Book Review: Dopamine Nation

  

Dopamine Nation is a 2021 book written by Anna Lembke. Dr. Lembke is a psychiatrist and the medical director of Stanford Addiction Medicine.

The book, with its catchy subtitle "Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence", focuses on modern trends of overconsumption, specifically in American society.

To understand the book, we need to put some contemporary social pathologies into context. Princeton economists reported shorter life expectancy among white Americans without a college degree. The morbid findings of midlife mortality among caucasians were mostly attributed to three major causes: substance abuse, alcohol-related liver disease, and suicide. (The term "Death of Despair" was coined by Anne Case and Angus Deaton, and the phenomenon is discussed in their book Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism.)

The book oscillates between patients and personal memories, and scientific rationale backed by some evidence-based material. Most cases are clinical cases of high-end drug abuse or other types of addiction. To tackle the goliath of addiction, it is inevitable to (at least) touch on a few domains beyond the narrow scope of psychiatry. Education, pop culture, sociology, economy, internet, and information technology are the key players in this problem, and accordingly must be addressed as components of any proposed solution.

A part of the psychology of addiction is rooted in education and the current education system. As an example, in Chapter 2 (Running From Pain), the author questions some approaches to modern treatment of children:

"... I worry that we oversanitized or overpathologized childhood, raising our children in the equivalent of a padded cell, with no way to injure themselves but also no means to ready themselves for the world."

Later in the same chapter, the book quotes Neil Postman (American media theorist and cultural critic:

"... Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities, and commercials."

These self-deceptive behaviors, norms, or traits divert attention and insulate us from pain. As mentioned earlier, this book is founded on American psychology. The book reports that pain perception is higher among Americans compared to other nations.

An interesting part of the book explains the physiology of pleasure, anticipation, action, reward, and ultimately pain. The brain's reward pathway involves the ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, and the prefrontal cortex. While dopamine plays the key role in the sensation of pleasure, its role is even more potent in the motivation to get a reward (Wanting over Liking!).

Chapter 3 (The Pleasure-Pain Balance) introduces the concept of dopamine-deficit state: a neurological process that occurs as a result of overconsumption of dopamine substances. This overexposure disturbs the dopamine release as well as the expression of dopamine receptor (D2), bringing about a full reversal from hedonism to anhedonia.

In Part II (Chapter 4 onwards), the book shifts gears towards solutions and management strategies. Chapter 4 introduces four weeks of Dopamine Fasting for starters. The point is that we need to embrace the pain and acknowledge the suffering instead of escaping from it. The critique should target escapism rather than the pain (This section of the book is in accordance with Susan David's Emotional Agility.)

In Chapter 5 (Space, Time, and Meaning), the Self-binding is defined as the method we intentionally and willingly create barriers between ourselves and our drug of choice to mitigate compulsive overconsumption. Later in this chapter, the book criticizes some aspects of current practice where pharmacotherapy alone is applied without understanding the patient and targeting the underlying behaviors. These lopsided approaches have usually proven futile.

As the study by Warren Bickel revealed, the addicted have a different perspective on the future. The compromised abstract thinking and planning lead to shrinking temporal horizons. One consequence of repeated overconsumptive behaviors, which are modulated through reward pathways, is the atrophy of the prefrontal cortex. For the addicted, the concept of "Future" is shrunken to next week, whereas a normal person looks at a more expansive horizon, years ahead. Fixing this perception should be stressed as a key task in any treatment regime.

Further, the applied medical treatment is not impeccable. Chapter 6 (Broken Balance?) underlines some wrong medical modalities in the prescription of psychotropic medications. The new role has been assigned to psychiatrists to replace the missing chemicals in patients' brains to enable them to work normally. This idea has been welcomed by the pharmaceutical companies, doctors, and patient consumers. The trend becomes more alarming when we notice the disparity in the administration of narcotics between lower and higher socioeconomic classes. Americans on federally funded Medicaid are prescribed opioid painkillers at twice the rate of non-Medicaid patients.

In Part III (Pressing on the Pain Side), the book enters a debate about pain-pleasure management, suggesting pressing on the pain side of the equilibrium can lead to a better and more enduring pleasure. The pain here is grossly used as any type of stress induced under control. The book claims repetitive exposure to pain stimuli leads to shorter initial responses and builds an afterresponse of pleasure, which grows over time. As a result of the fight-or-flight mechanism in our neuroendocrinology, pain morphs into hypervigilance and then morphs into a fit of joy. This part of the book is sensitive and subject to misunderstanding, and in my opinion, requires better structure. The idea as the author mentions, is counterintuitive and against dogma in the field. There are references to studies linking stress to increased dopamine release in the brain's reward pathway. Also, the administration of opioid receptor blocker (naloxone) is shown to block the ameliorative effect of repetitive pain stimuli (suggestive of increased endogenous opioid release in response to pain). These concepts may be labelled as hormetic healing. Overall, I agree with the concept of carefully dosed "pain" stimulus as a method to bring back balance to the flawed pleasure-pain equilibrium. Here, the term "pain" warrants careful definition and a precision medicine approach tailored to each individual's psychosomatic profile.

The next chapter (Chapter 8: Radical Honesty) also explores the means to break the cycle of addiction and overconsumption by opting for a Radical Honesty attitude and utilizing Prosocial Shame.

Prosocial shame is the term used in contrast with a second (and morbid) type of shame called "Destructive Shame". The prosocial shame theory is predicated on the idea that shame can be harnessed as a constructive force through "acceptance" of the defect, flaw, or any transgressive behavior. This interaction and constructive behavior result in a sense of belonging and reduced consumption. 

These chapters stress the importance of prosocial shame in the management of addiction and beyond, for example, in parenting. The personal example from Dr. Lembke's family explains that the concept of perfection is a misleading goal to base a family upon. Instead, an open-hearted willingness to work in collaboration to rectify our mistakes is the way to create true intimacy. 

