confront our existence, it’s meaning, individually within the community.

For instance, we would sit in a circle of maybe 10–50 monks and discuss questions such as:

If SRF ashram was an instrument to our feeling the bliss, joy, and love that our guru, Yogananda (1893–1952) promised followers-disciples then why were we mostly feeling fear, despair, and hopelessness?

Why were the leaders of SRF seemingly indifferent to our despair?

Could it be that the leaders and the organizational systems gained its very power over the fear-based systems of psychological controls?

These and many other questions were hashed out over a year or two by many of the SRF monks in the ashram. Until the SRF President and her lieutenants shut down the conversations and banned the open “encounter” groups. Also, the leaders of the encounter groups, the Spiritual Life Committee, were all replaced by compliant lieutenants of the President. And the President fired the two outside professional psychologists who had facilitated any encounter sessions.

Jacobsen: Do halfway houses or safe transition houses exist for ex-cult members as with women domestic abuse victims?

Scott: I’m not aware of any halfway or transition houses for members who leave cult-like groups. There are some members or former members from outside some cult-like groups like Scientology, SRF, or Mormons, who may temporarily take people into their homes, provide occupational training, or donate household items to members who leave the group to establish a home or place to live outside the group.

On Netflix sometimes you find some interesting documentaries. I remember one called Amish: Shunned that reminded me of my experiences in and outside the SRF ashram. Also, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief also helped me process my experiences and see how disturbing are these cult-like behaviors.

Jacobsen: Do some never ‘get over’ their experiences, the trauma for example?

Scott: Correct. Some, perhaps most, if not all, who spent many years within high-control groups, may never get over the abuse or controls.

Why would we want them to get completely “over” it?

For me, the lessons I learned getting out of the ashram cult-like situation, both physically and psychologically, was perhaps one of the most defining experiences of my life, of my psyche. I learned so much that is nearly unspeakable. And, that continues to unfold. That’s not to say that I don’t regret living in the SRF ashram for 14 years. I do regret staying so long.

I have scars and trauma lurking underneath my psyche. On the outside I live a fairly ordinary life, with fairly unremarkable job, car, family, friends and accomplishments. Most of the people I know do not know I lived for a decade and a half in an ashram, cult-like group. Or, if they do know we seldom if ever talk about it. Perhaps it’s also my introverted nature that keeps me from speaking much about my experiences.

That’s why for me to talk or write about it is so healing. It allows me to process my thoughts and feelings. In some strange, macabre way I get fascinated as to what drives people to join, stay, and leave cult-like groups.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Scott.

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Welcome to the New GNH Vice Chair, Jill Porter!

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Gordon Neighbourhood House

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/19

A big welcome to a new member of the executive team, Jill Porter! She is a community development advisor at the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Centre for Community Engaged Learning who also lives in the community served by GNH. Jill is the new vice chair for the advisory board. She has a background of over 20 years in non-profit, community and partnership development work.

Jill has worked in inner city communities through various non-profit organizations and government roles but for the past 5 years with UBC. “It was a new role when I began”, Jill said, “It was geared towards our Centre connecting with community organizations in different ways.” Through it, she found Gordon Neighbourhood House (GNH).

Over time, the relationship between GNH and Jill grew, especially since she lives in Vancouver’s West End. Her inclusion in the community was an additional pull for the position as well. Jill said, “I live there. I knew about GNH over the years through interacting with neighbourhood houses. It was a matter of reaching out.”

Jill had conversations with Paul and the team to look for ways in which the Centre at UBC, where she works, could collaborate with the GNH community. “I got excited,” Jill gushed, “I was inspired by Paul and the work that he is doing at GNH.”

Another attraction to becoming a member of the board for GNH was that she had “never been on a board of a community organization that was in my own neighbourhood.”

The role of vice chair of the advisory board for GNH is new. Board positions are traditionally 3-year terms. She is beginning her second term with this new role. “The first year I was on the advisory board, I was a member. The next two years, I was in a recording role.” Jill said, “I saw this as an opportunity to step up and take on more of a leadership role in the advisory board and help Paul and the CAB chair James Kim, with a lot of that work.”

When asked about the core value of GNH, she said, “What appeals to me, and what I believe the core values are, are inclusion, accessibility, reciprocity, just those opportunities around just being responsive and inclusive of the needs of community.” The values that support an organization to stay connected and in touch with its community.

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Welcome to the New GNH Community Advisory Board Chair, James Kim!

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Gordon Neighbourhood House

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/12/10

(GNH Community Journalist/Blogger)

Gordon Neighbourhood House (GNH) is thrilled to welcome the new Chair of GNH Community Advisory Board, James Kim! As part of the annual election for positions on the board of GNH, James will fill the position. The previous chair, Matt Schroeter, stepped down from the role to contribute to GNH in different ways. We appreciate the service of Matt and James.

James has been profiled in a previous GNH Blog post about the branding of the GNH, What’s in a Brand? Community Journalist Gavin Reid Explores the Gordon Neighbourhood House Rebranding Process. At the time, James said, “It is important to create a good first impression. A brand reflects personality and helps make it recognizable in different environments.”

James notes that the huge increase in visitors to GNH since 2012. James is curious about the world and the local, and wider, Vancouver culture as well, especially related to food. He likes to eat. He likes to cook. He likes to share meals. A perfect fit for the GNH community!

He has been associated with GNH for some time as the Communications Consultant (since November, 2012). Even before GNH, he knew Paul Taylor. He heard about the GNH when Paul became the executive director. “Gordon Neighbourhood House was also a good place for me insofar as the catchment area, which is the Downtown Peninsula,” James said, “I’ve been living here for the last 12 years. That worked out for me.”

For the role as the chair, James will be involved in meetings, fundraising efforts, meeting with the city, signing various documents for grants, and so on. “With certain types of grants, for example, there is a request that along with the executive director or staff at Gordon Neighbourhood House there is an indication of endorsement from the advisory board,” James said, “Usually, that would be the chair signing.”

James wants the board to be as inclusive and representative of the community members that GNH is integrated into as much as possible. He wants the conversation of poverty reduction and food security between the community, the city, and the province to continue. James stated that GNH is an important part of that movement to “try and make the world a better place.”

“It has to do with trying to keep the conversation going with a poverty reduction strategy, food security…for everyone from elders to students,” James said, “As part of that strategic goal I think GNH is doing a great job of speaking to the right people and hopefully making a bit of an impact.”

He described the community, and the energy that “informs and influences the GNH,” as his favourite part of the neighbourhood house community. That is, GNH is a community hub or a “home away from home.” James has been touched most by attending some of the volunteer events.

When his parents came to Canada in the late 1960s, they did not have jobs. They weren’t quite food insecure but options were limited. There was less of a Korean-Canadian community compared to today. And there was no such as a neighbourhood house such as GNH and its outreach programs. GNH is good because it can bring people in. “When I sit down with people, in some cases, I feel like it is revisiting an opportunity when we were young, or my parents were young,” James said, “I feel it is an amazing thing that we are able to do this, to be frank, with the limited resources that we have at neighbourhood houses.”

