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welcome! to emotional feelings, 4!
after looking things over here at emotional feelings, 4,
try out "the layer down under," (part of the emotional feelings
network of sites) & read a special "i just gotta say it" column concerning porn addiction by clicking here! Be sure to scroll down towards the bottom of the right hand column to find it!
just
another great suggestion... visit the homepage! you can read more about the emotional feelings network of sites there, as well
as, a heads up about who is feeling what emotions within the network each month!
How this site works best for you!
You'll
notice that there are many underlined link words in each article below. The reason for this is that you have reached not only, "emotional
feelings, 4," but the emotional feelings network of sites. There are many sites included
within the network that'll be visited by clicking on these underlined link words.
If you can't find what you came
here looking for, visit the homepage for the emotional feelings network of sites by clicking above & read the options on
the homepage for the networks index of sites. Try to be specific when looking for an emotion or feeling word & click on the site you need!
It's very simple & very
interesting to follow your way thru the layers of your buried or stuffed emotions & feelings that have accumulated throughout the years!
when you've reached this point, or this website, you know you're making
progress!!!! this part gets difficult because now is the time to look within & become emotionally honest with yourself!!!
Best of luck & if you're
still stuck, send me an e-mail anytime, by clicking here & I'll be glad to send you an immediate personal response!
Sincerely,
Kathleen
Dazed & Distracted
Your pre-teen's
life is all about changes - emotional, physical & academic. Help her cope so her schoolwork doesn't suffer.
By Cara Pitterman
As your child
starts middle school, you'll notice some big differences in your soon-to-be-teen. Not only has her appearance changed, but so has her attitude.
Rather
than sharing all the wonderful things she has learned in class like she used to, she answers your daily "How was school
today?" query with a predictable "Fine" as she trudges past you to her room.
And just
what does she do in those hours spent alone in her inner sanctum?
Change itself is just about the only thing you can count on at this point in your child's development. Physical, emotional &
academic changes abound. All can be jarring & distracting as your middle schooler strives to settle
into a routine. Here's a guide to common distractions & what you can do to ease them.
What's Happening to
My Body?
Every preteen
is going to go thru physical changes, but remember that kids develop at different paces. So when you look at a list of common physical changes your preteen will face, it's not only daunting, but there's no indication of when these changes will occur:
- Rocketing height
- Starting menstruation
- Cracking voices
- Getting braces
- Spurting limbs
- Raging hormones
- Wearing bras
- Battling baby fat
- Sweating palms
- Developing acne
No wonder concentrating
in class is an uphill battle. Imagine wondering whether your new deodorant is working when you raise your hand, or stressing about whether your voice will crack if you answer a question. What can you do to ease the constant worry?
"Tell the truth
early on about physical & emotional changes, using the correct vocabulary
about body parts & talk, talk, talk to your preteen!" advises a parent of 3 teenagers.
"Keep communication open. Make him feel that he can come to you for anything."
Also, be understanding
of the widespread awkwardness & know that this is simply what kids go thru.
One mom from upstate New York
offers her experience with talking to her preteen son about puberty: "My son was very comfortable asking questions & interested in the physical & emotional changes he will be going thru," she says.
"We also discussed what
changes girls will be experiencing; mainly that everyone goes thru these changes & to ask me or his father any questions he has. We have always answered his questions honestly & sincerely, without feeling any embarrassment."
Check with your preteen's
school to see if he'll have a class on physical changes. Sometimes they'll send home a booklet discussing the changes, which you can read thru together.
Sometimes, of course, the physical changes can create a more serious situation than what the average preteen experiences, such as the development of addictions, severe behavioral problems, or eating disorders. (my eating disorder resource is
here)
For such critical issues,
seek the help of a professional. Ask your physician or school guidance counselor for a referral.
Union-Tribune Editorial
Distracted drivers
Safety threat grows on America's roads
July 21, 2000
(...)
The near collision Sweetman observed, caused by a distracted driver, was no aberration. In fact, up to 30% of fatal accidents are caused by
driver distraction, according the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
For that reason the federal agency held a hearing this week. "Driver distraction in all its forms is a real threat
to the safety of American roads," said NHTSA deputy administrator Rosalyn
Millman. "This threat is growing . . . We're experiencing a dramatic change in driver behavior."
The cause of this growing threat, this change
in driver behavior, is new technology. In times past, drivers were primarily distracted
by station surfing on the radio, in-car grooming, eating, smoking or chatting with passengers. Now, they not
only have those distractions but also cellular phones, TVs, on-board
computers & navigation systems.
