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Escalation.
This week in Developmental Psychology class I presented a paper on dating violence in teenage relationships. I'm not going to rehash the paper here, because it's boring and Google-vulnerable, but I wanted to share the most interesting conclusion I found. How much conflict there is in a relationship, or the seriousness of the conflict issues, are not predictors of whether there will be violence. The biggest predictor is the degree to which conflicts in the relationship escalate. The studies I read looked at dating violence , which is not the same thing as dating abuse , although obviously there's lots of overlap. Dating violence simply means that there's hitting/shoving/slapping; emotional abuse and controlling behavior aren't factored in.
” There are plenty of Swedish fans around who also knew Stieg, especially John-Henri Holmberg who was one of the few from skiffy circles Stieg kept contact with after he left to become more involved in political journalism. (JHH can tell you *much* more about all this, but your humble servant also met Stieg a lot way back, almost weekly 1977-1980, around four years, when the Scand SF Assoc had its club house where we all converged.) “I won’t repeat everything, but give a few notes. Organiser was one Kurdo Baksi who became a friend of Stieg in AFAIK early 90′s and helped Stieg in his work against neo-nazism. The seminar lasting almost four hours covered Stieg and feminism, Stieg the anti-racist, Stieg the internationalist and journalist and finally a lecture about xenophobia by Anna-Lena Lodenius who was co-author with Stieg of their first book (Högerextremism, “Right Wing Extremism”, 1991 – Stieg wrote a number of non-fiction books before Millennium).
Stieg Larsson: Big-Name Sci-Fi Fan | Beyond The Beyond
I’m relentlessly intrigued by the lists and to-do’s of famous creators , which reveal a private everyday facet of the public creative self. Last week, the talented Wendy MacNaughton (yep, her ) recreated Leonardo da Vinci’s , and now comes John Lennon’ s hand-written to-do list, a fine addition to this week’s vintage Beatles love . (Going for a mere $3,000 on this auction site.) As a bibliophile, I was thrilled to see a fragment of Lennon’s reading list — including this book on the mystery of the Hope Diamond, an unnamed tome by Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl , and Margaret Trudeau’s Beyond Reason , a memoir about life as a wild hippie flower child turned Prime Minister’s first lady — as well as mundane errands like fixing the bathroom hook and all-too-relatable tediums like being home when the cable guy shows up. Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter and people say it’s cool .
John Lennon's Handwritten To-Do List | Brain Pickings
Nick Miller | What Writing Has Done To Me
I told a story the other day and realized halfway through it wasn’t my story but my protagonist’s story—I kept telling it anyway. I can no longer demarcate the truths of my past from what I’ve written as fiction. Every person I have a conversation with now runs a chance of being fictionalized. The other night, I was talking with a girl who said she dumped a guy because he was a “30-year-old writer still renting a place.” I get random bouts of anxiety throughout the day—a feeling I will never quite understand. I go through a medley of thoughts about my writing ranging from “this is the worst thing ever written” to “that’s a nice sentence” to “what the fuck am I doing with my life?”Bill and Melinda Gates have announced a $10bn vaccination programme to counter diseases in developing countries over the next decade. They made the announcement at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Evan Davis spoke to Mr Gates about his health programmes.
BBC News - Bill Gates: 'We can wipe out malaria'
Remember Erik Prince, the creepy former CEO of mercenary firm Blackwater (now called Xe), who fled the United States for the United Arab Emirates after selling his company? What's that zany dude up to now? Oh, just forming a mercenary army at the behest of the United Arab Emirates' autocratic crown prince, with the tacit approval of the U.S. government.
Meet the American-Led Mercenaries Protecting the U.A.E. from Protestors
Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom political party suffered an embarrassing defeat in local elections on Monday. Those losses coincided with the resumption of Berlusconi's trial - where he stands accused of abuse of power, and sex with an under-age girl. So what is the future for the man under pressure? Is Berlusconi's reign nearing its end? Inside Story presenter Felicity Barr, discusses with Nucccia Bianchini, an editor for the Italian news agency Agenzia Giornalistica Italia ; Andrea Teti, an international relations lecturer at the University of Aberdeen; and James Walston, a professor of international relations at the American Univeristy.
The end of Berlusconi? - Inside Story - Al Jazeera English
Toshiso Kosako, a professor at the University of Tokyo's graduate school and an expert on radiation exposure, announced late yesterday that he was stepping down as a government adviser. Prime Minister Naoto Kan appointed Prof Kosako after the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami which struck north-eastern Japan on March 11. The disaster left 26,000 people dead or missing and damaged several reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant - triggering the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986. In a tearful news conference, Prof Kosako said he could not stay and allow the government to set what he called improper radiation limits of 20 millisieverts an hour for elementary schools in areas near the plant. "I cannot allow this as a scholar," he said.
Japanese government aide quits over nuclear crisis - Asia, World - The Independent
Ruling Conservatives in landslide Canada win - Americas - Al Jazeera English
Canada's ruling Conservatives have won a crushing victory in federal elections, handing prime minister Stephen Harper a coveted majority that eluded him in the last three elections. Provisional results showed the Conservatives had 166 seats in parliament, well above the 155 they needed to transform their minority government into a majority. They won 40 per cent of the vote, more than most pollsters had expected. "Canadian politics has changed dramatically tonight," Jason Kenney, immigration minister in the last Conservative government, said a day after Monday's vote. "Canadians have gotten what they want; a stable majority which will focus on governing and economic growth and responsible fiscal policy."
Many of Haiti's poorest citizens were not dissuaded by former singer Michel 'Sweet Micky' Martelly's near-total lack of political experience [GALLO/GETTY] No sooner had Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly been confirmed the winner in Haiti's deeply flawed presidential election than he jumped on a plane and headed to Washington, where he met with his country's real power brokers: officials from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the US Chamber of Commerce and the State Department. There, he committed his desperately poor country - where some 700,000 people are still homeless as a result of last year's earthquake - to fiscal discipline, promising to "give new life to the business sector". In exchange, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave him a strong endorsement. "We are behind him; we have a great deal of enthusiasm," she said.