October 9 and 10, 2016


News and Views


https://www.laprogressive.com/fearful-voters/

Slouching Toward a Political Fukushima
BY CHARLES D. HAYES
POSTED ON OCTOBER 8, 2016

Day in and day out, confirmation that the political Right has reached a stage-four level of wing-nuttery is evident in social media, newspapers, radio, and television. Commentators of every political persuasion have grown weary of uttering the familiar refrain that “You can’t make this stuff up.” But people can. They are making up bizarre things to say, and other people are believing them. Every day we seem nearer to DEFCON 1 lunacy.

Ultra-conservatives complained recently that a baker forced to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple would, in effect, be participating in a wedding. Strangely, they don’t think a gun store owner who sells a gun to a killer is participating in a murder. Such twisted logic seems to apply only when it feeds a particular agenda.

On the Christian Right, Pat Robertson claimed recently that smoking pot will make a person a slave to vegetables. Another evangelist warned believers to prepare for martyrdom if the Supreme Court rules in favor of gay marriage. Mike Huckabee said gays won’t be satisfied until there are no more churches.

The unhinged rhetoric just keeps ratcheting up in tenor, and it’s growing louder with the approach of the 2016 election. Kansas politicians have enacted laws to keep people from using food stamps on cruise ships, which simply amounts to an existential effort to humiliate poor people. No doubt they think Jesus would approve.

The paranoid antigovernment crowd is hyper-alert for evidence that government forces are out to get them, and their pattern-matching gray matter is up to the challenge of perceiving connections where any hint of cause and effect can be imagined.

The paranoid antigovernment crowd is hyper-alert for evidence that government forces are out to get them, and their pattern-matching gray matter is up to the challenge of perceiving connections where any hint of cause and effect can be imagined. Accusations that stretch the very limits of the term irrationality are picking up steam over fears about Black helicopters, secret nuclear weapons, Muslim plots to take over the government, Communist conspiracies, elitist collusions, unseen sinister forces, and other bizarre rumors.

Perhaps it only seems that more and more people qualify as being certifiable, as we used to say, because more media outlets are giving them voice. The Internet and social media have provided conspiracy theorists a communication platform never before possible, with the result that irrationality feeds on itself like a python in pursuit of its own tail.

Conspiratorial paranoia stems in part from a deep-seated psychological dread of otherness, chance, change, and uncertainty because they are cousins to mortality. True conspiratorial believers share a visceral fear of chaos driven by a subconscious fear of death. To them the idea of a psychotic fiend pulling all of the strings that make the world go around is much more comforting and less frightening than the thought that no one is in control and anything can happen to anyone at any time.

In a nutshell, what we are witnessing is the emotional angst of ill-educated citizens fearful of change they can’t understand, people they can’t relate to, and a future over which they have very little control. The reason the rhetoric sounds so bizarre and outlandish is that this is the playing out of identity politics: It’s us versus them on technological steroids, bouncing off the cyber walls of social media echo chambers. Save a national emergency to get everyone’s attention, there seems to be little we can do to stop the nonsense or even slow it down.

I’ve been writing about the critical need for self-education for more than thirty years, and the 2016 election rhetoric reminds me that we aren’t making all that much progress. The four-day Republican National Convention earlier this year amounted to a hate fest, driven by fear and fueled by deep-seated contempt. In effect, America has a black hole of ignorance in the heartland, where contempt for the unfamiliar metastasizes and citizens bond by way of shared derision.

It’s customary to think that people who are ignorant simply lack knowledge and what they need is the benefit of an education. But the vitriolic rhetoric at the 2016 RNC was a clear demonstration of the great barrier to the kind of learning that can dispel misguided cultural angst. What stands in the way for these ill-informed citizens is a virtual fortress of mistaken assumptions—toxic, absurd assumptions like the belief that President Obama is secretly a Muslim who hates America or that Hillary Clinton is the incarnation of evil, plotting to take away everyone’s guns and ammunition. It goes downhill from there.

This barricade of ignorant assumptions is almost impossible to breach through the use of reason. The important thing to keep in mind is that these ridiculous beliefs were born in emotion, so they have to be dealt with at an emotional level in order to change. Reason is useless against emotional angst.

During the Cold War, liberals and conservatives shared an emotive realm with one another because of the practicality of dealing with a common enemy. When the Cold War ended, the common emotional connection was severed, and the vitriol between the political Left and Right has been escalating ever since.

A Donald Trump victory in November would be an overt declaration that insanity prevails, followed shortly by a nuclear-level fallout of angst when Trump’s voters finally discover that he is egregiously incompetent and has no clue how to put into practice his maniacal agenda to “make America great again.”

A Hillary Clinton victory, which I hope for and expect, is going to result in a misogynistic Fukushima. The big question is the extent and duration of the emotional fallout. Business owners have threated [sic] to close their doors if Hillary wins, while white supremacists threaten revolution. How long will it take after the glass ceiling is broken for misogynists to accept the new legitimacy of a woman as president? This is the existential question.

charles-hayes-2015 When President Obama was elected, the hope was that racism would subside. Instead there was a backlash. The effect of that election outcome, as the academics explained, was that it actually gave people permission to own their bias. If the same thing happens with misogyny, the question is, for how long and how severe? When will we grow up? Or are we doomed to forever engage in childish tribalism and call it politics?



That’s why I hope we will be able to avoid becoming the next Nazi nation. But to start with, we can begin by simply being kinder and more caring. Speak to your neighbor and smile. We need to care about the other guy as well as ourselves. The term “political correctness” is said with scorn today, usually by Republicans and other negative people, but if what we mean is POLITENESS, then we need to expand our social skills to include this one rather than viewing it with scorn. It’s very important.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-do-placebos-work/

Why do placebos work?
CBS NEWS
October 9, 2016, 9:15 AM

Photograph -- placebos-pills-medication-promo.jpg, CBS NEWS
Video – CBSN live – watch this.


How real is the placebo effect? Can a pill actually cure an ailment, even if that pill contains no medicine at all? Our Cover Story is reported by our Susan Spencer:

You may know it from those mildly embarrassing TV ads. But Linda Buonanno knows it from daily life. She has struggled with IBS -- Irritable Bowel Syndrome -- for two decades.

“It’s horrible. Sometimes I could be fast asleep and wake up out of a dead sleep at 6:00 in the morning and just keel over in pain,” she said.

Desperate for relief, she responded immediately when she learned of a new study at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

“I made an appointment, and I went down there,” she told Spencer.

