News
I was once in a grave, but it was an empty Etruscan grave near
Orvieto ...
"The dream's work", in "The
Interpretation of Dreams" by Sigmund
Freud
[Picture: a fragment from the Orvieto Cathedral famous frescoes) "The last Things" by Luca Signorelli, which inspired Michelangelo for his famous Creation in the Sistine Chapel, at the Vatican in Rome.]
Horrific war crimes by fascist Putin
Please support the work of SEMA to fight for Justice
Shortcomings of an otherwise wonderful country
...fighting for Justice visit Japan Child Abduction - Kizuna Child-Parent Reunion
A triumph of the spirit: Melody Gardot
'Baby I am a Fool' by Melody Gardot
Make masks compulsory in public in UK (and elsewhere), says virus expert
Prof Peter Piot nearly died of coronavirus and says he now wears one wherever he goes.
Face masks should be compulsory for adults in all public and enclosed spaces, such as shops, according to a leading infectious diseases expert.
Prof Peter Piot, the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said he did not understand why the government had only ordered their use on trains, tubes and buses in England.
“I don’t understand why it is not official policy to have compulsory face masks not only on public transport but when you go into public places, enclosed places and shops and all that,” said Piot in an interview with the Guardian.
He contrasted Britain with Japan, where people use face masks even if they have a cold in the interests of protecting others, and have done since the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918, he said. Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan have also adopted masks as “an act of civic duty and of the collective wellbeing”.
...read the full interview in The Guardian
How the Stoic Marcus Aurelius Responded To A Pandemic
Coronavirus symptoms: how quickly they show – and what to look for
This practical guide, underpinned with advice from leading health experts, is designed to protect you and your family and friends.
Missed opportunities
Experts have lamented that the world could have been protected against this new coronavirus had it pumped more funds into research following the previous two outbreaks of Sars and Mers at the start of the century.
With Covid-19 seen as a "twin brother" of the previous virus, scientists had the capability to develop a "pan-corona drug, active against any kind of new coronavirus that cropped up," said Johan Neyts, a virology professor at KU Leuven University in Leuven, Belgium, and whose team are trying to find a vaccine against the virus.
He told AFP:
"We knew six members of the coronavirus family so we had enough to try and find an efficient drug against these six but also number seven, eight or nine.
"This is an attack we could have avoided. People will die and it really is a disgrace."
He adding that to develop a new vaccine would cost between €250-300m and said this outbreak was "our final alarm call".
Read more about how Covid-19 relates to Sars and Mers in this piece by the Global Health Security team.
'Robot hearts: medicine’s new frontier'
by Thomas Morris
From bovine valves to electrical motors and 3-D printed hearts, cardiologists are forging ahead with technologies once dismissed as “crazy ideas”
...The essential idea of TAVI was first suggested more than half a century ago. In 1965, Hywel Davies, a cardiologist at Guy’s Hospital in London, was mulling over the problem of aortic regurgitation, in which blood flows backwards from the aorta into the heart. He was looking for a short-term therapy for patients too sick for immediate surgery – something that would allow them to recover for a few days or weeks, until they were strong enough to undergo an operation. He hit upon the idea of a temporary device that could be inserted through a blood vessel, and designed a simple artificial valve resembling a conical parachute. Because it was made from fabric, it could be collapsed and mounted on to a catheter. It was inserted with the top of the “parachute” uppermost, so that any backwards flow would be caught by its inside surface like air hitting the underside of a real parachute canopy. As the fabric filled with blood it would balloon outwards, sealing the vessel and stopping most of the anomalous blood flow.
This was a truly imaginative suggestion, made at a time when catheter therapies had barely been conceived of, let alone tested. But, in tests on dogs, Davies found that his prototype tended to provoke blood clots and he was never able to use it on a patient.
... read the full article in The Guardian
'Erasing Dad'
documentary film on maternal alienation
by Ginger Gentile and Sandra Fernández Ferreira,
produced by San Telmo productions
Watch the revealing fragments of feminist fundamentalist hidden from the documentary by order of an idiotic argentinean judge
Watch an interview to Filmmaker Ginger Gentile by Infobae TV
Watch the interview by C5N of Filmmaker Ginger Gentile and producer Gabriel Balanovsky
...more information in Erasing Dad facebook page
and in the website of Erasing Dad
And in the websites of Fathers 4 Justice - Amor de Papá
Also watch:
'Walker Payne' excellent film on the perseverance of a father to reunite with his two beloved daughters -abused by their hysteric mother- and the sacrifice of his dog to help them reunite:
Another father fights for his two daughters kidnapped to corrupt Argentina
There is much to learn about the background of this human tragedy [watch the document above]:
In sharp contrast with the USA, Argentina is a Mafia state, with no separation of powers, the administration of justice is at the mercy of political power (the custody of children is not shared between the parents but arbitrary given to the mother regardless of any shortcomings, even if she makes impossible for the children to benefit of regular contact with their father). Argentina is not a representative democracy but an oligarchy of state parties [for more information read 'A Pure Theory of Democracy' and 'A Pure Theory of the Republic' by Antonio Garcia-Trevijano]. Thus institutional corruption in Argentina is widespread (25% of the population suffer utter poverty in a country reach in natural resources), murderous violence is an everyday pathology: the assault and insults documented in TV [watch the document below] from the maternal uncle on Mr Dennis Burns and his daughters is but a small example of the bloody violence and impunity ravaging Argentine.
Many USA and French citizens are not aware of their exceptional luck belonging to the only countries in the world that enjoy true Democratic institutions. There is, of course, room for improvements, but your constitutional founding fathers had the insight and love for your country to logically create representative Democracy, the only true democracy that exists today in countries with large populations. Charles de Gaulle adopted it after experiencing the II World War (which could had been avoided if Germany had a representative democracy) to save his beloved France from the institutional corruption produced by the oligarchy of state parties (proportional voting system which brought Vichy to power) suffered until the IV republic; which is still the anti-democratic system in Germany (despite it could produce another Hitler sooner or later), in Mexico, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Argentina, Spain, Italy, Russia... and most countries around the world where institutional corruption make justice and fairness exceptions to the nepotist rule.
