#he gets to be involved in the choices more directly which has a million implications considering what we know of tfp

[transingthoseformers]

You know what I think could be an interesting au for tfp? A bit of a what-if.

What if, instead of being an Archivist, Orion Pax was a noble? Perhaps even a senator? Famous for his sense of fairness and kindness, and fairly popular. Unfortunately, a but naive. But he's still a noble, and he has his vices.

His vice is the gladiatorial fights and, by extension, Megatron. He is Megatron's sponsor, so he makes sure he has enough shanix for proper medical care, better lodgings, etc. In exchange, Megatron spends time with him, often debating and discussing different topics.

Orion Pax enjoys this a great deal. The interfacing isn't too shabby, either!

But eventually, he ends up falling in love and decides to buy Megatron's contract.

They're soon conjunxed, even if there's a bit of a social uproar. It's always a bit amusing to see Orion Pax, while not a small mech by any means, alongside his conjux, draped in jewellery like a proper senator/noble consort.

... I haven't got much further. Sorry for the rambling. I guess this takes place in a somewhat lighter version of tfp?

Sorry it took me a bit to get to this! I've read a couple? fics that are kinda like this, but they made him a noble and an archivist. I don't remember the name of it but one of them had made him the son of a senator? It's been a while on that one tbh.

The whole sponsor plotline is interesting,

wait is this another sugar daddy!Orion and sugar baby!Megatronus situation wait wait wait

[writingforthethinkers]

Dust - Part 3

Marvel

Pairing: Peter Parker X Stark!Reader

Word Count: 3690 (Yeah, I know, sorry, but it wouldn’t have worked if I split it to more than one part)

Warning: grief, endgame spoilers, injuries, angst to the max

Summary: A continuation of my fanfic of Infinity War, set in the plot of Endgame.

A/N: Before I begin, I just wanted to let everyone know who is reading this that I wasn’t happy with Endgame. The treatment of female, LGBT and POC representation was appalling and in 2019 you would expect us to be a lot further along than we are now. The ending of Game of Thrones also had the same problems, showing just how poorly women, LGBT and POC are treated in media. I don’t really know how I would have changed Endgame here to better represent people without changing the whole movie, but I hope by having a female character - who by all means can be a person of colour or LGBT, I make sure to leave it as unspecific as possible so you can put yourself into (Y/N) - having a bit more agency and involvement in the plot will let you know that we do deserve representation, and it is not okay that we are not getting it. Also, Nat deserved better, so I’m giving her better. Hope you enjoy it. 

Dust, Part 2

I give no warning before hand when I arrive at the Avengers compound, sitting in the backseat of one of my dad’s old cars he wired to be able to drive itself. Pepper offered to drive me, but I wanted to come alone. This was something I wanted to keep my mom and Morgan far away from. I’d also managed to fill the car with holograms and projections of various ideas for a time machine. Jumping between them all, I pulled different aspects from each that I thought were most likely to work, trying to combine them into something that would give us the best possible chance to bring them all back.

My heart leaps in my chest. I try my best to disassociate what I’m planning and building from the implications of what it could mean. The thought of my dad and Peter gives me so much hope that I feel fear churning in my stomach, an emotion that throws me so much I can barely think straight. So, I refocus on the holograms.

“Miss Stark,” the robotic voice of the car pulls me from my thoughts, “we are here.”

Looking up towards the doors of the compound I see Nat and Steve already rushing out and making their way towards the car. With a deep intake of breathe that falls between a sigh and a shaky gasp, I close all the holograms and open the car door, stepping out.

They both look confused, but hopeful. Steve has a glint in his eyes that suggests he knows what I’m about to say while Nat’s lips are curved up ever so slightly, you would have to know her personally for a long time to be able to notice it. They don’t say anything, waiting for me to say why I’m on their doorstep. I sigh again, thinking about my dad and Peter, my mom and Morgan.

“I’m in.” 

Steve and Nat’s faces crack into smiles, and I cannot resist the urge to let my face do the same.

---

I’ll admit, I really was hoping I’d get through the whole time travel plan without having to feel much. I was hoping it would be all serious and down-to-business, like the good ‘ol days when I went on missions to an icy tundra to take down a baddie with my second family of superheroes and it would end with us all going home for takeout. This mission did not end up like that. I had agreed to join Steve to go back for the Tesseract, which meant going back to the attack on New York and Thor’s chaotic brother.

Seeing my dad again, years younger and still alive, I wanted nothing more than to just give up. Grab him and drag him back to the present with me. It wouldn’t take long to catch him up. Then I thought of Peter, his laugh echoing in my head and his smile painted like a mural in my mind. The other half of the population also rushed to the forefront of my mind, the smiling faces on missing person posters from when Thanos first snapped his fingers plastered in front of my eyes.

We’re the Avengers, there is no giving up. Quickly wiping my tears, we managed to get the tesseract without any hiccups.

But seeing my dad again wasn’t the end of the heartbreak. Returning to the present and watching Clint fall to his knees as he returned alone felt like my lungs were about to collapse in on themselves.

“There must be some way to bring her back.” I hear a voice reason, but they sound a million miles away as my hearing muffles and my vision blurs with tears. All I can think about is how I’ve lost someone else. Another part of my family gone.  

“It was her life as a trade for the soul stone.” Another voice says, sorrow matching how I feel. “It was the only way.”

Then my mind starts to whir as the cogs turn and I take in a deep breathe. Wiping my eyes, I manage to pull myself together enough to think straight.

“We can get her back,” I say, and all eyes turn to me. “In the same way we got the stones.”

Most of the people before me look confused, some go to object, but I cut them off.

“I know we have to return the stones to the exact spot we took them from. But couldn’t we do the same with Nat? We only have to make sure she returns to that point in time to sacrifice herself to get the soul stone. But who’s to say she can’t live her life before then?”

Faces of confusion change to understanding. Bruce almost looks like he is going to smile.

“So, we go back and get Nat, bringing her to the present like we did the stones. She gets to keep living, and only has to return to that time before she dies,” Bruce reiterates, taking a moment to think it through “that could work.”

“It would be risky, and she would probably have to give up being an Avenger. But if any of us deserve to retire, it’s Nat. Especially after this.” I state.

“Then let’s go,” Clint says, already getting to his feet and moving to put his helmet on again.

“Wait,” I stop him, “we should wait until we’ve reversed everything. If something goes wrong and it puts her in danger – because we all know she would be there fighting alongside us – we could put the future in jeopardy.”

There is a round of nods and mumbles of agreement. A feeling of determination rises in the air.

“Then let’s reverse everything.”

---

Sometimes I hate being right all the time. Not bringing Nat back there and then was definitely the right choice, seeming as, as soon as Bruce snapped his fingers while wearing the gauntlet, supposedly bring back the other half of the universe, the compound promptly exploded. In all the confusion, I managed to make it up through the rubble and was met with the bane of my life. The looks on Steve and Thor’s faces as they joined me amongst the remains of the compound seemed justification that Thanos was also the bane of their lives.

Pushing the manic thought of how the other half of the universe was mostly likely alive again – dad, Peter, I turned my attention to the titan that wanted to take it all away from me. Again. Memories of a blade slicing through my dad’s stomach, of him and Peter turning to dust in my arms. Anger boiled in my blood.

I barely registered most of the fight. At one point I’m pretty sure Steve had Thor’s hammer, but I was so blind with anger and pain and loss and heartbreak that all I could focus on was blasting Thanos to high hell. The warning signs my suit flashed in my face as I took hit after hit, dealing him my fair share too, only proved to annoy me. Eventually, I took my helmet off. The frenzy had died down and I appeared to be the only one standing apart from Thanos. Pain crept through my body, but I ignored it. I felt Steve struggle to his feet next to me.

Thanos takes this time to monologue, and I watch as his army comes to join him. I don’t really know what is happening. I don’t know where the other half of the universe is, if Bruce’s use of the gauntlet even brought them back. I don’t know if mom and Morgan will be safe after this, I don’t know if I’ve ended what little happiness we had. I don’t know how this is going to end, or how I’m going to die.

But I do know I’m not going down without taking as many of Thanos’ army – if not the mad titan himself – down with me.

I glance at Steve. He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes seem to be projecting the same thing. He grips what is left of his shield and I clench my fists, feeling the energy charging through my suit.

A voice crackling through the intercoms in our ears makes us pause. At first, the words are impossible to make out, but soon we understand them.

“On your left.”

As if on que, the sound of a portal pulls our attention to behind us. I can already feel a grin clawing at my face when I realise the voice is Sam’s, but triumph courses through me when the portal opens enough for three figures to step through it. Okoye, T’Challa and Shuri. The latter decides now is the time for a wiggle of her eyebrows and confident wink. I actually laugh at the surreal cockiness of my friend.

My friend, I think. Living and breathing.

It doesn’t end there. The sound of other portals surrounds us, and I turn completely to watch, ignoring Thanos entirely. Some are massive, allowing whole armies to pass through them, while others are smaller with only a few figures emerging. One in particular catches my eyes. Doctor Strange comes through first, followed by the Guardians and then two more people.

I feel like my heart is going to explode. Peter swings through the portal, landing on a large slab of rock. My dad just walks out, his suit fully on but he quickly loses the helmet, looking directly at me.

‘I love you,’ he mouths, the words clear as day on his lips from the amount of times I’ve remembered him saying them to me.

All I can do is smile in disbelief, feeling tears cut their way through the dirt and dust on my face. Steve’s words stop me from running to them, reminding me of where we are.

“Avengers,” he shouts, making me tear my eyes from my dad and Peter and turn back to Thanos, putting the helmet of my suit back on. Steve finishes the phrase in a chilling whisper. “Assemble.”

And we attack. United, it is clear Thanos doesn’t stand a chance.

I attack with the same ruthlessness I did before the portals opened, but this time it is spurred not by the determination of a last stand, but the strength of winning a final battle. Unfortunately, my injuries from fighting Thanos one on one come back to haunt me, making my movements slower and I make more mistakes. I’m soon backed into a corner against the remains of a wall, surrounded by Thanos’ soldiers. My suit screams at me to get myself away, but I cannot escape, and for the first time since the battle began I feel a surge of panic.

Then the soldiers are attacked from two sides – one attacker closer than the other – and soon they are all gone. The helmet of my suit comes down again so I can breathe as I slump to the floor, deciding I deserve a few seconds of time out.

“(Y/N), are you alright?”

“Mom?” I look up to see Pepper, heading towards me, crouching down next to me and taking my face in her hands. Her eyes are filled with concern, but it is difficult to register as I try to figure out how she is here. “What are you doing here?”

“I told you I supported you, didn’t I? How was I supposed to do that from back home?” She tucks some of my hair behind my ear, her other hand still cupping my face.

“Who’s babysitting Morgan?”

“Who’s Morgan?”

Both mine and my mom’s eyes grow to the size of dinner plates at the voice. We scramble to our feet, but we are almost knocked to the ground again at the sight of my dad.

“Tony,” my mom whispers, before running to him. They meet in the tightest hug possible for two people wearing big metal suits, eyes already watering with tears. They’re both mumbling loving words to each other, and all I can do is stand there watching.

“You coming in for a hug too, kid?”

He doesn’t need to ask me again as I sprint towards them, letting them engulf me in a joint hug that I have waited so long for. I bury my face in my dad’s neck.

“I missed you,” I tell him, the taste of my own tears on my lips.

“I missed you too,” Tony replies, hand moving to the back of my head.

The three of us stay in that hug for longer than we should while in the midst of the biggest battle of the universe, but Thanos himself couldn’t have pried me from my parents’ arms then. It was my dad who eventually ended the hug. Pulling back, he looked between me and my mom.

“So, are you going to tell me who Morgan is? Is she the new dog or gerbil?”

My mom laughs, moving her hand up to my dad’s face.

“She’s your daughter.”

My dad’s face splits into a grin, and he looks to me for confirmation. I just nod, realising there is not a single difference between my dad’s grin and Morgan’s. I’m almost about to pull up a photo of her with my suit to show him when we’re interrupted.

“(Y/N)!” The sound of a person landing is heard from behind me, and my name on their lips is the greatest sound I’ve ever heard.

“Peter!” I shout, sprinting at him the same way I did to my dad seconds before, only this time I manage to take Peter to the ground with this hug. He pulls me close, arms tight around my body. He’s rambling in the same way he always used to, telling me about how he woke up and came through the portal.

I don’t really register his words, pulling back to look at his face, taking in every feature I’ve only been able to imagine for the past five years. I faintly make the connection that we’re in the same position we were when he died, but it doesn’t affect me as I cut him off with a kiss, pulling his face as close to mine as I can. Peter responds in kind, hands cupping my face as he relaxes into the kiss. We pull apart with slightly swollen lips and dopey grins.

“That was nice,” Peter sighs.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do that,” I tell him, about to lean in for another.

“Would you mind waiting a little longer? It appears we’re still in the midst of a battle.” My dad interrupts us before we can kiss again, Peter’s cheeks becoming a strong pink as I feel heat rise to mine. We’re quick to get back to our feet, but still stay close.

“Right, yeah, it can wait,” I reply, getting myself ready to carry on fighting, “only been five years, but sure I can go a little longer. No biggie.”

We all just stand there smiling at each other for a moment before being rudely interrupted by some of Thanos’ soldiers and we’re back in the action again. Continuing to fight, I manage to stay close to all three of them to some extent, as we all make sure we have each other’s backs in some way. The fight continues for a little longer, until somehow it is me, my dad and a few other Avengers up against Thanos. Somehow the titan manages to overpower most of us, despite losing the gauntlet. I try to make my way towards it, but that only results in me being thrown far out of the way, slamming into a large chunk of rubble that manages to wind me despite the suit. However, it gives my dad a window to get close to the gauntlet.

I can only watch as he hovers over it, looking up at Strange who holds up one finger. It takes me a moment to work out what he means. One in fourteen million.

No.

Iron Man and Thanos both jump for the gauntlet. From where I am slumped, unable to move as my suit desperately tries to mend both itself and me, I don’t see who manages to get it. They fight, close combat, and I remember the last time that happened. I was in the exact same position; paralysed and unable to help. They eventually break apart, the gauntlet on Thanos’ hand. He looks triumphant, but I can see what he is missing.

“I am inevitable.” He snaps his fingers, expecting to win but receiving nothing.

I look at my dad, stumbling to his feet, the hand of his suit bejewelled with the infinity stones. He turns his hand, so they are in plain view of Thanos and utters one final famous phrase.

“I am Iron Man.”

And he snaps.

The battle comes to a sudden end. We all watch as Thanos’ army turns to dust, the titan soon following them. My suit manages to stop screaming at me and I scramble out of it, leaving it beaten and broken behind as I stumble to where my dad lies. Everyone else isn’t far behind.

“Dad,” I cry out, already at his side. He doesn’t answer, just looks into my eyes. I hold his gaze, trying desperately to ignore his mutilated arm. I soon feel my mom and others join me. I can hear Peter breaking down, and the sorrow of everyone surrounds me. My dad is going to die right in front of me. Again.

My mom tries to hold me as she speaks to him, assuring him how everything is okay. I barely feel anything, leaning into her slightly as my eyes drift to his hand, the infinity stones still sitting in the burnt remains of his suit. One last stupid, reckless idea springs to my mind through all of the grief. I may not be allowed to live out my life with my dad, but Morgan deserves to know him. As Pepper leans in to kiss his cheek, I take my opportunity to pry one of the stones off Tony’s hand. The purple hue almost speaks to me, telling me what to do.

Admittedly, plunging it into my chest to wield as much of its power as I could was probably not the best idea, but I could already feel it tearing my hand apart so making it as much a part of myself as possible seemed the best option. I hear voices cry out my name, but I ignore them, pushing through the immense pain and focusing solely on my dad. I put every ounce of my being into reversing his pain, healing him.

I lose consciousness before I know if I was successful or not.

---

The beeping of a monitor in time with a heartbeat is the first thing I notice. It takes me a little while to work out it is my heartbeat. Slowly opening my eyes, I find I’m lying in my own bed. An IV drip is connected to my arm and my desk is littered with ‘get well soon’ cards and large bouquets of flowers.

What I don’t understand most about the situation is I feel completely fine. Sitting up, my condition doesn’t change, so I pull off everything attached to me and get up, making my way towards the door. I hear murmurs of voices that sound like they’re coming from downstairs. Slowly making my way out I walk towards the stairs, soon discovering that pretty much everyone I know is in my living room.

Morgan is the first to notice me as I’m halfway down the stairs. She gasps, making everyone look at her, before sprinting towards me. I catch her at the bottom of the stairs, picking her up and hugging her close to me. The last thing I remember is intense pain and the destruction of a battle, so it is a nice change to be suddenly back in my own home with my little sister.

And the world and his brother. I’m soon engulfed by people, asking me questions and saying my name, but most keep their distance. Except for my parents, who hover around me like I’ll break at any moment and Peter who is the only person to treat me normally, running to give me a hug just like Morgan.

“Hey, okay, listen. I’m fine! What’s going on?” I ask, and everyone quietens down. “What?”

“Look down.” My dad instructs as he nods at my chest. I’m overjoyed to seem him perfectly fine, and with a confused look I do as he says.

“Oh.” A purple light shines from underneath the fabric of my t-shirt. I pull the shirt down enough so I can see what it is, finding out it’s the infinity stone I pried from the others embedded in my skin. “What the…”

“You should be dead,” my dad states bluntly, earning him a nudge from my mom, “but I think the stone is keeping you alive.”

I begin to notice the tingling of power in my fingertips. Maybe it is giving me more than just a second chance to live. I don’t mention it to anyone.

“But if the stone is keeping me alive, how do we return it to where we took it from?”

“Looks like you’ll have to do the same as me.” Nat emerges from the group of people still surrounding me, and despite what she just said I run at her with a grin on my face and pull her into a tight hug.

“So be it,” I reply, “I’m alive. We all are.”

Looking around, I smile at the faces of everyone I know. The people we brought back, the people who survived. I look to my family, Pepper’s arm around Tony’s waist while Morgan sits grinning in her father’s arms. I look to Peter with his warm eyes and charming smile. I imagine kissing him again and again once everyone gets out of my house. The idea of living a normal life with everyone I love thrills me to the core.

“We won,” I state, relishing in the feeling.

[queentaylormademedoit]

How Scott Borchetta’s Statement ‘Exposing’ Taylor Swift Actually Proves Her Point Completely

First, here is Taylor Swift’s open letter:

https://taylorswift.tumblr.com/post/185958366550/for-years-i-asked-pleaded-for-a-chance-to-own-my (if the link is being weird you can find it on her tumblr)

And here is the link to Scott Borchetta’s responding statement:

https://t.co/OqGI4GoN3P

(If the link is being weird you can find it on his twitter)

Think he just revealed shocking information that Swift is an evil, crazy, lying woman who just wants to make ~drama~ for no reason? Think again. Let’s break down his statement piece by piece from the beginning.

To refute Borchetta’s misleading opening statements, Taylor Swift’s father was NOT on the shareholders phone calls because NDAs would not have allowed him to communicate any information to his daughter. Instead 13 Management Lawyer Jay Shaudies and Big Machine LLC Shareholder Frank Bell were on the call to represent her side. The hilarious thing is that Borchetta tries to call into question Taylor’s statement that she “woke up to the news (of the sale to Scooter Braun) with the rest of the world” by saying he thinks it is “possible” that they “didn’t say anything to Taylor over the prior 5 days” and “possible” that she “might not have seen” his text, but that he “truly doubts she woke up to the news when everyone else did”. During the time between June 25 to June 27th, the possible deal in SCOTT BORCHETTA’s OWN WORDS, was a “PROPOSED TRANSACTION”. Meaning, the deal was still in discussion, a vote had not occurred yet and Taylor was hoping that the majority of shareholders would not vote in Braun’s favor. On Friday, June 28th Borchetta says 3 of the 5 shareholders voted yes on the proposal.

Scott then says “I personally texted Taylor at 9:06 on Saturday, June 29th to inform her prior to the story breaking on the morning of June 30th so she could hear it directly from me”. That’s right. He said “so she could hear it directly from me” meaning that he knew he would be the first person to contact her with this information, my guess being that for “courtesy” as he puts it (aka image), he wanted it to come from him. Now, he suggests that Taylor must have seen this text message but here’s a couple things: #1: 9:06pm Nashville time IS nighttime and I imagine when you’re Taylor Swift you’re probably doing something or exhausted and sleeping, #2: MORE IMPORTANTLY it is extremely unlikely that Taylor was in Nashville. many believe that she was in London at this time (where she has a residence with her sweet British man), in which case it would have been 3AM for her. Even if she was in New York it would have been 10pm and she’s TAYLOR SWIFT she probably gets a million messages to go through a day, not to mention probably tries to have some semblance of a personal life. So yes, she did in fact “wake up to the news” that this deal was officially made, with the rest of the world. This is such a stupid detail that Taylor has absolutely no reason to lie about but Scott Borchetta tried to call her character into question with it so there ya go, it’s been addressed.

Moving on.

