Category Archives: Human Behavior

Human Behavior

Worth Watching: New ‘Curb’ and ‘Avenue 5’ on HBO, Australia Before the Fires in ‘Seven Worlds,’ ‘9-1-1: Lone Star,’ Cynthia Erivo in ‘Outsider’ -…

A selective critical checklist of notable weekend TV:

Curb Your Enthusiasm (Sunday, 10:30/9:30c, HBO) We're pretty, pretty enthused about the return, after two long years, of Larry David's deliciously cringe-worthy farce of bad behavior and inevitable consequences. We have no idea what will set Larry off in this long-awaited 10th season, but we'll settle for nothing less than scorched-earth comedy. Among the celebrity guests said to risking Larry's ire this season: Vince Vaughn, Jon Hamm, Mila Kunis, Fred Armisen, Timothy Olyphant (who's having a good year as The Good Place fans know) and Ed Begley Jr.

Curb is paired for a solid comedy hour with Avenue 5 (Sunday, 10/9c), the latest from Veep provocateur Armando Iannucci. The knockabout sci-fi spoof, set aboard an ill-fated luxury space cruise ship to Saturn, stars a frenetically droll Hugh Laurie (Veep, House) as captain-in-uniform-only Ryan Clark, who's ill-equipped to handle life-and-death crises when the Avenue 5 vessel goes disastrously off course, stranding a hapless crew and thousands of disgruntled passengers among the stars. Josh Gad co-stars (in an unflattering blond mop) as the ship's spoiled and clueless owner, and Silicon Valley's Zach Woods steals every scene as the chirpily and perversely nihilistic head of customer relations. All aboard! (See the full review.)

Seven Worlds, One Planet (Saturday, 9/8c, BBC America, AMC, IFC, SundanceTV): Sounds like science fiction, but this visually enthralling series is the latest from BBC Studio's Natural History Unit, capturing wildlife on each of Earth's seven continents. To call attention to relief efforts from the fires that have captured the world's alarmed attention, the network has shifted the series' episode order to premiere with "Australia." It's almost too painful to behold as you can't help wondering if the animals on display (filmed long before the wildfires began) could have survived the recent conflagrations. Among the rare sights captured by BBC's crews: a dingo giving chase to kangaroos and bringing its bounty back to her pups.

9-1-1: Lone Star (Sunday, 10/9c, 7/PT, Fox): Surely you knew this was coming. As inevitable as the tides, one TV hit clones another, and as you might expect, things blow up real good in Texas as Ryan Murphy's outrageous emergency melodrama spins off with an Austin offshoot. In the opener, following the NFC Championship game (expect lots of promos), a tragic explosion wipes out most of a local firehouse, and six months later, New York transplant Owen Strand (Rob Lowe, making clever sport of his metrosexual image) is recruited to rebuild the Engine and Ladder 126 crew. Captain Owen has his own issues, including a health crisis and a gay firefighter son (Ronen Rubinstein) in recovery, but soon sets about hiring the most diverse team imaginable Muslim? Check; Trans? Check while touting skin-care and hair protocols. The action scenes, as always, are impressively produced, but the emotional load of Lone Star is carried by True Blood's Jim Parrack as Judd, the original house's sole survivor, who needs to convince Owen and himself that his PTSD won't get in the way of doing the job.

The Outsider (Sunday, 9/8c, HBO): Oscar-nominated Cynthia Erivo (Harriet) makes her initial appearance as "the one and only" Holly Gibney a Stephen King character familiar from the Mr. Mercedes trilogy a quirky but intuitive savant of an investigator called in on the mystifying investigation. When Ralph (Ben Mendelsohn) informs her, "I have no tolerance for the unexplainable," she replies, "Well then, sir, you'll have no tolerance for me." We beg to differ. She's just what The Outsider needs, especially when belligerent deputy Jack Hoskins (Marc Menchaca) has a fateful encounter with the lurking menace, and fatherless Jessa Maitland (Scarlett Juniper Blum) conveys warning messages from her eerie night visitor to stop the hunt.

Sanditon (Sunday, 9/8c, PBS, check local listings at pbs.org): The Jane Austen-inspired Masterpiece continues to build on the undeniable sparks between Charlotte (Rose Williams) and the aloof Sidney (Theo James) with plot twists bringing them together often enough that he declares, "Seems I cannot escape you." Set pieces include a demonstration of a futuristic "shower bath" and a construction injury that causes Sidney to consider Charlotte as more than a distracting ornament.

Vienna Blood (Sunday, 10/9c PBS, check local listings at pbs.org): If your appetite for British mystery is insatiable, you might relish this stiff and derivative series, set in 1906 Vienna. Its your typical mismatched detective team, with gruff Viennese Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt (Juergen Maurer) barely tolerating the boyish sidekick forced upon him: British student, and Freud acolyte, Max Liebermann (Matthew Beard), whose newfangled study of human behavior could help the Inspector, if only hed listen. Their first case, continuing next week, involves the murder, possibly supernatural, of a beautiful but devious medium.

Awards Season: The countdown to the Oscars continues with the 26th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards (Sunday, 8/7c, 5/PT, TNT and TBS), with awards for film and TV. This year's SAG Life Achievement Award goes to The Irishman's Robert De Niro, presented by Leonard DiCaprio. Among the TV categories are drama ensemble cast (Big Little Lies, The Crown, Game of Thrones, The Handmaid's Tale and Stranger Things are nominees) and comedy ensemble (Barry, Fleabag, The Kominsky Method, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Schitt's Creek are nominated).

Earlier in the evening, PBS broadcasts the Great Performances presentation of Movies for Grownups Awards with AARP The Magazine (6/5c, check local listings at pbs.org), filmed earlier this month, with Tony Danza hosting and Annette Bening receiving the Career Achievement Award from Billy Crudup. Among the highlights: Diane Ladd presenting the supporting actress award to her daughter Laura Dern for her role in Marriage Story.