Truthfulness and honesty encourage a mindset called "Sense of Plenty" (opposed to "Sense of Scarcity"), which enhances the delayed gratification pathway.

Maybe a combination of these methods, applying measured pain stimuli, being radically honest, and being willing to work together (as an individual, a family, or a society/nation) can remedy the maladies of today's hypermedicated, overstimulated, pleasure-saturated world.

Book Review: We Have Never Been Woke

The nascent terminology and concepts are inevitably rough and subject to refinement in the future. That can be regarded as a side-effect of articulating a new theory. "We Have Never Been Woke" is a 2024 book written by sociologist Musa al-Gharbi. The book is a deep dive into the fourth wave of "Awokening" in the US labeled as "Wokeism". The book investigates the origins, formative phases, and the torchbearers of the Woke movement. Furthermore, the book critically looks into how these movements actually managed or cared to connect to their alleged target population. 

Several ideas explained in this book are not necessarily novel or earth-shattering, but the systematic formulation of the pathology underlying the movement is something that makes this book worth your while. The main target of current analyses is a stratum labeled as "symbolic capitalists". These are liberal elites holding managerial or academic authority, and they mostly define their social status under the umbrella concept of progressivism. One major example is the current state of Ivy League institutions, as the major bedrock for the progressive ideology, is very alarming, and Dr. al-Gharbi's narrative regarding these elite universities rings true to my ears. 

The truth is, Woke slogans, good or bad, were merely applied as ploys for symbolic capitalists to gain more control and boost their authority. That is the canonical point that makes the whole read more alarming. The beneficiaries of the current Awokening are not the minoritized or marginalized sects. But the subgroup of influencers with Democratic-leaning political orientation and hailing from higher socio-economic percentiles, who, in line with their power-craving modus operandi, want to exploit Woke language as an extra muscle for their political grip on power. Social justice, diversity, equality, and inclusion are mere code-names in the game, as abstract as it gets. In reality, in the political scene, they are fierce observers of the current framework at best and sympathizers of social injustice at worst. This unfortunate situation will inevitably deepen the gap between political parties and activists with a disenfranchised social base. 

"We Have Never Been Woke" is a good book; it is a nascent formulation of a decade-long social issue.

Pedram

10/13/2025

 

"Refugees aren’t generalities or stereotypes. They are suffering children with desperate parents struggling to find a better life. And for those who survive the dangerous struggle and enter the U.S., their children are taken away and tortured. . . .

 

Families are being torn apart forever. Intentionally. This is one of the most stark, clear choices a Christian can make: Defend torture of children, or support Christ. You can’t do both. You cannot be a Christian and support what the government is doing to families and children."

Jim Meisner Jr, The US Immigration Crisis is a Test for Christians, Patheos, June 30, 2019 

One wonders how America’s right-wing evangelicals live with their choice to support such inhumane treatment of anyone, much less children, some of whom are babes in arms. It is a most monumental failure of Christian imagination not to realize that their Lord and Savior could never countenance such atrocities. Any Christian leaders who do not actively oppose this onslaught on humanity as a grievous sin against the demands of their faith commit an outrage of unfathomable proportions against the Gospel of Jesus Christ and every canon of decency that we know.

Hendricks, Obery M M. Christians Against Christianity: How Right-Wing Evangelicals Are Destroying Our Nation and Our Faith (pp. 101-102). Beacon Press. Kindle Edition. 

Book Review: Defeating the Dictators: How Democracy Can Prevail in the Age of the Strongman

Timely and in-depth assessment of the political terrain.
The huge positive aspect of this book is the detailed and honest account of success in modern autocracies. There are archetypes of successful non-democratic governance: efficiency, infrastructure, education, modern technology, and a ruthless judicial system weeding out corruption.
However, the book still defends democracy as a well-tested method albeit chaotic and (currently) below-par. The book calls for a revision and re-emphasis on democratic values, recognizing human capital, the value of diversity, and providing scholarship and funding for undergraduate and graduate training, especially in technology.

American Political Schism: A Matter of Ages?

This is an illuminating article published in the Washington Post, shedding some light on the matter of political schism in America. The turmoil during the Gilded Age is particularly of note. The term Gilded Age coined by Mark Twain, refers to a period roughly around 1877-1900. 

America is deeply divided. Our politics is broken, marked by anger, contempt, and distrust. We must acknowledge that reality but not lose historical perspective. It’s bad now, but it’s been worse before—and not only during the Civil War.

Let’s look backward and start with the mid-1960s to early ’70s. The nation was bitterly divided over civil rights, the “sexual revolution” and an increasingly unpopular war in Southeast Asia.

The just and peaceful civil-rights protests of the 1950s and early ’60s were often met with state-sanctioned violence. Then Harlem exploded in 1964, followed by a riot in Philadelphia. Watts went up in flames in 1965; Chicago, Cleveland and San Francisco the next year. A total of 163 cities—including Atlanta, Boston, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Detroit, Milwaukee, Newark, N.J., New York and Portland, Ore.—suffered widespread violence in the “Long Hot Summer” of 1967. On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn. Riots broke out in more than 130 American cities, with 47 killed in the ensuing violence. Two months later Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles.

That same year the nation’s most prominent segregationist, George Wallace, running for president as an independent, won five states in the Deep South. In 1972 he came in third for the Democratic nomination, 1.8 points behind the winner in total primary vote.

Beginning in 1965, the country was rocked by demonstrations over the Vietnam War, many of them student-led. In some instances, governors sent in the National Guard to restore order. After guardsmen killed four students in 1970 at Ohio’s Kent State, protests broke out on 350 campuses, involving an estimated two million people. Thirty-five thousand antiwar protesters assaulted the Pentagon in October 1967. An estimated 10,000 tried shutting down the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Four years later, thousands tried the same at the GOP convention in Miami Beach. The U.S. experienced more than 2,500 domestic bombings in 18 months in 1971-72.

Two presidents were driven from office during this period. Lyndon B. Johnson opted against seeking re-election in 1968 because of the war. Richard Nixon, facing impeachment over Watergate, resigned in 1974.

