Category Archives: Politics

“I never told anyone for decades — not a friend, not a boyfriend, not a therapist, not my husband when I got married years later.”

The Washington Post: I was sexually assaulted. Here’s why I don’t remember many of the details. By Patti Davis, author and daughter of President Ronald Reagan.

“It’s important to understand how memory works in a traumatic event. Ford has been criticized for the things she doesn’t remember, like the address where she says the assault happened, or the time of year, or whose house it was. But her memory of the attack itself is vivid and detailed. His hand over her mouth, another young man piling on, her fear that maybe she’d die there, unable to breathe. That’s what happens: Your memory snaps photos of the details that will haunt you forever, that will change your life and live under your skin. It blacks out other parts of the story that really don’t matter much.”

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“They did a ‘magnificent job.’ President Trump says so himself. Have him come say that to my face.”

The New York Times: On Hurricane Maria Anniversary, Puerto Rico Is Still in Ruins. “By Frances Robles and Jugal K. Patel. September 20, 2018.

“A year ago, on Sept. 20, the deadliest storm to hit Puerto Rico in over 100 years slammed into the island’s southeast coast, just 14 miles south of where Ms. Cruz lives in Punta Santiago. The tourist and fishing town of 5,000 people bore a terrible share of Maria’s initial fury.

Almost 650 houses flooded with water from the sea; others were inundated by an overflowing lake, a river, and two ponds — and also raw sewage. Many homes lost walls and roofs in winds that reached 155 miles per hour when the storm made landfall.
[…]
Times journalists visited 163 homes in two neighborhoods in Punta Santiago to cover what progress had been made in the last 12 months.”

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Spring forward, fall back – not any longer, at least in the EU

Deutsche Welle: EU to stop changing the clocks in 2019. “The EU is doing away with the twice-yearly clock changes and has given member states until April to decide if they will remain on summer or winter time. But there are fears Europe is heading for time-zone chaos.”

“European Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc on Friday announced that the EU will stop the twice-yearly changing of clocks across the continent in October 2019.
[…]
[She] said EU member states would have until April 2019 to decide whether they would permanently remain on summer or winter time.

Bulc said she was counting on member states and the European Parliament to keep pace with the Commission’s “ambitious” schedule. She also noted the need to find consensus among the member states in order to avoid confusing time jumps.

The plan also raises the prospect of neighboring countries ending up an hour apart.

“In order to maintain a harmonised approach we are encouraging consultations at national levels to ensure a coordinated approach of all member states,” Bulc said.”

For a world-wide view on time zones and by how much noon on the clock differs from the actual time the sun reaches its highest point in the sky, see this map (PNG) by Stefano Maggiolo from The poor man’s math blog.

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“Supreme Court nominees should be held to a higher standard.”

The Washington Post: California professor, writer of confidential Brett Kavanaugh letter, speaks out about her allegation of sexual assault.

“Earlier this summer, Christine Blasey Ford wrote a confidential letter to a senior Democratic lawmaker alleging that Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her more than three decades ago, when they were high school students in suburban Maryland. Since Wednesday, she has watched as that bare-bones version of her story became public without her name or her consent, drawing a blanket denial from Kavanaugh and roiling a nomination that just days ago seemed all but certain to succeed.

Now, Ford has decided that if her story is going to be told, she wants to be the one to tell it.
[…]
[Her husband] said he expects that some people, upon hearing his wife’s account, will believe that Kavanaugh’s high school behavior has no bearing upon his fitness for the nation’s high court. He disagrees.

“I think you look to judges to be the arbiters of right and wrong,“ Russell Ford said. “If they don’t have a moral code of their own to determine right from wrong, then that’s a problem. So I think it’s relevant. Supreme Court nominees should be held to a higher standard.”

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“Ein folgenreicher Bestseller aus der Nazizeit”

Die Zeit: Warum Hitler bis heute die Erziehung von Kindern beeinflusst. “Für eine Generation aus Mitläufern forderten die Nazis von Müttern, die Bedürfnisse ihrer Kinder zu ignorieren. An den zerrütteten Beziehungen leiden noch die Enkel.” Eine Analyse von Anne Kratzer.

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1934 veröffentlichte die Ärztin Johanna Haarer ihren Ratgeber Die deutsche Mutter und ihr erstes Kind. Das Buch verkaufte sich 1,2 Millionen Mal und wurde zur NS-Zeit eine Grundlage für die Erziehung in Kindergärten und Heimen sowie für die Reichsmütterschulungen.

In ihrem Werk empfiehlt Haarer Müttern, ihre Kinder möglichst bindungsarm aufwachsen zu lassen. Weine das Kind, solle man es schreien lassen. Übermäßige Zärtlichkeiten seien in jedem Fall zu vermeiden.

Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler fürchten, dass dies bei betroffenen Kindern zu einer Bindungsstörung geführt hat, die diese seitdem von Generation zu Generation weitergeben. Randomisiert-kontrollierte Studien, die den Einfluss von Haarers Erziehungsphilosophie untersuchen, gibt es jedoch nicht.
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