#and that this somehow saves ryan and brings the professor back

[treasonousoracle]

are you by any chance watchers gen z social media manager? that is the only way i can explain you knowing literally everything before it happens

i am not but i’m honored you’d think that

[geniepuppet]

Asmodeus had to have some part in saving them from the asteroid, right?

We hear the beats of the song "Asmodeus" (A-S-M-O-D-E-U-S) (Demonic Possessions of Loudon) at the end of the finale song (and right as we see Ryan grab the lamp, alluding to the Genie and his previous deal - and thus Asmodeus), ending RIGHT BEFORE the asteroid is supposed to have hit the Dino-family

The Dreadful Demise of the Dinosaurs

I think this either alludes to the fact that Asmodeus was the original means of getting The Professor to the Cretaceous Period (via forced Genie wish) AND/OR that Asmodeus somehow also got them out of there, which is where my theory begins

The Genie himself said that wishing to bring them back should've worked, meaning that whatever wish was made was not able to be granted

But what if it didn't work (at least immediately) because they were already somehow on their way back? That, by bringing them back by themself, Asmodeus voided that that wish could be granted in the first place because The Professor was already out of the Cretaceous?

Another note of interest is that The Professor himself didn't find a way to get out of the Cretaceous Period on his own. Even he's confused when he appears back in modern times, meaning he didn't time travel his way back - we know that he has something in his satchel that allowed him to time travel, but 1) he has a new satchel and 2) he didn't reach inside it to time travel (like he did in The Great Molasses Flood)

Asmodeus themself said they were born "in the time before time," (Demonic Possessions of Loudon) meaning that Asmodeus still existed back in the Cretaceous Period, meaning this could be plausible

This would also explain how the Dino-parents are also in modern times alongside The Professor, because Ryan couldn't have wished for them to come back - he didn't even know about them. Maybe, if Asmodeus was involved, they also brought the Dino-parents back because they noticed The Professor being close with them (hugging in what they believed were their last moments) or they were just in the same vicinity as The Professor and got picked up by being nearby him

Another small note that may or may not be important is the constant referencing to the bird that's chirping, first brought up by Dino-mom. It's what sings the last 2 notes of Asmodeus perfectly in-time with what it had been doing in previous episodes (America's First Black Aviatrix) and was drawn to attention when we first cut to The Professor being already hatched (Vietnamese Sisters). Maybe Asmodeus had been posing as or possessing that bird in order to keep watch over The Professor (and thus the Dino-family)?

Tl;dr: The likelihood of Asmodeus being involved in saving The Professor and his Dino-family is definitely a possibility and is alluded to by the end of the finale song beats, bird chirps, and context clues

Also, knowing Shane, foreshadowing, "coincidence," and "meaningless" details are important

[gcldenhr]

Introducing ✿ * · juliette ryan || twenty four || florist

pinterest

hi all! im allie! i go by she/her pronouns and i’m from the cst timezone. i’m super excited to be here and write with everyone! feel free to like this and i can come to you about plots! 

a  little  birdy  told  me  JULIETTE  RYAN  just  moved  to  sunset  hills. have  you  met  them  yet  ?  they  look  somewhere  around  TWENTY - FOUR,  if  i  had  to  guess  !  pretty  sure  i  heard  them  driving  down  the  street  playing  RECKLESS  DRIVING  by  LIZZY  MCALPINE  ,  they  sounded  a  little  pitchy  but  they  had  the  spirit  !  must  be  their  favorite  or  something. hey  …  it  looks  like  they  just  moved  into  DUSK  DRIVE  . have  you  heard  about  what  they  do  for  a  living  ?  someone  told  me  they’re  a  FLORIST  ,  but  who  knows  if  that’s  even  true. guess  we’re  just  gonna  have  to  wait  and  see. nervous  ?  maybe  you  should  be. sunset  speaks  just  posted  about  them  …  apparently  they're  RESIDENT  ID  #013  ?  between  you  and  me  ,  i  think  that  might  spark  some  things  in  the  community  …  but  what  do  i  know !  you  guys  might  get  along  just  fine  !

quick facts: full name: juliette elizabeth ryan nickname: jules, julie birth date: march 15 age: 24 hobbies: reading, writing, music how she would spend a rainy day: curled up in bed with soft music playing in the background as she reads or curled up on the couch with the fireplace going and binge-watching a good show or guilty pleasure show/movie. spending habits: juliette is a strong believer in the ‘treat yourself’ philosophy so she’s not great with saving. Smokes: too much. tried to quit, but quickly started back drinks: she’s a social drinker, but loves a good cider at home. an absolute whore for a good margarita. other drugs: occasional weed.

juliette has always been quite well off. she was an only child in a well off family in manhattan. her mother and father both loved each other and had a decently happy marriage.

her parents challenged jules to work hard for what she wanted. they always pushed her to be a better version of herself and to always at least try for what seemed like unattainable. 

around the age of nineteen, juliette moved to Cali with her cousin. They split the cost of an apartment and started school together. jules wanted to be a writer. it was something unattainable, but it was the strongest desire she had ever had. she worked her ass off in her classes, always looking for ways to improve her skill. 

apartments cost money and jules was running low. she never was able to save very well. she found a help wanted sign in a small florist shop and even though she had no experience, she applied. she has been working at ‘petal and bloom’ ever since. 

juliette has been writing under a pen name. something one of her professors challenged her to do to gain more confidence in her writing. Well, he didn’t exactly say to write under a pen name. he just told her she needs to get her writing out there... the pen name was more her idea. 

she has her own instagram where she reviews books and somehow gained enough of a following to have a few fans on an email list. on this email list, she gives them exclusive previews of the novel she’s currently writing. 