Inside Weekend TV: To honor the late Buck Henry, a popular performer and guest host in early seasons of Saturday Night Live, the network repeats a first-season episode from 1976 (Saturday, 10/9c), with Henry hosting and Bill Withers as musical guest The road to the Super Bowl is determined by the winners of the AFC Championship Game (Sunday, 3:05/2:05c, CBS), with the Kansas City Chiefs taking on the Tennessee Titans; and the NFC Championship Game (Sunday, 6/5c, Fox), where the San Francisco 49ers are favored over the Green Bay Packers Hulu becomes the streaming home of one of FX's very best series, Justified, with all six seasons of U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens' (Timothy Olyphant) exploits available on Sunday. Won't the judge from The Good Place be thrilled? Building anticipation for the fifth and next-to-last season of Better Call Saul, returning in late February, AMC kicks off a Breaking Bad marathon with the first season airing in its entirety Sunday, starting at 4/3c. More seasons follow on successive Sundays In the season finale of Showtime's Ray Donovan (Sunday, 8/7c), Ray (Liev Schreiber) finally learns the truth about his beloved sister Bridget's death, just in time for Mickey's (Jon Voight) greedy shenanigans triggering a showdown between the Donovans and the Sullivans. As the saying goes, there will be blood. Or it wouldn't be Ray Donovan.

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Worth Watching: New 'Curb' and 'Avenue 5' on HBO, Australia Before the Fires in 'Seven Worlds,' '9-1-1: Lone Star,' Cynthia Erivo in 'Outsider' -...

Human Behavior

Q&A: The impact of Australia’s fires on humans and animals – University of Denver

For months, massive swaths of Australia have been on fire, leaving more than 20 people dead, tens of thousands in flight from their homes, 15 million acres burned and millions of animals dead. Shocked by the destruction, the world has turned its eyes Down Under.

With the fires still blazing, the DU Newsroom invited Shannon Murphy, associate professor of biology, to explain the long-term implications for the countrys environment. Philip Tedeschi and Sarah Bexell of the Institute for Human-Animal Connection at DUs Graduate School of Social Work joined the email conversation to share their insights about the fires toll on animals and humans alike.

The fires in Australia are devastating in scale. What long-term ramifications could this have for human society?

Murphy: Its hard to understand the scale of this disaster right now since its still ongoing, but its likely we will feel the effects for decades or longer. We dont know yet how much of the native ecosystems will be lost, since the fire season still has another month to go, but it sounds like a lot of endemic species may have already suffered huge population losses. These are species that are found nowhere else on Earth. For people who value biodiversity, this is a huge tragedy.

Tedeschi/Bexell: Human behavior is causing mass environmental changes, such as climate change, mass extinction, desertification and countless forms of pollution not just air and water, but also light, noise, soil and more. Due to our inability to address the size of our population and our additions to economic growth, events [like this] will only grow in number and severity.

In addition to grieving the loss of homes and communities, Australians are mourning the dramatic loss of their wildlife. Why is that loss so profound?Tedeschi/Bexell: Whether humans realize it or not, other species are deeply embedded in our psychology and mental health. We also, thankfully, have strong aversions to suffering. To see the magnitude of animal suffering and death occurring in Australia right now is painful and traumatic. That pain is exacerbated by feelings of helplessness, as many [people] do not have the skills or financial resources to help the animals who survive the fires but are left with injuries and/or trauma. Yes, other species also experience trauma.

Humans evolved living alongside other species, and as we lose them, many of us also experience a devastating loneliness and, of course, despair and loss. There is a known term called solastalgia that refers to watching places we love changed, altered or destroyed. This causes a sense of homesickness while still at home or feeling like a stranger in your own land.

Many attribute the cause of the fires to climate change. Is that the case? What could have prevented this?

Murphy: Climate change is known to be altering fire regimes around the world, primarily because droughts are becoming increasingly frequent and intense, and when the landscape dries out, its more likely to burn severely. Natural wildfires are a normal part of many ecosystems, including some in Australia. In these ecosystems where fire is an important periodic disturbance, many species are fire-adapted. Indeed, not only are species that live there adapted to survive fire, many even benefit from periodic fires or require fire to reproduce. For example, some tree species require heat for their cones to open and allow seeds to germinate. However, the problem is that fires today are happening more frequently than normal and even fire-adapted species cannot recover when fires happen so quickly in succession. More pertinent to whats happening in Australia right now is that many fires that we see are much more intense than fires have been historically. Long-term droughts are causing the plants and soil to be much drier than they should be, and so there is a greater fuel load than if there had been normal amounts of rain. This means that fires that would normally have been low-severity fires and may have actually helped the ecosystem are now high-severity fires that are scorching the landscape.

Some reports are saying koalas are effectively extinct, and certainly other animal populations have been significantly harmed. What could it mean to lose a creature so emblematic of their national identity?

Tedeschi/Bexell: We should assume that we will see human depression and deep anxiety about these losses. Often they can be as profound as the losses of human members of our family, in part because these relationships are so reliable and often seen as permanent parts of our lives. This type of serious biodiversity loss is occurring all over the world. [Consider] the U.S. nearly losing bald eagles and China nearly losing giant pandas. These species are emblematic of entire nations, and to lose them would cause sadness and feelings of loss, but perhaps also guilt and shame. The loss of any of these three species would be due to deleterious human behavior, including pesticide use, overdevelopment and climate change. Earth is undergoing [its] sixth mass extinction event, as we know from the fossil record. This current extinction event is caused entirely by the behavior of one species humans.

Once the fire is out, what happens next? How do the environment and the animal population begin to recover?