In the early 1930s, 1 in 4 Americans was unemployed. Populism emerged on both ends of the spectrum. On the left, Huey Long, proclaimed “every man a king,” threatened confiscation of wealth, and preached class hatred until he was assassinated in 1935. On the right, Father Charles Coughlin, the “Radio Priest,” blamed the Depression on bankers and Jews in nationwide broadcasts from Detroit. Journalist Eric Sevareid recalled that in 1933 “every day the headlines spoke of riots, of millions thrown out of work, of mass migrations by the desperate.” Historian Wendy L. Wall describes the late 1930s as “marked by sit-down strikes, violent repression of workers, and attacks by vigilante groups on Jews, Catholics, racial minorities, and leftists.”

The Gilded Age is often overlooked as a time of division, but Republicans and Democrats hated each other. They were still fighting the Civil War by political means. President Ulysses S. Grant’s 1872 re-election was followed by five consecutive presidential contests in which no winner received a popular-vote majority. Less than 1 percentage point separated the two candidates in three elections. In two of the five races, the winning candidate failed to earn a plurality of popular vote because the black Republican vote was suppressed by violence hard for modern minds to grasp.

The most notorious of these Gilded Age elections was 1876. Democrat Samuel Tilden led Republican Rutherford Hayes by 252,666 votes nationwide, but disputes about the Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina results were settled on March 2, 1877, by a special commission that awarded their electoral votes to Hayes. He was inaugurated two days later and, in return for a meaningless pledge by the South to protect black rights, he withdrew the remaining federal troops from the region. The Electoral College count was 185-184.

From 1873 until 1897, Republicans held the White House and the Senate and House for four years; Democrats for two years. That left 18 years of divided government. When Democrats flipped 92 seats to win the House in 1874 for the first time in 18 years, it was part of what historian Michael Perman calls “The Return of the Bourbons” as 56 former Confederates, including the former vice president of the Confederacy, were elected to Congress from Southern and border states.

In the Gilded Age, it was routine for the House majority of either party to phony up a challenge to a member of the opposition who’d won by a few votes and toss him out, no matter how flimsy the evidence. This happened 62 times between 1874 and 1904. After winning re-election in 1882 by eight votes, Rep. William McKinley of Ohio was expelled by the Democratic majority.

This constant abuse of the House minority by the majority helped lead each party to take extreme measures. In 1888 Republicans won the White House with Benjamin Harrison and held the Senate by one seat and the House by four, 164-160 with one vacancy. If more than four Republican representatives were absent during a floor vote, House Democrats would demand a roll call and refuse to answer when their names were called. The measure would fail for lack of a quorum. The Democrats’ “disappearing quorum” kept the House from acting for months.

Finally, on Jan. 29, 1890, Speaker Thomas Reed had enough. He brought up an election challenge to a West Virginia Democrat who’d been certified the victor. The Republican had led by three votes until the Democratic governor “interpreted” one precinct’s report of two Democratic votes as 12, making the Democrat the winner by seven.

Excerpted from the Washington Post article by Karl Rove. Read the full article here: America is Often a Nation Divided

My take on these historic events is the pedigree of division on the political spectrum in the US. This is contradictory to the common current narrative that we are in an era of unprecedented dualism jeopardizing the integrity of a nation. My read on these historical facts is cautiously tanged causing a cautious optimism. Unlike the Gilded Age drama, political ploys and each party's totalitarian moves are quickly scrutinized and for the most part, shackled by modern surveillance mechanisms in place. Additionally, the role of media and public opining on ongoing political matters to some extent does not give liberty to many brazen acts we have witnessed before.  

2020 Election: Populism and Manistream

 Now that the US election is drawing to a close, it is a good time to reflect on the results. And from my personal standpoint there a few interesting points. 

The populism and the affinity to it is one standout, still noticeable in 2020. This election was not meant to end populism. Nor did we expect that in a foreseeable future in America or elsewhere. In countries such as Hungary, Brazil, and the Philippines, the populists are at the helm, and in many others (Germany, Italy, and Italy) they have control over parts of the opposition. The paradoxical approach of Trump to power is indicative of a lack of principles in the populistic figure. He was running a campaign based on anti-establishment agenda despite having 4 yours of the undisputed authority to restructure the establishment. 

The premature claim of victory in the election revealed the president's attitude toward the democratic process and I am afraid to say a long-lasting narrative for die-hard hardliners to hold on to an election stolen from him.  An arbitrary early end to ballot counting was a brazen act yet the inherently populist idea that only a specific group of voters are "real people" and deserve to have their voice heard. The attitude was warmly supported by European equivalents from Germany to Slovenia (Slovenian PM was the first to prematurely congratulate Trump.)

On the flip side, the system is still working and that is a soothing signal for people looking nervously at the state of democracy during the 2020 election. However, with or without  Trumpism is there, formless and morphing from one form to another. Defeating the incumbent president is not unprecedented but a rare incident. 

More than 70 million voters cast their ballots for Trump. From their standpoint, the populist approach to power and the promise were convincing. In four years, they could be swayed by the same agenda once again.  

Publication Ethics: Unintended consequences of sanctions

The latest changes to US sanctions on Iran, designed to discourage the country from developing nuclear weapons, seem to have caused confusion, leading to some journal editors effectively boycotting research from Iranian medical practitioners and academics.

Regulations set out by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control state that US citizens are authorised to engage in ordinary transactions related to written publications as long as the parties to the transactions are not employed by the Iranian government. Most Iranian universities, hospitals, and research centers are government owned but the regulations specify that the sanctions do not apply to any academic and research institutions or their staff.

Nevertheless, Iranian doctors have told the BMJ that several papers have been refused by journals in the US and Australia in recent months because of the sanctions.

The editor of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (JACI), which is owned by Elsevier, explained in an email to an assistant professor in the department of paediatrics at Tehran University of Medical Sciences that the journal could not accept his paper because “US owned journals are unable to handle scientific manuscripts which are authored by Iranian scientists, employed by the Government of Iran.”

