Gold prices continue to take a beating with futures at $1,354 an ounce.
Marc Faber, publisher of The Gloom, Boom and Doom report, told Talking Numbers that he is buying physical gold and will buy more if it hits the $1,300 mark.
But, he said that he isn't keeping it in the U.S. "I bought gold at $1,400, I buy every month some gold, and I have an order to buy more at $1,300 because I want to keep an allocation towards gold ? physical gold ? and not stored in the United States at all times."
Here he explains why he isn't keeping it in the U.S. via CNBC and Yahoo Finance:
Now you're emphasizing stored outside the U.S.. We're a pretty safe country Marc, why do you have to keep the gold out of here? Well, safe country? I?m not so sure about that under the present government. But in 1933, gold was taken away from Americans. The government paid them $25 and after, they revalued the gold to $35. So, basically what the government can do once again, and that is a possibility. They could artificially depress, manipulate the price down and then say ?Gold is illegal to be held. We have to collect all the gold from the citizens.? Say if they manipulated the price down to $1,000. They could collect it at $1,000 and then revalue to $10,000.
That's possible but do you believe it is probable Marc?That would be a Black Swan kind of event or a cold swan type of an event for you. That's not your base case. It?s not probable?? Correct. I?m not a believer in the manipulation theory. I?m not a believer in all the conspiracy theories. I?m a believer that the market went down because there was a technical break and also because stocks are so strong. So, when people look at their gold and they look at the stock market that goes up every day, they then decide ?Gold is dead. Let?s buy stocks? because, at heart nowadays, everybody is a momentum player. The fund managers who must outperform the index, the hedge fund guys, the high-velocity trading people, the algorithmic people ? they?re all momentum players. What moves up, they chase. What moves down, they sell.
Watch the entire interview at CNBC and Yahoo Finance:
NEW YORK (AP) ? Stock indexes are edging higher in early trading on Wall Street as investors look ahead to the Federal Reserve's next moves.
The Dow Jones industrial average was up 54 points at 15,390 shortly after the opening bell Tuesday, a gain of 0.4 percent.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index was up four points at 1,670, or 0.2 percent. The Nasdaq composite was up three points at 3,499.
JPMorgan rose 77 cents or 1.5 percent to $53.04. Shareholders are voting on a measure that would split the roles of chairman and CEO.
Home Depot rose 3 percent, or $2.25, to $78.98 after the home improvement retailer reported an 18 percent increase in income for its first quarter as the housing market continued to recover.
(Phys.org) ?Enough Northwest wind energy to power about 85,000 homes each month could be stored in porous rocks deep underground for later use, according to a new, comprehensive study. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Bonneville Power Administration identified two unique methods for this energy storage approach and two eastern Washington locations to put them into practice.
Compressed air energy storage plants could help save the region's abundant wind power ? which is often produced at night when winds are strong and energy demand is low ? for later, when demand is high and power supplies are more strained. These plants can also switch between energy storage and power generation within minutes, providing flexibility to balance the region's highly variable wind energy generation throughout the day.
"With Renewable Portfolio Standards requiring states to have as much as 20 or 30 percent of their electricity come from variable sources such as wind and the sun, compressed air energy storage plants can play a valuable role in helping manage and integrate renewable power onto the Northwest's electric grid," said Steve Knudsen, who managed the study for the BPA.
Geologic energy savings accounts
All compressed air energy storage plants work under the same basic premise. When power is abundant, it's drawn from the electric grid and used to power a large air compressor, which pushes pressurized air into an underground geologic storage structure. Later, when power demand is high, the stored air is released back up to the surface, where it is heated and rushes through turbines to generate electricity. Compressed air energy storage plants can re-generate as much as 80 percent of the electricity they take in.
The world's two existing compressed air energy storage plants ? one in Alabama, the other in Germany ? use man-made salt caverns to store excess electricity. The PNNL-BPA study examined a different approach: using natural, porous rock reservoirs that are deep underground to store renewable energy.
The Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Bonneville Power Administration have identified two locations in eastern Washington state that could store enough Northwest wind energy to power about 85,000 homes each month. Credit: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Interest in the technology has increased greatly in the past decade as utilities and others seek better ways to integrate renewable energy onto the power grid. About 13 percent, or nearly 8,600 megawatts, of the Northwest's power supply comes from of wind. This prompted BPA and PNNL to investigate whether the technology could be used in the Northwest.
To find potential sites, the research team reviewed the Columbia Plateau Province, a thick layer of volcanic basalt rock that covers much of the region. The team looked for underground basalt reservoirs that were at least 1,500 feet deep, 30 feet thick and close to high-voltage transmission lines, among other criteria.
They then examined public data from wells drilled for gas exploration or research at the Hanford Site in southeastern Washington. Well data was plugged into PNNL's STOMP computer model, which simulates the movement of fluids below ground, to determine how much air the various sites under consideration could reliably hold and return to the surface.
Researchers at PNNL and BPA have identified a site they call Yakima Minerals that is about 10 miles north of Selah, Wash., and could house an 83-megawatt geothermal compressed air energy storage facility. Credit: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Two different, complementary designs
Analysis identified two particularly promising locations in eastern Washington. One location, dubbed the Columbia Hills Site, is just north of Boardman, Ore., on the Washington side of the Columbia River. The second, called the Yakima Minerals Site, is about 10 miles north of Selah, Wash., in an area called the Yakima Canyon.
But the research team determined the two sites are suitable for two very different kinds of compressed air energy storage facilities. The Columbia Hills Site could access a nearby natural gas pipeline, making it a good fit for a conventional compressed air energy facility. Such a conventional facility would burn a small amount of natural gas to heat compressed air that's released from underground storage. The heated air would then generate more than twice the power than a typical natural gas power plant.
The Yakima Minerals Site, however, doesn't have easy access to natural gas. So the research team devised a different kind of compressed air energy storage facility: one that uses geothermal energy. This hybrid facility would extract geothermal heat from deep underground to power a chiller that would cool the facility's air compressors, making them more efficient. Geothermal energy would also re-heat the air as it returns to the surface.
Researchers at PNNL and BPA have identified a site they call Columbia Hills north of Boardman, Ore., on the Washington state side of the Columbia River, that could house a 207-megawatt conventional compressed air energy storage facility. Credit: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
"Combining geothermal energy with compressed air energy storage is a creative concept that was developed to tackle engineering issues at the Yakima Minerals Site," said PNNL Laboratory Fellow and project leader Pete McGrail. "Our hybrid facility concept significantly expands geothermal energy beyond its traditional use as a renewable baseload power generation technology."