headcanons: 

jules is a big softy. she embodies kindness and compassion and brings comfort to every room she enters. pretty much a friend to all.

she’s a bit of a people pleaser.. therefore its pretty easy for her to fall into peer pressure. 

her music taste is impeccable and she knows it. everything from the 60s to now. her playlist is all over the place, but it’s got something for everyone on it. 

she smokes.. more than she should. she tries to hide it. she knows its an awful habit, but she started when she was seventeen and its been more of a stress relief than anything. she also will occasionally smoke weed, but typically only in the company of good friends or at a party. 

the THINGS she would do for a good ass margarita.. i mean who wouldn’t but omg 

been in maybe 3 serious relationships?? the first being in high school, the second being at around 20, and the third being around 22. its not that she isn’t good with relationships, but she hasn’t found one that stuck. been in TONS of situationships bless her heart. 

[jj-lynn21]

You will remember things that we never said ch 3

Warning: flirting, fluff?, angst, jealousy

 Dolly Trauma Songs: Fade into you (cover)   Alastis: , Sky May Fahl , Stitch  

ch 1, ch 2   ch 4  ch 5  ch 6  ch 7

Stephanie is in the art building after another class. She sees Axel in passing. She smiles. He nods stopping.

“Zeigeist is playing Thursday and Saturday night, you coming?” Axel asks.

Stephanie shrugs, “Most, probably.” She thinks, who in the hell says most, probably.

“Well, I hope so.” He darts into the bathroom.

Stephanie is flying high emotionally as she steps outside to the sunshiny crisp day. Her sunglasses come out of her hoodie pocket to cover her sensative eyes. Her legs feel weak the more she thinks about Axel hoping to see her. Of course, she does realize it is another five dollars at the door and that is how his band gets paid. But maybe its just a little more.

That evening she catches Bella as soon as she come in from class, “Hey, you want to go see Zeigeist Thursday and Saturday.”

“Since Dark Breed is also playing those shows, I’m in.” Bella stated drably not nearly as excited as Stephanie.

Stephanie is unfocused as she tries to read her history lesson. Axel had her core aching like she had never known without even touching her today. Barely talking to her really. She decided to work on his portrait. Her tongue stuck out the corner of her lips as she focused to get his eyes just right. She worked on it a few hours. She was lost in thought sitting on her bed trying to per-fect his look, which she knew was impossible really, when Bella knocked on her bedroom door.

“You going to your afternoon class today?” Bella had her arms crossed across her chest and legs crossed at the ankles as she leaned against the door jam. “I didn’t think you ever skipped.”

Stephanie looked up at her, glanced at her cellphone, “Oh fuck. I’m going to be late.” She tossed the picture aside. “Thanks Bella.”

“Watch getting so wrapped up in um,” Bella glances at the drawing. “Your studies.”

“Sure thing,” Stephanie runs out the door to class after grabbing her bag.

Stephanie made it to class a second before the professor walks in and started his discussion about sculptures in ancient Greece. She rushes to the closest seat in the back of the room sitting and grabbing a notebook to start taking notes.

Since she is in the back Axel sees her writing madly to catch up. He stops to take in how she looks in such a flustered state. Then he moves on just as she looks up to see him go past. She tries to shake off the thoughts in her mind so she can try to concentrate on taking notes.

After class Stephanie heads to the student union to grab coffee and dinner. As she walks in one door, Axel is walking out the other side. They don’t notice each other. She walks out the same door he did and heads to her next class eating and drinking in route. 

She has two more classes before going back to her and Bella’s dorm for the evening. Stephanie and Axel pass each other many more times through the rest of the week without even realizing it most of the time. Or one sees the other without both parties seeing each other. Its fates cosmic joke perhaps.

Thursday rolls around. Stephanie finds herself to excited to really study. But she does finish Axel’s portrait for Monday. At eight-thirty that evening her and Bella walk to Hide & Seek for the show. Todd is taking money at the door. He waves her in at no change.

Todd whispers, “Just don’t tell anyone.”

Stephanie nods. She thinks, there goes the theory Axel wanted me here just for another five dollars through the door. She hears Drake, the drummer for Zeitgeist, warming up as her and Bella grab beers at the bar. She drags Bella to the front of the stage with her. Todd and Tyson join Drake warming up. Stephanie’s heart beats faster waiting for Axel to appear. Zeitgeist starts the music for their first song of the evening, Alastis. The Mosh pit circles each other. Bella and others watch the pit guarding Stephanie from becoming part of that scene as her big blue doe eyes fixate on Axel as he comes out and grabs the Mic. This is one of the band’s heaver songs.

“Now I got the time to watch you run(watch you), I can’t see what’s made you afraid, see I have my cynical side, save my fingers up, make you shake, go on, go on…COWARD!..” 

The pit goes nuts. Stephanie screams along with others.

Axel continues, “ Now I got the time to think for us, sacrificing all the control, you do nothing passionately (As I like), such endorphins I need in soul, What I write, I say, what I write…I keep true, I keep it real, it real, What I write, I say…” He leans down with the Mic looking right at Stephanie. “Still I wanna go down and take you there.” He stands looking back out to the audience while the band rips into the songs heavy sounds as Stephanie’s core tightens and lets loose juices dampening her panties. “Got time to fuck me, but you got no time to fuck me. I can’t believe the faces that you think you fake. Why go out tonight, why stay home…I stay home.”

“I’m going to slow things down,” Axel said to the crowd. “You guys and I see a few chicks involved to, are fucking monsters in the pit. We don’t perform to many covers, but we’ve fucked around with this one over the week. It’s called Fade into You  . He turns his back to the crowd of screaming fans, mumbles into the mic, “for Stephanie.”  

