Domestic violence rises in Christchurch after earthquake

The level of domestic abuse and violence is reported to have risen substantially (50%) in Christchurch after the earthquake in September.

According to the New Zealand Herald,

Burglaries in quake-ravaged Christchurch are actually down but family violence offences have soared more than 50 per cent, say police.

Provisional data showed that burglaries have decreased by 11 per cent in comparison with the same time last year. ..

However, it was also a time of significant stress on families for a number of reasons, he said.
Provisional statistics show there has been an increase of 53 per cent in family violence offences since Saturday morning in those areas affected by the earthquake.
"We know from experience that times of stress do correlate with an increase in family violence incidents and this has occurred.
"It is a time to show tolerance and patience and realise when you are under stress and may need to take affirmative action to prevent the stress escalating into violence to those closest to you."
Police urged people suffering from stress to talk to family or friends or seek advice and assistance from agencies that can help such as Women's Refuge.

Women under Perpetual Guardianship of Males in Saudi Arabia

The government of Saudi Arabia gives women very few rights that are taken for granted in the West.

This treatment is not a feature of Islam itself, but is a feature of the particular way Islam has been interpreted by the ruling elite.  It is important not to paint Islam with a broad brush, when so much of the practices are local interpretations that vary widely with country and region.

According to Wikipedia, on Women in Islam "
William Montgomery Watt states that Muhammad, in the historical context of his time, can be seen as a figure who promoted women’s rights and improved things considerably. Watt explains: "At the time Islam began, the conditions of women were terrible - they had no right to own property, were supposed to be the property of the man, and if the man died everything went to his sons." Muhammad, however, by "instituting rights of property ownership, inheritance, education and divorce, gave women certain basic safeguards."^[13]"

The Wikipedia article also quotes an opinion that  Islam is neither more nor less patriarchal than other world religions especially Hinduism, Christianity and Judaism.^[7][8]
It is interesting how so many aspects unrelated to Islam are ascribed to it in an effort to tar and feather it.
The headscarf is a source of massive dispute in various countries, including the US and France. Yet, every picture in a Christian bible shows Mary, mother of Jesus, with a headscarf. Interesting.

The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women ("CEDAW") committee on Saudi Arabia "noted with concern that the concept of male guardianship over women seemed to be widely accepted and severely limits their rights under the Convention", according to The Circular from the National Council of Women of New Zealand (The Circular, No 537, October 2010, p8).

The news item continues "The consequences of the system of male guardianship include:"

• A girl of any age can be forced into marriage by her male guardian.
• A woman can be forcibly divorced from her husband by her male guardian.
• A girl cannot be educated without the consent of her male guardian.
• A woman cannot get a passport without the permission of her husband or male guardian.
• A woman cannot travel or take her children anywhere without the permission of her husband or male guardian.
• A woman cannot be admitted to or discharged from, a government hospital without the permission of her husband or male guardian.
• A woman cannot make decisions regarding medical care, including family planning, without permission of her husband or male guardian.
• She cannot be employed without the approval of her husband or male guardian.
• She cannot run a business unless it is in the name of her husband or male guardian and she has his permission to manage it.
• A woman cannot enter a police station to file a complaint unless she is accompanied by her husband or male guardian.
• A woman cannot file a court case or appear before a judge without the presence of her husband or male guardian.

The CEDAW committee urged the government of Saudi Arabia to take immediate steps to end the practice of male guardianship over women.

(quoted Source: Equality Now Women's Action 31.2 Update May 2010).

Love and survival - or, no, technology is not what will save us!

The Wall Street Journal has an article this morning titled "Latino Aging Stumps Experts".

Why Hispanics such as Mr. de Leon—often poor, uneducated and without health insurance—live long and strong has long confounded health professionals, scholars and other experts. This week, the first official life-expectancy data released for U.S. Hispanics shows they outlive whites by 2.5 years and blacks by almost eight years.

The life expectancy for Hispanics is nearly 81 years, compared with 78 years for whites and almost 73 for blacks. As a whole, people in the U.S. can expect to live 77.7 years, according to the report from the Centers for Disease Control.

"The findings can imply the Hispanic population is healthier overall" than whites and blacks despite its low socio-economic status, said Elizabeth Arias, lead author of the report...

While there is no conclusive explanation for Latino longevity, possible factors are related to migration, culture and lifestyle....

