#access-bars-practitioner

[rajneespiritualhealer]

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[justinspoliticalcorner]

Quispe López at Them:

The U.S. Supreme Court announced this week that they will hear arguments for U.S. v. Skrmetti on December 4 in a case that could decide the fate of gender-affirming care for thousands of trans people across the country. The case began as a April 2023 lawsuit against Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors, L.W. v. Skrmetti. Signed into law in March 2023 by Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, the ban, Senate Bill 1, barred medical providers from prescribing puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to or performing gender-affirming surgeries on trans people under the age of 18. Organizers attempted to block the law after it was passed but it was reinstated in June 2023 after a federal judge did not find the ban unconstitutional. In an attempt to stop the ban from going into effect, the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Tennessee, Lambda Legal, and a private law firm joined forces to represent the families of three trans children and a doctor, suing the state and Tennessee attorney general Jonathan Skrmetti in April 2023.

After a federal judge found Tennessee’s ban unconstitutional, the state filed an immediate appeal and the law went into effect, prompting the Department of Justice and the case’s plaintiffs to ask the Supreme Court to hear arguments. In response to the news of the hearing date, LGBTQ+ advocates pledged to congregate in Washington, D.C. for the start of oral arguments. “The ACLU, Lambda Legal, and advocates from across the civil rights movement will gather for a rally in front of the United States Supreme Court building the morning of oral arguments,” the ACLU announced in a press release. Under SB 1, if practitioners break the law to provide life-saving transition-related care to their patients, they risk a $25,000 fine in addition to legal action. The law also mandated that all minors who were actively receiving gender-affirming treatments before the ban was passed stop their medication by March 31 of this year, forcing some families to move to other states in order to ensure their children retain access to care.

Trans advocates say that this court decision will set a legal precedent for whether or not it is constitutional for states to legally ban gender-affirming care. While the specific case in U.S. v. Skrmetti concerns trans minors, legal experts say a negative outcome could make it more possible for states to pass gender-affirming care bans for adults — and potentially lead to federal restrictions.

On December 4th, 2024, a very big case will be heard for oral arguments at SCOTUS: the gender-affirming care case titled as United States v. Skrmetti. The Skrmetti case deals with Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans minors (SB1).

A ruling is likely expected sometime in June of 2025.

[unpottytrained]

If Trump makes it illegal for health practitioners to prescribe HRT for gender dysphoria, or bars Medicaid from covering it, and I lose access to it, I'm ending my life.

[transmutationisms]

could you please elaborate that post about spiritual ennui not being the cause of many social phenomena? theres a whole book I started reading recently (work pray code) which is predicated on the idea that in the US work has come to replace religion as the centerpiece of peoples lives (simultaneously bc of a withdrawal from religion as a country and bc of capitalism demanding that life revolve around work) and I wasnt completely convinced by the authors evidence toward that hypothesis. or was the social phenomena in question more like online culture stuff?

i don't know that particular book or author, so i don't have a sustained critique of them. but in general, yes, i'm frustrated by hypotheses that basically boil down to the idea that a decline in religiosity and religious infrastructure is causing some kind of spiritual poverty that is in turn responsible for various social ills. commonly i see this argument used to 'explain' phenomena including: the persistence of astrology and occult sciences; gun violence; political 'polarisation'; drug use; perceived cultural decline; 'mental health crises'; &c. broadly these analyses tend to draw elements from max weber's idea of disenchantment,¹ a large-scale diagnosis of modernity's devaluation of religion, and from the related notion of desacralisation, the process of divesting individual objects or institutions of their divine properties or provenance.

i think these analyses are really fucking bad and here are some major reasons why:

they're not materialist. by this i mean that, instead of looking for material factors and conditions that might explain social and cultural phenomena, they turn to metaphysical, philosophical, and intellectual explanations. let's think about the persistence of astrology as an example here. on a disenchantment analysis, people are getting back into astrology because, having lost (organised) religiosity in their lives, they feel a spiritual void and seek to create new cosmological meaning through engagement with an anachronistic science-turned-spiritual practice. this explanation sucks. in addition to the fact that astrology and occult sciences never really 'went away' in the first place (& neither did religion lol), this explanation treats spiritual practice and belief as mostly an individual/psychological phenomenon, neglecting rigorous sociological attention to how these ideas spread and how group and community dynamics nurture them and form around them. it also ignores things like the profit motive for astrological practitioners, and related points about how heterodox sciences in general thrive in contexts where professional and class interests create a massive gap between laypeople and experts, barring the general population from accessing and engaging with scientific discourses and critique. 'disenchantment' also grafts onto a general idea about 'alienation', positing that the decline in religiosity creates a sense of loss and disconnect and that this psychological experience drives interest in practices like astrology. but when we talk about 'alienation' in a marxist sense,² we mean material conditions of production: the literal, physical alienation of a labourer from their products, and of a capitalist from the world (because they produce only proximately, via the labourer). the psychological experience of alienation is a result of this real material process of estrangement and expropriation; a weberian analysis that tries to put alienation down to cultural or intellectual factors is not useful for understanding material changes and the 'base' economic relations.

these types of 'disenchantment' analyses tend to claim or imply that they're making universal sociological arguments: religiosity decreases, x takes its place. but in fact these are highly culturally and historically specific arguments. weber's formulation was explicitly premised on a highly eurocentric and teleological conception of 'modernity' and modernisation, wherein the west led the world in a process of 'rationalisation' that involved jettisoning spirituality. that he was ambivalent about the consequences of this process does not make the argument any less flawed. for example, even defining religiosity is not so easy (do we measure by church attendance? private internal belief? community values?) and although the catholic church has become less powerful in certain ways since the reformation, a) it's hardly gone away and b) it doesn't follow that spirituality or religiosity writ large have declined. sticking with the astrology example, if the weberian explanation holds, we should be able to come up with some set of criteria for identifying societies with high or low degrees of religiosity, and then associate that with prevalence of astrological practice. but uh, both of these things vary widely between countries, regions, social groups, &c, almost as though there are other factors at play here, and 'religion' and 'astrology' themselves also have varying meanings, uses, and practical manifestations in varying social and historical contexts.

these 'disenchantment' explanations pretty much all start from the same rhetorical operation, which goes something like: "[x problem] is bad and harmful, which is discordant with my imagination of what 'the west'/the usa is 'supposed' to be like. why does such a [developed/modern/wealthy] society have these problems?" from there, it's a move to a critique of modernity/rationality/the speaker's notion of 'progress', and specifically a critique that aims to identify and root out some kind of spiritual rot or void, without ever challenging or problematising the construction of such notions of 'progress' or the processes of imperialism and colonialism that make 'the west' and wealthy lifestyles possible. in other words, these are generally reactionary arguments that seek to preserve the status quo of the material processes of exploitation and production, but want more psychological fulfillment for a few people.

these explanations are just really fucking bad and over-simplified explanations of how religion functions and what effects it has in a society. again, part of the issue here is that 'religion' is not even really a cohesive category and certainly not a unified set of practices. it works sometimes through institutions, which have their own financial and class characters; it interacts with and sometimes seeks to control politics; it also functions to enforce group identity and community cohesion. these are not inherently good or spiritually fulfilling things, and these effects all vary in different religions, societies, and historical contexts, which makes statements about the consequences of 'declining religiosity' kind of nonsensical on their face. religion can be a vector of racism, of caste, of other inequities; given astrology's essentialist character and resemblence to similarly class- and race-enforcing and -creating psychological projects, i'm certainly willing to entertain arguments that modern astrology performs these religious functions. but again, this argument would require actual materialist analysis, not just the vague diagnosis that 'people want to create spiritual meaning' in a 'modern' world supposedly too 'rational' to fulfill that need.