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In Conversation with Joy Gyamfi, Young Ideas Program Assistant

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Gordon Neighbourhood House

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/11/16

(GNH Community Journalist/Blogger)

Tell us briefly about your background – family, education, and work.

I was born in Ghana but have grown up and lived in Canada for the majority of my life. (16 years to be exact.) I am now a student at UBC, and I’ve mainly worked in the food service and retail industry before this position.

How did you find out about Gordon Neighbourhood House?

I’m a Co-op student, so I found out about GNH through the Summer Day Camp Leader position that they advertised with Co-op.

What interested you about us?

When I first found out about GNH I was mainly interested in finding a job but now that I’ve worked here for 5 months, I’m really interested in and proud of the fact that we are able to run so many programs that are low-cost and affordable.

Now, you’re working with Gordon Neighbourhood House. What tasks and responsibilities come with this position?

Now that my position has changed, I am a Program Assistant for Young Ideas. I essentially help plan events for people living in the West End area.

Where do you hope Gordon Neighbourhood House moves forward into the future?

Although GNH is well-known in the West End area, I hope that it can become a more recognized name outside of this community.

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Gordon Neighbourhood House: What is a Neighbourhood House, and What Does It Do?

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Gordon Neighbourhood House

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/11/12

(GNH Community Journalist/Blogger)

Short intro to GNH

Found tucked away in pockets of lively communities, neighbourhood houses are hidden gems enchanted with an ambience of hospitality and zest. Most might not know about neighbourhood houses. Indeed, they might not know their content and purpose. There’s a few in the Lower Mainland including South Vancouver, located on Victoria Drive; Mount Pleasant located on East Broadway; Kitsilano, on West 7th Avenue, and finally, Gordon Neighbourhood House (GNH), which can be found on Broughton Street. Many are associated with the Association of Neighbourhood Houses in British Columbia (ANHBC). We want to explore some of the aspects of a neighbourhood house through a case study in GNH. But what is a neighbourhood house? What is its purpose, and how can one get involved?

The ANHBC helps over 100,000 British Columbians with over 300 programs. These include child care and other family resources, support for seniors and youth, and even food programs. For examples, these can mean camping and community dinners. The ANHBC remains an overarching association for seven neighbourhood houses. Some of these have been around for a long time. For example, and to the case study, GNH has been around since 1942 in Vancouver’s West End.

The organization aims to facilitate community engagement and interaction. This is done through various programs for the development of the community by the community. Now, the key phrase “neighbourhood house” has more clarity. A neighbourhood house is part of the community and a collective effort for public engagement. This will include work with sister associations through bottom-up, or grassroots, organizing for diverse engagement to reflect the West End community.

Throughout the Lower Mainland, neighbourhood houses have become grassroots organizations that are constructed and developed, by, and for, the people of the local community. As with most bottom-up organizing, GNH is one of them.

Victoria’s and Scott’s Experiences

We have been to Gordon Neighbourhood House before, in different events. Scott attended in October for a Young Ideas meeting, which is, as per the title, an event for the organization’s youth wing. Victoria could make it for part of a community dinner, which was connected to the Vancouver Food Conversations event; part of GNH’s annual West End Food Festival. We found the experiences pleasant and informative, and the membership enthusiastic, warm, and professional. Our hope is that individuals will consider these hidden community resources right in their proverbial Lower Mainland backyard. In fact, they have numerous ongoing, upcoming, and annual events.

How to Get Involved/Upcoming Events

The GNH hosts a multitude of events and programs at its venue located on 1019 Broughton Street. Programs are available for citizens of all ages and backgrounds. Families and youth are supported through experiential learning that inspires not only intellectual, but emotional discovery as well. A Seniors’ Advisory Committee consisting of GNH members advises the GNH on improving the issues faced by seniors in the community and city. The GNH also hosts a Seniors’ Lounge every week from Monday to Wednesday, which is open for all West End elders to meet with old and new faces. Additionally, Seniors’ Out-Trips are organized to provide West End’s seniors with the opportunity to take part in the outdoors and diverse cultures in the Greater Vancouver Region, while socializing with other elders.

In GNH’s Young Ideas (YI) initiative, GNH acknowledges that a community is largely affected when its members experience loneliness or social isolation. With 48% of West End’s demographic being between the ages of 20 and 39, 41% of which finding it difficult to make friends, the YI organizes events, activities, and workshops to create opportunities for those between 20 and 39 to engage and forge relationships between West End’s community members. In addition to these programs, GNH also has a “Neighbourhood Small Grants” program and organizes “The Clean Team” in partnership with the West End Business Improvement Association to audit litter and work towards a cleaner neighbourhood.

There are two annual events at GNH: The West End Food Festival and the Vancouver Food Summit. The West End Food Festival is a multi-day event focusing on bringing public attention to various topics of concern in our food system, and using food to bring together community members to celebrate the diversity of food and cultures in the West End community.

The Vancouver Food Summit was an incredible and rare opportunity for individuals, community food practitioners, farmers, community leaders, academics, funders and activists and stakeholders to spend a day sharing experience and expertise, challenging assumptions, having difficult conversations and exploring how to deepen our collective impact. The interest in food in our city has gained significant momentum, in fact this year Vancouver celebrates the third anniversary of the Vancouver Food Strategy.

A key aspect of this work must be focused on a critical analysis of who is typically left out of conversation around our food system and why? The Vancouver Food Summit allowed us to collectively push ourselves to think about what an inclusive food movement looks like. Attendees chose between eight different panels throughout the day, involving discussions on eight topics central to Vancouver’s food movement. Topics included: the advancement of indigenous food sovereignty, a critical look at food banks, the efficacy of food policy at challenging poverty, the question of whether local food is inherently more just, accessibility as more than a ramp, and whether food waste was an opportunity or a curse. Using food to animate important conversations, GNH is a central hub for these activities.

Volunteer postings for GNH can be found on GNH’s website, and include a variety of postings; from yoga instructors to herb garden volunteers, to outreach and awareness volunteers. Becoming a volunteer for the GNH can be a very enriching and fulfilling experience, as well as an effective way to engage with West End’s community. You can become involved and donate to Gordon Neighbourhood House at their website. Note: there are restrictions on the kinds of material donations. http://gordonhouse.org/

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In Conversation with Susanna Millar

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Gordon Neighbourhood House

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/10/05

(GNH Community Journalist/Blogger)

What’s your brief background – family, education, and work? How did you find out about Gordon Neighbourhood House? What was your original interest in us?

My background and how I came to know GNH are closely linked. I studied social work and have always had an interest in agriculture. I had travelled and worked on several farms abroad as a WWOOFer (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) and always knew I wanted to incorporate this passion into my work somehow. Trying to connect my love of agriculture with social work seemed tricky at first, until I became familiar with the work GNH was doing around food and community. The GNH food philosophy was inspiring to me, and I felt this was a place where food could be grown locally with the community, cooked together, and shared over laughs. I am now grateful to be part of it.

Any suggestions for others to become involved with us? Any suggestions in ‘spreading the word’ via social media, word of mouth, newspapers, blog posts, articles, and so on?

