Monday, October 20, 2014


News Clips For The Day


https://www.yahoo.com/tech/birds-vs-drones-the-battle-for-the-skies-continues-99998606684.html

Birds vs. Drones: The Battle for the Skies Continues
Rob WalkerTech Columnist
Oct 14, 2014

I can’t really overstate how much I enjoyed the brief video we published last week of a hawk taking out somebody’s drone. Apart from being a viscerally satisfying and effectively concise clip, it struck me as an almost poetic comment on the state of nature vs. machinery.

After all, we know that some humans are freaked out by drones to the point that they will blow them out of the sky. But have we thought to poll the animal kingdom on this latest human-made intrusion into their lives and habitats?

And as it turns out, our fine, feathered friends have gone after drones on multiple occasions.

Take a gander at my favorite example: Some guys using a drone to document their golfing get a surprise when, at around the 2:15 mark, an area goose totally clocks their DJI Phantom Vision 2 Plus.

There have been other such incidents. “I must have annoyed a group of birds,” a different YouTuber muses. “They teamed up & started dive bombing my radio controlled phantom drone from all directions, I think they knocked the battery connector loose as I lost control & had a rough landing.”

In this next clip, what appear to be researchers testing a “bio-inspired” drone that sort of looks like a bird learn that its form factor was convincing enough that a passing eagle expertly plucked it out of the sky, flew around with it in its talons, and then discarded the thing (presumably in disappointment, or perhaps disgust).




Geese and swans are both aggressive and have been known to attack humans. Hawks also are, of course, and owls. Once I was dive bombed in Washington, DC by a mere mockingbird which had set up a nest too close to the sidewalk. Early bird fossils have been found by paleontologists alongside their close relatives the dinosaurs, with their feathers intact, so there's no doubt that they really were birds. Finally there is a large and dangerous flightless bird living today in Papua New Guinea that suddenly and fiercely attacked the well-known herpetologist Steve Irwin, causing him to run for his life. He is not known for his fear, but he looked distinctly afraid. He apparently got too close to the bird. See the website http://www.smashinglists.com/top-10-flightless-birds-still-present-today/ for flightless birds around the world. From that article comes the following on cassowaries:

“A long bluish black neck and head with a red, draping gobbler gives the southern cassowary a peculiar look. This bird is one of three species of cassowary that roam the tropics of Papua New Guinea. The cassowary’s choice of habitat is unique among other larger ratites such as the emu and ostrich because it prefers forests over plains. Sustained mostly by fruit, vegetation and the occasional insect, this shy creature keeps to itself. Though they will try to avoid human contact, cassowaries will attack humans, dogs, or anything they feel threatened by. Cassowaries can tear holes in your body like swiss cheese, and there are have been an upwards of around 200 attacks reported per year. Many of these humans aren’t getting the hint: don’t feed wildlife! Most violent incidents are a result of coaxing these animals with food. They should be left to their own devices if encountered in the wild. Meanwhile, they are gorgeous creatures and should be ogled at a safe distance (or at a zoo).”

Finally, see the following Wikipedia article about huge carnivorous birds that dominated South America from millions of years ago to -- some say -- 17,000 years BP, which possibly were finally exterminated by the first humans, as were the mammoths. Birds as we know them today are beautiful, graceful, funny, adorable especially the chicks, sweet-voiced, great dancers (the cranes) and sometimes clever (the raven/crow groups and parrots/parakeets.) We don't think of them as being bloodthirsty predators, but that characteristic continues in modern-day birds, including the humble chicken. Two cocks, like cats, will sometimes fight to the death for the top mating position in the flock.



Phorusrhacidae
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Phorusrhacids, colloquially known as terror birds, are an extinct clade of large carnivorous flightless birds that were the largest species of apex predators in South America during the Cenozoic, 62–2 million years (Ma) ago.[3]

They were roughly 1–3 metres (3.3–9.8 ft) tall. Their closest modern-day relatives are believed to be the 80 cm-tall seriemas. Titanis walleri, one of the larger species, is known from Texas and Florida in North America. This makes the phorusrhacids the only known example of large South American predators migrating north during the Great American Interchange (which occurred after the volcanic Isthmus of Panama land bridge rose ca. 3 Ma ago). It was once believed that T. walleri only became extinct around the time of the arrival of humans in North America,[4] but subsequent datings ofTitanis fossils have failed to provide evidence for their survival more recently than 1.8 Ma ago.[5] However, there exist additional findings that date from 450,000 years ago[3] and 17,000 years ago,[1] that suggest that at least some phorusrhacids survived until the late Pleistocene in Uruguay, although it have been considered as dubious.[6]

Phorusrhacids may have even made their way into Africa, with the genus Lavocatavis recently discovered in Algeria, although its status as a true phorusrhacid is questionable.[7] A possible European form, Eleutherornis, has also been identified, suggesting that this group had in the Paleogene a wider geographical range.[8][9]

Kelenken guillermoi, from the Langhian stage of the Miocene epoch, some 15 million years ago, discovered in Patagonia in 2006, represents the largest bird skull yet found. The fossil has been described as being a 71 cm (28 in), nearly intact skull. The beak is roughly 46 cm (18 in) long and curves in a hook shape that resembles an eagle's beak. Most species described as phorusrhacid birds were smaller, 60–90 cm (2.0–3.0 ft) tall, but the new fossil belongs to a bird that probably stood about 3 m (9.8 ft) tall. Scientists theorize that the large terror birds were extremely nimble and quick runners able to reach speeds of 48 km/h (30 mph).[10]

The etymology of the name Phorusrhacidae is based on the type genus Phorusrhacos. When first described by Florentino Ameghino in 1887, the etymology of Phorusrhacos was not given. Current thinking is that the name is derived from a combination of the Greek words "phoros", which means bearer or bearing, and "rhacos", which translates to wrinkles, scars or rents.[11] Researchers have compared Phorusrhacidae with the living families of Cariamidae and Sagittaridae, but their differences in body mass are too drastic, and thus, one cannot overly depend on these living families for answers.





http://news.yahoo.com/nigerians-doubtful-girls-release-boko-haram-truce-breached-130546315.html

Nigerians doubtful of girls' release after Boko Haram 'truce' breached

Reuters By Tim Cocks
October 19, 2014

LAGOS (Reuters) - - A wave of violence hours after Nigeria's government announced a truce with Boko Haram raised doubt on Sunday about whether more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamist militants will really be released, deflating the new hopes of their parents.

Nigeria's armed forces chief Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh announced the ceasefire on Friday to enable the release of the girls, who were abducted from the remote northeastern village of Chibok in April.

But Boko Haram has not confirmed the truce and there have been at least five attacks since - blamed by security sources on the insurgents - that have killed dozens. Talks were scheduled to continue in neighboring Chad on Monday.