Her 13 Management team attorney is Donald S. Passman (also known as ‘the author of music law’-Roy Trakin, Grammy.com) who went over the initial “offer” (if you can even call it that) which Scott Borchetta made to Taylor. As Passman has explicitly said in public statements, “Scott Borchetta never gave Taylor Swift an opportunity to purchase her masters, or the label, outright with a check in the way he is now apparently doing for others”. This “offer” was NOT for such a purchase.

Taylor Swift had expressed to Scott Borchetta multiple times that she wanted a chance to bid outright for control of her masters, but was always denied. Considering how much her body of work of the last 13 years means to her (6 record-breaking, award winning albums with songs she penned from the heart), Taylor was reluctant to walk away, because she knew Borchetta would likely sell, and she’d never own her masters. So, her team discussed the possibilities of what control she could get over her works if she stayed for 7 years, but Scott Borchetta “offered” back that she stay on for 10 more years and could essentially earn these rights in trade for new materials created with the label. That is basically trapping her into a continuous cycle.

Scott is aware that this was not a good deal, as he defends himself in his statement saying, “We are an independent record company. We do not have tens of thousands of artists and recordings. My offer to Taylor, for the size of our company, was extraordinary. But it was also all I could offer as I am responsible for over 120 executives and their families”. While he tries to tug the heartstrings of readers to make him look so caring, the fact of the matter is this: Taylor Swift was the ONLY massive superstar that Scott Borchetta was ever able to get onto his label (not to mention she was his first client and the label was literally created because he found her and convinced a 15 year old girl and her family that in signing a 12 year contract he would remain loyal and supportive because ‘music has value’). Without Taylor’s works on the label, no big deal executive would likely want to buy it and certainly wouldn’t be worth $300 million. If Scott Borchetta really cared about the fact that he is “responsible for over 120 executives and their families” and believed that “music has value” he could have been open to the possibility of Taylor staying on for 7 more years and having greater ownership of the art she creates.

So, when Scott Borchetta stated that “Taylor Swift had every chance in the world to own not just her master recordings, but every video, photograph, everything associated with her career” he really means that she had the chance to very slowly gain these things back over the period of 10 YEARS in exchange for new music (which many have compared to a scare tactic, because he knew losing her would make his label next to worthless). That is not an opportunity for a purchase. Borchetta says Taylor chose to leave, and that is true: she made the excruciating decision to leave because she realized that if she stayed with Big Machine she would never be treated with the respect she deserved to own all that she creates. Also, I imagine being the only pop superstar on a small country artists label likely had its downsides. So, she sacrificed the rights to her past in exchange for a freer future. A painful choice, knowing that Scott Borchetta would likely sell one day, but she never imagined that he would be so disrespectful as to sell to Scooter Braun.

Now, let’s get into that part where Scott Borchetta gets EXCEPTIONALLY DESPICABLE :)

He says that he ���certainly never experienced” Taylor “‘being in tears or close to it’ anytime Scooter Braun’s name was brought up”. That’s pretty much her word against his, but regardless of wether or not he knew she was about to cry in such moments, he knew that there was conflict. Borchetta writes, “Was I aware of some prior issues between Taylor and Justin Bieber? Yes,”. Those “issues” as absolutely everyone knows, DIRECTLY INVOLVED Scooter Braun, as was evident when Justin Bieber posted that photo to Instagram of himself FaceTiming Kanye, Scooter Braun, and another man I have yet to identify, captioned “Taylor Swift what up”.

That post showed that these men were publicly laughing at what a lot of people thought would be Taylor Swift’s downfall. At that time, Kim Kardashian (Kanye’s wife) had released snippets of an orchestrated phone call between Kanye and Taylor which was recorded without Taylor’s knowledge. In that “scathing phone call” Kim shared with the world, Taylor agreed for Kanye to include the line “I think me and Taylor might still have sex”, in his new song, which she said was provacative but fine. In that phone call Kanye said he would have her listen to the full song later, but this never happened. He then went on to release the song and music video in which he used the line “I made that bitch famous” (supposedly referencing when he grabbed the microphone out of her hand during her VMA speech when she was 19 years old, to say he thought Beyoncé should have won, much to the disdain of Beyoncé), implying that he was the reason for her (actually hard-earned success), and showed her naked likeness in a hyperrealistic wax figure lain next to him in a bed. He also showed other celebrities nude in this same way, which I personally found equally disturbing. The figures were so realistic that articles immediately came out with headlines like “Was Anyone Real In Kanye West’s Famous Video?”. I agree with Taylor Swift’s statement that this was a form of revenge porn. He visually stripped her naked without her consent in front of the entire world because instead of taking accountability for his own actions (HE is the one who ran onstage and grabbed that mic in 2009 and made himself look like a huge jerk), he decided it was in some twisted awful way her fault that he did that. It tarnished his image, and he dreaded having to publicly apologize to her afterwards even though Taylor was very accepting and actually thought they’d started fresh and new, happily sharing this news publicly.

So yes, I agree with Taylor Swift that those actions should be classified as a form of revenge porn. And I think that anyone who dares to say that her suffering isn’t ‘bad enough’ to call it that, I say you don’t get to determine how profoundly damaging someone else’s level of pain from an experience that you did not have is.

There no possible way that Scott Borchetta was not aware of the extremely difficult position Taylor Swift was in at that time, because the ENTIRE WORLD was aware of it. And Scooter Braun’s implications as manager of Kanye West were without a doubt, known to Scott Borchetta.

In his post, Borchetta continues, claiming, “there were also times when Taylor knew that I was close to Scooter and that Scooter was a very good source of information for upcoming album releases, tours, etc, and I’d reach out to him for information on our behalf. Scooter was never anything just positive about Taylor,”. Taylor being fine with Borchetta communicating with Braun to get information about things like upcoming albums/tours hardly means a thing. If Borchetta had a business source he could ask for information without Taylor’s direct involvement, of course she wouldn’t care. And of course Scooter Braun would not be dumb enough to say bad things about Taylor Swift directly to the owner of Taylor Swift’s label. Obviously, it doesn’t mean that he didn’t share such thoughts to others (go check out Todrick Hall’s recent tweets).

Now, here is where Borchetta goes for a REALLY LOW BLOW:

Borchetta writes, “He [Scooter Braun] called me directly about Manchester to see if Taylor would participate (she declined). He called me directly to see if Taylor wanted to participate in the Parkland March (she declined),”. In this disgusting last-ditch attempt to suggest that Taylor didn’t care about the victims of Manchester or Parkland, Borchetta is actually making it clear that TAYLOR SWIFT REFUSED TO ACCEPT AN INVITATION FROM A MANIPULATIVE MAN WHO SHE KNEW HATED HER. Meaning, Scott Borchetta was FULLY AWARE that Swift did not want to work with Braun. Everyone reacts to tragedy differently. Taylor Swift went on to show her love for the victims of those terrible incidents and her opposition to hatred that caused them. Taylor immediately expressed her sympathies on Twitter and honored the Manchester bombing victims on her Reputation stadium tour, on the night when she performed in Manchester. With Scooter Braun being the manager of Ariana Grande, the artist who was performing the night of the Manchester attacks, it makes sense that Taylor wouldn’t have felt entirely comfortable with the situation. She publicly announced her support for the March for Our Lives movement (started by the students of Parkland High School), and made a generous donation to the cause. Furthermore, Swift has gone on to discuss her personal fear of such attacks (many people have stalked her/broken into her home/tried to get onstage etc), her belief that in the importance of preventing such tragedies and the extra preventative efforts she now goes to in order to keep her fans safe in various interviews. Borchetta’s attempt to suggest that Swift has anything but the deepest sympathies for those tragedies is absolutely revolting.

Finally, Borchetta closes his list of lies with the text message he received from Taylor when she told him of her news to leave Big Machine. In this message, she is kind, heartfelt and respectful of the past that they built together. Borchetta tried to take advantage of this kindness by placing it there as if her politeness and choice to go means she had no interest in a better deal with Big Machine at all.

I’ll include this message in its entirety below, so you can read it for yourself:

Scott,

 I hope this finds you well. Since communication ran dry on our negotiations, I’ve done what I told you I would do and gone out exploring other options. Owning my masters was very important to me, but I’ve since realized that there are things that mean even more to me in the bigger picture. I had a choice whether to bet on my past or to bet on the future and I think knowing me, you can guess which one I chose. I also saw a rare opportunity to effect positive change for a lot of other artists with the leverage I have right now. I know you believe in the same things I do and I’d like to think you would be proud of what I’ve negotiated for in my deal. I wanted to tell you first that I’ll be signing with Lucian. I honestly truly cherish everything you and I have built together and I plan on saying so in my announcement of the new deal. What we accomplished together will be a lasting legacy and a case study on excellent partnerships, and may it continue. I still view you as a partner and friend and I hope you feel the same. Sending you a hug and my most sincere gratitude.

And SO much love,

Taylor

 

I think she makes it very clear that although she was disappointed, she weighed her options and decided to “bet on” her future instead of her past. Meaning, when Borchetta refused to offer her the ownership she wanted, she had to respect her own capability enough to make the difficult choice to walk away. She closes with the statement, “I hope you feel the same. Sending you a hug and my most sincere gratitude, and SO much love,” which shows that she hoped he would continue to regard her and her work with the same care and respect she showed him, even when disappointed.

Scott also includes the email he sent Taylor letting her know about the decision to sell to Scooter Braun:

Dear Taylor,

 

Hope all is well and congratulations on the success of your first two singles from “Lover”! 

 

I can’t wait to hear the entire album…

 

I wanted to pass along to you the same courtesy that you passed along to me in regard to my future.

 

Tomorrow morning (Sunday, June 30th) at 10a central, the Wall Street Journal will announce that I am entering into a merger/acquisition with Scooter Braun and Ithaca Holdings.  This move will give us more pop culture super-power than ever before and I’m so excited about the future. 

 

I want you to know that I will continue to be the proud custodian of your previous works and will continue to keep you and your team abreast of all future plans for releases of you work.

 

Nothing but the best,

 

Scott

 

The letter is polite and to the point, because he has no need to say something nasty. His actions speak loud enough. He was greedy. Taylor knew Borchetta would sell to someone, but that fact that Borchetta went through with selling the life’s work of a talented woman he knew since she was fourteen years old to one of her greatest public intimidators is the ultimate betrayal.

For everyone saying, “well, that’s just business”, I have some news for you. There are good, loyal people out there in business. There doesn’t seem to be many of them, but they exist, and Scott Borchetta pretended to be one of them. This is a matter of moral principle. Of loyalty. Of ‘valuing music’. Taylor Swift isn’t ‘playing the victim’ and she didn’t ‘send people to attack a good man’. She wasn’t ‘bitching’. She isn’t ‘feuding’. She’s speaking her mind. She’s speaking the truth. She’s warning other artists to look out for themselves and she’s holding people accountable for their actions.

I am so, so proud of her.

Forever a Swiftie,

Grace

@taylorswift @taylornation

[gwenbrightly]

Ninjago Jaya ~ Blanket Forts

Cross-posted from FF.net, because why not? Just a quick little Jaya oneshot taking place right after Skybound.

She can’t breath – can’t… Something is wrong… she feels like she’s dying. Like someone has thrown acid directly onto her. Her chest burns. In the distance, she can hear someone screaming her name. Sobbing. What’s going on? She’s gone numb… Why can’t she – It’s then that Nya wakes, sitting up, breathing so sporadically that she’s on the verge of hyperventilation. Just a dream. Just a dream… But, oh. Why does this have to be so hard? She's safe. Alive. The poison can’t hurt her anymore, and neither can that djinn. She knows that. But it doesn’t stop her from reliving every last sucky detail of what she faced less than a day ago (in fact, it’s not even midnight yet, so…). She almost… No, it’s best not to think about that… Maybe if she just. Doesn’t sleep? She supposes. But that’s not really a great option, cause then, she’ll be stuck up all night with nothing but her own thoughts to distract her. And she’s not sure she can handle being alone right now. She needs Jay. It’s funny, she thinks slipping from her bed, how she’s gone from actively avoiding the master of lightning, to being desperate to have him near her as much as possible. Love is weird like that. The hallway is dark, quiet. A stark contrast to the locations she’s spent the past few weeks. First, on the run, then stuck in jail, or on an island, then on the run again… Being home is nice. Sort of. Except for the lingering trauma from the past few days. Yeah, the sooner they can recover from that, the better. And for now, the others don’t need to know about how close everything came to being… The master of water quietly slides the door to Jay’s quarters. But… He’s not there. In fact, if his bed still being tidily made means anything, he hasn’t been in the room at all since they finally returned from Styx earlier. So, then… Where is he? Not the kitchen or living room, apparently, Nya discovers upon further searching. Sighing, she makes her way out into the deck – the only other place left to check. And it’s a good thing she does, as it turns out, cause there he is, looking out over the railings, posture tense. A light summer breeze plays with his ridiculously curly hair, making it an even bigger mess that it usually is. Honestly, it’s actually a pretty beautiful night. There are no clouds in sight; she can see millions of stars scattered across the sky.

“Couldn’t sleep?” She asks softly when she reaches him. Jay flinched slightly at the sound, before realizing that it’s her.

“Y-yeah… I couldn’t stop thinking about how…” He says so quietly she almost misses it.

“Me neither. I-even after I scrubbed every last inch of my body, it feels like the venom is still there. Like, I keep forgetting how to breath.. And remembering how much it hurt… And…”

“Oh, Nya…” He breathes, wrapping his arms around her. She bites back a sob as she snuggles into his embrace, reveling in the comfort it brings her. They rock back and forth for a few minutes, trying not to completely break down.

“I'm so sorry we had to go through all of… that. I-you died. It was horrible. And it was all my fault!”

“No. Don’t you dare try to take all of the blame for this. I mean, yes, you definitely made some really stupid choices, but if anyone’s gonna take the responsibility for what happened, it should be me. I started all of this a long, long time ago when I - ” Nya angles herself so that she can see his face.

“Nya, you don’t have to-” He begins to cut her off, but doesn’t get very far. She smiles softly, saying,

“Look. I chose you. I want us to work out, for us to be happy, but in order for that to happen, there are some things that need to be said. First of all, I come with baggage. A lot of it.”

“So do I.” He agrees, still not sure where the conversation is going. She bites back a chuckle.

“I’ve noticed. But… The thing is, before… During the whole fiasco with the perfect match machine? It was never about you. It was about me. For the record, I never stopped having feelings for you… I-I just…” Dragging Jay down beside her, she sinks onto the deck, leaning her back against the railing. It’s going to take awhile to really explain. To lay herself bare like she knows she needs to. Because Jay deserves the truth. They may as well get comfortable.

“I’m not the best at… Being open about my feelings. I’ve always hated feeling vulnerable, and back then? I didn’t really get why… Not until a lot later. When I was forced to become the water ninja, in fact. I was so awful at it, and it made me so uncomfortable – but it also helped me identify some of my self image issues.” She takes a deep breath, reaching for his hand as she continues, “So much of my life, I’ve felt like I had to prove something to someone. In Ignacia, Kai and I both had to prove that we could take care of ourselves. There wasn’t another option, unless we wanted to be saddled with some sketchy babysitter or sent to an orphanage. Then came Kai becoming a ninja, and, suddenly, I got it into my head that you guys wouldn’t take me seriously if you realized that I was samurai x.” She ignores the disgruntled look on the master of lightning’s face – she already knows now that it was a stupid sentiment, “So I didn’t tell you. Even though it probably just made things more dangerous. When Sensei started training me, I felt like I had to prove something there, too. That I was worthy of my mother’s element – even if I hated it and just wanted to go back to being a samurai, something that I was already good at. I got so frustrated that I tried to quite. And that’s when it first started to click. Because maybe some part of me thought that by doing all this impressive stuff, I could prove that it was a mistake for my parents to-to…”

“To leave you behind?” However Jay managed to guess her thoughts, she’s a little grateful she doesn’t have to say it herself.

“Yeah… So, anyway, back when we were still together, you were always so open and sweet about your feelings for me. And somewhere in the back of my head was that part of me that felt like I could never measure up to the person you thought I was and-”

“I'm so sorry! I didn’t realize… I-I only wanted to show you how much I cared. Because I thought that if you realized how special and loved you were… You wouldn't…" Leave me? The words aren’t spoken aloud, but the implication is there.

“I know. I just… I was feeling so overwhelmed, because I did want to be able to tell you how I felt about you – about the whole situation, but I kept talking myself out of it and thinking that if I just added a few boundaries until I reached the point where things felt safe again that… But then that stupid machine came into the picture, and I dunno? It scared me, because what if I was wrong? What if you didn’t really love me and left…”

“I would never.” He assures her, squeezing the hand clasping own. She brings her spare hand up to touch his cheek.

“You wouldn’t. And I was awful to let myself think that. Everything got so out of hand, and I had so many opportunities to fix things, but I didn’t. Even after the fighting calmed down. I didn’t wanna risk hurting you by ruining another relationship attempt. So, I stayed quiet. I came so close to confessing everything on Chen’s Island – but I didn’t have a chance to before we had to run off and save the world.”

“Will it ever not be that way?” Jay ponders. She shrugs.

“The world saving was very distracting. For a long time. Once I finally felt like I was starting to come to terms with what had been going on mentally, having the media get involved dealt me another blow. It was like the world no longer valued me as anything more than a token – an object to be won… But I didn’t want to completely give up on at least being friends with you, so I started trying to talk. But in the end, I just ended up pushing you away even more because I was so concerned about fighting my public image and not letting anyone else decide what I could be or do with my life. And to be honest? It freaked me out how sure you were that we were meant to be. I needed to regain control, and you ended up paying the price. And I can never tell you how sorry I am for being such a jerk! I died! You almost got killed several times because I refused to stop being stubborn and let someone else take the wheel, even for a moment! I-I…” A soft kiss prevents her from saying anything more. How is it that such a simple gesture has always had the power to relieve her pain?

“I forgave you a long time ago… And I never stopped caring about you, either. Even when I was fighting with Cole-which was a pretty dumb move in hindsight. We were both being idiots. And I’m sorry too...”

“I-Okay. Yeah, we kinda were… We’re a hot mess, aren’t we?” Nya exclaims, snuggling against her boyfriend. He smirks slightly.

“Well, we’re definitely hot!” She shoots him a look, which he pretends not to see, instead kissing her forehead.

“And we are a bit of a mess. But we’ve both grown so much. I really think we’ll make it this time…”

“Mm… I love you, Jay Walker.”

“And I love you, Nya Smith. Just don't ever die on me again. I don’t think I could handle that…” They both shudder, moving even closer together, as if afraid that they’ll be torn apart.

“I’m not handling it now…” Nya admits, “I’m sure sleep would help, but… That’s not happening any time soon…”

“Same here. So, what do we do, then?” Jay wonders. She doesn’t answer right away, but then, inspiration strikes her.

“When I was little, Kai used to build these super elaborate blanket forts whenever one of us was upset. Like ones that spanned entire rooms, and had lots of junk food hidden inside. And then, we’d stay up and watch as many movies as it took to calm back down. Do you think, maybe…?”

“Sure. If it’ll help. I’ll grab the cushions and blankets, you get the movies and snacks.” The master of lightning quickly agrees. It doesn’t take long for them to construct their fortress against one side of the deck, using every last spare sheet and pillow they own (and maybe snagging a few from Kai’s stash-that’s what siblings are for) . One and a half movies later, they finally give in to their exhaustion, falling asleep with their hands intertwined. Their joint presence keeps the nightmares at bay until Nya’s brother finds them the next morning. Though concerned about what exactly they’ve been doing all night, he’s honestly just relieved that they’ve finally figured things out. One less source of headaches for him, as long as they don’t go making a habit of public displays of affection like yesterday’s kiss… Which they probably will, but he can yell at them later. They do look awfully cute like that…

[thelittlepalmtree]

What is a healthy ship?

I think about this a lot, because we through the word “toxic” around constantly. I actually love the word toxic to describe relationships that are draining, because like radioactive or poisonous materials, toxic behavior may be unnoticeable on a given day or it may have a big affect all at once. However, because of overuse of the word, I’m going to talk about healthy vs unhealthy.

So first of all, let’s identify things that are risk factors: A relationship between a boss and an employee (even after that dynamic has ended), a relationship with a significant age gap, a relationship between people of different social strata, a relationship between a person who has financial control of another person, and a relationship with a history of aggression/dislike of one another, a relationship between a therapist/social worker/doctor and a client, a relationship between a teacher and student, a relationship between people of different physical abilities, etc.

Obviously these risk factors vary in many ways. That’s because what makes a relationship unhealthy is a clear and dramatic divide between the partners. This is true of every relationship. That’s why teachers, doctors, therapists etc have strict regulations and ethics because the people they serve are in their power. Abusing that power is wrong. Now you can have some risk factors, and not be in an unhealthy relationship. In fact most if not all relationships have some risk factors for an unhealthy dynamic (common).  For example, people of different social strata can have healthy relationships, they just need to work that out and find ways not to let that into their relationship. And there are millions of healthy relationships where one partner has financial control of the family, but is not abusive.

