What expanded your mind today?

[Hollylane]

Interesting articles, information new to you, books, food, people, animals, noticed behaviors, conversations had, places, things, science, culture, random realizations, new perspectives...etc


What expanded your mind today?

[Talon]

The discovery of a whale, that scientists had previously thought..
had been extinct for two million years.

[Hollylane]

New York, a graveyard for languages
By Dr Mark Turin Linguist and broadcaster


Home to around 800 different languages, New York is a delight for linguists, but also provides a rich hunting ground for those trying to document languages threatened with extinction.

To hear the many languages of New York, just board the subway.

The number 7 line, which leads from Flushing in Queens to Times Square in the heart of Manhattan takes you on a journey which would thrill the heart of a linguistic anthropologist.

Each stop along the line takes you into a different linguistic universe - Korean, Chinese, Spanish, Bengali, Gujarati, Nepali.

And it is not just the language spoken on the streets that changes.

Street signs and business names are also transformed, even those advertising the services of major multinational banks or hotel chains.

In the subway, the information signs warning passengers to avoid the electrified rails are written in seven different languages.

But as I have discovered, New York is not just a city where many languages live, it is also a place where languages go to die, the final destination for the last speakers of some of the planet's most critically endangered speech forms.

Of the world's around 6,500 languages, UNESCO believe that up to half are critically endangered and may pass out of use before the end of this century.

Immediately we think of remote Himalayan valleys or the highlands of Papua New Guinea, bucolic rural villages where little known languages are still spoken by handfuls of speakers.

But languages can die on the 26th floor of skyscrapers too.

New York City is one of the most linguistically rich locations on earth, the perfect location to conduct research on endangered languages.

A recent Census Bureau report notes that in the United States, the number of people speaking a language other than English at home increased by 140% over the last 30 years, with at least 303 languages recorded in this category.

Originally home to the indigenous Lenape people, then settled by the Dutch, conquered by the English and populated by waves of migrants from every country ever since, the five boroughs that make up the Big Apple - The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island - are home to every major world language, but also countless vanishing voices, many of which have just a few remaining speakers.

No longer do aspiring field linguists have to trek halfway across the world to collect data on Zaghawa or Livonian, they can just take the Number 7 train a few stops where they will find speakers of some of the 800 languages that experts believe are spoken in New York.

I did just that, getting out at Jackson Heights, to visit a young family I knew well from Nepal.

They live in a massive apartment block, which, judging by the names on the letterboxes, housed speakers of at least 40 languages.

Every household in their home village in Nepal, high in a mountains a few miles from the Tibetan border, has a son or daughter working in New York.

And they have recreated the sense of a Himalayan village in this new land - they all live within a few blocks of each other and meet regularly for children's birthdays or to play cards, chatting away in their endangered language, a form of speech known simply as village language.

And not only that - head of the family Wangdi has also picked up Chinese and Spanish from working in New York's sandwich bars and restaurants.

His son Sonam, now only one year old, already hears three languages at home. He will probably grow up speaking four. The only common language spoken in the apartment block? "English."

When there is an important Buddhist ritual to be performed, someone in New York records it on a smart phone and immediately posts it online so that grandma and grandpa back in Nepal can watch and participate too.

Recognising what a unique opportunity New York provided, two linguists and a performance poet - Daniel Kaufman, Juliette Blevins and Bob Holman - set up the Endangered Language Alliance, an urban initiative for endangered language research and conservation.

"This is the city with the highest linguistic density in the world and that is mostly because the city draws large numbers of immigrants in almost equal parts from all over the globe - that is unique to New York," says Kaufman.

Several languages have been uttered for the very last time in New York, he says.

"There are these communities that are completely gone in their homeland. One of them, the Gottscheers, is a community of Germanic people who were living in Slovenia, and they were isolated from the rest of the Germanic populations.

"They were surrounded by Slavic speakers for several hundreds of years so they really have their own variety [of language] which is now unintelligible to other German speakers."

The last speakers of this language have ended up in Queens, he says, and this has happened to many other communities.

