Lily Salter's Blog, page 49
June 9, 2018
Scientists are untangling our bodies’ genetic “double-edged swords”
bikeriderlondon, Tarchyshnik Andrei via Shutterstock/Salon
This article originally appeared on Massive.
Natural selection suggests that all traits advantageous to the survival of a species will be passed from one generation to the next. But inheritable illnesses, arguably traits that don’t help organisms adapt to their environment, pose an interesting paradox. How is it possible, for example, that schizophrenia, an often debilitating mental disorder, is both highly heritable and relatively prevalent in the general human population?
The theory of the “double-edged sword” — where an entity is capable of carrying both advantages and disadvantages — was proposed in the late 1990s by Timothy John Crow, a psychiatrist at Oxford. It was bolstered by psychiatrist Jonathan Kenneth Burn in the early 2000s, and most recently by a paper published in Human Genetics. The authors, J.M. Sikela and V.B. Searles Quick, offer new supporting information about the cognitive trade-off theory, a theory that states how advantageous modifications to an organism’s genomic DNA are passed on to the next generation despite the risk they carry to cause disease in subgroups of the population. They propose that throughout evolution, certain genes involved in the growth of the human brain have contributed not only to our improved cognitive capacities — distinguishing us from other species — but are also responsible for risks of brain disorders. These genes seem to code for a varying amount of proteins that appear to be correlated with both brain size and activity, suggesting a critical role in dictating whether brain development occurs normally or not.
In order to develop, the human brain relies on a protein domain family — a part of a protein sequence that has been reported to be involved in the evolution of the human brain — called Olduvai (also known as DUF1220). In every bread recipe, yeast is one of the indispensable ingredients. Likewise, Olduvai can impact the size and health of the brain: The wrong amount can shift the brain out of a normal state: too much of those proteins is associated with autism, while too little is associated with schizophrenia.
The Olduvai family is a perfect example of the double-edged sword effect, as its presence has both advantages and disadvantages to the human brain. This protein domain family has many copy number variations (CNVs), a common phenomenon where parts of the genome are incorrectly repeated. These parts of the genome probably get repeated during meiosis, when a single cell divides to generate germ cells. This happens via a process where parts of the genome that are highly identical accidentally misalign, resulting in different deletions or even duplications of the genomic DNA.
Most of the sequences coding for a great number of Olduvai proteins are located within the chromosome 1q21 region, and CNVs have been linked to a number of different diseases there. The genomic architecture of Olduvai — with several copies arranged in tandem and scattered among non-Olduvai genes — makes it highly susceptible to deletions and duplications, leading to many and highly variable CNVs within humans.
For instance, duplications within the chromosomal region 1q21 are associated with autism and macrocephaly, while deletions are linked to schizophrenia and microcephaly. Moreover, increased brain size is often seen in individuals with autism, while decreased brain size is associated with schizophrenia. This has led to speculation that autism and schizophrenia may share a single common genomic location.
But in addition to causing disorders, the Olduvai family is also likely responsible for a speedy development of a broad range of different traits, like improved cognitive capacities. Sikela and Quick argue these adaptive traits are reinforced by natural selection. Their paper suggests the amounts of Olduvai are directly proportional to brain size, neuron number, and other characteristics of the brain — particularly the neocortex, a brain structure unique to primates.
Brains of non-human primates, for example, are smaller and less complex than that of humans. The researchers suggest Olduvai proteins contributed to humans’ increased brain size and subsequent improved cognitive capacities. Interestingly, this correlation does not extend to body size, supporting the idea that this is a brain-specific phenomenon. The authors propose that an increased Olduvai dosage, and its effect on enhanced cognitive ability, is an evolutionary adaptation.
Unfortunately, the process doesn’t always go as intended: higher dosages of Olduvai causing beneficial effects. In some individuals, it results in brain-associated disorders instead. Increased levels of Olduvai sequences have been shown to be correlated with autism symptoms, including increased social impairment and poor communication skills. But too much Olduvai also strongly correlates with increased intellectual capacities — and interestingly, child prodigy is often seen in families with high risk of autism.
Some researchers even suggest that not only is the Olduvai involved in diseases like autism and schizophrenia, but these two disorders may in fact be related with strikingly opposing phenotypes. For example, CON1, a protein that’s part of the Olduvai family, seems to increase in males diagnosed with schizophrenia, and seems to be associated with negative symptoms — thoughts or behaviors that a person no longer has after becoming ill, like apathy, lack of emotion, and poor social functioning. These are also symptoms that highly overlap with autism, and high CON1 levels are also directly proportional to autism severity. By contrast, CON1 levels tend to be lower in individuals with schizophrenia showing increased positive symptoms, those that a person did not have before becoming ill, like hallucinations, delusions, and racing thoughts.
But research into Olduvai is just getting started. Little is known about the exact mechanism of the Olduvai proteins in the brain: some studies show that it is highly expressed in brain areas associated with higher cognitive functions with increased specificity for neurons, highlighting its role in cognition. Others suggest that Olduvai is involved in neuronal stem cell proliferation, a process important in the growth of neural tissue, which is often impaired in similar diseases of the brain.
Sikela and Quick write that current genetic techniques might overlook many important aspects of the genomic architecture and underlying function of Olduvai’s impact on the brain. To study Olduvai, they encourage scientists to use emerging genetic techniques, such as induced pluripotent stem cells, to alter the human genome in a more controlled manner. They also highlight the importance of developing newer and more sophisticated tools to both investigate and quantify the Olduvai copies and other related sequences. This will allow scientists to more precisely understand how Olduvai works, and separate the beneficial from harmful sequences — unraveling their involvement in both health and disease.
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Photo from G7 Summit resembles widely-mocked pro-Donald Trump portraits
Jesco Denzel/German Federal Government via AP
Presidet Trump may have departed the G7 Summit prematurely, but he left with a souvenir he will always cherish. Germany President Angela Merkel shared an image on her Instagram on Saturday that appropriately summed up the conference with the U.S. and its allies.
Zweiter Tag des G7-Gipfels in Kanada: spontane Beratung am Rande der offiziellen Tagesordnung. --- Day two of the G7 summit in Canada: spontaneous meeting between two working sessions. #G7Charlevoix
A post shared by Angela Merkel (@bundeskanzlerin) on Jun 9, 2018 at 8:53am PDT
Trump's presence at the summit in Charlevoix, Canada was obviously contentious. The president has already struggled to preserve America's good standing around the world and made matters worse after he announced tariffs on foreign goods. Trump's visit highlighted his awkward relationship with U.S. allies and his early exit for Singapore, where he will meet with Kim Jong Un, only emphasized his preference for despots as opposed to democratic leaders of industrialized nations.
The photo provided by Merkel perfectly captured the fraught rapport between Trump and the leaders of Japan, France, Germany and the U.K. It also had an uncanny resemblance to paintings by Jon McNaughton, a conservative artist who enjoys portraying Trump as the ultimate patriot. McNaughton has a series of sincere paintings that elevate Trump to the pantheon of great Americans, while his depictions of former President Barack Obama are not as charitable.