¹ term borrowed from schiller, but schiller used it somewhat differently and in a different context

² marx's later texts largely subsume the idea of 'alienation' or 'estrangement' into a larger analysis of 'commodity fetishism', which has its own theoretical problems in the construction of the 'fetish' concept; see j lorand matory's "the fetish revisited: marx, freud, and the gods black people make".

[portlandnet]

Congratulations to Amanda Westervelt! We are happy to announce that Amanda has accepted a promotion at PBEM. Here are the details from our director, Shad Ahmed:

I wanted to share some exciting news. Our own Amanda Westervelt—an attorney by training and an emergency manager at heart—rose to the top of a national open recruitment process and was selected for the recent Emergency Management Program Manager position at PBEM. A testament to her professional and personal dedication, Amanda began her time at PBEM as a NET volunteer, and leapt through the ranks, not only vertically, but also horizontally in roles across bureau programs. This required her to tackle new skills and program areas at every turn. She has yet to encounter a challenge she cannot navigate.

In this new role, she will join the PBEM Program Managers'  team, as we continue supporting critical functions in an evolving mission. Most recently, she successfully helped conduct an exercise with over 70 partners from across federal, state, and local jurisdictions in an extremely short turnaround time. She is continuing to support the City's involvement in the national IronOR exercise, as well as taking on numerous other projects in areas such as the Duty Officer program and EOC operations.

Amanda's bio: Amanda Westervelt joined PBEM in 2021 after careers in biochemistry and then law, where she was the managing attorney for a satellite office of a multi-state firm. She grew up in rural Oklahoma, and ultimately moved to Portland in 2010, spending time at home to bring two beautiful children into the world and co-lead a very active Girl Scout troop. Amanda discovered emergency management through PBEM’s Neighborhood Emergency Team program and founded an advanced training event called NETCamp in 2019, the same year she joined the Oregon State Bar. When COVID hit, she was starting her own law firm, and pivoted instead to help run the Portland Mask Project and the NET Vaccine Access Project for PBEM and the Portland COVID response effort. Amanda has been certified as a hazardous materials technician, an EMT, and is currently a wilderness first responder and is certified to instruct a variety of first aid classes through HSI and emergency management classes through the State. Amanda has an undergraduate degree in biology from Cornell University, a juris doctor from Wake Forest University’s School of Law, and is working on her Master Exercise Practitioner credential from FEMA’s National Disaster and Emergency Management University.

Please join us in congratulating Amanda on her new role and please feel free to pass this message on!

[contentment-of-cats]

The Exit

Not now. Calm down.

Do I need to TW for a discussion of medically assisted suicide? Damned if I will censor myself for discussing it. Don't click the read-more if you're offended.

I've been thinking a lot about death (fuck cancer), how it comes, it's permutations. The first introduction I had to close-range mortality was of one of my middle school friends, hit by a car while walking to school. The driver was drunk and behind the wheel after going to a local bar that opened at 6:00AM. He had breakfast and three boilermakers, then got in his car. There was no goodbye, just a brutal and senseless excision of a 12-year-old girl from the fabric of the world. Snip. Gone. Energy dispersed. Closed coffin.

Between the AIDs epidemic, drugs and alcohol, physical disorders and disease, sepsis, misdiagnosis, suicide, I have had a lot of phone calls. If you live long enough, you know a lot of people who are not here any longer. This plays into a bit of news about the Sarco suicide pod, and I have thoughts.

We all will get there eventually. I do not blame people who are suffering and want to meet their end on their own terms. MAID is available in California, and I have discussed it with my oncologist. I am not there yet, but the possibility is that I will get to the point where I will be eligible and more to the point where I am ready. When I simply exist, when there is no joy in anything, and uncontrollable pain - that's my personal choice.

I have Big Issues with ideology, the way that euthanasia proponents push death like doctors push Ozempic, or pushed Oxycodone, and the way that it's turning into a class issue where the inability to afford long-term care or even hospice results in okey-dokey-artichokey, off you go. Medical aid in dying has turned into getting people off the books as I feared it would. My stepfather's hospice care 20 years ago was a circus of zealous glassy-eyed deathbots. My friends in the late 80s and early 90s suffering from HIV were cared for in the community, and if you have to die it sucks less with someone holding your hand, honoring your humanity with theirs. My mother was cared for by a religious hospice service, and they were wonderful. They followed the pre-need orders to the letter, and she died safe and as comfortable as possible.

The pod.

When ideology meets financing, that's not a slippery slope - it's a tightrope. The suicide pod on the surface is a win. You get in the pod, seal it, push a button, and off you go. I do not doubt that the woman who used it was suffering. Hypoxia is thought to be a painless way to die, but as with all endings, nobody knows what's happening in the dying person's perception. The pod costs $60K, is out of reach for anyone but the wealthy, or will cost one's life savings (of which the principals for the Sarco allegedly fleeced one woman previously) for those without the means. It's 3D printed, untested - unless you count the first user.

$60K. Cash.

I get that the American medical system is a clusterfuck and even at its best, there are still issues of access in addition to issues of race, class, and gender. The system alone can make you want to quit. I've been diagnosed as female for decades, and even with a diagnosis in hand, you're still high-handed by those you're hiring to care for your body. In many cases you don't have a choice of doctor, or even the ability to see a doctor. Physician assistants and nurse practitioners are the gatekeeper class, doctors barely have fifteen minutes to spend with you. Minimums of care are not being met and I can't shake the feeling that the 64-year-old woman was ill-served by her own medical providers and her family. It was hard to step back and let Mom's directives take over. You want to DO SOMETHING. Perhaps in their shoes, I would do the same, even drive Mom to the airport - though some states make that an offense as an accessory.

There's a difference between feeling bad because you're depressed and being depressed because you're feeling bad. That is a difference nobody has ever understood until I met my cancer team and pain doctor. The thing is, I don't want someone making their exit to do so for someone's profit margin any more than I want life-saving, life-changing treatment reduced to a line in an insurance company computer. Dying is the point where, as someone said, we cease to be biology and become physics. That is a profound change. It needs to be honored instead of commodified and doled out with ten-keys (do they use those any longer?) clicking in the background. Huckstering custom-printed push-button death is not a philosophy, or 'helping with a choice', it's murder for money.

I'm sorry, Lady in the Forest, that it got to that point. I am glad that you went on terms of your own. I hope that you were not failed so drastically that your back was to the wall and this was your only way out. Be at peace.

[sidewalkchemistry]

Why are Caffeine & Energy Stimulants So Common? {or How to Stop Being Stuck in Cycles of Fatigue, Brain Fog, and Insatiable Hunger/Cravings for Sweets}

Relying on energy stimulants (coffee, energy drinks, caffeinated tea, protein supplements/bars/snacks/shakes, candies, chocolates, etc) to get through a day or workout is a sign that your cells are lacking energy. Don't let your cells suffer like that 😥 (these stimulants also hamper nutrient absorption and harm organ tissue). Fuel yourself with fruit*.

Every cell in the body generates energy from simple sugars. It's most efficient to consume fruit for energy - they are nutrient dense, fast digesting, and packed with simple sugars. When we don't, that's when the depleted feelings and/or sugar-y or starch-y cravings set in. The body tries to get accessible sugar in some way. High-fat and high-protein require a lot of energy to create a good amount of cellular energy. Intuitive eating protocols neglect to realize that cravings for high-carb foods & sweets is the body's message for more energy (preferable via fruit).