Murphy: Recovery can be a very slow process, especially from high-severity fires like we see happening now. When fire-adapted landscapes burn with low-severity fires, recovery starts relatively quickly, with plants re-growing from belowground roots or seeds in the seedbank. However, when fires burn with the severity that we are seeing in Australia, sometimes the heat from the fire kills belowground roots and destroys the seedbank in the soil, which means that recovery depends on recolonization from undisturbed areas. Depending on the extent of the fire, this could take a long time because undisturbed areas may be really far away.

Recovery of animal communities depends on the recovery of the plant community, so [that] may be even more delayed. Lastly, the community may never recover to what it was, and depending on which species arrive, [the communities] may end up very different from the ones we knew.

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Q&A: The impact of Australia's fires on humans and animals - University of Denver

Human Behavior

Ken Nystrom to be inducted into Moose Lake Wall of Fame – Moose Lake Star-Gazette

Moose Lake High School will be inducting 1991 graduate Ken Nystrom into the Wall of Fame on Friday January 24, 2020 at 7:00 at the school between the girls junior varsity and varsity games. The public is invited to attend the ceremony and visit with Ken.

Ken Nystrom is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at the State University of New York at New Paltz. He graduated from Moose Lake High School in 1991 and attended the University of Minnesota-Duluth. Following college, he went to the University of New Mexico where he received his Ph.D. in biological anthropology. His research and training focuses on reconstructing human behavior in the past from skeletal remains. Over the years, this background has provided him the opportunity to travel to many different countries including Italy, Honduras, Greece, Greenland, the Canary Islands, Peru, Brazil, Chile, and Egypt. His research has covered many different topics, from examining the impact of imperial conquest in precontact Peru to the impact of manumission on population structure in historic New York. His most significant work looks at social inequality in the past and how this informs on social issues facing todays society.

Moose Lake is proud to induct Ken into the diverse Wall of Fame members. The Wall of Fame qualifications are for the person to have been out of school at least 10 years past graduation or five years past retirement for a staff member. The honorees have been coaches, teachers, lawyers, civic leaders, artists, and academics. Among the honorees in the Wall of Fame are Robert Youso, Paulette Paulson, Triple Crown Winners, Richard Pionk, and Stan Dodge.

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Ken Nystrom to be inducted into Moose Lake Wall of Fame - Moose Lake Star-Gazette

Human Behavior

2020 EGHS Wall of Honor Ceremony Is April 29 – East Greenwich News

East Greenwich High School

The Wall of Honor Committee for the East Greenwich High School Wall of Honor has announced that this years ceremony will be held April 29, at 6 p.m. in the East Greenwich High School auditorium.

Being honored this year are Susan Stevens Crummel, a nationally recognized childrens book author and her sister who is renowned illustrator for childrens books; Dr. Francis J. Pescosolido, currently working at Bradley Hospital and as the clinical associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University; Dennis Lynch, chairman of the board at Cardtronics and chairman of the South Health board of trustees, and Phil Garvey, an outstanding East Greenwich High School athlete who went on to coach and teach at several Rhode Island schools and served his country as a U.S. Marine Corps officer serving in Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom as operation officer for the 3rd Marine Air Wing.

They will be honored on the above mentioned night, and all family, friends, schoolmates, teammates and EG enthusiasts are welcome to attend. The ceremony usually lasts an hour and a half and is followed by a collation in the school cafeteria.

The event is sponsored by Allan Britt Gammons of Gammons Realty in East Greenwich. For further information and details contact Robert Houghtaling at 230-2246 or Chris Cobain at 398-1562.

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2020 EGHS Wall of Honor Ceremony Is April 29 - East Greenwich News

Human Behavior

Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’: A story of power and love for today? – Rutland Herald

King Lear is one of William Shakespeares greatest tragedies in that not only does it chronicle the downward spiral of a self-deceiving head of state and explore the ramifications of a messy regime change, it plumbs the human depths of its characters. In short, its a play for today.

The power of King Lear lies in its nature as both a deeply personal and deeply political play, explains Stephen Brown-Fried, who is directing Northern Stages upcoming production.

On one hand, its the story of how a political regime ends, and of what is left behind after an autocrat is separated from his political power. On the other hand, it is also the story of a family facing the deterioration of its patriarch, and of that patriarchs descent into madness.

When one man commands so much power, both politically for the country he commands, and personally for the people he touches, what lies on the other side of his authority? Brown-Fried said. What exists for him, for his family, and for his country when he can no longer occupy the seat of power that defined him? King Lear deals with a country collapsing under the weight of its ruling regime. In this sense, I find the play chilling and timely.

King Lear is also an icon of the theater and, in particular, its title role. Actor and playwright Jaime Morton will be taking it on for the first time.

Its an amazing journey, one of those that actors spend a career looking forward to. And now I am in the thick of it. Daunting, yes. Thrilling, absolutely, Morton said. The rewards of this play are just extraordinary. The deeper you look, the more there is. The journey is daunting, but really, really rewarding.

Northern Stage will present King Lear Jan. 22-Feb. 9 at the Barrette Center for the Arts in White River Junction.

The play, which was first published in 1608, concerns Lear, who bequeaths his land and power to two of his three daughters after they declare their love for him in a fawning obsequious manner. Because the third, the youngest and his favorite, refuses to flatter Lear, she is banished.

Once the first two sisters and their husbands have taken power, they reject Lear and strip him of his dignity. As he gradually loses his mind, it is only the third who is willing to stand by him.

His mind is beginning to slip away which, in my estimation, makes him inordinately prone to anger and impulsive behavior, Morton said of Lear. And then, over the course of the play, (he) begins, unfortunately too late, to recognize the humanity that has lived around him.

One of the sources of the plays power is that it is both a very big political play about a country and about what happens in a country at the end of a regime and what happens in a country when the country attempts a regime change, Brown-Fried said.

And at the same time its a very personal human story about families and parents and children and things that go off the rails with families. Its also about marriages and fate and destiny and fortune.