This man is taking a knee in the painting, but it is not to protest his country. pic.twitter.com/WN2RqinRga — Jon McNaughton (@McNaughtonArt) September 26, 2017
THIS IS MY FAVORITE JON @McNaughtonArt PAINTING LOOK AT TRUMPS FACE YOU CAN SEE HOW DEEPLY TRUMP LOVES WHAT THE FLAG REPRESENTS AND HE TAKES PROTECTING THOSE VALUES VARY SERIOUS HOLDING HIS LOVE OF OUR PEOPLE CLOSE TO HIS HEART pic.twitter.com/EzTq3BIMZ0
— TRUMP COUNTRY USA (@LauraLeeBordas) March 26, 2018
"Teach a Man to Fish" - THE VIDEOhttps://t.co/0ViWxLodUF pic.twitter.com/ePlIdEGmpN
— Jon McNaughton (@McNaughtonArt) April 26, 2018
it is, especially if you look at Jon McNaughton's other paintings in the series, they tell a progressing story pic.twitter.com/3XSpeTbHu2 — BlurredEdges (@muchmoresalt) August 26, 2017
The photo from the G7 Summit is almost a complete inverse of McNaughton's portraits. Instead of historic Americans surrounding Trump in unadulterated support, the photo from Saturday shows the president encircled by foreign political opponents. His crossed arms and bemused stare will likely play well with Trump's base, just as McNaughton's paintings have delighted conservatives.
This picture will play well for Trump domestically. If you don't understand why, then you haven't been paying attention. pic.twitter.com/HmSwbbKMjp
— Mike (@Doranimated) June 9, 2018
Despite its popularity, McNaughton's propaganda has puzzled art enthusiasts. His work seems more like satire than an earnest rendering of the 45th president. Bradley H. Kramer, an anthropologist who teaches at Utah Valley University in Orem and curates exhibits at Provo’s Writ & Vision bookstore/gallery, told the Salt Lake Tribune as much in a story about McNaughton in March.
“It it looks like a progressive painted it to make fun of respecting the flag at a football game,” Kramer said of the "Respect the Flag" painting. “It looks like it’s making fun of Sean Hannity fans for treating the American flag like Linus treats his security blanket.”
The lack of irony notwithstanding, Trump's critics on Twitter were quick to point out the McNaughton aesthetic in the photo from Saturday.
Wow these Jon McNaughton paintings are getting intense pic.twitter.com/s1fCrc9rJa
— Adam Weinstein (@AdamWeinstein) June 9, 2018
You just know Jon McNaughton is simply going to trace over this photo as it is, but add in Jesus behind Trump. https://t.co/BheYQh1Hi6
— Eric Kleefeld (@EricKleefeld) June 9, 2018
the new mcnaughton painting blows pic.twitter.com/LcGxRmZGNg
— Kilgore Trout (@KT_So_It_Goes) June 9, 2018
Dark magics are turning our reality into a Jon McNaughton painting pic.twitter.com/ey43oOBU5q
— Jason (@longwall26) June 9, 2018
It’s eerie how perfectly this works as a thematically inverted Jon McNaughton painting. pic.twitter.com/EukXxIgp9W
— Angus Johnston (@studentactivism) June 9, 2018
I ran an overnight ultramarathon on blistered, bloody feet
Getty Images
Excerpted with permission from “Reborn on the Run: My Journey from Addiction to Ultramarathons” by Catra Corbett and Dan England. Copyright 2018 by Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
The medic looked at my feet skeptically. My boyfriend blurted out the question that no one wanted to ask.
“You’re done, right?” Kevin said to me.
The question pissed me off, but I couldn’t blame him at the time for asking. I had just run sixty miles, ten miles longer than I had ever run in my life, and still I had forty more to go. No one, after seeing my feet, would advise me to go on. Hell, I knew that I probably shouldn’t go on.
But I had to.
Kevin peered over the medic’s shoulder as he peeled off my socks. Both of them gasped.
The balls of my feet were smothered in puffy half-dollars, my heels were completely blistered, and my toes had been overtaken by small pockets of white, painful bubbles. One of the half-dollars had already popped, leaking clear liquid steadily down my heel. The medic began to work on popping the other blisters while Kevin shook his head in disbelief.
This was my first hundred-mile race, and it was already clear I had a lot to learn. I’d made several mistakes. I was, for instance, nearly late to the race because of a last-minute dash to Walmart to buy a flashlight; it hadn’t occurred to me that running a hundred miles would take all night.
And now I was suffering the consequences of my worst mistake. I was running the Rocky Raccoon 100 in Huntsville, Texas, a part of the country I knew nothing about. I lived in California, and I had no idea that the Texas humidity would make my feet swell the way a sponge expands after it soaks up water. I brought several pairs of socks—I knew you had to change them during a race—but I didn’t know that I needed shoes a half-size larger than usual to make room for my ballooning feet.
California’s dry air never gave me such problems. I’d never even had a blister before. Now my shoes were transforming my feet into tenderized hamburger meat.
The medic scowled as he continued to work on my feet. Though initially stunned by the blisters, he was a medic in an ultrarunning race, and he’d probably seen worse (at least, I hoped he had). I sighed with relief as fluid spilled out of the puffy pouches. He then started wrapping my feet in duct tape. Yes, the heavy-duty silver tape people used for household repairs, from leaky pipes to broken door handles. Until that moment I didn’t know duct tape could also repair leaking blisters, but that was one of the many things I had yet to learn about being an ultrarunner. The tape secured the blisters against my skin, and when I got up to test them out, they felt pretty good for the first time in hours.
So no, Kevin, I wasn’t done.
Like many people, I started running to get healthy. I switched all-night raves for early morning runs, and while I missed the rush of dancing till dawn, putting my sneakers away was not an option. I started like many do. I ran around the block, almost died, and then tried it again the next day and found I could go a little farther before I almost died again. I stumbled across ultramarathons just a few years after I became a runner. These impossibly-long races called to me. They seemed to be the answer I needed to change my life.
Four years after I started running, I competed in my first hundred-mile race. Just three months earlier I finished a fifty-miler, my second, in Napa Valley near my home in northern California, in pouring rain that left me soaked through and shivering but sure of my ability. I finished last, but many ultrarunners much more experienced than me had dropped out of that race. I kept going. So I thought that if I could finish fifty miles, in those crappy, miserable conditions, while dodging or falling waist deep into muddy puddles, then I could run a hundred.
At least that’s what I thought.
I picked the Rocky Raccoon randomly from the back of an ultrarunning magazine. This was 1999, and there were only a few hundred-mile races in the whole country (as of 2017, there are seventeen hundred-milers in California alone). I had lucked into a good one for beginners. Most of the race was in Huntsville State Park, just north of Houston. Five laps through the trees and swamps got you a hundred miles.
Beginners traditionally loved the course because it wasn’t over mountains or hills, or even very rocky, despite the name of the race. Most of the trail was flat and wide, stuffed with soft dirt, making for a comfortable surface. It smelled like wood and mold and the air was heavy and wet, making it feel almost like a steamy sauna. The twenty-mile loop wound through scraggly woods that blotted out the sun, muddy swamps, and lakes full of creatures I’d never seen in California. A sign greeted you at the entrance: “Alligators Exist in the Park.” Great.
Another reason beginners loved the trail were those laps. A huge aid station in a standalone tent, the kind you’d rent for a special occasion, greeted you at the end of every lap. There, runners could eat or drink, change shoes, put on or take off clothes, rub Vaseline on bloody friction rashes and, you know, have a medic put duct tape your battered, blistered feet.
As you entered, a sign warned that pukers should keep to the left. I was not a puker. At least, not yet I wasn’t.
As I got up from my seat, stuffing my feet back into my too-tight shoes, the last rays of sunshine slipped behind the hills. In the thick cover of the trees, it was already dark. I would be running the rest of the race at night. I clicked my weak flashlight on and its beam danced around the trees like a pale strobe light. In a weird way, it reminded me of my old life—all that was missing was the deep beat of dance music reverberating in my chest.
“Good luck,” the medic said, attempting to hide the worry in his eyes. “I hope the tape holds.”
Why wouldn’t the tape hold? Isn’t that stuff used to repair just about anything?
Well, I’d find out soon enough. I started into my next lap.