This said, it is an absurd contradiction that the USA and France do not try to educate the many countries around the world they “help” to get rid of dictatorships by firmly setting as a sine qua condition that if they want your help they have to adopt representative Democracy to rule their own countries; avoiding thus new corrupt dictatorships like now in Egypt and unreliable allies everywhere.
It is almost a miracle that Victoria and Sophia were delivered from the hell endured their past 5 years; an everyday hell aggravated by the pathological hysteria (simulation and lies) of their alienating mother and brutality of her maternal clan. Therefore it must not be underestimated the significant work Victoria and Sophia will face in the years ahead to free themselves from the umbilical cord enchaining them via the Unconscious to the bad or good mother each of us incarnated by birth. The difficult duty of a father is to guide by the example in this human quest for personal freedom and fulfilment of one's talents for life. A task similar to the guidance of Virgil to Dante to walk free from Hell to his own heaven.
Feel welcome to learn more about these issues by watching the excellent documentary film 'Erasing Dad' [watch it above] by San Telmo Productions (Ginger Gentile and Gabriel Balanovsky ), also visiting my websites and reading a lucid feminist like Camille Paglia.
Thanks for your consideration.
Best wishes to the Burns family and the USA.
Dr M A Meizoso
Psychology-on.net
... more information in the blog Return Burns Children Fund and in its facebook page
'A Father's Love'
by David Goldman
A Father's Love tells the sometimes painful story of David Goldman's five year ordeal, in bringing his son back to his home in New Jersey from Brazil.
In 1997 when David was working in Italy, he met a Brazilian woman named Bruna Bianchi Soon the couple fell in love. The two married and made their home in a New Jersey seaside community where David resided, and two years later in 2000, their son Sean was born.
Since Bruna's family was from Brazil, the couple would often travel there a few times a year. In 2004, Bruna and Sean flew to Brazil for a two week vacation. David was to meet them there the following week, but four days into her visit she called her husband David to say that she wanted a divorce, as well as full custody of their son Sean. Shocked and in a state of disbelief, for over three years David struggled to find someone to help him to get his abducted son back. He made several trips to Brazil to see his son, but was repeatedly denied access to the boy, except for occasional and brief telephone calls. Gifts and cards which were sent to Sean by his father were sometimes returned.
Despite international court battles and judgments, his wife refused to give up their son. She divorced her husband David, and she married a prominent Brazilian attorney named Juno Paulo Lins e Silva. In August of 2008, the unimaginable occurred when Bruna died giving birth to her new husband's baby. Bruna's new husband seemed even more determined to see that David remained out of his son Sean's life, and he petitioned the court in Brazil to have Goldman's name removed from his birth certificate after Bruna passed away.
David Goldman, however, had no intentions of giving up on ever seeing his son again. More determined than ever, and assisted by New Jersey State Rep Chris Smith, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama, David was finally successful in returning Sean to his home in New Jersey on Christmas Eve in 2009. Even though Goldman was successful in bringing his son home, the Brazilan family continued to bring court actions against Goldman, believing that Sean should be raised by Bruna's mother.
Each day since Sean returned home with his natural father, the two have grown closer and closer, establishing routines and trust and respect for each other. Even though not every day has been perfect, Sean is thriving in school and at home, since being returned to his birthplace and the home where his life began.
Well told, A Father's Love, is a poignant look at just how far a parent will go to do what is right on behalf of their child. I enjoyed this book, and feel that it not only tells the Goldman's story, but opens the communication to expose the fact that this is not an isolated case. International child abduction by parents is a very real problem that needs more exposure, and harsher penalties for offenders.
... more in the website of Bring Sean Home Foundation and A Father's Love blog
On Mia & Dylan Farrow's sordid allegation against Woody Allen
The best documented article on Mia & Dylan Farrow's sordid allegation against
Woody Allen was written by Mr
Robert B. Wiede published in The Daily Beast. I congratulate the author for this excellent work of journalism which is an indispensable reading to formulate an informed opinion on this affair.
Nevertheless, will add the following: The works of an artist are driven by Eros and the unconscious
desire. I know very well Woody Allen's works, each and all his works reflect
Allen's mind and sexual interests. Nothing in Allen's works suggests the slightest
sexual attraction for children; like nothing in Borges' works supports any sexual
desire for women -the masochism in Borges' life, well reflected in his works,
or his childish idolatry for her overruling Mother, are symptoms of repressed
desire for men, the good-looking ones (guapos); as it was the beautiful
Adolfito, his
young master whom Georgie loved so dearly all his life. Borges' mother was
a fundamentalist catholic – very much like Arthur
Rimbaud's mother- who
would prefer his unique son rather death than a healthy homosexual.
I read Dylan's
letter published in the New York Times [by her friend blogger Nicholas Kristof],
I followed the rupture between Farrow and Allen, then the judicial case in 1993... I have to agree with Dr.
John M. Leventhal -who headed the Connecticut investigation into
Mia Farrow's malicious allegation that Woody Allen molested their then 7-year-old
daughter, Dylan: "...it was "very striking" that each time Dylan spoke of the
abuse, she coupled it with "one, her father's relationship with Soon-Yi, and
two, the fact that it was her poor mother, her poor mother," who had lost a
career in Mr. Allen's films.
Dr Leventhal also said “it was possible that Ms Farrow encouraged her child
to fabricate simply by videotaping her telling the story, because Dylan liked
to perform."
As an expert in psychology, I outline that the recent letter of Dylan Farrow
and Mia Farrow obstinate campaign against Woody Allen had both the signature
of hysteria.
To understand this pathology made of hate and simulation, I recommend to read
"Emma
Zunz" the insightful analysis by Jorge Luis Borges on a real "perfect crime"
committed by a young hysteric to vindicate her mother's hate against her father.