Garifuna is an Arawakan language from Honduras and Belize, but also spoken by a diaspora in the United States.

Staff at the Endangered Language Alliance have been working with two Garifuna speakers, Loreida Guity and Alex Colon, to document not only their language but also aspects of their culture through traditional song, before these are lost without record.

Urban linguists have also shot video of Husni Husain speaking Mamuju, his Austronesian language from Sulawesi, Indonesia.

He may be the only Mamuju speaker in New York, and these recordings are probably the first ever digital documents of his language being spoken.

But why do languages die?

Communities can be wiped out through wars, disease or natural disasters, and take their languages with them when they go.

More commonly, though, people transition out of one mother tongue into another, either by choice or under duress, a process that linguists refer to as language shift.

Being one of the last speakers of a language is a lonely place to be - you may have no one to talk to, no way to write it down and all kinds of cultural and historical knowledge that does not translate easily into English, Spanish or another more dominant language.

Languages ebb and flow, some triumph for a while only to fade away.

At the end of 19th Century, the lower east side of Manhattan was a celebrated centre of European Jewish culture, a world of Yiddish theatre, newspapers, restaurants and bookshops.

But in the 20th century, Yiddish took a battering as the Jewish community left the lower east side and moved out to the suburbs. The American-born children of Jewish immigrants understood, but rarely spoke, Yiddish.

With no readership, newspapers closed and books were discarded.

And then, just as it was most threatened, Yiddish bounced back, thanks to an unusual combination of technology, faith and the efforts of Aaron Lansky, founder and president of the Yiddish Book Center.

He established the centre to help salvage Yiddish language publications, 11,000 of which have now been digitised and are freely available online.

Yiddish also found support from an unexpected quarter - while secular Jews were increasingly giving up the language in favour of English, religious Jewish communities across New York continued to speak it, using Yiddish as their everyday vernacular allowing Hebrew to be reserved for religious study.

"There are many people nowadays who take Yiddish very seriously and raise their kids in Yiddish as well," says Lansky.

"The resurgence of interest in Yiddish is certainly not a nostalgic enterprise. If anything I think it is really a serious attempt to understand a broader view of Jewish identity and it is only now that young people are engaging with that."

Even Yiddish radio, once ubiquitous in New York, has made a comeback thanks to technology, with a once-a-week show produced by staff at a Jewish newspaper.

New York is a city that never sleeps and a city that never stops talking - a churning metropolis in which businesses, buildings and people are buffered by the changing winds of commerce and culture.

It is the perfect vantage point to listen to how the world's languages rise and fall on the tides of human affairs. I wonder in how many languages can you say 'Big Apple'?

[Ginger]

How interesting, Holly! I didn't know there were 6,500 languages in the world.

And that list describing the progression of characteristics telling that a language is dying... devastating.

Every morning on he subway, I see people reading newspapers and books in many different languages: Asian (I can't tell the difference between Asian languages when I see them in written form), Russian, Hebrew, Spanish, Polish—often all on the same stretch of bench.

And there I sit with my New York Times crossword puzzle.

[nycfem]

This all made me think how on the subway today I saw a big glass framed poster that read (paraphrasing), "We hear you that you don't like the Poetry in Motion series [where they post a poem in the subways] so we have made a change. The Poetry in Motion series is back but now with colored pictures to go with it. The MTA listens to you." I was rather fascinated by that, and I thought, "Why didn't you ask me? I love the Poetry in Motion series!" I even write down some of the poems and have seen others doing the same. The new pictures are nice too, a picture and a few meaningful lines of a poem. I listened to a school kid reading one of those out loud, something from the 1800's. He read it slowly and seriously, seeming to consider it. Poetry is a good thing, even with pictures, and maybe especially with pictures.

[Canela]

I came across this quote today:

Love is giving him the power to destroy you
And trusting him not to.

It's still ringing in my spirit...

[Talon]

The fact that in CT...they are sold out of bulletproof packpacks...w/firearms tagging along second.