Buonanno came home with fingers crossed, and a three-week supply of pills. The results seemed miraculous. “As the days went on after a week, I kept feeling better and better. Now I’m thinking, ‘What’s in this?’”

So what WAS the special something in those pills? It was … absolutely nothing. Linda was taking placebos, containing no real medication at all.

What makes her story even more astonishing is that, unlike traditional experiments with placebos, she was TOLD she was taking placebos!

“I remember the first day I took it, I said, ‘Why am I even taking this? You know, it’s like a waste of my time,’” Buonanno said. “But when I saw that I felt better, I’m thinking, ‘Well, maybe he just told me it was a placebo. And it’s a new medication they’re trying out and didn’t want me to know!’”

Ted Kaptchuk, a professor at Harvard Medical School who ran the experiment, said his colleagues initially thought he was crazy at the beginning of the study. But it worked: He says roughly 60 percent of the subjects in his study reported getting better, even though they knew they were taking a placebo.

A placebo, Kaptchuk explained, is an inert substance, usually something like cellulose, starch or sugar. But the “placebo effect” goes well beyond the actual pill.

“Placebo effect is everything that surrounds that pill -- the interaction between patient, doctor or nurse,” Kaptchuk said. “It’s the symbols, it’s the rituals. These are powerful forces.”

Doctors have understood the power of placebos at least since they were first used in clinical trials in the ‘50s, but fake pills work only in certain cases.

“There are a lot of illnesses you don’t give placebos for, [like] cancer, lowering cholesterol,” Kaptchuk said. “Basically the scope where a placebo effect is relevant is any symptom that the brain can modulate by itself.”

In those cases, just making an appointment, going to a doctor and taking a pill suggests something may happen.

Dr. Arthur Barsky, a psychiatrist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, says that people will report some symptomatic relief from taking a substance that is not biologically active about 35 percent of the time. “It’s very impressive.”

He says people even report side effects from placebos. Clearly we are highly-suggestible creatures.

“There are some studies, for example, with asthma, [where] you can provoke an asthmatic attack by showing someone a pollen that they’re allergic to, but it’s in a sealed jar,” said Dr. Barsky. “I had a patient who had allergic dermatitis to cats. And she saw a cat on the television screen … and started to itch.”

Aware of the power of the mind, as many as half of all American doctors admit to having prescribed some form of placebo, according to a 2008 BMJ study.

Spencer asked, “Why would this even occur to a doctor in the first place: ‘I’m gonna give you something that as far as I know isn’t gonna do anything’?”

Dr. Barsky laughed: “Well, when you think about it, there are a lot of things that we do that aren’t directly curative that make a difference -- vitamin pills, iron pills, cold packs, heat packs, giving antibiotics for a viral infection because the patient really wants it.”

And it’s not just that the patient imagines feeling better. Dr. Kaptchuk showed Spencer brains scans of patients who responded to placebo treatment who were in pain: “We actually see part of the pain matrix being activated that would change this sensation of pain,” he said.

Just the act of taking a pill, even a fake one, can coax the brain into producing its own helpful chemicals. “In fact, we know that giving the pill in the context of the health care encounter activates neurotransmitters,” Dr. Kaptchuk said.

“Something chemically is happening? That’s amazing to me,” Spencer said.

“It’s really amazing to me [and] I’ve been in this business a long time!” Dr. Kaptchuk laughed.

Neurologist Alberto Espay of the University of Cincinnati, who specializes in Parkinson’s disease, says, “I know that the phenomenon of my patients changing by virtue of nothing else than their expectations, is real.”

He says drugs used in Parkinson’s help the brain make dopamine. Turns out, placebos do, too.

“And this can be measured objectively? Measurable changes within the brain?” Spencer asked.

“Very much so.”

Bob Walton has lived with Parkinson’s for more than a decade. Dr. Espay enrolled Walton in a study supposedly comparing an expensive drug to a cheaper one.

“I actually felt a little better after I got the expensive one,” he said.

Well, guess what: “He did an interview with me about an hour-and-a-half after it was over with,” Walton recalled. “And he said, ‘They were both saline solutions.’ Both were placebos.”

And of course, there was no price difference at all. Yet the patient who thought they’d taken the more expensive drug felt more improvement. Not only did the supposedly expensive drug do twice the job, it did just as well as a real Parkinson’s drug.

“So they thought that because it was expensive it has to be good?” Spencer asked. “And that alone can affect things physiologically?”

“It does,” Dr. Espay replied.

The lesson here, says Dr. Espay: When patients believe in their medications, those medications just may work better.

Spencer said, “Now, to do your experiment you had to mislead people. How did you feel about that?”

“Terrible!” Dr. Espay laughed.

In fact, outside of clinical trials like Dr. Espay’s, the American Medical Association frowns on deception in treating patients. “Patients cannot be given a placebo without informed consent, and [being] told clearly, transparently what it is,” Kaptchuk said.

But given Linda Buananno’s success with placebos for her IBS, it may not matter if patients know … which raises an interesting question:

“I think the next step is, how do we concretely use placebo effects in clinical practice?” Kaptchuk said.

Dr. Barksy believes there are some ways in which patient may still get the benefit without being deceived: “You tell the patient, ‘We’re gonna give you the active medicine, but on some days you’re gonna get a placebo. And if that were to work you would then lessen the chance of addiction, tolerance. [And] it’s cheaper.’”

Meanwhile, Buananno’s symptoms are back, full force, but she has an appointment with Professor Kaptchuk. “I’m possibly gonna go on placebos again and see what happens,” she said.

“It seems so strange to hear somebody say, ‘I’m going on placebos,’” Spencer said. “It’s like saying, ‘I’m about to start taking nothing again. I’m really excited!’”

“Exactly.”


For more info:

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston
Ted Kaptchuk, Dept of Global Health & SocialMedicine, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Arthur Barsky, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston
Dr. Alberto Espay, UC Gardner Neuroscience Institute, University of Cincinnati
“Placebo Use in Clinical Practice: Report of the American Medical Association Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs,” Journal of Clinical Ethics (2008) (pdf)



Personally, after taking the laboratory based psychology course so many years ago on subjects like the great scientific psychologists BF Skinner, Pavlov, Konrad Lorenz on Imprinting, etc., and with nothing in it about Freud or the Id or my sex life, I was startled and amazed at what already at that point in time had been demonstrated about the brain and nervous system.