Another theory holds that U.S. Hispanics live longer than whites and blacks because they are more likely to eat a healthy diet, get exercise and belong to a supportive social network.

 I'm not sure what "experts" are stumped by this kind of result, although it does fly in the face of two popular myths

1. that the USA has some kind of superior health care, compared to other countries,and 
2. that technology and high-tech medicine and surgery are more important than social factors

An implication of the second item is that the debate about "healthcare" should become a debate about exactly what sort of third-party payer insurance we need in order to pay the huge costs of such high-tech interventions.  This is, of course, precisely what the last several years have seen in the US.

These myths, narratives, and mental models have a profound impact on our social policies and generally, in my mind,  cause us to misallocate a huge portion of our national wealth down pathways that yield no actual benefits, while simultaneously depriving us of the needed solutions.   This is, in other words, almost the classic definition of "quack medicine", and a bad, bad, bad thing to let continue unchallenged.

I highlighted the section of "social support network" because it is the factor that allows people to eat and exercise correctly.    It is highly unlikely that things go the other way, i.e., that eating and exercise cause us to join social support networks.     It is very likely that having a community ethic and support network provides that key thing, the thing we don't even have a word for in common English,  which allows people to endure pain, overcome adversity, and hold the course (hold the faith?) when the going gets rough.

Hispanics are not the only group that shows such an advantage. Another dramatic example is the Church of Latter Day Saints ("Mormons").      Here's their data to consider when picking your next health-care insurance plan.   There are more authoritative sources than this weblink, but it was fast and they show the same data:

 

 

Life expectancy among LDS and Non-LDS in Utah

Ray M. Merrill

VOLUME 10 - ARTICLE 3 PAGES 61 - 82 Date Received: 26 Jul 2003 Date Published: 12 Mar 2004

http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol10/3/

Abstract: (excepts)

This paper compares life expectancy between members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormons) and non-LDS in Utah.

Complete life table estimates were derived using conventional methods and cross-sectional data for white males and females fr1994-1998. 

Life expectancy was 77.3 for LDS males, 70.0 for non-LDS males, 82.2 for LDS females, and 76.4 for non-LDS females....

although differential tobacco use explains some of the higher life expectancy in LDS, it only accounts for about 1.5 years of the 7.3 year difference for males and 1.2 years of the 5.8 year difference for females. Higher life expectancy experienced among LDS not explained by tobacco-related deaths may be due to factors associated with religious activity in general, such as better physical health, better social support, and healthier lifestyle behaviors. Religious activity may also have an independent protective effect against mortality.

In short, and this is supported by other studes,  LDS males live on average 7.3 YEARS longer than the rest of us. 

Surpisingly, (to those stuck in the insurance myth), this is not due to health insurance or high tech medicine.    General statistics on the population are given here.

Again, part of the result is "explained" by substantially better health habits, such as rejecting smoking and drinking -- and, again,  the deeper explanation of how people are able to resist the marketing pressures encouraging drinking and smoking gets back to the factors of social support and a shared ethic or religion that provides such strength to stick to those behaviors in a larger culture that has enormous pressure to behave more poorly.

A good book to read that presents much more in the way of solid academic support for these types of findings is the book by Dean Ornish, M.D.,  titled  Love and Survival - 8 Pathways to Intimacy and Health.     That link has a substantial portion of the book readable on-line for free.

This book also is available on Amazon for under $12 new and for as little as one cent ! used, plus shipping.    It's well worth the price.



From the preface of the book:

Smoking, diet, and exercise affect a wide variety of illnesses, but no one has shown that quitting smoking, exercising, or changing diet can double the length of survival in women with metastatic breast cancer, whereas the enhanced love and intimacy provided by weekly group support sessions has been shown to do just that...

Love and intimacy are at a root of what makes us sick and what makes us well, what causes sadness and what brings happiness, what makes us suffer and what leads to healing. If a new drug had the same impact, virtually every doctor in the country would be recommending it to their patients. If would be malpractice not to prescribe it -- yet, with few exceptions, we doctors do not learn much about the healing power of love, intimacy, and transformation in our medical training.  Rather, these ideas are often ignored or even denigrated.