Motorists may not believe these devices pose a serious threat to their safety & the safety of other motorists. But they do. In fact, a
1997 study published by the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that drivers talking on the phone quadruple their risk
of an accident. That's almost as dangerous as driving while drunk.
Several countries have gone so far as to ban the use of cell phones while
vehicles are in motion & several U.S. cities have considered similar bans. The NHTSA isn't prepared to propose such a
ban at this time. But at its public hearing, attended by representatives from the government, the auto industry, the cellular
phone industry & safety organizations, there was agreement that,
at the very least, a serious public education campaign needs to be undertaken.
Should car phones be banned?
Burden of Proof
Distracted Drivers: Should Cell Phones be Outlawed?
Aired July 18, 2000 CNN.com
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(...)
COSSACK: Barry, it seems to
me that in your ordinance - & I read it this morning - that what you've done is outlaw the use of a handheld cell phone,
per se. In other words, if anybody is driving thru your township & speaking on a handheld cell phone, they're violating
the law without any proof that they're driving recklessly. In other words, you've said that you're talking on the phone, you're
driving recklessly.
DENKENSON: That's absolutely
correct. It's a primary offense & we feel it's a distraction & we don't want to wait for an accident to occur. We hope that this will help
in preventing those kinds of accidents, Roger.
COSSACK: Well, why did you
then make an exception for people to be able to speak on the telephone or speak on a cellular phone that's not handheld? In
other words, these kind that are either built into the dashboard or some other way, that's not a violation of your law.
DENKENSON: Well, in a perfect
world, I think I'd probably want to ban the use of all cell phones. But we don't live in a perfect world & I think that this is just a good first step in an effort to try & get legislation enacted, particularly in my home state of New
Jersey where legislation is pending in the legislature in committee & lies dormant. And you need a first step to get started. And maybe down the road, either the cell phone industry will come up with better phones that
will be safer for drivers to use or we will ban the use of cell phones entirely.
COSSACK: Barry, I think what your objection is - & you know, correct me if I'm wrong - is what you're saying is, look, we don't want people driving
in our township, at least, while they're distracted, while they're doing - while they're
thinking about something else. It seems to me that by putting that exception in, what you're saying is, you can still speak on the
phone, which means that you may be thinking about something else, but your hands are on the wheel.
What about the radio? What
about eating in the car? What about feeding your child in the car or looking over your shoulder? I mean, aren't those - don't
those present the same problems?
DENKENSON: I get that question
asked very frequently. There are other distractions, but the fact remains that the hard
data that you referred to, the "New England Journal of Medicine" study, has indicated that the use of a handheld cell phone
while driving increases the risk of an accident by at least 4 times. There isn't any other
hard data, or there have not been any studies which have been done in relation to other kinds of
distractions. I believe the federal government has some hearings this morning which are investigating other distractions. But until we get some hard data on other distractions, it's
been proven that the use of handheld cell phones are a significant distraction & increase
the risk of injury as a result of automobile accidents.
COSSACK: I guess, Barry, the
questioning that I'm having for you is this. I mean, it's - & I recognize what you're trying to do, but look: If you & I are sitting in a car & I'm driving & I'm talking to you &
we're having a conversation, something as innocuous as that, it's clear that I'm not concentrating 100% on my driving if I'm
talking with you. Can you ban that? I mean, can you start arresting people for that?
DENKENSON: No, I don't think so & I wouldn't want to. When I introduced this ordinance at our meeting a couple of weeks ago, I said that I wasn't
interested in being intrusive. But the fact remains that the government has a right & a responsibility to enact laws or ordinances where there's a risk of injury as a result of particular kinds of conduct. Examples of that are
drunk driving laws & seat belt laws in New Jersey.
So, in this particular
instance, the study has shown that this kind of behavior, this particular kind of behavior, the use of a handheld cell phone,
is a significant risk of injury. And so, therefore, I think we have to - we need to enact legislation, we've done that, to regulate this
kind of conduct.
What research says...
Varieties of Driver Distraction
Driver distraction
can manifest itself in several ways (Brown, 1994). A general withdrawal of
attention manifests itself in both degraded vehicle control & degraded object & event detection.
The putative mechanisms behind
this are eyelid closure (in the case of driver fatigue) or eye glances away from the road
scene (in the case of visual inattention).
A second & more
insidious, type of distraction is what's termed the selective withdrawal
of attention. In this type of distraction, vehicle control (e.g., lanekeeping, speed maintenance) remains largely unaffected but object &
event detection is degraded.