In addition, though I tend to doubt the claims of those who sell their hypnosis or meditation brain control techniques for money, I have personally many times alleviated bodily pain like arthritis without an opiate or other heavy medication, by focusing “the mind’s eye” on the part of my body that hurts, imagining I am placing the first finger of my right hand on that area, and slowly relaxing those muscles until the pain melts away. This takes in the range of 10 minutes. In relaxing that area my whole body will then be more relaxed. If there is another area that still hurts, which is very likely to be the case, I do the same procedure on that area. If I take a pill like Ibuprofen/Meloxicam and do NOT consciously relax my body, the pill won’t be nearly as effective, so the MIND is doing something active in that pain relief. (For something really interesting, see the “labmate-online” article below on cutting edge research.)

If I take a serious addictive drug like Hydrocodone, only half the standard dosage will work fine for me unless I have a worse problem like a torn muscle. I do keep them on hand for ordinary muscular overuse problems, but I notice it gives me a kind of “sleep hangover” of grogginess the next morning, so I don’t like to take them. The law is getting stricter on that drug, also, because of the increasing incidence of habituation, so I may have to go cold turkey next time I need them. I hope not.

See the following article on powers of the brain over muscle control after paralysis. I am sure that the brain, though not necessarily by a “thinking” process, is probably involved in all faith healing, hormonal control, etc. Some Hindu practitioners have claimed to be able to slow down their heartrate or even stop their heart. I read everything I see on subjects like that, because psychology is one of the most interesting things in the world to me. I don’t “believe” amazing or miraculous or simply fishy sounding claims, though, until someone comes up with physical proof. See the interesting article below on mind over matter.


http://www.labmate-online.com/news/news-and-views/5/breaking_news/man_uses_mind_to_overcome_paralysis/36457/

News & Views
Man Uses Mind to Overcome Paralysis

In a feat that reflects the sheer brilliance of humankind, a team of scientists has reversed the effects of paralysis and enabled a man to walk again using the power of his mind. With zero help from an exoskeleton, robotic limbs or brain implant, the achievement marks a huge step forward for the physical rehabilitation sphere. The results have been published in the Journal of Neuroengineering and Rehabilitation and have already got the globe chatting.

Mind over matter

The patient was a 26 year old man who suffered a spinal cord injury that led to no motor movement in his lower limbs. He couldn’t walk and could barely feel sensation in the lower half of his body, until now…

Using a brain-computer interface system, researchers used an electroencephalogram (EEG) cap to read patterns of brain activity. The team’s goal was to help him use his brain to regain voluntary control of his legs, without the need for invasive brain surgery. The cap actively read his brain pattern activities as he thought about walking and in an incredible cognitive triumph, the man was able to move once again.

The long road to recovery

After his initial steps he began a training programme designed to help him use his brain to control an avatar’s walking patterns within a virtual reality environment. After he’d mastered the art of avatar control he then underwent physiotherapy to build up leg muscle strength using a combination of electrical stimulation and weight shifting manoeuvres. When his muscles were reconditioned the team had him practice walking movements while suspended off the ground. This was done while wearing the EEG cap that read his walking focussed brain signals. These bypassed his damaged spinal cord and transmitted them to knee electrodes that triggered muscular movement. Nineteen sessions later and he hit the ground walking, covering a distance of several metres!

For the injury rehabilitation sphere, the feat is an incredible accomplishment.

“It can be speculated that a very severe traumatic brain injury in tandem with a spinal cord injury could prevent this brain-computer interface system from working,” explains An Do, one of the study’s lead researchers.

Scientists are achieving incredible things when it comes to spinal cord rehabilitation. ‘Finding a Cure for Spinal Cord Injury’ explores the work being conducted at the multidisciplinary Miami Project Research Faculty at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. The team uses neuroscience research to address traumatic injury to the central nervous system and ultimately pioneer new or improved treatments for spinal cord injury and other neurological disorders.

Image via Flickr Creative Commons. Source: Ars Electronica



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/president-obama-on-trump-he-is-insecure/

President Obama on Trump's lewd remarks: "He is insecure"
By JULIA BOCCAGNO CBS NEWS
October 9, 2016, 5:57 PM

Play VIDEO -- Can the Trump campaign make a comeback?


At a Chicago fundraiser on Sunday, President Obama became the latest to join a trove of Republicans and Democrats who have lambasted Donald Trump for his sexually aggressive and demeaning comments towards women showed in a recently resurfaced 2005 video. The commander-in-chief embodied a “gloves-off” approach, describing the election as “disturbing” and the rhetoric as “unbelievable.”

“I don’t need to repeat [Trump’s words].There are children in the room,” he said to a laughing crowd.

Jokes aside, President Obama took time to list the groups of people who have fell victim to Trump’s brash commentary -- women, minorities, veterans, just to name a few.

“That tells you a couple of things,” he added. “It tells you he is insecure enough because he pumps up himself by putting other people down. Not the character trait I would advise for somebody in the Oval Office.”

And in the midst of his seemingly unrestrained comments towards the GOP candidate, President Obama offered some outspoken praise of Rep. Tammy Duckworth, a disabled veteran seeking to snag the highly-contested Senate seat from incumbent Sen. Mark Kirk.

“[Donald Trump] doesn’t care much about the basic values we try to impart to our kids,” he said. “It tells you he’s never met anybody as smart as Tammy Duckworth.”

President Obama’s comments on Sunday mark the end to a nearly 48-hour period of silence following the release of the video of Donald Trump and Billy Bush, which caused political commotion days before the second presidential debate, and weeks before the election on November 8th. Among those who have strongly condemned the GOP candidate’s remarks include former presidents, celebrities, and politicians up for reelection.

Since the fallout on Friday, Donald Trump defended himself the way he knows best -- on Twitter. Soon after releasing a so-called apology video on Facebook Saturday night, the reality-star-turned-politician called those who were withdrawing support as “self-righteous hypocrites.”

In his speech, President Obama also admitted that he participated in early voting at a Democratic-sanctioned event on Friday, but wouldn’t say for who.

“You’ll probably guess,” he said.