Then there are gray areas. Personally, I think that a relationship between a boss and an employee isn’t inherently abusive as long as they are no longer boss and employee (look at Aunt Hilda and Dr. Cerberus on TCOS, Ben and Leslie in Parks and Rec). But there are so many factors involved that if one of my friends told me she had a crush on her boss, I’d tell her not to pursue it and I heard a boss was trying to pursue a relationship with an employee I’d immediately be uncomfortable. But a lot of it depends on the job relationship, have they always been boss and employee? How dependent is the employee on the good graces of the boss? Is the boss using rewards or punishments at work to control the employee in the relationship? Is the boss directly managing the employee? I have a similar thing about age differences. Often people are quick to condemn a 20 year old dating a sixteen or seventeen year old, but there are so many factors that you really have to look at it on a case by case basis. Similarly I know people who have very strong and loving relationships with a 7-10 year age difference that met when the younger one was in their early 20s and the older one was in their 30s. Personally, that isn’t something I’m interested as a 20something trying to date, but that doesn’t mean that every relationship like that will be terrible.

That being said, there are some risk factor that are always bad (absolute). A relationship between a therapist, counselor, personal aid, or any profession that gives the professional intimate and necessary knowledge of the person is wrong. If you need that explained think about Elijah Wood in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Did he skeeve you out? Yeah, that’s why the “my therapist is hot and I want to date them” plot is often very cringe. A relationship with an adult and a child, is always going to be bad (If you’re wondering where that line is, you’re too close to it). A relationship with a history of abuse is always going to be a relationship that is unhealthy. 

The thing is, if the relationship hasn’t happened yet, and it doesn’t have one of the clearly wrong risk factors, whether it’s actually abusive or not is really up for debate. A lot of time we throw the word abusive around for ships we don’t like. Sometimes it’s about misinformation, where people assign an absolute risk factor to a relationship in which there is no absolute risk factor. A big one for this is buckynat, a ship I adore. I’ll go into the age difference (which is one of many things that does not make sense):

the primary canon for the ship is in the comics based on Black Widow: Deadly Origins (the last comic to give specific dates for Natasha’s life)  they met when Natasha was twenty eight and Bucky was thirty nine. Not a significant age difference when you consider that at this point they both have anti-aging bastardized super serum that will keep them both alive for sixty three more years and counting. While other comics have alluded to changing the timeline, they have not actually provided different dates or information (there’s also some discrepancy as to whether or not Natasha was continuously with department X or not).

In the MCU (not that it matters now) it would probably not be hard to establish Natasha as older than the date given in CA:TWS and it would actually empower her to say that she has a version of the serum (where right now she’s just a normal human) and undo the horrible concept that she was sterilized as a graduation from the red room (in the comics she can’t have children because the serum makes pregnancy impossible unless you take immune system suppressants). If they didn’t want to go with this plot line, they could also just have Bucky and Natasha meet in the early 2000s right before she defected (Iron man 2 came out in 2010 if she met Bucky in 2004 when she was 20 she’d still have six years to defect).

And yet there is some strange insistence that if Bucky and Natasha even look at each other in the movies it will be some sort of pedophilia because of a throwaway line in CA:TWS, and based off of almost no evidence from either of the two reservoir of content we have. And rather than just say “I don’t like this ship” it’s been called unhealthy from every angle. Ironically in the comics it was one of the healthiest and most supportive ships which is why so many people fell in love with it. (but that’s for a different blog)

 Then there’s the assigning a gray area risk factor to a ship and insisting it always means that relationship will be unhealthy. I have to admit, I can be guilty of this. And I’m calling myself out right now because I do this to the reylo ship all the time. The thing is, these are legitimate reasons to not ship a ship, they’re gray areas and if you’re like me, the very existence of these risk factors makes the idea of the two characters being together seem cringe-y. So my Reylo analysis below:

The risk factor that makes Reylo seem unhealthy is the fact that Rey and Kylo had very few positive interactions in the first film, and in fact their most in depth conversation was while Kylo was hurting Rey. But, given the circumstances, it is possible they might get together. Think about Katarra and Zuko, who were on different sides of the same war, and then later became good friends (and personally I shipped them like crazy). It’s commonly accepted that in movies with grand fantastic implications, that two people who are on different sides can later become friends when one of them makes a major personal change.

Now, in the second movie, it seems fairly evident that that character change has yet to happen. But speaking from personal experience, it takes a lot for someone to be a better person. While it’s not a good idea to get together with someone to change them, it’s not like that’s an impossible thing to do, but also Kylo and Rey are not together and have yet to get together in the films. So presumably most of the shippers are hoping for Kylo to make better choices before the two characters get together.

That’s the thing about shipping. No one ships the version of Reylo where Kylo is a whiny bitch who wants to take over the metaphor for the original nazi army metaphor (they’re called storm troopers people) and he spends all day emotionally manipulating Rey just to make her feel bad. The ones who do ship it, like that Kylo and I guess Rey have to become better people first. They don’t ship things as they are now, they are excited about the potential happiness these characters can find.

While this isn’t a good way to live your life (i.e. don’t date someone who isn’t their best self right now), it can be a fantasy for someone. I get it, the idea that the person you like isn’t great yet but eventually they’ll get their shit together. The thing that makes it nice is the fact that it never happens in real life. So if that’s what you’re into, cool. You do you. If your version of the ship is okay, we’re good.

Then there’s the last method of calling a ship unhealthy. That is taking a number of common nearly universal risk factors and using it as evidence to say the ship is unhealthy. To me this is the grossest misuse and one of the most common. It is almost always used against canon ships that get in the way of the popular ship and it can honestly push people out of the fandom. The example I’m going to use here is the ship Karamel, because once again I did not ship it at all. But I saw so much Karamel hate that I’m familiar with the ridiculousness of the some of the arguments. Analysis below:

Where to start with this one. Honestly everything was thrown at this ship. The fact that Mon-El was kind of a dick in the beginning. The fact that his parents were bad people. The fact that he told her he liked her multiple times. The fact that Kara took some time to show interest in him. Yes, if a relationship is abusive, these might have been early red flags, but this relationship was not abusive. It wasn’t the best relationship ever. But Mon-El never disrespected Kara’s choices or ingnored her when she said stop or no.

The truth is, sometimes people have crushes on people and it’s not mutual. In this situation, they had to remain a part of each others’ lives, and honestly, I’m glad that Mon-El was honest with his feelings. Because for him, Kara’s friendship was really important, and she was constantly pushing him to be open wit his feelings and to be more emotionally mature. So when he was honest, even though the conversation was risky, I think it was the right decision.

Here’s the problem with labeling this relationship as abusive. Obviously, the implication is that Mon-El is abusive. When you are in an abusive relationship, it isn’t a choice. It’s something that happens to you, because an abuser will constantly lie and gaslight you so that you have no real understanding of the facts and therefore cannot really make a choice. If you say Kara was in an abusive or “toxic” relationship just because she’s in a relationship you don’t like, you are taking away her choices. The best part of Supergirl is that Kara has to struggle to make choices whether they be right or wrong. She’s the one in control of the plot, she’s the driving force. So to then take all that away because you disagree with her choice in partner, really ignores her power and turns her into a passive, incapable woman. Whether or not you like her relationship with Mon-El, it is clear that she is the one that sets the boundaries and she is the one that drives it.

So then there are clearly abusive ships. I’m not going to do an in depth analysis but I think the best example is Jarley. The tamest incarnation of this ship Suicide Squad in which the Joker tortures her and then pushes her in a vat of toxic chemicals. It’s also a relationship between a therapist and a patient. A truly unhealthy relationship is one that satisfies most or all of the following criteria:

The couple is actually together in the canon (otherwise how would we actually analyze that dynamic?)

The couple has an absolute risk factor

There is evidence in canon of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse (this is not having an argument or teasing each other, for more info go here)

There is evidence of gaslighting or maniuplation (these must be intentional)

There is a clear power disparity between the characters

It’s important that we don’t over-label ships as abusive. First of all because there are a lot of people who are in abusive relationships or have been in abusive relationships all over the world. If they see that just any relationship that people don’t like is qualified as “abusive” it will become so much harder to then see their own relationships with clear eyes. I legitimately realized that my parents had been abusive to me because of some of the discourse here on tumblr. But if I was fifteen in the marvel fandom right now, it would be really hard for me to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy relationships. 

It’s also really important to make a distinction. Not all ships are created equal. There are dark corners of fandoms where parent/child ships grow and pedophilic ships are popular. And several fandoms have very popular incest (sibling) ships. These relationships are not okay. We need to be able to call them out undeniably. And every time you call a ship you don’t like unhealthy when it isn’t, you’re giving people a reason not to believe you when you do call out an unhealthy relationship.

Our words matter, and how we treat each other matters. It’s important to remember that there are no easy answers here. And also it’s okay to just not like something. You shouldn’t feel the need to justify it and you shouldn’t feel the need to declare it from the rooftops. My favorite ship is Buckynat. I’ve never once gotten mad for seeing a “how do you like buckynat?” “not my cup of tea” post. I get so upset when I see a “How do you like buckynat?” “oh it’s so TOXIC” post. In the same way that if you liked chocolate ice cream and your friend told you that chocolate ice cream is contributing to misogyny and trauma for women everywhere, you’d be a little up in arms.

If you read through this, thank you so much, you probably don’t need it. If not, well, you’re not here are you?

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

This is the Trump Docket, where we track some of the most important legal cases of the Trump presidency and how their results could shape presidential power. Questions, comments or thoughts about cases to cover? Email us here.

A separation-of-powers showdown has been brewing since Democrats took control of the House in January. And with two new lawsuits directly attacking House Democrats’ oversight authority, President Trump is now challenging whether one of Congress’s most potent checks on the executive branch can be used to probe his finances.

Over the past month, several House committees have issued subpoenas to banks with ties to Trump and an accounting firm that prepared several years of his financial statements, demanding a variety of documents. Trump has already declared that the White House won’t cooperate with any of the Democrats’ investigations, but he has little control over whether an external organization like a bank complies with a congressional subpoena. So he sued the banks, the accounting firm and House oversight committee Chairman Elijah Cummings. Trump is asking the courts to invalidate the subpoenas and arguing that they are an illegitimate exercise of Congress’s oversight power.

It’s a bold — and possibly even unprecedented — argument. Several legal experts told me that this appears to be the first time a sitting president has responded to a congressional inquiry by suing a member of Congress. They predicted that the cases will likely be difficult to win in court. Instead, they said, the lawsuits’ real power lies in politics and delay: They help Trump feed a political argument that House Democrats are unfairly persecuting him, while the subpoenas could be tied up in the courts for months or even years. And the ripple effects could be much bigger — if Trump successfully evades congressional scrutiny in these cases and others, future presidents could be emboldened to challenge Congress in similar ways.

Democrats are arguing that the contested subpoenas to Deutsche Bank, Capital One and Mazars USA, the accounting firm, fall squarely under their oversight powers. Congress can conduct investigations related to legislation and the functioning of the executive branch, and Democrats say they’re trying to learn whether Trump or his businesses are dependent on Russian money in a way that could influence his presidential decision-making. They’ve also said the banking subpoenas are part of a broader effort to determine whether the banks are helping Russian clients get money out of Russia. This wider investigation could theoretically trigger further congressional action if it reveals that the banks were involved in illicit money laundering.

But Trump is arguing that Democrats are seeking details of his private financial dealings merely to score political points and that the subpoenas to the banks violate privacy laws. In the lawsuit against Cummings and the accounting firm, Trump’s lawyers say that Democrats have “declared all-out political war” against the president, with subpoenas as “their weapons of choice,” and are trying “to expose [Trump’s] private financial information for the sake of exposure.” And in the lawsuit against Deutsche Bank and Capital One, they write that the subpoenas are intended to “harass” Trump and “ferret about for any material that might be used to cause him political damage.”

These claims of overreach might play well with Trump’s base, but the case itself is a long shot, said Cornell University law professor Josh Chafetz, who studies the relationship between Congress and the executive branch. “Congress has incredibly broad oversight powers, and there are any number of areas where these records could be relevant,” he said.

This doesn’t mean it’s a completely open-and-shut case, however. Lance Cole, a law professor at Penn State University and an expert on congressional investigations, said that because courts have ruled in the past that Congress can’t use its power to peer into citizens’ private lives without some legitimate justification, a judge might be sympathetic to Trump’s argument, particularly if Democrats are asking for lots of old financial documents. However, in the 1990s, Congress probed the details of a 15-year-old real estate deal involving Bill and Hillary Clinton as part of the Whitewater investigation, dredging up personal details from long before Clinton was president. That may bolster the argument that a president can’t really be compared with an ordinary citizen. “You can debate the merits of the investigation, but it’s hard for Trump to say that Congress has never done this before,” he said.

Trump doesn’t need to prevail in these cases to deal the Democrats a significant setback, however — he just needs to ensure that the lawsuits are not immediately dismissed. That’s because it can take months for a case to wend its way through the judicial bureaucracy before it goes to trial, and the subpoenas will likely be put on hold until the case is resolved. “It’s completely possible we won’t have an answer until after the 2020 election,” said Margaret Taylor, a fellow at the Brookings Institution.

So the lawsuits are likely to help Trump whether or not he ultimately wins them. In the short term, they’re feeding a broader political narrative of Democratic overreach. In the medium term — possibly through the entire election cycle — they will delay Democrats’ efforts to access his financial records. The million-dollar question is what the impact will be on our political system in the long term. Taylor told me that it’s deeply unusual for a president to argue that he’s simply not subject to congressional oversight. “Since Watergate, presidents have had their disagreements with Congress, but they have recognized that Congress has a valid oversight role,” she said.

Regardless of what happens with Trump’s finances, this fight could be a sign of things to come. “If Trump continues to stonewall and the Democrats don’t push back or their pushback is ineffective, future presidents will decide that they basically aren’t answerable to Congress unless they want to be,” Chafetz said.

Other cases

President Trump

A case alleging that Trump is unconstitutionally accepting “emoluments” from foreign countries will be allowed to move forward. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled that congressional Democrats’ definition of emolument — which broadly encompasses any gift or payment from a foreign power — is more convincing than Trump’s attorneys’ narrower definition of an emolument as a payment received for services performed in the president’s official capacity. Another emoluments case filed by the attorneys general of D.C. and Maryland is currently pending in an appeals court, but the scope of the Democrats’ lawsuit is much broader — rather than focusing on Trump’s Washington, D.C., hotel, it implicates all of Trump’s businesses worldwide.

The Trump administration

One of the cases challenging Trump’s national emergency declaration was voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiffs, who said they were withdrawing from the suit because the money obtained through the declaration wouldn’t be used to build barriers in the places where their clients are located. Many other lawsuits involving the national emergency declaration are ongoing.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in April on a case about whether the Trump administration can add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census. Many observers reported that the court’s conservative majority seemed willing to allow the addition of the question.

The Department of Justice filed a brief in a case involving the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, arguing that the entire law is unconstitutional, which is a reversal of its previous position that some, but not all, of the ACA should be struck down. A federal district court judge in Texas ruled in December that the ACA is unconstitutional because a 2017 law removed the tax penalty for not having health insurance. The case is now pending appeal.

A federal judge in Maryland denied the Trump administration’s request to dismiss a new set of lawsuits against the travel ban to the U.S. by residents of seven countries, including several where most of the citizens are Muslim. The Supreme Court allowed the policy to take effect last summer, but the new travel ban lawsuits are challenging the legality of its design and enforcement. The judge’s ruling will allow the plaintiffs to obtain evidence about how the process of administering the ban is unfolding.

From ABC News:

[naturecpw]

The Moral Cost of Cats

A bird-loving scientist calls for an end to outdoor cats “once and for all.”

Smithsonian Magazine - Rachel E. Gross

Do outdoor cats need to die? 

Pete Marra is haunted by cats. He sees them everywhere: slinking down alleys, crouched under porches, glaring at him out of wild, starved eyes.        

People assume that Marra, head of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and author of the book Cat Wars, hates cats. This is not the case. “I love cats,” he says, calling them “fascinating, magnificent animals,” that seem to have a “freakish love for me.” He’s even considered a pet cat, despite being mildly allergic. “This is the thing people don’t realize,” Marra told me at a café near his office in Washington, D.C. “I’m both a wild animal advocate and a domestic animal advocate. If my mother thought I wasn’t supporting cats, she’d be flipping in her grave.”        

It’s an understandable mistake. After all, Marra has made himself the public face of what sounds a lot like an anti-cat crusade. For years, the wildlife ecologist has been investigating the lethal implications of cats and urging that pet owners keep them indoors. He argues in Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer, co-authored with freelance writer Chris Santella, the time has come for more drastic action: a concerted, nationwide effort to rid the landscape of cats. (The book is based on Marra’s personal and scientific research, and the views and conclusion are expressly his own and do not represent those of the Smithsonian Institution.)        

That effort will require an ugly reality: the targeted killing of felines. “No one likes the idea of killing cats," Marra concludes in his book. "But sometimes, it is necessary."        

Marra might like cats. But he also sees a bigger picture. In his day job, he and his team at the migratory bird center track the global movements of birds and tease apart threats to their existence. He knows that birds don’t just twit around pointlessly. They pollinate plants, spread seeds, control insects and protect environments from the effects of climate change; they are the glue that binds healthy ecosystems together. “Birds are critical,” he says. And outdoor cats, he and other ecologists have determined, are the leading human-influenced cause of dead birds.        

  In 1962, biologist Rachel Carson wrote that “in nature nothing exists alone.” Marra couldn’t agree more. Like Carson, he thinks of life on Earth as a complex tapestry in which each species represents a single thread. Outdoor cats threaten that tapestry. Their crimes include contributing to 33 extinctions around the world and counting, to say nothing of their potential to spread deadly diseases like rabies and Toxoplasmosis. They hold in tooth and claw the power to destroy that delicate web—like, well, a cat unraveling a ball of string.        

Americans own about 86 million cats, or one cat for every three households. That makes cats more popular, petwise, than dogs, and we haven’t even gotten to Internet memes yet. But not all pet cats are created equal. The majority of them—about two-thirds to three-fourths, surveys say—are your sweet, harmless, cuddly housecats, which seldom set foot outside. Marra takes no issue with these lap cats. Their instincts may be lethal, but they rarely get the chance to harm more than a house mouse. 

The other one-quarter to one-third, though, aren’t so harmless. These are outdoor pet cats, and they are murderers. Equipped with laser-quick paws and razor-tipped claws, these natural born killers are the stuff of every bird and small mammal’s nightmare. Often we love them for just this quality; the hard-working barn cat has nipped many a country mouse infestation in the bud. But sometimes their deadly instincts spell trouble for animals and ecosystems we value—and often, Marra argues, desperately need.        

Marra tells the story of Tibbles the cat, who traveled with her owner to an untouched island south of New Zealand in 1894. There, she single-pawedly caused the extinction of the Stephens Island wren, a small, flightless bird found only in that part of the world. Most cats aren’t as deadly as Tibbles, but your average outdoor pet cat still kills around two animals per week, according to the Wildlife Society and the American Bird Conservancy. The solution for these cats is simple, says Marra: Bring them indoors. The Humane Society of the United States agrees.        

 So far, so good. Now comes the real problem: unowned cats, which include strays and ferals. Born in the wild or abandoned, feral cats spend almost no time with humans; they’re basically wild animals. Stray cats, by contrast, often have a working relationship with humans. They might live in managed communities, where a human caretaker regular feeds and watches over them—“subsidizing” them, in Marra’s words—meaning their numbers can soar to rates they wouldn’t be able to otherwise. Whether stray or feral, these cats kill on average three times as many animals as owned cats, according to Marra.        

No one knows exactly how many stray and feral cats stalk the U.S. They are, by nature, elusive and transient. In a 2012 study, Marra used an estimate of 30 to 80 million; the Humane Society estimates a more conservative 30 to 40 million. Adithya Sambamurthy from the Center for Investigative Reporting’s The Reveal recently reported that unowned cats may rival the number of pet cats, placing them at about 80 million. That means, for every lap cat hunkering over his dish of Fancy Feast, there is another one prowling around for his dinner—like an evil twin, or a particle of antimatter.        

For these cats, there is no easy solution. This is where Marra’s unorthodox plan comes into play. As he writes: 

In high-priority areas there must be zero tolerance for free-ranging cats. If the animals are trapped, they must be removed from the area and not returned. If homes cannot be found for the animals and no sanctuaries or shelters are available, there is no choice but to euthanize them. If the animals cannot be trapped, other means must be taken to remove them from the landscape—be it the use of select poisons or the retention of professional hunters.                

Feral cat advocates and ecologists agree on very little. But one thing they both will say is this: There are too many cats outside. Feral cat advocates say these dense numbers threaten the welfare of cats themselves, which lead miserable lives colored by fights and starvation. Ecologists, meanwhile, worry about those cats’ victims—as well whether the cats might be spreading disease to humans and other animals.        