The study indicates both facilities could provide energy storage during extended periods of time. This could especially help the Northwest during the spring, when sometimes there is more wind and hydroelectric power than the region can absorb. The combination of heavy runoff from melting snow and a large amount of wind, which often blows at night when demand for electricity is low, can spike power production in the region. Power system managers have a few options to keep the regional power grid stable in such a situation, including reducing power generation or storing the excess power supply. Energy storage technologies such as compressed air energy storage can help the region make the most of its excess clean energy production.
Working with the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, BPA will now use the performance and economic data from the study to perform an in-depth analysis of the net benefits compressed air energy storage could bring to the Pacific Northwest. The results could be used by one or more regional utilities to develop a commercial compressed air energy storage demonstration project.
Details on the Northwest's two potential compressed air energy storage sites:
Columbia Hills Site
Location: north of Boardman, Ore., on Washington side of Columbia River
Plant type: conventional, which pairs compressed air storage with a natural gas power plant.
Power generation capacity: 207 megawatts
Energy storage capacity: 231 megawatts
Estimated levelized power cost: as low as 6.4 cents per kilowatt-hour
Would work well for frequent energy storage
Continuous storage for up to 40 days
Yakima Minerals Site
Location: 10 miles north of Selah, Wash.
Plant type: hybrid, which pairs geothermal heat with compressed air storage
Power generation capacity: 83 megawatts
Energy storage capacity: 150 megawatts
Estimated levelized power cost: as low as 11.8 cents per kilowatt-hour
No greenhouse gas emissions
Potential for future expansion
Explore further: NREL quantifies significant value in concentrating solar power
More information: BP McGrail, JE Cabe, CL Davidson, FS Knudsen, DH Bacon, MD Bearden, MA Chamness, JA Horner, SP Reidel, HT Schaef, FA Spane, PD Thorne, "Techno-economic Performance Evaluation of Compressed Air Energy Storage in the Pacific Northwest," caes.pnnl.gov/pdf/PNNL-22235.pdf.
May 20, 2013 ? The allure of personalized medicine has made new, more efficient ways of sequencing genes a top research priority. One promising technique involves reading DNA bases using changes in electrical current as they are threaded through a nanoscopic hole.
Now, a team led by University of Pennsylvania physicists has used solid-state nanopores to differentiate single-stranded DNA molecules containing sequences of a single repeating base.
The study was led by Marija Drndi?, an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the School of Arts and Sciences, along with graduate students Kimberly Venta and Matthew Puster and post-doctoral researchers Gabriel Shemer, Julio A. Rodriguez-Manzo and Adrian Balan. They collaborated with assistant professor Jacob K. Rosenstein of Brown University and professor Kenneth L. Shepardof Columbia University.
Their results were published in the journal ACS Nano.
In this technique, known as DNA translocation measurements, strands of DNA in a salt solution are driven through an opening in a membrane by an applied electric field. As each base of the strand passes through the pore, it blocks some ions from passing through at the same time; amplifiers attached to the nanopore chip can register the resulting drop in electrical current. Because each base has a different size, researchers hope to use this data to infer the order of the bases as the strand passes through. The differences in base sizes are so small, however, that the proportions of both the nanopores and membranes need to be close those of the DNA strands themselves -- a major challenge.
The nanopore devices closest to being a commercially viable option for sequencing are made out of protein pores and lipid bilayers. Such protein pores have desirable proportions, but the lipid bilayer membranes in which they are inserted are akin to a film of soap, which leaves much to be desired in terms of durability and robustness.
Solid-state nanopore devices, which are made of thin solid-state membranes, offer advantages over their biological counterparts -- they can be more easily shipped and integrated with other electronics -- but the basic demonstrations of proof-of-principle sensitivity to different DNA bases have been slower.
"While biological nanopores have shown the ability to resolve single nucleotides, solid-state alternatives have lagged due to two challenges of actually manufacturing the right-sized pores and achieving high-signal, low-noise and high-bandwidth measurements," Drndi? said. "We're attacking those two challenges here."
Because the mechanism by which the nanopore differentiate between one type of base and another is by the amount of the pore's aperture that is blocked, the smaller a pore's diameter, the more accurate it is. For the nanopore to be effective at determining a sequence of bases, its diameter must approach the diameter of the DNA and its thickness must approach that of the space between one base and the next, or about 0.3 nanometers.
To get solid-state nanopores and membranes in these tiny proportions, researchers, including Drndi?'s group, are investigating cutting-edge materials, such as graphene. A single layer of carbon atoms in a hexagonal lattice, graphene membranes can be made a little as about 0.5 nanometers thick but have their own disadvantages to be addressed. For example, the material itself is hydrophobic, making it more difficult to pass strands of DNA through them.
In this experiment, Drndi? and her colleagues worked with a different material -- silicon nitride -- rather than attempting to craft single-atom-thick graphene membranes for nanopores. Treated silicon nitride is hydrophilic and has readily allowed DNA translocations, as measured by many other researchers during the last decade. And while their membrane is thicker, about 5 nanometers, silicon nitride pores can also approach graphene in terms of thinness due to the way they are manufactured.
"The way we make the nanopores in silicon nitride makes them taper off, so that the effective thickness is about a third of the rest of the membrane," Drndi? said.
Drndi? and her colleagues tested their silicon nitride nanopore on homopolymers, or single strands of DNA with sequences that consist of only one base repeated several times. The researchers were able to make distinct measurements for three of the four bases: adenine, cytosine and thymine. They did not attempt to measure guanine as homopolymers made with that base bind back on themselves, making it more difficult to pass them through the nanopores.
"We show that these small pores are sensitive to the base content," Drndi? said, "and we saw these results in pores with diameters between 1 and 2 nanometers, which is actually encouraging because it suggests some manufacturing variability may be okay."
Yahoo's board has agreed to buy Tumblr for $1.1 billion cash. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has acquired several social media sites, presumably to attract a younger audience.
Yahoo and Tumblr made their wedding vows Monday with the stumbling Web search giant publicly announcing its promise not to "screw up" the relationship.
Yahoo confirmed it will buy the blogging website for $1.1 billion cash, in a bold move to make itself more relevant amid the explosion in social media on the Internet.
It was old new media hooking up with new new media. Even as Yahoo's CEO Marissa Mayer took to social media to announce the deal, promising "not to screw it up," David Karp, the 26-year-old wunderkind who heads Tumblr celebrated the acquisition with a blog post that signed off with "F*** yeah, David."??
Perhaps trying to assuage Tumbler users who are concerned that Yahoo would irrevocably alter the blogging site's edgy image, Yahoo said Tumblr will operate independently as a separate business.