Stephanie’s eyes widen. Bella shakes her head like this is the worst idea Axel ever had.

 Axel starts singing with his back to the crowd. “I want to hold the hand inside you, I want to take a breath that's true, I look to you and I see nothing, I look to you to see the truth, You live your life, you go in shadows, You'll come apart and you'll go black, Some kind of night into your darkness, Colors your eyes with what's not there” 

Stephanie’s eyes are closed as she rocks back and forth singing along. Axel turns around, “Fade into you, Strange you never knew, Fade into you, I think it's strange you never knew, A stranger's light comes on slowly, A stranger's heart without a home, You put your hands into your head, And then smiles cover your heart…”

 Axel kneels in front of Stephanie. “Fade into you, Strange you never knew…” She opens her eyes seeing him there with his eyes closed singing. She closes her eyes again just feeling the moment through her entire body, “Fade into you, I think it's strange you never knew…”

He stands to finish the song. After Axel finishes, he disappears off the side of the stage. Stephanie wants to go check on him but there is no way for her to get through the sea of people. Todd puts his guitar and amp to the side off stage as Dark Breed setup for their set.

He grabs a few beers before making his way to Stephanie, “Hey, Steph.” She turns around to him. He hands her a beer. “Axel wanted to stay to hangout after the show, but he wasn’t feeling well so took off already. He wasn’t feeling well all day but didn’t want to disappoint you, so we still played.”

“Oh, it’s cool,” Stephanie acted like it didn’t faze her. “Is he going to be ok?”

“Yeah, he’ll be fine to sing Saturday.” Todd informed her. “Oh, let me get your number so Axel can message you the address for the club we’re playing Saturday. It’s a dive bar in the middle of nowhere called Cigs.”

Todd takes a piece of paper and pen from his pocket. Stephanie writes her info on it.

“Take care of him tonight Todd,” She was concerned.

Todd chuckled, “Will do. You are to sweet for this scene. Be careful. That pits about to get ignited.”

Bella walks up between Stephanie and Todd. “Axel already ditch her?”

Todd ignored Bella’s comment. “I’ll catch you later Steph.”

“See you guys Saturday night,” Stephanie decided to ignore Bella’s comment also.

Ryan came over as the heavy metal sound of Dark Breed started to thunder. “Hey, girls. Can I get you a few more beers?”

Stephanie finished the one she had, “Sure Ryan, thanks.”

Bella nodded she wanted one or more also. She held up five fingers.

Somehow, he got through the crowd and back with a buck of beers. The three of them sucked them down as they jumped around to the pounding music. Stephanie and Bella were laughing as they held each other. Several big guys stood between them and the frantic chaos going on in the pit. At some point, Stephanie wasn’t sure how or why, she was holding Ryan’s shirt as he flung around into others in the pit.

The three of them walked back to the dorms together. Stephanie and Bella hanging on each other. Ryan’s hands in his pockets on the opposite side of Stephanie as Bella. He was watching her laugh and smiling. 

“Did you see when Axel was actually in my face singing to me?” Stephanie’s body was on fire just thinking about it. Her eyes glossed over with intoxication.

“He should have never done that. “Bella spat on the ground disgusted how easily Stephanie was buying what Axel was selling.

“Well, he did so there is nothing you can do about it now.” Stephanie laughed.

Ryan looked away not wanting to hear yet another girl he liked fawn over Axel. He parted company with the girls as soon as he walked them safely to their dorm building. “I’ll catch you later.”

They both giggled, “Catch you later Ryan.”

Soon after they got in their bedroom, they crashed out cold. The sunlight streaming through Stephanie’s open curtain mid-afternoon hit her like sledgehammer. She cried out while pulling her hot pink comforter over her pounding head. She hears Bella stumbling around outside her door.

 Stephanie can’t remember the last time she had a hangover this bad. She jumped up as her stomach lurched. The room was spinning. She held the wall as she got to the restroom to puke as quickly as she could. She almost didn’t make it. Bella came in with ginger ale and aspirin. She held Stephanie’s hair back.

When she got Stephanie tucked back in bed she turned to leave, “I’ll bring you a bagel.”

“And coffee,” Stephanie mumble. “Strong, sweet, coffee.”

Bella laughed, “Alright Steph.”

“I need to study,” Stephanie grumbled her eyes barely open.

“Rest one more hour,” Bella left.

Stephanie might have dozed back off for a half hour when her cellphone buzzed with a message. She looked at it and sat right up.

      Axel:

      What’s up Stephanie. Its Axel.

      Stephanie:

      Hey, Axel. How are you feeling today? Todd said you left sick last night.

      Axel:

       I’m fine. Ate something yesterday that didn’t agree with me.

      Stephanie:

       Glad you’re feeling better

       Axel:

      Thanks, have to get back to work but here is the address for Saturday.

        1521 North outreach

        Stephanie:

        Thanks  

        Axel: ttyl

Stephanie gets up slowly. She grabs her rob to take  in to  put on after she gets a shower. Her head isn’t throbbing as much. Her stomach is only a little upset. After her hot shower washes what is left on her from last night, she drinks a few sips of a ginger ale. She opens one of her books to start studying.

Bella comes back with a bagel and coffee for Stephanie. “How you doing, babe?” She puts the coffee and bagel by Stephanie.

“I’m ok now, “She takes a nibble of the bagel and a gulp of coffee. “This should help wake me up more to study.”

“Good, I should study a little to.” Bella grabbed a book from her bag. “There is a horror movie starting tonight. We are going with Albre and Ryan, cool?”