From the very beginnings of this Presidential campaign, I have been aghast, to say the very least, over things that the Drumpf has said. He just keeps on and on, a new one every day. The drivel is beginning to get boring to me now. In Obama’s words, “That tells you a couple of things,” he added. “It tells you he is insecure enough because he pumps up himself by putting other people down. Not the character trait I would advise for somebody in the Oval Office.” That really says it all. I do hope that even the Right Wingers will take caution and vote for Hillary Clinton. We don’t have to love her, but we do need to love our country enough to protect it from the near psychosis that I see in this man. People like him sometimes do become despots when they get into a position of power, especially when they, like Trump, have no identifiable scruples at all and very little identification with anyone outside his income bracket.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/paul-ryan-tells-republicans-he-wont-defend-donald-trump-will-focus-on-keeping-majority/

Paul Ryan tells Republicans he won't defend Donald Trump, will focus on keeping majority
By REBECCA SHABAD CBS NEWS
October 10, 2016, 11:37 AM

Photograph -- JANESVILLE, WI - AUGUST 09: House Speaker Paul Ryan speaks at his Primary Night press conference, August 9, 2016 in Janesville, Wisconsin. Ryan (R-WI) defeated Republican challenger, Paul Nehlen for the first district primary election. (Photo by Darren Hauck/Getty Images) DARREN HAUCK, GETTY IMAGES


House Speaker Paul Ryan told members of the House Republican Conference Monday morning that he won’t defend Donald Trump anymore and won’t campaign with him and will focus over the next 30 days on keeping the House majority, according to a Republican on a conference call.

“You all need to do what’s best for you in your district,” Ryan told his members, according to a readout provided by the Republican source. Ryan did not, however, say that he was rescinding his endorsement of Trump.

House Republicans scheduled the Monday morning conference call on Saturday after a wave of Republicans either condemned Trump for the lewd remarks he made in 2005 that surfaced on Friday, withdrew their endorsements or called on him to drop out of the presidential race.

The Wisconsin Republican and 2012 vice presidential nominee said he will no longer defend Trump or campaign with him for the next 30 days, the source said.

Ryan said he will focus his energy instead on ensuring Hillary Clinton does not get a blank check, the source said, with a Democratic-controlled Congress.

He also made clear to GOP lawmakers that his decisions are being driven by what is best for his members, not for himself and he’s willing to endure political pressure to protect their majority, the source said.

The Republican National Committee has scheduled a separate conference call for Monday evening, according to Politico.

Ryan endorsed Trump in June and is among those Republicans who have condemned Trump, but haven’t withdrawn their support. On Friday night, however, Ryan disinvited him from an event they were scheduled to appear at together in Wisconsin.

“I am sickened by what I heard today,” Ryan said in a statement Friday night. “Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified. I hope Mr. Trump treats this situation with the seriousness it deserves and works to demonstrate to the country that he has greater respect for women than this clip suggests. In the meantime, he is no longer attending tomorrow’s event in Wisconsin.”

CBS News’ Margaret Brennan contributed to this report.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kellyanne-conway-accuses-congressmen-of-lewd-behavior/

Kellyanne Conway accuses congressmen of lewd behavior
By REBECCA SHABAD CBS NEWS
October 10, 2016, 11:03 AM

Photograph -- Campaign manager Kellyanne Conway for U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks to the media at Trump Tower in the Manhattan borough of New York, U.S., August 17, 2016. REUTERS/CARLO ALLEGRI


Donald Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway suggested Sunday night that members of Congress are being hypocritical in their condemnation of Donald Trump because they’ve engaged in sexual harassment themselves.

In an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, Conway repeated Trump’s description of his lewd comments from 2005 as “locker room banter.”

“Let me just explain to you as somebody who works for him and knows him well and has been alone with him many times. He is very gracious. He’s a gentleman. I’ve never experienced that conduct,” she said.

“I would talk to some of the members of Congress out there...when I was younger and prettier, them rubbing up against girls -- sticking their tongues down women’s throats who -- uninvited, who didn’t like it,” she said. “Yeah, you’re saying, ‘Yeah,’ because you know it was true,” she added.

Conway said that some of those lawmakers are on the list of people who now won’t support Trump because “they all ride around on a high horse.”

While she made the accusation, she didn’t call out any members of Congress by name who’ve behaved this way.

Since the video of Trump surfaced Friday, 29 Republicans have called for Trump to drop out of the presidential race and 44 Republicans have condemned his remarks from 11 years ago, according to a running count by CBS News.

House Republicans and members of the Republican National Committee (RNC) are convening separate conference calls Monday amid the fallout following the leak of a 2005 video showing Donald Trump making lewd comments about women.



http://www.avoiceformen.com/misandry/men-are-dogs-important-truth-in-disparaging-men/

You are here: Home / Mega Featured / Men are dogs: important truth in disparaging men
dog watching a movie in a cinema theater, with soda and popcorn wearing glasses
Men are dogs: important truth in disparaging men
November 6, 2015 By Douglas Galbi


Declaring that men are dogs is a common sort of disparagement of men today. Such disparagement has a long history. It’s typically associated with condemning men’s strong, independent sexuality. For example, the late-twelfth-century Latin text De amore (On love) declares:

“Even after they have reflected long on a woman or have enjoyed her rewards, as soon as they see another they long for her embraces, becoming forgetful of and ungrateful for the services obtained from their former lover. Such men as these wish to indulge their lust with every woman they see. Their love is like that of a shameless dog, or rather they are, I think, to be compared with donkeys, for they are affected solely by that natural urge which puts men on a level with the rest of the animal kingdom. [1]”

Thinkers throughout history have declared that “reason” distinguishes humans from all other animals.[2] Many animals have a large, complex repertoire of behaviors. They pursue easily understandable interests (food, security, reproduction) in ways that rapidly adapt to specific circumstances. Do animals reason? Describing the distinctiveness of (human) reason has been a highly successful job-creation scheme for philosophers. In today’s common-sense reality of human-created artifacts (intricately cooked meals, movies, airplanes, spaceships, etc.), humans are obviously very special animals.

Although very special animals, humans are animals. Lack of appreciation for that reality has been pervasive in elite thought throughout history. For example, De amore declares:

Who could doubt that he who chose the consolation of the upper part is to be preferred to him who chose the lower? So far as the consolations of the lower part is concerned, we are in no sense separated from the brute animals, nature herself having joined us to them in this respect. But the consolations of the upper part have been granted particularly to human nature and denied to all other animals by nature herself. So he who chose the lower part should be rejected from love as unworthy, like a dog, and the one who chose the upper part should be accepted, as embracing his nature. [3]

Humans can forgo sexual activity. Humans can also fast for a time, eat limited portions of healthful food, or gorge themselves on junk food and become grotesquely obese. None of these facts change the reality of human nature. Separating a man’s head from his genitals destroys his life. Much more terrible than men being dogs are men’s dismembered, bleeding body parts.