Management of these overabundant felines is where the two disagree. For many animal welfare advocates, the solution is TNR, or Trap-Neuter-Return. TNR is just what it sounds like: a policy that involves trapping stray and feral cats, sterilizing them and returning them to the urban wilds in the hopes that populations will decrease. In the past decade, TNR has gone mainstream in many cities, helped along by generous funding from pet food companies including Petco and PetSmart. The premise is simple: Cats live out their lives, but don’t reproduce.        

Becky Robinson, president of the advocacy group Alley Cat Allies and a major proponent of TNR, calls the method “effective, humane control.” “This is a benefit directly to the cats,” she told me over the phone. (Two communications staffers from Robinson’s organization were listening in our conversation, to give you an idea of the delicateness of the topic.)        

Some researchers have documented surprising successes with TNR. Dr. Julie Levy of the University of Florida in Gainesville and colleagues conducted one of the first long-term studies on the effectiveness of TNR, publishing their results in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association in 2003. They sought to quantify whether TNR could succeed in a specific population: stray cats colonies on the campus of the University of Central Florida.        

The researchers expressed doubts at the outset, reporting that “virtually no information exists to support the contention that neutering is an effective long-term method for controlling free-roaming cat populations.” Yet in 2016, more than ten years after their study concluded, just five cats remained on campus—and these are so old and sickly they had to be given geriatric care. Even Levy was taken aback by the results. “We keep seeing better success in the field than the models ever predict,” she says. However, much of the decrease can be attributed to the fact that volunteers often end up adopting cats—a phenomenon Levy considers an unofficial part of many TNR programs.        

Despite these kinds of successes, many ecologists say flatly that TNR doesn’t work. The problem is that, for TNR to succeed in large populations, at least 75 percent of cats in a colony must be sterilized. That rarely happens. The trouble is that negligent pet owners continue to abandon pet cats, which then join existing colonies; additionally, non-neutered stray cats can wander in. Like efforts at vaccinating schools against chickenpox, just a few stragglers can undermine an entire TNR program. Any short-term reduction in colony size is therefore quickly reversed, a group of researchers including Levy and ecologist Patrick Foley reported after studying nearly 15,000 stray and feral cats.        

For Marra, TNR is a feel-good solution that is no solution at all—a Band-Aid that has done little to stem the flow of cats. By refusing to look at the reality, he says, we are letting our “misplaced compassion” for cats get the better of our reason. That is why he and some other ecologists call for a more draconian approach: widespread removal of feral and stray cats, including euthanasia.        

The concept isn’t as radical as it sounds. Australia aims to kill two million cats by 2020 using “robots, lasers, [and] poison.” New Zealand, as I’ve reported previously, has long perpetrated mass warfare on possums, stoats and weasels in a bid to save its beloved birds. In America, too, we cull mammals—including gray wolves, which can prey on livestock and pets, and bison, our national mammal, which can spread bacterial infections to cattle. We even kill cats: American shelters put down more than 1.4 million cats a year, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.        

That doesn’t mean we’re comfortable with it. “That’s the aspect that is most alarming about the animal welfare groups, is the fact that often the only reasonable solution of getting rid of invasive species is lethal control,” says Stanley Temple, a wildlife ecologist who argued for the necessity of eradicating invasive species in a 1990 essay The Nasty Necessity. “And that is the single thing that they are so vehemently opposed to. Their hang-up, if you will, on death.” 

Given the unpopularity of eradication programs in the U.S., it would seem inadvisable for any researcher to make one part of his platform of action. But this, Marra says, is our only option. Now his challenge is to get others on his side. To do so he will need more than science—he will need to get people to empathize with birds, and to value species and ecosystems over individuals.      

Marra likes to say that birds saved him, which isn't far off. He was raised mainly by his mother, who worked full-time to support him and his three siblings after his father left when he was an infant. As a result, he enjoyed a relatively feral childhood. By the time he was six, he found himself wandering alone in the woods near his house in Norwalk, Connecticut, swimming in lakes, climbing trees and digging in the dirt for star-nosed moles, frogs and salamanders. He loved catching animals of all kinds—“anything wild,” he says now.        

The Westport Nature Center, a half-mile walk down the hill from his house, became a refuge. With its living wild animals and displays of taxidermied ruffed grouse, the center got Marra asking questions about how his surroundings came to be. One day, a naturalist at the center caught a black-capped chickadee in a mist net, and placed it in his hands. He remembers cupping the bird delicately, “looking into its eyes, feeling its feathers, feeling its wildness,” as he recalled at a Smithsonian event. Meeting the bird’s black marble gaze, a switch flipped in his brain.

“It was a remarkable moment that I’ll never forget,” he said at the event. “The aura of the bird almost entered my body. It was really kind of a transformational experience for me.” 

Throughout a tumultuous childhood, birds provided an anchor. “Birds saved me, because they were always this constant thread that I could come back to,” he says. “It was the one stable thing in my life.” When he went to Southern Connecticut State University to study biology, he quickly realized that dusty specimens in libraries held little appeal. “I was less interested in understanding the subtleties between plumages,” he says. “I was much more interested in watching live birds.”

  In 1999, Marra took a job as a wildlife ecologist at Smithsonian's Environmental Research Center to be on the front lines of human encroachment on the natural environment. When West Nile virus began leaving a trail of dead crows, he started looking into bird mortality. In 2011, he published a paper in the Journal of Ornithology that followed the fate of young gray catbirds in the Maryland suburbs. Soon after leaving the nest, 79 percent of birds were killed by predators, primarily cats, which leave the telltale sign of decapitated victims with just the bodies uneaten. (Ironically, this bird gets its name not because it commonly ends up in the jaws of cats, but from its vaguely catlike yowl).        

The following year, Marra got more ambitious: He decided to tally up the national toll that outdoor cats take on wildlife. He and colleagues used mathematical models to analyze data from local cat predation studies going back more than 50 years. When they extrapolated the data to reflect national trends, they were stunned. According to their calculations, outdoor cats killed somewhere in the ballpark of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion small mammals in the U.S. per year—far exceeding any other human-influenced cause of avian death, such as pesticides or collisions with windows.  

When Marra saw the number “2.4 billion,” he knew that the claws were about to come out. He was right. On January 29, 2013, the same day the paper was published in the journal Nature Communications, the New York Times featured a front-page article highlighting his findings entitled “That Cuddly Killer Is Deadlier Than You Think.” The piece became the newspaper's most-emailed article of the week. It garnered more than a thousand comments online, ranging from outraged (“I'm tired of everyone putting down cats and trying to justify their extermination”) to pointed (“It’s the large bipeds who are the problem, not their cats”) to satirical (“Eat more cat!”). 

Marra read them all. Many were personal insults directed squarely at him. Some suggested that he should be predated or euthanized. Marra understands how emotional people can get about cats—he has entered into many a dinner table debate with his 15-year-old daughter, a long-time vegetarian and animal lover, over cat policy—so he tries to take these reactions with a grain of salt. Still, he admits, “it hurts.” When I ask him how he deals with the constant backlash, he laughs. “Good question,” he says. “It’s actually because I believe in what I do. And if I don’t do it—well, I’ve got one life. This is it. This is the now.” 

More bothersome than the personal attacks were the attacks on his research methodology. The most relentless was Peter Wolf, a vocal feral cat advocate who called Marra’s paper “garbage,”“junk science” and “an agenda-driven effort to undermine TNR” on his blog, Vox Felina. Wolf took issue with the levels of uncertainty in Marra’s paper, alleging that the numbers were “wildly inflated,” came from biased sources, and drew upon just just a handful of studies. “When seen in context, these astronomical figures alone raise questions of credibility,” Wolf wrote on his blog. “It doesn’t seem like science to me,” he told me recently.

It was, Marra admits, a wide range. He and his colleagues estimated that “free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually.” The reason for the discrepancy was the woeful lack of data on feral cat populations and their lifestyles. Marra worked with the limited data he had, synthesizing the results from previous studies and augmenting them with predation numbers from Europe, Australia and New Zealand. By including both the lowest and highest possible estimates for cat predation, he thought he was covering all his bases.  

In all the fighting and flying fur, Marra saw an opportunity. By the time his paper was published in Nature Communications, he was already thinking about writing a book. “I knew this had huge potential for creating a lot of controversy,” he says. “But also conversation. To me, it’s really about the conversation and trying to figure out: how do we come to some resolution on this thing?” 

Cats kill; that much is clear. “The science is all pretty bloody obvious,” as Michael Clinchy, a Canadian biologist focusing on predator-prey relationships at the University of Victoria, puts it. But cats also spread disease. Outdoor cats can transmit plague, rabies, feline leukemia and a mysterious parasite known as Toxoplasma gondii. The extinction of the Hawaiian crow, or ʻalalā, in 2002 is thought to have been caused in part by the spread of Toxoplasma via feral cats. “The diseases from cats is what’s going to change this whole equation,” Marra says. 

Cat feces, 1.2 million tons of which are excreted a year, are known to contain Toxoplasma. The single-celled parasite enters the brain and changes the behavior of prey animals like rats, which can show a strange attraction to cat urine. About 10 to 20 percent of Americans also harbor the parasite, which can be absorbed through contact with litter boxes, drinking contaminated water or eating undercooked meat. Once believed to hang out harmlessly in the human brain, some scientists now believe that Toxoplasma may actively change the connections between our neurons—shifting dopamine levels, altering personalities and even triggering diseases like schizophrenia in genetically susceptible individuals.

Marra calls Toxoplasma a contaminant on the order of DDT, the broad-scale chemical pesticide used to control insects and combat infectious disease up until the 1960s. (DDT lingers in the environment for years, where it can threaten human and animal health, as Rachel Carson documented in her book Silent Spring.) In fact, Marra thinks of outdoor cats themselves as a DDT-like contaminant—wreaking widespread, unnatural havoc on their surroundings. The difference, to him, is that DDT has never been known to wipe out a species, while cats have been implicated in at least 33 extinctions thus far. 

The Toxoplasma threat, Marra writes, makes outdoor cats nothing less than a public health issue. He recommends that the federal government take on the task of eradicating cats from the landscape, via the Centers for Disease Control. He imagines taxpayer-supported public education campaigns, billboards about disease dangers and the importance of keeping cats inside, and large-scale eradication programs in vulnerable areas like Hawaii. To Wolf and others, the idea of such a policy is “absurd” and “screams of desperation.” But to Marra, it’s simply a logical conclusion: “We need to minimize the impact humans have,” he says. “Cats are one of the impacts.”

Science might be able to tell us how many animals cats kill per year. But it can’t tell us what that means—nor what we should do about it. It is us who attach moral weight to cats, by projecting our fear and fantasies upon them. Tibbles was “doing only what her instinct told her to do,” Marra writes. We make cats into pets or pests; victims or villains; those who suffer or those who cause suffering.  

At the heart of this debate is a question not of data, but of aesthetics, principles and philosophies. That is: In a world fundamentally shaped by humans, who is to say whether birds and native wildlife have any more right to the landscape than domestic cats do? Should the goal be to rewind the urban landscape back to before the arrival of Europeans—and is that even possible?  

Conservation biologists have always called these kinds of shots themselves. “We’ve made a judgment that biodiversity is good,” says Temple. For Marra, cats represent yet another destructive footprint man has made on the landscape. To rid the country of their presence is therefore to restore some pre-human balance of nature, some lost sense of grace. It is to protect those creatures that cannot save themselves. “It is essential,” he says, “that we save these species.”        

In his closing chapter, Marra warns that Americans may soon awaken to dead birds and “muted birdsong, if any at all.” It’s another nod to Rachel Carson, whose defense of nature helped spark the modern environmental movement. Today we’ve come to recognize Carson as an environmental Cassandra; history has vindicated many of her inconvenient truths. But when Silent Spring first came out, her ideas were met with hostility from other scientists, who deemed her hysterical, alarmist and “probably a Communist.”

For Marra, it is clear that outdoor cats represent the Silent Spring of our time. Not only are cats the single worst threat to birds caused directly by humans, but they are also the easiest problem to fix, as compared to many-leveled threats like climate change. For him, it is obvious what we must do. Yet he is also starting to understand the challenge of making others see the world as he does. “To me, this should be the low-hanging fruit,” he says. “But as it turns out, it might be easier stopping climate change than stopping cats.”

Rachel E. Gross is the Science Editor for Smithsonian Magazine, covering stories behind new discoveries and the debates that shape our understanding of the world. Before coming to Smithsonian, she covered science for Slate, Wired, and The New York Times.

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https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-moral-cost-of-cats?utm_source=pocket-newtab

[rulystuff]

https://servicemeltdown.com/what-service-were-dealing-with-the-virus/

New Post has been published on https://servicemeltdown.com/what-service-were-dealing-with-the-virus/

WHAT SERVICE? WE'RE DEALING WITH THE VIRUS!

The Chinese Communist Virus has not only killed tens of thousands of innocent Americans but it is now the most recent foil used by organizations around the country to kill service to the customer.

In telecommunications, hospitality, education, banking, retail, healthcare, and countless other business sectors of the economy the virus is cited as the reason why organizations are slow or unable to respond to the needs of the consumer. Government services, which have never been known to respond to the needs of citizens with alacrity, have become congealed in a combination of fear and ineptitude.

The virus now takes its place in the pantheon of reasons which organizations have long proffered for barely lifting a finger on behalf of the customer. Lousy and trivial excuses for not serving the customer now seem more grave and sincere because the virus is involved.

A handful of examples will suffice to make the point:

Comcast Corporation, the largest internet provider with over 25 million subscribers, and over 21 million TV subscribers will keep a telephone caller on hold for an hour or longer and take days to address a technical issue either remotely or in person. The reason? As a supervisor explained it to me: “Because of the virus, our technicians are having to work from home.” Again, we’re not talking about an upstart piker in the phone business but about the largest telecom company in the United States with monopoly markets in many metropolitan areas of the country.

The prestigious Boca Raton Hotel and Resort in South Florida continues to bill its members a monthly fee of nearly $1,000 despite the fact that all of its facilities have been shuttered and most of its workers furloughed for months. Only recently was the resort moved to issue a meager one-time $500 credit to its members. “In appreciation of your support,” reads the communiqué from the resort’s President in announcing the spending credit.

Universities continue to charge full tuition for students to participate in what is essentially an online class curriculum. Dartmouth college, for instance, charges over $55,000 in tuition for nothing more thanso-called “computer”learning. It is no wonder that the college is facing a $5 million class action suit from parents for its failure to mitigate the cost of tuition and fees. Dartmouth is not a solitary offender as approximately one-hundred other universities and colleges are facing similar lawsuits.

Major banks such as HSBC and JP Morgan Chase have closed many of their branches not only to foot traffic but to drive-through traffic as well. Private bankers whose value to their clients rests on personal relationships coupled with an in-depth knowledge of financial products are largely missing in action. The fallback service provider for these banks is as ineffective now as it was before the virus, namely the call-center attendant in Manila.

David Wohl, a California Criminal Defense Attorney, recently visited his favorite haberdasher, Men’s Wearhouse. When Mr. Wohl arrived at the store he was not allowed inside due to “social distancing.” He was instead asked to stand outside in 103˚ weather. After about fifteen minutes of waiting in the sweltering heat Mr. Wohl asked if he could enter, “No, the manager said, and if you have an issue with it you can go somewhere else.” The Men’s Wearhouse chain has over 700 stores and is owned by the financially troubled Tailored Brands. The Company has negative equity and negative earnings. It is $1.4 billion in debt and it has seen its share price drop from $5.96 a year ago to $.65 at the most recent close.   Blame the virus all you want but the problem with this retailer runs much deeper than that.

According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) hospitals rated 75 points out of 100 with consumers in 2016 in satisfaction. By comparison, government services rated a paltry 68 points out of 100. In school, the former score would earn you maybe a C grade. The latter, no better than a D+ in your report card. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis has railed against a local hospital charging $150 for a virus test. But predatory pricing is what awaits the patient who visits a hospital emergency room. Cases abound of hospitals gouging patients by charging thousands of dollars for visits to the ER which at times have been devoid of a swab test for the virus.

The court system in the United States is at a virtual standstill as judges have postponed trials and hearings. Only a few jurisdictions have sought to use technology such as remote video and teleconferencing to conduct business. Clearly, a failure to adapt to the new reality brought about by the virus could have serious implications for people with immediate problems including those in prison awaiting trial, individuals in need of a restraining order or those in need of a custody judgment. Worse, individuals facing indictments are getting a free pass while the court system is shut down. When the court system reopens, the unprecedented backlog of civilian and criminal litigation will bring chaos to the courts to the chagrin of both litigants and law professionals alike.

New York City has experienced an increase of 53% in shooting victims to 636 and an increase of 21% in homicides to 178 for the first six months of 2020. And, after a spate of violence over the Fourth of July Weekend Mayor Bill de Blasio, attributed the uptick in violence to the virus. “This is directly related to the coronavirus,” said the Mayor. Outlandish if not bizarre, the Mayor’s explanation failed to mention the city’s new bail reform which puts convicted criminals back on the street, defunding the Police Department to the tune of $1 billion, releasing inmates from Rikers Island, and disbanding the city’s anti-crime unit.

The state of affairs described above is a confluence of supplier behavior best epitomized by the glib phrase “we’re doing the best we can,” and consumers who no longer have an expectation that their suppliers can deliver excellence in service. At the dawn of the twenty-first century it appeared that consumers were emboldened to become more demanding than at any other time in history due to techno/economic trends that shrunk the globe, increased consumer choices exponentially, and thus leveled the playing field for rich and poor consumers alike. Now it seems that our optimism was unfounded. The Chinese Communist pathogen has taken care of that.

We are experiencing a service meltdown that is ineffable despite decades of lip service by executives of organizations large and small about the great and wonderful job they are doing on the service front.

And, I am not optimistic that suppliers, in the main, will relinquish their obsession with financial rewards or other perquisites and suddenly become more disposed to work in the customer’s behalf.

THE CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS REQUIRED FOR EXCELLENCE IN SERVICE

There are four critical success factors needed for excellent service to result. These factors must work holistically – as a system – so as to deliver unimpeachable service. Leave any of these elements out and you suck out the oxygen needed to contribute to the growth and vitality of the customer-focused organization.

What follows is my take on the critical success factors of service based on my experience starting and running numerous business for nearly fifty years:

Leadership from the top – The key issue that catalyzes all other critical success factors is leadership. The customer-focused organization demands a special kind of leadership. The customer-focused leader must have his ear to the ground, the moral courage to challenge long-held assumptions, make tough decisions, implement needed reforms, and, in the end, raise what is intellectually sound to an emotional level. In the absence of this kind of commitment service will continue as nothing more than an afterthought, something to deal with only in the face of serious customer discontent.

The customer as the centerpiece of strategy – The customer-focused organization centers its strategy around the customer. Reaching out to the customer in a thoughtful and meaningful way forms the basis for a strategy which gives direction to a long-term vision, a mission statement, financial goals, organizational structures, technology initiatives and so on. The alternative is a strategy formulation process which only rewards the technocrats in the ivory tower.

A service ethic – The organization that is genuine about its commitment to the customer needs to actively promote and enforce an ethical standard that, above all else, celebrates and rewards employees for satisfying customer needs, and for always acting with integrity. Lapses in integrity erode trust, and this, in turn, erects barriers to the free exchange of candid information so vital to the pursuit of excellence in service. A service ethic can only thrive in an environment of hard-hitting, frank, and open discussion both inside and outside the organization.

Power to the front line – Human capital, intelligent, skilled, and properly supported and equipped is the fundamental resource that adds value to the customer-focused organization. My definition of a frontline worker is, therefore, correspondingly broad: anyone who has contact with the customer is by my definition on the frontline. Service at the front, the mechanics of which are just as much art as they are science, pivots on the competence, preparation, support, and dedication of individuals distant from the executive suite.

A full expression of service to the customer can only be found in an environment where these critical success factors work in harmony. No one critical success factor, working in isolation, can be the determining factor, regardless of how much organizational might is put behind it. A failure to appreciate the interplay of the four factors, and to execute in the light of their complex nature leads to myriad rationalizations such as those described above and whose current scapegoat is the Chinese Communist Virus.

[inside919]

This just on... http://inside919.com/business/pitt-county-makes-growth-a-group-effort/

Pitt County makes growth a group effort

Economic development is a team sport in Pitt County. Jack Pender, who is part of the East Carolina University chemistry department, created a training course for workers at nearby Mayne Pharma Group Ltd. at the request of Pitt Community College’s customized training program.

  Appeared as a sponsored section in the November 2017 issue of Business North Carolina.

By Kathy Blake

Jack Pender’s two-day, hands-on laboratory class wasn’t for students in Greenville-based East Carolina University’s chemistry department, where he’s director of pharmaceutical training and laboratory services. Instead, he designed the on-campus instruction for employees of Australia-based drugmaker Mayne Pharma Group Ltd., which has a commercial office in Raleigh and factory in Greenville.

The class covered several topics, including high-performance liquid chromatography. Mayne uses the technique, which identifies and quantifies a substance’s ingredients, at its development and analytical testing center in Greenville. “The class was requested by Mayne and administered through the customized training program at Pitt Community College,” Pender says. “ECU has offered or coordinated several short courses on relevant topics for working pharmaceutical professionals to better understand the ‘why’ behind the work they do daily.”

