Friday, May 23, 2014


News Clips For The Day


Putin Says Russia Will Respect Outcome of Ukraine Election – NBC
— Erin McClam
First published May 23rd 2014

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that his country will “have respect for the choice that the Ukrainian people make” in their presidential election this weekend.

“Of course, we will cooperate with the newly elected head of state,” he told CNBC through an interpreter at an economic conference in St. Petersburg.

“I’m not kidding, and I’m not being ironic,” he went on. “What we want for Ukraine is peace and calm. We want this country to recover from crisis.”

He added that “we will watch very closely what will happen” and said, as he has before, that Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian president of Ukraine who was overthrown in February, is still the legitimate president.

Putin spoke two days before the election in Ukraine, the first since Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula and since pro-Russian separatists plunged east Ukraine into turmoil.

The likely winner is Petro Poroshenko, a political pragmatist who may be able to work with both Russia and the West. The world is watching to see whether the separatists, who are fighting Ukrainian forces, will disrupt the vote.

The CNBC interview was peppered with Putin’s usual pugnacious rhetoric.

Asked about President Barack Obama’s objection to his intervention in Ukraine, Putin said, according to the interpreter: “Who is he to judge, seriously? If he wants to judge people, why doesn’t he get a job in court somewhere?”

The United States and Europe have imposed sanctions on well-placed Russians to punish the country for intervening in Ukraine, and they have threatened sanctions against whole Russian industries if Russia disrupts the election.

“What happened now is chaos,” Putin said of the instability in east Ukraine, which the West has accused him of stoking. “The country is sliding into chaos.”

Putin conceded that the sanctions have hurt Russia. He suggested that the United States was trying to gain a competitive business advantage over Europe.

“The sanctions were imposed,” he said. “Now they’re trying to make us to blame for something else.”




The NBC news article quotes Putin in a recent statement, “Of course, we will cooperate with the newly elected head of state,” he told CNBC through an interpreter at an economic conference in St. Petersburg. “I’m not kidding, and I’m not being ironic,” he went on. “What we want for Ukraine is peace and calm. We want this country to recover from crisis.” He went on to say that Yanukovych is the legitimate president of Ukraine. “Petro Poroshenko, a political pragmatist” is most likely to win in the election, according to the NBC writer. I think it's safe to say that the whole world is waiting for the Ukrainian election on the 25th.

Radio Free Europe's article below says, “many -- if not most -- of its voters will not be able to take part in Ukraine's presidential election on May 25 because of the climate of fear separatists have established on the city's streets.”  Mykhaylo Dobkin of the Party of Regions, a pro-Russia united Ukraine candidate is “almost” the only one advertising for the election, and there are few activists handing out brochures on the street. “Yet even his campaign workers have stayed off the street, journalists say, for fear of being attacked by militants of the separatist, self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic.”

The separatists “have vowed to block the May 25 election” and armed militants have been breaking into various party headquarters and destroying office machinery and fliers. "Novosti Donbassa" is the local news site and it's head Oleksiy Matsuka, has moved to “an undisclosed location”, as he has been critical of the separatists. The election commission staff has also received intimidating visits. A large number of the polling stations are expected to be closed on election day. “Kyiv has been encouraging local voters to register in neighboring areas outside of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, although the deadline to do so was May 19.”

Olena Zashko said, “the armed militants mainly keep to the area of the regional administration building they have seized downtown and its adjacent park. But when they do move outside of their base, they do so with a level of deliberate violence that terrifies ordinary citizens.” Separatists are said to have waited outside a large unity rally led by steel tycoon Rinat Akhmetov and ambushed individuals as they left, “beating them with hammers.” If this is Russia's idea of “self-defense” I'll stick with the USA. See the Radio Free Europe article below.



http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-donetsk-voters-fear/25395707.html
Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty
By Charles Recknagel
May 23, 2014

Donetsk is the largest city in eastern Ukraine, with a population of nearly a million people. But it appears that many -- if not most -- of its voters will not be able to take part in Ukraine's presidential election on May 25 because of the climate of fear separatists have established on the city's streets. 

The fear is measurable in the scarcity of election campaign banners on main boulevards and the almost total absence of people handing out election flyers just days ahead of the vote.