Papers from Iranians are also known to have been turned down by the American Journal of Cardiology (also published by Elsevier), the Journal of Ocular Pharmacology and Therapeutics (published in the US by Marie Ann Liebert), and the Australian journal Ophthalmic Epidemiology (published by Informa Healthcare in the UK), all of whom explained that US sanctions prevented them from considering the research.

Dove Medical Press (an open access online publisher whose headquarters are in the UK and editorial office is in New Zealand) turned down a paper saying that “international sanctions currently in place against Iran mean that Dove Medical Press is no longer able to process manuscripts received from Iranian authors.”

“We do not make this decision lightly and have consulted with the authorities both here in New Zealand and in the United Kingdom before making our decision,” said Jeanette Pearce, Dove’s New Zealand based operations manager.

“It is not ethical to treat Iranian researchers this way,” Behrooz Astaneh, acting editor of the Iranian Journal of Medical Science, told the BMJ. “These people want to disseminate data they have obtained in very difficult circumstances because of the sanctions. Research publication should be on merit and have nothing to do with politics.”

Protecting editors

According to a report from Science magazine, Elsevier advised its US editors in April against handling any papers authored by employees of the government of Iran and in an email shown to the BMJ, the editor of JACI explained, “our publisher precludes taking any articles from authors based at Iranian institutions or hospitals.” Yet, Elsevier says it believes in the “free flow of ideas and information as a principle for science and for society” and chief lawyer, Mark Seeley, told the BMJ that the company continues to publish papers from Iranian academics and researchers affiliated with academic or medical institutions. Elsevier decided it was necessary to make “narrowly crafted exceptions” because of the potential for personal liability on the part of its US editors.

Asked if some US editors had possibly misunderstood the publisher’s guidance on this, Seeley responded that the problem was over “the exact definition of ‘government employees’ other than academics and practitioners. Seeley said the company was seeking greater clarity but had not yet received it.

John Sullivan of the US Treasury told the BMJ that “The focus of our sanctions is the Iranian regime and its support for terrorism and its illicit nuclear programme. Our sanctions do not target academic or informational materials.”

A different view

Other American health publications, including the two leading journals the New England Journal of Medicine and Journal of the American Medical Association, said they were continuing to publish Iranian submissions on merit.

“Different journals have adopted very different strategies on this,” Elaheh Malakan Rad, associate professor of paediatric interventional cardiology at the Children’s Medical Centre in Tehran, told the BMJ. “There needs to be clear guidance on the ethical issue here.”

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which advises editors on handling ethically sensitive issues, discussed problems surrounding Iranian authors in a June meeting and affirmed the need, already previously agreed because of other concerns, that clearer guidance is needed. COPE is planning to add a paragraph to its code of conduct stating that, “Editorial decisions should not be affected by the origins of the manuscript, including the nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs, race, or religion of the authors. Decisions to edit and publish should not be determined by the policies of governments or other agencies outside of the journal itself.”

The United Kingdom government has also changed its sanctions recently and continually updates a list of banned authors and institutions thought to be involved in Iran’s nuclear programme. However, the BMJ continues to take papers on merit and has chosen in some instances to waive the usual author fee charged for open access publication of research because of regulations over bank transactions with Iran.

“The BMJ is against academic boycotts and has no restrictions on publishing articles from authors in Iran,” the BMJ’s editor, Fiona Godlee, said in a statement posted on bmj.com. “We have noted the UK’s restrictions on trading with Iran and are also aware of the new US restrictions. These may have implications for whether we can levy an author fee from an author in Iran. We will decide this on a case by case basis.”

Richard Horton, the editor of the Lancet (which is owned by Elsevier) said: “TheLancet welcomes and encourages research from scientists in all countries, including Iran. Indeed, we are currently working to strengthen our links with Iranian medical and public health scientists.”

by: Sophie Arie

@BMJ

The Falcon and the Snowman

Movie: The Falcon and The Snowman
Year: 1985
Writers: Robert Lindsay (Book), Steve Zaillian (Screenplay)
Director: John Schlesinger
Starring: Timothy Hutton, Sean Penn, David Suchet, Pat Hingle, Lori Singer, Dorian Harewood

Fact-based, the story of two californian boyhood friends Christopher Boyce and Daulton Lee who  ultimately end up selling top-secret US document to Soviet Union. The movie has been of great impact the first time i watched about 20 years ago, and somehow i retrieved a better copy and the impact stays there. What's interesting in this somehow trivial espionage genre movie (which admittedly lacks tempo and composure at times)?
1- "The Sleeping Tiger"
The disappointment underlying Christopher's  committing this crime. It's definitely not money, or any kind of materialistic motive that derives him (no matter subsequently via this criminal adventure he gained hefty amount of money). He was disappointed by what he felt morally wrong interventions of US government abroad. First you feel fed-up then the trigger is pulled and there starts a vigorous serial of actions.
Look at this part for example:

[explaining why he didn't express his unhappiness with the CIA in a more acceptable manner]Christopher Boyce: It wouldn't have made a difference. I freely chose my response to this absurd world. If given the opportunity, I would have been more vigorous. 

2-"Oedipus Complex"
Another tip is a sort of Oedipus Complex formed indolently toward his father: a respectable former FBI agents with certain degree of patriotism flowing in his veins. Dad is the symbol of government, the authoritarian statue reminding him he has underachieved and underperformed.   On the other hand Mr. Boyce stress his patriotism once again by rejecting any outlaw intervention in his son's persecution but simply telling a friend :"Let him be judged."
3-"Extending a Personal Philosophy"
It doesn't work extending such personal ideas to complex scene of international affairs:

Christopher Boyce: I know a few things about predatory behavior. And what was once a legitimate intelligence gathering agency is now being used to prey on weaker governments.