* * * * *

Related:
appreciation for men’s sexuality in Hildegard’s Causae et curae
men’s desire in the Life of Saint Pelagia
criminalizing seduction: the crime of men seducing women

Notes:

[1] Andreas Capellanus, De amore 1.5.7-8, from Latin trans. Walsh (1982) p. 41. Reference to a dog as a man’s best friend occurs in twelfth-century Latin literature. Understanding of a dog as man’s best friend seems unrelated to the claim that men are dogs. At least in medieval European understanding, referring to men as dogs would be less disparaging than referring to men as cats. Any symbolic relation between dog and Doug is purely coincidental.

[2] Aristotle was particularly influential in developing understanding of humans as the rational animal. See, e.g. De anima III, Nicomachean Ethics I.13.

[3] De amore 1.6.536-7, trans. Walsh (1982) p. 201.

[image] Dog. Thanks to Soggydan Benenovitch for sharing his photo.

Reference:

Walsh, P.G., trans. 1982. Andreas Capellanus on love {De amore}. London: Duckworth.

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.



http://www.best-poems.net/robert_graves/poem26123.html

Down, Wanton, Down!
by Robert Graves

That at the whisper of Love's name,
Or Beauty's, presto! up you raise
Your angry head and stand at gaze?

Poor bombard-captain, sworn to reach
The ravelin and effect a breach--
Indifferent what you storm or why,
So be that in the breach you die!

Love may be blind, but Love at least
Knows what is man and what mere beast;
Or Beauty wayward, but requires
More delicacy from her squires.

Tell me, my witless, whose one boast
Could be your staunchness at the post,
When were you made a man of parts
To think fine and profess the arts?

Will many-gifted Beauty come
Bowing to your bald rule of thumb,
Or Love swear loyalty to your crown?
Be gone, have done! Down, wanton, down!



Robert Graves is, in my view, one of the best poets whose work I have ever read, and he does what poets do much better than the average prose writer; they create a tie between the inner levels of human thinking, where the thoughts are fragmentary but archetypal, mysteriously and suddenly coupling those to form a new insight. Feeling, desire or experience which are at that level inchoate but powerful, like the undertow of a river, have tremendous power. This is also where dreams come from. This is what, to me, is the essence of creativity.

LOVE is like that. It’s a complex issue, a deeply satisfying and truly necessary part of the inner life, self-concept, healing both mentally and physically; and as this poem so delicately but clearly explains, almost inevitable. If such a match does happen, should we shame ourselves or our lovers, often on the grounds of perceived decency and especially religion; or accept the nature of all living beings which have remained on this earth for the millions and maybe billions of years since life became larger than one cell? I don’t believe so.

Having said that, it is a very important part of what I call civilization that a woman, less powerful physically than most men, will be allowed to refuse advances, even angrily when needed; but as a woman who has had some “long dry spells” in her life, I have to keep a certain sympathy for the male instincts, even when they are exercising the right of male dominance. That doesn’t mean that I will passively put up with it necessarily, but I don’t, can’t quite hate them for it, either. Without them, where would I and other “natural women” be? The men who grope and "feel up,” perfect strangers, or another man’s lover/wife; or in the woman’s presence and hearing, make often very crude remarks which are absolutely unwanted and clearly, to me, hostile in nature. Men who use words like p***y or c**t or worse, even in “locker room conversations,” are showing a woman-hating streak and the clear possibility of erupting from time to time with some kind of physical violence.

Besides, even without violence, when hostility is the basis of a large part of the interaction between a couple, it is impossible to have “really, really good sex” or as we call it, LOVE. Love is the linking of the inner spirits of the two, and does tend to be constant, at least for a time. Most people are what used to be called “serial monogamists." That means that they will probably have more than one close, intimate, and sharing love pairing before they die, and I think that’s great. Those romances in which the woman or man is totally destroyed emotionally by the failure of the relationship, used to be so beautiful to me because that was at least a sign of real passion and, was a part of a “total” and lifelong commitment. THOSE STORIES are tragedies, though, and a whole lifetime of any human should not be such a tragedy, but the flowing of a beautiful, clear stream downhill, over rocks, past wild flower clumps, through sunbeams and in shadow. I have had such love three times, and it is definitely “worth the pain that it inevitably causes.” Love when it is slow enough, patient, well and lovingly stimulated, gentle, and SHARED is one of the few innate forms of worship in my view, of one of the Gods that I really do believe in, “the Life Force.” If this sounds Pagan to you, well it is.

Tantric sex, ritual and “holy” orgies, have to do with the satisfaction of our most basic inner needs, including that of communication with our fellow beings at the deepest level and appreciation of our place in the Universe as fertile and passionate creatures. I think that is one reason why same sex relationships can happen, because many same sex relationships really are about a love match just as male/female sex is. It isn’t just the reproductive urge that we have to satisfy, but true attachment.

When people “objectify” the sexual partner, and especially if they violently or without caring about the other’s satisfaction in the sex act, use them merely as a tool to “get the rocks off” or to SHAME/TERRIFY the partner, IT IS AN ASSAULT, PURE AND SIMPLE. Groping or otherwise touching a woman in a crowd just for the fun of it, using disgusting language or behavior, either about her or to her face, is unacceptable to me whatever the aggressor’s position in life may be. When a political/power urge is involved, it just adds another layer of abuse, and is about forcing someone to “accept” the situation because he or she is afraid to refuse. This happens on job sites every day.

So, while what Trump (and Bill Clinton) have been doing most of their lives is deeply wrong and unacceptable in a decent society -- which we do hope to be here in America the Beautiful – it is not something I will condone in a President, and certainly not one who is an ignoramus on top of it. Unfairly, my reaction against Trump is harsher than toward Clinton, mainly because Clinton managed to keep his behavior quiet until the stories broke in the news, whereas Trump makes no attempt to do any better. Phrases like the surprising and revolting “blood in her eyes” comment frighten me at their deep rage and sickness. I am enjoying seeing these Republicans excoriate him, because they have a right to expect better of their LEADER. I do wish he would step down, but I KNOW he won’t, so if a crisis in government should happen here I won’t be startled – deeply grieved, yes.



THE VERY, VERY HEAVY STRAW


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-hillary-clinton-leads-donald-trump-by-14-points-nationally/

Poll: Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by 14 points nationally
By REBECCA SHABAD
CBS NEWS
October 10, 2016, 12:16 PM

Photograph -- Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump listens as Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton (not pictured) speaks during their presidential town hall debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S., October 9, 2016. REUTERS/LUCY NICHOLSON


Hillary Clinton has opened up a 14-percentage-point lead against Donald Trump nationally, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Monday.