Local journalists say the rare campaign banners that are visible belong almost entirely to a single party, the Party of Regions, which in recent years has been the strongest in eastern Ukraine. Its candidate is Mykhaylo Dobkin, who favors a united Ukraine but with greater independence for its regions and is widely regarded as more pro-Russia rather than pro-West.

Yet even his campaign workers have stayed off the street, journalists say, for fear of being attacked by militants of the separatist, self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic. The separatists, who have declared the Donetsk region independent and urged Russia to annex it, have vowed to block the May 25 election and have been working hard to do so.

Oleksiy Matsuka, the editor of the "Novosti Donbassa" news site, says that armed militants have repeatedly broken into the campaign centers set up by the presidential candidates. "They smash equipment like fax and copying machines and computers and destroy election brochures," he says.

Matsuka, whose site is critical of the separatists, recently moved to an undisclosed location outside the city due to fears for his personal safety.

Climate Of Fear, Intimidation

The intimidation of campaign workers mirrors the intimidation of election commission staff. A member of the executive commission for one election district in Donetsk says that representatives of the Donetsk People's Republic visited his district's office on May 22.

Five men wearing flak jackets and carrying clubs demanded the election workers turn over boxes of ballot forms, claiming that "the people" were against preparations for the election. As other armed men stood outside, the visitors removed documentation that included the names and addresses of the commission members. They then presented the commission chairman with a receipt for the material seized.

Other election commission representatives say they have come under similar pressure.
Valeriy Dudarenko, deputy head of another local election commission in Donetsk, recently told the media he expected 60 out the 88 polling stations in his district to be working on May 25.

Likewise, the Central Election Commission in Kyiv said recently that a third of the district election commissions in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions had been occupied by separatists in the run-up to election day.

Kyiv has been encouraging local voters to register in neighboring areas outside of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, although the deadline to do so was May 19.

Constant Threat Of Violence

Local journalists say armed separatists have been able to do so much to disrupt preparations for the vote because they have effectively instituted a reign of terror in the city.

Olena Zashko, an RFE/RL Ukrainian Service correspondent in Donetsk, says the armed militants mainly keep to the area of the regional administration building they have seized downtown and its adjacent park. But when they do move outside of their base, they do so with a level of deliberate violence that terrifies ordinary citizens.

The intimidation strategy has been on full display as pro-unity supporters have gained new energy recently from the decision of regional powerbroker and tycoon Rinat Akhmetov to stand by Kyiv. Akhmetov, who controls the Donbas region's steel and mining industry, has condemned the separatists as "thugs" and called for peaceful rallies against them. 

Yet when hundreds of pro-unity supporters attended a rally in Donetsk's Donbas Arena stadium on May 20, separatist militants reportedly waited on the outskirts of the event to ambush individuals who separated from the crowd, beating them with hammers.
 
READ MORE: Miners Enter The Fray In East

Journalists say similar risks await cars that participate in now daily shows of support for Ukrainian unity by driving through the city at noon blaring their horns. Thugs waiting on street corners hurl rocks at the cars or race out to smash their windshields with bats. "I saw with my own eyes how the separatists chased two cars, attacked and destroyed them completely," RFE/RL's Zashko says.

Residents say the most feared institution in Donetsk today is the regional administration building, which the separatists have occupied for six weeks. The 11-story facility that serves as headquarters for the Donetsk People's Republic is ringed by barricades and barbed wire, and has become notorious for the interrogations and beatings rumored to take place on its fifth and sixth floors.
People targeted by the separatists are snatched off the streets of Donetsk in broad daylight by men in balaclavas and taken into the building. Those who were later released say they were repeatedly beaten, abused, and threatened with death for opposing the self-declared republic.





Washington Worries Boko Haram Planning Attack on U.S. Interests in Africa – NBC
BY ROBERT WINDREM
First published May 22nd 2014

“Fragmentary evidence” and a sense of inevitability that Boko Haram may be planning an attack on U.S. interests in Nigeria has intelligence and counterterrorism officials in Washington on alert.

U.S. intelligence officials, speaking with NBC News on condition of anonymity, declined to characterize the nature of the evidence, other than to say it was recent and non-specific. But they said it is prompting efforts to locate the terrorist group’s “military assets” and identify other senior leaders beyond Abubakar Shekau.