So he seeks personal revenge by entrusting secret codes and documents to the soviets. 
4-"The Frail Companion"
Boyce and Daulton depict a sort of silly partnership in any practical terms let alone that be espionage amid cold war turmoil! Jittery heroin addict Daulton is in the business to handle the financial aspect but it turned to a rewarding way to pursue his drug trafficking in a larger scale under russians' political protection.
However russian bloc turn to a "carrot and stick" strategy in order to infiltrate deeper and connect directly to the mole (Boyce). Daulton easily gave away Boyce's name and many other crucial information.

Conclusion:
An intriguing political thriller with some decent performance by Hutton and Penn. (7/10)

Pedram

Movies to Watch

Rust and Bone (2012): Jacques Audiard
Savages (2012): Oliver Stone
Hate Crime (2005): Tommy Stovall
Fjellet (2011): Ole Giaever
Le Fils de Autre (2012): Lorraine Levy
The Turin Horse (2012): Bela Tarr
The Dark Knight Rises (2012): Christopher Nolan
Ronin (1998): John Frankenheimer
Grand Prix  (1966): John Frankenheimer
The Game (1995): David Fincher

Take Shelter: Movie Review by Roger Moore

Here's a brief review of "Take Shelter": an unsettling psychological thriller with an astounding performance by Michael Shannon. It;s written by Roger Moore and published @Orlando Sentinel. 

With special thanks to Dr Bahar Sadeghi who introduced the movie. 

pedram

Michael Shannon plays a good man and caring father besieged by nightmares

In days of old, they might have thought Curtis a prophet of doom, or possessed by the Devil.

But since he’s a modern working class Joe, drilling test holes for a contracting firm, these dreams Curtis is having provoke a modern response. Is he seeing the future, birds swarming before a nightmarish rain of oil, a tornado? Or is he coming unglued? Should he protect his family by preparing them for disaster, or check himself into a hospital, protecting them from him?

That’s the provocative conflict at the heart of “Take Shelter,” the second film to team rising star filmmaker Jeff Nichols and the great character actor Michael Shannon. As Curtis, Shannon brings his usual mix of menace and vulnerability, adding confusion and acute paranoia to the brew inside of this guy’s head.

Curtis has a lovely, resourceful wife, played by the marvelously earthy and omnipresent Jessica Chastain (“The Help,” “The Debt”). He has an adorable daughter, a nice rural Ohio home and a loyal dog. But he’s seen the dog bite him in his nightmares. The dog goes outside.

His pal at work (Shea Whigham, terrific) runs the gigantic drill, and on a break, sizes him up.

“You’ve got a good life, Curtis. I think that’s the best compliment you can give a man.”

But the dreams won’t stop. Curtis wets the bed, seeks medical help and yet hedges his bets. There’s an old storm shelter in the yard. He’s going to fix it up to withstand anything.

Shannon wonderfully modulates Nichols’ portrait of a man whose mind and life seem to unravel before our eyes. Nichols surrounds him with great character players such as Chastain and Whigham, with Kathy Baker playing his mother and Ray McKinnon (“The Blind Side”) well-cast as the concerned brother who shows up to see what’s up.

Nichols walks a tightrope between giving us a dark, Gothic tale of misunderstood prophecy and a sobering lesson on the state of mental health care in rural America.  And Shannon, piling up the accolades with every film (“Reservation Road,” “The Runaways”) adds the troubled and troubling Curtis to a growing resume of vivid and utterly real off-center characters.

Roger Moore

@Orlando Sentinel

(Courtesy of Dr Bahar Sadeghi)

"Are You Committed?"

"Commitment is a big part of what I am and what I believe. How committed are you to winning? How committed are you to being a good friend? To being trustworthy? To being successful? How committed are you to being a good father, a good teammate, a good role model? There's that moment every morning when you look in the mirror: Are you committed, or are you not?"

More Than Meets The Eye II

Gerry: Gus Van Sant back to his experimental roots

Some fantastic material for my movie archive! I watched a number of great movies on my days off during recent months. I'd like to mention them. Moreover i added my personal scores which partly reflect how much i liked them. (I don't fully support the idea of rating artwork this way !) I've done so just to mark my initial personal impressions about each of these movies. My personal experience reveals the understanding and excitement about some artworks develop slowly. That's interesting to observe how my personal conception gradually changes by time. I'm willing to write a brief review about some of them in upcoming posts.


Hanna (2011) ; Joe Wright 6/10
The Trial (1962) ; Orson Welles 10/10
Les Asacias (2011) ; Pablo Giorgeli 7/10
The Holy Girl (2004) ; Lucrecia Martel 9/10
Gerry (2002) ; Guus Van Sant 10/10
Once Upon A Time in Anatolia (2011) ; Nuri Bilge Ceylan 9/10
Batman Begins (2005) ; Christopher Nolan 8/10
Army of Shadows (1969) ; Jean-Pierre Melville 9/10
A Good Heart (2009) ; Dagur Kari 6/10
My Sister's Keeper (2009) ; Nick Cassavetes 9/10
Angela's Ashes (1999) ; Alan Parker 6/10
A Christmas Carol (2009) ; Robert Zemeckis 8/10
Z (1969) ; Costa-Gavras 9/10

The Life of David Gale

I watched Alan Parker’s “The Life of David Gale” on my vacation. It was an intriguing movie considering the plot and the convincing job by Kevin Spacey and Kate Winslet. Unfortunately I must mention some weak points which appeared as fumbles to me. In such a real and tense context (including issues like rape, murder and suicide), some over-dramatic and scenes coupled with ultra-moralist blah blah damaged the picture. The movie is not coy about the anti-death penalty message. Unfortunately this overdid hampered the outstanding dynamic of the movie. The main characters are well executed and presented, however the peripheral ones are poorly dramatized. One exception is  Constance Harraway (Laura Linney), Gale’s colleague and close friend, which is well portrayed. Gale/Harraway relationship evolves in a comprehensible manner and dramatically contribute to the whole story. Laura Linney handled the complex role of Constance excellently. The final third of the movie was shocking to me. It appears that all false inquests were part of a bigger plan; a series of self-intended acts  such as euthanasia or serving as an innocent convicted to execution, etc. All and all serve Gale and Harraway social/political plan to hit out at pro-death penalty officials. The result is a heart-wrenching drama.

pedram, April 2012

An Iconic Visit

"Had a tour around The White House. Unfortunately never met The President as he was locked in meetings but a great experience all the same."