"We were jubilating. We had every reason to be happy ... but since then the ceasefire has been broken in quite a number of places already," Lawan Abana, a parent of the one of the missing girls, told Reuters by telephone.

He added that there were doubts about the credentials of the reported Boko Haram negotiator Danladi Ahmadu, who was unheard of before. "Can we trust him that he can deliver on this promise of releasing the girls when he has not delivered on the promise of the ceasefire?" Abana said.

The government says the attacks may not have been Boko Haram but one of several criminal groups exploiting the chaos of its insurgency. Analysts point out that Boko Haram is anyway heavily factionalized, so what matters is whether the faction the government is talking to has control over the girls' fate.

"Boko Haram is deeply fractured. The Nigerian government has had a ... difficult time identifying a Boko Haram representative who could make compromises and guarantee the entire group will observe them," risk consultancy Stratfor said in a note.

"It is quite possible that Abuja has reached an agreement with a legitimate representative of a specific cell ... that holds the kidnapped schoolgirls captive," it said on Saturday.

QUEST TO CARVE OUT ISLAMIC STATE

Boko Haram, whose name translates roughly as "Western education is sinful", has massacred thousands in a battle to carve an Islamic state out of religiously mixed Nigeria.

Its only known method of conveying messages is via videotaped speeches by a man claiming to be Abubakar Shekau, its leader whom the military last year said it had killed.

Ahmed Salkida, a Nigerian journalist who was once close to Boko Haram and shared a jail cell with its founder Mohammed Yusuf in 2009, tweeted that whoever Ahmadu is, he is not a member of Boko Haram's senior "Shura council" nor does "he speak for them, as far as I know".

A swift release of the girls would bode well for the campaign of President Goodluck Jonathan for Feb. 2015 elections. Jonathan has faced relentless criticism for failing to protect civilians in the northeast or resolve the Chibok girls crisis.

Boko Haram is regarded as the worst threat to the future of Nigeria, Africa's biggest economy and oil producer.

Jonathan is expected to declare he is running for a second elected term soon, and the opposition is keen not to allow him to capitalize on efforts to free the girls.

"It's interesting the timing comes as Jonathan is about to announce he wants to run for a second term. Is it by sheer coincidence?" the spokesman for the main All Progressives Congress, Lai Mohammed, said by telephone.

But Nigeria's military has scored some successes against Boko Haram over the past two weeks, wresting back some territory near the northeast border with Cameroon.

Oby Ezekwesil, whose "Bring back our girls" campaign has highlighted daily protests in Abuja, told Reuters she was "cautiously optimistic" but "extremely anxious, not knowing what the details of this ceasefire really are.

"If it happens, it would be the best news in decades."



“A wave of violence hours after Nigeria's government announced a truce with Boko Haram raised doubt on Sunday about whether more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamist militants will really be released, deflating the new hopes of their parents.... Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh announced the ceasefire on Friday to enable the release of the girls, who were abducted from the remote northeastern village of Chibok in April. But Boko Haram has not confirmed the truce and there have been at least five attacks since - blamed by security sources on the insurgents - that have killed dozens. Talks were scheduled to continue in neighboring Chad on Monday.... The government says the attacks may not have been Boko Haram but one of several criminal groups exploiting the chaos of its insurgency. Analysts point out that Boko Haram is anyway heavily factionalized, so what matters is whether the faction the government is talking to has control over the girls' fate.... Boko Haram is regarded as the worst threat to the future of Nigeria, Africa's biggest economy and oil producer.... But Nigeria's military has scored some successes against Boko Haram over the past two weeks, wresting back some territory near the northeast border with Cameroon. Oby Ezekwesil, whose 'Bring back our girls' campaign has highlighted daily protests in Abuja, told Reuters she was 'cautiously optimistic' but 'extremely anxious, not knowing what the details of this ceasefire really are. If it happens, it would be the best news in decades.'

It was only a few days ago when Nigeria announced a cease fire, but now it is clear that the Boko Haram group is not unified enough to make an agreement of that sort, and the fighting goes on. The good news is that the Nigerian government has made headway against the group in the last two weeks, in an area near Cameroon. See the following article from Wikipedia on the background of Boko Haram. Like all highly conservative groups, it has the direct aim of preventing a free society with rights for all religious groups and women, and the Westernization of Nigerian society.


Boko Haram
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Boko Haram (translated reads "Western education is forbidden"), and officially called Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'Awati Wal-Jihad (People Committed to the Prophet's Teachings for Propagation and Jihad), is a militantIslamist movement based in northeast Nigeria. The group has received training and funds from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and was designated by the US as a terrorist organisation in November 2013. Membership has been estimated to number between a few hundred and a few thousand.[2][3][4]

"Since Boko Haram's resurgence in 2010, the Nigerian government has struggled to respond to the growing threat posed by the group." (US CRS, 2014)[4]

Nigeria was governed by a series of ruthless military dictatorships from its independence in 1960 until the advent of democracy in 1999. Ethnic militancy is thought to have been one of the causes of the 1967-70 civil war; religious violence reached a new height in 1980 in Kano, the largest city in the north of the country, where the Muslim fundamentalist sect Yan Tatsine ("followers ofMaitatsine") instigated riots that resulted in four or five thousand deaths. In the ensuing military crackdown Maitatsine was killed, fuelling a backlash of increased violence which spread across other northern cities over the course of the next 20 years.[11]

Mohammed Yusuf founded the sect that became known as Boko Haram in 2002 in Maiduguri, the capital of the north-eastern state of Borno, establishing a religious complex with a school which attracted poor Muslim families from across Nigeria and neighbouring countries. The center had the political goal of creating an Islamic state, and became a recruiting ground for jihadis. By denouncing the police and state corruption Yusuf attracted followers from unemployed youths.[12][13][14][15]

He is reported to have used the existing infrastructure in Borno of the Izala Society (Jama'at Izalatil Bidiawa Iqamatus Sunnah), a popular conservative Islamic sect, to recruit members, before breaking away to form his own faction. The Izala were originally welcomed into government, along with people sympathetic to Yusuf. The Council of Ulama advised the government and the Nigerian Television Authority not to broadcast Yusuf's preaching, but their warnings were ignored. Yusuf's arrests elevated him to hero status.[16]

Inequality and the increasingly radical nature of Islam, locally and internationally, beginning with the 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini revolution in Iran, contributed both to the Maitatsine and the Boko Haram uprisings. Local politicians in Nigeria have the authority to grant 'indigeneship', which determines whether citizens can participate in politics, own land or work. The system has been widely abused. It has been an aggravating factor in riots with combined ethnic and religious dimensions in which hundreds or thousands were killed and tens of thousands forced to flee their homes, for example in Zangon-Kataf in 1992, and in Jos in 2002 and 2008.[17][18]:97–98[19]