"David Karp will remain CEO. The product, service and brand will continue to be defined and developed separately with the same Tumblr irreverence, wit, and commitment to empower creators," the statement said.
Marissa Mayer's own Tumblr post showed some of that irreverence with a GIF that seemed to poke fun at all the worries about the deal. "Now panic and freak out," "Keep calm and carry on," "Yahoo," "Tumblr" the GIF said in successive, pastel-colored panels. Mayer also posted a tweet that had the Internet buzzing a bit with some mild ribbing.
Twitter screen shot.
Marissa Mayer tweets about the Yahoo deal to buy Tumblr for $1.1 billion.
"Before touching on how awesome this is, let me try to allay any concerns: We?re not turning purple. Our headquarters isn?t moving. Our team isn?t changing. Our roadmap isn?t changing. And our mission ? to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve ? certainly isn?t changing," Karp, who dropped out of high school at 15 to start the company, said in his blog post.
News of the deal was widely leaked Sunday. Talk of a deal began circulating Friday, after the Wall Street Journal's All Things D reported that the two companies had been in talks for several weeks.
Since Marissa Mayer became CEO at Yahoo, the company has acquired several companies that appeal to younger audiences, including Summly, Astrid and Jybe. Yahoo has also been rumored to be eyeing Hulu.
Observers say Mayer is making these deals to attract a younger audience.
Iron-platinum alloys could be new-generation hard drivesPublic release date: 20-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Andy Fell ahfell@ucdavis.edu 530-752-4533 University of California - Davis
Meeting the demand for more data storage in smaller volumes means using materials made up of ever-smaller magnets, or nanomagnets. One promising material for a potential new generation of recording media is an alloy of iron and platinum with an ordered crystal structure. Researchers led by Professor Kai Liu and graduate student Dustin Gilbert at the University of California, Davis, have now found a convenient way to make these alloys and tailor their properties.
"The relatively convenient synthesis conditions, along with the tunable magnetic properties, make these materials highly desirable for future magnetic recording technologies," said Liu, a professor of physics. The iron-platinum alloy has the ability to retain information even at extremely small nanomagnet sizes, and it is resistant to heat effects.
Previous methods for making the iron-platinum alloys with an ordered crystal structure involved high-temperature treatments that would be difficult to integrate into the rest of the manufacturing process, Liu said.
The researchers, including Liang-Wei Wang and Chih-Huang Lai of the National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, and Timothy Klemmer and Jan-Ulrich Thiele, of Seagate Technologies in Fremont, used a method called atomic-scale multilayer sputtering to create a material with extremely thin layers of metal, and rapid thermal annealing to convert it into the desirable ordered alloy. They were able to adjust the magnetic properties of the alloy by adding small amounts of copper into particular regions of the alloy.
A paper describing the work was recently published in the journal Applied Physics Letters and featured in its Research Highlights. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation Materials World Network Program.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Iron-platinum alloys could be new-generation hard drivesPublic release date: 20-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Andy Fell ahfell@ucdavis.edu 530-752-4533 University of California - Davis
Meeting the demand for more data storage in smaller volumes means using materials made up of ever-smaller magnets, or nanomagnets. One promising material for a potential new generation of recording media is an alloy of iron and platinum with an ordered crystal structure. Researchers led by Professor Kai Liu and graduate student Dustin Gilbert at the University of California, Davis, have now found a convenient way to make these alloys and tailor their properties.
"The relatively convenient synthesis conditions, along with the tunable magnetic properties, make these materials highly desirable for future magnetic recording technologies," said Liu, a professor of physics. The iron-platinum alloy has the ability to retain information even at extremely small nanomagnet sizes, and it is resistant to heat effects.
Previous methods for making the iron-platinum alloys with an ordered crystal structure involved high-temperature treatments that would be difficult to integrate into the rest of the manufacturing process, Liu said.
The researchers, including Liang-Wei Wang and Chih-Huang Lai of the National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, and Timothy Klemmer and Jan-Ulrich Thiele, of Seagate Technologies in Fremont, used a method called atomic-scale multilayer sputtering to create a material with extremely thin layers of metal, and rapid thermal annealing to convert it into the desirable ordered alloy. They were able to adjust the magnetic properties of the alloy by adding small amounts of copper into particular regions of the alloy.
A paper describing the work was recently published in the journal Applied Physics Letters and featured in its Research Highlights. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation Materials World Network Program.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Scientists think they've created the smallest drops of liquid ever ? the size of only three to five protons.
The droplets were made inside the world's largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, where particles are sped up to near light speed and then smashed together. When researchers collided protons with lead nuclei, they were surprised to find that the result was teeny,?tiny droplets of liquid.
These liquid drops are minuscule, measuring about one-100,000th the size of a hydrogen atom or one-100,000,000th the size of a typical virus. [Dazzling Droplets: Photos Reveal Mini Worlds]
The researchers consider the droplets liquid because they flow more like a liquid than like any other state of matter.
"With this discovery, we seem to be seeing the very origin of collective behavior," Vanderbilt University physicist Julia Velkovska said in a statement. "Regardless of the material that we are using, collisions have to be violent enough to produce about 50 subatomic particles before we begin to see collective, flowlike behavior," added Velkovska, who is a co-convener of the heavy-ion program of the Compact Muon Solenoid, the?LHC detector?where the droplets were made.
In fact, the droplets appear to be tiny bits of one of the hottest liquids known, called?quark-gluon plasma. This plasma, essentially a?soup of quarks and gluons?(the subatomic ingredients of the protons and neutrons that make up atomic nuclei), has been made at LHC and other particle accelerators before.
When quark-gluon plasma was first discovered in the early 2000s?inside the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, physicists initially thought it would behave as a gas does. Instead, they found it had liquid properties. Scientists think this plasma represents the state of the whole universe just moments after it was born in the Big Bang, when the universe was extremely hot and dense.
The first artificial quark-gluon plasma was produced by smashing two gold nuclei together, and was later re-created with collisions of two lead nuclei. The CMS researchers wanted to test whether quark-gluon plasma could also be made by colliding a lead nucleus with a proton, which is 208 times less massive than lead; they expected these impacts would not be energetic enough to produce the plasma.
"The proton-lead collisions are something like shooting a bullet through an apple, while lead-lead collisions are more like smashing two apples together: A lot more energy is released in the latter," Velkovska said.
The results of the experiment were unexpected. In about 5 percent of collisions ? those that were most violent ? enough energy was released around the "bullet hole" where the proton smashed through the lead that some of the protons and neutrons there melted. This material seemed to form droplets of liquid about one-tenth the size of the quark-gluon plasma batches created by lead-lead and gold-gold impacts.