What makes it such a brilliant play is that theres very little of the human experience that doesnt show up in it, Brown-Fried said.

Although some of the human behavior is repulsive, there is also deep humanity.

Every moment of it probes at aspects of our own experience, Brown-Fried said. It allows us to actually live out both our worst nightmare and also our greatest hopes simultaneously. It goes to places in our experience that we all have lived through but hopefully we havent lived through everything in the play.

This is Brown-Frieds first time with King Lear too.

One of the things thats daunting about the play and why its an intimidating beast to tackle, it feels like every single relationship in the play is unique and developed with depth to a degree I havent found in any other Shakespeare play.

Theres something you feel when youre in the presence of this play, he said. To me, its like when Im listening to Mozart, or looking at a true masterwork of art. Theres just this awe with this play that the depth that each relationship seems to probe.

The Northern Stage production employs a cast of 17, and some mens roles will be played by women, including Gloucester and Kent. The setting is in an abstract era.

Its an imagined reality, Brown-Fried said. Its a world weve created.

And, if Fried-Brown is correct, we all know that world.

As a citizen of this country, I think were all at a place where the questions of what our relationship to our country is at the forefront of our minds, he said. There are several characters in the play who have lived their lives going with the flow, and at some pint in the play reach a point where they are forced into an activist role. At what point do we reach our limit?

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Shakespeare's 'King Lear': A story of power and love for today? - Rutland Herald

Human Behavior

Human-Caused Biodiversity Decline Isnt New It Started Millions of Years Ago – SciTechDaily

(Click image for full view.) Dinofelis, painting by Mauricio Antn. The picture shows a saber-toothed cat Dinofelis eating while one of our ancestors is watching. Dinofelis has been considered a predator that our ancestors were greatly fearing. But new research suggests that it was human ancestors that may have caused the eventual extinction of the species along with other major predators. Credit: University of Gothenburg

The human-caused biodiversity decline started much earlier than researchers used to believe. According to a new study published in the scientific journal Ecology Letters the process was not started by our own species but by some of our ancestors.

The work was done by an international team of scientists from Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

The researchers point out in the study that the ongoing biological diversity crisis is not a new phenomenon, but represents an acceleration of a process that human ancestors began millions of years ago.

Elephant. Credit: Hans Ring, Naturfotograferna

The extinctions that we see in the fossils are often explained as the results of climatic changes but the changes in Africa within the last few million years were relative minor and our analyses show that climatic changes were not the main cause of the observed extinctions, explains Sren Faurby, researcher at Gothenburg University and the main author of the study

Our analyses show that the best explanation for the extinction of carnivores in East Africa is instead that they are caused by direct competition for food with our extinct ancestors, adds Daniele Silvestro, computational biologist and co-author of the study.

Our ancestors have been common throughout eastern Africa for several million years and during this time there were multiple extinctions according to Lars Werdelin, co-author and expert on African fossils.

By investigating the African fossils, we can see a drastic reduction in the number of large carnivores, a decrease that started about 4 million years ago. About the same time, our ancestors may have started using a new technology to get food called kleptoparasitism, he explains.

Leopard. Credit: Hans Ring, Naturfotograferna

Kleptoparasitism means stealing recently killed animals from other predators. For example, when a lion steals a dead antelope from a cheetah.

The researchers are now proposing, based on fossil evidence, that human ancestors stole recently killed animals from other predators. This would lead to starvation of the individual animals and over time to extinction of their entire species.

This may be the reason why most large carnivores in Africa have developed strategies to defend their prey. For example, by picking up the prey in a tree that we see leopards doing. Other carnivores have instead evolved social behavior as we see in lions, who among other things work together to defend their prey, explains Sren Faurby

Humans today affect the world and the species that live in it more than ever before.

But this does not mean that we previously lived in harmony with nature. Monopolization of resources is a skill we and our ancestors have had for millions of years, but only now are we able to understand and change our behavior and strive for a sustainable future. If you are very strong, you must also be very kind concludes Sren Faurby and quotes Astrid Lindgrens book about Pippi Longstocking.

Reference: Brain expansion in early hominins predicts carnivore extinctions in East Africa by Sren Faurby, Daniele Silvestro, Lars Werdelin and Alexandre Antonelli, 13 January 2020, Ecology Letters.DOI: 10.1111/ele.13451

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Human-Caused Biodiversity Decline Isnt New It Started Millions of Years Ago - SciTechDaily

Human Behavior

Why I Will Never Lose Hope, Even After My Brother’s Tragedy – Thrive Global

I remember looking over my left shoulder out of the large rear window of the limousine. My breath caught in my throat. I hadnt expected to see so many cars. Slowly, respectfully, they snaked around the curve at the end of the long somber street. Headlights on.I didnt know there were so many people who cared. How did I not know that?

If only he had known how much he was loved. Perhaps he did know. Perhaps it just wasnt enough.

I dont remember much about those few days. It was as if I were living someone elses life. In someone elses body. Even as I look back now, there are distinct and specific moments I remember. And they follow a continuum. But its the stuff in between thats gone.

In the early morning hours on Monday, July 25, 1988, I received a frantic call from my sister Kathleen. The ring jolted me out of a deep sleep. She was in London, Ontario, still living in the house that our mother owned. She shared the house with David.

Our mother, who at that time was spending the majority of the year on a little Caribbean island named Montserrat, had called Kathleen a few minutes prior. She was trying to reach David.

Apparently, Mom called him the night before but couldnt get through. So she thought shed just try again that morning.

Kathleen went to rouse David so that he could take the call. After knocking on his bedroom door a few times with no answer, she let herself in.

There he was. Lying face up on his bed. Naked. Eyes open. Blood coming out of his mouth.