••••••••• 🍓🥝🥭🍇🍉🍐🍊 ••••••••••

Ripe** fruit is the best option especially for breakfast & snacks. Have it in abundance***. Cells quickly convert them to useable energy. And they don't cause the withdrawals, sudden energy drops, or harm to your organs that stimulants do. Those who eat adequate amounts of fruit do not consider these stimulants (as shown above).

For the best energy: eat until thoroughly satisfied & don't mix fruit meals with anything but fruit (especially if you have digestive issues, but also because it slows the digestion process & time until the cells receive the glucose molecules for cellular respiration/ATP production)

Some Recommendations: smoothies/smoothie bowl, homemade popsicles, dates, baked fruit (like baked apples or pears sprinkled with cinnamon + nutmeg), frozen or fresh grapes, melons, raisins, berries, cold-pressed fruit juice, dried figs, applesauce, or whatever your current seasonal favorite is**** (luscious persimmons, pomegranates, and oranges in winter; mangoes, pineapples, and papayas in spring; watermelons, peaches, and blueberries in summer; figs, grapes, and apples in fall)

---

*if you are on prescription medication, check first if there are any fruit that are contraindicated. Choose other options. There are thousands of fruit in the world to choose from.

**this channel has a lot of good guidance for selecting properly ripe & tasty fruit (she overviews a bunch at once - from apples to mangoes to tomatoes to dragonfruit - in this video)

***if you have blood sugar issues, a lower fat whole food plant based diet can resolve those issues long term. I recommend working with an experienced & trusted health practitioner to be sure you safely make the adjustment. I definitely recommend it because fruits are the cell's best & most nutritious fuel and it doesn't serve the body to restrict them.

****seasonal fruit may vary depending on location. seasonal fruit tend to have the best flavor profiles & price points

[mywingsareonwheels]

A general note on AI in the arts, the creative industries, and similar:-

Generative "AI" used in those spheres accomplishes two main things.

Reducing quality (and getting those who engage in the art vastly more comfortable with poorer quality, less interesting work).

Destroying jobs and opportunities for artists.

I really, really would like us not to get to the point where "real" art made by actual visual artists/voice actors/composers/writers/etc. is a luxury commodity, and the only artists who can actually work are the most privileged (usually those with a private additional income). But we are going very very fast in that direction.

It is also worth reiterating that the artists who will suffer most from this are those who are in marginalised demographics (especially disabled artists (and fuck those using disabled artists as a justification for this; I know so many disabled artists and they are all *furious* at what's happening), artists of colo(u)r, LGBT+ artists). Also that the general population including those on a low income deserve access to real art, dammit.

Please remember that limiting access to the arts (both as audience and practitioners) to the wealthy only is a right-wing priority, and has been for literal centuries. Please remember that the scorn towards arts professionals (especially actors and singers) that is practised on the left as well as the right dates back in western history to the Roman era, and was formed from slut-shaming, classism, xenophobia, and the practice of enslavement. You do not want to be going along with that crap. (Also reminder here to ignore all and any "how much does [celebrity] earn?" sites; they lie. And most arts professionals in all fields are below average in income and wealth. And getting more so.)

If you value social justice, if you value any of the arts, if you value humans getting to do one of the most important of human things: do not use ChatGPT, do not use Midjourney, do not use creation-replacement "AI" generally. And do not engage, especially financially, with any "AI" "art". Don't play the games that replace voice actors with "AI", don't read the books or the fics that use ChatGPT, don't like or reblog the visual "art" if you can help it, don't watch any films or tv shows that use "AI" in any way. Don't read online magazines that use ChatGPT instead of employing copywriters. Just. Keep away from all of it.

Production companies etc. are pushing "AI" on all of us. Don't let them. Their sphere of action is limited if we all make it clear how profoundly not-keen we all are in the arts being wrecked like this. Maybe give a bit of extra love, attention, and/or money to an artist of some kind today. :-) And maybe try to go and see a play or an exhibition or an art gallery or buy a paperback or go to hear some live music played in a pub/bar or play a game where there's a known cast list of voice actors. :-) And make some art yourself!! Even if it's not very good, it's being made by you and it's something you care about and that's an awesome thing. <3

There are a lot of cases where consumption gets treated as activism when it isn't any such things. In this case, it comes a hell of a lot closer to being it.

Disclaimer: sometimes "AI" can be hard to spot. And sometimes people are obnoxious and go around commenting on fanfics and or art accusing innocent people of using it, which is a horrible thing to do. Learn the warning signs if you can, but do please be aware that you might be wrong.

[hundredsspoons]

Death tw under cut

So my aunt unfortunately passed away a few days ago. Everyone thought she had like 5 years left, but she got sick the other day and the hospice staff (she was there for pain management NOT hospice) literally told her it was useless etc. None of us know what medical information they were basing this on, because the last cat scan we had gotten before that was not that critical. The problem at that moment was that her blood pressure has dropped unexpectedly. My aunt was talking to people about her long-term (5 years) plan just the day before, so she was NOT aware of how bad things were and was NOT planning on dying so soon, but the staff on the phone told my mother that clearly her sister had been hiding information from her. My mom is a nurse practitioner with a phd, and she was sitting next to a trained doctor at the time, and they both were telling the staff (on the phone) how easy it is to fix blood pressure if you go to the hospital, but the staff was just like "no no it's her underlying condition" idk if they had the new cat scan, which we got like 2 days after her death, and did reveal that basically her cancer had doubled in size in 2 weeks. If they knew that, it might have made sense. But why would the hospice house have access to medical information before the patient and her husband? Why wouldn't they give that information to the husband to explain their position? Then my aunt decided (after the hospice house said the ambulance would take 2 hours to come from a hospital that was 5 minutes away by car and that it was a useless situation) that she would rather have a dignified death. Understandable, but we all feel like she was pressured into this decision by a strangely-eager hospice house, a lack of medical information, and the fact that she was drugged out of her gourd because she was in so much pain. So then she was given more and more morphine (which is a medicine that drops blood pressure!!) until she passed away. She had a husband and a 2-year-old child. Everyone is miserable and, frankly, furious.

Me and my mom live in America, while her sister lived in England, so there's not too much to do aside from text other family members. My mother is deeply devastated. I should say that I'm doing alright (I didn't know my aunt very well, though she seemed like a lovely person).

On a somewhat lighter note, I've been trying to comfort my mother and she mentioned yesterday how much she liked a special type of milkshake when she was a child in South Africa, so I tried to recreate it today when she came home from work. I was melting the chocolate bars for the drizzle, and she walked in. Holding a milkshake from mcdonalds. We just stood there staring at each other like 🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️. You may or may not remember, but I had tried to make her a meal the other week, but she was too stressed out about the mess to enjoy it. This time she just shook her head and said, "....We're really not good at this." 😂😭 She asked if we can make the milkshake tomorrow lol.

[desos-records]

Chapter 7: Case Studies

First | Prev / Next

Ghost possession doesn't happen often, but fatality rates are high. Even if an agent does survive, there are the aftereffects to worry about.

After surviving a possession, Lucy Carlyle struggles with recovery, delving ever deeper into the memories of Visitors and, in the process, stumbling into the world of blackmarket Sources.

Meanwhile, George Karim races to learn the truth behind ghost possession in order to protect Lucy and save future agents.

And Anthony Lockwood must face his own past with the London underworld if he wants to save his friends and himself.