“Yeah, sure.” She flips the full page of notes to the next empty page.

The evening rolls around and they walk to the local theater. Everyone is chatting along the way. Ryan is do his best to keep Stephanie laughing. After they grab some snacks Stephanie turns around and sees Axel a few steps away.

“Hi Axel,” She smiles at him.

He gives her no emotion in return which she senses is his normal response in most situations. Its one of the reasons she is fascinated with him. She can’t read him at all. Usually she reads people pretty well. “I’m here with Albre, Bella and Ryan.”

He just nods. Ryan offers his hand to shake. Axel almost breaks it as he stares him down. He turns away and goes in the theater with the guys he is there with. Ryan makes her laugh during an intense part of the movie. Axel glances at them seeing Ryan put his arm around her and Ryan’s hand sliding up her leg. He looks away fuming.

Stephanie drives Bella, Albre and Ryan to this show. The bar is at the end of a dark street. Only a field for parking around it. They are running a little late. Stephanie pulls everyone with her to the front where her eyes attack Axel. He focuses on everyone else in the audience as he starts performing even though he did see her out of the corner of his eye with Ryan, Albre and Bella around her.

“This is Sky May Fahl “ Axel screams. The crowd hoots and hollers. “God gave you legs, you got to find your way out, don’t call my name, I couldn’t care less, got to find your way out, This doesn’t fit your phony needs, got to find your way out, Another drink for everything, got to find your way out,NOW REALIZE I CARE, We could never be honest, we could never be have, like some father’s illusion, we don’t have to pretend. God gave you friends, some walked away, got to find your way out, Don’t call my name I couldn’t care less, got to find your way out. Suck up to them, suck up to me, got to find your way out, another drink for everything, got to find your way out. NOW REALIZE I CARE…We’ve come a long long way child, don’t want to miss you now…You went to Hell, you took it well, got to find your way out…don’t dissipate, don’t look to fade, got to find your way out, this boring day, this belly ache, got to find your way out, The sunrise remind you all of which way the sky will Fall…And I don’t care what you are…”

Axel throws the mic down making a loud distortion as he bolts off stage through the back.

Stephanie pushes her way through the crowd. She goes out the side door around the back of the building. Axel is banging his head against the wall not hard enough to bust his head open but hard enough to cause himself pain.

“What the Hell was that Axel,” Stephanie screamed her ears still ringing from the loud music. “Are you alright?”

“Get the fuck back inside Steph,” He stopped banging his head but stared at the wall. “You don’t really fucking care anyway.”

“What do you mean I don’t fucking care?” She didn’t have any idea why he was so angry.

“You can whore around with anyone you want,” He turned spitting the words at her. “But I don’t take sloppy seconds. I don’t share like that. So, go back in there with Ryan. I know you came with him.”

“What the fuck Axel?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “First I don’t know where you get off thinking I fucked Ryan and…”

“He had his hands all over you at the movies,” Axel glared at her. “He was making you laugh, and he was groping you and you fucking let him, you bitch.”

“Hold the fuck up Axel. I know what you thought you saw. Why the fuck were you watching anyway and stopped watching right before I grabbed his hand off my thigh and went to sit on the other side of my friends. And my second thing is I don’t want him; I want you, you asshole.” She leans against the wall, “You’re such a fucking dick.”

Axel leans his body onto hers against the wall as he takes her face in his hands making her look up at him. “You didn’t want him to touch you?”

Tears stream down her face, “No, I just want you to touch me.” Her lip quivers.

“I’m a fucking dick,” He leans down closer. “I’m sorry Stephanie, I’m such a jealous fucking dick.”

He kisses her deeply. Her hands ride along his waist.

“Hey, Axel,” Mick screams from the back entrance. “You going to finish your set or are we switching out?”

Axel rest his forehead on Stephanie’s both their eyes closed. “Go get in your spot babe. I need to do one more song for the masses. I’ll come get you when we are done.” He wipes her tears away before heading back inside, “I’m coming, startup Stitch. I got some shit to get out of my system.”

Stephanie composes herself the best she can before going inside.

Bella is waiting at the door. She notices Stephanie’s puffy red eye, “Are you alright baby girl?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She attempts a smile but doesn’t quite have a complete one in her yet. “Let’s go up front where I’m suppose to be for Axel.” She gets right where he can see her. He nods his approval before ripping into the song.

After, they sit on a sofa in the back corner.  Stephanie lays on Axel’s shoulder. Most that go by nod a hello. Axel drinks a beer as he runs his hand through Stephanie’s wavy hair. 

“Your such a pretty girl Stephanie,” He’s starting to slur his words a little. 

“Thanks Axel,” She knows he was the one that said that first when others were calling her pretty. 

Todd comes over and sits by Axel. “Everyone good back here?”

“Yeah, Man, we’re cool now.” He leans over and kisses Stephanie softly.

“You driving him home Todd,” She was concerned since Axel seemed to drunk to drive.

“Yeah, I got him Steph.” He took Axel’s beer. “Hey bud let’s take off. We both have normal jobs in the morning.”

Everyone filtered out of the club. Stephanie was the only one awake as she drove Bella, Albre and Ryan home.

[nancygduarteus]

What Are Active-Shooter Drills Doing to Kids?

There’s always at least one kid in tears, as they huddle under their desks in the dark. Still Beth Manias, an early-elementary literacy teacher outside of Seattle, tries to act upbeat and relaxed.

“I have them whisper about their favorite candy, dinner, books, movies—whatever, as a distraction,” Manias told me. She tells the kids they’re practicing to stay safe in case there’s ever a bear on campus. Though, she admits, “They always see through this. The older they get, the more savvy they become, probably because they are exposed to more of the news.”