Having laps is a little unusual for a long distance race. Many times, especially in an ultramarathon, you’re stuck out there, alone, in the wilderness. You could get lost or thirsty or hurt, and no one would be around to help you for miles. That’s why officials check you in when you make it to an aid station. If they don’t cross your name off the list, they know they eventually have to start searching for you. Sometimes — especially if you look out of it — they ask you your name or weigh you to make sure you haven’t lost too much weight.
But these were twenty-mile laps on the well-marked course with bright orange signs that you could see in the dark, which were like a security blanket for beginners like me. They meant that you were never too far from help, or a break, or water, before hitting the path for another twenty.
Still, no hundred miler is easy. The trail was clean but overrun with sneaky tree roots waiting to trip you if you weren’t paying attention, and it’s hard to pay attention for hours and hours of staring at the same damn trail. Your mind starts to wander, a kind of defense mechanism to stop you from thinking about the next mile, or the next forty. Spills, and the bloody knees and elbows they caused, were inevitable.
The duct tape padded my tender feet, and for the first time in a while, I felt better. I could run again. I was finally having fun. I wielded my flashlight and it gave off a sickly, yellow glow, but it was enough to let me see the roots and rocks so I wouldn’t trip.
As the night settled around me, it muffled many of the sounds of the race through the forest. I heard the soft drumming of shoes on the dirt accompanied by a symphony of chirping crickets, croaking bullfrogs, and humming insects. The heavy breathing of other runners sounded like a breeze through the trees. Their conversations were hushed, as if no one wanted to disturb the calm of the night. “Good work,” they said all around as they passed by.
A couple of runners trotted past me whispering encouragement to one another. I looked around noticing the huddles of runners packed together in small groups. Everyone but me seemed to have a buddy.
“They’re called pacers,” one runner said smiling as he passed by me.
His pacer waved.
Pacers? You were allowed to have pacers? I had no idea, but yes, in hundred-mile races, you’re allowed to have other runners with you on the course. Mostly what these people did was keep an eye on you and keep you from falling too deep into despair.
I’m all alone out here, I thought.
As the night closed in on me and the dark air constricted my breathing, the sounds of the race seemed to turn a bit more sinister. I thought back to that sign warning people who entered the park of alligators. In the dark, surrounded by the inky-black night, every time I heard something in the woods—a twig snapping or some underbrush rustling—my mind filled with snapping teeth.
That nervous energy carried me through the dark trail for a while and was enough to distract me from the steadily slipping duct tape flapping out of my sneakers.
Until it wasn’t. Crap.
I really thought the duct tape would hold—if it fixed pipes, surely it could hold my feet together—but by mile seventy-five, the wet Texas air had once again soaked my feet with sweat. My shoes began to fill with needles, the pain from the blisters stabbing me with each step. It was some of the worst pain I’d ever felt.
And I still had a full marathon to go.
When I got into mile eighty, I collapsed in front of the same medic from before. He didn’t exactly look psyched to see me.
“Let’s take a look,” he said, trying not to meet my eyes as I took off my shoes. It felt so good to get them off.
I didn’t know anything about treating blisters, so I sat back in the chair, grimaced, and let him peel the tape off my heel. When he did, the skin slid off with it.
“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCKKKKKKKK,” I screamed.
I braced myself as he took hold of the tape on my other heel. He pulled again and the skin came away as easily as if he was peeling an overripe banana. I screamed even louder this time. The raw patches burned and the warm midnight air offered no relief to the tender skin.
“I think you should stop,” the medic said, finally looking me straight in the eye.
Even though I’d only completed a few races, I already knew that ultramarathons were as much about enduring as they were about running. There were others around me puking or cramping or hurting, or in various states of distress. So for him to tell me to quit was not only discouraging, it was frightening.
But fears be damned, I needed to finish this race. In my mind, I would not be an ultrarunner until I finished a hundred miler. I had finally found something that I thought could help me become a new person. It was the first thing in years that filled the void.
The medic’s question scared me; but like Kevin’s had before, it also pissed me off.
I stared defiantly back at him.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I answered. “I came to run a fucking hundred miler. I’m not stopping now.”
The medic sighed with resignation and started to cover my feet with fresh duct tape. I jammed my pathetic, swollen feet back into my shoes, which were nothing less than torture chambers at this point. As I stood up my legs quivered like a baby deer. I took a few steps, and it was the most excruciating pain I’d ever felt in my life.
Now my shoes felt like they were stuffed with hot coals. Tears ran down my face.
I took a few more steps and started into a slow jog. That pain would be with me for the next eight hours. It would be my pacer.
I had twenty miles to go, longer than most runners ever go in a single effort. Twenty miles is a half marathon, then a 10K, plus a mile, and I’d be doing it on feet that were as soft and sensitive as a baby’s butt, on a trail riddled with tree roots and only the glow of my flashlight to show me the way. And then there were all those alligators that I was supposed to look out for.
It was pitch black now. The pain in my feet had reached fever pitch, but as I started yawning, it dawned on me that my feet weren’t my biggest problem anymore.
I’d never run all night before, and I was yawning a lot now. A thick desire to curl up in the leaves and take a nap was threatening to end my race.
I couldn’t take a break, no matter how badly I wanted one, because I was worried I wasn’t going to finish before the cutoff time, when they pull runners off the course regardless of how far they’ve gone. Even the fastest runners can’t afford to take much more than a catnap without missing the cutoff time, and I was one of the slowest. I had to keep going.
I weaved like a drunk driver across the wide trail, trying my best not to smash into other runners.
“Are you okay?” asked an older guy who’d obviously done this before. These types of guys always reminded me of my father. Later, many years after his heart gave out and he died when I was seventeen, I always thought my father would be one of those guys if his time wasn’t cut short.
“I’m just so sleepy,” I mumbled.
The guy nodded sympathetically. I wasn’t the only one shuffling around like a zombie at this point.
“You need coffee,” he said.
Coffee. Yes, I thought in a daze. Yes. Coffee. “Good luck!” he called over his shoulder as he jogged away into the darkness.
I was a couple miles from the next aid station. I knew if I could make it there, I’d be okay.
Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. It was a refrain I chanted with every painful step. All I wanted to do was lie down. I could barely hold my flashlight up, and its beam swung lazily across the trail, disorienting me. My eyelids slid closed while I continued to shuffle forward. They sprang open after I hit the ground with a thud. I pulled myself up brushing dirt from my hands.
Ultrarunners sometimes fall asleep on their feet because they’re so tired. We can even doze off while we’re running. I was lucky not to get hurt, but I was still exhausted as I stumbled forward. I was in serious trouble.
That’s when I really felt the sense of community that led me to ultrarunning. Ultrarunners all look like regular people, the kind you might pass on a busy city street, but there’s one key difference: they are all achieving these amazing physical feats. As other runners passed by and saw I was delirious from pain and exhaustion, something they’d felt themselves many times before, something many were feeling right now, they smiled and encouraged me, or asked if this was my first hundred miler (I’d hoped it wasn’t that obvious, but I guess it was).
This was the kind of support I had been missing in my life since I had to move away from all my friends. Right then, my mom was the only one who seemed to be on my side. Even Kevin seemed to doubt me at times, as he did during this race.
But ultrarunners watch out for one another. It was as if everyone on that trail understood each other, and thus understood me, without evening knowing my story. A voice rang in my ears, out of the darkness.
“Can I get you anything?”
The aid station! I’d made it. Hell yes.
“I need coffee,” I said.
“We don’t have any,” the volunteer said, her kindly face crinkling with sympathy.
My heart sank. I was done. I could run through pain, but I couldn’t stay awake any longer.
“We could make some more,” the volunteer said. “I think.”