-

Like the Problem itself, the cause of possession hadn't yet been solved, but not for lack of trying. Or lack of research. As usual, the first place George went for answers—or failing that, inspiration—was Portland Row's own library. The Lockwoods had been two of the most thorough researchers to ever confront the Problem. There was no aspect of it they hadn't touched on in their ethnographies, articles, and travel journals.

Resources he wouldn't have access to if he didn't live under the same roof as their son. George often forced himself to remember this fact when Lockwood wound him up.

In the case of possession, they'd traveled to America and studied the Ghost Dance practiced by the Lakota tribal nation. Dancers went into a kind of trance and communicated with dead ancestors to achieve visions or hear prophecies. George didn't know of any evidence that Visitors could be prophetic, but clearly white Americans had felt threatened enough. They massacred hundreds of Lakota people for it.

The Lockwoods had drawn parallels between the Ghost Dance trances and cases of possession. They argued that possession occurred because the Visitor was unusually determined to communicate something to the living and so latched onto a significantly Talented agent. They suspected the mortality rates were high because most agents weren't Talented enough to survive the psychical overload—except for Simon Rose, Evelyn Lawrence, Bennie Russell, and now Lucy Carlyle.

The Ghost Dancers, however, had never suffered such a fate, but the Lockwoods hadn't been able to determine why—partly because they'd been barred from witnessing the dances themselves. The Lakota people were understandably wary of sharing details with outsiders.

George, stacks of papers and cold cups of tea dominating the quiet kitchen, scoured the issue of American Anthropologist that had published their article on the subject until he caught on something.

Upon reviewing the data (fig. 31), we realized that, while agents with Sight are less susceptible to possession, they experience higher rates of mortality than their counterparts with Listening and Touch. After careful study of the Lakota Ghost Dance, practitioners' experiences during trances and their emphasis on visions, we believe this statistic is due to the fact that truly gifted Seers are simply a rarity. Few are strong enough to be sought out by Visitors and, at the time of this publication, none have been strong enough to survive the force of psychic visions.

So his theory had been wrong, or at least misinformed. Talent did have an impact on survival rates, but it was less about type and more about level.

George didn't know how much that would help Lucy. She'd only given vague descriptions of what she'd seen, how it overlaid with the living world. It didn't seem consistent with the accounts of visions made by the Lakota dancers, which were vivid and all-encompassing. Maybe Lucy's Sight wasn't powerful enough, her experience mostly defined by her Listening and Touch.

Lockwood had the strongest Sight out of the three of them, and stronger than any agent George had worked with. If they could find a reasonably safe way to test his Talent, then maybe…

"Lockwood!" George called, voice reverberating through the house.

The iron staircase down to the basement shook and rattled enough to threaten collapse as Lockwood tramped up it into the kitchen. "For the love of God, George, someone had better be haunted, haunting, or on fire because I'm gonna—"

He stopped in his tracks as he surveyed the state of the kitchen table. His white shirt stuck to him from sweat and he still had his practice rapier in his hand, slightly heavier than his others, designed for overtraining. He'd been down in the basement cutting the dummies to shreds ever since Lucy stormed out. Then the space around his eyes tightened ever so slightly as they did whenever George dug into his parents' research for a case. He had yet to tell him off for it, but the reminder clearly affected him.

"Exactly how good is your Sight, Lockwood?" George asked before he could come up with a threat.

Lockwood blinked. "What? It's fine. Why?"

"Your parents have an interesting theory about possession. I thought we might test it."

"That's what you're researching? We have a case to solve, George. We don't have time for any more experiments."

"It's to help Lucy, remember? I thought you were on board with this."

"What's my Talent got to do with Lucy? I'm on board with possession recovery, not causing it on purpose." Then Lockwood paused, looked around at the kitchen, out the darkening windows, and glanced up at the ceiling as if he could see all the way up to the attic. "Where's Lucy anyway? Has she come back yet?"

"No."

Lockwood looked at his watch and cursed. "It's been hours."

George shrugged, looking back at his papers. "She's blowing off steam."

"It's getting dark."

"She's an agent."

"I'm going after her." Lockwood disappeared out the door. More rattling came from the hallway as he traded the practice rapier for a proper one. He returned to the kitchen, dead-set determination welded in his eyes. "Seen my coat anywhere?"

"Library." When Lockwood went through the door again, he called after him, "You're going to be the last person she wants to see, you know."

He returned, shrugging his coat on. Somewhere between the kitchen and the library, he'd found spare flares and canisters to hang from his belt, the iron in his expression not in the least bit dimmed. "She can tick me off when she's safe inside. Do us a favor and stay put. No research field trips."

George rolled his eyes.

"Please, George."

"Well, since you said please…"

The door swung shut, soon followed by the resounding slam of the front door.

George sighed, reshuffled some papers around to pull out the Annabel Ward articles he'd abandoned. The inscription on the ring wasn't enough to prove Hugo Blake's guilt and he'd yet to find anything else in the dull society pages. Besides, they were psychical agents, ghost hunters, not homicide detectives. He didn't know what Lockwood was playing at.

But he'd followed him into this mess and he would follow him back out again. So George made more tea and flipped open a magazine, mind still turning over Talents and trances and descriptions of circle dances. Then he remembered. There were interviews with the possession survivors somewhere in Lockwood's stack of VHS tapes. It might be helpful to review them.

He pushed to his feet and into the library, digging through the stacks until he found what he wanted.

[rajneespiritualhealer]

Top Access Bars Therapy in Kolkata for Mind-Body Wellness

The need to attain health has become more paramount in society today than ever before especially in this growing cities like that of Kolkata. With stress, anxiety, and mental fatigue creeping into people’s lives, they are now seeking new ways of making their minds and bodies new again. There is, however, a popular technique called Access Bars Therapy, which has proved useful. However, one would ask, what can be understood as Access Bars Therapy and why would this person need it for the mind-body processes?

What is Access Bars Therapy?

Access Bars Therapy is a light hand touch procedure that touches 32 points on the head which are called “bars ‘and each bar is related to different areas of life such as joy, creativity, healing, and so on. Through engaging these bars Access Bars Therapy assists in clearing energy and thoughts that have been stored in the brain thus enhancing calm thinking and emotions among people. 

 The therapy is conceived on the hypothesis that these bars retain the electromagnetic field copies of any thought, idea, attitude, decision, and belief that one has ever had. When one touches any of these bars, the energy is set free and reward is associated with stress-busting, improved sleeping, creative boost, and well-being among others.

Why Choose Access Bars Therapy for Mind-Body Wellness?

It is a form of therapy that deals with the mental and physical well being leading to total body therapy. Unlike other therapies that may involve interactions of the body, Access Bars Therapy targets the mind and body thus making it a more encompassing therapy for the human body. 

Living in a city as hectic as Kolkata, people need something like Access Bars Therapy to escape from the ruthless rhythm of everyday life. The therapy sessions are extremely soothing and this has the effect of eliminating all the noise from your day and getting you in touch with your spirit. This alone assists in the decrease of stress and anxiety and in the process opens one’s mind to easily sorting out the complexities of life logically without feeling overwhelmed. 

Also, it is important to mention that Access Bars Therapy is completely safe and may be used by anybody at any age as well as in case of certain health issues. No matter whether you experience chronic stress, have difficulty falling asleep, or just want to improve your mental and emotional state in general, Access Bars Therapy can be helpful.