The putative mechanism behind
this is attention to thoughts & might be indicated by open-loop rather than closed-loop visual scanning, restricted visual sampling of
mirrors & the road scene, empty field myopia (e.g., fixating too close) & selective filtering
of information based on expectations rather than the actual situation.
These categories of
driver distraction suggest different types of measures & scenarios for
evaluation of their presence during device use.
For example, measurement
of lanekeeping performance represents an example of general withdrawal of attention but says nothing about the selective withdrawal
of attention that might be associated with a device that perhaps doesn't require a visual resource, e.g., a voice-recognition
system.
There is also a type
of distraction effect which I term biomechanical interference.
This refers to body shifts out of the neutral seated position, e.g., when reaching for a cellular telephone or leaning over
to see or manipulate a device.
That this may be important is indicated by a recent report from the Japan that indicated the preponderance of cellular telephone-related
crashes were associated with receiving calls & reaching for the cell phone (National Police Agency
of Japan, 1998). Similarly, the hand(s) occupied & off the steering wheel might degrade the driver’s ability
to execute maneuvers.
These types of manual loads might involve, e.g., operating a hand-held remote for a route guidance system, a hand-held cellular telephone, eating,
drinking, lighting a cigarette, etc. These are the types of biomechanical interference effects that a thorough safety evaluation
should also be prepared to address.
Device Demand Measures
Except perhaps in retrospect, safety can't be measured directly (Dingus,
1997). Indirect measures which are used to measure safety-relevant
distraction effects can be put into several categories (Tijerina, Kiger, Rockwell & Wierwille, 1996).
Driver eye glance behavior measures are taken primarily because of the importance of vision in driving. Glance durations, glance frequency &
scanning patterns are part of this set of measures. Driver-vehicle performance measures are also popular because of their
prima facie safety relevance. Lanekeeping, speed maintenance, car following
performance & driver reaction times to objects & events are common measures from this class.
Driver control actions such as:
- steering,
- 3 wheel inputs
- accelerator modulations
- gear shifting
- brake pedal applications
- hand-off-wheel time
all have been or can be used to make inferences about
the distraction level a driver is under during a trial. Subjective assessments
of driver workload & device design are also sometimes used.
Finally, measures of
the in-vehicle task such as task completion time have been used or are being proposed as a index of the distraction potential of a device (Green, 1998). It's interesting to
note that a measure such as the number of lane exceedences during device use isn't considered prima facie safety-relevant
by everyone.
For example, some argue
that if there is no one nearby, if the lane exceedence is small or of short duration, if the lane exceedence reflects the
driver’s strategy for reducing workload during concurrent task execution....there is no safety implication at all. This is an intriguing line of reasoning.
On the one hand, it
honors the wisdom of the driver to generally make good choices.
On the other hand, it flies in the face of accident statistics that indicate drivers by & large get into trouble precisely
when they think everything is fine, i.e., in daytime, dry pavement, moderate traffic density situations (Wiacek
& Najm, 1999).
At present, it seems
ill-advised to run a comparative study of different devices or tasks, find that one generates substantially more lane exceedences,
yet declare such results irrelevant unless there happened to be a near miss.
Tijerina (1996)
pointed out that the chaotic nature of crash occurrence may be taken to imply that new technology that taken
the driver’s eyes off the road or attention away from the driving task produces an incremental rise the crash hazard
exposure.
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Additional Resources
Easily Distracted Culture, Politics, Academia & Other Shiny Objects - a blog site - remember, expressing
yourself is therapeutic!
Sex cues ruin men's decisiveness
Catching sight of a pretty woman really is enough to throw a man's decision-making skills into disarray,
a study suggests.
The more testosterone he has,
the stronger the effect, according to work by Belgian researchers.
Men about to play
a financial game were shown images of sexy women or lingerie.
The Proceedings
of the Royal Society B study found they were more likely to accept unfair offers than men not been exposed to the alluring images.
The suggestion is that the
sexual cues distract the men's thoughts, preventing them from focusing on their task - particularly among those with high natural testosterone levels.
The University of Leuven researchers
gave 176 heterosexual male student volunteers aged 18 to 28 financial games to test their fair play.
But first, half of the men
were shown sexual cues of some kind.
One group of 44 men were given
pictures to rate; some were shown landscapes while the rest were shown attractive women.
Another group, of 37 men,
were either asked to assess the quality, texture & colour of a bra or a t-shirt.
And a 3rd group of 95 were
shown either pictures of elderly women or young models.
Each group was then paired
up to play a game where the men had $10, a proposer had to suggest a split & the other man accepted or rejected the offer.
If the 2nd man accepted the offer, the money was distributed in agreement with the offer. If he rejected it, neither partner got anything.