[Hollylane]

Letter from Chinese Laborer Pleading for Help Found in Halloween Decorations

Julie Keith was unpacking some of last year's Halloween decorations when she stumbled upon an upsetting letter wedged into the packaging.

Tucked in between two novelty headstones that she had purchased at Kmart, she found what appeared to be a letter from the Chinese laborer, who had made the decoration, pleading for help.

Samsung in hot seat over abusing Chinese workers

The letter reads: "Sir, if you occasionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization. Thousands people here who are under the persecution of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever."

"I was so frustrated that this letter had been sitting in storage for over a year, that this person had written this plea for help and nothing had come of it." Julie Keith told Yahoo! Shine. "Then I was shocked. This person had probably risked their life to get this letter in this package."

The letter describes the conditions at the factory: "People who work here have to work 15 hours a day without Saturday, Sunday break and any holidays. Otherwise, they will suffer torturement, beat and rude remark. Nearly no payment (10 yuan/1 month)." That translates to about $1.61 a month.

Keith, a mom who works at the Goodwill in Portland, Oregon, did some research into the letter. "I looked up this labor camp on the internet. Some horrific images popped up, and there were also testimonials about people who had lived through this camp. It was just awful."

Horrified, Keith took to Facebook. She posted an image of the letter to ask friends for advice. One responded with a contact at Amnesty International. Keith made several attempts to alert them about the letter, but the organization never responded.

With no response from various human rights organizations, Keith took her story to The Oregonian. "The reporter, Rachel Stark, got through to Human Rights Watch, but I had no luck."

This is not the first time a letter like this has turned up. Just this week, another plea was found written in Chinese on a toilet seat and posted on Reddit. Commenters on the website have questioned the letters' authenticity.

Though the letter lists the address of the specific camp, officials at Human Rights Watch were unable to verify the authenticity of the letter. However, Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch, told The Oregonian that the description was consistent with their research. "I think it is fair to say the conditions described in the letter certainly conform to what we know about conditions in re-education through labor camps."


The concern over the conditions laborers must endure in China and other countries first came to the public eye in the 1980s with the use of sweatshops to make Nike sneakers. Since then, according to an article recently published in The New York Times, Nike "has convened public meetings of labor, human rights, environmental and business leaders to discuss how to improve overseas factories."

Tech companies, like Apple and Hewlett Packard, are being made to be accountable for their labor practices. After receiving a great deal of criticism, Apple is now making public statements that they are aware of the harsh conditions in China and are taking steps to improve them.

As for Julie Keith, she had a general idea about the conditions in Chinese labor camps, but this letter has been a dramatic eye-opener into the stark reality of the issue. "I was aware of labor camps. I knew they had factories but I had no idea of the gravity of the situation. I didn't realize how bad it could be for people."

Finding the letter has made Keith more aware of the origin of many products sold in the United States. "As I was doing my Christmas shopping this year, I checked every label. It's virtually impossible to avoid purchasing things made in China as over 90 percent of our goods are made there. But if I saw 'made in China,' this year I asked myself, 'do I really need this?'"

[Hollylane]

The US is currently in 17th place in academics. Time to reevaluate our priorities yet?

[girl_dee]

verbiage.

Am i the only one who is bothered by this phrase, when used to describe a victim of violence?

"They were in the wrong place at the wrong time"

*i* feel this somehow puts the victim at fault, even though it is not intended that way, and that really bothers me.

Is it just me?

[Okiebug61]

Originally Posted by girl_dee

verbiage.

Am i the only one who is bothered by this phrase, when used to describe a victim of violence?

"They were in the wrong place at the wrong time"

*i* feel this somehow puts the victim at fault, even though it is not intended that way, and that really bothers me.

Is it just me?

Yeah it bugs me. It seems like a lot of people are blamed for a lot of things out of their control.

I blame the media for a lot of the crap victims have to endure.

[Hollylane]

The impactful legacy of a 12-year-old girl and the national movement she sparked


Jessie Rees got into the backseat of her parents' car after another grueling round of chemo and radiation and looked back at the hospital through the window.