Miss Zunz's pretext to kill her substitute father (after letting died her own in collusion with the malicious criminal allegation against him)
was, like in the present case, that “he wanted to sexually abuse her”... a true
fabrication of her unconscious mind -echoing her mother's allegation against Emma's father- that everybody -including the police- believed
at first sight. ["Then she (Emma) picked up the telephone and repeated what she would repeat so many times again, with these and with other words: Something incredible has happened ... Mr. Loewenthal had me come over on the pretext of the strike ... He abused me, I killed him ...
Actually, the story was incredible, but it impressed everyone because substantially it was true. True was Emma Zunz's tone, true was her shame, true was her hate. True also was the outrage she had suffered: only the circumstances were false, the time, and one or two names."]
No doubt Mrs. Dylan is still a victim, but of her childish alienation to her
adopted mother's hate for Woody Allen. Psychoanalysis could free her, as Art
and fatherhood helped her brother Moses to find the truth, conquer his freedom and acknowledge the love of his father.
A similar hysteric pathology drives the hateful mythomania
of the false widow Kodama, her criminal conspiracy against Borges (she bought her false certificate of marriage in extremis to a personal representative of dictator Stroessner), her cruzade against his friends and readers.
Sincerely,
Dr. Meizoso
[London, 1st February 2014]
Woody Allen Speaks Out ... [+]
Read also:
Nanny
Casts Doubt on Farrow Charges : Custody: She tells Allen's lawyers the actress
pressured her to support molestation accusations against him. She says others
have reservations... [+]
Doctor
Cites Inconsistencies In Dylan Farrow's Statements ... [+]
Woody
Allen's Lawyer: Mia Farrow Made Dylan Farrow Her "Pawn," "Implanted" Memories
... [+]
Panel
Criticizes Prosecutor In Inquiry on Woody Allen... [+]
Mia
Farrow Testifies That Child Daughter Accused Allen of Molestation ...(to please
her) ... [+]
Mia
Farrow's Brother Sentenced for Child Sex Abuse; John Charles Villiers-Farrow
sentenced to 10 years in prison... [+]
Mia
Farrow Defends Polanski ... [+]
'Oppressed Majority', the film by Eléonore Pourriat about a world run by women that went viral on internet
Eléonore Pourriat's short film imagines how a man might experience a sexual assault in a matriarchal society. 'I wanted it to be not so realistic but frightening,' she says
Ms Pourriat, 42, acts and writes scripts for comedy movies in France. This was her first film as director. "It is rooted absolutely in my own experience as a woman living in France," she tells me. "I think French men are worse than men elsewhere, but the incredible success of the movie suggests that it is not just a French problem.
... more in The Guardian - The Independent - El Pais
Ken Russell's on Tchaikovsky
or the tragedy of a child genious who was unable of getting rid of his identification to his mother
[Watch the film by clicking on the title]
Synopsis :
Much of the film is without dialogue and the story is presented in flashbacks, nightmares, and fantasy sequences set to Tchaikovsky's music. As a child, the composer sees his mother die horribly, forcibly immersed in scalding water as a supposed cure for cholera, and is haunted by the scene throughout his musical career. Despite his difficulty in establishing his reputation, he attracts Madame Nadezhda von Meck as his patron. His marriage to the nymphomaniacal Antonina Miliukova is plagued by his homosexual urges and lustful desire for Count Anton Chiluvsky. The dynamics of his life lead to deteriorating mental health and the loss of von Meck's patronage, and he dies of cholera after deliberately drinking contaminated water.
Cast :
- Richard Chamberlain... Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
- Glenda Jackson... Antonina Miliukova
- Max Adrian... Nikolai Rubinstein
- Christopher Gable... Count Anton Chiluvsky
- Kenneth Colley... Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky
- Izabella Telezynska... Nadezhda von Meck
- Maureen Pryor... Nina's Mother
- Sabina Maydelle... Sasha Tchaikovsky
'When Nietzsche wept'
'Rotten NHS culture' led to cover-ups
Scandals and cover-ups over patient deaths at hospitals in Morecambe Bay and Mid Staffordshire are evidence of a “rotten culture” in the NHS, a health minister says.
Dr Dan Poulter suggests that the recent hospital scandals go beyond local failures and point to a wider problem in the health service which sees “institutional secrecy put ahead of patient safety”.
Dr Poulter’s words, in an article for The Daily Telegraph, are the strongest criticism yet of health service scandals by a Coalition minister.
The way the NHS treats patients and deals with clinical failures is at the top of the political agenda after disclosures that errors that killed mothers and as many as 16 babies at Furness General Hospital were covered up by a health regulator.
Campaigners have called for a criminal investigation into the cover-up by the Care Quality Commission. Police in Cumbria are expected to make a statement today... [+]
Speaking out cost NHS whistleblower his job
A whistleblower has told how he was forced out of a senior post at the NHS watchdog after reporting the findings of its inspections
Roger Davidson lost his job as head of media and public affairs for the Care Quality Commission just before the 2010 general election — after telling how a quarter of NHS trusts had failed to meet basic hygiene standards.
He was forced to sign a gagging order when he left and was told that the CQC was “railing against” his action to “highlight issues”.
It had previously stopped telling the public how to find reports on infections in their local hospitals to limit publicity damaging to the NHS, he said.
The disclosure is the latest blow to the CQC. It comes after former managers, including Cynthia Bower, the chief executive, were accused of orchestrating a “cover-up”.
Evidence of its failure to prevent a scandal at a hospital maternity unit in Furness, Cumbria, at which 16 babies died, was destroyed... [+]
Each underage person abused suffers a mother who is the key responsible for the cruelty
Watch the horrific abuses endured by a daughter from his perverse father -a judge by profession- and her equally sadist mother
Disabled daughter explains why she leaked horrific video of family judge beating her: 'I'm feeling some regret because to ruin my own father is heavy indeed. But I really want him to seek help':
The abused daughter published a video document after seven years because 'she was tired of being harassed'. Sickening video shows 16-year-old girl whipped 20 times with belt.
Daughter of Texas Court-at-Law judge William Adams secretly filmed him.
Girl's mother took part in horrific attacks.