She rushed back to the phone to let our mother know what she found, and was immediately told to call me. When I listened to Kathleens voice, I thought there must have been some mistake. That somehow she just saw something else. I told her to go to the neighbors house, and I hung up the phone.

A few minutes later, the phone rang again. She whispered, Hes dead. And I screamed.

Vaughn, a new tenant who was staying in the bedroom beside mine (I was living in my brother Deniss house in Toronto), came rushing into my room. I dont remember what I said to him. I dont remember anything I said or did.

Shortly thereafter, Bruce K., a longtime friend of Deniss (and a friend of my familys), rang the doorbell. I opened the door to see his face heavy with grief, shock, and sadness. Unforgettable.

It must have been a couple of hours later when I was in my car, driving along the QEW highway, en route to London. I was frozen in shock. Dont Give Up started playing on the radio. And it was while I was listening to Kate Bushs ethereal, haunting voice that it hit me. When the reality of the situation could not be denied.

When I knew I would never see him again.

My dear, beautiful, sweet, sensitive, funny, intelligent, little brother David.

I dont remember anything that was said that day when I arrived in London. Surely phone calls were made. Arrangements were handled. But for the life of me, I cant remember a damn thing.

The only clear image I have is of my mother walking through the front door that night after her long and heartbroken journey home. I had never before seen her face look the way it did that night. I dont have the words to describe it. There was insurmountable sorrow emanating from her body. It halted her gait and weighed her down to such an extent that I thought she would never be able to lift her head again. I felt as though I not only lost my little brother, but that my mother was gone as well.

No memory of what was said or done. Until Thursday morning.

The limousine continued its crawl. We were almost at our destination. The Forest Lawn Cemetery was just another mile or so ahead.

I returned my gaze to the front of the procession. My eyes locked on the car that held the hearse where my little brother lay silent and dreamless.

As the wrought iron archway of the cemetery entrance passed above, I prayed that Davids spirit was at peace. I hoped that somehow, somewhere he knew that he was loved.

September 2004

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline receives approximately two million calls a year. Two million. And those are the people who choose to reach out for help.

How many countless others suffer in silence?

Why has suicide become such a pandemic in our society?

I hate to say thisI feel ashamed in doing sobut I am growing numb to the news of another life being tragically taken by someones own hands. There are times when I must choose to numb my feelings, otherwise its just too heartbreaking.

I cannot help but ask myself, sometimes out loud: What the fuck is going on?

Is it the crumbling of the family unit? How much does that play a part in the disappearance of hope for a fulfilling future?

Is it the secrecy, shame, and stigma that still exist about mental health issues, even though much progress has been made?

Is it because its too damn easy to label someone as having mental health issues, when all it really is, is loneliness, and isolation, and fear of intimacy?

Is it just being fucked over too many times and giving up hope on humankind? Believing that no one is trustworthy?

Is it the lack of community that too many of us experience?

Is it our stupid smart phones and social media that oftentimes make us feel both connected and brutally disconnected from life and real human interaction?

Is it the pharmaceutical companies that offer so many drugs for depression and anxiety, and then peddle other drugs if the frst drugs dont work? I love how part of the disclaimer for a lot of these antidepressants is, May cause suicidal thoughts. Are they fucking kidding me??

We now know that a young mind isnt fully formed until around the age of twenty-four. And if that brain is under the infuence of these drugs, it may not be able to handle the full side effects. David was twenty-one when he died from a pharmaceutical drug overdose. I still dont know who his psychiatrist was. Fucker.

Clearly, I have some anger issues to deal with.

Is suicide the last and only option when a tender heart is too broken to heal? Is that what happened with my David?

I dont have the answers. And try as I might, I will never know what was going through Davids mind as the night of July 24, 1988, closed in.

But heres what I do know. I know that my family structure was never solid. And it began to unravel around the time of my fathers death.

I know that living in isolation, even while (and maybe especially while) living under the same roof with many family members, destroys the soul.

I know that secrecy was rampant in my family. Still is. I know that I get very scared as I walk around my city of New York, witnessing person after person hunched over, their eyes locked like a zombies on their glowing screens. Unable or unwilling to peer up and risk looking around at whats happening right in front of them. Not taking the chance to look another human being in the eye.

It terrifies me when I see a two-year-old, four-year old, ten-year-old glued to their phone or tablet while in a stroller or in a restaurant dining with their family. No social skills learned. No needing to learn how to behave respectfully in public, or how to gauge human behavior around them. Just placated and soothed by another world that gleams from their screens.

Talk about isolation.

I call it the new AA. Apple Anonymous. But heres the thing: where theres life theres hope.

And the hope lies in knowing that Im not alone in thinking this way. Im not the only one who despairs over the lack of human connection that seems to be the new normal.

Theres hope in knowing that theres more research, tests, and knowledge around pharmaceutical drugs and how they affect the mind.

I garner hope when I see people dining and having a conversation at a restaurant with no cell phones sitting on their table.

Hope rises when a smile is shared between me and a stranger as we pass each other on the street on a cool, crisp, sunny autumn day in NYC.

My heart is lifted with hope when precious time is spent with a close friend, as we muse over ways we can inspire more human connection through art.

And those two million people who reach out for help every yearI pray that every single one of them receives a seed of hope that will be planted deep in their hearts. Tended to. Nurtured and protected. So that in time, they will experience the strength in knowing that they belong here in this world. Come what may.

I hope they will know that they are already loved. Even though sometimes it feels like they arent.

They arent alone.

We arent alone.

We are already loved.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

Excerpted from My Brothers Keeper: Two Brothers. Loved. And Lost. by Gloria Reuben. Used with Permission of Post Hill Press.

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Why I Will Never Lose Hope, Even After My Brother's Tragedy - Thrive Global

Human Behavior

What Impact is Big Data Having on Soccer? – Analytics Insight

Throughout the last few years, big data has become an increasingly vital component of many different sports across the globe. One of the most prominent examples of its influence relates to the NFLs Big Data Bowl, which seeks to encourage the next generation within the analytics community. Moreover, the use of such data has also proved to be highly effective in the soccer world, with numerous teams utilizing the technology to increase their chances of both short- and long-term success.