She wondered aloud: Why did she get to go home from the hospital? What about the other kids? Why weren't they going home?

Her dad, Erik, ventured an answer. It's because they have a different type of treatment, he told his daughter. You get to go home after your treatment, but they don't.

Jessie, then 11, asked another question. It's a question that caused her mom, Stacey, to start crying. It's a question that, in her dad's words, "changed the tapestry of our lives." It also started a movement that has affected tens of thousands of people all over the world.

Jessie loved swimming the most. She was straight out of central casting, with blond hair, blue eyes, lightly tanned skin and the easy Southern California smile. She was a junior Olympic swimmer for the Mission Viejo Nadadores, which is where she could be found doing laps and giggling with friends. Swimming is among the most secluded of sports – you hardly see anyone else and you rarely hear them – but Jessie loved being a teammate. She yelled for her friends as they made their flip turns and made a special effort to see them compete. That's what she was doing in February of 2011 when she started complaining of headaches. Not a big deal, her parents thought, but then she started to develop a lazy eye. She had to go in for a checkup.

Doctors ordered an MRI and the result was unthinkable: Two malignant tumors in her brain stem. The cancer was inoperable. It was incurable. Erik sought "47 second opinions," he says, but every doctor told them the awful truth: there was little hope. At the end of February, Jessie was an up-and-coming swimmer. By the end of March, she was going through chemo with a 1 percent chance to live 18 months. Her parents started telling her about heaven.

Then, on the way home from one treatment one spring day, her parents explained the difference between in-patient and out-patient. And Jessie, who had one more birthday left if she was lucky, thought about the kids who didn't get to go home that day and asked:

"What can we do for them?"

What can we do for them? The question broke her parents' hearts. "She's fighting a battle she can't win," Erik says, choking up over the phone as he recalls that moment, "and she just chose to help others."

Jessie returned home that day and started to assemble brown-paper lunch bags. She plucked tiny trinkets and toys from around the house and filled the bags up with little gifts. The presents certainly weren't much, yet the gesture was everything. Her parents figured small jars would work even better, and Jessie's middle name was Joy. JoyJars. Jessie's eyes lit up at the name. That's what they would be called. And so every Monday from then on, Jessie and her dad would fill little JoyJars with toys for sick kids.

The reaction at the hospital was remarkable. "Can I keep this?!" children asked giddily. The answer was yes, of course. All over Jessie's hospital, and soon other hospitals in the Orange County area, hospital rooms of little boys and girls filled up with JoyJars.

Jessie's condition got worse. Her vision ebbed. Her headaches became more severe. Her legs, the same ones that propelled her through the water so quickly, could hardly hold her up. There were nights when Erik had to carry his daughter up the stairs to bed, holding back tears as he prayed the next day would be easier. It often wasn't. Jessie told her dad she felt "lonely and limited." Her friends wouldn't know what to say as her face bloated and she started having to wear a mask. "Her body," Erik says, "got stripped away."

And yet Jessie's power got stronger. Hundreds signed up to follow her on Facebook. Then thousands. Then tens of thousands. The swimming community began to talk about her story, even as the Olympic year drew closer. Soon the Reeses would need a warehouse for all the JoyJars.

On January 4, 2011, the Reeses put their daughter to bed. She was having headaches again. That was somewhat normal by then. But the next morning, at around 4:30, Stacey rushed into the bedroom after checking on Jessie. She couldn't wake her up.

Hospice was called. The nurses came and did everything to make Jessie more comfortable. "At 11:10 a.m.," Erik says, "she took her last breath." She was 12.

Yet as life left her body, a spark caught flame. People across the country had heard about the JoyJars, and Jessie's passing made a wave of news. Kaitlin Sandeno, the former Olympic swimmer, had been in touch with the family and decided she would attend the memorial. She arrived at Saddleback Church and was overcome: 5,000 people were there. Nearly that many watched online.