At schools across the country, more children are taking part in mandatory “active-shooter drills.” Forgoing any pretense of a bear, sometimes a faculty member plays the role of a shooter, jiggling doorknobs as children practice keeping perfectly silent. Many parents, teachers, and students say that the experience is somewhere between upsetting and traumatizing.

Which may be worthwhile, if it were clear that the drills saved lives.

Active-shooter drills came into existence after the Columbine massacre in 1999. What is known of their long-term psychological effects comes from the reports of people now in early adulthood.

Ryan Marino, an emergency-medicine physician at the University of Pittsburgh, recalled that his school had adopted the drills during that period, after a student was found to have a “death list” and access to guns. He told me the drills didn’t seem real until he was 12, and a fellow student coughed during one of the drills. “The teacher told us that if this had been real, we would all be dead.”

“That single experience shaped my childhood,” Marino said. “Having to practice and prepare for a peer coming to my school and shooting at me and my friends was something that really changed the overall atmosphere. Looking back, it was a major shift in how the world felt.”

In the two weeks since the shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, new and renewed calls for such drills raise the question of whether they do any good—and if they might be doing harm.

The day after the event, Susan Hennessey, the executive editor of Lawfare, tweeted: “Feeling mildly nauseous reading a note from my kid’s preschool about implementing active-shooter drills.”

Brian Leff, a writer in Los Angeles, told me his fifth-grade daughter’s principal just announced the school is contemplating a surprise lockdown drill. “Now my daughter can’t stop thinking about when it’s going to happen and how she’ll know if it’s ‘real’ or not.”

The writer Allison Gibson says that at her 4-year-old son’s preschool, they’re called “self-control drills,” because the goal is to get the students very quiet. “The first time he mentioned it, when he was 2, I had to piece together what he was referring to, and it nearly broke me.”

Of course, general lockdown and disaster drills have a long history; a generation of Americans came of age hiding under desks from nuclear bombs. While the idea of such a maneuver protecting a person from a bomb blast or nuclear fallout became fodder for jokes, the drills themselves had insidious effects on kids’ senses of safety. Some teachers reported that students’ artwork changed to feature mushroom clouds and sometimes the child’s own death, bringing a pervasive sense of danger into the places where kids most need to feel safe.

Despite some similarities to natural-disaster and Cold War drills, active-shooter drills also mean exposing kids to the idea that at any point, someone they know may try to kill them.

“It’s good to do emergency drills, but active shooters are not a drill anyone should have to do,” says Meredith Corley, who taught math in Colorado in the aftermath of Columbine. “It re-traumatizes kids who have experienced violence. Getting the kids settled back into the work of learning after lockdown drills is a nightmare. That mind-set has no place in a learning environment.”

“I was slightly too young for bomb drills, but in greater Kansas City, tornado drills were de rigueur,” says Lily Alice, a Midwesterner born in 1965. “We did have tornados now and then. The difference, of course, is that no one stockpiles them to use against other people, and weather forecasts mitigated some fear.”

Even President Trump, who has expressed support for arming teachers, has warned against active-shooter drills. During a White House meeting last week, he said, “If I’m a child and I’m 10 years old, and they say we’re going to have an active-shooter drill, I say, ‘What’s that?’ ‘Well, people may come in and shoot you’—I think that’s a very negative thing ... to be honest. I don’t like it.”

Zachary Levinsky, a lecturer in the department of sociology at the University of Toronto at Mississauga, is one of few academics who has studied active-shooter drills. He argues that though some school violence always existed, Columbine marked a shift of the burden of prevention: “Schools were somehow positioned as blamable—as responsible for these massacres.” This created an institutional concern for reputational risk management. To implement something like an active-shooter drill was to signal to parents and the community that the school is being proactive—it was doing something.

Of course, a demand for action does not often make for prudent decisions when it comes to harm reduction. Drills cover administrator and school-district liability, and they may make parents feel better knowing that their kids are in a school that’s taking decisive action. But what are the longer-term effects on the children’s health and development?

Studies of whether active-shooter drills actually prevent harm are all but impossible. Case studies are difficult to parse. In Parkland, for example, the site of the recent shooting, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, had an active-shooter drill just last month. The shooter had been through such drills. Purposely countering them may have been a reason that, as he was beginning his rampage, the shooter pulled a fire alarm.

In any case, preparedness drills always change the baseline level of risk that people perceive. This heightening can manifest as stress and anxiety, not to mention changing the way kids understand how people treat one another—to even consider violence an option, not in some abstract way.

Colleen Derkatch, an associate professor at Ryerson University in Toronto, studies how we assess risk when it comes to our health. “The more prepared we are, the more heightened our sense of risk,” she told me. “And one potential effect we haven’t considered is how these kinds of preparedness activities affect kids psychologically, and could increase a sense of feeling at risk. They really expand the ways in which we feel increasingly under siege.”

Preparedness activities, that is, are never neutral. Derkatch’s work relates this concept to the anxiety wrought by a culture of “wellness” products, which are ostensibly meant to keep us healthy, but also enhance our awareness of health risks. “They give us a sense that we’re all constantly on the edge of illness,” Derkatch told me. “Preparedness can be a good thing, but it has very real costs and consequences. For children whose personalities are just forming—who are figuring out what kind of world they live in—if this is the input they get, I think it will have a significant impact down the road.”

The idea extends to the fact that a child is much more likely to be abused by a parent than shot in school; but there would be obvious limits to the value of putting kids through realistic simulations in which a parent turns on them.