We are always looking for folks to get more involved at the house. As cheesy as it sounds I truly believe there is something for everyone here. My suggestion is to check out our programs online or at the front desk, and if there’s something that interests you, sign up! We are also always hosting special events, so it is important to sign up for our newsletter and check out our Facebook page so you don’t miss those. If you see an event, post, or article that you like, chances are your friends might like it too- so be sure to share! GNH is a great place to meet new people, and I often hear stories of long lasting friendships that began at an event, in a program, or through volunteering. Don’t be shy…once you attend something you’ll be part of the GNH family.

You are a farmer and community programmer for Gordon Neighbourhood House. What are your tasks and responsibilities in that role?

As the farmer/community programmer I look after the GNH urban farms and community herb gardens around the West End. With 4 farms and 10 herb gardens to date, it’s safe to say I can’t keep up without an enormous amount of help from volunteers. The urban farm team is incredibly keen, and we go out each week to look after whatever needs to be done (weeding, watering, harvesting, and way more). Together we have learned how to maximize our space with salad greens, companion plant, troubleshoot with pests, and attract pollinators. Once the produce is ready it gets harvested and brought back to Chef Peter, or one of our many other food related programs at the house.

Gordon Neighbourhood House wants to make the West End a better place to “live and grow” whilst remaining “sensitive to the ever changing needs of the diverse groups of people” in the neighbourhood. What do you see as the importance of this message and work by Gordon Neighbourhood House?

Being a better place to live and grow means all people feel welcome in this space. When I say there is something for everyone here, it means we strive to ensure that each person who walks in the door finds something important to them: English conversation class, a new friend, a tasty meal with neighbours, or a treasure at the attic. It also means that this person has something to offer which makes this place grow alongside them: maybe they raise issues that affect seniors at the seniors’ lounge, or are looking to get their hands dirty at the farms, or find themselves starting a dance party at a Young Ideas event. With the West End being a fairly diverse community with a wide set of skills, interests and challenges, we see GNH mirroring such diversity in our programming and activities. This must also come with a commitment to critical conversations around how to make this community better in the future, and advocating to see that change happen.

Where do you hope Gordon Neighbourhood House moves forward into the future?

It is my hope that Gordon House continues to grow in the direction it is headed. I dream of a place with farms on all sides, food in all rooms, and conversation amongst all people. As I say this however, I am sitting at the front desk on a regular Thursday night at GNH and it feels pretty good. The Rainbow Soup Social is cooking up a meal for the Community Food Hub tomorrow and it smells amazing, “Mexican Fiesta soup” they say. In room 1 there’s a free documentary film screening about the Site C dam, with a Coast Salish welcome song and drum. A couple regulars are chatting in the lobby over some coffee, and curious people come and go from the thrift store. I just commented to someone that I hoped to pop in to see the film because “it’s pretty quiet right now”. If this is quiet, I think it’s fair to say we’ve hit a pretty high point. I trust it will continue to grow from here.

Thank you for your time, Susanna.

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Linda’s 36th Anniversary!

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Gordon Neighbourhood House

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/10/01

(GNH Community Journalist/Blogger)

Linda has been an integral part of the Gordon Neighbourhood House and West End community for over three decades. On behalf of our community, we want to express our deepest, heartfelt gratitude to someone not only indispensable to the community at large and to the individual lives influenced by her presence and interactions, but for playing a significant role in the growth of Gordon Neighbourhood House.

When Gordon Neighbourhood House opened in it’s current location at 1019 Broughton in 1986, HRH Prince Charles toured the house. Linda was there the day that he came to the house, in fact he shook her hand and commented on her important role at Gordon Neighbourhood House.

Paul Taylor said, “Linda’s laugh brightens Gordon Neighbourhood House several times thorough the day. You couldn’t miss it! It’s as much a part of this place as the walls are. Her commitment and dedication to her community is an inspiration to us all.”

Jim Balakshin said, “Linda is involved in so many aspects of Gordon Neighbourhood House. When we host events, Linda is often the first to arrive and will stay until everything is finished.”

Agata Feetham said, “Linda is a compassionate, kind, and loving person who truly cares about people. She is a hard worker and always willing to help anytime anyone needs it. Linda is a dedicated team player that everyone appreciates and she truly cares about Gordon House and the West End community. I am proud to call her my colleague and friend.”

Debra Bryant said, “Linda, you must have welcomed hundreds of newcomers into Gordon House and ANHBC. Maybe that’s why you’re so good at it. Thank you for warmly welcoming me when I joined a couple of years ago and for being part of the life of ANHBC for more than a third of our history.”

Thank you, Linda, and happy GNH 36^th!

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In Conversation with Agata Feetham

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Gordon Neighbourhood House

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/07/08

(GNH Community Journalist/Blogger)

Tell us about your brief background – family, education, and work.

I am originally from Poland. I moved to Canada when I was 8 years old with my parents and younger brother. We were very fortunate to have a smooth immigration experience and have been living in Vancouver since 1989. I went to UBC and got my Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and then a Diploma in Guidance Studies (through the Faculty of Education). I have been working for Gordon Neighbourhood House for a total of 15 years and currently I am the Program Director.

How did you find out about Gordon Neighbourhood House?

During my first year in University, I started volunteering at my local neighbourhood House (South Van NH) and there I came across a job posting for a child care worker at GNH.

What interested you about us?

As a psychology student, I was very excited to gain experience working with children in a community setting.

Now, you’re the Program Director for Gordon Neighbourhood House. What tasks and responsibilities come with this position?

As the Program Director, I oversee the majority of programs that are not food initiatives (we have a Director of Community Food Initiatives). This includes program coordination, program evaluation, and overseeing a number of community program staff that run and supervise a wide variety of programs.

How did you come upon, and earn, this position?

I took part-time classes throughout university so that I could work part-time and gain experience. I started working in different positions with children and youth (e.g. Out of School Care, Summer and Spring Break Day Camps, etc.) at Gordon Neighbourhood House in 2001 and 3 months after I graduated from the Diploma program in 2005, I was offered the position of Child, Family, and Youth Program Coordinator. Since then, my position and title have changed a couple of times and I now work with GNH as the Program Director.

Where do you hope Gordon Neighbourhood House moves forward into the future?

My hope for GNH is that it continues to grow and expand the wonderful work that it already offers. I am extremely proud and honoured to be part of an organization and staff team that truly makes a difference in the lives of our neighbours. GNH is very dear to my heart. I have witnessed hundreds of examples over the last 15 years of how essential GNH is to making the West End a vibrant, healthy, and active community.

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In Conversation with Stephanie Shulhan

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Gordon Neighbourhood House

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/07/19

(GNH Community Journalist/Blogger)

Tell us about your brief background – family, education, and work.

I’m from Calgary, Alberta. My family’s small but close. Growing up, I always loved having little family card game nights, dinners, going for walks in Fish Creek Park, and I still love simple dinners and going for walks with my family.

I studied Anthropology and Development Studies (in Calgary), and Integrated Studies in Land and Food Systems (UBC). I love studying and consider myself a life-long learner. Education isn’t just about school, and I learned a lot from the jobs I had while I was in school: I worked at a Drop-In Centre in Calgary and learned about how many of us don’t manage to earn a living even when working as many hours as possible, and then at Immigrant Services, which was eye-opening as I met new Canadian residents, refugees, and Temporary Workers with a huge range of life experience. In Vancouver, I loved learning about bees and pollinators during an Internship at UBC Farm, while I was studying issues of (popular) food culture and how we form our definitions of ‘good’ food.