The game is designed as a
lab model of hunting or food sharing situations.
'Vulnerable'
The men's performance in the
tests showed those who had been exposed to the "sexual cues" were more likely to accept an unfair offer than those who weren't.
The men's testosterone levels
were also tested - by comparing the length of the men's index finger compared to their ring finger.
If the ring finger is longer,
it indicates a high testosterone level.
The researchers found that
men in the study who had the highest levels performed worst in the test & suggest that is because they're particularly
sensitive to sexual images.
Dr Siegfried DeWitte, one
of the researchers who worked on the study, said: "We like to think we're all rational beings, but our research suggests ... that people with high testosterone levels are very vulnerable to
sexual cues.
"If there are no cues around,
they behave normally.
"But if they see sexual images
they become impulsive."
He added: "It's a tendency,
but these people aren't powerless to fight it.
"Hormone levels are one thing,
but we can learn to deal with it."
The researchers are conducting
similar tests with women. But so far, they've failed to find a visual stimulus which will affect their behaviour."
Dr George Fieldman, principal
lecturer in psychology at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, told the BBC News website: "The fact men are distracted by sexual cues fits in to evolutionary experience. It's what they're expected to do.
"They're looking for opportunities
to pass on their genes."
He said the study confirmed
what had been suspected by many.
"If a man is being asked to
choose between something being presented by an attractive woman & an ugly men, they might not be as dispassionate as they could be."
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Distracted By Moussaoui
Aziz Huq April 20, 2006
Aziz Huq is associate
counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. He is co-author of Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential
Power in a Time of Terror, to be published in 2007 by the New Press.
In an Alexandria, Virginia,
courtroom, Zacarias Moussaoui & the federal government are acting out for the nation & the world a small drama about
revenge. It's hardly clear who will savor revenge more: the defendant who seems likely to be strapped to the executioner’s gurney soon, or the state that injects the
lethal combination of fluids.
What is beyond doubt, however, is that the most important issues raised by a prosecution like Moussaoui’s are largely going unnoticed
by the press & unheeded by the public - lessons about the risks of tomorrow rather than
the sins of yesterday.
Has the government learned
from its pre-9/11 mistakes?
Are its investigative &
prosecutorial powers being well-deployed, or wasted in wild goose chases?
The half-formed answers
evident from the Virginia proceeding are far from comforting.
Prosecutors argue that Moussaoui’s
failure to tell police what he knew of the 9/11 plot makes him culpable for the resulting deaths. The government’s pivotal
evidence comes from Moussaoui himself, who boasted in court of knowing the hijackers & of intending to fly a plane into
the White House. Moussaoui undermines his own credibility by regularly punctuating his appearance in the courtroom with shouts
of “God curse you America,” or “Burn in the U.S.A.”
Moussaoui’s testimony
is contradicted by the government’s own intelligence, extracted from Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, who described Moussaoui
as an untrustworthy fringe figure with no contact with the 9/11 hijackers.
As senior counsel to the 9/11
commission John Farmer explained & Dahlia Lithwick of Slate seconded , “Moussaoui will claim martyrdom as he is executed.”
Thus, Zacarias Moussaoui will have his twisted & foolish revenge on America:
Being recorded (likely falsely) in legal annals as an accomplice to the 9/11 plot.
The nation will be no safer if Moussaoui’s wish is granted. What has been proven
by the case so far, though overshadowed by media interest in the defendant’s outbursts, is that significant & ongoing
failures have plagued the U.S. intelligence community.
There's also basis for
concern that the Moussaoui prosecution is deflecting attention away from the government’s problematic use of
the criminal law & intelligence agencies to fight the “war on terror.”
Consider first what the Moussaoui
trial tells us about the FBI. Rather than a well-oiled machine foiled only by Moussaoui’s obdurate refusal to
talk, the trial has confirmed the story of missed opportunities narrated by the 9/11 Commission :
Even if Moussaoui had evidence,
it isn't clear that this evidence would have percolated up thru the clotted national intelligence bureaucracy to push senior
officials into action.
In August 2001,
Minnesota FBI agent Harry Samit warned Main Justice that Moussaoui was a dangerous terrorist & that his training to fly
a Boeing 747-400 seemed part of a sinister plot.
But officials in Washington
edited Samit’s memo & pressed him to tone down his alarmist tone. According to the 9/11 Commission, the government
had enough to “join the dots.” It didn't do so in part because it couldn't sort signal from noise - that
is, discern Moussaoui’s significance against the background of many other leads.