They also said that Boko Haram’s desire to strike against a U.S. target apparently has been heightened by the increasing U.S. involvement in the hunt for 276 missing Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by the group last month, though the goal itself is not new.

“Boko Haram has a long standing interest in this,” said one senior U.S. counterterrorism official when asked about the possibility of an attack. “… It’s consistent with what we've seen from them. Broadly speaking, it’s in line with what we are tracking.”

A U.S. intelligence official agreed that an attack on a U.S. target is something Shekau, Boko Haram's leader, has "long aspired his followers to carry out" -- one reason the U.S. offered a $7 million reward in June of last year for "information leading to the location Abubakar Shekau."

But this official noted that the stronger desire to make a statement could be traced through the recent increase in Shekau's anti-U.S. rhetoric, including a diatribe aimed at President Barack Obama in his latest video, released last week.

Of specific interest to the U.S. is the range of weaponry Boko Haram has at its disposal. In recent attacks, it has used automatic weapons fired from armored personnel carriers disguised as Nigerian military vehicles, as well as car bombs -- some driven by suicide bombers -- increasingly its weapon of choice for larger attacks.

As for the Boko Haram chain of command, the U.S. is trying to determine who – beyond Shekau – wields power or influence in the group, the officials said.

Mounting an attack on U.S. interests in the region would be difficult for Boko Haram, which has so far shown a limited ability to strike outside its stronghold in northeastern Nigeria.

The intelligence official said there are "fewer and fewer Americans" in that part of the country because of security concerns. "It's basically a no-go area, even for relief workers," said the official.

The security situation in the region was the reason that plans for a new consulate in Kano, the north's largest city, were scrapped last year, said John Campbell, former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria now at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"It's dead in the water," he said. "It was approved by Secretary (Hillary) Clinton but never implemented because of security concerns."

Most “U.S. interests” – a term the intelligence community uses broadly to include government and commercial facilities and individual Americans -- in Nigeria are located in the Christian south, near Lagos, the former capital, and the nearby oilfields. Thus far, Boko Haram has not demonstrated an ability to mount attacks in that area, more than 800 miles to the southwest of its base of operations.

The numerous U.S. government and corporate facilities in the Nigerian capital of Abuja are more likely targets, the officials said. Already, Boko Haram has carried out at least five attacks in Abuja in the last three years, killing more than 150 people.

Among the attacks was an apparent suicide car bombing at the United Nations headquarters in Abuja in August 2011, only blocks away from the U.S. Embassy. Twenty-three people were killed in that attack, and two Americans – a diplomat and a lawyer -- were in the building at the time but were not injured, according to Nigerian human rights lawyer Emmanuel Ogebe.

Just last month, more than 70 people were killed by car bombs at a crowded bus station on the outskirts of Abuja.

The U.S. intelligence official said security at the embassy and other diplomatic facilities in the capital is "generally high," and many of the recent attacks have been on the capital's periphery. Still, said the official, the attacks on the bus station were particularly sophisticated and designed to inflict maximum casualties, with the first attack taking place during morning rush hour and the second during the evening rush.

In addition to providing new impetus for a possible attack, U.S. military personnel in the region to help the Nigerian government hunt for the missing school girls could become targets.

The search for the girls, abducted on April 14 from a government-run school in the town of Chibok, now includes both Global Hawk drones, apparently flown from a base in Sicily, and Predator drones flown from a base in Njamena, the capital of Chad. The White House announced Wednesday that 80 American service members are on the ground in North Africa to oversee the operations of the unarmed drones -- half to operate the remotely piloted aircraft and half to provide security. There are also 30 other specialists from the State and Defense departments, the FBI and the intelligence community who have been sent to Nigeria to advise officials there.

In addition, the Defense Department's African policy expert, Amanda Dory, told a congressional committee Wednesday that U.S. personnel are helping the Nigerian military with its communications and intelligence gathering and began working with a newly created Nigerian counterterrorism organization.

Because Boko Haram fighters “cross the border” every day, U.S. officials also are concerned that they could attack a broader range of U.S. targets in either Cameroon or Chad, including aid workers. Ogebe, the human rights lawyer, said the group already has tried to abduct American relief workers in northern Nigeria.

The U.S. is not alone in taking Boko Haram more seriously as a result of the schoolgirls’ kidnapping and other heinous crimes and attacks carried out by the group in Nigeria.