The survey found that in a two-way race between the two nominees, Clinton leads Trump 52 percent to 38 percent, up from a 7-percentage-point lead last month.

In a four-way race involving third-party candidates, Clinton leads Trump by 11 percentage points -- 46 percent to 35 percent, up from Clinton’s 6-percentage-point lead in last month’s poll.

A majority of voters, 52 percent, said the videotape of Trump making lewd comments about women in 2005 that surfaced Friday should be an issue in the campaign while 42 percent said it shouldn’t be an issue.

Fourteen percent said the videotapes should prompt House and Senate Republicans to call on Trump to drop out of the presidential race and 9 percent said those Republicans should drop their endorsements of Trump.

On the question of congressional preference, Democrats have a 7-percentage-point lead -- 49 percent to 42 percent. According to NBC, that’s the Democrats’ biggest advantage since the same question was posed in Oct. 2013, amid the 16-day government shutdown.

The poll comes out on the heels of a House Republican Conference call Monday morning in which Speaker Paul Ryan told his members that he won’t defend Trump anymore and won’t campaign with him and will focus over the next 30 days on keeping the House majority, according to a Republican on the conference call.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) is convening a separate conference call Monday, according to Politico.

Since the 11-year-old video of Trump surfaced Friday, 29 Republicans have called for Trump to drop out of the presidential race and 44 Republicans have condemned his remarks, according to a running count by CBS News.

The poll surveyed 500 registered voters between Oct. 8 and 9 with a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points and 4.6 percentage points for all likely voters.



Even though Clinton isn’t thoroughly flawless, honest, or totally clean herself, and even though she “did Bernie dirty,” she beats Donald Trump any day of the week. I hope her lead holds. Mr. Trump needs to come to rue his boast that no matter what he does or says his fans won’t turn away from him. Well, maybe for the most bigoted and Clinton-hating of them, but many Republicans are not really his fans at all. It is mainly the blue collar racist crowd who are. I am looking forward to the news until the election begins “with bated breath.” Go, Hill!



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-was-wrong-about-my-taxes-warren-buffett-says/

Trump was wrong about my taxes, Warren Buffett says
By KATE GIBSON MONEYWATCH
October 10, 2016, 2:18 PM

Play VIDEO
2016 Town Hall Presidential Debate: Part 4


When it comes to paying taxes, Donald Trump is no Warren Buffett.

During Sunday’s presidential debate, Trump acknowledged claiming a $916 million loss in 1995 to avoid paying personal federal income taxes for years, and compared the approach to that used by wealthy backers of his opponent, including Buffett.

By Monday afternoon, the billionaire investor offered a public rebuke to Trump, releasing a statement Monday entitled “Some Tax Facts for Donald Trump,” saying he had paid federal income tax every year since 1944 -- when Buffett was 13 and, “being a slow starter,” owed just $7.

“I have copies of all 72 of my returns and none uses a carryforward,” said Buffett of the strategy used by Trump to uses losses incurred one year to offset gains in subsequent years.

Buffett said his 2015 return shows adjusted gross income of nearly $11.6 million and federal income tax of a little over $1.8 million. His $5.5 million in allowable charitable deductions were a fraction of the nearly $2.9 billion in charitable donations he said he made last year.

“I have been audited by the IRS multiple times and am currently being audited,” wrote Buffett. “I have no problem in releasing my tax information while under audit. Neither would Mr. Trump – at least he would have no legal problem.”



I do like it when the very wealthy support doing some good for the little guys rather than just those who are already vastly more powerful. I have heard no scandals against either Buffett or Bill Gates, either. Just as the poor aren’t all stupid or lazy, the wealthy aren’t all money-grubbing scoundrels, either. I’m glad sometimes to see proof of that rather than merely having to go on faith about it.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-departments-texas-and-california-broke-law-reporting-police-shootings-study/

Hundreds of police departments in Texas, California broke laws on reporting police shootings, study finds
AP October 10, 2016, 3:03 PM

Photograph -- Police near a Fresno, California vigil for Dylan Noble, a 19-year-old man shot and killed by two police officers on Saturday, June 25, 2016. CBS AFFILIATE KGPE
Play VIDEO -- Loretta Lynch on "gypsy cops," improving police relations


HOUSTON - Hundreds of police departments in Texas and California failed to report officer-involved shooting deaths as required by law in the past decade, a recent study found.

Research by Texas State University in San Marcos found registries created by the two states to report all in-custody deaths did not list about 220 use-of-force fatalities in Texas and 440 in California from 2005-2015, the Houston Chronicle reported Monday.

The Texas and California attorney general’s offices and police officials in both states confirmed to the newspaper that many cases were missing.

“We’re not really blaming anyone - this is an incredibly complex problem,” said Howard Williams, one of the Texas State University professors who conducted the study. But he said it’s hard to change policy, improve training or purchase new equipment “when you simply lack the data to even know what’s going on.”

Texas and California are the only states to require reporting of all in-custody deaths, including jail deaths and officer-involved shootings, according to the newspaper. In each state, the attorney general’s office collect reports. Failing to report a death at the hands of a police officer is a misdemeanor in Texas; there is no penalty in California.

Brenda Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for the California Attorney General’s Office, said in an email that her office already has been asking police agencies to file missing reports but added California’s custodial death reporting law has “no explicit enforcement mechanism.”

In addition to requiring reports on use-of-force and in-custody deaths, both California and Texas also recently passed new laws requiring departments to report all shooting incidents, whether those shot survive or die. In Texas, the new police shooting law took effect in 2015 and the attorney general’s office has contacted all departments and tried to boost compliance with both laws, said Kayleigh Lovvorn, an office spokeswoman. But enforcement falls to individual district attorney’s offices.

In Harris County, where Houston is located, more than 40 unreported Texas shooting deaths occurred. The Houston Police Department had the most unreported cases of any Texas department, with 16 fatalities missing from its custodial death registry.

Julian Ramirez, who heads the civil rights division of the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, told the newspaper he would review the list of unreported local deaths and consider whether enforcement action was warranted.

The county also has begun periodic reviews to its own officer-involved shooting registry to remind agencies to file required reports to the Texas Attorney General’s Office, Ramirez said.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the Fresno Police Department failed to report the most officer-involved shooting deaths in California. After reviewing a list of its 34 missing cases, Nicole Nishida, an L.A. County sheriff’s spokeswoman, said the department had failed to file any required reports from 2006 to 2011 because of a “clerical error.” But the agency then failed to report four more deaths in 2013 and 2014, records show.

“We are currently undertaking efforts to systematically update the data to the (California Department of Justice) following their reporting protocol,” she said in an email.