Top Access Bars Therapy Centers in Kolkata

If you are interested in getting Access Bars Therapy in Kolkata, it is nice to know that the city has some of the best centers that administer this type of therapy. Here are some of the best places to experience Access Bars Therapy in Kolkata:

 Rajnee Spiritual Healer 

Famous as a spiritual spa, Rajnee Spiritual Healer provides Access Bars Therapy sessions by the bar and practitioners. The center is centered on the delivery of individual healing services to the clients. 

 Kolkata Healing Center 

Kolkata Healing Center is one of the best Access Bars Therapy providers in the city famous for its calm environment and seasoned practitioners. The center also has all other mind-body healing services that are intertwined with holistic therapies hence acts as one-stop center for holistic healing. 

 Wellness Junction Kolkata 

Another well-renowned center is Wellness Junction which also provides Access Bars Therapy in Kolkata. These members of the practitioners here are friendly, caring, and dedicated to supporting the clients to improve on their health. 

While selecting a center for Access Bars Therapy, one must look into some factors such as, the qualifications and training of the practitioners, the customer reviews, and how the setup of a particular center feels like.

How to Prepare for Your Access Bars Therapy Session?

If you’re planning to try Access Bars Therapy for the first time, here are some tips to help you prepare: 

Keep an Open Mind: Come to the session with no Bias. As with every form of treatment, the more relaxed a patient is, the greater the advantages he/she gets from the therapy. 

Wear Comfortable Clothing: It is advisable to wear loose clothing and loose, and comfortable clothes during the session. 

Hydrate: It is recommended that one should also take a lot of water before and after the session since the body will be eliminating toxins from the therapy. 

It is for this reason that after your session you should take some time for yourself. You should stop any activity that may stress you and take your time to be receptive to the effects of the therapy. Some of the clients claim to have better sleeping experience as well as feeling more relaxed in the days that follow a session. 

Conclusion

Access Bars Therapy is, thereby, a complete package for mind and body and can help you get cured of numerous diseases of the body as well. Regardless of whether you are struggling with stress, require direction or overall life upgrades, Access Bars Therapy is something that can be incorporated in your daily lives.  

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q: How long is one session? 

Ans: An Access Bars Therapy generally takes between 1 hour and 1 ½ hour. 

Q: How much does it cost? 

Ans: The fees for a session may vary specific to the chosen center and the therapist; however, the price usually falls between INR 1500 and INR 3000 per session. 

Q: Sessions should happen at what frequency? 

Ans: This depends on the individual and the extent as to which they want to achieve. Some individuals may require weekly sessions, whereas others will be okay with once monthly session. 

Q: Is Access Bars Therapy safe? 

Ans: Indeed, Access Bars Therapy is very safe and entails no harm to the client’s body and this therefore means that it can be performed on anybody including children.

[mariacallous]

A new class of health care startups has emerged in response to the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the federal right to abortion last year. These “digital abortion clinics” connect patients with health care providers who are able to prescribe mifepristone and misoprostol, a course of care commonly described as the “abortion pill.”

These services, many of which were founded before Dobbs v. Jackson, are poised to eliminate a major paradox in the field of reproductive health: Medication abortion is currently the most common way to terminate a pregnancy, yet only 1 in 4 adults are familiar with it, according to a recent study by KFF.

These clinics operate in different ways—some provide live video visits with doctors and nurse practitioners, while others offer asynchronous counseling—but many have experienced a record number of patient orders (and increased VC funding) over the past year. According to Elisa Wells, cofounder of the nonprofit Plan C, their appeal is straightforward. “Their pricing is quite affordable, and there’s convenience in placing an order and getting pills delivered to your mailbox in three to four days,” she says.

Recent data suggests that telehealth clinics have been effective in expanding access to abortion care, especially for people living in remote areas or in states where the procedure has been criminalized, a finding that Wells’ team corroborates. Thanks to a new series of “shield laws” protecting clinicians from out-of-state prosecution—passed in 12 states, including New York, Maryland, and Illinois—these clinics are positioned to expand their reach even further.

Following the lead of other companies in the femtech space (a category that includes everything from kegel trainers to period-tracking apps), leaders at digital abortion clinics like Hey Jane and Choix have publicly expressed their commitment to users’ privacy as they grow. In a recent interview with Vogue, Hey Jane cofounder Kiki Freedman said that the service is “HIPAA-compliant and encrypted.” In an interview with Ms. magazine this January, a representative from Choix highlighted its “HIPAA-compliant texting platform,” while another interviewee suggested that ��most telehealth providers are not checking IP addresses.” (Read more about how HIPAA actually works here.)

A common belief about virtual clinics is that they offer more discretion than their brick-and-mortar counterparts. “There’s definitely a privacy factor—these sites don’t ask a lot of questions,” says Wells. In a 2020 study of over 6,000 abortion seekers, 39 percent reported choosing a telemedicine option specifically to preserve their privacy. While some providers’ intentions seem genuine, privacy experts have pointed out that their services may not be as secure as users expect them to be (even if they are compliant with US law).

Last July, a team of researchers at the Markup reported that Hey Jane’s site passed along user information to Meta and Google, the world’s largest digital advertisers. While providers may not restrict access via IP addresses, our analysis found that most providers readily collected them. For telehealth abortion clinics, HIPAA compliance is just one part of the puzzle.

So which virtual abortion clinics take users’ privacy seriously, and which do not? How can users approach these services with safety in mind? Does HIPAA protect all information sent to telehealth providers? To find out, we teamed up with experts to analyze the privacy policies of five popular abortion-by-mail providers: Wisp, Choix, Hey Jane, Carafem, and Aid Access.

While the American Bar Association reported in April that “high-tech tactics” (like sending court orders to femtech apps) have not been used to successfully convict abortion seekers, prosecutors have used women’s text messages and search histories as evidence in a number of abortion-related cases. Because of this precedent, users should proceed with caution when handing their personal information over to telehealth providers. It’s not uncommon for vulnerable data to end up in the hands of third-party brokers who compile digital profiles of users before selling their information to the highest bidder. Michele Gilman, professor of law at the University of Baltimore, says: “Reproductive health data is being sold and transported into a much larger system.”

To make matters worse, the absence of a comprehensive federal privacy law, like the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), leaves the burden of evaluating privacy policies to individual users. Considering that these policies have gotten longer and more difficult to decipher in recent years, this is a serious burden. For our evaluation, we consulted frameworks from the University of Texas at Austin’s Privacy Lab and the Digital Standard to arrive at four core factors.

Here’s what we found:

Data Collection (PII)

The GDPR’s American cousin, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) has inspired proposed state legislation that supports greater protections for a specific category of data—personally identifiable information. While PII is broadly defined, Google interprets it as including your email address, full name, precise location, phone number, and mailing address.

The safest websites to use won’t collect your PII at all, but offering a mailing address to a virtual clinic is a matter of necessity here. In this context, it’s helpful to distinguish between companies that use your personal information to provide essential services and those that share this information with third parties. Austria-based nonprofit Aid Access fared the best in this category, encouraging users to access the service with virtual anonymity in its policy. Wisp fared particularly poorly here, citing its ability to send specific geolocation data to advertisers.

The majority of providers we analyzed categorize email addresses and the like as “personal information,” which is only protected by HIPAA if it’s stored alongside medical information. This makes it difficult to judge whether it’s being used appropriately.

Low Risk: PII is not recorded, Some Risk: PII is used for intended service, High Risk: PII is used by third parties

Law Enforcement

According to bioethics expert Sharona Hoffman, there’s a common misconception that HIPPA protects your medical information from being shared outside of your doctor’s office. The reality, she says, is that “HIPAA isn’t that protective. Consumers need to know that HIPAA has exceptions for law enforcement and public health.”