Quark-gluon plasma is still a mysterious form of matter, and the scientists can't be absolutely sure yet that what they saw were liquid droplets. Further tests should help differentiate between that interpretation and other possible explanations of the results, the researchers said.
Velkovska and her colleagues detailed their findings in a paper submitted to the journal Physics Letters B.
Follow Clara Moskowitz on?Twitter?and?Google+. Follow us?@livescience,?Facebook?and?Google+. Original article on?LiveScience.com.
Copyright 2013?LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The CARE Public Policy Team have produced a helpful document summarising the shortcomings of the Committee Stage of the Government's 'Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill':
Key Facts: ? Report Stage of the Marriage Bill is now only days away ? Considerable problems with the Bill remain ? Committee stage achieved very little ? Not one word of the Bill was amended despite the fact that numerous amendments were put down ? Of the 19 MPs on the committee only four were against the Bill ? There were no dissenters in the Labour ranks
Commenting on the Committee stage Mark D?Arcy, BBC Parliamentary Correspondent said, ?In short, it's all a bit of a ritual. The dissenters dissent and the supporters support, and the whole thing is as mannered as a minuet danced at the court of Louis XVI.?
A range of concerns were not properly addressed by the Government. Here are four:
1) Failure to put same sex relationships into same legal framework as opposite sex marriage
The Government?s Position
? The Government Minister, Hugh Robertson MP, supported the Bill?s position that adultery is only a ground for divorce in a marriage between two people of the opposite sex. ? The Minister noted that introducing homosexual adultery would bring ?significant uncertainty for couples. It could lead to divorce applications failing, and adultery would be difficult to prove.?
Critique by MPs
? Tim Loughton asked: ?Why should a same-sex couple who want to get married not be subject to the same obligations and rules as an opposite-sex couple who want to get married?? ? He added: ?One could logically make the case for legal recognition of same-sex relationships, but if the standards of commitment required are different from those required in a marriage, it would be completely wrong to categorise such relationships as marriage.? ? David Burrowes remarked that debate on this issue exposed ?the flawed notion of equal marriage as a concept.?
VERDICT: The notion of equal marriage is a flawed concept.
2) Failure to address inequality
The Government?s Position
? The Minister made clear, in accordance with the Bill, that couples already in a civil partnership who wish to marry will not be required to have a same sex marriage ceremony, unlike every other couple. ? He said: ?a couple in a civil partnership will have already gone through a civil partnership registration, demonstrating a level of commitment not unlike-different, but not unlike-that required for a marriage ceremony.? ? He added that the conversion from a civil partnership to a marriage ?will simply involve a straightforward administrative process for those who prefer that, while those who want a more public ceremony will be able to hold that at a place of their choosing.?
Critique by MPs
? David Burrowes responded: ?How can I set out the Government?s case that the Bill is all about equality for same-sex couples to be married like opposite-sex couples, when only same-sex couples can be civil partners and have this conversion - perhaps this paper upgrade - to marriage, so skipping the other formal requirements of the Marriage Act??
VERDICT: The Minister failed to address the fundamental subject of inequality.
3) Failure to address religious freedom for registrars
The Government?s Position
? The Minister argued, in accordance with the Bill, that registrars should be compelled to perform same sex marriages even if it is against their conscience or religious belief. ? The Minister responded to Tim Loughton?s question about freedom of conscience by saying: ?They are different functions. One is an abortion; the other is a same-sex marriage.?
Critique by MPs
? David Burrowes and Tim Loughton pointed out that the law has long accommodated atheist teachers who do not wish to teach religion in schools and pro-life doctors who do not want to perform abortions. There is no reason why this principle should not be extended to registrars who do not wish to conduct marriage between two people of the same sex. ? The Minister was asked by Tim Loughton: ?Why is it the principle that a surgeon who has strong Catholic views is allowed to pick and choose whether to perform abortions or other surgery, if the same principle cannot be applied to a Catholic registrar with strong views, allowing them to pick and choose whether to perform that other public service? What is so essentially different that we protect one but not the other??
VERDICT: There is inconsistency in the Government?s position. In both cases public servants perform a public function for which the public pay. Merely saying that they are different functions is not justification for treating them differently.
4) Failure to address protection for schools
The Government?s Position
? The Minister asserted that ?no teacher is under any duty to promote or endorse a particular view of marriage, and neither would they as a result of any revised guidance in the future.? However, he was unprepared to allow this to be written into the Bill. ? He further commented ?teachers are entirely free to express their views in any reasonable way that they wish, but not in an offensive or discriminatory fashion.? But what constitutes an ?offensive or discriminatory fashion? was not clarified.
Critique by MPs
? Tim Loughton quoted John Bowers QC ? Employment Silk of the Year 2010 ? who, in his legal opinion, says that teaching that one form of marriage is ?better than another? would likely ?amount to unlawful direct or indirect discrimination.?
VERDICT: The Minister was unable to address the major concern of protection for teachers who do not feel able to endorse the new definition of marriage.
GAZA (Reuters) - Egyptian policemen blocked the crossing into the Gaza Strip on Friday to protest against the kidnapping of Egyptian security forces in the Sinai, witnesses and sources said.
Locals said police had placed barbed wire across the entrance to the border and closed the gates with chains, leaving hundreds of Palestinians stranded on both sides of the fence.
Islamist gunmen abducted seven Egyptian security forces on Thursday and have demanded the release of imprisoned militants in exchange for the men. Three of those abducted have worked at the Rafah crossing, sources said.
The police at Rafah are calling on Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi to free their colleagues, the sources said.
Hardline Islamist groups based in North Sinai have exploited the collapse of state authority after the 2011 uprising that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak to launch attacks across the border into Israel and on Egyptian targets.
Mitchell Zuckoff brings an astounding, forgotten story of World War II back to life.
By Ben Frederick,?Contributor / May 17, 2013
Frozen in Time, by Mitchell Zuckoff
HarperCollins,
391 pp.
Enlarge
??Cold in Greenland is almost a living thing, a tormenting force that robs strapping men of strength, denies them rest, and refuses them comfort. In time, it kills like a python, squeezing life from its victims.? Brrr! I took another sip of my cocoa and huddled closer under my warm blankets. Things get heavy quickly in Mitchell Zuckoff?s Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heros of World War II.
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The book is a nonfiction account of a botched World War II rescue attempt that left nine men stranded on a Greenland glacier. The winter months ? replete with crushing cold, storms, and little daylight ? strangled hope for a quick rescue. Zuckoff jumps between 1942 and 2012, telling the harrowing story of the survivors and, much less compellingly, the story of a modern recovery operation, of which he was a part.