Sandeno started recruiting fellow swimmers and athletes from USC, where she went to school. She had a budding career as a swim coach but she decided to give that up to help the movement. This was more important. "I let go of the swim school and the private coaching," Sandeno says. "This is what I want to do."

Jessie had a motto: "Never Ever Give Up," or NEGU. That became Sandeno's motto and the motto of dozens of athletes across the country. Over the course of 2012, Olympians and NFL players started going to children's hospitals with JoyJars. Three Jacksonville Jaguars, led by quarterback Jordan Palmer, signed up to help. Erik says Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has shown interest in being a spokesperson.

"There are more than 20,000 children right now in hospital beds fighting cancer," Erik says. "Their parents have to work, so they are entertained by the hospital staff. These kids, if a person comes in with a professional jersey on, they don't care who it is. They feel special."

There are now 35 athletes working with NEGU, and Rees hopes to have 100 by the end of this year. "I feel like we really do bring a sense of joy, and the athletes benefit just as much," says Sandeno, who is now a national spokesperson. "To see the other athletes' reaction – 'When can I do another one?' – this isn't a favor. This is awesome. You're providing a cool thing for people to give back."

There aren't many who give back in a full lifetime what Jessie Rees gave back in just 12 years. What began with a few paper bags and a few toys has now reached 11 countries. In 2012 alone, 47,000 kids received JoyJars.

Christmas was very hard for the Rees family. Erik and Stacey have two other kids, Shaya and J.T., but there was an empty stocking by the tree. This weekend will mark one year since Jessie passed. It will be a difficult moment to bear; what would Jessie have done with her life this year?

Then again, the answer to that question is clear and somewhat soothing. Had she lived, Jessie would have noticed all the kids around her, whether at the pool or in the hospital. She would have considered their situation, be it happy or sad. And then the little voice in her head would have asked, "What can I do to help them?"

[PaPa]

Originally Posted by girl_dee

verbiage.

Am i the only one who is bothered by this phrase, when used to describe a victim of violence?

"They were in the wrong place at the wrong time"

*i* feel this somehow puts the victim at fault, even though it is not intended that way, and that really bothers me.

Is it just me?

Blaming the victim occurs a lot, Dee. There are college topics on this all the time in the 'Helping' fields...burns me right up too...

She wore that low-cut dress so she got what she was askin' for...
If she didn't want it then why did she dress that way? WHA?? Men are not expected to have control over their own urges?? Gimme a break!

[cinnamongrrl]

Starting my day out with yoga

[Hollylane]

Does confidence really breed success?

Research suggests that more and more American university students think they are something special. High self-esteem is generally regarded as a good thing - but could too much of it actually make you less successful?

About nine million young people have filled out the American Freshman Survey, since it began in 1966.

It asks students to rate how they measure up to their peers in a number of basic skills areas - and over the past four decades, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of students who describe themselves as being "above average" for academic ability, drive to achieve, mathematical ability and self-confidence.

This was revealed in a new analysis of the survey data, by US psychologist Jean Twenge and colleagues.

Self-appraisals of traits that are less individualistic - such as co-operativeness, understanding others and spirituality - saw little change, or a decrease, over the same period.

Twenge adds that while the Freshman Survey shows that students are increasingly likely to label themselves as gifted in writing ability, objective test scores indicate that actual writing ability has gone down since the 1960s.

And while in the late 1980s, almost half of students said they studied for six or more hours a week, the figure was little over a third by 2009 - a fact that sits rather oddly, given there has been a rise in students' self-proclaimed drive to succeed during the same period.

Another study by Twenge suggested there has been a 30% tilt towards narcissistic attitudes in US students since 1979.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines narcissism as: "Excessive self-love or vanity; self-admiration, self-centredness."

"Our culture used to encourage modesty and humility and not bragging about yourself," says Twenge. "It was considered a bad thing to be seen as conceited or full of yourself."

Not everyone with high self-esteem is a narcissist. Some positive views of the self may be harmless and in fact quite justified.

But one in four recent students responded to a questionnaire, the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, in a way which leaned towards narcissistic views of the self.