That legacy thinking of the medical establishment is one reason that the Institute of Medicine's latest report on health care in the US is recommending that nurses, not doctors,  lead the way into the new health care era -- because, in my somewhat sharp words,  they understand long-term chronic care, home care, and the "rest of people's lives" when they are not in those brief moments a "patient" in a "hospital" or "health care setting" where "providers" will provide "health care" to them in a 12 minute burst, for as little as $200 a pop, provided they have the right insurance company.

I leave this discussion of the myths around health care, and what really matters, with a few longer-term perspectives on the issue.

Regarding the enormous power of mental models and the grip the high-tech med-surg-pharmacy industry has on our thinking:


"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities."   (Voltaire)

"If they can get you to ask the wrong questions, then they don't have to worry about the answers" (Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow).

And a view of health "science" is coming back to at last, from several thousand years ago:

"A joyful heart is good medicine, 
   but a broken spirit dries up the bones."   (Bible,  Book of Proverbs,  17:22)

"The spirit of a man can endure his sickness,
   But a broken spirit, who can bear?"       (Bible, Book of Proverbs, 18:14).

"Every man's way is right in his own eyes,
   But the Lord weighs the hearts."        (Bible, Proverbs, 21:2)


"He how shuts his ear to the cry of the poor
    Will also cry himself and not be answered"  (Proverbs,  21:13)

It seems amazing, doesn't it, if technology is so powerful, that we, surrounded by technology and 20 years of higher education, are just now coming to understand what was written several thousand years ago!

I'll close with  a quote from T.S. Eliot in Little Gidding

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our expWe shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time. 

Brainflowing - interesting looking seminar for ITSE in Second Life today

(image is from artist Alex Gray,  at http://www.alexgrey.com/  who has some truly AMAZING images along the ideas of cosmic consciousness and shared human existence. )

Thursday, October 14, 2010
Brainstorming with Brainflowing at ISTE (strengths of Second Life and current alternatives to this Virtual Environment)

Copied From here

Thursday, October 14, 2010, 6-7 PM SLT (that's 9PM EST)
ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) Educators Social Events at Second Life

Facilitator: gloriadiago Galicia & Draceina Pinion
Location: ISTE Island Campfires http://slurl.com/secondlife/ISTE%20Island/182/91/23

Gloria Gómez-Diago (gloriagdiagoGalicia SL) and Akemi Mochizuki (Draceina Pinion SL) will introduce Brainflowing, a device for brainstorming in Second Life, and for transferring the outcomes generated to other contexts. After explaining how the tool works, two brainstorming will be held with all the participants. First we will be focused on identifying tasks which can be undertaken in this Virtual World for achieving objectives involved in a teaching/ learning process. Then, taking in mind the removal of the educational/non-profit discount in Second Life_ issue considered worthy of attention_ we will brainstorm about the current alternatives to this Virtual Environment. Therefore, by sharing experiences about the use of other platforms, we will to seek their salient advantages and failures.
Brainflowing has a symbolic price of 1000 linden Dollars, which are equivalent to $3.64, £2.34 or €2.76, and it is available in Dracy´s Virtual Shop.
Posted by gloriagdiago at Thursday, October 14, 2010
Labels: brainflowing, brainstorming, events

Migration from Second Life to OpenSim

(The above image was in google images with no creator given. I guess if CEO's can "abandon ship" taking their goodies with them, so can customers or service users!)

 Prompted by the recent announcement by Linden Labs that they are increasing rents (doubling them) for educational and non-profit organizations,   I'm joining the exiting throngs (rats?) cutting down my footprint in Second Life, and expanding it in other virtual worlds such as OpenSim.

I'm now a proud resident of 3rd Rock Grid as well as Jokaydia, and have an account but no land yet in Reaction Grid.  We'll just see how those work out, what physics engines are like, and get started rebuilding health care training and virtual hospitals, clinics, and outreach centers in the OpenSim environment.

Maybe, someday, Linden Labs will get me back.  Like any emotional relationship, I sort of doubt it, now that they've prompted me to have to come to grips with moving,  because cognitive dissonance will set in, and my mind will magnetically attract reasons why this was a good move to make, and repel reasons why this was a bad move to make.

So be it.

In any case substantial sums of money in grants and contracts are now flowing to OpenSim communities, and I'm definitely not alone in this transition.

Here's a few relevant posts from other blogs on the subject.