“How long will that take?” I said.
“Um . . . maybe twenty minutes or so?”
I didn’t have twenty minutes. I’d stiffen up. My feet would turn into blocks. I’d probably fall asleep. My race was over. And then Kim’s voice chirped behind me.
“Is this your first hundred? I haven’t seen you before. I’m Kim,” said a runner behind me in a warm Texas accent through bright-red lipstick. She obviously had done this race several times. “How are ya doin’?”
“I need coffee,” I said back to her.
Kim shook her head. Her face was fully made up, which I thought was funny for a race. “You need NoDoz,” she said. “Here, hon. I have some.” She rummaged through a pack she wore and pulled out some small red pills.
A jolt of anxiety shot through me as she held them out to me. It was so tempting, but I knew I shouldn’t. After all, I was out there almost dying while running a hundred miles because I was trying to ditch my life as a drug addict.
I looked down at the small caffeine pill in my hand. I now knew that there can actually be two defining moments in an addict’s life: when you get hooked, and, if you’re lucky and determined, when you decide to quit. The night in jail after the police broke down my door scared me so much, I knew I had to quit.
I’d done well up until that point to stay off drugs—I moved away from my friends, stopped going to the clubs, and had given up alcohol.
I stayed true to my diversion program and went to NA meetings every day. I was working in a bagel shop. But it was hard. I missed my friends, the deafening music of the clubs, and the rush from a bump of speed, especially now as I faced that last twenty miles.
I didn’t want to take anything that even resembled drugs. I was out there running to forget them. I was hoping ultrarunning would be the thing that would help me forget drugs. I was hoping ultrarunning would be the one thing that Peggy never had. And so any kind of drugs made me nervous after my addiction. I didn’t even take Advil any more, despite, you know, the fact that pain meds can really help you through a hundred-mile race.
I rolled the tiny caffeine pill around in my hand. It seemed a lot like the speed that kept me awake for hours on end in my old days. It would give me the same kind of energy. As badly as I needed it, this scared the shit out of me.
“It’s just like coffee,” Kim said, sensing my hesitation. “It’s the exact same amount of caffeine.”
She could see that I was still worried.
“Just take half,” she said.
I popped the pill into my mouth, bit it in half, and tucked half away. Just fifteen minutes later, I was awake.
The other runners all seemed to be out there to cheer me on. It was the kind of support that was, well, addicting. I started on again, following Kim until she ran ahead. I felt better knowing that she and her red lipstick smile would be out there on the course with me.
As I started into the last twenty miles, my feet begged me to stop. I walked and ran through the heat of my chaffing toes and the cold of my shredded heels. The haze of my exhaustion and the buzz of the caffeine was all that kept me going. It really was like a dream. A nightmare really. Only my tears and the stabbing pain reminded me that I was still out there, on the course, trying to be an ultrarunner.
The sounds of the night, the buzzing bugs, and the whispers of the other runners all faded as the first light washed through the trees. The thick branches blocked most of the early morning light. The dim light made things seem that much more surreal. I would see a tree or a bush and think it was another runner. The tree roots on the ground turned to snakes slithering from the swamp. I jumped out of range of imaginary fangs a few times, yelping when I landed hard on my ruined feet.
I was miserable, in a painful daze. I kept going, but doubts were just behind me, on my heels, while the pain continued to pace me.
I began to yawn again—the NoDoz was just starting to wear off. The crickets were silent, but I could hear birds chirping. I could see the sky begin to glow, and I stashed my flashlight.
As I ran out of the trees, the morning sunlight washed over me. It was warm and bright, and energy spread through me. The birds grew louder. The crowd was bigger. The end was closer.
My head was full of thoughts of my dad as I stumbled through those last few miles. I talked to my father in my head with pride. Look at what I’m doing now, Dad, I said to him as I stumbled home, bawling.
Just get there, I thought. Just a few more miles. Just get there.
The faint cheering that had teased those last few miles slowly became louder, and I ran a little faster.
My feet hurt and my legs were killing me, but they worked. I thought of my dad, of Peggy, of all the addicts I had left behind, the runners whose bodies were too broken to run again. I was running for all those who couldn’t.
I rounded a corner, one that I’d seen four times. The cheering got even louder. I realized I had less than a mile go to, and then I saw the finish.
When I finally crossed the finish line in that mad dash, I thought a bolt of lightning would strike me down. Or something corny like that. But it wasn’t nearly as dramatic. I crossed the line, kicked off my shoes and the duct tape hanging from my battered feet, and fell to the floor smiling.
I never did see any alligators.
Eating disorders are hard to overcome, but ditching diets is crucial
Monkey Business Images via Shutterstock
This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Eating disorders affect at least 30 million Americans and have the highest mortality rates of any mental disorder. Those who survive eating disorders often have a long, difficult journey ahead of them.
Eating disorders are classified as mental illnesses characterized by severe disruptions in eating behaviors. In our diet-focused culture, many people may not realize that eating disorders still take a huge toll.
As someone who has conducted extensive research and writing in the field of eating disorder recovery, and who has ongoing personal experience in eating disorder recovery, I have found that although full recovery from an eating disorder is possible, it can take time and often requires much action. There can be many causes of eating disorders, including genetics, personality, trauma, or often a combination of causes. But by the time a person gets diagnosed by a doctor or therapist, the immediate causes are less relevant than how to recover. Consistent healthy habits are helpful in the recovery process.
Ditch the diet
The most important action that a person can take to recover from eating disorders is to stop dieting. Weight loss dieting is the number one cause of eating disorders, binge eating, body dissatisfaction and low self-esteem. In contrast, weight-neutral self-care approaches – that is, focusing on maintaining one’s current weight — have been found to assist in eating disorder recovery.
But ditching the diet is only the first step. It is necessary to investigate and address factors that maintain eating disorders.
Let go of safety behaviors
Many people in partial recovery from eating disorders still rely on behaviors that help them feel safe, or less anxious, about their weight or appearance. These so-called safety behaviors can vary but might include monitoring food intake, monitoring weight, double-checking nutritional values, being very careful about food ingredients, and avoiding eating in social situations.
The short-term anxiety-reducing benefits of safety behaviors are part of what makes them so hard to eliminate. Unfortunately, safety behaviors create a distraction and leave the eating disorder itself unchallenged.
In order to stop engaging in the safety behaviors that serve to maintain eating disorders, it is important to find alternate ways of thinking and acting around food, eating, body and weight. Strategies to reach full eating disorder recovery include letting go of safety behaviors and engaging in more self-trust and self-care.
Self-weighing is a safety behavior that maintains the overvaluation of weight, which is part of the American Psychiatric Association’s definition of eating disorders. Continued concern with weight or shape at the end of treatment has been found to be a strong predictor of relapse back into an eating disorder. A powerful strategy to reduce overvaluation of weight is to consider a personal 30-day “no weigh” experiment.
Other safety behaviors that aim at gaining information about one’s shape or size — such as mirror checking, pinching the fat on one’s torso, feeling muscles or bone, engaging in social size comparison, and seeking reassurance from others about one’s body — all have to be considered for elimination. Each one of these examples can be a safety behavior that serves to maintain undue concern with one’s weight and shape, and in turn, keeps the eating disorder alive.
Practice self-trust
Practicing self-trust around eating means giving oneself unconditional permission to eat when hungry, whatever foods are desired, in the amount desired. Research has shown that unconditional permission to eat is the exact opposite of an eating disorder. It can be anxiety-producing to give oneself unconditional permission to eat, but it turns out that any kind of food rules, including limits on when, what and how much to eat, led research participants to be more preoccupied with food. Food rules prompted participants to have a much higher tendency to overindulge, especially when they broke one of their food rules. On the other hand, research participants who allowed themselves to eat when hungry and to choose foods and amounts they desired had a lower tendency to overindulge or engage in binge eating.