Borno's Deputy Governor Alhaji Dibal has claimed that Al Qaida had ties with Boko Haram, but broke them when they decided that Yusuf was an unreliable person.[16] The violence of Boko Haram has also been linked to the militancy of the Arewa People's Congress, the militia wing of the Arewa Consultative Forum, the main political group representing the interests of northern Nigeria. For decades, Northern politicians and academics have voiced their fundamental opposition to Western education. The ACF is a well-funded group with military and intelligence expertise, and is considered capable of engaging in military action, including covert bombing. Co-founder of the APC, Sagir Mohammed, has stated:

"We believe we have the capacity, the willpower to go to any part of Nigeria to protect our Northern brothers in distress ... If it becomes necessary, if we have to use violence, we have to use it to save our people. If it means jihad, we will launch our jihad."[20]

Ideology[edit]

Boko Haram was founded as a Sunni Islamic fundamentalist sect advocating a strict form of sharia law and developed into a Salafist-jihadi group in 2009, influenced by the Wahhabi movement.[4][21][22][23][24][25] It seeks the establishment of an Islamic state in Nigeria, and opposes the Westernising of Nigerian society that has concentrated the wealth of the country among a small political elite, mainly in the Christian south of the country.[26][27]

Nigeria is Africa's biggest economy; 60% of its population of 173 million (2013) live on less than $1 a day.[28][29][30] The sharia law imposed by local authorities, beginning with Zamfara in January 2000 and covering 12 northern states by late 2002, may have promoted links between Boko Haram and political leaders, but was considered by the group to have been corrupted.[18]:101[31][32][33]

Boko Haram kill people who engage in practices seen as un-Islamic, such as drinking alcohol.[31] In a 2009 BBCinterview Mohammed Yusuf, the founder of Boko Haram (a group whose name means "Western education is forbidden"), claimed that such education "spoils the belief in one God". He also said, "Like rain. We believe it is a creation of God rather than an evaporation caused by the sun that condenses and becomes rain ..."Like saying the world is a sphere. If it runs contrary to the teachings of Allah, we reject it. We also reject the theory of Darwinism."[34]





U.S. veteran joins ground war against ISIS
CBS NEWS October 20, 2014, 7:00 AM

ERBIL, Iraq -- CBS News correspondent Holly Williams was escorted into Syria on Sunday by Kurdish fighters engaged in a brutal war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The Kurds are out-gunned and out-manned, but Williams discovered that one of the fighters who has joined their ranks is an American volunteer.

"I figured if I came over here more Americans and other people from other countries would come here," Jeremy Woodard, a security guard from Meridian, Mississippi, told Williams.

Woodard served with the U.S. military until 2012, having seen tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

A month ago, after he was angered by news reports about atrocities committed by ISIS, he paid his own way to Turkey and was smuggled into the war zone.

"I can't really understand them, but sign language is everything," he said of working with his new comrades. Woodard told CBS News he's been involved in several battles against ISIS, including one close to Syria's border with Iraq that he said raged for 24 hours.

"I've killed two, in my first battle in Jezaa, and that's it so far," he told Williams. "Hopefully my numbers will go up. I never thought I'd be over in Syria killing people, but they've killed innocent people."

Williams asked the American whether he was frightened of the prospect of being captured by ISIS, which has already beheaded two American and two British captives.

"It's not frightening to me," he told Williams. "If I have one bullet left, I'll take my own life before that happens. I'm not gonna get put on YouTube by ISIS, and let them put me on my knees and cut my head off for publicity."

Woodard told us he's not the only American fighting with the Kurdish militia members against ISIS in Syria. He said he knows of two others, and has heard there may be several more.



http://rudaw.net/english/world/18102014

Pro-Kurd European volunteers urged to think twice
By Deniz Serinci 18/10/2014

Photograph: "No Surrender" bikers join Peshmerga forces to battle ISIS near Mosul. Photo: No Surrender Facebook page

COPENHAGEN, Denmark – Would-be volunteers in Europe who want to join Kurdish Peshmerga confronting  Islamic State have been advised to think twice before they travel to the region.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has repeatedly stressed that it does not need any more Peshmerga, Dellawar Ajgeiy, ‎‎‎the KRG representative to the European Union in Brussels told Rudaw.

"I can understand that some who have family will travel to help them in some way, but it must be in accordance with the law in the countries they are traveling from,” Ajgeiy said.

The warning comes after some headline-grabbing announcements about volunteers – Kurds and non-Kurds – heading off to join the fight against ISIS.

Three men from a Dutch biker fraternity have gone to northern Iraq and are believed to have joined the Peshmerga, according to NOS, the Dutch Broadcast Foundation. The three men, all said to be former soldiers, are members of the motorcycle club “No Surrender”, whose president, Klaas Otto, said they were already in action. They had both been in Syria, and were now in the KRG.

A note of caution was also sounded by Ozlem Cekic, an ethnically Kurdish parliamentarian in Denmark. She said she had talked to a "handful" of Danish Kurds who want to go and fight in Kobane and the KRG.

“I tell them not to go there, because it is very dangerous and the risk of being killed as a civilian is very high,” she told Rudaw.

The Dutch biker volunteers are not the only Dutch citizens who have headed for the battlefield. Some 120 Dutch Muslims are also fighting, but in the ranks of ISIS.

That highlights a potential legal minefield over the rights of European citizens to join the war. European governments are already taking action against potential volunteers for ISIS, while Britain is even contemplating reviving an ancient and little used law against treason for anyone who swears allegiance to its self-declared Caliphate.

Under Dutch law, volunteers fighting for ISIS are also punishable, because it is deemed a terrorist organization. The biker-Peshmergas, however, face no such sanctions.

"Joining a foreign armed force was previously punishable, now it's no longer forbidden," Wim de Bruin, the public prosecutor’s spokesman told the French news agency AFP.

He cautioned, however, that  Dutch citizens could not join Turkey’s banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), because it is designated as a terrorist organization by the European Union.

The PKK’s affiliate, the Syrian Kurdish PYD, has been at the forefront of defending the Syrian border town of Kobane against an ISIS onslaught, a struggle that may have inspired some of the latest volunteers from Europe.

The United States meanwhile, which also regards the PKK as terrorists, has broken a taboo by talking to the PYD after deploying air strikes to aid Kobane’s defence.

John Riber Nordby, a legal expert at the Danish Defence Academy, believes that European authorities can be quite comfortable with the Kurds fighting in the ranks of the KRG Peshmergas.

"KRG is run largely by western standards and is far better than many other places in the Middle East. KRG Peshmerga are friends with America and it is not on any terrorist lists," Nordby told Rudaw.