Derkatch has an 11-year-old daughter who is in the sixth grade. In her school, they’ve done lockdown drills, but the drills are the sort that are generalizable to any emergency. The teachers are very clear that it’s just a drill, and they lock the doors, and kids stay in their seats. There’s no hiding or barricading, as many schools in the United States now require.

If you were to move to the United States, I asked Derkatch, would you want your daughter going through these sorts of drills?

“No,” she said. “But I wouldn’t move to the United States. And guns are the reason why. Guns and health care.”

The two are, of course, now intertwined. President Trump and many other Republicans have a penchant for blaming “mental illness” for mass shootings—even though most shooters have no known or diagnosable mental illness. People who are mentally ill are much more likely to be victims than murderers. Most are rather, like the shooter in Parkland, described as isolated, troubled, angry, resentful men and boys. Many have a history of childhood trauma, like being abused or neglected. It is rare that a shooter has come up in an environment with multiple adults on whom they could rely—where they felt safe and secure.

A sense of safety and security in childhood is integrally tied to mental and physical health later in life—as well as emotional wellbeing, and the formation of the coping mechanisms that allow a person to deal with later adversity in ways that do not involve killing. It is this sense that can be undermined sometimes even by the best of intentions.

“Kids perceive the world generally as a bit of a dangerous place now because of how they tend to be closely supervised at almost all times,” said Derkatch. “If you look at the proposals in the United States, it sounds like they’re trying to make schools an awful lot like prisons, with monitored perimeters and armed guards and possibly armed teachers. You could extrapolate from the experiences of kids living in potentially violent situations, where you never know what’s going to happen. That does have a profound impact on kids.”

“I will never be able to explain it well, but losing a feeling of safety as a child, especially at school, is a major thing,” said Marino, the emergency physician who was terrified to cough. “Anyone who has not gone through school with active-shooter drills can never understand what it feels like.”

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/02/effects-of-active-shooter/554150/?utm_source=feed

[ionecoffman]

What Are Active-Shooter Drills Doing to Kids?

There’s always at least one kid in tears, as they huddle under their desks in the dark. Still Beth Manias, an early-elementary literacy teacher outside of Seattle, tries to act upbeat and relaxed.

“I have them whisper about their favorite candy, dinner, books, movies—whatever, as a distraction,” Manias told me. She tells the kids they’re practicing to stay safe in case there’s ever a bear on campus. Though, she admits, “They always see through this. The older they get, the more savvy they become, probably because they are exposed to more of the news.”

At schools across the country, more children are taking part in mandatory “active-shooter drills.” Forgoing any pretense of a bear, sometimes a faculty member plays the role of a shooter, jiggling doorknobs as children practice keeping perfectly silent. Many parents, teachers, and students say that the experience is somewhere between upsetting and traumatizing.

Which may be worthwhile, if it were clear that the drills saved lives.

Active-shooter drills came into existence after the Columbine massacre in 1999. What is known of their long-term psychological effects comes from the reports of people now in early adulthood.

Ryan Marino, an emergency-medicine physician at the University of Pittsburgh, recalled that his school had adopted the drills during that period, after a student was found to have a “death list” and access to guns. He told me the drills didn’t seem real until he was 12, and a fellow student coughed during one of the drills. “The teacher told us that if this had been real, we would all be dead.”

“That single experience shaped my childhood,” Marino said. “Having to practice and prepare for a peer coming to my school and shooting at me and my friends was something that really changed the overall atmosphere. Looking back, it was a major shift in how the world felt.”

In the two weeks since the shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, new and renewed calls for such drills raise the question of whether they do any good—and if they might be doing harm.

The day after the event, Susan Hennessey, the executive editor of Lawfare, tweeted: “Feeling mildly nauseous reading a note from my kid’s preschool about implementing active-shooter drills.”

Brian Leff, a writer in Los Angeles, told me his fifth-grade daughter’s principal just announced the school is contemplating a surprise lockdown drill. “Now my daughter can’t stop thinking about when it’s going to happen and how she’ll know if it’s ‘real’ or not.”

The writer Allison Gibson says that at her 4-year-old son’s preschool, they’re called “self-control drills,” because the goal is to get the students very quiet. “The first time he mentioned it, when he was 2, I had to piece together what he was referring to, and it nearly broke me.”

Of course, general lockdown and disaster drills have a long history; a generation of Americans came of age hiding under desks from nuclear bombs. While the idea of such a maneuver protecting a person from a bomb blast or nuclear fallout became fodder for jokes, the drills themselves had insidious effects on kids’ senses of safety. Some teachers reported that students’ artwork changed to feature mushroom clouds and sometimes the child’s own death, bringing a pervasive sense of danger into the places where kids most need to feel safe.

Despite some similarities to natural-disaster and Cold War drills, active-shooter drills also mean exposing kids to the idea that at any point, someone they know may try to kill them.

“It’s good to do emergency drills, but active shooters are not a drill anyone should have to do,” says Meredith Corley, who taught math in Colorado in the aftermath of Columbine. “It re-traumatizes kids who have experienced violence. Getting the kids settled back into the work of learning after lockdown drills is a nightmare. That mind-set has no place in a learning environment.”

“I was slightly too young for bomb drills, but in greater Kansas City, tornado drills were de rigueur,” says Lily Alice, a Midwesterner born in 1965. “We did have tornados now and then. The difference, of course, is that no one stockpiles them to use against other people, and weather forecasts mitigated some fear.”

Even President Trump, who has expressed support for arming teachers, has warned against active-shooter drills. During a White House meeting last week, he said, “If I’m a child and I’m 10 years old, and they say we’re going to have an active-shooter drill, I say, ‘What’s that?’ ‘Well, people may come in and shoot you’—I think that’s a very negative thing ... to be honest. I don’t like it.”