The Court-at-Law Judge, from Aransas County, Texas, added: 'It was a long time ago.. I really don't want to get into this right now because as you can see my life's been made very difficult over this child.'
'In my mind I have not done anything wrong other than discipline my child when she was caught stealing. I did lose my temper, I've apologized.. it looks worse than it is.'
The video, called 'Family law judge beats own daughter for using the internet, please spread', shows the motive for the attack was because Miss Adams had been caught downloading music to the computer in her bedroom.
In the footage Judge Adams can be seen delivering around ten powerful strikes across his daughter's legs and backside, his wife then grabs the belt from him to take over, at which point he walks out only to return moments later with another belt so he can continue the beating.
On the seven-minute long clip, as his daughter begs him to stop he can be heard snarling: 'Bend over the f***ing bed.
'Lay down or I'll spank you in the F***ing face.'
In total the girl receives 20 hard lashes from her father and one from her mother.
...more in El Mundo - Daily Mail - MSNBC - Associate Press - Seattle Post Intelligencer - CNN
'A Dangerous Method'
or the hypocrisy of Carl Jung
...Jung idolises Freud but, increasingly, the two men are pulling in opposite directions. Freud thinks Jung's line of analysis is too airy-fairy, too in thrall to supposition and coincidence. Jung, for his part, thinks the master has sex on the brain. "Surely there must be more than one hinge into the universe," he grumbles.
The irony, though, is that whereas Freud is presented as a celibate old shaman, Jung is off living the dream, swinging the hinge until it howls out in protest. He is married and siring child after child while simultaneously carrying on an affair with Sabina Spielrein (Knightley), a brilliant hysteric who is an inmate at his hospital. Sabina bares her teeth and juts an extraordinary, elongated chin that should by rights have been shot in 3D. She is, she claims, "vile and filthy and corrupt" and her greatest desire is to be tied up and spanked. Jung, with a pained, frowning diligence, duly obliges.
...more in The Guardian - The Telegraph - El Mundo
Loving words of a mother and a father resuscitate Jamie Ogg, a new born that doctors sentenced dead
August 27, 2010. Miracle mum brings premature baby son back to life with two hours of loving cuddles after doctors pronounce him dead.
It was a final chance to say goodbye for grieving mother Kate Ogg after doctors gave up hope of saving her premature baby.
She tearfully told her lifeless son - born at 27 weeks weighing 2lb - how much she loved him and cuddled him tightly, not wanting to let him go.
Although little Jamie's twin sister Emily had been delivered successfully, doctors had given Mrs Ogg the news all mothers dread - that after 20 minutes of battling to get her son to breathe, they had declared him dead.
Having given up on a miracle, Mrs Ogg unwrapped the baby from his blanket and held him against her skin. And then an extraordinary thing happened.
After two hours of being hugged, touched and spoken to by his mother, the little boy began showing signs of life.
At first, it was just a gasp for air that was dismissed by doctors as a reflex action. But then the startled mother fed him a little breast milk on her finger and he started breathing normally.
'I thought, "Oh my God, what's going on",' said Mrs Ogg. 'A short time later he opened his eyes. It was a miracle. Then he held out his hand and grabbed my finger.
'He opened his eyes and moved his head from side to side. The doctor kept shaking his head saying, "I don't believe it, I don't believe it".'
The Australian mother spoke publicly for the first time yesterday to highlight the importance of skin-on-skin care for sick babies, which is being used at an increasing number of British hospitals.
'He started gasping more and more regularly. I thought, "Oh my God, what's going on?" A short time later he opened his eyes. It was a miracle'
In most cases, babies are rushed off to intensive care if there is a serious problem during the birth.
But the 'kangaroo care' technique, named after the way kangaroos hold their young in a pouch next to their bodies, allows the mother to act as a human incubator to keep babies warm, stimulated and fed.
Pre-term and low birth-weight babies treated with the skin-to-skin method have also been shown to have lower infection rates, less severe illness, improved sleep patterns and are at reduced risk of hypothermia.
Mrs Ogg and her husband David told how doctors gave up on saving their son after a three-hour labour in a Sydney hospital in March.
The doctor asked me had we chosen a name for our son,' said Mrs Ogg. 'I said, "Jamie", and he turned around with my son already wrapped up and said, "We've lost Jamie, he didn't make it, sorry".
'It was the worse feeling I've ever felt. I unwrapped Jamie from his blanket. He was very limp.
'I took my gown off and arranged him on my chest with his head over my arm and just held him. He wasn't moving at all and we just started talking to him.
'We told him what his name was and that he had a sister. We told him the things we wanted to do with him throughout his life.
'Jamie occasionally gasped for air, which doctors said was a reflex action. But then I felt him move as if he were startled, then he started gasping more and more regularly. 'I gave Jamie some breast milk on my finger, he took it and started regular breathing.'
Mrs Ogg held her son, now five months old and fully recovered, as she spoke on the Australian TV show Today Tonight.
Her husband added: 'Luckily I've got a very strong, very smart wife. 'She instinctively did what she did. If she hadn't done that, Jamie probably wouldn't be here.'
...more in The Daily Mail
Nicholas Hughes, Sylvia Plath’s son, follows her mother and commits suicide
The son of the poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath has taken his own life, 46 years after his mother gassed herself while he slept.
Nicholas Hughes hanged himself at his home in Alaska after battling against depression for some time, his sister Frieda said yesterday.
He was 47, unmarried with no children of his own and had until recently been a professor of fisheries and ocean sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Dr Hughes’s death adds a further tragic chapter to a family history that has been raked over with morbid fascination for two generations. He was only a baby when his mother died but she had already sketched out what he meant to her in one of her late poems.
In Nick and the Candlestick, published in her posthumous collection Ariel, she wrote: “You are the one/ Solid the spaces lean on, envious./ You are the baby in the barn.”
Later his father wrote of how, after Plath’s death, their son’s eyes “Became wet jewels,/ The hardest substance of the purest pain/ As I fed him in his high white chair”. Neither he, nor his sister nor their Poet Laureate father could ever fully escape the shadow cast by Plath’s suicide in 1963 and the personality cult that then sprang up around her memory.