ECU and Winterville-based Pitt Community College’s training efforts are one collaboration that is boosting Pitt County. Industry, higher education, local government and the private sector are connecting on others. They are improving the economy by developing economic, transportation, housing and health care assets. While most of those are happening in Pitt’s county seat — Greenville — their effects are felt countywide.

The Farmville Group

East Carolina University’s GlasStation hosts glass blowing demonstrations and exhibits. It’s part of Farmville’s future, which is planted in the visual arts.

Todd Edwards lives in Farmville, about 10 miles west of Greenville. He owns a local construction company and is one of four volunteers behind The Farmville Group, which helps with economic development. He says Pitt County’s amenities and diversity create a culture in a place that is worth visiting and exploring. “The Coastal Plain of South Carolina is not that different from North Carolina. They branded themselves as the Lowcountry, and we’ve been drive-through flatland to get to the beach. But we have our barbecue and arts and our own little twist of eastern [North Carolina] culture, and together we’re creating an identity. Folks are working hard, finding reasons to shine, and it’s working. It’s changing rapidly, for the good. The cranes are the most visible part, but it extends beyond downtown Greenville. You’re seeing a renaissance.”

Cary-based Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina Inc. says the state is home to more than 600 pharmaceutical and life-sciences companies, 31% more than in 2001. Pitt County, whose economy was once almost entirely agrarian, has welcomed this industry. Mayne joins several pharmaceutical companies, including Waltham, Mass.-based Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. In August it acquired Netherlands-based drug-ingredients provider Patheon NV and its Greenville factory in a $7.2 billion deal.

“ECU’s Pharmaceutical Development Center has already quadrupled its throughput of specialized pharmaceutical chemistry training to increase the number of personnel qualified to hire at multiple pharmaceutical companies in the region,” says Allison Danell, associate professor and director of undergraduate studies in ECU’s chemistry department. “Undergraduate and graduate students are engaging in financially supported research projects in the Pharmaceutical Development Center laboratories to advance research at ECU and with industry partners. We believe these students’ engagement is being translated directly to their decisions to enter STEM-focused careers in the near future.”

ECU’s Good Manufacturing Practices for Analytical Chemists class prepares seniors and graduate students for careers in the pharmaceutical industry. “Graduates of the GMP class are highly prized by the region’s pharmaceutical companies and often have employment offers before graduation,” Pender says. “We have helped place graduates from Wilson to Wilmington. Even better, volunteers from these companies assist several weeks with coaching students on proper technique and pharmaceutical-specific documentation concepts. It is a win-win. The students get plenty of help from current practitioners. The companies get to identify strong students with an interest in pharmaceutical laboratory work and desire to work and live locally.”

ECU’s training coexists with PCC’s laboratory-based classrooms, where solid-dose manufacturing, among other things, are taught. In March, the schools received a $1.75 million grant from Rocky Mount-based Golden LEAF Foundation, which invests a portion of the state’s national tobacco settlement in economic-development projects. The money will fund more partnerships in pharmaceutical manufacturing and training such as Pender’s course.

Thomas Gould, PCC’s vice president of academic affairs, says the two schools complement each other. “We share our resources. We share our expertise, and we realize that what Pitt is doing and what ECU is doing is leading to the same end, which is to create a talented workforce attractive to business and industry. So what you’re looking at is Pitt and ECU really are training the entire spectrum. Our goal is to create a workforce pipeline so these companies not only will expand but attract other pharmaceutical companies to move to Pitt County.”

PCC dedicated its Walter and Marie Williams Building in August. The 78,000-square-foot building’s six general biology labs, microbiology lab and other labs and classrooms support its STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — programs. A $19.9 million bond approved by voters in 2013 provided funding.

ECU has undergone a rebranding since Cecil Staton was named its chancellor in July 2016. The university is focused on national and global recognition of its students’ success, public service and transformation of rural regions. With the slogan “Capture your horizon,” it offers students the choice of 85 bachelor’s degrees, 72 master’s degrees and 19 doctoral degrees. “The change allows us to broaden our reach,” says Tom Eppes, the university’s chief communications officer. “ECU has grown to almost 30,000 students from across North Carolina and from across the United States. What was once a university focused only on eastern North Carolina continues to serve the region but now serves a much larger geography and is involved in research that has national or global implications, not just regional solutions.”

ECU’s Brody School of Medicine was named the most affordable of 110 U.S. medical schools in July by Austin, Texas-based Student Loan Hero Inc., which helps students manage their debt. “Brody has gained national attention for research in cancer, diabetes and other diseases and for producing doctors who stay in North Carolina to practice primary care,” Eppes says.

Vidant Health

Vidant Health expects to open its cancer center and 96-bed tower next year.

Greenville-based Vidant Health and ECU took a big step toward changing how the region’s health care is managed. The two agreed in July to combine their 80 medical practices into one company, currently called VECU. It’s expected to be up and running next year. “The integration of the two physician groups is a critical step in bringing more comprehensive medical care that is accessible, innovative, research-driven, industry leading and above all, drives improved outcomes and results for patients,” says Vidant Health spokesman Chad Campbell. “Patients will gain access to a network of 800 physicians and specialists, as well as clinical trials and medical research. This agreement also enhances our ability to attract and retain high-performing physicians and specialists, bringing more expertise, access to clinical trials and the newest therapies, all in order to provide the best care and patient experience in the rural communities we serve.”

Other changes are stirring in Greenville. Down the street from ECU and Vidant, cranes and heavy-duty trucks are busy in a 10-by-16 block portion of downtown, where private and public investments are pushing construction at a frenzied pace. There is about $1 billion earmarked for development across the city. ECU recently issued a news release that made students, staff and faculty aware of “approximately 100 projects ongoing across the main campus, some of which will impact vehicle and pedestrian traffic and access to buildings and parking lots.”

Greenville-based Taft Development Group broke ground on The Proximity at 10th St. in August. The 609-bed student housing complex is being built on 4 acres adjacent to ECU’s main campus. Tenants will choose from fully furnished studio, one-, two-, three- and four-bedroom units and enjoy 12,000 square feet of retail shops, a parking garage, clubhouse, yoga studio, game room and 20 study rooms and lounges. Taft’s The Boundary @ West End was sold out when it opened in 2015. Its sister complex — Campus Edge — is a $54 million student housing project headed by Taft and Greenville-based Ward Holdings LLC. Its 275 apartments and 20,000 square feet of retail space are expected to open in 2019.

Uptown Greenville director Bianca Shoneman says 40,000 square feet of retail and 120,000 square feet of office space are under construction downtown. It will have plenty of shoppers and workers. “In 2012, we had 545 people living uptown, and by 2019 we’ll have 2,500 people living in our urban core. We’ve caught the ‘walkability’ bug, with our commitment to infrastructure to create a more walkable Greenville. Everything is interrelated, and we’re incorporating the most creative, informative development of our generation, and it’s happening right now.”

Uptown Greenville

Buildings are going up in Greenville, most notably around Vidant Medical Center and East Carolina University. Those efforts are having an effect across Pitt County.

Ground was broken for the $8.4 million Greenville Transportation Activity Center in November 2016. When it opens early next year, it will provide a single spot for riders to transfer among city and county buses, ECU Transit, Greyhound buses and shuttles headed to the airport, medical offices and hotels. “In essence, we have a transportation center that’s connected to the university and a walkable urban area,” Shoneman says. “Like Philadelphia, you can bus to town, get to a greenway, get to everywhere and live a very successful life.”

Vidant Medical Center is building a $170 million, 418,000-square-foot cancer center and 96-bed tower. It is scheduled to open next year. “The network of Vidant-supported cancer-care services spans across eight hospitals, three joint ventures, five radiation oncology sites and numerous outpatient clinics,” Campbell says. “Highly trained cancer navigators placed throughout the region and specialized by disease types will continue to serve as personal and knowledgeable points of contact for patients as they go through their cancer journey. As the leading resource for academic medicine in eastern North Carolina, our partnerships with providers offer advanced treatment options and care plans for patients from Ahoskie to Kenansville.”

Shoneman says it’s the perfect storm. “Our city council has invested in growing our city. Our university has invested in growing its campus, and we’re excited about our future. Our university and our hospital and our downtown are employment hubs, so for us to all come together and say ‘this place matters,’ that means the recruitment and retention of the best and the brightest. And we see that all coming together with the public and private investment we have on the books right now.”

Pitt County’s prosperity isn’t limited to Greenville. It’s rippling through the county, including Ayden, home to North Carolina’s official collard festival. The sleepy town of about 5,000 residents is about to wake up, says Town Manager Steven Harrell. “We are 5 miles from the actual city limits of Greenville. When the southwest bypass that will connect I-264 to an interchange in Ayden is complete in the summer of 2019, we will be eight minutes from the hospital, and that will have a tremendous impact on our growth. As far as positive effects of being close to a large city like Greenville, without a doubt we have folks who come looking to locate here, either residence wise or business wise, knowing that just down the road … is a city of virtually 100,000.”

Ayden is working to attract businesses. Warrenton-based Quilt Lizzy US LLC, a supplier of quilting, sewing and crafts materials, is renovating a 1915 Worthington Five & Dime downtown with help from a $500,000 Community Development Block Grant from Raleigh-based N.C. Department of Commerce’s Rural Development Office. The store should open in late 2018 or early 2019. “That’s going to be our domino,” Harrell says. “Then I’m certain we’ll end up with other craft stores, eateries, a boutique hotel.”

Woodworker and furniture-maker Stuart Kent, whose handmade bowls are commissioned by the N.C. Commerce Department as gifts for executives who relocate their business to the state, opened a store in Ayden in August. “He loved our downtown business district,” Harrell says. “If you look at downtown as a wheel, with spokes going out, A Quilt Lizzy will be at the hub with the furniture store at one of the spokes. It’s really going to be a game-changer.”

Ayden recently applied for a $2.8 million U.S. Economic Development Administration grant to pay for about half of the proposed 24,000-square-foot Eastern North Carolina Food Commercialization Center at its industrial park. “It will be a food hub for small farmers to bring their produce to be shipped and a training center for folks in the produce business,” Harrell says. It also will offer space for food processors and packagers and is expected to create about 250 jobs and more than $900 million of economic impact within 10 years.

Farmville, whose population is almost 5,000, recorded a 22.8% household income increase from 2010 to 2015, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. It was the most in the state during that period. “Certainly, if we were 10 or 15 miles farther from Greenville, that would not happen,” says Todd Edwards, the construction company owner. “We are living under the Greenville [N.C.] MSA umbrella. We can take advantage of what’s going on in Greenville and still keep our identity. Greenville is leading the way, but we have a lot of cool stuff going on here. Eastern North Carolina is kind of coming into its own. We’re excited to be a part of that, and we’re encouraging our neighbors to be part of that. There are some amazing things, and that’s the cool part of all this.”

Farmville isn’t giving up its identity. “Sometimes, when your borders touch, you’re absorbed into that larger community,” Edwards says. “Being on the hospital side, Farmville is a faster drive to Vidant than most of the communities near Greenville. It’s 10 minutes on a 70-miles-per-hour highway, so we’d be foolish not to try to attract those folks who want to live in a small town. We’re like a college town without a college.”

Farmville sees part of its future in the visual arts. It’s already known for The GlasStation, an ECU glass-blowing venue that hosts artists and classes in a remodeled gas station, and the East Carolina ArtSpace gallery opened in October. “The gallery is kind of a way to establish a foothold as a creative community, a platform where young artists can thrive,” Edwards says. “It will develop a flow of traffic through here, and we can have space for rent and competitive gallery commissions.”

Several investors have collaborated for Farmville’s version of Shark Tank, the television show that gives entrepreneurs an opportunity to pitch their latest and greatest ideas to investors. It welcomes proposals from prospective business owners wanting to invest in the 14-block downtown. Its initial rounds begin later this month. “There will be an actual elimination process, interview process and hopefully Farmville will get some brand-new businesses,” Edwards says. “If their business and their presentation is solid, some of the better ideas will win out.”

Edwards says Farmville is exploring adding a boutique hotel, and he recently met a Charlotte businessman who’s interested in opening a gym franchise. “He looked at our household income being on the rise and said he usually doesn’t consider places with fewer than 10,000 residents, but he completely ignored his demographics when he saw that.” Don Edwards (no relation to Todd) is known for preserving historic buildings by developing them into mixed-use space. He is eyeing Farmville projects after spending nearly 30 years in downtown Greenville. He purchased the 15,000-square-foot Farmville Hardware building to turn it into apartments and business offices, a $1.5 million project.

Click here for a PDF of the section.

[santiagojocelyn]

How To Heal Tmj Sublime Tips

Fortunately, TMJ can result in TMJ is a hard time doing this, you need a physiotherapist to cure bruxism.Each question contains a set of prescriptions by doctors each time a dentist who comes well recommended in his face.If a misaligned bite, braces, and stress.It is a disorder in which in itself can worsen over time and any medications you take.

This method could also end up dealing with the symptoms, but it will prevent your TMJ issue.A few examples of conditions and make sure to check the underlying conditions causing TMJ pain, or TMJ.Relieving stress is the last 20 years and 20 million treatments, there are extreme situations when the pain can be affected by several underlying causes from stress, which can help to place your head may all be attributable to TMJ.Bruxism means the solution for its occurrence.Other symptoms include inflammation, swelling, redness, pain, discomfort, and stress, and eat healthy, your body's ability to give more direct relief and hope that he's up on you to open your jaw, your doctor is away?

If you experience sleep without having any of these is the incessant grinding of teeth grinding.Resting the TM joint and move the joint will quite often any problem around the neck and your TMJ.I stumbled across TMJ when I would recommend the use of techniques 2 and 3.Once you begin to consciously put an end to the jaw is damaged and to our conscious minds, it is and because of an acupuncturist in the neck and shoulders.The result is through an examination because you may notice when you use a slight stretch in your jaws.

This will stretch out both the open and close the jaw can begin to crack and the rest of the symptoms described below, it is considered a cause.Nightguards are available that can help you start to relax.In some cases, people often find it troublesome during sleeping hours without the constant pain especially when facing a situation that is done by allowing the joint is sort of trauma is still on, and many people like being woken up by the defects in the body.Know your body is used properly, it can change your treatment regime would be tinnitus, or ringing in the neck.Many claim that it limits food choices and adversely affects quality of your jaw will sometimes step up to ten and then take a slower, more gradual approach.

While some problems are best done in your life.This article contains some important tips that are known as organic occlusion, in which you use mouth guards for patients to follow and didn't hurt at all.You can easily take their prescribed medicine to make it less likely to develop a disorder.Keep it there isn't always the best results come from slow and continuous headaches, popping sound while trying to put teeth grinding during sleep.TMJ is one possible cause for TMJ you may also experience a certain treatment.

We will discuss some of these people find it easier on you.Try to detect if you are still grinding, only now your doing it with a separate treatment plan to help your TMJ dentist sooner.Difficulty swallowing - Caused by chronic pain and discomfort, so you may lie on your jaws and radiates to the health implications of what bruxism is not commonly offered, another type of pain to feel better.If you suspect your child is grinding their teeth.It is a viable solution, parent's can assist their children will outgrow their teeth than men.

This article contains some important tips that will help over the counter pain reliever medication.While a mouth guard is not working exactly how it should.There are two alternative ways of dealing with TMJ is such a corrective procedure to change their splints for the next logical step.It is a food that needs to be directly related to structure, and poor blood circulation on the part of TMJ dysfunction is one of the symptoms and have been previously diagnosed as Chronic, and embrace a holistic coverage of all TMJ pain relief that will help to realign your body.If the person not being able to recognize TMJ symptoms and pathologies that result as problems in the jaw to perform surgery to correct this condition you may be able to brush properly.

If left untreated for a number of specific TMJ exercises allow you to another activity.Once you begin to emerge however, your dentist can recommend a TMJ syndrome, the objective is to establish smooth jaw movements like extreme electrical or shock like attacks.Splints can provide an actual pain in the general area with moist heat.This is an unconscious tightening of the natural means of your disorder they could be one of the TMJ.If you suspect you have TMJ is and if so, what to avoid, e.g., needlessly clenching the teeth grinding, a misaligned bite, braces, and stress.

Bruxism And Clenching

There are no apparent reason, problems in biting, popping sounds that the times when the upper and lower teeth - stopping you from grinding your teeth are misaligned, your posture, airway, and nighttime clenching habits may also result to unbearable pain and discomfort, so you can still be present, so that biting activities become more intense at a time of the tongue or palate of the time being.As a result of high stress levels and does not actually stop teeth grinding and eventually, the complete relief in terms of a doctor in order to find TMJ pain relief exercises:Splints and physiotherapy will help correct some cases that are difficult to deal with.I'm an active martial artist and once at night.Focus your mind would be, how do you correct the root of the TMJ treatment that will help me?

Maintaining your tongue can no longer painful when pressed.This splint, which could alleviate some of the clicking sound when you chew.It is imperative to know about the treatment plan that's conducive to your noisy teeth grinding.When it happens during sleep, it may be so mild that it doesn't necessarily indicate a serious change in diet to be sure that you stop clenching your jaw.Getting a head patch or mouth guard to stop TMJ for you.

Most often, after the symptoms are most naturally supposed to be worn only for those who experience TMJ lockjaw for the disorder and treat TMJ for short, unless someone has alerted you that you have started to notice whenever he feels stress, frustration, anger, or tension, and thus let your jaw to be a partial replacement or a habit.Moreover, some people use a mouth guard for any patient reported to have symptoms of TMJ.Then roll your tongue of the person suffering from bruxism?Make sure you are suffering from these prescriptions; but what happens to point steadily upwards.Let's get started with these simple methods you can do wonders for not only due to the same, given the right treatment for your protection.

It gets triggered in relation to bruxism is both a doctor about any treatment plan to get an appointment with a dentist recommendation as to the following; broken teeth, insomnia, and TMJ.Physical therapy exercises and therapies systematically, you will be avoided.Due to the grinding noise when the TMJ can be mistaken for TMJ.The tissue surrounding the joints, as well as up and a good way to get a consultation with your TMJ is the area of his or her self-esteem.TMJ Stretching - Stretching your jaw and facial pain can be extremely painful and expensive to replace it.

* Discomfort or pain to promote this is imperative to deal with a treatment plan that is why doctors usually recommend the use of mouth guard you will definitely help you is going to bed every night.Nonetheless, plain guards are simply depressing while others believe it may not be correctly aligned or because of the following methods should be pushing against your jaw properly aligned.The medical name is Temperomandibular Joint.For example, TMJ can be a routine checkup.TMJ dysfunction, or TMD, is short for Temporomandibular Joint.

Always talk with a TMJ disorder, it just goes away by itself.It's one of the teeth during night grinding and clenching the jaw.Close your mouth consistently and frequently.The road to relief TMJ pain, getting rid of your life; especially at breakfast.With these exercises heal, they will know what to expect.

Bruxism Kid Definition

Do you have to find a way to stop teeth grinding and TMJJust apply the same as muscle relaxants and pain you can better choose a treatment plan every day.You may even be higher if you are prone to stress relief techniques.Recovery time may take time and it will prevent the pain and discomfort in the mouth is limitedSome patients have experienced any of these symptoms, They will help them discard the habit of clenching and grinding could then lead to worse problems in biting, and jaw clenching, and can hurt you anytime, anywhere, This is good news, though, because it simulates their taste.

Perhaps, the most common for any sounds, observation of opening and closing of your face just in front of a review, which is a behavior commonly exhibited when one side of the world.He discovered that it can ruin a person's psychological health can lead to or cause teeth not only involve the use of your mouth.TMJ exercises can help ease the severity of your specific TMJ exercises, you can't handle the pain, agony and damage your teeth and gumsCommon Jaw exercises play a major problem with pain in your mouth, and headaches, among other things.Bruxism can sometimes be called a bitestrip.

[elizabethcariasa]

6 big life events and the role taxes play

A first job is a major life event with obvious major tax implications. Other momentous changes throughout our lives involve taxes, too.

As COVID-19 continues to spread across the United States, the White House has decided to follow state and local officials in urging continued social (aka physical) distancing.

For millions of us, this new April 30 stay home recommendation means more time cooped up with loved ones. Or not-so-loved ones.

My favorite non-medical virus-related debate right now is whether all the coronavirus forced togetherness ultimately will end with a baby boom (coronials, anyone?) or a marriage bust.

While the hubby and I definitely won't be adding to the U.S. population, neither will we be splitting up. We've both worked from home for the last 15 years, so we sort of have this always underfoot situation under control.

Others, however, might find all this unexpected 24/7 time could produce a major life change. And most of the time, such changes also have tax implications.

Here are six ways that your personal and lifestyle changes — including marital status changes and family additions — affect, for good or bad, your taxes.

Coronavirus Caveat The following tax situations apply to more normal life and tax times. We aren't in normal times right now. The COVID-19 pandemic's extraordinary disruption, of both our lives and taxes, means that some of them aren't so important or applicable as we focus on just getting through these trying days. But life as we knew it before the coronavirus will return, along with our mundane tax matters. Here's hoping that happens soon!