How did you find out about Gordon Neighbourhood House?

I got connected a bit to other N.H.s during my work with the Think&EatGreen@School Project during my studies at UBC.

What interested you about us?

When I saw Gordon Neighbourhood House was hiring, I thought it looked like a fabulous opportunity. I liked its Food Philosophy, range and scope of projects, and the fact that it was so well connected with so many other organizations and initiatives.

Now, you’re the Community Programmer for Gordon Neighbourhood House. What tasks and responsibilities come with this position?

I see it as being mostly about making connections between people, programs, and resources, to respond to real needs/dreams of our neighbours. I help to connect a lot of great volunteers with opportunities to work on projects they’re interested in, share their skills and talents, and to connect with each other and with other members of the community. I like when volunteers and program participants can learn new things or make connections that help them in their personal and career goals.

Where do you hope Gordon Neighbourhood House moves forward into the future? I think we’ll keep building on our partnerships to reach more people. I’m excited to see more spaces downtown for Good Food initiatives, and to be involved in animating those spaces and helping to bring awesome people into those spaces so they can do amazing things.

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In Conversation with Matt Schroeter (Board Chair)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Gordon Neighbourhood House

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/07/11

(GNH Community Journalist/Blogger)

Tell us about your brief background – family, education, and work.

I’m from Washington State in the USA, and I’ve been living in Vancouver for a little over 8 years now. When I was growing up, I always wanted to be some kind of artist—I just wasn’t sure what kind!

I ended up getting interested in graphic design and got an Associate’s Degree from Centralia College in that. I then got really interested in film, and earned a Bachelor of Art’s Degree at the University of Washington in Seattle. I eventually found my skills more aligned with digital design, so I pursued a Master’s Degree up here in Vancouver—at the Centre for Digital Media.

Throughout high school and university, I was working as a photojournalist and doing freelance design work when it came up. Now I’m working at a small agency making apps and websites, mostly for healthcare and technology companies based in the USA. Outside of that, I’m constantly taking photos around the city, working on personal art/design projects, doing freelance design work, and volunteering with GNH.

How did you find out about Gordon Neighbourhood House?

I was brought into GNH by a mutual friend of Paul Taylor’s about 4 years ago. I was so interested in what was going on there, that I asked Paul how I could lend my skills in the best way. They really needed a new website at the time, and that was something I loved doing. I thought it was a great chance to help out the community and start getting involved.

What interested you about us?

So many things! I liked the sheer diversity of the programs and the people they served—from youth to seniors, and every age group in between. The friendliness of the staff and the willingness to open their doors to the people in the community was especially nice to feel.

Now, you’re the Board Chair for the Young Ideas Steering Committee, Young Ideas Communications Committee & Neighbourhood Small Grants Advisory. What tasks and responsibilities come with these positions?

Currently I’m the board chair for the GNH Community Advisory Board. I’m also member of the Young Ideas Communications Committee and GNH Fundraising Committee. Previously, I served on the Neighbourhood Small Grants Committee for 2 years, but this year I decided to give it a break.

Outside of reading and organizing materials for those meetings, I try to make it to as many events related to those groups as I can. For all of those positions, it’s really important to have a sense of what’s going on in the neighborhood. Making a habit of getting involved in the wide range of GNH events has been the perfect way to get that sense. Often I’ll go to the events as a photographer, and while I’m there I meet people from the community.

How did you come upon, and earn, these positions?

For the Community Advisory Board, I served on the board first—and was elected once the previous chair stepped down. For the other committees, I just expressed my interest to Paul once I heard about them. I’m always looking for new ways to help out GNH, and it’s been so fascinating seeing the changes from those different perspectives since I got involved.

Where do you hope Gordon Neighbourhood House moves forward into the future? First, I hope GNH can continue doing all these things it’s been doing. I think we’re incredibly fortunate to have a space, staff, and volunteers that make all of the current programs possible. Looking further, I hope that GNH can grow the connections it has in the community and in the city. Thinking about all the work GNH has done, especially around food—the potential to implement similar models in other neighborhoods is very encouraging.

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In Conversation with Chantal Denis

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Gordon Neighbourhood House

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/07/05

(GNH Community Journalist/Blogger)

Tell us about your brief background – family, education, and work.

I was born and raised in Ottawa, and lived there until I left to attend Western University in London, Ontario. I started out in biomedical sciences but ended up graduating with a degree in psychology, with the goal of teaching primary French immersion. During the summer of 2012, I had a rather sudden change of heart and realized that I wanted to pursue food. Vegetarian at the time, I found a job at one of Ottawa’s most well known vegetarian restaurants, a pay-by-weight buffet called The Green Door. That was where my cooking career began and where I was first introduced to the kind of large scale cooking I now do daily. I spent 3 years working there, including while I was taking a post-graduate certificate in Event Management. Last summer, I cooked for a tree-planting camp and after that I decided, on a whim, to move to Vancouver in pursuit of a better life as a commuter cyclist. Only a month after my arrival, I was lucky enough to land a job as Vega’s Office Chef, where I prepare a daily vegan lunch for 100 employees at their headquarters in Burnaby. So far, my life on the West Coast has been pretty dreamy!

How did you find out about Gordon Neighbourhood House?

The weekend after I officially moved to Vancouver, I met a friend of a friend on a trip to Salt Spring Island. She lives in the West End and had been involved with GNH. She told me about the Nourish photo series and suggested that I be photographed. That photoshoot led to an in-depth conversation with Matt (the photographer and chair of GNH’s Community Advisory Board) about food philosophy. He introduced me to Paul and the rest is history!

What interested you about us?

I think the first thing that really drew me to GNH is the incredible energy of the space. It’s a hard thing to describe, but I suppose the best way to put it is that Gordon has very, very good vibes. After such a good first impression, what sealed the deal was the fact that Gordon’s food philosophy so closely mirrors my own. Their radical stance on food security really resonated with me and I absolutely love how community-minded all of their food programming is.

Now, you’re the Cooking With Chantal and Veggie Soup-a-Stars Coordinator for Gordon Neighbourhood House. What tasks and responsibilities come with these positions?

Cooking With is a plant-based cooking class that I have the absolute pleasure of teaching once a month. For this class, I am responsible for choosing a theme and then developing/selecting recipes that we will be making. Once all that preparation is done and the ingredients have been acquired, I am responsible for facilitating the 2-hour class with my goal always being to empower people to cook by providing as many new skills and laughs as I can.

Veggie Soup-a-Stars is a weekly community kitchen that is much more low key than the cooking classes. I am responsible for leading a group of amazing volunteers as we prepare a large meal Sunday evenings that will be served for “Meatless Monday” – a pay-what-you-can lunch program that usually attracts around 25 people. I don’t prepare recipes for this group but I do have to plan the menus and gather the ingredients. I am also responsible for weekly reminders to the group and coordinating things if I happen to be away for a weekend. During the community kitchen, I assign tasks and provide tips when applicable. We’ve developed into a really strong team and I am so impressed by how efficient we are and by what a lovely community we’ve created!