...more in The Times - El Mundo - The Guardian
A father's quest to heal his son
'Over the Hills and Far Away' explores one family’s unforgettable journey as they travel halfway across the world in search of a miracle to heal their autistic son. This sweeping and emotionally charged story embodies the openness and faith the Isaacson family places in the possibility of trying something extraordinary. Rowan was born in 2001, seven years after his parents met while touring India. His father, Rupert, a British journalist and human-rights activist, and his mother, Kristin, a psychology professor from suburban California, felt the world was their oyster. After their son was diagnosed with autism in 2004, their perfect life began to fall apart. They tried conventional therapies, diets, and medication, all to no avail. Rupert had witnessed the potency of traditional healing and discovered that his son had a special bond with horses. He researched and found a place that combined horseback riding and shamanic healing—Mongolia. The next step was convincing his wife they should take their son to Ulaanbaatar and travel on horseback, searching for the elusive reindeer herders and the most powerful shaman in the country. Accompanied by Rupert's honest narration, this rich film blends footage from the family's adventure through the Mongolian countryside with scenes from their life at home in Texas. Bolstered by testimony from autism experts, including Dr. Temple Grandin, this compelling film exquisitely captures an astonishing physical and spiritual journey. ...more in Sundace Film Fetival - Over the Hills and Far Away - The Horse Boy Foundation
The Talking Cure
In Buenos Aires a popular radio - La Colifata- talk show is run by asylum inmates.
Filmmakers: Rodrigo Vazquez and Simon Deeley
Buenos Aires is a city where everybody is going mad, according to the locals. They say going crazy is an inevitable consequence of living in the Argentinian capital.
A history of violent repressive dictatorships and economic meltdowns has thrown many Argentinians into crisis.
But there is a voice of hope resonating throughout the city - coming from none other than two patients from Argentina's largest psychiatric hospital.
Julio and Eduardo host one of the most popular radio shows in the country guided by their psychologist Alfredo. Loony Radio's slogan "breaking down the walls" describes a two-way therapy where inmates enjoy their connection to the outside world and audiences enjoy some free psychotherapy in a mad world.
"There is insanity inside the asylum which is pathological", says one patient, "but outside the insanity is consumerism and working life".
...more in Al Jazeera - and in the website of Bethnal Films
Explore a classic children's book: Where the Wild Things Are [or the Uncounscious]
Philip Glassborow explores the origins of Maurice Sendak's classic children's book Where the Wild Things Are. Contributors include Maurice Sendak's British editor Judy Taylor, his long-time friend playwright Tony Kushner, children's literature expert Leonard Marcus and the children of Little Milton Primary School in Oxfordshire.
The programme features readings by Henry Goodman and extensive use of Jewish Klezmer music.
...more in the BBC Radio 4 -
Watch above two video documents on the famous children's book, and below watch 'A Selection', a collaborative work of Maurice Sendak and Pilobolus.
"A Selection" is a dance that depicts the brutality of Hitler's Holocaust as it affected those, especially the children, who suffered at the hands of the Nazis. The title of the work comes from the process where camp arrivals are separated to work or to die - as shown in Part 2. Some are "selected" to work while others are stripped of everything they have and sent to the gas chambers.
A perverse father admits 24 years of abduction and more years of incest
A 73-year-old Austrian man confessed to imprisoning his daughter in a windowless cellar for 24 years and fathering her seven children.
Josef Fritzl was believed to have lured his daughter Elisabeth into the basement of the family's home in Amstetten, north-west Austria, on August 24 1984.
He allegedly drugged and handcuffed her before locking her in the cellar.
Franz Pölzer, the head of the criminal investigations unit in the province of Lower Austria, said Fritzl had admitted abduction and incest.
"He has now said that he locked up his daughter for 24 years and that he alone fathered her seven children and that he locked them up in the cellar," he told Reuters.
Fritzl is expected to appear in court later today.
Earlier, a police spokesman said 42-year-old Elisabeth was "psychologically extremely disturbed", but that her version of events was "completely believable".
She claimed her father had abused her since she was 11. "In her own words, she was continuously abused by her father," the spokesman said.
She said she had borne seven children by Fritzl, including twins, one of whom died after only three days in 1996. He removed the body from the cellar and burnt it.
Police said many questions remained to be answered in the case, which is reminiscent of that of the Austrian girl Natascha Kampusch, who was abducted, aged 10, on her way to school in 1998 and locked in a windowless cell before escaping in August 2006.
...The drama began to unravel last weekend when Elisabeth's 19-year-old daughter, Kerstin, who lived in the cellar, was left at a hospital with a life-threatening illness.
A search for Elisabeth increased in urgency as Kerstin's condition worsened.
The plight of the mother and children was discovered on Saturday night when Elisabeth and her father appeared together at the hospital.
They were taken to the nearby police station, where he was arrested for sexually abusing his daughter and holding her captive.
Kerstin is said to be in a critical condition, suffering from an unknown illness, in the intensive care unit of Krems hospital.
Pölzer said Elisabeth "gave the impression of being in an extremely disturbed psychological state" and was "in a bad way physically".