While the law provides safeguards for a particular subset of information (personal health information), it doesn’t cover all of the information you provide to a telehealth service. Even if it did apply, the rule allows (but does not require) health care providers to expose PHI when presented with a search warrant or other legal document. While providers could technically refuse these requests, most don’t. “It’s easier to comply rather than involve your medical office in litigation,” says Gilman.

Aid Access is a notable exception and has a track record of standing up to law enforcement (it even sued the US Food and Drug Administration last year.) When examining privacy policies, UT’s Privacy Lab recommends looking at companies’ willingness to hand over any data in the absence of a warrant or other legal document. Neither Carafem, Wisp, Hey Jane, nor Choix specify that they would require a warrant before sending information to government agencies or other legal entities.

Low Risk: PII is not recorded, Some Risk: Legal documents are required to comply with law enforcement, High Risk: Legal documents are not required to comply with law enforcement

Data Control (Deletion)

Sites that offer users more control over their data can deliver better privacy than those that don’t. While low-risk sites will allow you to delete and edit your information freely, some medical information that users provide to virtual clinics will still be out of reach. This is due to state-specific medical record retention laws, which can require health care entities to retain some records for up to 25 years.

Examining how much control companies give users over other information is a better proxy for understanding their general safety. While most of the providers we analyzed included data deletion protocols in their privacy policies, Choix and Hey Jane’s do not. In addition, the latter confirms that it retains data for an unspecified (“reasonable”) period of time.

While Wisp does offer a deletion protocol, it admits that requests can be refused for a variety of reasons, including “exercising free speech” and “internal and lawful uses” on behalf of itself or its affiliates. In addition to responding to requests, privacy-forward organizations will also proactively delete sensitive information, something Carafem does. However, Carafem does not specify a timeline or provide a general deletion request protocol. By contrast, Aid Access allows users to file deletion requests at will for most information.

Low Risk: Users can edit or delete data, Some Risk: Users can edit data, High Risk: Users cannot edit or delete data

Third-Party Sharing (Ads and Marketing)

Research scientist and privacy expert Razieh Nokhbeh Zaeem calls personally identifiable information the “currency of the internet” because of the myriad ways individualized data is collected, bought, and sold across industries. While almost all websites work with third parties in some way, telehealth companies should not sell or share your information with advertisers—but many do, as evidenced by Betterhelp’s recent settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.

If a company is collecting sensitive information and using it to market products and services to you, that presents some risk. If a company shares this information with other companies to support their marketing efforts, it’s a major red flag. As the Markup rightly points out in its privacy policy guide, mentions of “personalization” and “improving services” in these documents usually equate to ad tracking.

According to its privacy policy, Hey Jane uses personal data (and PII) to market its own services (“inform you about products”), while Carafem, Wisp, and Choix reserve the right to pass along information to third-party marketing partners. Choix’s policy claims that it “will never sell your data for third-party marketing purpose[s]” in one section but reserves the right to disclose data to its affiliates for “marketing” purposes in another.

Rather than limiting or removing the third-party trackers installed on their sites, some providers recommend that users generally opt out of cookie-based advertising within their policies, a strategy that is far from foolproof.

Low Risk: PII is not used for marketing or advertising, Some Risk: PII is used for marketing/advertising, High Risk: PII shared with third parties for marketing/advertising

The Bottom Line

In a post-Roe America, virtual abortion clinics provide an essential service, especially for people living in states that criminalize care. Early indicators have shown that they increase access to safe and effective abortion medications, but they don’t offer as much privacy as users are led to believe. With the exception of Aid Access, all of the providers we analyzed have a long way to go when it comes to protecting users’ privacy and earning their trust.

To manage risk when approaching these services (and accessing other information about abortion in hostile states), educators at the Digital Defense Fund recommend reducing your footprint by using privacy-forward search engines like DuckDuckGo, creating temporary email accounts for abortion care, and turning off location tracking on all of your devices.

While engaging in defensive tactics like these are practically useful, legal scholars like Gilman suggest that the reproductive justice movement will advance only when federal and state governments no longer rely on an outdated “notice and consent” paradigm for data privacy. “We need meaningful consent in the reproductive health space,” says Gilman. “Privacy policies today are more like adhesion contracts—suggesting that users ‘take it or leave it.’ It’s not realistic or fair to tell people they can’t engage with technology if they want to protect their privacy.”

Gilman recommends advocating at the state level for better privacy standards, especially if your representatives are considering new legislation. She also encourages people to demand increased protections from private companies, many of which are more flush with the “currency of the internet” than they would have us believe.

[jonnyparable]

Wakaba Forever

While I really enjoyed working through scenic Senbamachi, poor Wakaba presented quite a challenge with regards to how the lots are placed, but more on that later.

In the end, what I decided on for Wakaba was to add a little historical context. So Wakaba, being lower lying than the other hoods, (seeing as how there's rice growing here) was part of the modernisation and consequent rail expansion in 1900s Japan, and was part of a supply chain for Japan's industrial era, functioning as a lumbering and mining town. The town became successful and like many towns, started to Westernize, hence the mix of architectural styles.

Today the town is trying to modernise, and is going through intense gentrification to rely on tourism, which ties in nicely with the in-game narrative, and the tensions between new and old.

Ok oh boy here we go. So, first I changed the lame lounge lot into a Shrine, with an attached museum and gift shop, which makes alot more sense seeing as how it is next to the train station, and directly faces the mountain. This also gives more context as to why a massive strolling garden would be built there in the first place, as its part of the Shrine's compound. Not sure why an open mic comedy bar needed to be there obnoxiously sitting in the middle of the entire area's symmetry but it's gone now. In its place, there is now a lovely, more culturally appropriate focal point for the whole area.

So the rental lots in Wakabamori I had a real issue with. The designs were so bizarre and tacky, maybe that is the point, so no offence to the game changers who built them, they did their best, but the placement was strange too. They are in a park, basically, with shit access to the main road, and sitting on dirt, giving them a very rural feel, yet being just meters from a very manicured contemporary paved path, and behind a large urban plaza. It's all very odd. Houses in suburban to rural Japan are typically built very close together, wall to wall, or boundary to boundary. So this strange area honestly just perplexed me as to how they wanted this area to look. As it stands, the lots look more like shipping container shops or like a pop up mobile library your town does to encourage child literacy.

Ugh so I just decided to smother the area in large, thereby old, trees and shrubs, so the houses there felt less like pop up cafes, and where I landed is that the area is an older, up to now, forgotten part of town, and the three rental lots I decided to turn into old abandoned homes from the town's hey day, facing demolition if nothing can be done with them. With newer, uglier, modern (hood deco) houses built just next door, these houses are now central to the tension between Shigeru Nishidake and Naoki Ito, who both have very different plans for what should be done with them.

The first is the Potter's House. The house once belonged to a ceramicist, but has been empty for decades. The style here shows some blending of Western architecture a signature of the area, like the use of red brick for the kiln, and the additions to the side of the house, with the central house being older and more traditional.

And of course if we are talking about a mix of east and west, you have to have the Totoro house here. The house is known as the Poet's House, and once served as the private home of a well known writer in the region. After his death, he had no kin, and the property has been left to rot.

The third property is a very stately family home, once a large traditional home that a two storey western house extension was added onto. This was actually very common in Japan, with old houses having modern extensions where newer family members would stay. This house is the Doctor's House, and was once the home of the region's first practitioner of Western medicine and her family. The family has only recently abandoned the property, being too costly to maintain, and now live in the city. The house's fate, like the others, is now also hanging in the balance.