Michael Owen on twitter

@Manutd.com

The Dilemma of Breast Cancer Screening

By : Kevin Pho
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recently released their recommendations for breast cancer screening.
Previously, they had recommended a mammogram every 1 to 2 years for women between the ages of 40 to 49.
Now, they recommend more intensive screening:
Due to the high incidence of breast cancer in the US and the potential to reduce deaths from it when caught early, The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (The College) today issued new breast cancer screening guidelines that recommend mammography screening be offered annually to women beginning at age 40. Previous College guidelines recommended mammograms every one to two years starting at age 40 and annually beginning at age 50.
This contradicts the 2009 recommendation from the USPSTF, which recommended an individualized approach and against routine screening for women aged 40-49.
No wonder patients are confused.
In our society, which values tests and generally believes that earlier cancer detection is better care, the ACOG recommendations were met with media acclaim.
Gary Schwitzer, for instance, points out the bias in CNN’s reporting the guidelines, and specifically takes senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen’s Tweet on the issue to task:
On many occasions that we’ve written about on this blog in recent years, CNN has demonstrated a bias in favor of screening – touting benefits, minimizing harms. Sanjay Gupta’s badgering of US Preventive Services Task Force member Lucy Marion will always stand out in my mind – and in the minds of many of who saw it – as opinionated “attack” journalism that reflects the polarization we often see in politics now creeping (leaping?) into health care and into health care journalism.
As to which guideline to believe, physicians will be divided. I suspect that physicians who practice more strict evidence-based medicine will go with the USPSTF recommendations, while gynecologists will follow their college’s more aggressive recommendations.
Although I’m a proponent of clinical guidelines, obtaining the needed consensus will be difficult. There are too many proverbial cooks in the pot, with every medical society releasing potentially conflicting recommendations and confusing both doctors and patients.
@KevinMD

US Braced For Fights With Pakistanis

President Obama insisted that the assault force hunting down Osama bin Laden last week be large enough to fight its way out of Pakistan if confronted by hostile local police officers and troops, senior administration and military officials said Monday.

In revealing additional details about planning for the mission, senior officials also said that two teams of specialists were on standby: One to bury Bin Laden if he was killed, and a second composed of lawyers, interrogators and translators in case he was captured alive. That team was set to meet aboard a Navy ship, most likely the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea.
Mr. Obama’s decision to increase the size of the force sent into Pakistan shows that he was willing to risk a military confrontation with a close ally in order to capture or kill the leader of Al Qaeda.
Such a fight would have set off an even larger breach with the Pakistanis than has taken place since officials in Islamabad learned that helicopters filled with members of a Navy Seals team had flown undetected into one of their cities, and burst into a compound where Bin Laden was hiding.
One senior Obama administration official, pressed on the rules of engagement for one of the riskiest clandestine operations attempted by the C.I.A. and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command in many years, said: “Their instructions were to avoid any confrontation if at all possible. But if they had to return fire to get out, they were authorized to do it.”
The planning also illustrates how little the administration trusted the Pakistanis as they set up their operation. They also rejected a proposal to bring the Pakistanis in on the mission.

Under the original plan, two assault helicopters were going to stay on the Afghanistan side of the border waiting for a call if they were needed. But the aircraft would have been about 90 minutes away from the Bin Laden compound.
About 10 days before the raid, Mr. Obama reviewed the plans and pressed his commanders as to whether they were taking along enough forces to fight their way out if the Pakistanis arrived on the scene and tried to interfere with the operation.
That resulted in the decision to send two more helicopters carrying additional troops. These followed the two lead Black Hawk helicopters that carried the actual assault team. While there was no confrontation with the Pakistanis, one of those backup helicopters was ultimately brought in to the scene of the raid when a Black Hawk was damaged while making a hard landing.
“Some people may have assumed we could talk our way out of a jam, but given our difficult relationship with Pakistan right now, the president did not want to leave anything to chance,” said one senior administration official, who like others would not be quoted by name describing details of the secret mission. “He wanted extra forces if they were necessary.”
With tensions between the United States and Pakistan escalating since the raid, American officials on Monday sought to tamp down the divisions and pointed to some encouraging developments.
A United States official said that American investigators would soon be allowed to interview Bin Laden’s three widows, now being held by Pakistani authorities, a demand that Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, made on television talk shows on Sunday.
American officials say the widows, as well as a review of the trove of documents and other data the Seals team collected from the raid, could reveal important details, not only about Bin Laden’s life and activities since he fled into Pakistan from Afghanistan in 2001, but also information about Qaeda plots, personnel and planning.
“We believe that it is very important to maintain the cooperative relationship with Pakistan precisely because it’s in our national security interest to do so,” said the White House spokesman, Jay Carney.
In an effort to help mend the latest rupture in relations, the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, will talk soon with his counterpart, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, head of the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or ISI, “to discuss the way forward in the common fight against Al Qaeda,” an American official said.
On Sunday, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. “Mullen just wanted to check in with him,” said an American military official. “The conversation was civil, but sober, given the pressure that the general is under right now.”
In describing the mission, the officials said that American surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft were watching and listening to how Pakistan’s police forces and military responded to the raid. That determined how long the commandos could safely remain on the ground going through the compound collecting computer hard drives, thumb drives and documents.
American forces were under strict orders to avoid engaging with any Pakistani forces that responded to the commotion at the Bin Laden compound, senior administration officials said.
If a confrontation appeared imminent, there were contingency plans for senior American officials, including Admiral Mullen, to call their Pakistani counterparts to avert an armed clash.
But when he reviewed the plans, Mr. Obama voiced concern that this was not enough to protect the troops on the mission, administration officials said.
In planning for the possible capture of Bin Laden, officials decided they would take him aboard a Navy ship to preclude battles over jurisdiction.
The plan, officials said, was to do an initial interrogation for any information that might prevent a pending attack or identify the location of other Qaeda leaders.
“There was a heck of a lot of planning that went into this for almost any and all contingencies, including capture,” one senior administration official said.
In the end, the team organized to handle his death was called into duty. They did a quick forensics study of the body, washed it, and buried it at sea.
But the officials acknowledged that the mission always was weighted toward killing, given the possibility that Bin Laden would be armed or wearing an explosive vest.