She had agreed to speak to police only after being assured that she and her children would never again have contact with her father. ...more in The Guardian - BBC - The Times - The Telegraph - The Independent - France 24
What Psychoanalysis observed long ago is now confirmed by research: Antidepressant drugs - used by 40 million believers who rather take a drug than examine their life - don't work
They are among the biggest-selling drugs of all time, the "happiness pills" that supposedly lift the moods of those who suffer depression and are taken by millions of people in the UK every year. But one of the largest studies of modern antidepressant drugs has found that they have no clinically significant effect. In other words, they don't work. The finding will send shock waves through the medical profession and patients and raises serious questions about the regulation of the multinational pharmaceutical industry, which was accused yesterday of withholding data on the drugs. It also came as Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, announced that 3,600 therapists are to be trained during the next three years to provide nationwide access through the GP service to "talking treatments" for depression, instead of drugs, in a £170m scheme. The popularity of the new generation of antidepressants, which include the best known brands Prozac and Seroxat, soared after they were launched in the late 1980s, heavily promoted by drug companies as safer and leading to fewer side-effects than the older tricyclic antidepressants. The publication in 1994 of Listening to Prozac by Peter Kramer, in which he suggested anyone with too little "joy juice" might give themselves a dose of the "mood brightener" Prozac , lifted sales into the stratosphere. In the UK, an estimated 3.5 million people take the drugs, collectively known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), in any one year and 29 million prescriptions were issued in 2004. Prozac, the best known of the SSRIs made by Eli Lilly, was the world's fastest-selling drug until it was overtaken by Viagra. ...more in The Independent - The Times - The Guardian - The Telegraph
People in public office should undergo a psychoanalysis first to avoid dictators in the making, perverse and mad endangering another's life :: 'Abuse was anything from rape to torture.'
Abuse and torture to minors in public care happened every night Victims call for house to be demolished as they reveal full scale of horror at Haut de la Garenne. Former residents at a Jersey care home where police are searching for the remains of up to six children described yesterday how they were repeatedly drugged, raped and abused while supposedly under the protection of the institution's staff. Testimonies, including one from a leading local trade unionist, painted a horrifying picture of life inside Haut de la Garenne, where more than 1,000 children were housed in the decades before it was closed down. Peter Hannaford, 59, who lived at the home until he was 12, called for the building to be demolished. Speaking for the first time in public about his ordeal, he described his childhood there as "hell". "The abuse was anything from rape to torture. It was men and women who abused us. It happened every night and it happened to everyone. I was scared to go to bed. You were threatened with punishment if you said anything, which could have been a whip or anything," the union official said. A mother-of-two, identified only as Pamela, 49, said she spent two years inside the home in the early 1970s. She alleged that the weakest children were selected by members of staff during drunken parties and plied with cigarettes and alcohol. "The things that happened there are indescribable – the most cruel, sadistic and evil acts you could think of," she said. Children who fell foul of the authorities were stripped naked and locked in a 10ft "punishment room", she claimed. "I was sent there if I slipped up in any way – not eating all of my dinner, looking at one of the staff in a funny way, basically any excuse they could find," she said. "When I fought back a female staff member came in and gave me huge dose of valium that knocked me out, and sexually assaulted me. I was always being drugged." Some 150 people have contacted police since the discovery of human bones at the care home on Saturday. It also emerged that the notorious paedophile Edward Paisnell, known as the Beast of Jersey, visited Haut de la Garenne during the 1960s. ...more in The Independent
Heath Ledger, Oscar nominated star of Brokeback Mountain, dies aged 28. Did he suffer from a phobia instead of treating it?
Heath Ledger, the actor nominated for an Oscar in 2006 for his depiction
of a brooding gay cowboy, found dead after suspected overdose of drugs.
He was 28.
He was discovered in his bedroom in the apartment in the SoHo neighbourhood of
Manhattan at 3.30pm by a housekeeper and a masseuse who he had called for an
appointment. They found him unconscious on the floor and called emergency services
when he failed to respond. ...New York magazine opined that "great joy can be
taken in witnessing the small-miracle performances of Ledger (so eloquent in
his mute despair)". ...It was during the filming of Brokeback Mountain that Ledger
began a relationship with the actor Michelle Williams. They set up home together
in Brooklyn and had a daughter, Matilda Rose, who is now two. At the time, Ledger
spoke of the happiness they found in Brooklyn, away from the glare of Manhattan
media attention. "I walk my laundry down to the laundromat, I get my groceries
and carry them back; photographers don't live out there, and local people don't
care," he said.
But the happiness did not last for long. The couple split up last year and Ledger
moved back to Manhattan.
He rarely alluded to his private life, but there was clearly a troubled streak.
He regularly complained about the attention of paparazzi, and he was hypercritical
of his own acting performances.
In November he told the New York Times he was not proud of his role in I'm Not
There, Todd Haynes's film in which Ledger plays one of six versions of Bob Dylan.
He said: "I feel the same way about everything I do. The day I say, 'It's good'
is the day I should start doing something else." The interviewer found Ledger
complaining he had been unable to sleep. "I couldn't stop thinking. My body was
exhausted, and my mind was still going," Ledger said. He confided to the reporter
that he took a prescription sleeping pill and, when that failed, took another.
The actor had been travelling between New York and London where he was filming,
as recently as last weekend, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus directed by
Terry Gilliam. He was also scheduled to appear this year as the Joker in the
next Batman movie, The Dark Knight. [Some weeks ago he was saw in the New York
metro with his 2 years daughter, Matilda, so unclean that the strong smell make
passers by avoid him. Many said that the clothes he was wearing have never been
washed, reported
Spanish news paper.] ...more in The
Guardian - The
Independent - The
Times - The
Telegraph - The
Washington Post
Twins parted at birth went on to meet, marry – then find the truth
Twins who were separated at birth married each other without knowing that they were brother and sister, a peer has claimed. The couple were adopted as babies by different families, and neither was told that they had a twin. They met, fell in love and got married before discovering that they were blood relatives. Lord Alton of Liverpool, who was told about the case by a High Court judge, told the House of Lords that the British couple were then granted an annulment at a special hearing at the High Court in London. Judges in the Family Division ruled that the marriage had never been valid. “For them it was a terrible tragedy,” said Lord Alton, who declined yesterday to name the judge who had told him about the case and said that he had no further details. Experts said that the trauma both of being separated and of discovering that they were twins in such circumstances would have had serious psychological consequences for the pair. Lord Alton, who opposes parts of The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill now being debated in the Lords, argued that the twins’ experience demonstrated the need to strengthen a child’s right to know the identity of his or her biological parents. He called on the Government to “think again” about the Bill, which contains no requirement for the birth certificates of children conceived by egg or sperm donations to include this fact, despite calls from some MPs and peers for it to do so. Yesterday Lord Alton said that the case of these twins “outlines the importance of knowing your identity, knowing who you are and your genealogy. This is to prevent incestuous relationships, but also for reasons of genetics and disease prevention. “I think there needs to be more clarity in public records. A birth certificate is a historical document, it is not about your social circumstances.” ...more in The Times - The Guardian -
Refugee from Kosovo weds woman who fostered him as a teenager
It could hardly have been a quieter wedding, with just two witnesses, one bridesmaid and a dog.