FBI Agent Samit
told the jury he sent about 70 warning messages about Moussaoui. But to no avail.
This wasn't the only internal shortfall.
Commenting on government efforts to track Khalid Al Midhar & Nawaf Al Hazmi, 2 other 9/11 hijackers, the 9/11 Commission
pointed to failures of information sharing.
The reason for these
shortfalls, explained the Commission, was that “everyone involved was confused about the rules governing the sharing & use of information.”
The foreshortened trial &
prolonged sentencing of Zacarias Moussaoui have also diverted attention from other issues raised by the use of the criminal
law. While the criminal justice system ought to be a key resource in counter-terrorism efforts, it's hard to tell whether
this resource is being used poorly or well.
Are law enforcement officers &
prosecutors identifying & responding to real
threats, or are they leveraging vague laws to net high conviction rates for minor offenses
in order to persuade the public that they're doing a good job?
Of course, those
who commit terrorist acts may have little criminal history; the perpetrators of the July 2005 London bombings are a case in
point.
Successful prosecutions may
rely on minor offenses or “inchoate” offense, such as conspiracy, which don't require the final criminal act to
be committed.
Indeed, the more successful
the police are, the less criminal conduct will have occurred.
These are desperately difficult questions of public policy: Rather than focus on them, press, public & government are enthralled
by Moussaoui’s antics.
The difficulties
are illustrated by the findings of a survey conducted by the Center on Law & Security at the NYU School
of Law of reported criminal cases involving terrorism charges between September 2001 & October 2004.
The NYU report starts with
the caution that “accurate & comprehensive information is almost impossible to obtain.”
This alone ought to be pause for
thought. How is it that we the public don't even have a clear idea of underlying patterns of terrorism prosecutions?
The study goes on to note
that only 5% of individuals prosecuted have been charged with direct acts of terrorism.
Of course, this alone isn't telling data:
It may be that the other 95% of the cases were instances in which the FBI nipped a plot in the bud. But how can we
know?
The brief answer is that
right now, we can’t. But again, the indications are mixed: 2 examples show why. In a case now underway
in federal court in Brooklyn, a Pakistani immigrant faces criminal charges for conspiring to blow up the Herald Square subway
station in downtown Manhattan.
Seemingly an open-&-shut
case, the matter is complicated by the fact that a police informant spent months persuading the defendant to agree to the
plot & the defendant himself seems of dubious intelligence.
At the very least,
one must question the net utility of prosecutions when the underlying terrorism conspiracy was seeded & cultivated by
the government itself.
Other cases raise different
troubling issues. The prosecutions of an alleged cell in Lackawanna, New York, quickly ended in plea agreements when
it became apparent that the government would simply designate the defendants as “enemy combatants” for indefinite
detention.
When prosecutions have so
terrible a sword over the heads of criminal defendants, can we be confident that pleas reflect accurately the substance of what a person indeed did wrong? Arguably
not.
Perhaps most troubling of
all is the disembodied voices of prisoners held in secret CIA prisons overseas, admitted to show Moussaoui’s minor role.
Does use of such evidence, perhaps gained after torture, constitute judicial sanction of these “black sites”?
Indeed, what kind of legal
system can tolerate the use of secret prisons, disappearances & torture? In December last year, Britain’s
highest court ruled the practice repugnant to the rule of law, a ruling long overdue in this country.
Zacarias Moussaoui will in
all likelihood get what he wants. And the federal government will have its revenge. But will the nation be safer?
Have the errors & failures of interagency co-ordination documented by the 9/11 Commission been rectified?
Are the resources of the criminal
law being effectively deployed & how would we even know?
And what has become of the
rule of law?
The Moussaoui trial is a dangerous distraction from these difficult & immediate questions.
My own question, still illuminated
in bright neon colors, glowing, flashing, "open all night" is unanswered, can uncomfortably
be assumed to be answered with a "hushed no...." is:
Did Americans learn anything
from the events of september eleventh? Or are Americans ignoring their personal responsibility in staying informed, prepared & diligent in the throes of the terrorists warnings to the US, that eventually,
we will hear from them again?
Are Americans,
much like those in the New Orleans are affected by Hurricane Katrina, sitting back with their fingers
on the "panic button" without taking personal responsibility once again to prepare & inform themselves concerning what "needs" to be done for self protection in the upcoming new hurricane season?
I am assuming, although
it pains me to type out the words, that Americans are busy blaming others for what's happened in the past. The democrats are busy spending money investigating past mistakes to the "nth degree"
when that money could be spent on efforts to keep Americans safer in the future, educating
America's children, or even helping those in Darfur's nightmarish reality.
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