The last property, which started as the Ito family home, is now a ~farm~. I mean, come on, it's a huge lot, next to the river, furthest from town, and faces a rice padi. Why the Itos, who love to ski, would stay here and not on the mountain just did not make sense, maybe they take the train to commute I guess. But anyway, obviously I evicted their asses and they now live in the mountain, where they belong.

This farm is known as the Okawara farm, and has been neglected for years as well, following the death of the owner, who's grandson will now inherit the property. His success here will be where the gameplay will really start. The fate of the farm being central to what ends up happening to the whole area, surprise surprise.

And that's all for Wakaba for now. Sorry if this sounded salty but oh my god. Well anyway I'll share some stuff about Yukimatsu next, where I had a much easier time!

[armchairsoapbox]

So I went to look up the review and uh

“This album will surely get comparisons to Rupi Kaur’s poetry, either for its simplicity, empty language, commodification or all of the above.”

Rupi Kaur is a popular and yet incredibly vacuous poet and much of her output will make sense once you realise she was a business major.

This is going to be really good.

There is nothing poetic about a billionaire—who, mind you, threatens legal action against a Twitter account for tracking her destructive private jet paths—telling stadiums of thousands of people every night that she sees and adores them. Tavi Gevinson says it well in her Fan Fiction zine: “When 80,000 people are also crying, you become less special, too.” If Swift can return to one of her dozen beach houses across the world, kick up her feet and say “I’m a poet of struggle,” then who is to say that millions—maybe billions—of people with access to a notes app and a social media account won’t dream that dream, too? Maybe that looks like a net-positive, but it’s inherently damning and destructive to take an art form that has long stood on the shoulders of resistance, of love and of opposition to power, systematic injustice and climate warfare and boil it down to the new defining era of your own 10-digit revenue empire.

This is literally in the next paragraph and the reviewer is on fire.

The Tortured Poets Department title-track features some of Swift’s worst lyricism to-date, including the irredeemable, relentlessly cringe “You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate, we declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist / I scratch your head, you fall asleep like a tattooed golden retriever” lines glazed atop some synthesizers and drums that just ring in as hollow, unfascinating costuming. Aside from the Puth nod, which I can only discern as a joke (given the fact that he is one of the 150-most streamed artists in the world and is one of the blandest pop practitioners alive—I don’t care if he can figure out the pitch of any sound you throw at him), I think Antonoff should stick to guitar-playing. Get that man away from a keyboard, I’m begging you.

Out of curiosity I actually went to look this song up and while I can’t speak for the music - it’s just not my thing, so much so that I can’t even tell if it’s any good - the songwriting really is just not interesting to me. It’s still selling the same fairytale romantic myth. “Who’s going to hold you like me? / And who’s going to know you like me?” and “Everyone we know understands / why it’s meant to be / cause we’re… crazy” lady you wrote a song titled The Tortured Poets Department but it’s basically another Hallmark movie with window dressing.

I feel the whole “I can only discern [this] as a joke” is remarkably charitable given that there’s no indication of any kind of irony. I know there’s a distinction between the writer and the persona through which the writer speaks but saying an incredibly popular, very bland, very commercial artist should be even bigger is not an remotely a tortured poet thing to do. The Rupi Kaur comparison is holding up quite well.

But right now, it is obvious that Swift no longer feels challenged to be good. The Tortured Poets Department is the mark of an artist now interested in seeing how much their empire can atone for the sins of mediocrity.

Oof.

Please keep posting about this Taylor Swift situation. it's so entertaining and hilarious to me. It's not the drama it's the absurdity and ridiculousness of it all that has me hooked.

god theres sooooo many shenanigans that have happened over the years but if we’re talking right now, then uh, here is a story in pictures involving a (justified) bad review for her album

the extremely normal fandom is trying to doxx and harass literally every member of staff they can find at this publication. they were also tweeting gifs of exploding buildings at them and saying “this will be ur hq” and yeah, its likely jokes, but they’re flying pretty close to an investigation there lmao

[jeremy-durham]

TBA Programs Serving Tennessee Lawyers and Community

The Tennessee Bar Association (TBA) advances the state's legal field by ensuring its members' well-being, providing professional development opportunities, and enhancing the legal community and public ties. Its diverse membership, encompassing attorneys and law students, can benefit from various programs and services to become better practitioners.

Recognizing the unique challenges in the legal field, the association prioritizes attorney wellness through its dedicated committee. This group leads efforts to raise awareness and develop programs that promote well-being. Partnerships with groups such as the Mindfulness in Law Society, Institute for Well-Being in Law, and Center for Bar Leadership provide access to technical resources to support attorneys' mental, emotional, and financial health. Legal employer resources also exist to create a healthy, sustainable work environment.

The Access to Justice program, managed by a dedicated TBA committee, focuses on policies and initiatives that aid legal professionals and organizations in assisting vulnerable populations—poor, minority, and underserved—obtain legal help and navigate complex processes. One key initiative encourages corporate legal departments to participate in pro bono work. The Access to Justice program also organizes events such as Celebrate Pro Bono Month to highlight statewide efforts. The association also acknowledges outstanding contributions to public service through its awards program.

The TBA's disaster relief programs support lawyers and their communities. These initiatives coordinate aid from members to assist lawyers whose offices have been damaged or disrupted by disasters. The TBA also provides Tennessee attorneys with disaster resources to help survivors, especially with legal issues. Lawyers can also volunteer in affected areas by offering free consultations through legal clinics for victims.

The Public Education Committee enhances public understanding of the law and justice system through educational programs tailored to different age groups. These programs cover topics such as the Conservatorship Portal, which helps community members establish conservatorships through pro bono representation. "Aging Matters," another program, aims to improve the quality of life for seniors by addressing topics like caregiving and financial planning. Public education on voting, registration, and election resources helps Tennessee electorates understand the voting process, polling locations, registration status, and election results.

TBA's diversity, equity, and inclusion program aims to ensure that all legal professionals are free from bias or discrimination based on race or other factors. The association's website has numerous resources for diverse attorneys, employers, and legal organizations to learn about diversity and racial justice. These resources include educational materials, guidelines, and training opportunities to foster inclusive practices and promote racial justice within the legal community.

The Government Affairs team focuses on shaping the legal landscape through forging relationships with policymakers, particularly within the Tennessee legislature. This team engages directly with legislators, advocating for or against bills that impact the justice system and legal profession. The TBA also facilitates statewide attorney networks to amplify advocacy efforts on key legal issues.

Leadership development is integral to TBA's mission, as is evident in its Leadership Law Program (TBALL). This initiative cultivates the next generation of legal leaders, providing participants with vital leadership skills applicable to their professional and community roles. The program targets Tennessee attorneys with 5-15 years of experience. The 2024 TBALL class, comprising 35 lawyers from diverse backgrounds, commenced its journey in January.

The association's Mentoring Committee caters to both professional attorneys and those early in their careers, aiming to enhance proficiency in practice through mutually beneficial relationships. These relationships also help reduce the feelings of isolation that new practitioners often feel and help transfer knowledge and skills that translate into quality legal services to clients.

[aicerts0]

The Legal Industry is Changing Fast – Why AI Legal Certification is a Must-Have 

Artificial intelligence has been around for decades, but recent advancements have prompted legal professionals to consider the ethical integration of AI-powered tools into their practices.  