U.N. Security Council approved sanctions Thursday against the group, adding it to the so-called 1267 sanctions list -- a roster of al Qaeda-linked organizations subject to arms embargoes, travel bans and asset freezes.




“U.N. Security Council approved sanctions Thursday against the group, adding it to the so-called 1267 sanctions list -- a roster of al Qaeda-linked organizations subject to arms embargoes, travel bans and asset freezes.” The 1267 list – there are 1,267 al-Qaeda related organizations around the world? Where are the peaceful Islamic worshipers? Or are they all afraid for their lives, as the Kiev Ukrainian voters in Donetsk are? The US interest in Boko Haram is not new, but has been accelerated since the mass abduction last month. The goal of attacking a US target in Africa is “...one reason the U.S. offered a $7 million reward in June of last year for "information leading to the location Abubakar Shekau." There has also been a diatribe against Obama in Shekau's latest video. So far US forces in Africa have been sent to aid Nigeria in the search for the girls, “provide security” for the searchers who are manning the drones, and help with a “newly created Nigerian counterterrorism organization.” There are no US soldiers there with the intention of fighting Boko Haram. Of course, they can't fight them until they find them. How large a standing army does Nigeria have, I wonder?

From the Washington Post article below are the following comments. “The Nigerian military has the capacity to handle the situation, and I cannot say why they are not,” Pogo Bitrus, a Chibok village spokesperson, said. Hamidu Arabo stated that Jonathan doesn't have control of the security system and that the army doesn't support him. The people are also thoroughly disenchanted with him. He may not have much longer as head of state, I think. After decades of civil wars, the country is split between Islam in the north and Christianity in the south, with the army also being split and apparently not answering to Jonathan. One statement in the article below said that the Islam oriented army in the North aren't getting enough military equipment from Jonathan. The girls were abducted from the North and Boko Haram's base of operations is there.

With this much confusion it would be hard for any army to effectively defeat such a crafty guerrilla force. There is no evidence that Jonathan has made any effort to rectify the situation, and if the US did intervene with thousands of soldiers, say, they would undoubtedly then be hated as interlopers. So far it remains one of the very sad stories in the news.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/05/20/why-has-the-nigerian-military-failed-to-recover-the-abducted-girls/?tid=hp_mm

Why has the Nigerian military failed to recover the abducted girls
BY TERRENCE MCCOY
May 20, 2014

They stood in the sun, sweating. They clutched homemade guns. Some had poisoned-tipped spears. Others wore camouflage or brandished amulets.

All of the 500 hunters, chosen by the community for their spirituality, had the same mission: Find the abducted Nigerian school girls.

“We are seasoned hunters, the bush is our culture and we have the powers that defy guns and knives,” one of the hunters, who ranged in age from 18 to 80, told the Associated Press on Sunday. “We are real men of courage, we trust in Allah for protection, but we are not afraid of Boko Haram. If government is ready to support us, then we can bring back the girls.”

But will the government help? It’s now May 20. More than a month has passed since Boko Haram militants descended upon a darkened dormitory filled with sleeping schoolgirls and abducted hundreds.

Since then, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau announced he has the divine right to sell the girls amid reports that some were married off for $12. Local and international bodies have urged the Nigerian military to recover the girls, and many nations in West Africa have now declared “war” on the terrorist group.

But nothing has brought back the girls — and President Goodluck Jonathan faces the growing belief he is powerless. “He doesn’t even have the support of the military,” a former aide to the governor of Adamawa State, told The Washington Post. “The military doesn’t support him, and the politics don’t either. Everyone is dissatisfied. Everyone is disenchanted.”

There is ample evidence to support such feelings. A recent Amnesty International report  alleged Jonathan had at least four hours warning of Boko Haram’s planned attack on Chibok, the village where the girls were taken. Worse, for weeks afterward, Jonathanturned down repeated international offers of assistance. Then his wife ordered the arrest of protesters calling for the girls’ return. And last week, he canceled a trip to the girls’ village.

“The president was planning to go but security advised otherwise on the visit,” an official told Reuters.

The government says it is doing everything it can. “Our troops are out there combing the forests and all other possible locations searching for our fellow citizens,” spokesman Mike Omeri said.