But that was the way Julia Gregg, 34, wanted it when she married 21-year-old Krenar Lleshi - seven years after she and her ex-husband took him into their home as a foster son.
The couple looked after the teenage Kosovan after he was smuggled into Britain in the back of a lorry. Miss Gregg grew increasingly attached to Krenar as he battled to be allowed to stay in the country.
After she and her husband Steve Crandon, 38, split up, she began a love affair with Krenar when he turned 19 and a year later they had a child together.
The couple married on Christmas Eve at their local church, St Anne's in Nantyglo, South Wales, with their one-year- old daughter, Hattie, as bridesmaid, and their dog, Cupe (the name is Albanian for "little girl") as a guest.
Yesterday the new Mrs Lleshi said: "There were a lot of shocked faces when we said we were getting married. I know how much people have gossiped about us and we wanted it to be a very special, very private occasion.
"I didn't even tell my sisters. When they found out they were shocked. I wanted to keep it as something between me and Krenar." ...more in This is London
Psychologist author Mary Pipher returns American Psychological Association award to protest over condoning of tortures
She said: "I think that the
APA has long been a clan," said Mary Pipher, a clinical psychologist and author
of "Reviving Ophelia" among several other books. She returned her Presidential
Citation award from the America Psychological Association in protest over the
group's policy on military and CIA interrogations. "The top leadership, the people
on the council have been there for decades. It's a very ingrown group of people
and I think we probably need some new leadership in APA."
We congratulate our colleague Pipher. The similar
illness of nepotism and pro behaviorist militancy, anti-Freudian stance, discredits
the British Psychological Society.
Click on the screen below to watch Pipher interwieved in Democracy
Now by journalist Juan Gonzalez
We play the second part of our conversation with renowned psychologist and author Mary Pipher. She gained headlines last week when she returned her Presidential Citation award from the America Psychological Association in protest over the group's policy on military and CIA interrogations.
At its annual convention just over a week ago, the APA's policymaking council voted overwhelmingly to reject a measure that would have banned its members from participating in interrogations at Guantanamo Bay and other US detention centers.
Mary Pipher rose to national acclaim with the publication of her book, "Reviving Ophelia" which remained on the New York Times bestseller list for over 150 weeks. She has written several other books, her latest is titled "Writing to Change the World." I began by asking Mary Pipher why she decided to return her award from the APA. ...more in Democracy Now
Mon fils à Moi [My Son, mine]
A
new version of the
total power of Yocasta over her child, in particular when the father
lacks authoritas and society cares not for the Law.
'Mon fils a moi' Fougeron's first feature film, tells the story of a preadolescent boy who is a prisoner of his mother's love. He is controlled by her and subject to cruel psychological bullying. The film relates his desperate struggle to break free.
One of two winning films at the San Sebastian international film festival,
Martial Fougeron's Mon Fils à Moi, was booed by critics at the weekend when
it was announced that it had won the top accolade. Several journalists at
the Spanish speaking world's most important film festival shouted "no, no"
while others made thumbs down gestures to show their preference for the
Iranian film Half Moon, which shared the Golden Shell for best film..."Half
Moon,'' by the Kurdish Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi and "Mon fils a moi''
("My Son'') by France's Martial Fougeron each won Golden Shell awards for
best film at the San
Sebastian International Film Festival.
Watch the trailer clicking on the screen.
Scientific progress on Resurrection
Academician
Miroslav Radman, together with his research associate Ksenija Zahradka,
presented their most recent scientific discovery on the Mechanism of DNA
repair in Deinococcus radiodurans. The presentation was accompanied by a
lecture on "The reassembly of shattered chromosomes in the bacterium Deinococcus
radiodurans" on October 7th 2006, at the Mediterranean
Institute for Life Sciences (MedILS) in Split, Croatia. ...read
the article clicking here.
NHS computer system breaks down 110 times in four months:
The problems, affecting dozens of hospitals across England, were serious enough to be logged by NHS managers as "major incidents", according to a report in Computer Weekly magazine. Some involved programs that allow doctors to view x-rays; others affected the online appointments registers that hold details of patient bookings and planned treatments. ...more in The Guardian
Mechanisms of mental formation and submission to the "authority",
which apply to every human being:A dark mystery: A month after her escape, disturbing details about Natascha Kampusch’s life before her kidnap have emerged. Stefanie Marsh reports from Vienna ...read the note in The Times
Mother of Austrian kidnap survivor 'knew abductor' : New doubt has been cast on the sensational story of Natascha Kampusch, the Austrian teenager held underground for eight years, after a key witness claimed that the kidnapped girl's mother knew the abductor and that she was convinced there was a "connection" between them. ... more in The Independent
Kidnap
girl tells of eight-year torment : Wearing jeans and a purple shirt
and sporting a long scarf tied around her head, the images reveal a poised,
thoughtful young woman, looking relaxed and smiling. But the pictures mask
the torment that Fraulein Kampusch reveals she endured during her eight
years as a prisoner. In her first interviews since her freedom, the teenager
told how she thought only of escape during her entire ordeal, once even
trying to jump out of her captor’s car. She also reveals how she dreamt
about decapitating Priklopil. "I always felt like a poor chicken in a hen
house. You saw on TV how small my cell was - it was a place to despair."
... more in The
Times - The
Guardian
[photos: Natasha researched by Austria from 1998, hole where
she lived 8 years hidden, his kidnapper Wolfgang Priklopil]
The Austrian teenager held in an underground cell for more than
eight years insisted Monday she didn't miss out on much in captivity and
was even spared some temptations and torments of adolescence, such as smoking,
drinking and dealing with "bad friends.": On her fifth full day
of freedom, 18-year-old Natascha Kampusch broke her silence in a statement
that appeared to lend credence to the theory she may have suffered from
"Stockholm Syndrome," where victims cope by identifying with their captors.