Excerpt -- "Texas and California are the only states to require reporting of all in-custody deaths, including jail deaths and officer-involved shootings, according to the newspaper. In each state, the attorney general’s office collect reports. Failing to report a death at the hands of a police officer is a misdemeanor in Texas; there is no penalty in California. …. Texas and California are the only states to require reporting of all in-custody deaths, including jail deaths and officer-involved shootings, according to the newspaper. In each state, the attorney general’s office collect reports. Failing to report a death at the hands of a police officer is a misdemeanor in Texas; there is no penalty in California. …. Failing to report a death at the hands of a police officer is a misdemeanor in Texas; there is no penalty in California. …. … review the list of unreported local deaths and consider whether enforcement action was warranted."


In reading these cases for two years or so now, I’m beginning to spot patterns in the preferred verbiage of the official statements. Just like cops, who just pumped 15 or so bullets into an unarmed suspect, in an overwhelming majority of cases say “I feared for my life;” the supervisory levels of the police departments all around the country tend too often to say things like I will “review it and see whether enforcement action was warranted." Yadda, yadda, yadda! And then there are the laws, all two of them, neither of which has teeth. And that’s our society’s watchdog system. Meanwhile at the state level, in order to make better enforcement regulations, PROOF is required. Sadly, with no reporting, there is no proof. It does please me that in those two states some pressure is coming, it would seem, from the citizenry to cause a law to be written at all.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fbi-to-sharply-expand-system-for-tracking-fatal-police-shootings/2015/12/08/a60fbc16-9dd4-11e5-bce4-708fe33e3288_story.html

FBI to sharply expand system for tracking fatal police shootings
By Kimberly Kindy
December 8, 2015

The FBI’s system for tracking fatal police shootings is a “travesty,” and the agency will replace it by 2017, dramatically expanding the information it gathers on violent police encounters in the United States, a senior FBI official said Tuesday.

The new effort will go beyond tracking fatal shootings and, for the first time, track any incident in which an officer causes serious injury or death to civilians, including through the use of stun guns, pepper spray and even fists and feet.

“We are responding to a real human outcry,” said Stephen L. Morris, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division, which oversees the data collection. “People want to know what police are doing, and they want to know why they are using force. It always fell to the bottom before. It is now the highest priority.”

The FBI’s efforts follow a year of national focus on fatalities and injuries at the hands of police, with widespread frustration over the lack of reliable data on the incidents.

Morris said the data will also be “much more granular” than in the past and will probably include the gender and race of officers and suspects involved in these encounters, the level of threat or danger the officer faced, and the types of weapons wielded by either party.

In October, FBI Director James B. Comey called the government’s effort to track deaths in police custody “unacceptable” and “embarrassing and ridiculous.” (David Zalubowski/AP)

The data also will be collected and shared with the public in “near real-time,” as the incidents occur, Morris said, instead of being tallied in aggregate at the end of each year.

[Black and Unarmed: Unarmed black men are seven times more likely than whites to die by police gunfire]

David Klinger, a former police officer and professor at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, who has advocated for better data for more than a decade, said he was pleased to hear of the new system but skeptical about its implementation.

“The devil is in the details,” Klinger said. “When agents of the state put bullets down­range in citizens, we need to know about that. In a representative democracy, we need to know about that. We are citizens, not subjects. We also need to understand the circumstances of the shootings, so we spot trends, so we can improve training.”


Getting reliable data on fatal police encounters in the United States is notoriously difficult. The FBI has struggled to gather the most basic data, relying on local police departments to voluntarily share information about officer-involved shootings. Since 2011, less than 3 percent of the nation’s 18,000 state and local police agencies have done so.

After the 2014 shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown unleashed a wave of nationwide protests, activists, media organizations and some law enforcement leaders began clamoring for a more accurate count. In January, The Washington Post began to build a database of fatal police shootings. In addition to recording each shooting, Post researchers gathered more than a dozen details about each case, including the age and race of the victim, whether and how the person was armed, and the circumstances that led to the encounter with police.

[913 people shot dead by police this year]

As a result, the public could see information about fatal police shootings in unprecedented detail. As of Tuesday, The Post had identified more than 900 fatal shootings by police — an average of nearly three deaths a day. By contrast, the FBI has recorded about 400 deaths a year over the past decade, or just over one death a day — less than half the rate recorded by The Post.

Shortly after The Post announced its project in May, the Guardian newspaper unveiled a similar database that seeks to track all deaths in police custody, whether by shooting or other means.

In October, FBI Director James B. Comey acknowledged the stark disparity between The Post and Guardian databases and the FBI’s own efforts. At a private gathering in Washington of more than 100 politicians and law enforcement officials, Comey called it “unacceptable” and “embarrassing and ridiculous.”

[FBI calls lack of data on police shootings ‘ridiculous,’ and ‘embarrassing’]

Last week, a 35-member advisory board made up of police chiefs and representatives of police organizations from across the country gave the green light to the new FBI data-collection effort. The proposal goes next to the FBI’s legal offices for review and then to Comey for his signature.

A working group is also being formed to determine what data should be collected, Morris said; its proposal is due to the advisory board in June.

The new database will continue to rely on the voluntary reports of local police departments; FBI officials said they lack the legal authority to mandate reporting.

But Morris said the leaders of the nation’s largest police organizations have agreed for the first time to lobby local departments to produce the data. The Justice Department is also looking to offer federal grants to local departments that may need additional resources to comply.

“We will be relying on peer pressure and financial incentives,” Morris said.

Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr., a member of the advisory board, said police organizations “will be taking a leadership role to use peer pressure to get all departments to report on this.”

“Everyone has the right to know the details of these events,” he said.

Morris is also trying to make it easier for local police to submit the data. He has technical experts working on a simple electronic form — “something like a Turbo Tax form,” Morris said.

The data “can be used by academics and departments to create better policies and training,” Morris said, adding: “Our end goal here is to save lives.”

Change is also underway at the Bureau of Justice Statistics, another Justice Department agency that has kept a separate count of civilians who die in police custody.

The bureau scrapped its old database and this year created a pilot program that relies on The Post’s database and other open-source data-collection efforts to identify deaths that are not being reported. Then, BJS officials contacted police, medical examiners and other local officials to check the accuracy of the information and to gather additional facts.

The bureau plans to convert the pilot into a full-fledged program in the spring and produce its first full year of data by the end of 2016.

“We needed to start over,” said Michael Planty, who oversees the database for the bureau. The old data, he said, was “unreliable.”