"As long as the European Kurds fight for the KRG and stick to conventions and do not commit war crimes, there is no problem," he added.



http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/20102014

Kurdistan
Turkey gives Peshmerga forces passage to Kobane
By RUDAW 
October 20, 2014

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—The Turkish government has agreed to give Kurdistan Region Peshmerga forces passage to the besieged Kurdish town of Kobane, a well-placed source told Rudaw today.

The official source said that Turkey has responded positively to a request from Kurdish President Massoud Barzani to allow Peshmerga forces pass through Turkish territory to relieve Peoples Protection Units (YPG) fighters in their battle against the Islamic State (IS).

According to the source who didn't want to be named, Barzani and Peshmerga Minister Mustafa Sayid Qader have coordinated the plan with Salih Muslim, leader of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and his YPG commanders.

Muslim met with Barzani in Duhok last week where the two discussed the fighting in Kobane between the YPG and IS militants who have besieged the town for more than a month.

On Sunday evening the US military said that the air force had made multiple airdrops of weapons and medical supplies to the Kurdish fighters in Kobane.

In a statement, the US central command said the weapons and supplies were provided by the Kurdish authorities in Iraq.

An official source in Erbil confirmed the US report to Rudaw, saying, “The weapons, ammunition and medical supplies were from the Kurdistan Region and we asked the US to deliver them to the fighters in Kobane.”

“It is our support and our national duty,” he said. “In the future our will support will increase in coordination with the US.”



Kurdistan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kurdistan "Land of the Kurds";[3] also formerly spelled Curdistan;[4][5] ancient name: Corduene[6][7][8][9][10][11][12]) is a roughly defined geo-cultural region wherein the Kurdish people form a prominent majority population,[13] and Kurdish culture, language, and national identity have historically been based.[14] Contemporary use of Kurdistan refers to large parts of eastern Turkey (Turkish Kurdistan), northern Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan), northwestern Iran (Iranian Kurdistan) and northeastern Syria (Syrian Kurdistan) inhabited mainly by Kurds.[15] Kurdistan roughly encompasses the northwestern Zagros and the eastern Taurus mountain ranges.[16]

Some Kurdish nationalist organizations seek to create an independent nation state of Kurdistan, consisting of some or all of the areas with Kurdish majority, while others campaign for greater Kurdish autonomy within the existing national boundaries.[17][18] Iraqi Kurdistan first gained autonomous status in a 1970 agreement with the Iraqi government, and its status was re-confirmed as an autonomous entity within the federal Iraqi republic in 2005.[19] There is a province by the name Kurdistan in Iran; it is not self-ruled. Kurds fighting in theSyrian Civil War were able to take control of large sections of northeast Syria as forces loyal to al-Assad withdrew to fight elsewhere. Having established their own government, some Kurds called for autonomy in a democratic Syria; others hoped to establish an independent Kurdistan.[20]

One of the earliest records of the phrase land of the Kurds is found in anAssyrian Christian document of late antiquity, describing the stories of Assyrian saints of the Middle East, such as the Abdisho. When the Sassanid Marzbanasked Mar Abdisho about his place of origin, he replied that according to his parents, they were originally from Hazza, a village in Assyria. However they were later driven out of Hazza by pagans, and settled in Tamanon, which according to Abdisho was in the land of the Kurds. Tamanon lies just north of the modern Iraq-Turkey border, while Hazza is 12 km southwest of modernIrbil. In another passage in the same document, the region of the Khabur Riveris also identified as land of the Kurds.[28]

People

Main article: Kurds
The Kurds are a people of Indo-European origin. They speak an Iranian language known as Kurdish, and comprise the majority of the population of the region – however, included therein are Arab, Armenian, Assyrian, Azeri, Jewish,Ossetian, Persian, and Turkic communities. Most inhabitants are Muslim, but adherents to other religions are present as well – including Yazidis, the Yarsan, Alevis, Christians,[53] and Jews.[54]



“'I figured if I came over here more Americans and other people from other countries would come here,' Jeremy Woodard, a security guard from Meridian, Mississippi, told Williams. Woodard served with the U.S. military until 2012, having seen tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. A month ago, after he was angered by news reports about atrocities committed by ISIS, he paid his own way to Turkey and was smuggled into the war zone.... 'It's not frightening to me,' he told Williams. 'If I have one bullet left, I'll take my own life before that happens. I'm not gonna get put on YouTube by ISIS, and let them put me on my knees and cut my head off for publicity.' Woodard told us he's not the only American fighting with the Kurdish militia members against ISIS in Syria. He said he knows of two others, and has heard there may be several more.”

Volunteers from both the US and Europe have made their way in to Syria to join the Kurdish side, and the Kurds are getting some other support now, though not directly from the US and Turkey. Turkey is just allowing them to cross through it's territory to get to Syria, and the US is delivering – not donating – weapons and supplies by air drop. Still, that's better than nothing. They have ancient roots in the Near East, and have a very interesting history there. See the Wikipedia article above. They are mainly Islamic, but not without a mixture of Yazidis, Jews, Christians and three other religions, so they are not of the fundamentalist Islamic groups that are causing so much trouble in the Middle East right now.





Your taxes funding Nazi war criminals' retirement? – CBS
AP October 20, 2014, 3:37 AM

OSIJEK, Croatia -- Dozens of suspected Nazi war criminals and SS guards collected millions of dollars in U.S. Social Security benefits after being forced out of the United States, an Associated Press investigation has found.

The payments, underwritten by American taxpayers, flowed through a legal loophole that gave the U.S. Justice Department leverage to persuade Nazi suspects to leave the U.S. If they agreed to go, or simply fled before deportation, they could keep their Social Security, according to interviews and internal U.S. government records.

Among those receiving benefits were armed SS troops who guarded the network of Nazi camps where millions of Jews perished; a rocket scientist who used slave laborers to advance his research in the Third Reich; and a Nazi collaborator who engineered the arrest and execution of thousands of Jews in Poland.

There are at least four living beneficiaries. They include Martin Hartmann, a former SS guard at the Sachsenhausen camp in Germany, and Jakob Denzinger, who patrolled the grounds at the Auschwitz camp complex in Poland.

Hartmann moved to Berlin in 2007 from Arizona just before being stripped of his U.S. citizenship. Denzinger fled to Germany from Ohio in 1989 after learning denaturalization proceedings against him were underway. He soon resettled in Croatia and now lives in a spacious apartment on the right bank of the Drava River in Osijek. Denzinger would not discuss his situation when questioned by an AP reporter; Denzinger's son, who lives in the U.S., confirmed his father receives Social Security payments and said he deserved them.

The deals allowed the Justice Department's former Nazi-hunting unit, the Office of Special Investigations, to skirt lengthy deportation hearings and increased the number of Nazis it expelled from the U.S.