Though some have argued that narcissism is an essential trait, Twenge and her colleagues see it as negative and destructive.

In The Narcissism Epidemic, co-written with Keith Campbell, Twenge blames the growth of narcissistic attitudes on a range of trends - including parenting styles, celebrity culture, social media and access to easy credit, which allows people to appear more successful than they are.

"What's really become prevalent over the last two decades is the idea that being highly self-confident - loving yourself, believing in yourself - is the key to success.

"Now the interesting thing about that belief is it's widely held, it's very deeply held, and it's also untrue."

This bewitching idea - that people's lives will improve with their self-esteem - led to what came to be known as The Self-Esteem Movement.

Legions of self-help books have propagated the idea that we each have it within us to achieve great things - we just need to be more confident.

Over 15,000 journal articles have examined the links between high self-esteem and measurable outcomes in real life, such as educational achievement, job opportunities, popularity, health, happiness and adherence to laws and social codes.

Yet there is very little evidence that raising self-esteem leads to tangible, positive outcomes.

"If there is any effect at all, it is quite small," says Roy Baumeister of Florida State University. He was the lead author of a 2003 paper that scrutinised dozens of self-esteem studies.

He found that although high self-esteem frequently had a positive correlation with success, the direction of causation was often unclear. For example, are high marks awarded to people with high self-esteem or does getting high marks engender high self-esteem?

And a third variable can influence both self-esteem and the positive outcome.

"Coming from a good family might lead to both high self-esteem and personal success," says Baumeister.

"Self-control is much more powerful and well-supported as a cause of personal success. Despite my years invested in research on self-esteem, I reluctantly advise people to forget about it."

This doesn't mean that under-confident people will be more successful in school, in their careers or in sport.

"You need to believe that you can go out and do something but that's not the same as thinking that you're great," says Twenge. She gives the example of a swimmer attempting to learn a turn - this person needs to believe that they can acquire that skill, but a belief that they are already a great swimmer does not help.

Forsyth and Kerr studied the effect of positive feedback on university students who had received low grades (C, D, E and F). They found that the weaker students actually performed worse if they received encouragement aimed at boosting their self-worth.

"An intervention that encourages [students] to feel good about themselves, regardless of work, may remove the reason to work hard," writes Baumeister.

So do young people think they are better than they are?

If they are, perhaps the appropriate response is not condemnation but pity.

The narcissists described by Twenge and Campbell are often outwardly charming and charismatic. They find it easy to start relationships and have more confidence socially and in job interviews. Yet their prognosis is not good.

"In the long-term, what tends to happen is that narcissistic people mess up their relationships, at home and at work," says Twenge.

Narcissists may say all the right things but their actions eventually reveal them to be self-serving.

As for the narcissists themselves, it often not until middle age that they notice their life has been marked by an unusual number of failed relationships.

But it's not something that is easy to fix - narcissists are notorious for dropping out of therapy.

"It's a personality trait," says Twenge. "It's by definition very difficult to change. It's rooted in genetics and early environment and culture and things that aren't all that malleable."

Things also don't look good for the many young people who - although not classed as narcissists - have a disproportionately positive self-view.

A 2006 study led by John Reynolds of Florida State University found that students are increasingly ambitious, but also increasingly unrealistic in their expectations, creating what he calls "ambition inflation".

"Since the 1960s and 1970s, when those expectations started to grow, there's been an increase in anxiety and depression," says Twenge.

"There's going to be a lot more people who don't reach their goals."

Jean Twenge spoke to Health Check on the BBC World Service

[Hollylane]

Have a history teacher explain this if they can.

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.

John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.

John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.

Both wives lost a child while living in the White House.

Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.

Both Presidents were shot in the head.

Now it gets really weird.

Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy.

Kennedy's Secretary was named Lincoln.

Both were assassinated by Southerners.

Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.

Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.

Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.

John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839.

Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.

Both assassins were known by their three names.

Both names are composed of fifteen letters.

Now hang on to your seat.