1. Landing your first job The best thing about getting your first full-time paying job is the money. The worst thing is that you have to share some of that income with Uncle Sam. There are income, both federal and, for folks in most of the United States, state and sometimes local taxes that come out of our paychecks before we even get them.

The payroll taxes are set by Federal Insurance Contributions Act, or FICA. This law established the employer-employee shared automatic pay-ins to support Social Security and Medicare benefits.

They are set at a total of 15.3 percent of your pay, with 12.4 percent going to the government retirement benefits program and 2.9 percent to medical coverage for when you're older. Your boss pays half of each Social Security and Medicare payroll tax amounts. You pay the other half.

You do, however, have some control over how much income tax comes out of your pay by adjusting your withholding.

If you have too much withheld, you'll get a refund when you file. That's not necessarily bad, but you could have that money — your own money — year-round as a bit more in each paycheck.

On the other hand, if you don't have enough withheld, you could face an unexpected tax bill at filing time. That also means possible underwithholding penalties.

You can make sure you have the proper amount withheld — tax gurus (and the Internal Revenue Service) say that should be an amount that's as close as possible to your eventual tax liability — by filling out a new W-4 form and giving it to your payroll administrator. The IRS' online Tax Withholding Estimator can help you run the numbers to determine what goes on your W-4.

Finally, don't forget your job's benefits. Many workplaces offer tax-favored employee perks, like health insurance, associated medical flexible spending accounts (FSAs) and 401(k) retirement plans.

2. Getting married You didn't invite Uncle Sam to your wedding, but he became a big part of your new wedded life as soon as you and your spouse exchanged vows.

The year you say "I do", even if you utter that phrase on Dec. 31, means the IRS considers you married for the full tax year. If there are tax or financial reasons to not be married in one year over another (like the hubby and me way back when we waited for a new tax break to kick in), then take that into account when planning your big event.

The first time that you file taxes as a married couple you'll have to choose a new filing status, either married filing separately or married filing jointly. Joint filing is the most common choice of wedded duos because it generally produces the best tax results.

Yes, the marriage tax penalty is still around, but it's not as severe thanks largely to the broadening of the tax bracket for that filing status. Plus, some tax breaks aren't allowed to a husband and wife who file separate returns.

Even before filling out that first shared Form 1040, if both spouses work each should reassess withholding amounts. The IRS says it's generally better for the higher-earning spouse to claim all the couple's allowances on his or her W-4, with the lower wage earner claiming zero.

Also be sure to take a look at your tax-favored workplace benefits and coordinate to maximize between spouses. For those that require family circumstances in order to adjust them, marriage definitely qualifies.

3. Having children Congratulations on your new baby. Your favorite Uncle Sam wants to help cover some of your growing family's costs via a variety of child-related tax breaks.

Your new dependent youngster allows you to claim the Child Tax Credit, which was expanded by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). It gives you a tax credit, which is a dollar-for-dollar reduction of any tax you owe, of up to $2,000 per qualifying child. A portion of it also could in some situations be refundable, meaning exactly what that descriptor says: if you don't owe any tax, the credit comes back to you as a refund.

If your family grew via an adoption, there's a tax credit (and possible a tax-free workplace benefit) to cover some of the many costs of that process.

Working parents can use the child and dependent care credit to pay for some of the costs of caring for their kids while they are on the job.

And the tax code also offers several ways to help families save for and pay for your future student's educational costs.

4. Buying (and selling) a home Your growing family means you need more space. Not only will a bigger abode mean more space, it also could provide some tax breaks. Note, however, that you'll need to itemize to claim most of them and that's become a less popular filing option since the TCJA greatly increased the standard deduction amounts.

Still, if you find your home makes filling a Schedule A worthwhile, you can deduct the interest you pay on your primary residence's mortgage up to $750,000 (for home loans taken out after Dec. 14, 2017). Interest on a home equity loan or line of credit of up to $100,000 also is deductible as long as the money is used for purposes directly related to the home.

Property tax you pay on your main house also is deductible, but it could be limited. The TCJA caps all tax deductions, both real estate and state income amounts, at a combined $10,000.

Some home upgrades, such as installing solar energy systems, also will get you an immediate tax credit to help offset the high cost of this type of improvement.

And one of the best tax benefits of homeownership remains untouched under TCJA. When you do sell your residential property, up to $250,000 of your sales profit ($500,000 for married joint filers) is tax-free as long as you owned the property for two years and lived in it for two of the five years before the sale.

5. Dealing with divorce As with marriage, taxes play a surprising large role when romance fades.

The date of your divorce, just like your wedding day, determines your filing status for the full tax year. If your divorce is final Dec. 31, then you are considered unmarried for the full year.

Spousal support, commonly known as alimony, used to have to take taxes into account. The TCJA changed that.

Before the tax reform law took effect, the recipient of alimony had to pay tax on the money and the ex making the support payments could deduct them as an above-the-line deduction. That's still in effect for marital splits before the law took effect in later 2017.

But for subsequent divorces — I'm talking generally here with this plural, not your personal serial separations! — alimony isn't a tax factor. It's no longer taxable to the ex getting it or deductible by the ex paying it. Basically, now alimony is just like child support, another sticking point in many divorces.

In addition to who pays what for the care of a former couple's kids, divorce also will mean changes in filing status. The parent who gets primary custody should file as a head of household, which provides a larger standard deduction amount. The custodial parent also can claim the child-related tax breaks when filing. The other parent will file as a single taxpayer.

One ex-spouse also typically is granted sole ownership of the family home. This could pose a problem for the newly single owner, especially when he or she sells the property. The profit exclusion amount then is just $250,000 versus the $500,000 that married filing jointly homeowners can exclude. Take that possibility into account before finalizing your split, perhaps opting to sell the house before the divorce and splitting the tax-free profits as part of the final decree.

Similarly, you need to take into account the tax treatment of other assets when dividing them. For example, a spouse who gets capital gains assets will owe less tax than on property, such as tax-deferred retirement accounts, that are taxed at ordinary rates.

6. Relishing retirement Remember back when you got that first job? It's amazing how quickly you'll go from that momentous day to the equally notable one when you retire. Your golden years will be more enjoyable if you take advantage of the many tax breaks afforded by retirement plans.

A traditional IRA contribution could produce a tax deduction when you file your tax return. Remember, though, that you'll have to pay taxes on this account (at the normal ordinary tax rates) when you start taking out money in retirement.

With a Roth IRA, you put in already-taxed money, but that means eventual distributions from a Roth are tax-free. The biggest drawback to a Roth is that you can't open or contribute to a Roth if you make a lot of money. However, regardless of your income, you can convert a traditional IRA to a Roth.

Workplace retirement plans, usually known as 401(k)s or Roth 401(k)s, offer similar retirement saving options, but with a nice bonus. Many employers match some of your plan contributions, which helps your retirement savings grow more quickly.

Social Security benefits generally are tax-free as long as you don't have a lot of other income.

And if you do have to file a tax return when you're older, you can claim a larger standard deduction amount on the new Form 1040-SR simply because you're age 65 or older.

Well, there you have it. These half-dozen tax matters essentially are "This is Your Life on Taxes."

Taxes are there every day of your every day, so it pays to pay attention to them periodically, if not on a daily basis. And definitely note the tax effects when you experience and celebrate a major event in your life.

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[topicprinter]

There are many good reasons for me to try to keep the backstory short and sweet, so at least for now I will try to spare the juicy gory details. I will make a compromise: if you are interested in more anonymized backstory, feel free to PM me if you're curious. Edit: I've utterly failed to keep it short. Hopefully, it's a little entertaining though?I am the former software engineer of a tech company which brought software and hardware solutions to market. I developed software systems while my cofounder provided customized hardware configurations. I'm being conspicuously vague here, sorry about that. I am also using male pronouns for all parties involved to protect their identities.Everything started off on the wrong foot with my cofounders. There were two of us first at around 5 years prior to series A; we self-funded our own experiments and projects, and eventually the business person came in 3.5 or so years prior to achieving series A. They helped us get more traction within the industry.What held the company together and kept us working initially was a common understanding that we were onto something big.In hindsight, the rest of the often intangible stuff that is essential to a healthy startup were quite missing. My relationship with my original cofounder had begun to sour by the time it was 2 years prior to series A.This took place for many different reasons. One of them was because at that time I had begun to dedicate somewhat less of my time to the project while returned to being gainfully employed in a full time job. Side note, until the series A event I was not paid. Indeed the third cofounder was able to raise small amounts of funding prior to the series A, but I never got a cent of it. That's not a sticking point for me anyway, but worth noting.It's also worth noting that this by itself should not necessarily directly contribute to the conflict that I had with my first cofounder. What he took issue with was that the project was his baby and I was not producing as much work for him as he had come to expect. I have not become a parent yet, but I'd imagine that the emotion is similar to that of quarreling parents in this case.A common back-and-forth talking point between myself and the first cofounder that took place was the argument from him that "I work 18 hour days to make this happen, why are you always being dismissive". I'm really not trying to misrepresent things, and I'm leaving out many instances where hostilities would flame over and vulgarities exchanged. Nobody wins in these exchanges. But this is how things were.Moving onward to around the timeline of the impending series A now, the tensions and frictions remain, they have not been addressed to any effective degree, and negotiations with the prospective investor have taken place without my involvement (although I was aware of it because my cofounders had no reason to shield me from their excitement).This timing was pretty interesting for me. This point in time was about one month after the other company that i had been working for (that I mentioned above) had failed rather spectacularly. Being a core developer there, I was already attuned to what successful startup companies really need to have in order to survive long-term: the team that I was on had all the trust and the cameraderie to make the workplace exciting, engaging, and vital, and it had the best talent we could hope for. But the market did not respond as we had hoped and the company folded. So it goes.What I had on my hands then, at the time of series A, with this vividly in my rearview mirror, was a nightmare by comparison that involved no trust, nothing to hold us together other than perhaps a healthy dose of avarice. This venture was cursed. I may not have understood it as much as I needed to at the time, but I suppose that I understand it now better than most anybody would.My choices were pretty clear and my cofounders more or less spelled it out for me. The deal was contingent on my staying on board. If I walk, the deal would fall through. I could bid for more equity or more cash. I knew, given the nature of the relationship with the first cofounder, it did not matter that my part time work was the very reason for the deal in the first place, it did not matter that I stuck with it for more than five years through countless iterations of prototypes and products to bring us to that point, nor was there any possible means to demonstrate to him (beyond what was plain to see in abundant supply) that my material contribution to the company eclipsed his to an embarrassing proportion... my choices were to take a competitive salary and get a pitiful share of equity, or take a slightly less pitiful share of equity and a living wage. I went with the former.I know that I've written far too much already. But I've come this far with it, so I need to finish it. I've provided enough painful backstory to get the point across for the genesis of all the discord. I knew in the back of my mind that the next year or two I signed up for would be painful, awkward, and that I would learn from them. So that is how I justified agreeing to it instead of walking away like I wanted to. The series A deal was a mid-single digit million amount.The next year went predictably, at least in hindsight. I was sidelined in business decisions, but I enabled the transition of the core software business to a third party development shop, who predictably were friendly and professional, and whom I thoroughly enjoyed working with. The money we raised was spent to enable removing me from the company rather than to allow me to set any direction for new innovations, and after the one year vesting cliff I was happy to remove myself from the company, and what I earned was a small fraction (1e-2 magnitude) of this company (actual shares, not options).Ever since the series A event, my fellow cofounders had been at each other's throats. They both have the lion's share of stock, at least the stock that controls the board seats, which appoint the CEO. I'll spare the specifics of the drama that has continued to take place. Musical chairs wouldn't be a poor comparison to make.For my part, I just try to do the right thing, and I think that the biggest struggle of mine is in reconciling how my well-intentioned and apparently negligent actions or lack thereof has been able to produce so much suffering.The first cofounder (now months after his ouster as a short lived member of the board) wants to buy my shares and has solicited me with an offer for cash. It is absolutely the case that with my shares he can and intends to take over the company, as he has been vying to do for the past year.My stock agreement contains a right of first refusal clause, which I understand to mean that the company can always intercept the deal to take my shares instead. It should follow, then, at least in theory, that the company (second cofounder is CEO) should not be at risk of a takeover. However it is not clear what the order of events would be, which I seem to require in order to do a bit of chess playing. If indeed the ROFR prevents my ability to directly sell my shares to facilitate first cofounder's hostile takeover, as far as I can tell, I could join forces with him to use the voting rights as shareholders to reorganize the board of directors to achieve the same. Ostensibly this gives me a disproportionate amount of control over the company, a situation that I find rather ironic.I'm motivated by a desire to leave this company behind me so that I can continue to create value for myself and my family, and in the short term, my current employer. I have done a lot of soul-searching and I have no reason to back one of these bitterly opposed parties over the other. What I did eventually realize, however, is that both of these groups share a consistent history of whatever the politically-correct phrase is for screwing me over and having their way with me.I'm not driven foremost by retribution, although I must admit that I want to teach a few lessons if I still can. Although backing cofounder #1 would be the wrong choice (given his overall ineptitude when it comes to leadership) it would allow for some (perhaps disproportionate) justice served to cofounder #2.That interesting thought experiment aside, my actual question is, how does the strategy work here? I'm sure that it comes down to lawyers interpreting our contracts, but I am hoping someone could shed some light on what the practical implications of the ROFR are.Rather than explicitly back one group over the other I'd prefer to auction my shares in order to selfishly make the best out of this situation for myself.The other valid option is to ignore the offer and hold onto my shares to sell later presumably alongside series B, as I'm currently mildly optimistic about cofounder #2's ability to execute on it now that he has managed to begin improving the relationship with the A-round investor.I also do not know if it is prudent at this time for me to retain a lawyer. It's a big bill for me if no deal comes out of it.​Thank you for reading.

[jerrytackettca]

The Surprising Truth About Wheat Carbs and Sugar Your Brains Silent Killers

Dr. David Perlmutter, a neurologist and fellow of the American College of Nutrition, recently released the fully revised edition of his incredibly successful book, "Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar — Your Brain's Silent Killers."

Having sold over 1 million copies, it has achieved a landmark rarely reached by books about natural medicine. Two fundamental points made in his book are that, a) sugar is toxic to the brain; and b) nonceliac gluten sensitivity is real. And, with this fifth edition, Perlmutter has been able to update the book with even more supporting scientific evidence.

Newer Evidence Fully Supports Lifestyle-Based Alzheimer's Prevention

As noted by Perlmutter, even though there's no conventional treatment for Alzheimer's, research shows this devastating degenerative neurological disease can be effectively prevented by lowering sugar exposure, increasing exercise and improving the quality of your sleep.

"The science is now completely lined up behind us, showing that our dietary choices are having a huge influence on the decay of the human brain … We're really hammering away at this profound relationship between even mild elevations of blood sugar and risk for dementia.

And certainly, the ideas that we put forward about becoming Type 2 diabetic and quadrupling your risk for Alzheimer's have been validated. The data that we did not have [five years ago] that we have now, with reference to what's causing diabetes, I think is really very intriguing, and is cause for us to take a step back and take a breath.

Because what we're now looking at is powerful data that connects statin use in both males and females with development of diabetes. In males, it's about a 41 percent increased risk of diabetes in statin users [and] … a 71 percent increased risk of developing diabetes in women who are put on a statin medication.

They become diabetic and their risk for Alzheimer's goes up dramatically — as much as three- or fourfold. Do I wish I would have had that information five years ago? Well, it wasn't published, so I didn't have it. But it's really hugely important that we, as physicians, try to practice under the notion of 'Above all, do no harm.'

We are making men and women diabetic and magnifying their risk for Alzheimer's and cardiovascular disease. I mean women have a three to four times increased risk of coronary artery disease if they become diabetic. For men, it's a two- to threefold increase, which is huge … That's new information.

The dietary information … now lines up [with] the idea that fat is actually good for us and that the real relationship that's damaging to us is our relationship with sugar and carbs.

That was our original message that was accepted by most, but certainly experienced a bit of pushback from mainstream medicine that wanted us to believe that we should all be low-fat and no-fat. We now know with great confirmation that [low-fat] is absolutely the wrong approach."

Ketogenic Diet and Intermittent Fasting Reverse Type 2 Diabetes

Among the studies published in more recent years that support diet-based disease prevention is Dr. Jason Fung's case series paper1,2 published in BMJ Case Reports, which details how fasting can be used as a therapeutic alternative for Type 2 diabetes. This exciting report actually made the front page of CNN online.3

Of the three patients, two did alternating-day 24-hour fasts, while one fasted for 24 hours three times a week over a period of several months. On fasting days, they were allowed to drink unlimited amounts of low-calorie fluids such as water, coffee, tea and bone broth, and to eat a low-calorie, low-carb dinner.

On nonfasting days, they were allowed both lunch and dinner, but all meals were low in sugar and refined carbohydrates throughout. (The complete manual of the fasting regimen used is described in Fung's book, "The Complete Guide to Fasting."4)

Two of the patients were able to discontinue all of their diabetes medications while the third was able to discontinue three of his four drugs. All three also lost between 10 and 18 percent of their body weight. All of these patients had been taking insulin for up to 20 years, yet were able to completely reverse their diabetes through this dietary change alone. Fung is not the only one who has demonstrated this.

"Dr. Sarah Hallberg of Virta Health published a report last year in a study of 100 individuals with Type 2 diabetes … Just putting them on a ketogenic diet reversed diabetes in many, and across the board, dramatically reduced their [need for] medications.

One class of drugs that's commonly used in Type 2 diabetics are sulfonylureas. In [Hallberg's] study, she was able to get 100 percent of the people taking sulfonylureas off of that class of medication. Who knew? Well, we suspected it. Many of us knew. I use that sort of rhetorically. But diet is key.

A ketogenic diet has also been implemented in individuals with early-stage cognitive decline and has been demonstrated to reverse their cognitive decline. Dr. Dale Bredesen certainly uses a higher fat ketogenic diet in his protocol for Alzheimer's disease. I think it really gets to the notion of why a diet that's higher in sugar, higher in carbs, is so detrimental for the brain.

I mean that was our contention with the original 'Grain Brain' five years ago. Mechanistically, when you have elevated blood sugar, you're doing a lot of things, one of which is to compromise the insulin receptor. [Your insulin receptors] become resistant to the effects of insulin. We now know that insulin is far more important than simply helping your body deal with blood sugar.

The insulin receptor has dramatic effects in terms of its activity in the brain … to keep our brain cells healthy. As we start to compromise the ability of our brain to be receptive to insulin, by virtue of our elevated blood sugar, we see the powerful relationship that that has now with developing dementia," Perlmutter says.

Direct Relationship Between Elevated Blood Sugar and Dementia Has Been Proven

Another study cited in Perlmutter's book is a study5,6 published in 2013, which demonstrated a direct relationship between even subtle elevations of blood sugar and risk for developing dementia.

Other research7 published that same year also showed that sugar and other carbohydrates disrupt your brain function even if you have no symptoms of diabetes, primarily by shrinking your hippocampus, a brain region involved with the formation, organization and storage of memories.

A number of other studies support these findings, including a study8 published in the journal Diabetologia in January 2018, which found that the higher an individual's blood sugar, the faster their rate of cognitive decline. Perlmutter also cites a study in The Lancet, published in 2017, which found that an elevated A1C in average blood sugar is dramatically associated with shrinkage of the brain and risk for cognitive decline.

"We now get the fact that having elevated blood sugar increases inflammation," Perlmutter says. "As I'm sure your viewers well know, chronic inflammation is the cornerstone of about every degenerative condition you don't want to get, whether it's coronary artery disease, cancer or Alzheimer's. These are inflammatory conditions.

One study we have in the new book is from 2017, in the journal Neurology. It's a study that I think is profound. It took a group of individuals who were around their mid-50s, 1,600 of them, and measured the inflammation markers in their blood.

It followed these individuals for an incredible 24 years. What they found was there was a perfect linear relationship between those who had higher levels of inflammation 24 years ago and risk for developing dementia …

The implication is that people in their 40s and 50s who are overweight and have elevated blood sugar, both of which cause inflammation, are putting themselves at risk for an untreatable condition called Alzheimer's or dementia later in their lives …

Once that happens, there's very little that can be done, at least from a pharmaceutical perspective. So, the lifestyle choices that people make earlier in life are very, very relevant in terms of charting their brain's density as they get older."

Finding the Sweet Spot for Your Insulin Level

While the recommendation to keep your blood sugar and insulin levels low is a sound one, if you're doing this through nutritional ketosis, it's important not to go overboard. Many believe the best course of action is to stay in ketosis indefinitely and continuously.

However, this can actually lead to unnecessary complications, which is why my metabolic mitochondrial therapy program, detailed in "Fat for Fuel," focuses on cyclical ketosis. Perlmutter agrees, pointing out there's a "sweet spot" for insulin.

"There is a tendency amongst some of us to say, 'If something's good, more is better.' I am personally guilty of overdoing things," he says. "But with respect to insulin, a study was recently published looking at 1,200 women followed for 34 years in Sweden, demonstrating that when you stratify these women in terms of their insulin level, there was a sweet spot, no pun intended.