Trusting one’s body to direct eating choices is one aspect of self-trust. Self-trust also extends to many other self-care practices.
Engage in self-care
A person’s individual relationship with their own body is the “doorway to pathology”, meaning if that relationship is not a positive one, a person is at risk of developing an eating disorder. In order to fully recover from an eating disorder, this doorway must be filled with positive self-care practices. People in recovery can learn to engage in self-care practices that do not contain any elements of self-harm.
Overindulgence in food contains both elements of self-care and self-harm. Self-care involves tuning in and listening to body signals and responding in helpful ways. For instance, being “tired” could elicit telling yourself to “rest a bit” or “turn off the light and go to sleep now.” The feeling of being “very uncomfortable” could signal it’s “time to change this situation,” and the feeling of being “overwhelmed” could mean it’s “time to take a break” or “time to make a list,” depending on the situation.
These responses are all dependent on the assumption of self-trust. One has to trust that the body does not lie. Our bodies tell us what we need to know and responding to their messages can help us to fully recover from eating disorders
Take some risks
It can feel scary to let go of safety behaviors and to replace them with self-care based on self-trust. Change is inherently risky. But for positive change to occur, it is necessary to take some risks. And it is worth it, because full recovery involves more than just letting go of eating disorder and safety behaviors. It also involves feeling better about oneself.
Research participants who had reached full eating disorder recovery had positive self-concepts. Those who were fully recovered from eating disorders showed higher levels of self-esteem, self-efficacy, or a person’s belief in his or her ability to succeed at a task, and self-directedness than those who were not in recovery or those who were in partial recovery. Another research study showed that the more positive ways that participants were able to think about themselves, the less likely they were to drop out of eating disorder treatment.
Taking risks to trust one’s body and to engage in responsive self-care are almost guaranteed to lead to an improved self-concept. Taking these risks can be anxiety-producing in the short run but worth it, to reach full eating disorder recovery.
Catherine Gillespie, Associate Dean, School of Education, Drake University
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Pop music’s elitism problem: Why Oasis never got the respect they deserved
Getty/Bloomsbury Publishing/Salon
Excerpted from “Oasis’ Definitely Maybe” by Alex Niven (Bloomsbury, 2014). Reprinted with permission from Bloomsbury Publishing.
At the height of his celebrity, Noel Gallagher would be caricatured by certain sections of the media as an anti-rap reactionary. After Jay-Z was announced as a headliner at the 2008 Glastonbury Festival, Gallagher was quoted as saying that hip-hop was "wrong" for an event that has "a tradition of guitar music."
In fact, despite his stance in 2008, in early adulthood Gallagher showed a cautious interest in hip-hop. He witnessed the seminal Def Jam package tour – which featured LL Cool J, Eric B & Rakim, and Public Enemy – when it passed through Manchester in 1987. Gallagher would later describe Public Enemy as "inspirational" and draw comparisons between hip-hop and his own music as kindred forms of working-class expression. Liam Gallagher’s backstory in this regard is even more interesting. Hip-hop was, apparently, the first kind of music he "really got into" (The Sun, 2009) As a 14-year-old in the late eighties, Liam was allegedly part of a BBoy gang, a group of kids who made a habit of venturing into the centre of Manchester with a piece of linoleum to breakdance in the city’s dilapidated public squares.
Whatever the extent of these actual encounters with rap’s by-products, Noel Gallagher’s comment that hip-hop and Oasis’s guitar-rock collage emerged from similar roots is surely credible. Oasis offered a rock equivalent to hip-hop’s brazen appropriation of pop-historical source material, a musical cut-and-paste that had deep affinities with – and was perhaps even loosely indebted to – the sampling culture that was a pervasive modus operandi of urban music culture during this period.
If Public Enemy spliced together James Brown, Funkadelic and recordings of Malcolm X speeches, Oasis wrote songs that glued together the Sex Pistols, The Rolling Stones, Burt Bacharach, Neil Young, Slade, The Smiths and The Jam, songs that grafted mangled fragments of anti-establishment rhetoric and council estate graffiti on to a base of guitar licks stolen from T. Rex and The Stone Roses (and even, more eccentrically, samples of Tony Benn speeches, and melodies borrowed from Wham! and The Glitter Band). If there was a difference between the two approaches, it was largely one of equipment – Oasis’s tools were Les Pauls and Marshall amps whereas Public Enemy had used turntables and the E-mu SP-1200.
When middle-class musicians resort to appropriation and collage it is often applauded as ‘allusion’ or ‘pastiche’; when working-class musicians do it they are dismissed as plagiarists, or prosecuted as outright thieves. The notion – still popular in some quarters – that Oasis were chancers who rose above their station by stealing other bands’ creative property is patronizing and ultimately untenable. Whatever can be said about their musical conservatism in later years, on "Definitely Maybe," Oasis’s appropriation of the past was just as valid, and just as creatively successful, as the sample tapestries on a work like Public Enemy’s "It Takes a Nation of Millions."
Partly, Oasis’s disregard for copyright laws can be put down to a simple lack of expectations. In spite of their fantastic hope, for all that they would claim with hindsight that they always knew they would become rock ’n’ roll stars, it is important to stress that much of Oasis’s early output was created in an environment of hopelessness, one in which they were understandably sceptical about their chances of breakthrough.
"Shakermaker," a joke song that ultimately developed into something much more interesting, is a classic example of Oasis’s cavalier approach to creative property laws, an attitude that arose ultimately from the fatalism of their position in the early nineties (as Noel Gallagher commented of "Cigarettes and Alcohol," another tune oriented around a direct sample-riff: "no one was going to hear it anyway"). The original version of "Shakermaker" was built around an adaptation of the 1971 song "I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)." This was eventually a chart hit for the New Seekers, but it began life as the jingle for a Coca-Cola advert under the title "I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke." The melody and vocal cadences of "Shakermaker" are lifted wholesale from the Coke jingle, and its final verse originally included the verbatim line "I’d like to buy the world a Coke." The New Seekers sued successfully for $400,000 worth of damages when the tune eventually came to light, and the last verse was cut from the final version of "Definitely Maybe."
What’s notable about "Shakermaker" and its New Seekers steal is the sheer unselfconscious tackiness of its consumerist cartoon. The bourgeois wing of Britpop – Blur, Suede, Elastica – would get a lot of creative mileage out of half-disdainful, half-excited attempts to exploit the kitsch of the supermarket wasteland, the Dayglo nightclub and the Mediterranean package holiday. Indeed, the term "Britpop" was introduced originally as a way of describing the Home Counties pop-art parodies marketed by these bands from 1992 onwards. In the critic Jon Savage’s famous summary, the mainstream of Britpop was an "outer-suburban, middle-class fantasy of central London streetlife, with exclusively metropolitan models." Oasis’s working-class Mancunian version of this aesthetic was far less arch, and far more convincing, because it was realistic rather than romantic. If Blur indulged in highly contrived fantasies of street life, Oasis’s references to urban junk were casual and straightforwardly naturalistic.
In addition to its shameless borrowing of a Coca-Cola marketing campaign, "Shakermaker" references Mr Clean (a popular household cleaning fluid manufactured by Proctor and Gamble), Mr Benn (a children’s cartoon character of the 1970s), Mr Soft (an uncanny figure made out of white fabric who featured in a late eighties British TV advert for Trebor Softmints) and Mr Sifter (the name of a record shop in Burnage, Manchester, where the Gallaghers grew up). The title is derived from the Shaker Maker, a seventies toy that allowed children to mould small figurines with the aid of a mysterious powder called "Magic Mix."