While some lawyers remain skeptical about AI in law due to potential risks, such as algorithmic bias, hallucinations, inaccuracies, and confidentiality concerns, the failure to understand and utilize AI could soon be seen as a deficiency in legal representation. AI holds the promise of increased efficiency, workflow optimization, and strategic planning, helping lawyers quickly draft motions, briefs, contracts, and settlement agreements.  

In this blog, we will explore the evolution of AI in law, applications, AI skills, and the emerging legal technology trends while emphasizing the importance of AI legal certification for staying competitive and ethical in the evolving legal industry. 

The Evolution of the Legal Industry 

According to American Bar Association “We can channel the power of generative AI into our present systems and processes to create more robust law firms that can deliver better legal services to more people who need legal services.”  

The legal industry has always been a cornerstone of societal structure, ensuring justice and order. The methods and tools used in legal practice have remained relatively unchanged for decades. Historically, these tasks have been time-consuming. However, AI is starting to have an impact on law firms and legal innovation, despite the legal sector’s historical resistance to embracing new technologies.  

By automating repetitive processes like legal research and analysis, document management, and billing, artificial intelligence in law firms may significantly improve productivity and reduce costs for your business.  

The advent of technology, particularly AI, has introduced new possibilities and efficiencies previously unimaginable. This is why it is becoming important for legal practitioners to upskill themselves and apply their skills in the legal setting. 

Generative AI enhances legal research, speeds up contract evaluation, and automates the drafting of legal documents. It also improves client communication through AI chatbots, accelerates case analysis, and supports predictive analytics for more effective litigation strategies. 

Here are the 10 ways AI is transforming law firms: 

E-discovery: This technique quickly extracts relevant, non-privileged material for cases by scanning electronic data. It is much faster than manual document examination, allowing attorneys to find pertinent information more efficiently.  

Legal Research: Large datasets, such as legislation, regulations, and case laws, are scanned and searched using AI-powered systems. These resources assist attorneys in swiftly doing thorough research, saving clients’ time and money.  

Automation and Document Management: AI-powered software saves and arranges legal documents, making them more accessible. Intelligent templates are used in document automation to produce papers quickly and effectively, saving time and effort.  

Due Diligence: AI technologies scan massive number of documents quickly, recognizing clauses and variants. This decreases the amount of manual work necessary for document examination, allowing attorneys to focus on other important activities. 

Contract Review: AI legal software like those from Lawgeex, Klarity, and Clearlaw automate contract review using natural language processing (NLP). These systems help identify agreeable and problematic aspects of contracts, reducing manual effort and errors. Companies like eBay, SalesForce, and Home Depot use AI-powered contract review services. 

Contract Analytics: NLP-powered solutions from firms like Seal Software and Kira Systems extract and evaluate critical data from contracts. These tools help sales, procurement, and finance departments manage contracts efficiently and stay compliant. 

Litigation Prediction: AI models predict case outcomes based on factual patterns and relevant precedents, aiding law firms in preparing litigation strategies, speeding up settlements, and reducing trial cases. For instance, Blue J Legal’s AI-powered legal prediction engine, which focuses on tax law, exemplifies how AI can be leveraged in legal practice. This technology is also a significant aspect of AI legal consulting, helping firms provide more accurate and efficient legal services. 

Predictive Coding: AI-assisted review technology speeds up e-disclosure processes. Predictive coding software classifies documents based on relevance, improving efficiency in document review. 

Chatbots / Lawyer Bots: AI chatbots like DoNotPay, Automio, and BillyBot provide legal assistance and automate routine tasks. These bots help predict case outcomes, prepare documents, and generate invoices. 

Accelerate Due Diligence: AI platforms streamline the due diligence process, reducing time and improving accuracy. These tools verify figures and facts from previous cases, aiding legal practitioners. 

Law businesses may use AI to improve their operations, minimize human work, and focus on providing higher-value services to their clients, eventually transforming the profession of law. 

Essential Generative AI Skills for In-House Lawyers 

In-house lawyers can greatly benefit from integrating generative AI into their workflows. Here are some key skills that can enhance efficiency and effectiveness: 

Database Search: Utilize generative AI to search through internal documents, such as contracts and compliance records. The AI system can prepare a memo summarizing findings and provide bookmarks to the sources. 

Document Review: Employ AI to extract relevant information from documents to answer specific queries, highlighting the pages where the information was found. 

Contract Compliance Analysis: Analyze internal and third-party contracts against company policies, with automated redlining for amendments. 

Contract Data Extraction: Use AI to locate specific details within contracts and compile a memo with the necessary information. 

Summarization: Generate comprehensive summaries of large, complex documents after thorough analysis. 

Deposition Preparation: Create initial outlines of topics and questions for witness depositions or pre-trial examinations. 

Event Timeline Creation: Develop a chronology of events from a set of documents, including the ability to read handwriting and perform OCR scanning. 

Drafting Correspondence: Assist in drafting professional correspondence efficiently and accurately. 

Challenges and Considerations 

Accuracy and Reliability: AI-generated content can sometimes be inaccurate, requiring careful human oversight. For instance, an attorney used ChatGPT to draft a legal brief, which included fabricated case citations. 

Bias: AI models can reflect biases present in their training data, potentially leading to biased outcomes. 

Confidentiality: Ensuring that AI tools do not compromise client confidentiality or attorney-client privilege is crucial. 

Real-World Impact of AI in Legal Practice 

Several law firms and legal departments are already reaping the benefits of AI technologies. Here are some illustrative examples of AI in legal practice from the Harvard Law School: 

AI in Legal Research and Document Review: AI tools have significantly reduced the time required for legal research and document review. For instance, AI can review thousands of documents in a fraction of the time it would take a human, increasing efficiency by up to 80%. 

AI in Contract Management: AI tools like those used by large law firms have streamlined contract analysis and management. These tools can identify key terms, ensure compliance, and highlight potential risks, reducing the time spent on contract review by 60%. 

Predictive Analytics: AI’s ability to analyze past case outcomes has improved the accuracy of predicting case results. This has helped lawyers develop more effective strategies and advise clients more accurately, with prediction accuracy rates improving by up to 70%. 

Client Interaction and Support: AI chatbots and virtual assistants are being used to handle routine client inquiries and schedule appointments. This has freed lawyers to focus on more complex tasks, improving overall client service and reducing response times by 50%. 

These examples illustrate the transformative potential of AI in the legal field, emphasizing both the opportunities for increased efficiency and the need for careful oversight to ensure accuracy and ethical use. 

Key Trends Shaping the Legal Field 

The legal technology landscape is evolving rapidly, driven by several key trends: 

Automation: AI-powered automation technologies are transforming the field by handling repetitive tasks such as document review, legal research, and contract analysis. This enhances productivity and allows legal professionals to focus on more strategic duties. 

Cloud-Native Solutions: These solutions offer greater flexibility, scalability, and security, significantly improving legal practices. They enable seamless access to legal resources and data from anywhere, facilitating better collaboration and efficiency. 

Virtual Legal Assistants: These assistants are becoming increasingly sophisticated, managing client correspondence, scheduling, and providing basic legal assistance. They help streamline administrative tasks, allowing lawyers to dedicate more time to complex legal matters. 

These trends are reshaping the legal field, making it more efficient and adaptable to the demands of modern practice. 

Conclusion 

In conclusion, the integration of AI into the legal industry is not just a trend but a fundamental shift that is reshaping the future of law. With AI expertise, legal practitioners may deliver more advanced and efficient services, resulting in increased customer satisfaction and a competitive advantage. 

As the legal business quickly advances, AI certification becomes increasingly important for staying current, providing a systematic path to acquiring the necessary skills and knowledge.