One thing you should understand about Greenland is that it is cold and big. Very cold and very big. It?s so cold there that snow huddles together for warmth, creating huge glaciers that flow like rivers of ice to the sea. If you count the cold as a character, then ?Frozen in Time? is a character-driven story.
One Coast Guard plane, a Grumman Duck (think bi-plane that can land in water), actually managed to land on the crevasse-ridden glacier ? a near impossible feat ? and cart two of the men back to safety. On their second attempt, they landed and got one more on board, but horrible weather got the best of them and they crashed. The original nine were down to six. The patient cold slowly chipped away at that number.
The men took shelter in the tail section of their B-17, which sat precariously on the edge of a crevasse. No one seriously thought they would make it through the month.
The Duck is the plane that got the 2012 story line rolling. Zuckoff met a man named Lou Sapienza, who was determined to bring that B-17 back from Greenland, despite the fact that it had been lost to the ages and was probably covered by 30 feet of snow.
Cliffhangers literal and figurative move the action along nicely. Zuckoff, a former Boston Globe reporter and author of 2011 bestseller "Lost in Shangri-La," has a writing style that is clean and occasionally poetic. The huge cast of characters and jumps in setting rarely overwhelm in the 1942 thread. Characters are introduced intermittently so you don?t have to learn everyone?s name all at once (unfortunately the same can?t be said of the 2012 storyline). If you do lose track, there?s a handy list of characters in the back.
Like any good filmmaker, Zuckoff shows different angles of these men?s lives, compelling life back into their lost story. I felt as if I were right there with them, eating K-rations and slowly losing hope of rescue in the long Greenland nights.?
The book flounders when Zuckoff attempts to weave the 1942 and the 2012 stories together ? mostly because the 2012 recovery op doesn?t have the dramatic tension to provide a counter weight to the harrowing story of the men in 1942. The modern bits felt more like a diary than a reported story.
At one point Zuckoff mentions that he personally funded the 2012 expedition, and a lot of his writing decisions suddenly made sense. Most of the drama in the modern sections of the story is built around the uncertain funding, but we already know there?s going to be an expedition. The funding meetings and discussions could have all been summarized into one chapter and never mentioned again, and I wouldn?t have minded. Leaving them in made it feel as if the author were vindicating his actions ? and it really slowed down the narrative.
Despite the personal investment by the author in the modern third, the 1942 storyline is extremely compelling/absorbing/exciting/engaging (pick your critical buzzword). The remarkable tale of perseverance in the face of unimaginable odds is not in the least overshadowed by the modern storyline.
Zuckoff is a masterful writer when he keeps a journalistic distance from his subjects and allows his research to speak for itself, but a memoirist he ain?t.
-Ben Frederick is a contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
?I am not what has happened to me. I am what I choose to become.? ~ Carl Jung
I have been thinking a lot about cancer these days. Almost half my caseload has cancer or I see children who have lost a parent to cancer or spouses with a partner with cancer. It seems like cancer is everywhere. Cancer does affect everyone.
Grief is an intimate process of a uniquely individual design initiated for the purpose of transitioning loss.Loss is everywhere. Just like cancer.
When I work with cancer and those who bravely traverse the terrain of what this means to them I am in wonder of the courage it takes to make this emotional journey. Words help the process, yet words are difficult for people even though this is our main platform of communication. I hear people stumble with words, hold words back, bite their tongues, and express fear of saying too much or too little. I have some suggestions.
Words help us bridge to another. We want honest words well-honed to identify the emotion that is uppermost in our heart. So for the child with a dying father or the wife with a dying husband it is important to say things and to work on any unresolved piece that may exist. It is not that the world will fall apart if one doesn?t step up with truth, but the survivors of a death have years ahead to mull over what was and wasn?t said.
Children need help from the healthy parent (the one who does not have cancer) and the healthy parent needs help from friends, siblings, and other family members. Help that comes in the form of encouragement to go to the truth is important.
I work with so many people who are left with unfinished business following a death. It is as though the cancer that took mother carries on into her children or spouse. It is not cancer, but an emotional cancer.
Cancer that is not treatable or one that is aggressive and terminal produces a state of helplessness. Helplessness is an alarming state for mind, body, and spirit. Studies show a connection between depression and cancer, between stressors and cancer, and between sustained powerlessness and disease or illness.
Words of love, words of connection, words of gratitude and words that evoke hope are all good. Everyone leaves a legacy and even death is filled with a gift. People leave their spirit, their contributions, their love, their strength, their bonds, and hundreds of things behind for the use of others with their passing. These things that are left often come in the form of words. We are all pebbles thrown into a large or small pond with ripples that extend endlessly.
There is power in words. Words have the ability to soothe and mend or to wound and destroy.
Take each word and mold it to fit your most compassionate truth. Find the word that rolls easily from your heart before it is projected outward. Practice how gently you can convey even the most difficult feelings. Words are our creation. Words help us grieve. Words are an intimate part of the grief process.
Take Care and Be Well
Nanette Burton Mongelluzzo, PhD
????Last reviewed: 17 May 2013
APA Reference Burton Mongelluzzo, N. (2013). Cancer, Grief, and Words. Psych Central. Retrieved on May 17, 2013, from http://blogs.psychcentral.com/angst-anxiety/2013/05/cancer-grief-and-words/
(RNS) Paul Sefranek is a lifelong Roman Catholic and a long-serving volunteer in the Boy Scouts of America ? two parts of his identity that have always been in harmony.
Until now.
As the BSA decides this month whether to allow openly gay boys into its program, Sefranek is among those who say the controversial move would cause him to quit the venerable Scouting program.
Sefranek, a former Scoutmaster who currently serves on his local Catholic Committee on Scouting in Peoria, Ill., recently submitted a contingent letter of resignation that will go into effect if and when the Boy Scouts adopt the new proposal.
?Under the proposed policy change, one cannot remain a faithful Catholic and serve as a Catholic BSA leader,? Sefranek said. ?The proposed change will only lead to confusing boys as to who they really are.?
The proposal, which would allow gay Scouts but continue to exclude gay adults as leaders, has the unanimous support of Boy Scouts? top officials, and will be voted on by the group?s 1,400-member national council on May 23.
But lower in the scouting ranks, dissension abounds ? particularly among faith-based groups that sponsor more than 70 percent of Boy Scout troops in the country.
Already suffering a long-term membership decline, the Scouts? proposal is an effort to appeal to younger parents who increasingly support gay rights. But the current two-pronged ban has strong support among existing members and volunteers, many of whom believe accepting gay members will clash with their religious convictions.