There is no particular design behind the assembly of these commodities in "Shakermaker’s" lyric sheet, only a sense of freedom and entitlement about seizing everyday materials and attempting to fashion something irreverently beautiful out of them. Unlike their more self-conscious peers, Oasis did not alternately idealize and snigger at consumer culture from a distance. They merely replicated the objective reality of their lives without bothering to filter out the kaleidoscopic trash that littered the subconscious of their daily routines.
How the Beatles changed music forever
Music journalist Rob Sheffield explores the Fab Four's masterpiece "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" in his book "Dreaming the Beatles"
Pro-Brexit businessman met with Russian officials “multiple” times before the vote
Matt Cardy/Getty Image
As federal investigators in the U.S. probe Russia's involvement in the 2016 presidential election, the United Kingdom has been conducting its own inquiry into Russia meddling.
U.K. officials have suspected that Leave.EU, the pro-Brexit campaign headed by UKIP leaders Nigel Farage and Arron Banks, received aid from Russia ahead of the pivotal referendum.
Banks, a wealthy businessman from Britain, has long denied any connection or relationship with Russia. Last November, after the U.K.'s electoral commission announced an investigation into Leave.EU's campaign donations, Banks emphatically denied any link to Russia, calling the allegations "complete bollocks from beginning to end." Banks has since maintained this credulity, yet new documents seen by The Guardian suggest he's been lying.
A Tory MP shared with The Guardian documents that detail a tight relationship between Banks and the Kremlin. The documents indicate Banks met with high-ranking Russian officials multiple times between November 2015 to 2017. Two of those meetings took place during the same week Leave.EU launched its official campaign, The Guardian reported.
Much of Banks' encounters with Russians involved business opportunities, including a multibillion-dollar offer to acquire Russian goldmines. U.K. officials believe these discussions turned political, as Banks had continued contact in the run-up to the U.S. elections. Banks' partner, Farage, was a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump's campaign and even stumped for him on the campaign trail.
Leave.EU launched its campaign on November 17, 2015, a day after Banks was invited to a meeting at the Russian Embassy. Cambridge Analytica, the data analytics firm that came under fire in the U.S. for its acquisition of private Facebook data, helped Banks start the campaign. Banks would later travel to Moscow, where he was set to meet with high-ranking Russian officials from the state-owned bank.
The Russian Embassy denied Saturday any meddling in the Brexit referendum, telling The Guardian: “The Russian Embassy has not in any way intervened in domestic UK political process, including the Brexit referendum. Meeting stakeholders representing all political spectrum of the host country is a natural element of the work of any embassy.”
Banks was set to testify on Saturday before the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, but then the businessman announced he would not attend because, in his eyes, the committee was in cahoots with pro-Remain sympathizers. Damian Collins, the chair of the committee, told The Guardian on Saturday: “Russia is not our friend. And this new material raises questions of the most serious nature. If deals were brokered with Russian government help, it would raise urgent questions about Russian interference in our democracy. We urgently need Arron Banks to answer these and other questions. People will wonder if this is the real reason he has cancelled his appearance before the committee.”
The Guardian's report offers new evidence that Russia ran covert operations to disrupt democracies in the West. Trump himself certainly welcomed the results of the Brexit referendum, calling it a "great thing" and comparing his campaign to the pro-Leave crusade. Trump's political revolution may be more alike with Brexit than he has let on.
One economic study found that Twitter bots played a potentially decisive role in the Brexit vote and Donald Trump's election win. The National Bureau of Economic Research published a working paper that asserted that Twitter bots added 1.76 percentage point for the pro-Leave faction and and 3.23 percentage points for Trump.
Whether Russia's meddling started and ended with Twitter automation remains to be seen. U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller continues to investigate Russia's interference in the presidential election. He has already indicted multiple Russian nationals for campaign fraud.
Like Banks and Trump, Russia President Vladimir Putin has denied any involvement in the contentious elections in Britain and the U.S.
Evidence suggests otherwise.
A deceptively straightforward recipe for coconut layer cake in “Caribbean Flavors for Every Season”
Skyhorse Publishing
Excerpted with permission from Coconut Ginger Shrimp Rum: Caribbean Flavors for Every Season by Brigid Washington. Copyright © 2017 by Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
* * *
Born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, Brigid Washington has created truly innovative, mouthwatering recipes so you can bring the flavor of the islands home. The recipes in "Coconut. Ginger. Shrimp. Rum." highlight seasonal bounties and four major ingredients that are integral to Caribbean cuisine and culture. Through a chapter for each season, Brigid focuses on simple, fundamental ingredients, and lots of fresh, farm-stand produce that will guide and delight any cook through the year.
* * *
In writing this book, it became apparent that the greatest tragedy of Caribbean cuisine is misconception. Too often the food of the islands is translated to American restaurant tables as simple, fruit-forward fare; these tourist-friendly dishes portray a shallow concept of the West Indies’ rich and enduring culinary history. The narrative of the Caribbean is best told through the unfurled flags of the countries that once colonized the region. The settlers from those countries—both indigenous and conquistadors—translated their cuisines into a tradition, honing in on the wonts of their past whilst simultaneously bucking them to befit their new locale.
What happened next was probable. The island nations cultivated their distinct social norms and cash crops in ways that still strongly demark the socio-economic and cultural identity of each isle. The ill-fated identity of slavery and the burns of sugar were bonds of historical proportions. And even though time and technology have advanced the Caribbean agenda—far beyond tourism—each island remains forever fused to the others, largely by traditions of a bygone era. But there remains a special brand of magic found in the islands—its people, and especially its food.
For you, I have written this book to be an approachable, buttoned-down way to incorporate an often misrepresented yet vibrant cuisine with the seasonal fare you already adore. The mezze, Roasted Cauliflower Coconut Tabbouleh, for instance, is equal parts delight and discovery. This recipe traces a path to the Mideast, making the Cauliflower the star ingredient and without the use of fussy, far-flung ingredients.
In writing this book, I watched how old memories and recipes came to life beneath my fingers, connecting my past as a child and teenager in Trinidad & Tobago to my present life as a wife and mother of two in Raleigh, North Carolina. If nothing else, this project is a work of syncretism, integrating two worlds, through four ingredients. Within these pages, my goal is to elevate and celebrate the bounty of each American season in a way that salutes the taste of the tropics. And doing so requires a triage of, in my opinion, the most essential West Indian ingredients: coconuts, ginger, shrimp, and rum.
Early on, I realized my culinary curiosity was linked to my upbringing in Trinidad and Tobago. As a child, my mother taught me about the wonder of diversity; one that is an inextricable part of the country to which I belonged. I saw how salient the food-ways of Africans, East Indians, Spanish, Chinese, French, Syrians, Portuguese and Germans coalesced and gently infiltrated our day-to-day lives. Our dinners were edible geography; from East Indian dahlpuri roti to West African yams. And that was the norm throughout Trinidad & Tobago and throughout the Caribbean. Island folk ate in a way that honored the cultures that formed the region and also in a way that complemented the ebb and flow of their physical environment. It was this intuitive relationship with food and how it shapes my sense of place that drove me to pursue it purely and professionally.
My time at the Culinary Institute of America formalized my rough understanding of food as it pertains to the cultures of yesteryear and the economies of today. It was in the dignified kitchens of the Hyde Park campus where I learned the scope – as well as tedium and toil – that is the business of food. Quick, accurate knife-cuts and rote recollection of cooking ratios boosted my muscle memory in ways I never thought possible. I became a disciplined cook, simply because it was expected of me. And surprisingly enough, I enjoyed the romance of the routine. By way of being Editor in Chief of CIA’s monthly publication, I reported on the shape-shifting nature of the industry, interviewing some of its most formidable gatekeepers. At that time, I didn’t know these encounters would lead me to this project. I knew with certainty that my experiences would eventually lead me home, but I didn’t know it would be via a cookbook, where I would write the story of home.