Zachary Levinsky, a lecturer in the department of sociology at the University of Toronto at Mississauga, is one of few academics who has studied active-shooter drills. He argues that though some school violence always existed, Columbine marked a shift of the burden of prevention: “Schools were somehow positioned as blamable—as responsible for these massacres.” This created an institutional concern for reputational risk management. To implement something like an active-shooter drill was to signal to parents and the community that the school is being proactive—it was doing something.

Of course, a demand for action does not often make for prudent decisions when it comes to harm reduction. Drills cover administrator and school-district liability, and they may make parents feel better knowing that their kids are in a school that’s taking decisive action. But what are the longer-term effects on the children’s health and development?

Studies of whether active-shooter drills actually prevent harm are all but impossible. Case studies are difficult to parse. In Parkland, for example, the site of the recent shooting, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, had an active-shooter drill just last month. The shooter had been through such drills. Purposely countering them may have been a reason that, as he was beginning his rampage, the shooter pulled a fire alarm.

In any case, preparedness drills always change the baseline level of risk that people perceive. This heightening can manifest as stress and anxiety, not to mention changing the way kids understand how people treat one another—to even consider violence an option, not in some abstract way.

Colleen Derkatch, an associate professor at Ryerson University in Toronto, studies how we assess risk when it comes to our health. “The more prepared we are, the more heightened our sense of risk,” she told me. “And one potential effect we haven’t considered is how these kinds of preparedness activities affect kids psychologically, and could increase a sense of feeling at risk. They really expand the ways in which we feel increasingly under siege.”

Preparedness activities, that is, are never neutral. Derkatch’s work relates this concept to the anxiety wrought by a culture of “wellness” products, which are ostensibly meant to keep us healthy, but also enhance our awareness of health risks. “They give us a sense that we’re all constantly on the edge of illness,” Derkatch told me. “Preparedness can be a good thing, but it has very real costs and consequences. For children whose personalities are just forming—who are figuring out what kind of world they live in—if this is the input they get, I think it will have a significant impact down the road.”

The idea extends to the fact that a child is much more likely to be abused by a parent than shot in school; but there would be obvious limits to the value of putting kids through realistic simulations in which a parent turns on them.

Derkatch has an 11-year-old daughter who is in the sixth grade. In her school, they’ve done lockdown drills, but the drills are the sort that are generalizable to any emergency. The teachers are very clear that it’s just a drill, and they lock the doors, and kids stay in their seats. There’s no hiding or barricading, as many schools in the United States now require.

If you were to move to the United States, I asked Derkatch, would you want your daughter going through these sorts of drills?

“No,” she said. “But I wouldn’t move to the United States. And guns are the reason why. Guns and health care.”

The two are, of course, now intertwined. President Trump and many other Republicans have a penchant for blaming “mental illness” for mass shootings—even though most shooters have no known or diagnosable mental illness. People who are mentally ill are much more likely to be victims than murderers. Most are rather, like the shooter in Parkland, described as isolated, troubled, angry, resentful men and boys. Many have a history of childhood trauma, like being abused or neglected. It is rare that a shooter has come up in an environment with multiple adults on whom they could rely—where they felt safe and secure.

A sense of safety and security in childhood is integrally tied to mental and physical health later in life—as well as emotional wellbeing, and the formation of the coping mechanisms that allow a person to deal with later adversity in ways that do not involve killing. It is this sense that can be undermined sometimes even by the best of intentions.

“Kids perceive the world generally as a bit of a dangerous place now because of how they tend to be closely supervised at almost all times,” said Derkatch. “If you look at the proposals in the United States, it sounds like they’re trying to make schools an awful lot like prisons, with monitored perimeters and armed guards and possibly armed teachers. You could extrapolate from the experiences of kids living in potentially violent situations, where you never know what’s going to happen. That does have a profound impact on kids.”

“I will never be able to explain it well, but losing a feeling of safety as a child, especially at school, is a major thing,” said Marino, the emergency physician who was terrified to cough. “Anyone who has not gone through school with active-shooter drills can never understand what it feels like.”

Article source here:The Atlantic

[ramialkarmi]

I spent five days in the mountains with limited access to Twitter, and it was great

I just got back from a five-day trip to Wyoming, where I visited Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and watched the total solar eclipse from Casper.

Wyoming’s national parks are stunningly beautiful, and the eclipse was awesome. But my favorite thing about the trip may have been the spotty cell phone service, which made it impossible for me to keep close tabs on the news, or on social media about the news.

I haven’t felt so relaxed in two years.

A lot of us are allowing politics to consume our lives, and making ourselves miserable in the process. At least I get paid for it. What’s your excuse?

Having returned from the wilderness, my advice to you is this: Give yourself permission to think less often about Donald Trump, and to argue less often about politics.

Think less about matters beyond your control, and more about what you can do to bring yourself contentment.

It will make you happier, I think.

Panic is a privilege — but not an enjoyable one

When I tell people to worry less about politics, I usually get responses about how this is an easy thing for a privileged white man to say. The people making this admonition are often quite privileged themselves.

The ability to maintain a state of permanent panic about the president can itself be a mark of privilege. People are able to direct their primary emotional energies to worrying about national politics when they don't have intense material concerns in their personal lives — and when they believe national politics has high stakes for the cultural power people like them can wield.

We see the privilege of panic manifesting in the political "hobbyism" political scientist Eitan Hersh describes among the middle and upper classes, especially on the left. And we see it in the turnout differentials in special elections: The energy of the #Resistance is driving superior turnout among college-educated Democrats and independents, but not among working-class Democrats, white or black.