The Boy Scouts? leadership said it considered input from faith-based groups when shaping its policy.
?We believe that this policy remains true to the virtues, the core principles of scouting, not of any one religion, but of Scouting,? said BSA executive committee member Nathan Rosenberg, in a webcast urging support for the plan.
Leaders from the Scouts? largest faith-based sponsoring organization ? the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ? have said they will accept the new policy if it is implemented.
But the Scout?s second- and third-largest sponsors ? the United Methodist Church and the Roman Catholic Church ? have stayed on the sidelines in recent months.
At St. Raymond of Penafort Catholic Church in Springfield, Va., the Rev. John De Celles announced in his church bulletin that the parish troop would end its relationship with the Boy Scouts if membership standards change.
?The new policy, if approved in May, would be a statement that ?gay is okay,? and would severely limit (if not completely prohibit) chartering organizations, like St. Raymond?s, from passing on its moral teachings about same-sex attraction and homosexuals,? De Celles wrote.
As many as a quarter of the 273,000 Boy Scouts connected to Catholic-run troops could leave, some leaders estimate. Still, many Catholic parishes welcome the move to allow openly gay scouts into their troops.
?If it changes, that?s fine with us. In fact, I?m hoping they do change it,? said Monsignor Donald Romito of St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Irvine, Calif. ?We?re welcoming to everybody, and everybody?s welcome to join the Scouts. It wouldn?t impact our relationship with the troop at all.?
Views of homosexual behavior among Catholics are wide-ranging. A majority ? 54 percent ? of U.S. Catholics support gay marriage, compared to 47 percent of all Americans, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll. But Catholic Church teaching calls same-sex attraction ?an objective disorder? and condemns homosexual activity as immoral, though it also calls on Catholics to welcome and respect gays and lesbians in their faith communities.
So far, the group dedicated to preserving the church?s relationship with the Boy Scouts ? the National Catholic Committee on Scouting ? has been vague in its public statements regarding the proposed membership policy.
Other faith-based groups have been much more aggressive in their positions. On May 5, the Washington-based Family Research Council hosted a ?Stand With Scouts Sunday? webcast, calling for the preservation of the gay Scout ban. The event, which included a cameo by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, was simulcast at churches around the country.
At St. Joseph?s Catholic Church in Richmond, Va., the Rev. Robert Novokowsky watched the program alongside his parish?s troop leaders.
?The proposed changes are such that they will lead inevitably not only to acceptance of open homosexuality but also the tacit approval of that sinful lifestyle,? Novokowsky said. ?That?s where compassion must draw a line. We cannot promote something we?ve defined as a sin.?
Amid a sluggish job market, one industry is growing by leaps and bounds: insurance fraud.
Cases of suspected insurance fraud -- called questionable claims, or QCs in industry speak -- rose 27 percent nationwide from 2010 through 2012, according to new figures released by the National Insurance Crime Bureau, or NICB.
During the three-year period, the number of QCs referred by insurers to the bureau increased from 91,652 to 116,171. And unfortunately, the problem is getting worse, growing 9 percent from 2010 to 2011 and 16 percent from 2011 to 2012.
In state-by-state stats, California finished well ahead of the pack with 58,415 questionable claims during the three-year period, followed by Florida (29,086), Texas (27,107), New York (23,402) and Maryland (10,315). States with the greatest per capita increase in QCs during the period include Kentucky (89 percent), Vermont (88 percent), Rhode Island (81 percent), Alaska (75 percent) and Maryland (70 percent).
The top five cities for questionable claims during the period were New York (13,564), Los Angeles (7,779), Miami (5,503), Houston (5,464) and Baltimore (3,690).
What types of insurance most appeal to scam artists?
Auto insurance led the field by far with 209,724 questionable claims, a portion of which likely reflects the concurrent growth in staged accidents during the period. Home insurance fraud was the second most common category with 40,747 QCs, followed by fraud involving workers' compensation and employers' liability policies (11,151), commercial auto insurance (9,512) and commercial/general liability insurance (7,519). The only questionable claim type to decline nationwide during the period involved personal property/fire insurance policies, which dropped from 457 claims in 2010 to 411 in 2012.
Faked or exaggerated injury claims top the list of reasons why insurers refer claims to the NICB, with a whopping 50,472 incidents under review. Questionable theft of a vehicle, boat or heavy equipment placed second with 35,508 QCs, followed by prior loss/damage of miscellaneous property (29,646), fictitious loss of miscellaneous items (29,017) and suspicious theft or loss of property (24,867).
It's hardly breaking news that we all pay for insurance fraud in the form of higher insurance rates. But you can fight back by reporting suspicious fraud anonymously to the NICB by calling (800) TEL-NICB (1-800-835-6422), texting the keyword "fraud" to TIP411 (847411) or via their website at Nicb.org, where you also can download the NICB fraud tips app onto your iPhone or iPad.
Follow me on Twitter: @omnisaurus
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Jay MacDonald is a Bankrate contributing editor and co-author of "Future Millionaires' Guidebook," an e-book by Bankrate editors and reporters.
This undated photo released by CBS shows, from left, Johnny Galecki, Kaley Cuoco, Mayim Bialik, Jim Parsons, Melissa Rauch and Simon Helberg, in the episode ?The Love Spell Potential,? on the CBS Television Network?s ?The Big Bang Theory,? Thursday, May 9 (8:00 - 8:31 PM, ET/PT). (AP Photo/CBS, Monty Brinton)
This undated photo released by CBS shows, from left, Johnny Galecki, Kaley Cuoco, Mayim Bialik, Jim Parsons, Melissa Rauch and Simon Helberg, in the episode ?The Love Spell Potential,? on the CBS Television Network?s ?The Big Bang Theory,? Thursday, May 9 (8:00 - 8:31 PM, ET/PT). (AP Photo/CBS, Monty Brinton)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Some highlights of CBS' moves in its schedule for next season.
WHAT'S NEW: Not too much. CBS has such a successful lineup ? tops in total viewers and advertiser-favored young adults this season ? that it is bringing aboard just eight new series. But it is toying with the limited-series format that looks like broadcasting's flavor du jour next year. CBS' experiment: "Hostages" and Intelligence," which will get shorter consecutive runs in the 10 p.m. Eastern time slot on Mondays.
WHAT'S GONE: "CSI: N.Y.," ''Vegas," ''Golden Boy" and "Rules of Engagement."
BIG MOVE: Keeping sitcom "Mike & Molly" and its red-hot movie star, Melissa McCarthy ("Bridesmaids," ''Identity Thief"), off the air until midseason. Network executives said they love the show, are thrilled about McCarthy's summer flick "The Heat" with Sandra Bullock, but wanted the flexibility of having 22 episodes of fresh product available later in the season to avoid rerun fatigue for viewers.