As a result, were going to look at how big data has affected soccerwhile also considering how further analysis has changed the outlook of the sport.

While the role of a sides coaching staff cannot be underestimated, the introduction of analytics and big data into soccer has significantly reduced the time spent on analyzing statistical patterns, as the role of the process is to computationally reveal patterns and trends which relate to human behavior. Because the analysis method can deal with such vast data sizes, its therefore able to enhance the total number of results that can then be studied. In turn, from a coaching and management standpoint, this allows for tactical developments to be made around the strengths discovered through analysis of individual players performance.

This numbers-driven influence has resulted in clear-cut differences to on-field performances over the last decade. The German national team, who won the 2014 World Cup, built a database that analyzed varying data points from both their team and their opponents. Crucially, this success can be attributed to data-related speed improvements, with the average time a player had on the ball falling from 3.4 seconds in 2010 to 1.1 just four years later.

Aside from noticeable on-the-field differences, big data is also having an impact on player transfers. Within soccer, the sudden abundance of player-level data has seen squad recruitment methods arguably go through the most significant transformation. Moneyball, which is a market value analysis theory, has long been utilized by Liverpool Football Club since Fenway Sports Group took over the reigning European Champions. As of January 2019, the Reds had the 12th-highest net spend in Europe and, despite that, have achieved back-to-back Champions League finals and a second-place finish in the Premier League, which highlights the noticeable improvement that analytics have had on their recent transfers.

Furthermore, data has also influenced supporter-focused elements of soccer, such as fantasy gaming sites and sports betting. Many of the existing fantasy soccer platforms, for example, provide selection advice based on acquired analytics and statistics to assist prospective gamers with their player picks. Moreover, users can also find soccer-related data to take into account at sports betting platforms such as NetBet, whereyou can browse data across a wide array of varying sports, leagues and players including finding first and last goal data, along with goals per match averages.

Following its introduction, soccer has been late to the trend of utilizing data to its full potential but, having now accepted the analytical side of the game, the sport is thriving like never before. In addition to improving coaching methods and on-field performances, big data has also revolutionized fantasy gaming platforms and the sports betting market.

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What Impact is Big Data Having on Soccer? - Analytics Insight

Human Behavior

Connecting the dots Good buts, bad buts and terror – Harrison Daily

The first installment of this series was first published in the newspaper on Jan. 10 and has continued each week. This is the article in its entirety.

With a month having lapsed since the previous column, it is probably appropriate to revisit the scripture that initiated this focus on Gods use of the word but to convey His truths and warnings. In Leviticus 26, we observe God through Moses conveying to His people Israel what He expected of them, both personally and nationally, in behavior and obedience.

In that chapter we find God using the phrase I will twenty-five times. Seven of those I wills are very good,BUTeighteen of those I wills are extremely and grievously arresting and ominously bad. And the rendition of those eighteen consequences for disobedience to God begins with the word but: BUTif you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments, and if you despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments,BUTbreak My covenant, I also will do this to you;I WILL EVEN APPOINT TERROR OVER YOU Lev. 26:14-16. Thesebutsare not only incredibly bad buts,butthey have been a constant for the last 2,900 years in Israels history.

TERROR!!! Sudden, drastic, life threatening, life ending, devastating, horrifying, paralyzing fear, searingly painful. Think: World Trade Centers, Pentagon, and eastern Pennsylvania on 9-11-01. Almost three thousand dead. None of us wants anything to do with any event that would or could be described asTERROR. BUThere is the God of Israel advising Israel, His own people and nation, of that very thing in the event of disobedience and rebellion against Him. And recall, too, that Paul in I Cor. 10:5-11 warned that theTERRORSenunciated in those passages happened to them (Israel) asEXAMPLESand they were written forOUR ADMONITIONon whom the ends of the ages have come.In other words, connect the dots.

Moses in his final State of the Union speech to Israel in Deuteronomy further warned Israel of theTERRORthat would come upon them when he said in Deut. 28: 15 et seq: But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the Word of the Lord Your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I (Moses) command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you 20. The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken me. 21. The Lord will make the plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess 25. The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them; and you shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26. Your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth and no one shall frighten them away 29. And you shall grope at noonday as a blind man gropes in darkness; and you shall not prosper in your ways; you shall be only oppressed and plundered continually and no one shall save you. 30. You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her; you shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes. 45 Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you. 46. And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and on your descendants forever. 47. Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things. 48. Therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of all things; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you. 49. The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the Earth. As swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, 50. A nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young. So lets connect just a few of the countless dots connecting these warnings and historical occurrences.

In reading Lawrence Rees international bestseller,Auschwitz, How Mankind Committed the Ultimate Infamy, 2005; I came across what was to me a heart arrester ofa passage regarding a sixteen year old Jewish boy from Slovakia that seared the meaning of the wordTERRORinto my consciousness. Deported by the Slovakian government under an agreement with the Germans, Otto Pressburger arrived on a transport at Auschwitz in March 1942. Immediately the terrorizing began as the SS guards and Kapos flushed their human cargo out of the cattle cars and proceeded to direct them to their barracks.

Pressburger recounts: From the station we had to run in groups of five. They (the SS men) shouted, Schnell laufen! Laufen, laufen, laufen! And we ran. They killed on the spot those who could not run. We felt we were less than dogs. We had been told that we were going to work, not that we were going to a concentration camp.