From my first taste of from-the-nut coconut water as a toddler in South Trinidad to writing this book, all of my experiences have been part of a powerful education. This knowledge of the salience of community, the rhythm of the seasons, and the indomitable healing nature of simple ingredients, will forever form the core my approach to food and life. Because, I wasn’t just raised in the Caribbean—but rather, the Caribbean raised me.
* * *
Coconut Layer Cake
I hope you enjoy this recipe and a taste of the islands, from my heart to your kitchen.
—Brigid Washington
This deceptively straightforward darling confection of the American South will make a master-baker out of many reluctant home cooks. The use of some ingenious tricks camouflages any faux-pas, producing a cake that looks (almost) as good as it tastes.
F or the c ake:
1½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2⅔ cups sugar
5 eggs, room temperature
Rind of a small orange
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1½ teaspoons almond extract
2⅓ cups cake flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1½ cups full-fat, unsweetened coconut milk
For the icing:
1 pound cream cheese, room temperature
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
¼ cup coconut milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pound confectioners’ sugar, sifted
4 ounces shredded coconut
4 ounces toasted coconut flakes
Prepare the cake: Preheat oven to 350. Outfit your cake pans first with a generous spread of butter, following with parchment paper then butter again, and finishing with slight dusting of flour. In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and granulated sugar for 5–7 minutes on high speed until it is airy and pale yellow. Following this, lower the speed to a slow-medium and add the room temperature eggs one at a time. Then add the orange rind. The mixture will look a bit curdled. Fret not. Add the vanilla and almond extracts. In a separate bowl combine the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Ready your coconut milk. Working in batches, add the flour to the mixing bowl, then a bit of the coconut milk. Continue this alternating process, always starting and ending with the flour mixture and scraping the bowl in between with a rubber spatula. Mix for another 2–3 minutes. Remove the rind. Pour into prepared cake pans and bake for 35 minutes. Gingerly remove from cake pans and allow to cool on a wire rack.
For the icing: In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the cream cheese, butter, coconut milk, and vanilla extract on low speed. Add the confectioners’ sugar and mix until very smooth.
To assemble: On a cake stand, take one layer, top side down and smear with icing. Place the second layer atop, and frost the top as well as the sides. Use a spatula to frost the cake as evenly and smoothly as possible. Take the shredded coconut and lightly press onto the sides of the cake and decorate the top of the cake with the toasted coconut flakes. Serve room temperature with a glass of for-no-reason-at-all champagne.
How female protagonists have changed – and stayed the same – in young adult fiction
iStockphoto/Porechenskaya/Salon
This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Strong female protagonists in young adult fiction are nothing new. From Nancy Drew to Annemarie Johansen – Lois Lowry’s selfless heroine in Holocaust-era “Number the Stars” – to a plucky young Lucy Pevensie in “The Chronicles of Narnia,” young adult fiction has always enjoyed a healthy share of women ready to figure it all out, enlighten, and sometimes literally save the day.
But the female protagonists who star in this decade’s crop of young adult fiction show three interesting shifts.
1. Unlikely heroines
One refreshing trend is unlikely heroines – young women who are not really looking for fame or grandiose accomplishments but simply trying to survive. These protagonists are everyday whispering warriors. They show quiet strength at times but mostly just embody a confident if unassuming way of walking in a world where they definitely belong but feel no obligation to prove it.
A stellar example lies in the character of Marin in Nina LaCour’s Printz-winning young adult novel “We Are Okay.” Marin adjusts all on her own to life in New York, fleeing her West Coast past after being reared by a stoic grandfather who dies suddenly before her freshman year of college.
While this character masterfully shows the internal struggles common to LGBTQ teens discovering their sexuality, she also spends Christmas pretty much alone in her dorm room, fighting ennui, being snowed in, and remembering the gentle, confusing lies her grandfather piled up before he died. In the end, she simply decides to “be” in the world. Her resolution that “we are okay” indeed becomes as profound as any battle cry.
Flawed characters
Another trend is the proliferation of young women who embrace their imperfection in whatever big or small form it may come. They are much more willing to open themselves up to risk and and much more willing to reveal their humanity.
Perhaps with this trend, young adult fiction has grown up the most. Whether it’s the super quirky Flora Belle Buckman and her voracious reading of “Terrible Things Can Happen to You” in Newbery winner Kate DiCamillo’s “Flora and Ulysses,” or the parallel protagonist, intergenerational duo of Xan and Luna in “The Girl Who Drank the Moon” by Kelly Barnhill, female heroines in young adult fiction are now showing both their wisdom and their warts from cover to cover.
And this trend is consistent across genres: Whether readers enjoy realism, historical fiction or fantasy, the female characters are both out front and far out. These characters and their courageous authors feel no need for tidy endings or polished edges. And, if book sales or online reviews are any indication, readers love it because the characters live through these flaws boldly and without reservation.
The standout in this trend is a standout all around these days, with the introduction of the girl across the street that everyone comes to admire: Starr Carter, in Angie Thomas’ wildly successful “The Hate U Give.” Caught up in a senseless police shooting of a neighborhood teen, the protagonist navigates between her all-white school and her blatantly mischaracterized “ghetto” neighborhood companions.
With an uncle as a cop, Starr struggles to find her voice and describe the lived experience of being pulled over and watching her friend gunned down for driving while black. This piece is powerful all the way until its resolution precisely because Starr is a conflicted and confused character redefining “strong” as she traverses atypical situations.
Still not diverse
One final trend is quite a bit less uplifting than the first two: Today’s heroine is still very white and very upper middle class.
Yes, there are amazing black heroines these days, and they are racking up awards for their equally amazing authors: “The Lions of Little Rock,” by Kristin Levine; “Brown Girl Dreaming” and “Another Brooklyn,” both by Jacqueline Woodson, are notable examples.
Authors and publishers have made inroads. And individuals such as 13-year-old activist and trailblazer Marley Dias will help lead the way with her inspirational #1000BlackGirlBooks movement and the literary buzz it has created. But Marley isn’t alone in her need for more – and more meaningful – diversity and inclusion in young adult literature.
Diversity in young adult fiction needs to reflect the nation’s demographics – because currently it does not.
Kelly Roberts, Associate Professor of English; Program Coordinator, 6-9 and 9-12 licensure programs in English, Meredith College
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Here is what film critics are saying about “Ocean’s 8″
Warner Bros./Barry Wetcher
If the "Ocean's" franchise was not enticing enough to get audiences through the door, surely the star-studded line-up of the all-female update is.
The cast of "Ocean's 8," in theaters this weekend, includes Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Helena Bonham Carter, Rihanna and rapper Awkwafina, who gear up for the theft of a $150 million diamond necklace at the Met Gala.
And, according to the reviews, the film's stars soar. Any one of of these actors would be an exciting prospect for an upcoming film, and together they are a dream.
Beyond the obvious star power of the group, some critics question whether, in the age of #MeToo, there is something truly remarkable or groundbreaking in a gender-flipped remake.
"'Ocean’s 8,' a woman-centric take on Soderbergh’s love for making crime look cool, doesn’t have much in the way of original plotting," writes Kate Erbland for Indiewire, "instead rooting its purpose in a premise that should no longer be considered as revolutionary as it is — building an entire film around unique female characters."
While Variety's Owen Gliberman believes the standard should be that there is nothing "innovative or audacious" about the film's basis, this is the thinking of "a better world" – one we do not yet inhabit.