How did you come upon, and earn, these positions?

I feel very grateful that these positions were more or less created for me by Paul and Chantille. I expressed interest in getting involved with GNH and wanted to put to use my large-scale cooking experience as well as my passion for making plant-based cooking affordable and accessible. After a few chats with Chantille, they created these programs that were a great fit for me to facilitate as well as very complementary additions to the existing programming at GNH.

Where do you hope Gordon Neighbourhood House moves forward into the future?

I hope that GNH never let’s go of its radical food philosophy and keeps pushing the boundaries of the current food system in Vancouver. I believe that food programs are such an integral part of the work done by Gordon and I hope that they continue to evolve in a meaningful and community-minded way. I think that Gordon being involved in the creation of a Community Food Centre would be a huge step towards a better, more just food system in Vancouver.

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1. http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/GHA

A Brief Overview of Humanism for Ghana – Rights, Frameworks, Culture, Exemplars, and Modernity

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Roslyn Mould

Publication (Outlet/Website): Assorted In-Sight (In-Sight Publishing)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/03

Rights

International women’s rights are, as such, global because there are no boundaries to the high ideals universally agreed to, at least on paper and stipulated in international declaration, by humanity at large. Violations in rural villages and urban metropolises are no different at root. Violations are violations.

Violations of women’s rights are violations of women’s rights regardless of race, creed, color, religion or irreligion, or political ideology. Humanism, as a democratic and rights-based life stance, overlaps with these stipulations. Any humanism, defined properly, will incorporate them into life as well as possible.

Same with Ghana. Ghanaian women deserve equal rights and status with men. All women deserve rights and privileges recognized at the international level in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Human rights contain women’s rights. Women’s rights remain distinct. In that, human rights and women’s rights remain distinct and substantially overlapping domains of stipulated rights in international documents from the United Nations. Let’s look at some of the examples.

Frameworks

United Nations Women (UN Women) follows numerous documents for guidance on the rights of women. UN Women is the organization of the United Nations devoted to women and girls. It developed from the international need of the implementation of international women’s rights for women’s advocacy, emancipation, and empowerment, and one can argue facilitated by the feminist ideological stances of the previous Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon. “I am proud to call myself a feminist,” Mr. Ki-Moon said.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (PFA), UN Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security (2000), and some of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (and some of the previous Millennium Development Goals or MDGs, 2000 to 2015) hold import within the international context of the United Nations.

CEDAW remains devoted to the all UN Women programmes with over 185 countries party to the convention, which means in general agreement about it. The Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action (PFA) was adopted in 1995 at the Fourth World Conference on Women to enhance government commitments to women’s rights, where Member States of the UN decided to reaffirm and strengthen for the global review process that happens every 5 years.

This was reiterated by Member States of the UN at the review in 2005, 2010, and 2015. UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security (2000) had recognition of the ways women are affected by war in disproportionately compared to men. There was a reaffirmation within the document to increase women’s role in the decision-making processes for conflict prevention and resolution.

Following the partial fulfillment/non-fulfillment of the Millennium Development Goals by the international community (2000 to 2015), the Sustainable Development Goals were made active and effective for the Member States that remain part of them, which means most or all of them.

There are 17 new ones for the agenda with over 169 targets for the elimination of poverty in addition to combat inequalities with a distinct focus on prosperity promotion connected to the protection of the environment. Of course, international women’s rights links to Ghana as well. The Gender Inequality Index (GII) ranks Ghana 140th in the world in terms of gender inequality.

That’s low. This has implications for the economy, the political system, and women’s status with the country. Numerous sub-factorial rankings within the GII represent these facts such as the relative high maternal mortality rate alone at 380 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, and the mean expected educational years for women at 5.6 years and men at 7.9.

These remain distinct disparities based on the societal disadvantage of women in terms of livelihood and life prospects. There have been inroads made with respect to Ghanaian gender equality and international women’s rights, but most societies seem to have longstanding cultures. Ghana has one, too.

Culture

Culture influences the implementation of women’s rights in Ghana too. In that, the perception of a woman’s proper place in society. The concept of the ideal female. The status of women tends to relate to the marital, religious, and parental status of the woman. For marital status, if the woman is not married to a man, and if she does have this officiated within a traditional parental and religious authoritative context, then the woman loses status within the perception of the community.

For religious status, if the woman is irreligious or of a discriminated against religious status, and if tied to the marital status, then the woman will be discriminated against in the concept of an ideal female. That is, a woman requires the legitimation of religious authority in both personal and professional life including marriage.

For the parental status of the women, if a woman does not bear children and raise them, and if the woman does not have a husband, and if a family for the woman is not in a religious context, then the woman loses respect and experiences pressure from the community to have children, become religious, and get a husband. The pressures and discrimination can be persistent, and at times painful, in daily life.

Exemplars

The major levers of power come from elected representatives. Votes are cast. The will of the people is put to the test. The societal preferences are then seen in mass. The sex disparity is readily foreseeable with the 140th placement in the GII, for instance. Ergo, the sex disparity in politics can, to some extent, be an indication of gender equality. First woman running mate, Brigitte Dzogbenuku, was the running mate for the People’s Patriotic Party (PPP). Also, another woman, Charlotte Osei, was the first woman selected as Chair for the electoral commission of Ghana.

She has been praised. People worried about declaring the man that selected her for president. People were happy with the way the election went. Ghana has never had a civil war. Conspiracy theories abounded about the election. The winner was obvious. There were rumors about the electoral website being hacked, but there is substantive evidence. The winner was the first woman flagbearer and founder of her party, NDP, and former first lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings.

Modernity

The clash between modernity and fundamentalist religion within the country is something important to humanists in the region because human preaches to the human rights and scientific worldview-oriented. It is a small sector of the Ghanaian population, but something deeply important for the maintenance of the global humanist movement within the localized context of Ghana.

The north of the country is mostly Muslim, but demographics are changing because people are seeing the Christian God as more ‘right’ than the Muslim God. The northern region in Ghana is one of the poorest areas. The Upper East, the Upper West, and the Northern region make the Northern part of Ghana. The Northern region is the biggest region in size in Ghana and is one of the least dense in population.

Each region has a regional capital. The biggest one is Accra. Basically, people wake up and can start a church, even on the side of the street. People don’t necessarily need to go to seminary or theological schools and train to become a priest, pastor, minister, and so on. The reason given is that the “Holy Spirit” works in mysterious ways. You do not have to be anybody. The new priests aren’t necessarily educated, or even need to speak English. This is dangerous.

The recently most popular is Daniel Obinim. He has been arrested. He is in custody because, finally, he had a church of hundreds of people, where he claimed to be an angel. He would do anything to stop anybody. But he was known to be originally selling yogurts on the street. Now, he wears colorful suits and has lots of money.

There were viral videos of him. He would say you’re going to get rich later, or you’ll die soon. Well if you get rich, then you give him money; if you think you’ll die soon, then you give him

money. And if you don’t get rich, then no problem, just another ignored miss. Jon Benjamin is the only British ambassador in Ghana. He is very Ghanaian, though. The main point is people really believe this stuff.