But internal U.S. government records obtained by the AP reveal heated objections from the State Department to OSI's practices. Social Security benefits became tools, U.S. diplomatic officials said, to secure agreements in which Nazi suspects would accept the loss of citizenship and voluntarily leave the United States.

"It's absolutely outrageous that Nazi war criminals are continuing to receive Social Security benefits when they have been outlawed from our country for many, many, many years," said U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York, a senior Democratic member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. She said she plans to introduce legislation to close the loophole.

Since 1979, the AP analysis found, at least 38 of 66 suspects removed from the country kept their Social Security benefits.

The Social Security Administration expressed outrage in 1997 over the use of benefits, the documents show, and blowback in foreign capitals reverberated at the highest levels of government.

Austrian authorities were furious upon learning after the fact about a deal made with Martin Bartesch, a former SS guard at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. In 1987, Bartesch landed, unannounced, at the airport in Vienna. Two days later, under the terms of the deal, his U.S. citizenship was revoked.

The Romanian-born Bartesch, who had emigrated to the U.S. in 1955, was suddenly stateless and Austria's problem. Bartesch continued to receive Social Security benefits until he died in 1989.

"It was not upfront, it was not transparent, it was not a legitimate process," said James Hergen, an assistant legal adviser at the State Department from 1982 until 2007. "This was not the way America should behave. We should not be dumping our refuse, for lack of a better word, on friendly states."

Neal Sher, a former OSI director, said the State Department cared more about diplomatic niceties than holding former members of Adolf Hitler's war machine accountable.

Amid the objections, the practice known as "Nazi dumping" stopped. But the benefits loophole wasn't closed.

Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said in an emailed statement that Social Security payments never were employed to persuade Nazi suspects to depart voluntarily.

The Social Security Administration refused the AP's request for the total number of Nazi suspects who received benefits and the dollar amounts of those payments. Spokesman William "BJ" Jarrett said the agency does not track data specific to Nazi cases.

A further barrier, Jarrett said, is that there is no exception in U.S. privacy law that "allows us to disclose information because the individual is a Nazi war criminal or an accused Nazi war criminal."

The department also declined to make the acting commissioner, Carolyn Colvin, or another senior agency official available for an interview.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, the founder and head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, said the loophole should be closed.

"Someone receiving an American pension could live very well in Europe or wherever they settled," Hier said. "We, in effect, were rewarding them. It didn't make any sense."




“Dozens of suspected Nazi war criminals and SS guards collected millions of dollars in U.S. Social Security benefits after being forced out of the United States, an Associated Press investigation has found. The payments, underwritten by American taxpayers, flowed through a legal loophole that gave the U.S. Justice Department leverage to persuade Nazi suspects to leave the U.S. If they agreed to go, or simply fled before deportation, they could keep their Social Security, according to interviews and internal U.S. government records. Among those receiving benefits were armed SS troops who guarded the network of Nazi camps where millions of Jews perished; a rocket scientist who used slave laborers to advance his research in the Third Reich; and a Nazi collaborator who engineered the arrest and execution of thousands of Jews in Poland.... The deals allowed the Justice Department's former Nazi-hunting unit, the Office of Special Investigations, to skirt lengthy deportation hearings and increased the number of Nazis it expelled from the U.S. But internal U.S. government records obtained by the AP reveal heated objections from the State Department to OSI's practices. Social Security benefits became tools, U.S. diplomatic officials said, to secure agreements in which Nazi suspects would accept the loss of citizenship and voluntarily leave the United States. 'It's absolutely outrageous that Nazi war criminals are continuing to receive Social Security benefits when they have been outlawed from our country for many, many, many years,' said U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York, a senior Democratic member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. She said she plans to introduce legislation to close the loophole. Since 1979, the AP analysis found, at least 38 of 66 suspects removed from the country kept their Social Security benefits.... Neal Sher, a former OSI director, said the State Department cared more about diplomatic niceties than holding former members of Adolf Hitler's war machine accountable. Amid the objections, the practice known as "Nazi dumping" stopped. But the benefits loophole wasn't closed. Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said in an emailed statement that Social Security payments never were employed to persuade Nazi suspects to depart voluntarily.”

I've always heard that there were a substantial number of Americans who sympathized with the Nazis, as there were in Britain, and that the US was very slow to enter WWII. Only the bombing of Pearl Harbor brought us in. Down through the last 30 or so years there have been stories of Nazi war criminals who escaped trial and moved to Argentina. There was also John Demjanjuk – who was tried both in Israel and in Germany for war crimes and finally convicted in Germany. He died while his case was on appeal. “He lived at a German nursing home in Bad Feilnbach,[13] where he died on 17 March 2012.[23] Despite decades of legal wrangling and controversy, Demjanjuk died a free man and legally innocent.[24][25]” Now comes this story of more than a handful of Nazis essentially paid off to leave the US. If this story is accurate, it is a scandal. “... at least 38 of 66 suspects removed from the country kept their Social Security benefits.”

“U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York, a senior Democratic member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. She said she plans to introduce legislation to close the loophole.” It's almost too late to close the loophole, as most veterans of WWII are dead by now. I wonder what commentary this will arouse in the legislature and among Americans. Republicans are complaining about good Americans using their Social Security benefits, but these Nazis in various places around the world are living on the same source. It's really embarrassing to me.





Symbol of ISIS hate becomes rallying cry for Christians
By HEBA KANSO CBS NEWS
October 20, 2014, 5:30 AM

When the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIS, captured Mosul,one of Iraq's largest cities, militants began singling Christians out. The symbol that marked their homes and businesses -- the Arabic letter "n," which is pronounced "noon" and stands for Nazarene or Nasrani, the Arabic word for Christian -- reportedly was a signal: convert, pay a tax or be killed. Many Christians fled.

Jeremy Courtney, who has lived in Iraq for almost eight years, decided to bring the world's attention to what the militant group, whose radical views on Islam have been widely condemned by Muslims around the world, had been doing.

"Watching the homes of Christians be marked with this Arabic letter 'n,' marking them for extermination - I was just very moved and hurt in my soul and inspired to try and do something to awaken the emotions of people anywhere, everywhere to pay attention to this tragedy," said Courtney, the founder and executive director of an international development organization called Preemptive Love Coalition, which provides life-saving heart surgeries to Iraqi children and aid for displaced families.

Courtney said he grabbed a marker in mid-July and marked his hand with the Arabic letter "n" to stand in solidarity with the Christians who were also being marked.

He posted the photo on Twitter with the hashtag #WeAreN.

"When I started the #WeAreN hashtag, I certainly didn't know or envision that this was going to be a rallying cry for Christians and others around the word," said Courtney.

Places like the the Archdiocese of Washington posted it on their Facebook. The Church of England has it on their Twitter feed. More than 22,000 people have also taken to Instagram, posting photos of the Arabic "n" on their hands, faces and clothing with #WeAreN.