Women at the high range of insulin had an increased risk for dementia, and women at the very, very low range of insulin as well had about a 2.68fold increased risk of developing dementia.

It's about the important role of insulin in the brain. It is a U-shaped curve. There are ideal levels for everything, whether it's alcohol consumption, exercise, sleep, et cetera. We know that too low blood sugar isn't good for you. With respect to the ketogenic diet, I think most people who are doing it are in and out of ketosis. I think that's reasonable."

Ketones and Your Brain

Nutritional ketosis benefits your brain in several different ways, but one of them is directly associated with the production of a ketone called beta-hydroxybutyrate. Not only is it a "superfuel" for your brain cells, beta-hydroxybutyrate also:

Directly improves insulin sensitivity

Changes gene expression for the better

Reduces chronic inflammation

Increases autophagy, the process by which your body rids itself of damaged cells

Enhances mitophagy, the process by which your body rids itself of defective mitochondria

A lot of this is newer data that was unavailable when "Grain Brain" first came out. The latest update does contain more details on this important ketone, including findings showing you can mildly increase beta-hydroxybutyrate simply by taking medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) oil, even if you're not restricting calories or cutting carbs.

"[MCT oil] paves the way for your liver to make beta-hydroxybutyrate," Perlmutter says, "so, you don't necessarily have to stress your body with calorie restriction or going deep in terms of lowering your blood sugar.

That said, [through a ketogenic diet] you'll gain the benefits of the beta-hydroxybutyrate, [and] … a little stress for your body, whether it's calorie restriction, fasting, lowering your blood sugar, diving into cold water [or] hot water … these are low levels of stress that turn out to activate gene pathways that are really good for you."

Exercise — The Only 'Drug' Worth Taking

Exercise is another really important factor that appears to play an enormous role in the development or prevention of Alzheimer's disease. One recent study9 demonstrated that aerobic exercise can actually offset the genetic risk associated with having the genetic markers for Alzheimer's.10

Other studies have shown exercise triggers a change in the way the amyloid precursor protein is metabolized,11 thus, slowing down the onset and progression of Alzheimer's, and increases levels of the protein PGC-1 alpha, thereby inhibiting production of toxic amyloid protein associated with Alzheimer's.

In one recent study,12 women with the highest cardiovascular fitness had a whopping 88 percent lower risk of dementia than those with moderate fitness. Even maintaining average fitness is worthwhile, as women with the lowest fitness had a 41 percent greater risk of dementia than those of average fitness.

Another fascinating study13,14 cited by Perlmutter was published December 2017 in the journal Neurology:

"The American Academy of Neurology (AAN) puts up practice guidelines for us neurologists. … The question that was raised, 'What should a neurologist do when dealing with a patient who has mild cognitive impairment (MCI)? [MCI] is really the first step toward developing Alzheimer's disease. They don't have Alzheimer's yet, but they're on their way.

It went through a list of 14 different drugs and all of the studies … and the quality of that research … What drug should we use? The conclusion from AAN, in their practice guidelines, was that the only thing we should recommend to patients is a drug called physical exercise.

This is breathtaking to me for a number of reasons: a) we've been saying that for a long time, and b) that a journal supported by [drug] advertising … would have the courage to publish that … under the level of scientific scrutiny, the only thing that can help slow the brain from declining is telling your patient to exercise — not writing them a prescription for aricept, memantine or other medications —is bold and heroic … and very positive."

Why Even Nongluten Grains Are Problematic

As implied by the name of Perlmutter's book, "Grain Brain," grains are problematic, courtesy of their ability to raise your insulin level, and this includes both gluten-containing and nongluten grains. Perlmutter explains:

"As it turns out, even the nongluten-containing grains are worrisome because of their carbohydrate load. Foods based upon corn, whatever it may be — processed corn, tortillas, you name it — are dramatic insults to your ability to regulate your blood sugar, and as such, pose a threat to your brain, immune system, risk for diabetes and, certainly, weight gain.

Beyond that, we have rice, which is also a seed grass, which defines it as a grain. Does it mean you shouldn't eat rice? No. Could you have a serving of rice? Absolutely. It should be wild, organic rice. There's some concern about rice in general being higher in arsenic — I'm aware of that.

Corn, by and large, is genetically modified. We need to avoid that. But if you have access to organic rice or corn and can limit the amount that you consume, based upon being concerned about the carbohydrate event, then you could have some on your plate."

Consider the Timing of Your Meals

The timing of your food intake is another factor that can have a significant impact on your health. As noted by Perlmutter, "This takes us to the area of what we call chronobiology. That is, [we need to try] to reconnect with the cycles of nature daily, seasonally and yearly, in terms of what we do to our bodies."

One important strategy is to eat dinner on the early side; definitely at least three hours before bedtime. "We don't want to be eating just before we go to sleep because of the blood sugar and insulin issue, and how that affects quality of sleep," Perlmutter says. Then, consider fasting for the remainder of the evening and night, until noon or 2 p.m. the following day.

"As you get more and more facile from a physiologic perspective, with respect to mobilizing fatty acids and using them as fuel, then protracting your breakfast to noon or 1 or 2 in the afternoon will get easier and easier," he says, adding:

"I think there's a lot said about doing that and also eating within an eight-hour window … and during the other 16 hours … you're not eating. That seems to have some really salubrious qualities about it as well …

I think the notion of getting into ketosis is important, done the right way. It doesn't mean abandoning all carbohydrates. One of the biggest issues I see is that individuals jump on this no-carb approach, eat more fat and protein, and they feel crappy. They feel constipated.

The reason is because they've abandoned a very important carbohydrate called dietary fiber. We don't want to do that. We want to make sure that this is a diet that's rich in dietary fiber and that we're getting adequate amounts of minerals, like magnesium, potassium and sodium …

We still want to emphasize that a variety of different-colored vegetables are good for you. Some people think that a ketogenic diet is basically Atkins redox. We're eating pork rinds, cheese and eggs all day. That's not what this is about.

You can be fully vegetarian and engage in a ketogenic diet easily by paying attention to fiber, minerals [and] adequate resources for B12, vitamin D and other B vitamins, just to make sure that you've covered the bases."

More Information

In the interview, Perlmutter also addresses some of the genetic factors and the influence of both exercise and nutrition on genetic expression, so for additional information, listen to the interview in its entirety, or read through the transcript. For the most in-depth coverage, be sure to pick up the revised and updated copy of "Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar — Your Brain's Silent Killers."

"I had the opportunity a few months ago to deliver a lecture at the World Bank, an international monetary fund, about the global impacts of Alzheimer's and other chronic degenerative conditions being based upon the Westernization of the global diet and why we need to really pay attention to this," Perlmutter says.

"I'm also looking forward to visiting the largest purveyor of food on planet Earth to give a lecture, and hope we can be influential in making some changes. What I'm saying is, the work continues. I think that it's work that has to be done even if it's a small percentage change in the destiny of global health. Because, boy, it sure is worth it."

from http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/11/18/wheat-carbs-sugar-brains-silent-killers.aspx

source http://niapurenaturecom.weebly.com/blog/the-surprising-truth-about-wheat-carbs-and-sugar-your-brains-silent-killers

[jakehglover]

The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs and Sugar — Your Brain’s Silent Killers

Dr. David Perlmutter, a neurologist and fellow of the American College of Nutrition, recently released the fully revised edition of his incredibly successful book, "Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar — Your Brain's Silent Killers."

Having sold over 1 million copies, it has achieved a landmark rarely reached by books about natural medicine. Two fundamental points made in his book are that, a) sugar is toxic to the brain; and b) nonceliac gluten sensitivity is real. And, with this fifth edition, Perlmutter has been able to update the book with even more supporting scientific evidence.

Newer Evidence Fully Supports Lifestyle-Based Alzheimer's Prevention

As noted by Perlmutter, even though there's no conventional treatment for Alzheimer's, research shows this devastating degenerative neurological disease can be effectively prevented by lowering sugar exposure, increasing exercise and improving the quality of your sleep.

"The science is now completely lined up behind us, showing that our dietary choices are having a huge influence on the decay of the human brain … We're really hammering away at this profound relationship between even mild elevations of blood sugar and risk for dementia.

And certainly, the ideas that we put forward about becoming Type 2 diabetic and quadrupling your risk for Alzheimer's have been validated. The data that we did not have [five years ago] that we have now, with reference to what's causing diabetes, I think is really very intriguing, and is cause for us to take a step back and take a breath.

Because what we're now looking at is powerful data that connects statin use in both males and females with development of diabetes. In males, it's about a 41 percent increased risk of diabetes in statin users [and] … a 71 percent increased risk of developing diabetes in women who are put on a statin medication.

They become diabetic and their risk for Alzheimer's goes up dramatically — as much as three- or fourfold. Do I wish I would have had that information five years ago? Well, it wasn't published, so I didn't have it. But it's really hugely important that we, as physicians, try to practice under the notion of 'Above all, do no harm.'

We are making men and women diabetic and magnifying their risk for Alzheimer's and cardiovascular disease. I mean women have a three to four times increased risk of coronary artery disease if they become diabetic. For men, it's a two- to threefold increase, which is huge … That's new information.

The dietary information … now lines up [with] the idea that fat is actually good for us and that the real relationship that's damaging to us is our relationship with sugar and carbs.

That was our original message that was accepted by most, but certainly experienced a bit of pushback from mainstream medicine that wanted us to believe that we should all be low-fat and no-fat. We now know with great confirmation that [low-fat] is absolutely the wrong approach."

Ketogenic Diet and Intermittent Fasting Reverse Type 2 Diabetes

Among the studies published in more recent years that support diet-based disease prevention is Dr. Jason Fung's case series paper1,2 published in BMJ Case Reports, which details how fasting can be used as a therapeutic alternative for Type 2 diabetes. This exciting report actually made the front page of CNN online.3

Of the three patients, two did alternating-day 24-hour fasts, while one fasted for 24 hours three times a week over a period of several months. On fasting days, they were allowed to drink unlimited amounts of low-calorie fluids such as water, coffee, tea and bone broth, and to eat a low-calorie, low-carb dinner.

On nonfasting days, they were allowed both lunch and dinner, but all meals were low in sugar and refined carbohydrates throughout. (The complete manual of the fasting regimen used is described in Fung's book, "The Complete Guide to Fasting."4)

Two of the patients were able to discontinue all of their diabetes medications while the third was able to discontinue three of his four drugs. All three also lost between 10 and 18 percent of their body weight. All of these patients had been taking insulin for up to 20 years, yet were able to completely reverse their diabetes through this dietary change alone. Fung is not the only one who has demonstrated this.

"Dr. Sarah Hallberg of Virta Health published a report last year in a study of 100 individuals with Type 2 diabetes … Just putting them on a ketogenic diet reversed diabetes in many, and across the board, dramatically reduced their [need for] medications.

One class of drugs that's commonly used in Type 2 diabetics are sulfonylureas. In [Hallberg's] study, she was able to get 100 percent of the people taking sulfonylureas off of that class of medication. Who knew? Well, we suspected it. Many of us knew. I use that sort of rhetorically. But diet is key.

A ketogenic diet has also been implemented in individuals with early-stage cognitive decline and has been demonstrated to reverse their cognitive decline. Dr. Dale Bredesen certainly uses a higher fat ketogenic diet in his protocol for Alzheimer's disease. I think it really gets to the notion of why a diet that's higher in sugar, higher in carbs, is so detrimental for the brain.

I mean that was our contention with the original 'Grain Brain' five years ago. Mechanistically, when you have elevated blood sugar, you're doing a lot of things, one of which is to compromise the insulin receptor. [Your insulin receptors] become resistant to the effects of insulin. We now know that insulin is far more important than simply helping your body deal with blood sugar.

The insulin receptor has dramatic effects in terms of its activity in the brain … to keep our brain cells healthy. As we start to compromise the ability of our brain to be receptive to insulin, by virtue of our elevated blood sugar, we see the powerful relationship that that has now with developing dementia," Perlmutter says.

Direct Relationship Between Elevated Blood Sugar and Dementia Has Been Proven

Another study cited in Perlmutter's book is a study5,6 published in 2013, which demonstrated a direct relationship between even subtle elevations of blood sugar and risk for developing dementia.

Other research7 published that same year also showed that sugar and other carbohydrates disrupt your brain function even if you have no symptoms of diabetes, primarily by shrinking your hippocampus, a brain region involved with the formation, organization and storage of memories.

A number of other studies support these findings, including a study8 published in the journal Diabetologia in January 2018, which found that the higher an individual's blood sugar, the faster their rate of cognitive decline. Perlmutter also cites a study in The Lancet, published in 2017, which found that an elevated A1C in average blood sugar is dramatically associated with shrinkage of the brain and risk for cognitive decline.

"We now get the fact that having elevated blood sugar increases inflammation," Perlmutter says. "As I'm sure your viewers well know, chronic inflammation is the cornerstone of about every degenerative condition you don't want to get, whether it's coronary artery disease, cancer or Alzheimer's. These are inflammatory conditions.

One study we have in the new book is from 2017, in the journal Neurology. It's a study that I think is profound. It took a group of individuals who were around their mid-50s, 1,600 of them, and measured the inflammation markers in their blood.

It followed these individuals for an incredible 24 years. What they found was there was a perfect linear relationship between those who had higher levels of inflammation 24 years ago and risk for developing dementia …

The implication is that people in their 40s and 50s who are overweight and have elevated blood sugar, both of which cause inflammation, are putting themselves at risk for an untreatable condition called Alzheimer's or dementia later in their lives …

Once that happens, there's very little that can be done, at least from a pharmaceutical perspective. So, the lifestyle choices that people make earlier in life are very, very relevant in terms of charting their brain's density as they get older."

Finding the Sweet Spot for Your Insulin Level

While the recommendation to keep your blood sugar and insulin levels low is a sound one, if you're doing this through nutritional ketosis, it's important not to go overboard. Many believe the best course of action is to stay in ketosis indefinitely and continuously.

However, this can actually lead to unnecessary complications, which is why my metabolic mitochondrial therapy program, detailed in "Fat for Fuel," focuses on cyclical ketosis. Perlmutter agrees, pointing out there's a "sweet spot" for insulin.

"There is a tendency amongst some of us to say, 'If something's good, more is better.' I am personally guilty of overdoing things," he says. "But with respect to insulin, a study was recently published looking at 1,200 women followed for 34 years in Sweden, demonstrating that when you stratify these women in terms of their insulin level, there was a sweet spot, no pun intended.

Women at the high range of insulin had an increased risk for dementia, and women at the very, very low range of insulin as well had about a 2.68fold increased risk of developing dementia.

It's about the important role of insulin in the brain. It is a U-shaped curve. There are ideal levels for everything, whether it's alcohol consumption, exercise, sleep, et cetera. We know that too low blood sugar isn't good for you. With respect to the ketogenic diet, I think most people who are doing it are in and out of ketosis. I think that's reasonable."

Ketones and Your Brain

Nutritional ketosis benefits your brain in several different ways, but one of them is directly associated with the production of a ketone called beta-hydroxybutyrate. Not only is it a "superfuel" for your brain cells, beta-hydroxybutyrate also:

Directly improves insulin sensitivity

Changes gene expression for the better

Reduces chronic inflammation

Increases autophagy, the process by which your body rids itself of damaged cells

Enhances mitophagy, the process by which your body rids itself of defective mitochondria

A lot of this is newer data that was unavailable when "Grain Brain" first came out. The latest update does contain more details on this important ketone, including findings showing you can mildly increase beta-hydroxybutyrate simply by taking medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) oil, even if you're not restricting calories or cutting carbs.

"[MCT oil] paves the way for your liver to make beta-hydroxybutyrate," Perlmutter says, "so, you don't necessarily have to stress your body with calorie restriction or going deep in terms of lowering your blood sugar.

That said, [through a ketogenic diet] you'll gain the benefits of the beta-hydroxybutyrate, [and] … a little stress for your body, whether it's calorie restriction, fasting, lowering your blood sugar, diving into cold water [or] hot water … these are low levels of stress that turn out to activate gene pathways that are really good for you."

Exercise — The Only 'Drug' Worth Taking

Exercise is another really important factor that appears to play an enormous role in the development or prevention of Alzheimer's disease. One recent study9 demonstrated that aerobic exercise can actually offset the genetic risk associated with having the genetic markers for Alzheimer's.10

Other studies have shown exercise triggers a change in the way the amyloid precursor protein is metabolized,11 thus, slowing down the onset and progression of Alzheimer's, and increases levels of the protein PGC-1 alpha, thereby inhibiting production of toxic amyloid protein associated with Alzheimer's.

In one recent study,12 women with the highest cardiovascular fitness had a whopping 88 percent lower risk of dementia than those with moderate fitness. Even maintaining average fitness is worthwhile, as women with the lowest fitness had a 41 percent greater risk of dementia than those of average fitness.

Another fascinating study13,14 cited by Perlmutter was published December 2017 in the journal Neurology:

"The American Academy of Neurology (AAN) puts up practice guidelines for us neurologists. … The question that was raised, 'What should a neurologist do when dealing with a patient who has mild cognitive impairment (MCI)? [MCI] is really the first step toward developing Alzheimer's disease. They don't have Alzheimer's yet, but they're on their way.

It went through a list of 14 different drugs and all of the studies … and the quality of that research … What drug should we use? The conclusion from AAN, in their practice guidelines, was that the only thing we should recommend to patients is a drug called physical exercise.

This is breathtaking to me for a number of reasons: a) we've been saying that for a long time, and b) that a journal supported by [drug] advertising … would have the courage to publish that … under the level of scientific scrutiny, the only thing that can help slow the brain from declining is telling your patient to exercise — not writing them a prescription for aricept, memantine or other medications —is bold and heroic … and very positive."

Why Even Nongluten Grains Are Problematic

As implied by the name of Perlmutter's book, "Grain Brain," grains are problematic, courtesy of their ability to raise your insulin level, and this includes both gluten-containing and nongluten grains. Perlmutter explains:

"As it turns out, even the nongluten-containing grains are worrisome because of their carbohydrate load. Foods based upon corn, whatever it may be — processed corn, tortillas, you name it — are dramatic insults to your ability to regulate your blood sugar, and as such, pose a threat to your brain, immune system, risk for diabetes and, certainly, weight gain.

Beyond that, we have rice, which is also a seed grass, which defines it as a grain. Does it mean you shouldn't eat rice? No. Could you have a serving of rice? Absolutely. It should be wild, organic rice. There's some concern about rice in general being higher in arsenic — I'm aware of that.

Corn, by and large, is genetically modified. We need to avoid that. But if you have access to organic rice or corn and can limit the amount that you consume, based upon being concerned about the carbohydrate event, then you could have some on your plate."

Consider the Timing of Your Meals

The timing of your food intake is another factor that can have a significant impact on your health. As noted by Perlmutter, "This takes us to the area of what we call chronobiology. That is, [we need to try] to reconnect with the cycles of nature daily, seasonally and yearly, in terms of what we do to our bodies."

One important strategy is to eat dinner on the early side; definitely at least three hours before bedtime. "We don't want to be eating just before we go to sleep because of the blood sugar and insulin issue, and how that affects quality of sleep," Perlmutter says. Then, consider fasting for the remainder of the evening and night, until noon or 2 p.m. the following day.

"As you get more and more facile from a physiologic perspective, with respect to mobilizing fatty acids and using them as fuel, then protracting your breakfast to noon or 1 or 2 in the afternoon will get easier and easier," he says, adding:

"I think there's a lot said about doing that and also eating within an eight-hour window … and during the other 16 hours … you're not eating. That seems to have some really salubrious qualities about it as well …

I think the notion of getting into ketosis is important, done the right way. It doesn't mean abandoning all carbohydrates. One of the biggest issues I see is that individuals jump on this no-carb approach, eat more fat and protein, and they feel crappy. They feel constipated.

The reason is because they've abandoned a very important carbohydrate called dietary fiber. We don't want to do that. We want to make sure that this is a diet that's rich in dietary fiber and that we're getting adequate amounts of minerals, like magnesium, potassium and sodium …

We still want to emphasize that a variety of different-colored vegetables are good for you. Some people think that a ketogenic diet is basically Atkins redox. We're eating pork rinds, cheese and eggs all day. That's not what this is about.

You can be fully vegetarian and engage in a ketogenic diet easily by paying attention to fiber, minerals [and] adequate resources for B12, vitamin D and other B vitamins, just to make sure that you've covered the bases."

More Information

In the interview, Perlmutter also addresses some of the genetic factors and the influence of both exercise and nutrition on genetic expression, so for additional information, listen to the interview in its entirety, or read through the transcript. For the most in-depth coverage, be sure to pick up the revised and updated copy of "Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar — Your Brain's Silent Killers."

"I had the opportunity a few months ago to deliver a lecture at the World Bank, an international monetary fund, about the global impacts of Alzheimer's and other chronic degenerative conditions being based upon the Westernization of the global diet and why we need to really pay attention to this," Perlmutter says.