In the light of individuals believing the fundamentalist creeds, and with the cultural environment providing the possibility to start from the street, there seems to be the greater need for a humanist movement in Ghana, and external support from countries with more established humanist movements because of high levels of religiosity, subsequent discrimination against the secular, and difficulties faced in family life, employment, and political life for humanist in Ghana.

As this remains true for the general humanist Ghanaian community, it remains even more so for women, so women’s rights and human rights are tied together with humanism in a Ghanaian context. Whether from a humanist, human rights, or women’s rights perspective, we should share the common goals.

Bibliography

2. http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/gender-inequality-index-gii http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/

3. http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/goals/

4. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/wps/

5.http://www.unwomen.org/~/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/csw/pfa_e_final_web.pdf

6. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/

7. http://allafrica.com/stories/201609221321.html

8. http://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/guiding-documents

9. http://www.unwomen.org/

10. http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

11. https://www.modernghana.com/news/740976/vote-for-women-in-the-2016-general-elections.html

12. http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/religion/Christmas-is-an-opportunity-for-non-believers-to-repent-497286

13. http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/I-fired-warning-shots-Hajia-Gariba-497378

14. http://pulse.com.gh/features/gender-inequality-why-are-there-so-few-women-in-ghanas-parliament-id4774663.html

15. https://bettymould.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/‘towards-increased-women’s-participation-and-representation-in-parliament’/ 16. https://appliedsentience.com/author/humanistservicecorps/

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Language Barriers in an International Fashion Market with English as the Main Language

Author(s): Guadalupe Garcia Jerez and Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Assorted In-Sight (In-Sight Publishing)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/12/26

The lingua franca of fashion is English. But what about speakers of other languages? There can be difficulties for them. What does this mean for fashion world, for them?

Modern fashion is synonymous with elegance. Paris is the new cradle of good taste and refinement. From the beginning, the ability to speak French was synonymous with modern fashion. But what has changed so far, especially with the new obstacles is communication in fashion?

Globalization governs the production system. It affects human interactions, means of communication. It influences lifestyles, promotes cultural exchanges, language too, e.g. “lol” for “laugh out loud.” In this, it becomes necessary to choose a universal language. A lingua franca that favors communication between people from one end of the world to the other.

We know most prevalent languages at the international level are: Chinese Mandarin (increasingly demanded), English, and Spanish. Where English is the language most requested by companies, with 89.5% over any other language, it is considered as the language of business par excellence. Equally in fashion, French was the main language; nowadays, it is considered a diplomatic language, which is in contradistinction to English. English is the new universal language.

Currently, in an international context, the main obstacle in fashion for foreigners is lack of proficiency in English, which implies limitations in fluent communication. That is, one being able to speak clearly without being limited by their level of English, or for doing a poor translation of their mother language.

It may lead to misinterpretations in meaning. That is why in many cases the essence of communication is lost and can be seen as, frankly, limited when it comes to making purchases, sales, creating and maintaining new contacts, and conducting good business negotiations.

On the other hand, when talking about certain more technical topics in which your vocabulary limits you considerably, the sense of the message you want to transmit is sometimes lost, or at least very limited. However, in the field of fashion, it is not as problematic as it could be in other fields, since the visual support here is very important, which considerably helps the understanding, where in many cases as the saying goes: ‘an image is worth more than a thousand words.’

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What Can We Do About Suicide?

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Nicola Young Jackson

Publication (Outlet/Website): Assorted In-Sight (In-Sight Publishing)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/12/10

So, what’s the deal with suicide? Mental health continues to be a growing concern in the UK with the increase in suicides for men and the attempts for women with both populations having not equal, but different, problems (Mental Health Foundation, 2016a). Each suicide is a tragedy, ripping apart the lives of people around the victim.

For women, they attempt suicide much more than men (Good, 2016). For men, they attempt and complete suicide much more than women (Ibid.). These need to be discussed more in a calm, sober way. We can then work on solutions to these major health problems, as mental health and medical professionals work on them every day. An ill-functioning brain is a medical and healthcare issue as much as an individual, physical, and social issue.

Let’s look a little deeper into who are the people that are choosing to take their own life. Around twice as many men than women take their own lives. Of those men, unemployed are 2 – 3 times more likely to take their own life. Research by Samaritans has found that men who have experienced social disconnection, relationship breakdown, and mid-life challenges are 10 times more likely to take their own life.

Mental health and illness reflect opposite sides of the output of a physical structure, the brain. All structures imply functions. There are genetic factors for the structure, and function, of an organ within a species. Also, there are individual differences within a species. The brain and its associated mental states are the same. There are environmental influences too. Those relate to mental health/illness. For much of our species (Homo sapiens) recent evolution, it was in favor of a life spent as a hunter-gatherer.

Modern environments come with associated problems in the lives of individual United Kingdom citizens. These count as risk factors. Many of the risk factors for suicide include:

drug and alcohol misuse
history of trauma or abuse
unemployment
social isolation
poverty
poor social conditions
imprisonment
violence
family breakdown. (Mental Health Foundation, 2016b)

Suicidality, like all mental illnesses or symptoms, can be treated. They need to be identified, targeted, and treated in a compassionate and timely manner. For mental illness, there are some general preventatives. According to the Mayo Clinic in Mental Illness: Prevention (2015), some of the basics for mental illness prevention are as follows:

Pay attention to warning signs. Work with your doctor or therapist to learn what might trigger your symptoms…
Get routine medical care. Don’t neglect checkups or skip visits to your health care provider, especially if you aren’t feeling well…
Get help when you need it. Mental health conditions can be harder to treat if you wait until symptoms get bad….
Take good care of yourself. Sufficient sleep, healthy eating and regular physical activity are important. (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2015)

No certain means exist to buffer against mental illness, and indeed suicidality, completely, but lifestyle interventions can be effective in personal life. And if things become too difficult, a focus on immediate contact with a healthcare provider is an important step for appropriate professional assistance where lifestyle practices fail.

But what are some of the lifestyle practices? First, you can get up. Sedentary lifestyles decrease overall physical strength, endurance, and flexibility. Active lifestyles increase overall strength, endurance, and flexibility.

Second, you can get more sleep. Sleep is an important part of health in addition to mental health (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2016). You can take into account a consistent sleep schedule and relaxing prior to bed for a good night sleep. There are some sleep aids accessible over-the-counter. Even so, they should not be used in the long-term. In summary, suicide is a multifactorial condition.

Gender, age, culture, lifestyle, diet and what is happening in a person’s life, are all factors that can contribute to such a devastating result. It is important to be aware of potential causes, signs and symptoms. Keep an eye on people around you. Be there for friends, family, neighbours, colleagues, and acquaintances. It is the duty of us all, to be there when others are at risk.

Bibliography

1. Samaritans. (2016). Suicide in the UK and ROI. Retrieved from http://www.samaritans.org/about-us/our-research/facts-and-figures-about-suicide.

2. Marlene Zuk. (2013, December 17). Paleolithic: How People Really Lived During The Stone Age. Retrieved from http://discovermagazine.com/2013/april/17-paleomythic-how-people-really-lived-during-the-stone-age.