"They [ISIS] gave us a logo in which to hang our best hopes for Iraq. Suddenly, now the whole Western world was paying attention," said Courtney.

One of those paying attention was Michelle Palmeiri in New York.

"All I could think of was Iraq and Syria, and the poor Christians who were being moved from their homes and killed and I was like 'We got to do something,'" said Palmeiri.

She is a member of The Church of the Holy Innocents in Manhattan, where she started organizing vigils where people would wear the Arabic "n" on pins, on their hands and on posters. People also wore the pins during the church's masses.

"Christ says 'be not afraid,' and we're showing that we're not afraid of them [ISIS]," said Palmeiri.

They have held three vigils so far. Members of the church walk with candles and prayers in hand from their church location on 37th Street to Herald Square a few blocks away.

They pray inside and outside of the church for the Christians being persecuted in the Middle East and want to support them by wearing the letter.

The Rev. Stephen Safron helps with Mass at the Church of the Holy Innocents where he has spoken about the persecution of Christians.

"Things like this do bring attention to specific needs at a specific time," said Safron.

He also sees historical parallels in ISIS' persecution of Christians.

"We think of history itself also. ... The invasion of Poland for example and the beginnings of World War II. And we think of the Jewish people forced to wear the star. And so this here, we see the same thing happening. People are being labeled."

"It's really blasphemy to say that these things [killings] can be done in the name of God. This sheer fanaticism tries to justify itself by wrapping itself in religion but it really is holding religion in contempt," the Rev. George Rulter, an administrator at the church, said.

Rulter sees the effort to reclaim ISIS' intended symbol of Christian oppression and turn it into one of solidarity as "propaganda for the good rather than for the bad."

"They wanted to identify with fellow Christians who were suffering. And I think now it has served the function of awakening other people as well," he said.

Since Palmeiri's initial efforts a few months ago, she said she has received messages on Facebook from bishops and priests in the Middle East thanking them.

"It's a serious matter, especially when that area of the world is asking us to help them. ... Something has to be done whether it's the physical or in the spiritual."

What ISIS used as a symbol for Christian oppression in the Middle East has now become image of solidarity for people like Palmeiri, Courtney and thousands of others.

"I was not expecting #WeAreN as a hashtag or the 'noon' as a logo or icon to grow this big at all. No, it was a moment of frustration. It was a moment of personal protest, just trying to say if you're coming for them, then you can come for me too," said Courtney. "Living in Iraq and watching this play out in my backyard, I just had this sense that we can't just stand by idly and let our neighbors be slaughtered."



http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/08/world/meast/iraq-ethnic-groups-under-threat-isis/

Who are the religious and ethnic groups under threat from ISIS?
By Joshua Berlinger, CNN
 Fri August 8, 2014

(CNN) -- In a church in Irbil, 40-day-old Yeshua lies asleep in a crib, his sister playfully rocking him. It's a peaceful scene. Their mother watches over them, but her face shows the fear and despair many Iraqi minorities have felt over the past few days.

Nearly 40,000 Yazidis are trapped on the top of Mount Sinjar with few resources; many with just the clothes on their back, U.S. President Barack Obama said in an address late Thursday evening.
The Yazidis are one of the world's smallest and oldest monotheistic religious minorities. Their religion is considered a pre-Islamic sect that draws from Christianity, Judaism and the ancient monotheistic religion of Zoroastrianism.

Like the Kurds, they mostly reside in Iraq's north, many in the town of Sinjar in northwestern Nineveh province, bordering Iraq's Kurdish region. The province is home to mostly Arabs and Kurds, who have jostled for control over it for centuries.

But Yazidis also reside in Turkey, Syria, Armenia, Iran and parts of the Caucasus region.
The people speak Kurdish and are of Kurdish descent, but most see themselves as ethnically distinctive.

Iraqi Christians

Before being targeted by ISIS, an enormous portion -- some say as many as half -- of Iraq's Christians fled the country at the start of the U.S. war in 2003. Al Qaeda in Iraq, which preceded ISIS, brutally targeted the country's Christian minority.

According to the State Department, Christian leaders and nongovernmental organizations estimate that there are approximately 500,000 Christians in Iraq -- a that figure has declined by nearly 300,000 in the last five years. At one point there were over a million Christians living in Iraq.

Most Iraqi Christians are Chaldeans, who are communicants with the Roman Catholic church. They predominantly reside in northern Iraq.

The al Qaeda splinter group has taken control of the country's largest Christian city, Qaraqosh. And last month, Christians in the country's second largest city, Mosul, were told they must convert to Islam, pay a fine or face "death by the sword."

Turkmen

The majority of the world's Turkmen, a Turkic-speaking, traditionally nomadic people, live in Turkmenistan and elsewhere in Central Asia.

But a small minority of them can be found in the Middle East, primarily in northern Iraq, Iran and Turkey.

The city of Tal Afar, whose population is mostly made up of Turkmen, was caught in the crossfire of sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis during the recent Iraq war -- a suicide attack killed 150 people in 2007. The city's population dwindled from about200,000 to 80,000 in just a few years.

Sunni Turkmen make up 1% to 2% of Iraq's population, according to the State Department. A smaller group of Shia Turkmen live there, as well.

Shiites

Despite the risk ISIS poses to Yazidis, Turkmen, Christians and the country's other minorities, the risk to Iraq's majority Shia Muslims is far more widespread.

In their quest to create an Islamic caliphate stretching from Syria to Iraq, ISIS has targeted Shiites in both countries.

In June, the group claimed on Twitter that it killed at least 1,700 Shiites in June. ISIS is also fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces in Syria. Assad is a member of the Alawite sect, on offshoot of Shia Islam.

Like many of the minorities in in the Nineveh province, Shiites and Alawites have been labeled as infidels by ISIS.

Shiites outnumber Sunnis in Iraq on the whole. Most of Baghdad is predominantly Shiite, but large portions of Iraq's western and northern territories contain Sunni majority populations.




“When the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIS, captured Mosul,one of Iraq's largest cities, militants began singling Christians out. The symbol that marked their homes and businesses -- the Arabic letter'n,' which is pronounced 'noon' and stands for Nazarene or Nasrani, the Arabic word for Christian -- reportedly was a signal: convert, pay a tax or be killed. Many Christians fled. Jeremy Courtney, who has lived in Iraq for almost eight years, decided to bring the world's attention to what the militant group, whose radical views on Islam have been widely condemned by Muslims around the world, had been doing.... Courtney said he grabbed a marker in mid-July and marked his hand with the Arabic letter 'n' to stand in solidarity with the Christians who were also being marked. He posted the photo on Twitter with the hashtag #WeAreN. 'When I started the #WeAreN hashtag, I certainly didn't know or envision that this was going to be a rallying cry for Christians and others around the word,' said Courtney. Places like the the Archdiocese of Washington posted it on their Facebook. The Church of England has it on their Twitter feed. More than 22,000 people have also taken to Instagram, posting photos of the Arabic "n" on their hands, faces and clothing with #WeAreN.... 'We think of history itself also. ... The invasion of Poland for example and the beginnings of World War II. And we think of the Jewish people forced to wear the star. And so this here, we see the same thing happening. People are being labeled.'... Since Palmeiri's initial efforts a few months ago, she said she has received messages on Facebook from bishops and priests in the Middle East thanking them. 'It's a serious matter, especially when that area of the world is asking us to help them. ... Something has to be done whether it's the physical or in the spiritual.'”