STAR POWER: Robin Williams, who gained fame with "Mork & Mindy" in the late 1970s, will return to sitcom life in "The Crazy Ones," starring opposite Sarah Michelle Gellar ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer") as his daughter and ad-agency partner. Another big name involved: David E. Kelley, who's shifting from his brand of hour-long dramedy ("Ally McBeal," ''Boston Legal") to the half-hour format.
QUOTE: "I don't care if you bow to the gods of demographics ? that's a huge victory," CBS Corp. CEO Leslie Moonves said of CBS' expansive lead in total viewers over competitors ABC, NBC and Fox. While CBS has long touted its focus on that number over advertiser-favored young adults, its executives acknowledged they are making a stronger play for youth next season. One example: "We Are Men," with Kal Penn and Jerry O'Connell among four newly single men sharing temporary digs.
AMAZING FACTOID: The Tuesday-night lineup of "NCIS," ''NCIS: Los Angeles" and "Person of Interest" is the first time since 1982 that a network has had TV's three top-rated dramas on a single night, said Kelly Kahl, CBS prime-time senior executive vice president. The last trio to accomplish that feat: CBS' "The Dukes of Hazzard," ''Dallas" and "Falcon Crest."
PHOENIX (AP) ? Jodi Arias heads back to court Wednesday as jurors consider whether the death penalty should be an option for sentencing the former waitress after convicting her of first-degree murder last week.
Arias spent the weekend on suicide watch before being transferred back to the all-female Estrella Jail on Monday where she will remain held until her sentencing.
The so-called "aggravation" phase of the trial is set for Wednesday, during which jurors will deliberate one more time to weigh the death penalty option.
Prosecutor Juan Martinez must convince the panel that the murder was committed in an especially cruel, heinous and depraved manner. This phase will be a mini-trial of sorts, as both sides call witnesses to present testimony to jurors ? the defense in an effort to spare Arias' life, the prosecution to at least have a shot at a death sentence.
Martinez will likely call the county medical examiner who performed the autopsy on the victim to explain to jurors how Travis Alexander did not die calmly and fought for his life as evidenced by the numerous defensive wounds on his hands and feet. The lead detective on the case also will likely testify about the crime scene in an effort to show jurors just how much blood was spread around Alexander's bathroom and bedroom as he struggled to fend off the attack.
It wasn't clear who the defense would call to testify in an effort to get the death penalty off the table.
If jurors find the killing fits the definition of cruel and heinous, the panel will recommend either life in prison or death during the next and final penalty phase of the trial.
If the panel finds no aggravating factors exist, jurors will be dismissed and the judge will determine whether Arias should spend the rest of her life in prison or be sentenced to 25 years with the possibility of release.
"I think this jury is going to listen to everything, but they're going to come back very quickly and find that indeed the state has shown beyond a reasonable doubt the crime was committed in an especially cruel, heinous and depraved manner," Phoenix criminal defense lawyer Julio Laboy said. "This was a cruel death and one in which he (Alexander) knew he was dying."
Arias stabbed and slashed Alexander nearly 30 times, shot him in the forehead and slit his throat from ear to ear, leaving the motivational speaker and businessman nearly decapitated before she dragged his mutilated body into his shower where friends found him about five days later.
The 32-year-old Arias admitted killing her onetime boyfriend Alexander on June 4, 2008, at his suburban Phoenix home. She initially denied any involvement then later blamed masked intruders. Two years after her arrest, she said it was self-defense when the victim attacked her after a day of sex.
Prosecutors said she planned the killing in a jealous rage as Alexander wanted to end their affair and was planning to take a trip to Mexico with another woman.
Testimony began in early January. The jury reached its verdict last Wednesday after about 15 hours of deliberations over four days.
All 12 jurors ? eight men and four women ? unanimously agreed the killing was premeditated.
Minutes after her conviction last week, Arias granted an interview to Fox affiliate KSAZ while in a holding cell at the courthouse, only adding to the circus-like environment surrounding the trial, which has become a cable TV sensation with its graphic tales of sex, lies and violence.
"Longevity runs in my family, and I don't want to spend the rest of my natural life in one place," a tearful Arias said in the interview. "I believe death is the ultimate freedom, and I'd rather have my freedom as soon as I can get it."
Despite Arias' comments that she would rather die than be in prison for life, she cannot choose the death penalty. It is up to the jury to recommend a sentence.
Officials with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office said Tuesday the agency would not grant anymore media interviews with Arias after receiving a court order prohibiting authorities from facilitating the requests. The order came shortly after a closed door meeting with the judge and attorneys in the case.
If jurors on Wednesday find Arias' crime deserves consideration of the death penalty, the trial will move into yet another ? and final ? phase, during which prosecutors will call witnesses, including members of Alexander's family, aimed at convincing the panel she should face the ultimate punishment. Arias' attorneys, meanwhile, will also call witnesses, likely members of her family, in an attempt to gain sympathy from jurors to spare her life.
"This case is not over. There's a lot left and without question, victory still awaits the defense if they can save her life and keep her off death row," Laboy said. "It was such a difficult set of facts and circumstances for her defense to overcome, from her multiple lies to the crime scene to the physical evidence ... If despite all of those things, they can save her life, they've still won."
ROME ? Shares in Italian cinema and television giant Mediaset have continued their march forward this week, despite poor financial results and the continuing legal woes of the company?s founder Silvio Berlusconi.
Mediaset shares closed trading Wednesday at ?2.36 ($3.07), more than double the company?s all-time low of ?1.17 ($1.52) set nine months ago. That comes despite minimal gains on the overall stock market in Italy, poor economic growth in Italy, weakening financial results for Mediaset -- as well as two criminal convictions for Berlusconi and prosecutors? request for six years in jail and a lifetime ban from politics in a third case.
According to analysts, there are a variety of reasons why Mediaset shares are zigging while most of the market is zagging: the company is doing a good job keeping expenses low and maintaining (and, in some cases, growing) its market share in a difficult market; there is also speculation that?Berlusconi?s return to the political arena could be good for the company.
?The panic that helped drive prices lower last year may have been overblown,? said ABS Securities analyst Oliviero Fiorini. ?Mediaset is hurting, but relative to the sector it may be weathering the storm OK.?
STORY: Silvio Berlusconi?Sex Trial: Prosecutors Request Six Years in Jail, Ban from Politics
Earlier this week, Mediaset announced it would achieve its goal of cutting costs by ?450 million ($598 million) in the 2012 to 2014 period ahead of schedule. That was the good news in an earnings report in which the company announced profits fell 7.9 percent in the first quarter, but that compares to a 19 percent contraction in the advertising market in the same period.