By ERIC SCHMITT, THOM SHANKER and DAVID E. SANGER

@ NYTimes

Beyond Revenge

it's an interesting article ,psychological analysis of ecstatic joy after Bin Laden's death/Pedram

Some Americans celebrated the killing of Osama bin Laden loudly, with chanting and frat-party revelry in the streets. Others were appalled — not by the killing, but by the celebrations.
“It was appropriate to go after Bin Laden, just to try to cut the head off that serpent, but I don’t think it’s decent to celebrate a killing like that,” said George Horwitz, a retired meat cutter and Army veteran in Bynum, N.C.
Others were much more critical. “The worst kind of jingoistic hubris,” a University of Virginia student wrote in the college newspaper, The Cavalier Daily. In blogs and online forums, some people asked: Doesn’t taking revenge and glorying in it make us look just like the terrorists?
The answer is no, social scientists say: it makes us look like human beings. In an array of research, both inside laboratories and out in the world, psychologists have shown that the appetite for revenge is a sensitive measure of how a society perceives both the seriousness of a crime and any larger threat that its perpetrator may pose.
Revenge is most satisfying when there are strong reasons for exacting it, both practical and emotional.
“Revenge evolved as a deterrent, to impose a cost on people who threaten a community and to reach into the heads of others who may be contemplating similar behavior,” said Michael McCullough, a psychologist at the University of Miami and author of “Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct” (Jossey-Bass, 2008). “In that sense it is a very natural response.”
Many of the sources of the joyous outburst were obvious: A clear victory after so many drawn-out conflicts. A demonstration of American competence, and of consequences delivered. The public relations value of delivering a public blow to a worldwide terror network. And, it needs to be said, the timing: The news hit just as many bars were starting to clear out for the night.
But this was much more than a simple excuse to party.
“Pure existential release,” said Tom Pyszczynski, a social psychologist at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, who has studied reactions to 9/11. “Whether or not the killing makes any difference in the effectiveness of Al Qaeda hardly matters; defeating an enemy who threatens your worldview, the very values you believe are most protective, is the quickest way to calm existential anxiety.”
After almost 10 years, the end was nothing if not final. “The emotions were so strong, I think, because the event was compacted: Bin Laden was found and killed, and it was done — done and over, just like that,” said Kevin Carlsmith, a social psychologist at Colgate University and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. “We’re so used to people being brought in, held at Guantánamo, the trials, the appeals; it feels like justice is never done.”
As a rule, people are far more forgiving than they might guess, studies find. After most betrayals, like being dumped by a love interest or insulted, the urge for revenge erodes around the same rate that certain memories do: sharply in the first few weeks, and much more slowly afterward. The same kind of pattern can follow even physical assaults, depending on the circumstances and the personality of the victim.
“The intensity of the emotion falls off precipitously, simply because the body can’t carry such a giant load of outrage and function very well,” Dr. McCullough said.
But the urge for payback — especially for a crime like the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which killed almost 3,000 civilians — never goes to zero. “There is a stubborn part of the memory that hangs on to the urge, to a little piece of it,” and the pain is refreshed every time the memory is recalled, Dr. McCullough said.
It is easy to forget how much fear was in the air after the 9/11 attacks: the anthrax    mailings, the airport lines, the color-coded terror alerts. Many of those celebrating late on Sunday and early Monday were teenagers during those years, young people who have lived much of their lives under the threat of terrorism — and this terrorist in particular — and who had the time and energy to hit the streets and share the moment.
“For them this was a chance to be a part of history,” Dr. Pyszczynski said.
In a long series of studies, psychologists have shown that when people are reminded that they will one day die, they fixate on attributes they consider central to their self worth. Those who are religious become more so; those who value strength or physical attractiveness intensify their focus on these qualities; and people generally become more patriotic, more supportive of aggressive military action.
“Even subtle reminders of 9/11 have the same effect,” Dr. Pyszczynski said.
The sight of Bin Laden’s face on television or a smartphone news feed might have been enough to move people from the sidelines into the streets, to cheer for the home team.
Finally, people everywhere have a strong belief in “just desserts” punishment. In a 2002 study, psychologists at Princeton University had more than 1,000 participants evaluate specific crimes and give sentencing recommendations for each. The subjects carefully tailored each recommended sentence to the details of the infraction, its brutality and the record of the perpetrator.
The drive to enforce those sentences varies widely from person to person. But in a crowd of like-minded people, the most intense drives for justice become the norm: People who may have felt a mix of emotions in response to the news can be swept up in the general revelry.
Thus the natural urge for revenge — satisfied so suddenly, releasing a decade of background anxiety, stoked by peers — feeds on itself. Delight turns to chanting turns to climbing on lamp posts.

by : Benedict Carey

Appeals Court Overturns Stem Cell Research Ban

Opponents of taxpayer-funded stem cell research lost a key round in a U.S. appeals court Friday.