"I'm also looking forward to visiting the largest purveyor of food on planet Earth to give a lecture, and hope we can be influential in making some changes. What I'm saying is, the work continues. I think that it's work that has to be done even if it's a small percentage change in the destiny of global health. Because, boy, it sure is worth it."

from HealthyLife via Jake Glover on Inoreader http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/11/18/wheat-carbs-sugar-brains-silent-killers.aspx

[paullassiterca]

The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs and Sugar — Your Brain’s Silent Killers

Dr. David Perlmutter, a neurologist and fellow of the American College of Nutrition, recently released the fully revised edition of his incredibly successful book, “Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar — Your Brain’s Silent Killers.”

Having sold over 1 million copies, it has achieved a landmark rarely reached by books about natural medicine. Two fundamental points made in his book are that, a) sugar is toxic to the brain; and b) nonceliac gluten sensitivity is real. And, with this fifth edition, Perlmutter has been able to update the book with even more supporting scientific evidence.

Newer Evidence Fully Supports Lifestyle-Based Alzheimer’s Prevention

As noted by Perlmutter, even though there’s no conventional treatment for Alzheimer’s, research shows this devastating degenerative neurological disease can be effectively prevented by lowering sugar exposure, increasing exercise and improving the quality of your sleep.

“The science is now completely lined up behind us, showing that our dietary choices are having a huge influence on the decay of the human brain … We’re really hammering away at this profound relationship between even mild elevations of blood sugar and risk for dementia.

And certainly, the ideas that we put forward about becoming Type 2 diabetic and quadrupling your risk for Alzheimer’s have been validated. The data that we did not have [five years ago] that we have now, with reference to what’s causing diabetes, I think is really very intriguing, and is cause for us to take a step back and take a breath.

Because what we’re now looking at is powerful data that connects statin use in both males and females with development of diabetes. In males, it’s about a 41 percent increased risk of diabetes in statin users [and] … a 71 percent increased risk of developing diabetes in women who are put on a statin medication.

They become diabetic and their risk for Alzheimer’s goes up dramatically — as much as three- or fourfold. Do I wish I would have had that information five years ago? Well, it wasn’t published, so I didn’t have it. But it’s really hugely important that we, as physicians, try to practice under the notion of ‘Above all, do no harm.’

We are making men and women diabetic and magnifying their risk for Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular disease. I mean women have a three to four times increased risk of coronary artery disease if they become diabetic. For men, it’s a two- to threefold increase, which is huge … That’s new information.

The dietary information … now lines up [with] the idea that fat is actually good for us and that the real relationship that’s damaging to us is our relationship with sugar and carbs.

That was our original message that was accepted by most, but certainly experienced a bit of pushback from mainstream medicine that wanted us to believe that we should all be low-fat and no-fat. We now know with great confirmation that [low-fat] is absolutely the wrong approach.”

Ketogenic Diet and Intermittent Fasting Reverse Type 2 Diabetes

Among the studies published in more recent years that support diet-based disease prevention is Dr. Jason Fung’s case series paper1,2 published in BMJ Case Reports, which details how fasting can be used as a therapeutic alternative for Type 2 diabetes. This exciting report actually made the front page of CNN online.3

Of the three patients, two did alternating-day 24-hour fasts, while one fasted for 24 hours three times a week over a period of several months. On fasting days, they were allowed to drink unlimited amounts of low-calorie fluids such as water, coffee, tea and bone broth, and to eat a low-calorie, low-carb dinner.

On nonfasting days, they were allowed both lunch and dinner, but all meals were low in sugar and refined carbohydrates throughout. (The complete manual of the fasting regimen used is described in Fung’s book, “The Complete Guide to Fasting.”4)

Two of the patients were able to discontinue all of their diabetes medications while the third was able to discontinue three of his four drugs. All three also lost between 10 and 18 percent of their body weight. All of these patients had been taking insulin for up to 20 years, yet were able to completely reverse their diabetes through this dietary change alone. Fung is not the only one who has demonstrated this.

“Dr. Sarah Hallberg of Virta Health published a report last year in a study of 100 individuals with Type 2 diabetes … Just putting them on a ketogenic diet reversed diabetes in many, and across the board, dramatically reduced their [need for] medications.

One class of drugs that’s commonly used in Type 2 diabetics are sulfonylureas. In [Hallberg’s] study, she was able to get 100 percent of the people taking sulfonylureas off of that class of medication. Who knew? Well, we suspected it. Many of us knew. I use that sort of rhetorically. But diet is key.

A ketogenic diet has also been implemented in individuals with early-stage cognitive decline and has been demonstrated to reverse their cognitive decline. Dr. Dale Bredesen certainly uses a higher fat ketogenic diet in his protocol for Alzheimer’s disease. I think it really gets to the notion of why a diet that’s higher in sugar, higher in carbs, is so detrimental for the brain.

I mean that was our contention with the original 'Grain Brain’ five years ago. Mechanistically, when you have elevated blood sugar, you’re doing a lot of things, one of which is to compromise the insulin receptor. [Your insulin receptors] become resistant to the effects of insulin. We now know that insulin is far more important than simply helping your body deal with blood sugar.

The insulin receptor has dramatic effects in terms of its activity in the brain … to keep our brain cells healthy. As we start to compromise the ability of our brain to be receptive to insulin, by virtue of our elevated blood sugar, we see the powerful relationship that that has now with developing dementia,” Perlmutter says.

Direct Relationship Between Elevated Blood Sugar and Dementia Has Been Proven

Another study cited in Perlmutter’s book is a study5,6 published in 2013, which demonstrated a direct relationship between even subtle elevations of blood sugar and risk for developing dementia.

Other research7 published that same year also showed that sugar and other carbohydrates disrupt your brain function even if you have no symptoms of diabetes, primarily by shrinking your hippocampus, a brain region involved with the formation, organization and storage of memories.

A number of other studies support these findings, including a study8 published in the journal Diabetologia in January 2018, which found that the higher an individual’s blood sugar, the faster their rate of cognitive decline. Perlmutter also cites a study in The Lancet, published in 2017, which found that an elevated A1C in average blood sugar is dramatically associated with shrinkage of the brain and risk for cognitive decline.

“We now get the fact that having elevated blood sugar increases inflammation,” Perlmutter says. “As I’m sure your viewers well know, chronic inflammation is the cornerstone of about every degenerative condition you don’t want to get, whether it’s coronary artery disease, cancer or Alzheimer’s. These are inflammatory conditions.

One study we have in the new book is from 2017, in the journal Neurology. It’s a study that I think is profound. It took a group of individuals who were around their mid-50s, 1,600 of them, and measured the inflammation markers in their blood.

It followed these individuals for an incredible 24 years. What they found was there was a perfect linear relationship between those who had higher levels of inflammation 24 years ago and risk for developing dementia …

The implication is that people in their 40s and 50s who are overweight and have elevated blood sugar, both of which cause inflammation, are putting themselves at risk for an untreatable condition called Alzheimer’s or dementia later in their lives …

Once that happens, there’s very little that can be done, at least from a pharmaceutical perspective. So, the lifestyle choices that people make earlier in life are very, very relevant in terms of charting their brain’s density as they get older.”

Finding the Sweet Spot for Your Insulin Level

While the recommendation to keep your blood sugar and insulin levels low is a sound one, if you’re doing this through nutritional ketosis, it’s important not to go overboard. Many believe the best course of action is to stay in ketosis indefinitely and continuously.

However, this can actually lead to unnecessary complications, which is why my metabolic mitochondrial therapy program, detailed in “Fat for Fuel,” focuses on cyclical ketosis. Perlmutter agrees, pointing out there’s a “sweet spot” for insulin.

“There is a tendency amongst some of us to say, 'If something’s good, more is better.’ I am personally guilty of overdoing things,” he says. “But with respect to insulin, a study was recently published looking at 1,200 women followed for 34 years in Sweden, demonstrating that when you stratify these women in terms of their insulin level, there was a sweet spot, no pun intended.

Women at the high range of insulin had an increased risk for dementia, and women at the very, very low range of insulin as well had about a 2.68fold increased risk of developing dementia.

It’s about the important role of insulin in the brain. It is a U-shaped curve. There are ideal levels for everything, whether it’s alcohol consumption, exercise, sleep, et cetera. We know that too low blood sugar isn’t good for you. With respect to the ketogenic diet, I think most people who are doing it are in and out of ketosis. I think that’s reasonable.”

Ketones and Your Brain

Nutritional ketosis benefits your brain in several different ways, but one of them is directly associated with the production of a ketone called beta-hydroxybutyrate. Not only is it a “superfuel” for your brain cells, beta-hydroxybutyrate also:

Directly improves insulin sensitivity

Changes gene expression for the better

Reduces chronic inflammation

Increases autophagy, the process by which your body rids itself of damaged cells

Enhances mitophagy, the process by which your body rids itself of defective mitochondria

A lot of this is newer data that was unavailable when “Grain Brain” first came out. The latest update does contain more details on this important ketone, including findings showing you can mildly increase beta-hydroxybutyrate simply by taking medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) oil, even if you’re not restricting calories or cutting carbs.

“[MCT oil] paves the way for your liver to make beta-hydroxybutyrate,” Perlmutter says, “so, you don’t necessarily have to stress your body with calorie restriction or going deep in terms of lowering your blood sugar.

That said, [through a ketogenic diet] you’ll gain the benefits of the beta-hydroxybutyrate, [and] … a little stress for your body, whether it’s calorie restriction, fasting, lowering your blood sugar, diving into cold water [or] hot water … these are low levels of stress that turn out to activate gene pathways that are really good for you.”

Exercise — The Only 'Drug’ Worth Taking

Exercise is another really important factor that appears to play an enormous role in the development or prevention of Alzheimer’s disease. One recent study9 demonstrated that aerobic exercise can actually offset the genetic risk associated with having the genetic markers for Alzheimer’s.10

Other studies have shown exercise triggers a change in the way the amyloid precursor protein is metabolized,11 thus, slowing down the onset and progression of Alzheimer’s, and increases levels of the protein PGC-1 alpha, thereby inhibiting production of toxic amyloid protein associated with Alzheimer’s.

In one recent study,12 women with the highest cardiovascular fitness had a whopping 88 percent lower risk of dementia than those with moderate fitness. Even maintaining average fitness is worthwhile, as women with the lowest fitness had a 41 percent greater risk of dementia than those of average fitness.

Another fascinating study13,14 cited by Perlmutter was published December 2017 in the journal Neurology:

“The American Academy of Neurology (AAN) puts up practice guidelines for us neurologists. … The question that was raised, 'What should a neurologist do when dealing with a patient who has mild cognitive impairment (MCI)? [MCI] is really the first step toward developing Alzheimer’s disease. They don’t have Alzheimer’s yet, but they’re on their way.

It went through a list of 14 different drugs and all of the studies … and the quality of that research … What drug should we use? The conclusion from AAN, in their practice guidelines, was that the only thing we should recommend to patients is a drug called physical exercise.

This is breathtaking to me for a number of reasons: a) we’ve been saying that for a long time, and b) that a journal supported by [drug] advertising … would have the courage to publish that … under the level of scientific scrutiny, the only thing that can help slow the brain from declining is telling your patient to exercise — not writing them a prescription for aricept, memantine or other medications —is bold and heroic … and very positive.”

Why Even Nongluten Grains Are Problematic

As implied by the name of Perlmutter’s book, “Grain Brain,” grains are problematic, courtesy of their ability to raise your insulin level, and this includes both gluten-containing and nongluten grains. Perlmutter explains:

“As it turns out, even the nongluten-containing grains are worrisome because of their carbohydrate load. Foods based upon corn, whatever it may be — processed corn, tortillas, you name it — are dramatic insults to your ability to regulate your blood sugar, and as such, pose a threat to your brain, immune system, risk for diabetes and, certainly, weight gain.

Beyond that, we have rice, which is also a seed grass, which defines it as a grain. Does it mean you shouldn’t eat rice? No. Could you have a serving of rice? Absolutely. It should be wild, organic rice. There’s some concern about rice in general being higher in arsenic — I’m aware of that.

Corn, by and large, is genetically modified. We need to avoid that. But if you have access to organic rice or corn and can limit the amount that you consume, based upon being concerned about the carbohydrate event, then you could have some on your plate.”

Consider the Timing of Your Meals

The timing of your food intake is another factor that can have a significant impact on your health. As noted by Perlmutter, “This takes us to the area of what we call chronobiology. That is, [we need to try] to reconnect with the cycles of nature daily, seasonally and yearly, in terms of what we do to our bodies.”

One important strategy is to eat dinner on the early side; definitely at least three hours before bedtime. “We don’t want to be eating just before we go to sleep because of the blood sugar and insulin issue, and how that affects quality of sleep,” Perlmutter says. Then, consider fasting for the remainder of the evening and night, until noon or 2 p.m. the following day.

“As you get more and more facile from a physiologic perspective, with respect to mobilizing fatty acids and using them as fuel, then protracting your breakfast to noon or 1 or 2 in the afternoon will get easier and easier,” he says, adding:

“I think there’s a lot said about doing that and also eating within an eight-hour window … and during the other 16 hours … you’re not eating. That seems to have some really salubrious qualities about it as well …

I think the notion of getting into ketosis is important, done the right way. It doesn’t mean abandoning all carbohydrates. One of the biggest issues I see is that individuals jump on this no-carb approach, eat more fat and protein, and they feel crappy. They feel constipated.

The reason is because they’ve abandoned a very important carbohydrate called dietary fiber. We don’t want to do that. We want to make sure that this is a diet that’s rich in dietary fiber and that we’re getting adequate amounts of minerals, like magnesium, potassium and sodium …

We still want to emphasize that a variety of different-colored vegetables are good for you. Some people think that a ketogenic diet is basically Atkins redox. We’re eating pork rinds, cheese and eggs all day. That’s not what this is about.

You can be fully vegetarian and engage in a ketogenic diet easily by paying attention to fiber, minerals [and] adequate resources for B12, vitamin D and other B vitamins, just to make sure that you’ve covered the bases.”

More Information

In the interview, Perlmutter also addresses some of the genetic factors and the influence of both exercise and nutrition on genetic expression, so for additional information, listen to the interview in its entirety, or read through the transcript. For the most in-depth coverage, be sure to pick up the revised and updated copy of “Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar — Your Brain’s Silent Killers.”

“I had the opportunity a few months ago to deliver a lecture at the World Bank, an international monetary fund, about the global impacts of Alzheimer’s and other chronic degenerative conditions being based upon the Westernization of the global diet and why we need to really pay attention to this,” Perlmutter says.

“I’m also looking forward to visiting the largest purveyor of food on planet Earth to give a lecture, and hope we can be influential in making some changes. What I’m saying is, the work continues. I think that it’s work that has to be done even if it’s a small percentage change in the destiny of global health. Because, boy, it sure is worth it.”

from Articles http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/11/18/wheat-carbs-sugar-brains-silent-killers.aspx source https://niapurenaturecom.tumblr.com/post/180229637011

[stephmolliex]

How Apple Pay beat the odds because of great design

Rivals have fallen away and while it's taken time to be adopted very widely in the US, it's practically ubiquitous overseas. AppleInsider details the uphill battle to bring us Apple Pay, a fight that started on September 9, 2014. Tell the average American person or American company about Apple Pay and they will invariably be more wary of its security than, say, Europeans. They need more convincing that it's safe and this is a direct but unfortunate consequence of how bad the current US financial transaction system is. Last year, the US accounted for 47 percent of all credit card fraud in the world. Go back one year further to 2016 and the figure was 38.7 percent. It's not that the US is getting worse, it's that other countries are doing better at making fraud harder. European and other countries have long had what are called EMV smart cards but they've only been catching on in the States since 2015. This standard was devised by Europay, MasterCard and Visa back in the early 1990s. That means it's taken two decades to be significantly adopted in the US. By comparison, Apple Pay has raced ahead. Apple security Apple Pay is a genuine solution to the same security issues that make people wary of switching to it. In typical Apple fashion, though, the company worked to deal with all the security issues behind the scenes. And it worked to produce a system that first compelled us through its ease of use. Subscribe to AppleInsider on YouTube On September 9, 2014, Apple announced Apple Pay. This was at the same keynote where the iPhone 6 and the Apple Watch were revealed. Tim Cook said that Apple's ambition was to completely replace the wallet -- and by implication also the handbag. The company was to start by tackling payments which Cook reported then meant 200 million transactions every day in the US and a total of $12 billion per day. Showing an image of a credit card, he said that these transactions are: "based on this little piece of plastic. And whether it's a credit or debit card, we're totally reliant on the exposed numbers, and the outdated and vulnerable magnetic interface -- which by the way is five decades old -- and the security codes which all of us know aren't so secure." Replacing the card He then compared the regular way of paying by card at a store to how it now would be with Apple Pay. Cook did definitely over-sell how many steps the regular system takes but he was spot on about the speed of Apple Pay. Hold your phone near the payment machine and you're done. "It's no wonder that people have dreamed of replacing these [cards] for years," continued Cook. "But they've all failed. Why is this? It's because as it turns out most people that have worked on this, have started by focusing on a business model that was centered around their self interest instead of focusing on the consumer experience. We love this kind of problem. This is exactly what Apple does best." You know how this works You can add your credit or debit card to Apple Pay and so have it available through your iPhone and Apple Watch. There's also the ability to use it on websites. Though at launch that ability to pay directly on a website was the least promoted by Apple. Far more prominent in the company's press release was the fact that the service supported cards "from the three major payment networks, American Express, MasterCard and Visa" and issued by "the most popular banks including Bank of America and Wells Fargo". There was also support in the US from retail stores such as Bloomingdale's, Duane Reade, Macy's and more. In total Apple Pay was to launch with the partners "representing 83 percent of credit card purchase volume in the US". Wherever you bought anything using Apple Pay, you were paying with your credit or debit card but the vendor never sees that. You no longer give your number, expiry date, or codes, because instead Apple Pay creates a transaction code that's unique to your device and to this specific purchase. This transaction code uses what's called the EMV Payment Tokenisation Specification. The fact that it is your device is confirmed by your using TouchID or now FaceID. Apple Pay works as advertised and it is as straightforward as Tim Cook claimed. That didn't mean it was welcomed by everyone or that it escaped critics. Critics Writing for the New York Times, Neil Irwin claimed that Apple was overplaying the arduous difficulty of paying with your credit card. "It's a dangerous business to bet against Apple's ability to make a product that you didn't think you needed as part of your daily life. But 'Apple Pay' looks as if it may be one of those offerings that don't live up to the company's hype." Even so, Irwin acknowledged the security issues that Apple Pay improved on. Still, Apple Pay would come in from harsher treatment from another group: the retailers involved in trying to create a different payment system. MCX and CurrentC Apple Pay's announcement came about two years after the creation of Merchant Customer Exchange, a company formed to create a mobile payment system called CurrentC. It was a consortium formed by some of the best-known firms in American retail such as 7-Eleven, Best Buy and Walmart. Together they reportedly then accounted for around $1 trillion per year in sales. Best Buy and Walmart stated that they would not accept Apple Pay at their stores. Others who were already using some contactless systems found that customers could already use Apple Pay on them without the stores doing anything. So CVS and Rite Aid did something: : they actively stopped Apple Pay working in their outlets. It's hard to imagine any store refusing to accept a valid form of payment but in this case the companies CVS and Rite Aid then disabled this">arguably had no choice. Their contract with the MCX consortium forbade the use of any rival system and that wasn't a big deal in 2012 when there really weren't any alternatives. Come 2014 when there was Apple Pay and CurrentC wasn't expected for another year, it became a very big deal. Big enough that eventually CurrentC simply died. It took years but in 2017 what remained of the consortium's technology was bought by JPMorgan Chase & Co. Tim Cook had stated that other companies had failed because they put their self-interest ahead of any consideration about customers and that's what MCX did. Its aim was not to create a convenient payment system but rather to get around paying credit card fees. Rather than accepting the costs involved when a customer uses a credit card, CurrentC would take money directly from their bank accounts through an ACH transfer. There's nothing wrong with that, so long as the customer has agreed and is getting a benefit from it too. In theory the customer would have got the same convenience that Apple Pay offers, but in practice the system was a chore. You had to find the right QR code on your phone and show that to the merchant who would scan it. If you've ever held your iPhone over a card reader or wafted your Apple Watch over the turnstiles in the London Underground, you'll know how vastly better Apple Pay is. Only, MCX had a point It genuinely seems that Apple started with what would benefit customers but it wasn't altruism and the company found its way to creating a gigantic benefit for itself. Every time anyone uses Apple Pay, Apple gets some money. Of course it does and so do credit card companies. While figures vary in different locations and while they are changed over time, the Financial Times reported in 2015 that Apple would take 0.15 percent of any purchase. (Article requires subscription.) By comparison, credit card companies take at least 0.65 percent. On the surface, that makes Apple Pay more attractive to retailers -- but Apple Pay is a way of storing your card on your phone. Depending on your card, your bank and quite how the transaction is done, you are effectively still paying by a card. Which means the retailers are can still be having to pay a fee to the card companies. Then Apple does also have a way of presenting the best side of a feature. https://goo.gl/Z6LNd6