To help hold off a strong challenge key rival Sky-Italia, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch?s News Corp., Mediaset is reported to be in talks with France?s Canal+ or Qatar?s Al Jazeera about a possible partnership.
The shrinking ad market isn?t the only factor hurting Mediaset: Berlusconi, the three-time prime minister who is the company?s leading shareholder, was sentenced to four years behind jail in a tax fraud case related to Mediaset, and then a further year in a wire tap case. Both are under appeal. Then last week, prosecutors in Milan asked for six more years behind bars and a lifetime ban from politics in a case alleging he paid underage erotic dancer Karima el-Mahroug for sex and then abused his position as prime minister to get her off on a minor theft charge. That verdict is expected June 24.
Meanwhile, Berlusconi is one of the key backers behind the shaky coalition government led by Enrico Letta. Though he does not hold a formal position in the government, it?s possible his influence in the government could be a net aid to Mediaset.
Google has just made shopping on your Android phone much easier. The folks in Mountain View have outed a new Checkout button that enables one-click purchases. Instead of having to shuffle through a litany of steps to pick up that next birthday gift, you'll only need to tap once, then confirm the payment info via Google Wallet and shipping details in order to complete a shopping session on your mobile device. Of course, this will also allow users to avoid the headache of having to input payment info in each site where they want to make a purchase.
CAIRO (Reuters) - An al Qaeda-linked militant cell detained in Egypt was planning suicide attacks on the French and U.S. embassies, the state news agency MENA reported on Wednesday, quoting investigators.
Authorities on Saturday announced the capture of three Egyptians with links to al Qaeda, saying they had been found in possession of 10 kg (22 pounds) of explosive materials.
"The investigations revealed that the suspects were intending to carry out terrorist bomb operations inside Egypt via suicide operations, penetrating the security cordon in front of the American and French embassies with a car bomb," MENA said, citing a source in the state security prosecutor's office.
MENA said the suspects had escaped from prison during the uprising that swept Hosni Mubarak from power in 2011.
Prior to that, one of them had been extradited to Egypt from Algeria and another had been extradited from Iran, where he had gone to join groups fighting U.S. forces in Iraq and Gulf states, MENA reported.
He was caught by Iran in 2006 and deported to Egypt.
France's military intervention in Mali was cited as the men's motive for the planned attack on the French embassy.
Among the stock activity stories for Tuesday, May 14, from AP Business News:
? Shares of SolarCity Corp., which leases and installs solar energy systems for homes and businesses, fell after it posted a bigger-than-expected first-quarter loss.
? Monster Beverage Corp. shares are gaining some traction less than a week after the energy drink maker reported disappointing first-quarter results and a slowdown in sales.
Here?s a joke I love: A man goes to an old-school psychiatrist who, at the first session, administers some Rorschach tests.
?Just tell me the first thing that comes to mind,? the doctor instructs the patient as he shows him the ink blots.
?Sex,? answers the patient.
?I see,? says the doctor. ?And this one??
?Sex.?
?And this one??
?Sex again.?
?Well,? says the doctor, ?I see we will have to work on your obsession with sex.?
?Me??? replies the patient. ?You?re the one with the dirty pictures!?
What I love about this joke is that it gets right to the subjectivity of psychiatric diagnosis, a problem that has plagued the field since its infancy in the late 19th century and probably always will. We can now confidently diagnose cancers, infectious diseases, and other conditions based on data: biopsy results, lab tests, and x-ray images. But it seems unlikely that even the most advanced understanding of how the brain functions will ever fully elucidate how the mind dysfunctions.
Still, people do suffer from mental illness, and the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has tried, since 1952, to delineate an orderly system of diagnosis by producing a catalogue called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. For decades, every medical student purchased one in a series of revisions of the ?DSM.? Mine was DSM-III, which?even if I wanted to lie about my age?places me firmly in the 1980s. The book contains descriptions of dozens of disorders, from schizophrenia to borderline personality to binge eating disorder, each with a menu-style selection of symptoms. Here, for example, is the DSM-IV criteria for major depression:
Though this system of diagnosis may seem primitive, it?s been felt a superior alternative to no system and its proponents argue that it at least gives clinicians and researchers a common vocabulary and insurance companies a basis for coverage of psychiatric illness.
The DSM?s opponents have countered that this system is too subjective, not scientifically valid, and subject to abuse. That abuse can come in the form of mislabeling people as mentally ill (homosexuality appeared in the DSM until 1973) or labeling people in such a way that they are more likely to be prescribed medications. If you have observed that more kids seem now to be autistic, or bipolar?some of that increase is simply from increased diagnosis, guided by the inclusion of these entities in the DSM.
DSM-5 (they?ve changed over from Roman numerals) is about to be released amid enormous controversy. Many critics, including some psychiatric insiders, feel that the DSM-5 is an even less reliable and more potentially harmful tool than its predecessors. In fact, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has just announced that it will no longer fund research based on the DSM.
This announcement is nothing short of a cataclysm in mental health. Imagine that you have a child who?s been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and is on medication that seems to be working somewhat but which also causes weight gain and puts him or her at risk for suicide. You now have the most powerful scientific organization dealing with mental health (NIMH) at odds with the most powerful psychiatric organization (APA) about whether that diagnosis is valid.
Though the NIMH?s bold move will likely be positive in the long run, in the short run it will cause great anguish and confusion for patients and their families, as well as complicating and stalling research funding and insurance coverage for mental illness.
While I am not sorry to see the DSM fail, I do not share the view of some, including at the NIMH, that the goal should be to replace it with a system in which mental disorders are ultimately characterized by the neurotransmitters and even the genes that are affected. A hundred years ago, Freud warned of this kind of reductionist view of human behavior and I think his concerns hold true today.
Every day, even as a non-psychiatrist, I see people who suffer from depression, anxiety, obsessions, phobias, addictions, and other psychological torment. Some may benefit from drugs, some from psychotherapy, some from complementary therapies, some from therapies yet to be discovered. It may be that the DSM-5 doesn?t contain the best names for their pain, but I hope, amid the current quarrel in psychiatry, that the fact that their hurting isn?t forgotten.
Suzanne Koven is an internal medicine physician who blogs at In Practice at Boston.com, where this article originally appeared. She is the author of Say Hello To A Better Body: Weight Loss and Fitness For Women Over 50.?
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Public release date: 20-May-2013
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?I am not what has happened to me. I am what I choose to become.? ~ Carl Jung