The next morning, after a night with no food or drink, Otto Pressburger (this sixteen year old kid), his father, and the rest of the Slovak transport of around 1,000 men were made to run from the main camp up to the building site that was Birkenau. He estimates that around seventy to eighty people were killed on the way. Birkenau, deep in mud and other filth, was an appalling place Conditions in Birkenau were considerably worse than in Auschwitz main camp, feet drop into a sticky bog at every step. There was hardly any water for washing. Prisoners existed in an environment of utter degradation, covered in dirt and their own feces

On that first day of work in Birkenau, Otto Pressburger witnessed another incident that demonstrated in an even more bestial way the desperate situation in which he now found himself:

We went to work to build roads Kapos and SS men were supervising us. There was one Jew from our town, a tall and strong man from a rich family. The Kapo spotted his gold teeth and asked him to give them to him. He answered that he could not do that, but the Kapo persisted that he must. He still said he could not give him his gold teeth. The Kapo got angry and said we must all obey his orders. He took the shovel and hit him over the head a couple of times until he fell down. The Kapo turned him upside down and put the shovel on his throat and stood on it. He broke his neck and used the shovel to get the teeth out of his mouth. Not far away stood another Jew who asked the Kapo how he could do this. The Kapo came over and said hed show him. And he killed him the same way. Then he told us never to ask questions and to mind our own business. That evening we had to carry twelve dead bodies with us back to the barracks. He killed them just for fun. All this happened on the first day at work. Pp 97-98.

Women were no better off. Murderous behavior by the Kapos had been a feature of Auschwitz from the very beginning, so the experience of these newcomers, though horrific, was nothing out of the ordinary of the camp. But the culture (if one can use such a word in the context of Auschwitz) of the place nonetheless was about to change in two major ways as a result of the arrival of the Slovakians.

The first change occurred because women were now admitted up to this point Auschwitz had been an exclusively male institution. But the arrival of women did not have the remotest civilizing effect on those in authority at the camp almost the opposite, as Silvia Vesela witnessed. She arrived at Auschwitz shortly after Otto Pressburger, on a transport containing several hundred women and one man a Jewish doctor who had been permitted by the Slovak authorities to accompany the women.

When we came to Auschwitz we were kicked out of the railway trucks, and the SS officers started to shout at our doctor, trying to find out why he was the only man on the transport. He replied in perfect German: I am a doctor, and I was assigned here by the central Jewish conference. My role is to accompany the transport and I was told I would then go back to Slovakia. Then an SS officer pulled out a gun and shot him dead. They just simply shot him dead in front of our eyes. Just because he was the only man amongst so many women. That was the first shock for me. P.99. Neither, of course, would it be her last.

Marched to their barracks, the women were ordered to strip off their clothes and hand over any valuables they had not already given up. As the Slovakian women sat, naked, having their heads shaved, an SS officer entered the room and ordered five of them to go to the doctors office. He wanted to examine Jewish women, says Silvia Vesela, and see if they were real virgins. He also wanted to know if Jewish women were clean. After they carried out the examination they were surprised but in a negative sense. They couldnt believe we were so clean. Moreover, more than 90 percent of us were virgins. These were all religious Jewish women. There was no way any of them would allow a man to touch her before the wedding. But in the course of the examinations every girl was deprived of her virginity the doctors used their fingers. They were deflowered another way to humiliate them. A friend of mine who was from a religious family told me: I wanted to keep my virginity for my (husband), and I lost it this way. P.100.

Nor did the elderly or the young receive any better or even remotely more favorable treatment from their captors. As the trains bearing these poor wretched masses from all over Europe to their deaths arrived in Auschwitz, the Germans repeatedly engaged in a selection process whereby they separated what appeared to be useful workers for their industrial facilities in Birkenau from the too young to the too old as well as what appeared to be the sick, infirm, and the feeble.

Eva Votavova arrived (in Auschwitz) with her father and mother in the spring of 1942. She recalled: We arrived at Auschwitz station and had to align in rows of five. The painful scenes began there. They were separating the young from old and children. They separated my father from my mother and myself When I saw him for the last time he looked worried, sad, and hopeless. P.100.

Commandant Rudolf Hoss emphasized in his memoirs (written in prison before his execution by the Poles in 1947) how the key to successful mass murder on this scale was to conduct the whole process in an atmosphere of great calm. But it could happen, as Hoss recorded, that if one person in the group approaching the gas chambers spoke of suffocation or murder, a sort of panic set in at once, making the killing much more difficult. In later transports a careful watch was kept over individuals who were thought likely to cause trouble for the Nazis in this way. At the first sign of any attempt to disrupt the compliant atmosphere the Nazis had created, such people were discreetly moved away, taken out of sight of the others, and shot with a small-caliber gun that was quiet enough that those nearby would not hear the noise. P.104.

The emotional torment of mothers who suspected what was about to happen to them, as they walked with their children to their deaths is almost impossible to imagine. On one occasion, Hoss records how a woman whispered to him, How can you bring yourself to kill such beautiful, darling children? Have you no heart at all?; on another occasion he saw a woman try to throw her children out of the gas chamber as the door was closing, shouting, At least let my precious children live!P.105.

Oskar Groening, a twenty-one year old SS soldier would relate late in life as to being on the Auschwitz arrival ramp as a transport of Jews arrived and debarked in September 1942. I was standing on the ramp and my task was to be part of the group supervising the luggage from the incoming transport. He watched while SS doctors first separated men from women and children, and then selected who was fit to work and who should be gassed immediately. Sick people were lifted onto lorries Red Cross lorries they always tried to create the impression that people had nothing to fear This process (of selection) proceeded in a relatively orderly fashion but when it was over it was just like a fairground. There was a load of rubbish, and next to this rubbish were ill people, unable to walk, perhaps a child that had lost its mother, or perhaps during searching the train somebody had hidden and these people were simply killed with a shot through the head. And the kind of way in which these people were treated brought me doubt and outrage. A child was simply pulled on the leg and thrown on a lorry then when it cried like a sick chicken, they chucked it against the edge of the lorry. I couldnt understand that an SS man would take a child and throw its head against the side of a lorry or kill them by shooting them and then throw them on a lorry like a sack of wheat.

