September

Who would have thought this?

A little bit of stress goes a long way and can have far-reaching effects. Neuroscientists from the University of Washington have found that a single exposure to uncontrollable stress impairs decision making in rats for several days, making them unable to reliably seek out the larger of two rewards.

Well, who - when reading this - wouldn't come to think of all those stressed bankers & brokers, politicians & other stressed out decision makers.

And right. The article ends:

"Decision making, both large and small, is part of our lives. People are prone to make mistakes under stress. Look at what has been going on with the stock market. People are under huge amounts of stress and we have to question some of the decisions that are being made."
Full Science article here.

Some people might call the following nitpicking, thus just to make sure: This blogger would take up the cudgel on behalf of basic research, whenever politicians would refuse tax-funded (sic!) support, as long as there would not at least the invention of a teflon pan be guaranteed.

Still, sometimes, I am ... well, surprised when coming to learn that certain scientists, i.e. ladies and gentlemen who - to slightly a great degree make a tax-funded living* - after years, sometimes even decades of research would come to a result ...
... and here, esteemed readers, I do once again feel reminded of a certain passage in Thoreau's Walden and particularly its last sentence: [...] which I seriously think a ready wit might write a twelvemonth or twelve years beforehand with sufficient accuracy.


* and may nobody tell me the very scientists whose exorbitant research result even made it into Science were able to acquire third-party funds for their "project". Please!

What man is learning from the past

"The five techniques consisted of hooding, sleep deprivation, white noise, a starvation diet, and standing for hours spreadeagled against a wall, 'leaning on their fingertips like the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle. The only sound that filled the room was a high-pitched throb, which the detainees liken to an air compressor. The noise literally drove them out of the minds.' These techniques were accompanied by continual harrassment, blows, insults, questioning. This treatment usually went on for six or seven days. [...] I spoke to a psychiatrist who had the thankless task of trying to rehabilitate some of the interrogation victims (at the behest of [...]), and he told me that they were 'broken men', most of whom did not survive into their fifties. [...]

After they arrested me, I was thrown into a lorry where I got a kicking. Then I was taken to another barracks where I got another kicking. They took me up in a helicopter and told me they were going to throw me out. I thought we were hundreds of feet up, but were only up a few feet. They sat Alsatians on me. My thigh was all torn, and they made me run in bare feet over broken glass.

H[...] was then subjected to the 'five techniques'. [...] "

*

Passage taken from a report about torture in - Guantanamo? No.
- Abu Ghraib? No.
- Kadyrovs private torture 'apartment'? No.
- Prisons in China, Nigeria, Syria, Russia, Turkey, Vietnam? No.
- Iran? No.
- Argentina (1976-1983)? No.
- Chile (1973-1990)? No.

- No, I am quoting from pages 126/127 of Tim Pat Coogan's The Troubles - Irelands Ordeal 1966-1995 and the Search for Peace, published by Hutchinson, 1995.

Why?

Just to assure that man is able to learn from the past / history - at least what depends doing to others what they would not wish to be done to themselves.

The peace of the night

Death in a wine glass

Life is bloody short.
Thus let's die long, red and dry.
Rest in peace, green fly.

They are - am I ?

(hazel) nuts.

The answer I leave to my esteemed readers, as it is not impossible that I am a bit biased, but anyway: There will lots of nuts to be cracked in Seanhenge this year - either by its two-legged inhabitants and by the squirrels.

A bit too sentimental ...

... that I'd sing such a song for the loveliest of all daughters.
but anyway, here we go:

C'est ...

No poetic shooting star

When the other night
observing the perseids
I had but one wish.

Credit & Copyright: S. Kohle & B. Koch (Astron. I., U. Bonn)

Today 48 years ago

How we [...] kill rats

Most visitors will not have come across the name Marina Abramović [please do not mind me offering this slightly lousy Wikepedia entry].
None of us can know all (great / remarkable) artists, hm?

When watching the following which is but a tiny part of her performance that 1997 brought/earned her a Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, please let not attract yourself by some comments.
Think of what happened on the Balkan in the mid-90s. Think of Srebrenica. Think of ...

... think of what happened since, happens now and (hopefully not, but) probably will happen elsewhere on this planet ...

Voilà:

Ms Clinton goes Congo

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has demanded an end to widespread sexual abuse in war-ravaged eastern DR Congo, during a visit to the country.
Continued here.

Back?
Fine.
And?
Interesting, hm?
And horrible, alone if you imagine ...

Well, and certainly you remember this passage:

The BBC's Will Ross, in Nairobi, says perpetrators go unpunished and that sexual attacks have increased since January, when a government offensive [emphasis mine] was launched against rebels linked to Rwanda's genocide.

What the BBC (-man) does not tell you will find in a Washington Post article under following headline:

Congo's Rape Epidemic Worsens During U.S.-Backed Military Operation

Sic! U.S.-Backed Military Operation.

Or should it rather read:

[...] U.S. Mercenary-backed ...] ?

Or:

[...] Blackwater-Led ...] ?

Anyway, here is Stephanie McCrummen's article, upon which I stumbled after having stumbled upon The Angry Arab.


Related post:
As I see it

Some of the next

Who will be the next? I asked about three weeks ago.

Well, one week after the murder of Natalya Estemirova, the body of Andrei Kulagin was found in Karelia.

Another week later on Spiegel international online one could read (more) about The Triumph of Fear in Russia;

And there might have been some more 'the next', of which we will probably not come to know.

Today, in Dagestan's capital, Makhachkala, another journalist - Malik Akhmedilov - was shot in his car; and in Chechnya's capital, Grozny, one day after they had been kidnapped Zarema Sadulayeva and her husband, Umar Dzhabrailov, have been found in a car's boot - with gunshot wounds to their heads and chests.

Zarema Sadulayeva headed Save the Generation, a group that for several years worked with Unicef and Western [and Russian*] aid organisations to provide prosthetic limbs, surgical operations and counseling for victims of the terror in Chechnya.

Rights groups such as Memorial blame the forces of the Chechen president, Ramzan Kadyrov, for abductions, killings and torture.

So do I, adding but two names: Medvedev and Putin.

And I am tired to ask Who will be the next? ...

The peace of the night.

* somehow, to mention this in most Western media would simply be forgotten ...