3. Mayo Clinic Staff. (2015, October 13). Prevention. Retrieved from Mayo Clinic in Mental Illness: Prevention.

4. Mayo Clinic Staff. (2016, November 16). Sleep. Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/basics/sleep/hlv-20049421.

5. Mental Health Foundation. (2016a). Mental health statistics: UK and worldwide. Retrieved from https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/statistics/mental-health-statistics-uk-and-worldwide.

6. Mental Health Foundation. (2016b). Suicide. Retrieved from https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/s/suicide. 7. Samaritans. (2012). Research Report: Men and Suicide. Retrieved from http://www.samaritans.org/about-us/our-research/research-report-men-suicide-and-society.

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Some Pro-Life as Anti-Human Right

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Phoebe Davies-Owen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Assorted In-Sight (In-Sight Publishing)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/12/08

Abortion remains contentious. Two vague positions dominate the discourse: pro-life/anti-choice and pro-choice/anti-life. The forward-slash indicating an “or” implies the respective opposition’s position implied view of them. That is, a pro-life position is seen as anti-choice; a pro-choice position is seen as anti-life, logically at least.

We could expound on a long, boring, and worn-out discussion on abortion and reproductive health alone. However, we will not; we will focus on human rights and international law focused on reproductive health, which emphasizes abortion for this brief discussion. We will not define pro-life or anti-choice as absolutes – too many abound. We will make the case for human rights.

As with Human Rights Watch (HRW) on abortion, HRW said, “…equitable access to safe abortion services is first and foremost a human right,” (Human Rights Watch, n.d.). That is, abortion equals a human right.

The Human Rights Commission of the United Nations affirmed abortion as a human right as well (Grimes, 2016; Flynn, 2016; Amnesty International, 2016). Abortion, as a service within reproductive rights and health, implies the on-the-ground impacts on millions of women throughout the world.

Continually, international human rights, and international women’s rights, connected to reproductive health and rights implies international law. Center for Reproductive Rights states:

In 2008, an estimated 86 million women had unintended pregnancies…Governments that prosecute and punish women who have had abortions penalize women for exercising their basic rights…International legal support for a woman’s right to safe and legal abortion are found in numerous international treaties…Laws that restrict abortion have the effect and purpose of preventing a woman from exercising any of her human rights or fundamental freedoms on a basis of equality with men…Laws that deny access to abortion, whatever their stated objectives, have the discriminatory purpose of both denigrating and undermining women’s capacity to make responsible decisions about their bodies and their lives…(Center for Reproductive Rights, 2011)

Where these are violated, the rights of women to safe and legal abortion, the international law is violated because the international rights are violated. Violations imply illegality; illegality implies its complement legality, and so legality implies laws, followed or violated. Pro-life positions, if defined by, premises in its argument on, restriction of women’s right to safe and legal abortion, equate to positions against human rights.

Some definitions of pro-life equate to anti-human right; some pro-life positions and actions stand in violation, in practice or theory, of international law. Pro-life positions seem dominated by conservative perspectives.

The nuances differ between those holding “pro-life” positions, whatever those happen to mean for them, and so ‘pro-life as anti-human right’ does not implicate all, even most, conservative (or other) positions on abortion. Most likely, some pro-life positions are anti-human right by the aforementioned reasons and ratiocination. Of course, sociological and economic factors count too.

Indeed, the rich countries, and wealthier women, can afford the reproductive health services, including abortion, more than the poor countries and women in poverty. Furthermore, lack of access to abortion associates with poverty for women as well (O’Hara, 2016).

Even so, it seems that, although the issue of abortion is contentious, women, and Western women in particular, are adamant in their refusal to be denied their right to terminate a pregnancy. The vast majority of the unsafe abortions occur in impecunious conditions, which remains the developing world (Cohen, 2009).

To illustrate this, in France, on the first of December, the French Assembly approved a motion that would criminalise websites that appeared neutral on the issue, but promoted an anti-abortion agenda and put pressure on women to terminate their pregnancies (Toor, 2016).

This has, inevitably, led to arguments on the right of freedom of expression, but the government sees that these groups are working in “a masked way,” deliberately trying to trick women (Chrisafis, 2016). Women have protested proposed restrictions on abortion in Poland (Jacobsen & Jackson, 2016). Others in Ohio in the United States (Ingles, 2016). Other women protested in London in solidarity with women in Ireland (The Socialist, 2016).

At the moment, the situation in Ireland is tenuous. In the republic, abortion is illegal and it carries a sentence of up to a life in prison – unless the pregnancy endangers the life of the mother.

But on Wednesday the thirtieth of November, the government agreed to compensate a woman for travelling to the UK to receive an abortion, the first incident of its kind. Amanda Mellet was offered £25,000 in compensation after being forced to travel to England in 2011 to receive an abortion after being told that her baby would not survive outside of the womb.

It is situations and individual narratives such as these that instigate serious reflection on women’s right for health and wellbeing, especially in the domain of reproductive services and health including abortion. In reaction to the restriction to “the first and foremost a human right” becomes the basis for outrage, letters, piecemeal reform attempts, even moderate to large protests or mass social movements at the extremes, the international stipulations state that this is such, not simply two writers or handfuls of individuals (Human Rights Watch, n.d.).

Bibliography

1. Amnesty International. (2016, June 9). Ireland’s ban on abortion violates human rights – ground-breaking UN ruling. Retrieved from https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/06/irelands-ban-on-abortion-violates-human-rights/.

2. Center for Reproductive Rights. (2011, October). Safe and Legal Abortion is a Woman’s Human Right. Retrieved from https://www.reproductiverights.org/sites/crr.civicactions.net/files/documents/Safe%20and%20Legal%20Abortion%20is%20a%20Womans%20Human%20Right.pdf.

3. Chrisafis, A. (2016, December 1). French MPs vote to ban abortion websites that intimidate women. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/01/french-mps-debate-plan-to-ban-abortion-websites-that-intimidate-women.

4. Cohen, S.A. (2009, November 20). Facts and Consequences: Legality, Incidence and Safety of Abortion Worldwide. Retrieved from https://www.guttmacher.org/about/gpr/2009/11/facts-and-consequences-legality-incidence-and-safety-abortion-worldwide.

5. Flynn, D.J. (2016, June 10). The UN Declares Abortion A Human Right. Retrieved from https://spectator.org/the-un-declares-abortion-a-human-right/.

6. Grimes, D.A. (2016, February 1). United Nations Committee Affirms Abortion as a Human Right. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-a-grimes/united-nations-committee-affirms-abortion-as-a-human-right_b_9020806.html.

7. Human Rights Watch. (n.d.). Abortion. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/legacy/women/abortion.html.

8. Ingles, J. (2016, November 17). Abortion Rights Advocates Protest Against Pair Of Bills That Would Restrict Abortion In Ohio. Retrieved from http://radio.wosu.org/post/abortion-rights-advocates-protest-against-pair-bills-would-restrict-abortion-ohio.

9. Jacobsen, S.D. & Jackson, N. (2016, October 6). Black Monday – Women’s Reproductive Rights in Poland. Retrieved from http://www.conatusnews.com/black-monday—women-s-reproductive-rights-in-poland.html.