Vendors offer help migrating out of Second Life (but only if you own everything yourself,  which also means, no "megaprims" can be transferred.) If you do own everything, they'll move it all for you, for 2 weeks work and prices in the order of $100 USD to $500 USD per island -- using grunt labor in the Philippines to copy each script!

A manifesto for educators seeking life after second life
(by Iggy O on www.hypergridbusiness.com)

There is still no universal currency in the Hypergrid (grid of OpenSim etc. grids that share a Hypergate access, so you can jump from one to another with a single login and single inventory you carry with you.)

There is also no generic store of things you can buy.  Linden Labs has both a great store and a functioning currency, but they have shown no sign that they intend to provide such facilities for "the rest of the virtual world."   T'is a pity -- they are missing such a bet,  apparently under the impression that Second Life will always be the only game in town.     Doesn't look that way to me.

Wade

Will technology be our salvation?

Today's Wall Street Journal has an inteview with entrepreneur / investor Peter Thiel, subtitled "Technology = Salvation".   

I've written about this topic before, including the immediate prior post, linking to a dark humor YouTube video on "Technology in the Classroom",   comments on social media,    and on productivity gains from "Sharpening the Axe"

The area of need for technology is clear in my posts on  "Seriously, Why didn't we see it coming?" and "Hypnotized in high places."

The technology I'm talking about is not the type that T.S. Eliot warns us about, "systems so perfect that no one needs to be good" -- it is "socio-technology" -- the technology of making people work more productively together than they would working separately, or in the "parallel play" world of most office settings.

The first example that comes to mind is the Neanderthal activity called "a meeting", often mocked as "the acceptable alternative to work."      Another example is "the committee", a structuring of human activity with the curious property that adding more and more helping hands to the mix makes the outcome less and less helpful.


In terms of basic math or common sense,  since our problems grow at least as fast as the number of people in our world,  is a method of addressing those problems that utilizes people as resources, not liabilities, and also grows at least as fast as the number of people in the world.

Instead, we have a method of addressing problems that has flattened out only slightly above the capacity of a very bright single person,  albeit one with very strong , technology-enhanced muscles.   Sadly,  our technology has, by simple observation, done nothing to enhance vision, insight, and understanding of the world.  We have the paradoxical situation that GM executives are actually surprised that a rising price of gasoline might cause people to prefer cars that get better gas mileage.   It's not just GM -- the larger the organization, based on "Meetings" and "reporting",   the blinder it appears to be to actual reality on the ground. 

Even General Colin Powell has noted that he would tend to trust the opinion of a private on the ground at the site over the central War Room,  on whether a bridge existed or had just been blown up.

The technology we need then,  to dramatically get back on the productivity increase curve, is technology that creates a work structure where adding people to the decision-making group improves the decisions that come out of it.  In math or basic computer science algorithm terms, we need a process whereby N+1 people make better decisions than N people, for any N.

Theory Y management and mindfulness get us much of the way there, but, harking back to TS Eliot's wisdom, we expect to run into the equivalent of the sound barrier -- a wall at which humans who arrive with the intent of fighting each other cannot pass without setting aside their "differences" in the consultation process.

Can technology help us with that transition?  This is not about "Powerpoint", or other ways to shout at each other more loudly -- it is about socio-technology that helps us calm our anxieties,  touch our better selves, and honestly seek out win-win solutions together.

For this, we need to leap to the next level of computing -- from processing "contents" to processing "contexts". 

 In other words,  we need assistance not in dealing with the complexity of details within a particular frame of reference or viewpoint,  but in dealing with how those contents and available solutions appear to change, based on the framework or viewpoint that form the context for those detail.s.

The reason is that there is a huge amount of important stuff buried in the tacit relationship between the details we are seeing, and the reference frame that gives specific meaning to those details.



Meetings at which people simply continue to assert loudly their details and which dots form an "obvious straight line when connected" with others doing the same, but from different viewpoints, will only generate anger and confusion.    It is not the details that are the problem -- it is that we have failed to adjust in a rational way for the differing perspectives  and frames that are invisibly but critically attached to those details.

This is where the next breakthrough in productivity will arise - in solving this problem.
And this is where I see the power of virtual worlds, such as Linden Labs "Second Life" coming into play, becuase, there, it is possible to shift the entire visible context of a meeting in a keystroke.

That means that we have a way to get our contexts out of our heads into a space where we can compare and contrast them, and understand how much our differences are due to different frames, not different data.

More on this in a later post.

Wade