When pressed for the reason why children were murdered, Groening replies: The children are not the enemy at the moment. The enemy is the blood in them. The enemy is their growing up to become a Jew who could be dangerous. And because of that the children were also affected.P.128.

TERROR, it has been an ever-present, constant, persistent, perpetual, aspect of Israels life for the last 2,900 years. It began when the united Kingdom of Israel of 120 years under Kings Saul, David, and his son Solomon of forty years each ended with the death of Solomon in 930 BC; and the division of Israel into North and South (the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah) because of bad political decisions by Rehoboam, Solomons son, regarding, of all things, taxes; and the long resultant sporadic civil war between the two kingdoms from 930 BC until 732 BC when the Assyrian Empire conquered the northern kingdom of Israel. For all those years the northern kingdom had no kings that adhered to the God of Israel, and Assyria was Gods answer to that nations rebellion. The southern Kingdom, Judah, on the other hand, did have some obedient kings interspersed with its disobedient ones which preserved its existence until 586 BC when Gods patience was even exhausted with Judah; and Babylon became Gods judgment on the southern kingdom. Driven into exile, Jerusalem and Gods Temple destroyed, Judah would be separated from all it held dear. The suffering of both these nations would be intense and severe. Allowed to return to Judah by the conqueror of the Babylonian kingdom, King Cyrus of the Medo-Persian Empire in 538 BC, elements of Judah would return, rebuild the Temple, and by 30 AD they would be confronted by their Messiah whom they would eventually hand over to the Romans for punishment of blasphemy.

The religious leaders of the Jewish people had claimed that Jesus miracles were by Beelzebub (Matt.12:24), and He had not only disputed the Scribes, Pharisees, and Sandhedrin, but declared He had performed them under the authority and power of God Himself. Hence, the blasphemy. And, ultimately, the crucifixion. Jesus said this: O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! Behold your house is left to youdesolate: for I say to you, you shall see me no more till you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!'"

And by 70 AD Jerusalem and its great Temple to the God of Israel was destroyed, and by 73 AD the remaining vestiges of the Jewish rebellion had been crushed at Massada with the suicide of the 1000 individuals occupying the fortress just before being overwhelmed by the Roman legions.

There is an axiom which most of us are familiar with: Whats good for the goose is , yep, that one. And there are two corollaries that go with this axiom when it comes to Israel. They should be a warning to all of us, based on what Moses and Paul, at Gods inspiration, have written. Here they are: Whats good for the Jew is good for the gentile, and whats good for Israel is good for the nations, including the late, great, United States; unless, of course, we learn from Israels mistakes, which the history of centuries of human behavior would seem to negate the possibility of.All this, as we wait for a TERROR response from the greatest terrorist state in the world at this time: IRAN.

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Connecting the dots Good buts, bad buts and terror - Harrison Daily

Human Behavior

NASA and NOAA numbers show 2019 the second hottest year on record – National Observer

This story was originally published by Mother Jones and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration

On Wednesday, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and National Aeronautics and Space Administration released their combined study on 2019 weather trends around the world. The main takeaway was stark: 2019 was the second warmest year on record, and the trend from Alaska to Antartica has been one of steady warming. According to data from the two government agenciescollected independently, then presented in tandemthe last five years were the hottest in recent human history, with 2016 barely beating 2019 for first place.

The respective organizations covered much of the same ground, but both made some unique additions to the joint report. NASA, for example, contributed a global temperature uncertainty analysistracking margin of errorwhile NOAA added specific coverage of domestic heat and rain conditions for the year.

Notwithstanding the potential for major disruptive eventsa volcano, some sort of massive social actionif setting those aside, Deke Arndt, a chief of climate monitoring at NOAA, told reporters, the chances are well continue to climb at about the rate weve been climbing. Though the report contained no predictions beyond that one, their data illustrates that even though 2019 may have been an anomaly on the grand scale, if the scope were narrowed to the last decade, it was yet another example of how the planet is moving towards a hotter future.

Here are some of the most striking charts from the report:

According to data collected by NASA, and corroborated by NOAA, 2019 was the second warmest year ever recorded. Thats 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the average temperature of the earth between 1951 and 1980.

Despite being collected independently of each other, there is remarkable consistency between the findings. On a given year, its normal for there to be some discrepancy, but Arndt says the data from 2019 were in complete agreement, showing a consistent increase in global average temperature since at least 1980. By presenting that data side by side, he notes, the findings of both are reinforced. Were measuring the same planet, and we do have slightly different methods, he said. It actually helps that we have slightly different waysin a checks and balances wayto make sure our methods are solid.

According to Gavin Schmidt, the director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the Arctic sea ice levels oscillate between March and September, when seasonal ice melting and expansion take place. In recent decades, the measurements of sea ice taken at those times have dramatically fallen, uncovering sections of Arctic ice that havent touched the open air on the earths surface in 50,000 years.

Across the United States, mean temperatures in 2019 also were above average. The differences were particularly dramatic in the American south, where large swathes of Georgia, Virginia and North Carolina saw record heat.

Yet it was Alaska that saw the most dramatic deviation from the norm. Average temperatures in the state in 2019 were 32.2 degrees Fahrenheit, more than 6 degrees higher than the cumulative average from 1925 to 2000.

These findings are jarring and come during a long campaign of climate change erasure and denialism from the Trump administration. Though the organizations have been pulled onto the political chess board in the past by President Donald Trump, both scientists were clear about the fundamental cause of the warming temperatures: Certainty that the trend is the result of human behavior is at near 100 percent, says Schmidt. All the trends are anthropogenic at this point.

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NASA and NOAA numbers show 2019 the second hottest year on record - National Observer