Lincoln was shot at the theater named "Ford."

Kennedy was shot in a car called "Lincoln" made by "Ford."

Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.

And here's the "kicker":

A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland.

A week before Kennedy was shot, he was with Marilyn Monroe.

AND...................:

Lincoln was shot in a theater and the assassin ran to a warehouse...

Kennedy was shot from a warehouse and the assassin ran to a theater...

[starryeyes]

Finally understanding how a cylinder and piston work in an engine. Understanding blow by, combustion and spark. <---- mind is expanded!

[Hollylane]

Barack Obama made history on Monday when he became the first president to speak about the Stonewall uprising and the gay rights struggle during an inaugural speech.

While many in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community were thrilled with the mentions, an 11-year-old transgender girl named Sadie wondered why the President didn't directly address trans people, too.



"Sadie was so proud of President Obama for including the gay community in his inaugural address on Monday; however, she felt like the trans community wasn't included," Sage, Sadie's mother, told The Huffington Post on Tuesday. "That inspired her to write her own 'speech.'"

The speech, which began making the rounds on the Internet soon after the President spoke and was published in full on the TransGriot site, reads:

Sadie socially transitioned from male to female in kindergarten. She was home schooled until this year and is now in fifth grade and attending public school. A vegan, she loves anything that "protects the environment," as well as reading, swimming, basketball and texting her friends. She listens to Lady Gaga, Pink and Justin Bieber and wants to work for Green Peace when she grows up. She also wants to be a mom.

Though Sadie has been openly discriminated against, her mother says that she "isn't shy or ashamed of who she is," and adds, "I'm always 'on' when we go out because I never know when she'll strike up a conversation with the person in front of her in line at Trader Joe's. When she chats with people, she introduces herself as, 'Hi, I'm Sadie, my favorite color is pink, I'm vegan, and I'm transgender. Who are you?'"

Sage says she encouraged Sadie to write the essay because she thought "it might help empower her and overcome any feelings of oppression." In the end she says that she wants Sadie "to know that she has a voice. My dream for her is that she will be happy. That's all, really. I just want her to be happy."

[Dominique]

Ob/gyn group calls for patient screening of sexual coercion


January 23, 2013 5:39 pm

By Sally Kalson / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
It's not uncommon for abusive men to sabotage their female partners'birth control as a way of exerting power over them, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Men have been known to poke holes in diaphragms or condoms, hide birth control pills or even forcibly remove patches and IUDs.
In response to a growing body of studies and reports on the subject -- a number of them conducted by Elizabeth Miller, chief of Adolescent Medicine at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh -- the College wants doctors to offer abused women and girls more long-acting methods of contraception that cannot be easily detected, such as implants, injections or IUDs with the strings cut short so they won't be noticed.
It also wants them to screen patients more effectively and frequently for coercion and refer them for help in leaving abusive relationships, something that not all OB/GYNs do.
The new opinion by the College's Committee on Health Care for Underserved Women will be published in the February 2013 issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology and was scheduled to go online late today.
"It's incredibly useful to have a large organization like ACOG recognize the critical importance of intimate partner violence and coercion in women's health," said Dr. Miller, whose team is in the midst of a large randomized study on the topic in Western Pennsylvania, funded by the National Institutes of Health. Their earlier pilot project in northern California found that of 1,000 women coming into clinics, a quarter were living with reproductive coercion and half with partner violence.



Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/...#ixzz2IqNV6DAS

[justanolecowboy]

I do some dog training (not as much as I used too) - but I enjoy it - and I had occasion to talk with one of the monks from the New Skeet Monastery - that train GSD's - they have several books - and a very unique approach.

I would recommend to anyone who not only wanted to train but just to "know" more about your four pawed baby.

I do have a couple of them (the books that is) electronically - I would be willing to share - if anyone would be interested.

The monk I spoke with - was incredibly kind and generous - just as you might expect - and was full of laughter as well. Funny - you never really think of "monks" as men who laugh alot - but - well...they do!

An enlightening conversation!