All whom the ISIS group consider to be “infidels,” which includes everyone besides themselves, are under assault unless they “convert.” Unfortunately, almost all of them are running away rather than fighting. Of course they probably have no army and no weapons. Other than giving them food and shelter in some other nation, I don't know what can be done unless the US and a groups of allies who are actually willing to fight gets together in stiff opposition to ISIS with soldiers on the ground. The opposition really should come from other Middle Eastern nations, especially Islamic peoples, who are opposed to the simply vicious techniques and fundamentalist doctrines of ISIS. They should prove to the world that Islam is a religion of peace by making it so.





Halting Schizophrenia Before It Starts – NPR
by AMY STANDEN
October 20, 2014

Photograph – Meghan, 23, began experiencing hallucinations at 19. "Driving home, cars' headlights turned into eyes. The grills on the cars turned into mouths and none of them looked happy. It would scare the crap out of me," Meghan says.

The important thing is that Meghan knew something was wrong.

When I met her, she was 23, a smart, wry young woman living with her mother and stepdad in Simi Valley, about an hour north of Los Angeles.

Meghan had just started a training program to become a respiratory therapist. Concerned about future job prospects, she asked NPR not to use her full name.

Five years ago, Meghan's prospects weren't nearly so bright. At 19, she had been severely depressed, on and off, for years. During the bad times, she'd hide out in her room making thin, neat cuts with a razor on her upper arm.

"I didn't do much of anything," Meghan recalls. "It required too much brain power."

"Her depression just sucked the life out of you," Kathy, Meghan's mother, recalls. "I had no idea what to do or where to go with it."

One night in 2010, Meghan's mental state took an ominous turn. Driving home from her job at McDonald's, she found herself fascinated by the headlights of an oncoming car.

"I had the weird thought of, you know, I've never noticed this, but their headlights really look like eyes."

To Meghan, the car seemed malicious. It wanted to hurt her.

Kathy tried to reason with her.

"Honey, you know it's a car, right? You know those are headlights," she recalls pressing her daughter. "You understand that this makes no sense, right?"

"I know," Meghan answered. "But this is what I see, and it's scaring me."

In other words, Meghan had insight, defined in psychiatry as the ability to understand that one's unusual experiences are attributable to a mental illness.

What Meghan saw did not fit with what she believed. She knew she was hallucinating.

It's the loss of insight that signals a psychotic break. This can lead to several different diagnoses, but in people ultimately diagnosed with schizophrenia, the break signals the formal onset of the disease. Typically, a first psychotic break occurs in a person's late teens or early 20s. In men, the range is 15 to 24; in women, 25 to 34.

That first psychotic break can lead to a series of disasters: social isolation, hospitalization, medications with sometimes disabling side effects, and future psychotic episodes.

So, what if you could intervene earlier, before any of that? Could you stop the process from snowballing?

At 19, Meghan hadn't had a psychotic break. She still had insight. That made her eligible for a new type of program taking shape in California that aims to prevent schizophrenia before it officially begins.

The program draws on research suggesting that schizophrenia unfolds much more slowly than might be obvious, even to families.

"You start to see a decline in their functioning," says Dr. Daniel Mathalon, who studies brain development in the early stages of psychosis at the University of California, San Francisco.

"They were doing better in school, now they're doing worse," he says. "Maybe they had friends but they're starting to be more isolated."

Eventually, these subtle behavioral shifts may take on a surreal quality. A young person may hear faint whispers or hissing, or see flashes of light or shadows on the periphery.

"They lack delusional conviction," explains Mathalon. "They're experiencing these things; maybe they're suspicious. But they're not sure."

Psychiatrists have a word for this early stage: prodromal.

Meghan took a screening test developed at Yale University Medical School that identified her as possibly within the prodromal stage of psychosis. That is, her symptoms could be indicative of early psychosis, but weren't predictive.

She was referred to a clinic in an office park about an hour from her house called Ventura Early Intervention Prevention Services, or VIPS, operated by Alameda-based Telecare Corp.

VIPS is one of a handful of programs that have sprung up in California in recent years, based on a model developed in Maine by psychiatrist Dr. Bill McFarlane.

McFarlane believes that psychosis can be prevented with a range of surprisingly low-tech interventions, almost all of which are designed to reduce stress in the family of the young person who is starting to show symptoms.

McFarlane cites research done at UCLA suggesting that certain kinds of family dynamics — families that don't communicate well, or are overly critical — can make things worse for a young person at risk of schizophrenia.

"Our theory," says McFarlane, "was that if you could identify these young people early enough, you could alter some of those family patterns. Then you could work with the family to start behaving not just normally, but in a way that was smarter."

McFarlane's programs bring families in for twice-monthly multifamily group therapy sessions, where participants take a nuts-and-bolts approach to resolving disputes at home and softening their responses to what the young person is going through.

"We assume parents can't figure this out alone," says McFarlane.

In some cases, participants are also prescribed antipsychotic drugs, especially one called Abilify, which McFarlane and others believe can stem hallucinations.

McFarlane himself is careful about recommending antipsychotic medications.

The drugs, he says, should be used cautiously, at lower doses than would be prescribed for full psychosis, and even then only in young people who aren't responding to other treatments.

But in programs inspired by his model, the drugs appear to be widely prescribed, including in clients as young as 10 or 13. This fact has become a flashpoint in the conversation around schizophrenia prevention.

"No one is harder to diagnose than a child or a teenager," says Dr. Allen Frances, a former chair of the psychiatry department at Duke University and chair of the task force that produced the fourth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, orDSM-IV, the standard reference for psychiatric diagnoses.

"There are rapid developmental changes from visit to visit," he says. "The tendency to overdiagnose is particularly problematic in teenagers."

Frances points to studies showing that if you take three kids, all experiencing those surreal early symptoms, only one will get schizophrenia.

So what about the other two?

Frances says these kids are wrongly labeled and stigmatized. Their parents are terrified. And in many cases, they will be prescribed antipsychotic drugs, which can have serious side effects and haven't been studied well in children.