Natasha described the man who enslaved her as "a part of my life," adding
"that's why I also mourn for him in a certain way." Kampusch also said she
refused to comply with Priklopil's requests to call him "master." "He was
not my master. I was just as strong," she said in the statement, read to
reporters by a psychologist. ...more in The
Washington Post - The
New York Times - The
Guardian - The
Independent
Kidnapper led his victim to believe that her parents had refused
to pay a ransom for her ... more in The
Independent - The
Guardian
Kidnapped
girl kept diary during her eight-year ordeal: The neighbour who
found Fräulein Kampusch in her garden said: “She was just suddenly standing
in front of my kitchen window, panicking, white in the face and shaking.”
After being reunited, her father said that his daughter had asked him: “Daddy,
do you still have my toy car?” Herr Koch told her that he had kept it, along
with all her dolls. ... more in The
Times -
Kidnapper's friend says he met 'cheerful' Natascha, judging thus
for the appearence of "the couple" he saw as most people does, ignoring
Plato and Freud teachings: ...more in The
Times - The
New York Times - The
Washigton Post
Full text of the public letter by Natasha: ... read it
in The
Times
Kidnap girl sues to seize abductor's home: A few neighbors
also believed what she made "a happy couple" with her kidnapper,
for instance Mr Jantschek, 66, who said: "I saw the young lady in the garden
quite often over the past year. They also drove off together in his car,
and every time she waved at us in a friendly way." He also said that when
asked, Priklopil claimed the young woman was a "Yugoslav aide" that he had
"borrowed" from a colleague to do some house work for him. Jantschek said:
"We could not have known that it was the kidnapped Natascha Kampusch. When
I asked him [Priklopil] whether she was his new girlfriend, he only said
'I have borrowed her from a work colleague ... more in
The Times - The
Washington Post
Bernardo Bertolucci tribute to Sigmund Freud and to J L Borges
Bernardo Bertolucci's interviewed by John Tusa from BBC Radio 3: ...
What sort of films do you think you'd be making now if you had not gone
into analysis in your late twenties?
Bertolucci : It's a very difficult question because it doesn't involve only
the movies that maybe would have been completely different, it involves
also my life. My life would have been probably something very, very different.
I went first to a Freudian psychoanalyst in 1969, just two or three months
before shooting The
Spider's Stratagem. I didn't go really because I wanted to make bigger,
wider, my perspectives or my horizon. I went because I felt in need of a
kind of very intimate dialogue, to be able to speak with somebody about
things I wasn't able to speak with anybody else. And that was really the
beginning of a great discovery, the discovery that psychoanalysis was like
adding a new lens, a new objective to my camera. And maybe, the therapeutical
effect of psychoanalysis on me came also through my movies. I was so excited
as a neophyte about this discovery of the world of Sigmund Freud for the
first six, seven years, I was kind of going around as a PR of psychoanalysis.
... listen
and read the complete interview in the BBC - Radio 3
Berlin celebrates Sigmund Freud
Next
6th May 2006 is celebrated the 150th anniversary of Sigmund Freud's birthday.
The Institute of Cinema, the Jewish
Museum of Berlin, the Friends of the German Film Archives in the Arsenal
Cinema and the Psychoanalytical associations will remember with Exhibitions,
series of Films and Lectures the genius of the father of Psychoanalysis,
who also worked in Berlin.
Freud's Sculpture at The Henry Moore Museum, Leeds, UK
Etching
of Sigmund Freud at his Desk by
Max Pollak 1914, from the Freud Museum, London.
On the eve of the 150th anniversary of Sigmund Freud’s birth, the Henry
Moore Institute in association with the Freud Museum presents a unique opportunity
to explore Freud’s relationship with sculpture. Until now, the sculptures
and statuettes that he displayed on his desk have rarely been examined, but
this exhibition highlights their meaning both individually and as an ensemble.
... read more
clicking here.
Beckham reveals his battle with obsessive disorder
"I've
got this obsessive compulsive disorder where I have to have everything in
a straight line or everything has to be in pairs. I'll put my Pepsi cans
in the fridge and if there's one too many then I'll put it in another cupboard
somewhere. "I'll go into a hotel room and before I can relax, I have to
move all the leaflets and all the books and put them in a drawer. Everything
has to be perfect." Asked if he wanted to stop his obsessive behaviour,
he said: "I would like to. I've tried and can't stop." Beckham admitted
he was also addicted to having tattoos, partly because he enjoys the pain.
Beckham is not the first footballer to admit to suffering from OCD, which
is estimated to affect more than two million people at some point in their
lives. ... more in The
Independent
Why people go missing of their own?
Every day 600 people disappear in Britain. On the day the government agreed to fund the country's leading organisation for missing persons, the Guardian journalists investigates the phenomenon of those who leave and those they leave behind ... read the results here.
Millons of couples live in similar terms of 'Brokeback' marriages
One
woman in her 50's, who asked to be identified only as Trillian, out of concern
for her husband's privacy, said that she and her husband formally divorced
after she discovered his secret sexual life seven years ago, but they quickly
decided to stay together. She has a satisfying monogamous sexual relationship
with him, while he also has sex with men. "He tried to go back in the
closet, but the more research I did on the subject, the more I realized
this is an integral part of the person," she said. "You can't
just turn it off like a light switch. My husband is the man of my dreams,
and I could not face the rest of my life with the man of my dreams being
miserable and guilt ridden over being gay." ... read the article by
Katy Butler in
The New York Times
Also read "Freud
and the liberation of sexual desire", by Peter
Tatchell
The boy who could not find a way of life and blow him up to death in an orgy of carnage
Hasib Hussain and his three friends, Shahzad Tanweer, 22, Mohammed Sadique Khan, 30, and a man yet to be formally identified, have been revealed as the bombers responsible for last Thursday's atrocities ... more in The Independent and in The Guardian