But with hunters armed with poison-tipped spears trotting into the woods in search of the girls, some are wondering whether the government has done enough.

“The Nigerian military has the capacity to handle the situation, and I cannot say why they are not,” Pogo Bitrus, a Chibok village spokesperson, said in a phone interview. “They are losing credibility. There is no help coming to the local people … we know they are performing below standards.”

Some aren’t surprised. “Jonathan doesn’t have control of the security apparatus,” Arabo added.

No one does in Nigeria, a huge country with bountiful resources that has been mismanaged since it gained independence in 1960. Five decades of civil war, political upheaval and military coups followed — and today the country is split between the predominantly Muslim north and the predominantly Christian south.

The country’s political past is vital to understanding both the emergence of Boko Haram as well Jonathan’s alleged impotence. The military doesn’t have a strong record on human rights, and its history of military coups has tarnished its public image. “What they say about former military regimes is true,” James Hall, a United Kingdom military attache to Nigeria, told the BBC. “They cripple their militaries so that there can’t be further coups.”

Nigeria denies such allegations. But whether they are true or not, Boko Haram attacks at will, and the number of dead has surged. Amnesty International estimates as many as 1,500 people have been killed in Boko Haram-fueled violence this year. “People are scared stiff,” Bitrus said. “It’s a hopeless situation on the ground. More villagers were attacked by Boko Haram just last night, and no one came to help from anywhere.”

Others said the military is too fractured to stop Boko Haram. “The military itself is divided between the north and the south, and some soldiers in the north aren’t getting enough weapons from the federal government,” said Imam Dauda Bello, the general secretary of the Adamawa State Muslim Council. “People are saying that the federal government knows a lot of what is happening [with the girls], but they’re dragging their feet.”

Bello said military checkpoints pepper many highways, and he wonders how it would be possible that anyone could transport hundreds of girls without the military knowing at least something. “How could anyone,” he asked, “pass in a calm way with 200 girls?”





Why is joblessness for veterans so high? – CBS
By CONSTANTINE VON HOFFMAN MONEYWATCH May 23, 2014

Veterans of America's most recent wars are having a tougher time finding work than their civilian counterparts, a situation that's likely to worsen as the military continues to shrink.

As of April, the unemployment rate for Gulf War II veterans, defined as those who served after Sept. 11, 2001, was 6.8 percent, down from 7.5 percent a year earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. April's rate for nonveterans was 5.7 percent, down 1.2 percentage points from a year earlier. Since the start of the recession, the jobless rate for vets has consistently been worse than the rest of the population. At its worst, in 2010, nearly 15 percent of vets were jobless vs. 9.6 percent overall.

There's no simple explanation for why the rates are so disparate, but some of it likely has to do with the differences between working for the military and working as a civilian.

Because they haven't been working in the private sector, vets don't have the network of business contacts that others do. Also, civilians frequently don't understand how military job experience translates into nonmilitary jobs.

Lauren Augustine, an Iraq war vet and legislative associate for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Association, said she led troops, served in combat and was responsible for overseeing millions of dollars in government equipment. "If I put that on my resume, a hiring manager wouldn't know what I was talking about," she said. "But if I say that I've got a lot of experience as a project manager, then they get it."

She pointed out that at the same time a vet is getting used to a new job, he or she is also facing a big adjustment to life as a civilian.

"It's a difficult transition, not just a job change for them," said Augustine. "Vets are people with great jobs skills who are used to working in a very organized, orderly work situation." They have been living in a relatively closed community where they didn't have to think about housing, food or even health care. "Now," she said, "just having to find the grocery store is something they have to think about that they didn't before."

She believes the key to bringing down the number of unemployed vets is to continue the public and private efforts that have already proved successful.

Last month, the federal government launched ebenefits.va.gov, a centralized website to help veterans and their spouses find work. This is just one of many such efforts. In late 2011, under the Returning Heroes Tax Credit, which went into effect in late 2011, businesses could get as much as $5,600 to hire unemployed veterans and nearly $10,000 to hire veterans with service-connected disabilities. The law, which expired in January, awarded more than 50,000 certifications to employers just in 2013, according to the Labor Department.