Overall, while critics were impressed with the film's on-screen talent, they were much more disappointed with the creativity of those behind the scenes. Steven Soderberg, who directed "Ocean's 11," "12" and "13," retreats in "Ocean's 8" to a producer's credit, and reviewers argue that the film franchise suffers with Gary Ross ("The Hunger Games," Seabiscuit") at the helm.
Here is what film critics are saying about "Ocean's 8":
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone:
Yes, the plot has more holes than a wheel of swiss cheese and director Gary Ross ("The Hunger Games") lets the script he wrote with Olivia Milch go slack in its mid-section, but odds are you won't give a fuck. "Ocean's 8" is a heist caper that looks gorgeous, keeps the twists coming and bounces along on a comic rhythm that's impossible to resist. What more do you want in summer escapism?
Kate Erbland, Indiewire:
The depth and breadth of these characters is one of the film's greatest assets, from Cate Blanchett as Debbie's best friend Lou, a booze-shorting badass who appears to take her style cues from early Keith Richards, to Anne Hathaway as the gloriously vapid Daphne, along with star turns from Rihanna as a whipsmart hacker and Awkwafina as a fast-handed grifter. But this volume of bubbly personalities also holds back the film as a whole.
We want to spend time with these characters, and when the film switches into heist mode, "Ocean's 8" loses sight of the women who drive it, opting to focus on a heist that's fun, but not nearly as fun as watching the characters prepare for it.
Owen Gleiberman, Variety:
On the scale of Rube Goldberg ingenuity, it’s not the most dizzying or outrageous heist you’ve ever seen; it doesn’t scale the rafters of high-wire insanity the way the one in "Ocean’s Eleven" did. (Then again, what has?) But it’s clever enough to get by. It leaves you with that classic head-spinning "Ocean’s" feeling of "Yep, I bought what I just saw," even when your head stops spinning enough to tell you that what you just saw is a pleasantly preposterous mission impossible.
Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair:
Plot-wise, the movie lacks for any of the grander sleights of hand and logical leaps of the other "Ocean’s" movies. Mind you, very little in those films bears the weight of scrutiny, but at least they provided pleasingly intricate knots to pick through. "Ocean’s 8," written by Ross and Olivia Milch, goes a simpler route, paring down the mechanics of its heist and fixing problems quickly and easily. Something about the film feels less thorough, less nourishing, as if it doesn’t trust its audience to contend with something more complicated. Or it could just be that Ross and Milch have written a weaker script than what’s come before. Either way, it feels dismayingly pointed that this "Ocean’s" movie, of all the "Ocean’s" movies, is the one that gets the more basic treatment.
Emily Yoshida, Vulture:
The deck is stacked so incredibly in "8’s" favor that this feels like an algorithmic improbability. Illuminated by an extremely hype cast — Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Rihanna and ascendant rapper Awkwafina, among a few — it’s been primed to represent a cross section of the possibilities of female glamour in 2018. The film has intrinsically been proposed as more than just a fun summer heist movie; it’s a symbolic balm for all the ills of a male-dominated Hollywood that have dominated the news for nearly a year. The idea that this diverse group of women would all have a reason to want to rip off the system feels like some kind of elaborate wish-fulfillment fan fiction. But in its actual form, it doesn’t feel like much more than a thrown bone.
Manohla Dargis, The New York Times:
At some point between the first and second hours, though, you may find yourself wishing that Mr. Soderbergh — a producer here — had also directed "Ocean’s 8." Its cast aside, the movie sounds and narratively unwinds like the previous installments, but without the same easy snap or visual allure. As a director, Mr. Soderbergh doesn’t throw the camera around, but one of pleasures of his movies is a commitment to beauty as a cinematic end. Here, the actresses carry that burden.
David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter:
What Soderbergh, who serves here as producer, brought to his "Ocean's'" films — even the busy, bloated sequels — was a jazzy energy, an effortless light touch that seems beyond the reach of Ross. "Ocean's 8" tries to inject that verve with an eclectic mix of music to supplement Daniel Pemberton's score, from Charles Aznavour to Amy Winehouse, James Last to The Notorious B.I.G. But it lacks punch, even if the complicated plotting is sound enough, the gadgetry impressive and the visual trappings sleek. You just start to feel starved for a movie with conflict, suspense and a little heart, rather than a repackaged version of a formula already flogged to death.
Benjamin Lee, The Guardian:
The lifeless direction, the unrefined script, the underwhelming cameos, the distinct lack of fizz – there’s a slapdash nature to the assembly of "Ocean’s 8" that makes it feel like the result of a rushed, often careless process. It’s made watchable thanks to the cast but star power alone cannot mask creative inadequacy. Stealing a diamond necklace is bad but wasting an opportunity like this is unforgivable.
Brian Truitt, USA Today:
Fashion mavens have lots to admire with exquisite costumes (it is the Met Gala, after all) and an Anna Wintour cameo. People-watchers can pick out various real-life celebrities who show up. And, for everyone across the board, Bullock and Co. are a pack of devious treasures who can ransack our shindig anytime.
Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times:
"Ocean’s 8" has something to prove, and that determination is both its strength and its limitation. It works hard, stays on point, delivers a few nifty surprises and sometimes rises to a thrilling pitch of excitement — at least, before the story peters out in its belabored third act. What the movie refuses to do is dazzle, or resonate or overstay its welcome, which is another way of saying it doesn’t really linger. As "8’s" go, it could stand to be a little crazier.
June 8, 2018
SpongeBob’s Bikini Bottom is based on a real-life test site for nuclear weapons
This article was originally published on The Conversation.
“Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?”
My anthropology class replied, “SpongeBob Squarepants.” Their thunderous response filled the auditorium.
Nearly 20 years ago, the underwater world of SpongeBob and his quirky, colorful friends debuted as a cartoon. The cultural icon is now a Broadway musical, up for 12 Tony awards.
My follow-up question, however, was met with silence: I asked students what they could tell me about the real Bikini Bottom.
Bikini Bottom, SpongeBob’s fictional home, is based on an actual place in the Pacific Ocean.
But how much do most Americans know of the real-life Bikini Atoll, the location of 23 U.S. nuclear weapons tests during the Cold War era?
Beyond the bathing suit
Bikini is the anglicized, or colonial, spelling of Pikinni Atoll, a group of islands within the Marshall Islands that includes a lagoon. The Marshall Islands, a former colony of the United States, is a group of islands that spread across 1 million square miles of ocean just north of the equator, about halfway between Hawaii and Papua New Guinea.
In the aftermath of World War II, the United Nations made the United States the governing body for a vast swath of the northern Pacific, including the Marshall Islands. The U.S. subsequently used Bikini as one of two locations, along with Enewetak to the west of Bikini, to test and develop advancements in nuclear weapons technology during the Cold War. Between 1946 and 1958, the U.S. government detonated 67 nuclear weapons on these islands.
In 1946, the U.S. government removed 167 Bikinians and relocated them to the islands of Rongerik, east of Bikini, where they experienced starvation because of inadequate food crop. On March 1, 1954, a detonation on Bikini Atoll known as “Bravo” created an explosion equivalent to 1,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs.
This monstrous detonation created real-life horror for Bikinians and their future generations. The displaced Bikini people are now exiles. They cannot return to their ancestral homelands due to radiation contamination that will not dissipate for thousands of years.
In the 1970s, the U.S. government returned nearly 200 Bikinians to their home islands. However, the U.S. government removed the people again in 1978, because they were found to have ingested more radioactive cesium from the environment than any known human population.
Elements of this history make brief appearances in episodes of the SpongeBob cartoon that few viewers likely pick up on.
Holly M. Barker, Senior Lecturer, University of Washington
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