"We have to be careful of any new fad in psychiatry," says Frances. "The field has been filled with fads in the past, and often we learn in retrospect that they've done much more harm than good."

But what Frances calls a fad is to others a model for mental health care.

To see these programs in action, the best place to go is California, where over the past few years a handful of programs have sprung up based on McFarlane's PIER model.

One, in San Diego, is called Kickstart. Like the others, it's paid for by a state tax on millionaires, passed by voters in 2004, that funds mental health. Services — everything from homework help to family therapy and outings such as kite-flying expeditions — are offered for free.

Joseph Edwards, Kickstart's assistant program director, says for teenagers who might be developing schizophrenia, just being outside, with friends, is a kind of therapy.

"They'll want to isolate," says Edwards. "There's sensitivity to a lot of stimulation. And a lot times we'll see what we call day/night reversal, where they'll stay up all night and go to sleep in the daytime."

Edwards says if a teenager is really isolating, a Kickstart worker will drive to his or her house and cajole the person out. Anything, he says, to keep them engaged, with friends in school or at work.

At an arcade in a strip mall, we meet Ashley Wood, one of Kickstart's occupational therapists. Wood brought her client, 13-year-old Tony, here as a reward for being cooperative in therapy.

We aren't using Tony's full name because he's a minor, at the request of his parents.
Wood has an easy laugh and teases Tony gently to pull him out of his shell.

"When we first met, he was so quiet," she says, laughing. "He's like, 'Who is this chick?' "
"Nah," says Tony, smiling shyly. "I was being a jerk."

Tony had been getting in fights. He was angry at his mom, angry in school. And there was something else.

"I used to see stuff and hear [stuff]," he tells me.

"Like what?" I ask him. "Like ... weird objects," he responds. When I press him for more details, he shakes his head.

Are Tony's symptoms the beginning of schizophrenia? Or just the routine weirdness of a teenage brain taking shape?

No one — not Wood, not his therapists — can say for sure.

Wood says what she's teaching him will be helpful either way: "When he's frustrated at school or at home, instead of immediately responding, kind of finding a way to communicate. So we're trying to work on the impulse control as well."

Impulsive, unruly, prone to angry outbursts, Tony sounds like a lot of 13-year-old kids.

That's one reason that last year, the American Psychiatric Association opted to exclude the idea of "psychosis risk syndrome" from the DSM-5, the latest version of the manual of mental disorders. The screening test is generally considered to be only 30 percent accurate.

In 2011, a review of prodrome intervention programs called the idea of intervention in pre-schizophrenia "inconclusive."

"This is an experiment far before its time," says Allen Frances.

McFarlane believes the benefits of these programs are borne out in the work done at his clinic and others based on his model. In July, he published the results of a two-year study of two groups of young people at risk for, or in the early stage of, schizophrenia, which showed better functional outcomes for those who went through treatment.

He and other proponents say schizophrenia's early window may be too precious to miss.

"We're running up against the limits of what we can do for patients who develop schizophrenia, once it goes to chronic stages," UCSF's Mathalon says. "I think this is a direction we have to go in, but we have to do it carefully."

When you talk to people who have been through these programs and ask them what helped them, it is not the drugs, not the diagnosis. It's the lasting, one-on-one relationships with adults who listen, like Ashley Wood.

Tiffany Martinez, an early client of Bill McFarlane's in Maine, chokes up when asked to describe what she thinks helped her climb out of an incipient mental health crisis that began when she was in college.

"To share such personal intimate details, you know? To have these people working so hard on it and so devoted and invested in the work," Martinez, now age 26, says, "it's like getting a chance. Just the program, what the program stands for alone, is hope."

That same relief is palpable when you talk to Meghan's mom, Kathy, and stepfather, Charlie.

"I thought we were going to have to take care of her for the rest of her life," says Kathy. "I thought she'd forever be marginal, forever be medicated. I thought we'd just have to get used to it."

Today Meghan is off all her medications. She's animated, playing board games with her family, excited about being back in school.

Her family credits the VIPS program.

"We were blessed to have this for her," Charlie says. "We really were. It saved her life."




This article defines a psychotic break as a loss of the insight into ones symptoms. Insight is Meaghan's awareness that all she really saw was car headlights and grill, not a malevolent face. I would have thought that the hallucinations alone were a sign of a psychotic break". The term "schizophrenia" is not applied until the patient has a "psychotic break. The drug Abilify, mentioned in this article as an anti-psychotic and not an anti-depressant, and potentially harmful, is being advertised right now on TV for “depression” that doesn't go away with other drugs. I am frequently uncomfortable with the advertisements of drugs on TV for people who aren't medically trained, to self-diagnose and ask their doctor for a prescription. Though of course they shouldn't do it, many doctors will literally give you any drug you ask for.

When people have severe or persistent depression, “weird” feelings, hearing or seeing anything that isn't there, they should immediately go to a good mental health center. There are a number of those in Jacksonville, as there are in most major cities. A lack of treatment facilities was the complaint of the mother in one of the recent school shootings. The boy had been under treatment before, however, because the article said he “stopped taking his medications” and wouldn't go to his therapist. At a certain point he “snapped” and the shooting occurred.

I was glad to see that psychiatrists are experimenting on talk therapy and drugs to intervene early in young people before they show full symptoms of schizophrenia. Several of those school shooters have had symptoms that should have been treated, possibly including hospitalization. I wonder what the frequency of schizophrenia is in the population. I was also glad to see that this psychiatrist said many kids who have unusual symptoms are subjected to pressure and criticism within their home rather than understanding and patience, which really makes their condition worse. Also, there are still today many parents who would physically punish a child who had such symptoms, and that was especially true when my father was young. He had two brothers who became psychotic, one diagnosed with schizophrenia and the other with “manic depressive illness” or as it is called nowadays “Bipolar disorder.” I have often thought about the high amount of interpersonal tension that was present in his family when he was growing up, and wondered how much that had to do with their illnesses. Of course, both conditions are also considered to be inherited, so that might be the reason for 2 out of the 10 children being psychotic.

Miraculously, the mere continuance long term of a positive relationship with a kind and understanding adult – which is what talk therapy consists of – can pull the child out of his inner fixation and negativity. McFarlane also brings family members in with the patient for biweekly multifamily group therapy sessions, which is probably much more helpful than just treating the patient alone. It also takes the stigma away for the parents and lets them talk among themselves about how to treat their children.

This was a very hopeful article. My first introduction to schizophrenia was, of course, my uncle; but I also when I was in high school read the wonderful book on the subject called “I Never Promised You A Rose Garden,” which was a semi-autobiographical novel by Hannah Green, or Joanne Greenberg. Even though it has been in print since 1964, it is still available on Amazon in paperback for $6.39. It's really a very beautifully written book and also positive in its outlook rather than morbidly depressing as you might expect. I highly recommend it.