10. O’Hara, M. (2016, April 27). Lack of access to abortion leaves women in poverty. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/27/contraception-abortion-access-women-poverty.

11. The Socialist. (2016, November 30). Repeal the 8th protest for abortion rights. Retrieved from http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/927/24040/30-11-2016/repeal-the-8th-protest-for-abortion-rights.

12. Toor, A. (2016, December 2). France moves to ban misleading anti-abortion websites. Retrieved from http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/2/13816434/france-abortion-websites-ban-law.

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Tankers Can Tank Cultures

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Zachary R.W. Johnson

Publication (Outlet/Website): Assorted In-Sight (In-Sight Publishing)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/11/07

Indigenous populations throughout the world work within longstanding cultures, or remnants thereof. International agreements provide substantiation to preservation of their land, culture, religion, and language. In North America, terms and phrases can be “Native American” as well as “American Indian, Amerindian, Amerind, Indian, aboriginal American, or First Nation person” (Pauls, 2016). Two major documents and three United Nations bodies, in the international community, and two sections (at least) from the Canadian Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms hold substantial weight – and if not, then should – within the nation.

First, internationally, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007), or UNDRIP, is guided by the UN Charter, which affirms the equality of indigenous peoples, affirms their contributions to global civilization, shares concern about the injustices against Indigenous peoples, recognizes the need for respect of Indigenous peoples (as with all peoples reflected in the UN Charter, too), acknowledges prior documents instantiating rights, expresses being convinced about the recognized rights of Indigenous peoples as fundamental to peaceful cooperation between Indigenous peoples and the State, and solemnly “proclaims the following United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a standard of achievement to be pursued in a spirit of partnership and mutual respect” (United Nations, 2007).

The declaration opens in this tone and reiterates this throughout itself. As well, another document emerges from the work of the International Labor Organization (ILO) from 1989. The International Labor Organization C169 – Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (1989) covers ‘land, recruitment and conditions of employment, vocational training, handicrafts and rural industries, social security and health, education and means of communication, contacts and co-operation across borders, administration, and general and final provisions’ (ILO, 1989). For the purpose of this article on tanker spills, the impacts of tanker spills connect with both the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) and International Labor Organization C169 – Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (1989) (United Nations, 2007; ILO, 1989).

In addition, an advisory body of the United Nations entitled the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII or PFII) reports to the United Nation Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) with the first appointed president, Chief Ted Moses of the Grand Council of the Crees, from Canada (Division for Social Policy and Development of Indigenous Peoples, 2016). The UNPFII is one of three UN bodies. The others are the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Special Rapporteur Rights of Indigenous Peoples (United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, 2016a; United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, 2016b). These organizations work within the UN for Indigenous rights too.

Second, aside from the international community, for Canada, it was “in 1982 the federal government enshrined Aboriginal rights in Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution, and in Section 25 of the Charter of Rights in Freedoms, the government further ensured that Charter rights cannot “abrogate or derogate” from Aboriginal rights” (Hanson, 2009a; Hanson, 2009b; Government of Canada, 1982a; Government of Canada, 1982b).1 By implication, individuals and collectives can argue for the rights of Indigenous and tribal peoples, especially in relation to the health of the water needed for sustenance, either as the source of water or the life support system for food such as fish – or as part of a lifestyle including methods of fishing and culture around it (Parliament of Canada, 1996).

1 Constitution Act (1982) Section 25 states:

The guarantee in this Charter of certain rights and freedoms shall not be construed so as to abrogate or derogate from any aboriginal, treaty or other rights or freedoms that pertain to the aboriginal peoples of Canada including:

(a) any rights or freedoms that have been recognized by the Royal Proclamation of October 7, 1763; and

(b) any rights or freedoms that now exist by way of land claims agreements or may be so acquired. (94)

Marginal note: Other rights and freedoms not affected by Charter Government of Canada. (1982). Constitution Act, 1982. Retrieved from http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.html.

It seems ‘part and parcel’ of self-determination. Throughout the world, tanker spills impact Indigenous communities more than nonindigenous communities. Those with the necessity to live by rivers and other waterways have both their food and water sources polluted with contaminants. These contaminants can be, and often are, health deteriorating, and more.

Transport Canada has reported on liabilities and compensation for victims to some degree. (Transport Canada, 2016). As catalogued by the Coastal First Nation Great Bear Initiative, the impacts range widely and could include:

A tanker spill would adversely impact the environment:

 Threats to endangered and rare species;

 Damage to or loss of habitats;

 Population declines, particularly in top predators and long-lived species; and

 And the transformation of natural landscapes.

A spill would also have the following impacts:

 Negative effects on human health, well-being, or quality of life;

 Shrinkage in the economy and unemployment;

 Detrimental changes in land and resource use by our communities; and

 Loss or serious damage to commercial species and resources. (Coastal First Nations, n.d.)

Further, this is not dead history; it is living memory, even right into the present. In light of a somewhat recent development in public opinion over the Trudeau governments dedication to campaign promises, specifically the protest of working class youth at the National Young Workers Summit in Ottawa and the lone wolf pumpkin seed protester in Hamilton, the Liberals do seem to be attempting to keep their election promise on pipelines. That being the selective nature which Prime Minister Trudeau has brought to the governments approval process for proposed pipelines.

A moratorium for tanker traffic off the British Columbian north coast could be seen as an indirect expression of the governments disapproval toward the controversial Northern Gateway Pipeline (Tunney, 2016). Though such a moratorium is likely to appease some environmental activists as well as locals against the pipeline, the real benefactors would be the Haida, Tsimshian, Haisla, Heiltsuk and other First Nations of the surrounding area (Kew, 2015; Goldi Productions Ltd., 2007). Not only will the coast on which Aboriginal people have lived for countless generations stay unviolated by a life threatening substance, they will have been spared the burden of cleaning and restoring the area to at best a small fraction of what it is today, let alone the unknown ramifications for future generations in the area.

Our province has seen a similar scenario play out in October of 2016 when a diesel barge sank in the Seaforth Channel off the coast of Bella Bella (Lindsay, 2016). The barge is operated by the American-based corporation Kirby Offshore Marine, self-titled “the nations [US] largest offshore tank barge fleet.” First responders to the outpouring of diesel into BC coastal waters were the First Nations themselves, specifically the Heiltsuk people, who haven’t the resources necessary to even attempt a mass clean-up effort. “On the West Coast, we want to involve Aboriginal coastal nations who want to be involved with the whole issue of marine safety. We also need to look at derelict vessels,” Transportation Minister Marc Garneau said.

Transportation Minister Garneau’s statement about his understanding of the risks involved with an even greater amount of tanker traffic off the British Columbian coast is less than reassuring in its lack of detail. The fact that the federal government is not already involving First Nations of the area is nearly disgraceful to Trudeau’s government and overly disrespectful to First Nations.

As for looking at “derelict vessels,” there should already be an ongoing practice of maintenance or the regular recycling of the materials for outdated vessels by the corporation which owns them. Not only provincial as a concern, it is national and international, especially based in the history of the documentations in the United Nations about things that should be respected: land, language, culture, religion, and people.

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