A higher aggregate level of worry probably is good for turnout. But allowing politics to make you personally miserable does nothing to elect Democrats or contain the president.

If you inventory the time you spend on political activities — this includes time spent arguing with people on Twitter and Facebook — how much of that time is going toward actions that can really affect political outcomes, and how much is a recreational activity you aren’t even enjoying?

You have no moral obligation to engage in the latter.

Arguments are optional

Over the last couple of years, I have discovered the enjoyable luxury of declining to participate in daily outrage stories. Sometimes, I smile inwardly, knowing I disagree with strongly held opinions on the internet and knowing that their holders cannot force to engage.

And sometimes I don’t form an opinion at all.

To give a current example, I don’t care how much it costs the Secret Service to protect the president's family. I guess maybe the Trump kids should travel abroad less, but the cost isn't that high in the scheme of things. You will not get me to have an argument about it.

Since all of culture is political now, there is pressure for politically engaged people to take stands even on controversies far afield from public policy. I remind myself that this, too, is optional.

I mostly succeed at not caring about what Lena Dunham is up to. I have no view on whether it was appropriate to shoot Harambe.

Having so thoroughly enjoyed my time in the deep woods where my phone cannot provide alerts, I’ve resolved to form and express even fewer opinions about hot-button controversies when doing so is not an absolute professional necessity.

You should feel free to reserve your political outrage for issues that really matter, and to enjoy sports or entertainment or food — or whatever non-political hobbies you’ll have more time to engage with when you spend less time worrying about Trump — without thinking about their political implications at all. You don’t owe it to anyone else to fret or argue or posture.

You can even enjoy athletes and pop stars with strong political opinions that differ from yours. They may be rich and famous, but one bit of power you have over them is the freedom to disregard their dumb opinions and just focus on the thing that made them famous in the first place.

I think a lot of the cultural divides in America could be bridged if people on the right and left remembered that, except for actual political figures, famous people’s political opinions only matter if you allow them to matter to you.

Or, go spend some time in the woods, where stupid opinions from famous people or your relatives can’t even reach you.

There is more to life than the government

I think a reason I’ve maintained relative sanity during this administration is a healthy perspective on the importance of public policy. There are a lot of problems Americans can fix on their own, and there are a lot of other problems the government is unlikely to fix, no matter who is elected.

I’ve written before about the tail risks of Trump, and his presidency poses a small but alarming risk of terrible outcomes like nuclear exchange and great-power war. But assuming he does not get us all killed, the policy effects of his administration are mostly looking very modest, except for increased enforcement against illegal immigration.

Besides, policy change is probably less important than you think. The federal government is not as good at fixing problems as liberals like to believe, nor as prone to creating them as conservatives fear.

House Speaker Paul Ryan says America has the worst tax system in the advanced world. Yet somehow we have the highest per-capita gross domestic product of any large country. Partly, this reflects that Ryan is overselling the horrors of our tax code. But it also reflects that tax policy is less important for investment decisions and economic growth than policymakers like to claim it is.

The Affordable Care Act is probably saving tens of thousands of lives a year — an achievement, but a smaller one than its architects had hoped. Earlier this year, public policy professor Mark Kleiman laid out strategies to curb drunk driving he thinks are reducing all-cause mortality in South Dakota by 4% a year. If replicated nationally, this lifesaving effect would be several times the effect of the ACA.

But the most important resources to reduce death in America lie with individual Americans, who can increase their life expectancies by exercising more, eating better, not drinking to excess, and managing chronic diseases in accordance with their doctors’ instructions.

About 40% of patients prescribed blood pressure medication after a heart attack don’t take it as prescribed. Improving poor adherence to healthcare — even among people who have good health insurance — is a public health policy challenge, but it’s also a private challenge addressable by individual patients.

One reason people like to focus so much on public policy is that it provides a distraction from the things we could be doing to improve our own lives but aren’t — it allows us to shift the conversation to what other people should do for us.

In the long run, won't you do more to make yourself happy by taking your happiness into your own hands, and worrying about the things you can directly control?

Life is big

In 1986, 36% of Yellowstone National Park burned in a particularly devastating fire. There are vast hillsides covered in dead trunks with short, young trees growing among them. This is a natural part of the ecosystem. Fires allow light to get to the forest floor so a more diverse variety of plant life can thrive, rather than just the tall lodgepole pines.

Fires on this scale happen about every 300 years; they were happening long before Trump was born and they will happen long after he is dead. A visit to Yellowstone is a good reminder of how much bigger nature is than we are, and how we might as well find a way to enjoy our time on earth while we are here.

This is the part of the article that will prompt several of you to send me long and agitated emails about climate change. Yes, Yellowstone is getting hotter, and that will mean an undesirable increase in forest fires.

But Trump’s short administration will have fewer effects on this long-range issue than you think, in part because the Paris Agreement is less important than you think, and global trends slowing the growth of carbon emissions are largely outside the control of the United States government.

More to the point, the lecturing email you're about to send me won't have any effect on global temperatures at all, except to the extent you're using fossil fuels to compose it.

Instead of worrying so much about what the government is or isn’t doing, why don’t you take a moment to sit back, feel awe at the things neither you nor the president can change, disregard the noise, and breathe.

While I was hiking up Mount Washburn on Friday, the elevation made it possible for my cell phone to pick up service briefly, and I got a push alert telling me that Steve Bannon had been fired. But I didn’t have enough data service to load the article. So I put my phone back in my pocket, smiled, and kept hiking up the mountain.

I needed the break. You probably need one, too.

SEE ALSO: Republicans now have an ethical obligation to quit Trump's party

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