The private sector has also been active in trying to help vets find work. Early this month the 100,000 Jobs Mission -- a coalition of 11 companies -- announced it had hired 140,832 vets. The coalition is now aiming to hire 200,000 vets by 2020.

It's a good thing the group has raised its goal. In any given year, anywhere from 240,000 to 360,000 people leave the service, according to a 2013 White House report. That number will swell into the millions in the coming years as the military looks to cut troop levels and change back to a peacetime force.




Lauren Augustine, an Iraq War veteran, speaks of the need to translate wartime service activities into the civilian world. She also mentions the overall problem of changing from a highly organized work environment with no worries about basic life issues such as housing, to the new more highly stressed environment of a civilian. The unemployment figures for veterans are worse than for civilian unemployed people. “At its worst, in 2010, nearly 15 percent of vets were jobless vs. 9.6 percent overall”

The government has made some efforts to help. “Last month, the federal government launched 'ebenefits.va.gov', a centralized website to help veterans and their spouses find work.” The Returning Heroes Tax Credit of 2011 gives business owners large bonuses to hire unemployed and especially disabled veterans. A group of 11 private companies called 100,000 Jobs Mission has hired 140,832 veterans. Unfortunately 100s of thousands of military personnel will leave the service each year as the army downsizes. I wonder if a peer group organization like AA, but without the 12 steps, meeting to discuss personal issues and “network” about job openings and training could be helpful. It wouldn't necessarily get a job for them, but it would reduce the personal pain involved in being jobless and very likely broke.





Chuck Hagel: New officers must help eliminate sexual assault
CBS/AP  May 23, 2014

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says new officers need to lead the fight against sexual assault and help people in the military facing mental health issues.

Hagel told the graduating class of the U.S. Naval Academy on Friday that students have seen how sexual assault can destroy trust and confidence at the heart of the military. He told them to use their experience to make sure everyone is treated respectfully.

"You will all be counted on to lead in helping eliminate sexual harassment and sexual assault of your sisters and brothers in uniform," he said. "You've seen what these crimes do to the survivors, their families, institutions and communities. You know how they tear people and units apart, how they destroy the bonds of confidence and trust [at] the very core, the center, the heart, of our military."

"We're all accountable," he added. "From new recruits to four-star admirals and generals, from second lieutenants to the secretary of defense, we all have to step up and take action when we see something that hurts our people and our values."

In the past year, the academy has seen the prosecution of three academy football players accused of sexually assaulting a classmate. Charges against two were dropped. The third was acquitted.

Hagel also told graduates they will lead people struggling with mental health issues as the nation concludes 13 years of war. He said those people must be embraced, not stigmatized.

"When they come to you for help, it doesn't mean they're weak. It means they're strong. Because asking for help when you need it takes courage and strength," he said. "What we need to remember -- what our entire country needs to remember -- is that these brave individuals don't need to be avoided or stigmatized. They need to be embraced. They need to be helped. They need leaders, leaders with compassion and humility."




Hagel speaks to upcoming officers graduating from the US Naval Academy to see that all recruits are treated with respect and “...lead in helping eliminate sexual harassment and sexual assault of your sisters and brothers in uniform....” A recent case at the academy mentioned in this article involved three academy football players, with two having their charges dropped and one being acquitted. I wonder if that was because they were proven innocent, or were they treated as a special case because they were football players. I hope it wasn't the latter. He also stresses the need to help service members who come forward with mental health problems rather than shaming them, as is sometimes done in the military.

The military establishments have some built in problems which Hagel is trying to address. That's good, but I think some of the military's rules need to be relaxed such as officer's blaming women who have been raped or soldiers who have psychiatric problems. The top down discipline structure and the discouragement of individuality is, in my opinion, basically harmful to the mental health of otherwise normal people and causes “acting out” in ways like rough hazing and, yes, sexual assault when women are in the service. They do it out of pent up hostility. Others can become depressed and suicidal. I think too much “group-think” is a downhill path toward misbehavior and lack of stability in an individual. We need a certain amount of group-think to preserve discipline, but I hate to see so many people come out of the military unable to get by as a civilian, too often violent toward their families and paranoid.





Iran cleric condemns "satanic" divorce parties – CBS
AP May 23, 2014

TEHRAN, Iran -- A senior Iranian cleric on Friday called divorce parties a "satanic" Western import and a "poison" for Islamic society.

Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani, Tehran's Friday prayer leader, was referring to the Western phenomenon of holding parties to celebrate the dissolving of a marriage, a practice that has recently emerged in the Islamic republic.

Kashani told worshippers that marriage is a sacred bond and that Western practices like divorce parties undermine family values.

Iranian media in recent days have reported on extravagant preparations for such parties, including black roses and cakes.

"Unfortunately, divorce parties are being organized as of recently... This is very dangrous. It's a poison for the Islamic civilization and society," Kashani said in his Friday prayer sermon, which was broadcast live on state radio.

"Men and women who hold divorce parties are definitely satanic," he added.

Kashani urged young people to avoid adopting Western practices and to protect their local cultural achievements and traditions.

"Disintegration of family and lechery are related to the disgraceful Western civiliation ... Western-style freedoms are wrong," he said.

The website of Iran's state TV called the emergence of divorce parties in Iran "the latest gift from the West."

The conservative daily Jomhuri-e-Eslami earlier this week said wealthy divorced couples go to a central Tehran street to order black roses, cakes and invitation cards, one of which reads "I don't miss you at all."

The paper said demand for such cards has significantly increased over the past two years.
According to media reports, Iran saw a 4.6 percent rise in divorce last year. Some 20 percent of Iranian marriages now end in divorce, which is permitted but discouraged under Islamic law.




“A 'satanic' Western import” – I wonder how many other Western cultural traits are “satanic.” Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani recently in his broadcast “urged young people to avoid adopting Western practices and to protect their local cultural achievements and traditions....Disintegration of family and lechery are related to the disgraceful Western civilization... Western-style freedoms are wrong.” I think he would probably even go so far as to say that freedom itself is wrong. I personally think the idea of divorce parties is offensive, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it “Satanic.”

At any rate, it is almost always a part of “free” societies, especially if people have become economically enriched, that some “freedoms” that we don't like do occur. I don't like pornography but the Supreme Court several decades ago declared that it is not “obscene” and even stated that people individually define what is obscene. So our laws don't crack down on viewpoints that I dislike in some cases. I think “hate speech” is very offensive, but the Supreme Court, according to the ABA website, defends it as a right. Hate related actions are not defended. If an attacker picks his prey because of their minority group status he can be charged with “a hate crime,” and receive a tougher sentence.

We're a society based on laws and rights and not on philosophy or religious views. The Catholics and the Protestants in England spent centuries killing each other off due the concept of a state religion. Thank goodness we have no state religion in this country. The 1950's assault on Communists or left-leaning people in this country is the thing I remember most that violates the right to individual thought or speech. Now you may be discriminated against by the average citizen for your political beliefs, but you are allowed to go to group activities or give money to whatever causes you want to. Of course if you give to Hamas the CIA probably will have a file on you. You're still allowed to do it, though. That's why so many hate sites are on the Internet. Thank goodness I can't be forced to give money to them or pay attention to their drivel since not even they can get their viewpoints mandated by law in the US.





Overexposed? Camera Phones Could Be Washing Out Our Memories
by NPR STAFF
May 22, 2014

Los Angeles blogger Rebecca Woolf uses her blog, Girl's Gone Child, as a window into her family's life. Naturally, it includes oodles of pictures of her four children.

She says she's probably taken tens of thousands of photos since her oldest child was born. And she remembers the moment when it suddenly clicked — if you will — that she was too absorbed in digital documentation.

"I remember going to the park at one point, and looking around ... and seeing that everyone was on their phones ... not taking photographs, but just — they had a device in their hands," she recalls.

"I was like, 'Oh, God, wait. Is this what it looks like?' " she says. "Even if it's just a camera, is this how people see me? ... Are [my kids] going to think of me as somebody who was behind a camera?"

Today, Woolf still takes plenty of pictures, but she tries to not let the camera get in the middle of a moment, she says.

Effect On Childhood Memory

With parents flooding their camera phones with hundreds of photos — from loose teeth to hissy fits to each step in the potty training process — how might the ubiquity of photos change childhood memories?

Maryanne Garry, a psychology professor at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, is trying to figure that out. For years, she's studied the effects of photography on our childhood memories.

"I think that the problem is that people are giving away being in the moment," she says.