Kimberly Kindy is a national investigative reporter at The Washington Post. Follow @kimberlykindy



EXCERPT -- After the 2014 shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown unleashed a wave of nationwide protests, activists, media organizations and some law enforcement leaders began clamoring for a more accurate count. In January, The Washington Post began to build a database of fatal police shootings. In addition to recording each shooting, Post researchers gathered more than a dozen details about each case, including the age and race of the victim, whether and how the person was armed, and the circumstances that led to the encounter with police. …. “In October, FBI Director James B. Comey acknowledged the stark disparity between The Post and Guardian databases and the FBI’s own efforts. At a private gathering in Washington of more than 100 politicians and law enforcement officials, Comey called it “unacceptable” and “embarrassing and ridiculous.”


The good news is that the FBI is revising its’ data program by using newspaper based information because, unfortunately they “lack the legal authority” to make the reporting of all police shootings from local departments mandatory. I’m glad to hear it, because I’m so cynical as to bet $5.00 that the data in local areas is so whitewashed and half done that it’s worthless anyway. The progress from the Ferguson case is heartening, however, hatred and indifference toward the fate of minorities is going to live on, unless we can get a better educated and more emotionally sound population. Public concern is rising daily, luckily, and Comey’s “private gathering” of over 100 important people who are concerned with the matter is, probably, going to produce real results. The relative “invisibility” of most Black people caused it to be one of those situations that the average nonblack member of the American public just didn’t care anything about.

People are noticing now, to a greater degree, that “Black lives” really do matter! What local cops are not yet concerning themselves with to a sufficient degree is being addressed by the Department of Justice. There are some cities in the news also for make systemic changes for the better on community relations and officer hiring, training and discipline. It just doesn’t pay to leave really important social issues entirely up to local -- and so frequently corrupt and prejudiced – policemen without a mandate for them to do things in a better way. As long as something so “tedious” as reporting data up to their own choice. Nothing like that should be “voluntary.” I’m proud of the great FREE PRESS for their serious attempt to solve this problem.



OFFICIAL BUZZWORD ABOVE: “GRANULAR”

https://www.quora.com/What-does-at-a-granular-level-mean

What does "at a granular level" mean?

10 Answers, all interesting, some tongue in cheek

****Robert Charles Lee
Robert Charles Lee, 35+ years in editorial & publishing, British speaker, work in American English
Written Feb 3, 2015
I'm going with Michael Smolensky's answer, since I heard that phrase from a brash loudmouth of an investment banker to mean "in [greater] detail."
(Printers like me, who are the lowest form of animal life to bankers, wondered if the 'granular' meant wheat, bran, rye or just plain chaff...)


****Michael Smolensky, Criminal Defense Attorney
Written Feb 3, 2015
Thanks for the A2A, Anonymous Quoran. This expression means, "up close," or "in greater detail." It can be intended to mean people should get more information about a situation before passing judgment.


****Bryan Kautzman
Written Feb 3, 2015
It means a detail oriented look at things.
I use this term frequently because I work in a position that needs to translate between high level, conceptual, strategic thinking and front line, detail-oriented processes. The people on the front lines tend to look at things at a granular level while the people in the front office tend to look at things at a more conceptual level. Without a bridge between these two types of thinking, strategy implementation is destined to fail.

****Siddharth Dhagia, Eternal learner
Written May 11, 2015
It means at detailed level.
Dictionary definition: To get overly detailed when describing something or talking about a subject. Breaking things down to the fine grain.
Example:"Did you listen to her describe every insignificant detail of her date last night? Damn, that chick got granular."

****The Ridiculous Business Jargon Dictionary – G - The Office Life
www.theofficelife.com/business-jargon-dictionary-G.html
The Ridiculous Business Jargon Dictionary: G-words .... Granular [adj.] ... "Why don't you drop the green-field thinking and just define what we're already doing."

****Keith Allpress
Written Feb 3, 2015
It comes from old school photography as the small silver particles resembled grain. Grain size and shape varies and is related to resolution. It was picked up by computing people and generally diffused into physics and other areas as a term for level of detail.

****What is granularity? definition and meaning - BusinessDictionary.com
www.businessdictionary.com/definition/granularity.html
The level of detail considered in a model or decision making process. The greater the granularity, the deeper the level of detail. Granularity is usually used to characterize the scale or level of detail in a set of data.

****meaning - Is the word "granular" a synonym for the word "specific ...
english.stackexchange.com/.../is-the-word-granular-a-synonym-for-the-...
Jan 1, 2012 - in my opinion, using "granular" to mean "fine-grained" is a mis-use of the word. ... granular means "consisting of small grains or particles". among antonyms for granular merriam's dictionary lists: dusty, fine, superfine, ultrafine.


The term wasn’t new to me, but I had never researched what it probably means, and context has led me in the past to use it to mean larger rather than finer grains (specifically in photographs that have a rough look to them because they have been enlarged beyond the ideal level. It tends to obscure the shape by making the nose, eyes, etc. less accurately shaped or differentiated. Security photos are often “blown up” to make small things larger, but they are less helpful, I think, at least to the naked eye. The authorities do use computer analysis to make them more useful for identification purposes. To me, without that, they make the face LESS identifiable, whereas most of these comments refer to the opposite: a greater level of detail. The best answers above are, I think: Robert Charles Lee, Bryan Kautzman, who does use the term “frequently” in his work, Keith Allpress who traces the origin to photography and from there to Computer specialists and on to a variety of other high level professions. So it has become popular fairly recently, and may be used today incorrectly. See english.stackexchange.com. I think the more modern usage as meaning more detailed in general is what the FBI spokesperson Stephen L. Morris was saying, though.

I reacted like the first commenter here to the word, that it was the type of overly precious and pretentious way of speaking that tends to have a lot of “popular” appeal right now, i.e. a social fad at cocktail parties among young wannabees. So, okay, I’ll get off my soap box about the wannabees of the world, and simply say that the use of it to mean FINEGRAINED is NEW and probably not in keeping with its’ origins. However, that’s how words are born. It means coarse grained texture in photography. My earliest connection to the word comes from a movie about two young lovers who photographed a murder by accident and ended up on the run from the villain. Go to your library or video store and look up “Blowup,” with Vanessa Redgrave and David Hemmings, 1966. Great flick!


Thought For the Day

Time flies, not on sultry silken wings,
but with a great whump, whump, whump.
Every day is a week, every week a month,
and suddenly another year pops up.
Seventy-one? It can’t be!

Lucy Nell