In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the court of appeals in Washington overturned a judge's order that would have blocked taxpayer funding for stem cell research. The judges ruled that opponents of taxpayer-funded stem cell research are not likely to succeed in their lawsuit to stop it.
The panel reversed an opinion issued last August by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who said the research likely violates the law against federal funding of embryo destruction.
"We're thrilled with this decision and look forward to allowing federally funded scientists to continue with their work without political constraints," said Sean Tipton, a spokesman for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
Researchers hope one day to use stem cells in ways that cure spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's disease and other ailments. Opponents say the research is a form of abortion because human embryos must be destroyed to obtain the stem cells.
The 1996 law prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars in work that harms an embryo, so private money has been used to cull batches of the cells. Those batches can reproduce in lab dishes indefinitely, and the Obama administration issued rules permitting taxpayer dollars to be used in work on them
The lawsuit was filed by two scientists who argued that President Obama's expansion jeopardized their ability to win government funding for research using adult stem cells — ones that have already matured to create specific types of tissues — because it will mean extra competition.

Lamberth, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Washington, issued a preliminary injunction in August to block the research while the case continued.
The Obama administration immediately appealed and requested the order be stopped. The appeals court quickly ruled that the research could continue at the National Institutes of Health while the judges took up the case.
The opinion tossing out Lamberth's ruling was written by Judge Douglas Ginsburg, nominated to the court by President Ronald Reagan, and supported by Judge Thomas Griffith, a nominee of President George W. Bush. The dissent came from Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, a nominee of President George H.W. Bush; she agreed with the lower court judge that the lawsuit was likely to succeed.
As a result of the appellate ruling Friday, the original lawsuit can continue before Judge Lamberth, but the taxpayer-funded research also will go on. Lamberth hasn't thus far either held a trial or issued a final ruling, which he could do based on court filings without taking testimony.
Once the cells are culled, they can reproduce in lab dishes indefinitely. So government policies said using taxpayer dollars to work with the already-created batches of cells is allowed.
The Obama administration has expanded the number of stem cell lines created with private money that federally funded scientists could research, up from the 21 that President George W. Bush had allowed to at least 75 so far. To qualify, parents who donate the original embryo must be told of other options, such as donating to another infertile woman.
Congress twice passed legislation specifically calling for tax-funded stem cell research, which President Bush vetoed.

@AP

Pic : Judge Royce Lamberth

My Author Of the Month (March)

Turkey-France Clash

Turkey has launched a bitter attack on French president Nicolas Sarkozy's and France's leadership of the military campaign against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, accusing the French of lacking a conscience in their conduct in the Libyan operations.

The vitriolic criticism, from both the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the president, Abdullah Gül followed attacks from the Turkish government earlier this week and signalled an orchestrated attempt by Ankara to wreck Sarkozy's plans to lead the air campaign against Gaddafi.

With France insisting that Nato should not be put in political charge of the UN-mandated air campaign, Turkey has come out emphatically behind sole Nato control of the operations.

The row came as France confirmed that one of its fighter jets had destroyed a Libyan air force plane, the first to breach the no-fly zone since it was imposed on 19 March. The Libyan G2/Galeb trainer aircraft was destroyed by an air-to-ground missile just after it landed at an air base near the rebel-held town of Misrata, a French military spokesman said.

The clash between Turkey and France over Libya is underpinned by acute frictions between Erdogan and Sarkozy, both impetuous and mercurial leaders who revel in the limelight, by fundamental disputes over Ankara's EU ambitions, and by economic interests in north Africa.

The confrontation is shaping up to be decisive in determining the outcome of the bitter infighting over who should inherit command of the Libyan air campaign from the Americans and could come to a head at a major conference in London next week of the parties involved.

Using incendiary language directed at France in a speech in Istanbul, Erdogan said: "I wish that those who only see oil, gold mines and underground treasures when they look in [Libya's] direction, would see the region through glasses of conscience from now on."

President Gül reinforced the Turkish view that France and others were being driven primarily by economic interests. "The aim [of the air campaign] is not the liberation of the Libyan people," he said. "There are hidden agendas and different interests."

Earlier this week, Claude Guéant, the French interior minister who was previously Sarkozy's chief adviser, outraged the Muslim world by stating that the French president was "leading a crusade" to stop Gaddafi massacring Libyans.

Erdogan denounced the use of the word crusade yesterday, blaming those, France chief among them, who are opposed to Turkey joining the EU.

Senior Nato officials are meeting in Brussels for the fourth day in a row to try to hammer out an agreement on who should assume command of the no-fly zone over Libya from the Americans who are determined to relinquish command within days.

Sarkozy has agreed to give Nato military planners operational command of the campaign, but refused to grant the alliance political and strategic control, insisting this should be vested in the broader "coalition of the willing" taking part.

Turkey has responded by blocking Nato planning operations for Libya while stressing that Nato should be given "sole command", senior Nato diplomats said.

Turkey, Nato's second biggest army after the US and its only Muslim member, appears bent on winning the argument. It is already taking part in Nato patrols in the Mediterranean to police an arms embargo on Libya. It wants to limit and shorten the air campaign and proscribe ground attacks on Libya by Nato aircraft. If Nato is given political command of the air effort, Turkey would be able to exercise a veto in a system run on consensus.

The US's top military officer in Europe, Admiral James Stavridis, Nato's supreme commander Europe, has gone to Ankara to try to mediate a deal.

The Turks are incensed at repeated snubs by Sarkozy. The French failed to invite Turkey to last Saturday's summit in Paris which presaged the air strikes. French fighters taking off from Corsica struck the first blows. The Turkish government accused Sarkozy of launching not only the no-fly zone, but his presidential re-election campaign.

While the dispute over Libya is substantive and political, it also appears highly personal, revealing the bad blood simmering between the French president and the Turkish prime minister.

Sarkozy went to Turkey last month for the first time in four years as president. But the visit was repeatedly delayed and then downgraded from a state presidential event. He stayed in Turkey for five hours.

"Relations between Turkey and France deserve more than this," complained Erdogan. "I will speak with frankness. We wish to host him as president of France. But he is coming as president of the G20, not as that of France."

While the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, is also opposed to Turkey joining the EU, she has voiced her objections moderately. Sarkozy has declared loudly that culturally Turkey does not belong in Europe, but in the Middle East.

France has blocked tranches of Ankara's EU negotiations on the grounds that it should not be seen as ever-fit for membership.