Those parents at the park taking all those photos are actually paying less  attention to the moment, she says, because they're focused on the act of taking the photo."Then they've got a thousand photos, and then they just dump the photos somewhere and don't really look at them very much, 'cause it's too difficult to tag them and organize them," she says. "That seems to me to be a kind of loss."

Not just a loss for parents, but for their kids as well.

"If parents are giving away some of their role as the archivist of the child's memory, then they're giving away some of their role as one of the key people who helps children learn how to talk about their experiences," she says.

The idea that we are experiencing less as we record more got psychologist Linda Henkel thinking. Her father was a photographer, and she wanted to explore how photographs shape our memories.

Henkel, who researches human memory at Fairfield University in Connecticut, began an experiment by sending groups of students to the university's art museum. The students observed some objects and photographed others. Then, back at the laboratory, they were given a memory test.

Henkel found what she called a "photo-taking impairment effect."

"The objects that they had taken photos of — they actually remembered fewer of them, and remembered fewer details about those objects. Like, how was this statue's hands positioned, or what was this statue wearing on its head. They remembered fewer of the details if they took photos of them, rather than if they had just looked at them," she says.

Henkel says her students' memories were impaired because relying on an external memory aid means you subconsciously count on the camera to remember the details for you.

"As soon as you hit 'click' on that camera, it's as if you've outsourced your memory," she says. "Any time we ... count on these external memory devices, we're taking away from the kind of mental cognitive processing that might help us actually remember that stuff on our own."

Mindful Photography

Henkel says it's also a mistake to think of photographs as memories. The photo will remain the same each time to you look at it, but memories change over time. Henkel likens it relying on photos to remember your high school graduation.

"Each time I remember what my high school graduation was like, I might be coloring and changing that memory because of my current perspective — because of new ideas that I have or things that I learned afterwards," she says. "Human memory is much more dynamic than photographs are capable of."

But Henkel doesn't want people to stop taking photos. They're still valuable tools that can provide "rich retrieval clues" later on, she says. Instead, she'd like us to be more mindful when taking pictures in the first place.

"I don't know that the new technology is serving the functions of preserving memories quite as well, unless you take the extra step and actually look at the photos, and revive those memories from them."




Blogger Rebecca Wolff recalls the time she realized she was uncomfortable with the amount of photos and cell phone use that she was seeing. “"I remember going to the park at one point, and looking around ... and seeing that everyone was on their phones ... not taking photographs, but just — they had a device in their hands,' she recalls.” From my own standpoint, I remember when I stopped taking photographs – that was way before cell phones – when I realized I had about a dozen undeveloped rolls of film that I couldn't afford to pay for if I went and got them developed. I still had them until about a year ago. I'm a packrat, clearly. I threw them away when I tried to develop a few of them and the films all came out black with a few ghostly shadows instead a beautiful color picture. Now I have almost finished putting my package after package of developed pictures into my albums. I'm glad to have them and I do look at the albums from time to time.

Psychologist Linda Henkel in doing a research project on memory had students to go to a museum and take pictures of some things, but simply remember others. She found a “'photo-taking impairment effect.'" The students' memories of those objects which had been photographed were less accurate and detailed than those which they had simply given close attention and tried to remember. I have heard that making lists damages the memory, too, but I have found that if I don't make a list I will leave out the very item I went to the store to pick up and bring home a host of unnecessary purchases. I will also have spent a great deal more money than was in my budget. So I personally will continue to make lists.

Memory is very highly prized by some people, but I prefer logic and thinking to memory as a mark of intelligence. I do not memorize telephone numbers unless I often need to call them. I don't put them in my cell phone either. I put them in my pen and ink address book. I did find the fact that my father and mother had been forced to memorize poems when they went to school to be very impressive and entertaining to us kids. My father used to be able to say verbatim “The Death Watch Of Benedict Arnold,” “The Raven,” “The Ancient Mariner,” and another very long and sad poem called “Sohrab and Rustum,” in which a warrior and his own son kill each other on the battlefield. Daddy would always tear up when he said it, but he struggled manfully through to the end. I have always considered it sad that his family were much too poor to send him to college, so he worked all his life as a lumber inspector. His main fulfillment was a great fishing trip or his beautiful and prolific back yard garden. He always wanted to be a farmer, so his garden gave him contact with nature. He was happy.