Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 318

One of the best examinations of race in comics is a bonkers comic about a prison for giant monsters

Kaijumax Season 2 by Zander Cannon (Credit: Oni Press)

Even the most bleeding-heart liberal love muffins in the world usually don’t have a lot of time or energy for prisoners. If a male comedian tells a rape joke about women, they’re lambasted — as they should be — but everyone has a free pass to joke about prison rape. Despite a smorgasbord of studies showing the horrors of solitary confinement and prison life in general, few care about humane treatment of prisoners. There are so many atrocities in the world, that prisoner welfare just doesn’t make the sympathy list for most folks. We’re all complicit in the dehumanization of convicts.

Well, not all of us. Writer and artist Zander Cannon gets a pass because of his tremendous series “Kaijumax,” now in the middle of its third arc for Oni Press. Despite or perhaps because of its absurd premise — giant Japanese-style monsters on an island prison — “Kaijumax” does more to humanize real-life convicts than any recent piece of popular culture. Improbably, this absurd series is one of the most socially relevant and psychologically rich comics on the shelf.

Cannon’s inspiration for the series was Ultraman: a bonkers Japanese TV show from the 1960s in which the titular hero fought a different massive beast each week. Cannon took this insane series in a logical direction: What would society do with the likes of Megalon and Mothra? Cannon’s answer was a twist on the idea of a monster island, which he transformed into a gargantuan version of HBO’s Oz: a prison that’s a little like Gotham’s Arkham Asylum but with Godzilla instead of the Joker.

The series — which Cannon writes, illustrates, colors and letters — began in 2015 and is currently in the third “season” of a six-season arc. “Kaijumax,” at first glance, looks very much like a children’s comic with bright colors and inventive monster designs. In fact, Cannon said in an interview with Salon, the comic often is placed in the children’s section of comic-book stores — but, man, that’s a mistake as big as Cannon’s characters. This series is adult squared, not just for content, but for depth and complexity.

Cannon has created an ensemble series where just about every character, monster or human, prisoner or prison doctor, is given layers and purpose. The closest to a lead is Electrogor, a plutonium-spawning monster whose facial expressions and body language are the saddest since Charlie Brown. Electrogor has reason to be upset, since he wasn’t captured for any crime, but just for being a giant monster. The poor big guy was apprehended while gathering food for his children, who are now on their own, presumably hungry and also vulnerable in a world full of monster-hunting police and non-parental monsters. Meanwhile, Electrogor is stuck in Kaijumax, where corrupt guards, warring gangs and available drugs all conspire to break his spirit.

One of the most harrowing events in the series involves a monster-on-monster rape. This violation, which is taken seriously in all its horror and consequences, is one of the first signs that “Kaijumax” has more to offer than great art and a wacky premise. Cannon said in an interview with Salon, “I couldn’t back off and make it light” — the rape needed to be treated with “gruesome seriousness.” Cannon understands where people are coming from when dismissing prison rape, but he sees the flaws in that mindset: “You think, oh, it’s happening to that murderer, or that drug dealer . . . but some prosecutor who’s just trying to put away every black pot dealer, you end up with a whole different situation.” Kaijumax is the epitome of “a whole different situation,” and by shifting a real-life atrocity into an unreal world, it makes that next prison rape joke harder to hear or tell.

The second issue of the second arc is a high point, depicting a frighteningly true-to-life example of police brutality and a cover that elevates the racial subtext into text. On that cover, a kaiju carries a lunchbox, making his way to his crappy job, which is the best available for an ex-con (or “ex-mon” as wordplay-happy Cannon puts it). This stereotypical monster, towering over buildings, is usually seen smashing them, and you can see why he’d want to from signs displayed throughout the city: “NO KAIJU PERMITTED,” “KAIJU ENTRANCE IN BACK,” “WE SERVE HUMANS ONLY” and “NOW HIRING HUMANS ONLY.” A restaurant sign proclaims “WE SERVE KAIJU TAKEOUT ONLY.” Of course, from a logistical standpoint, cramming a massive monster into a restaurant would be impossible, but Cannon spins pure absurdity into strong commentary.

But never fear, this series is far from preachy or pretentious. Other examples of prison life are played more humorously, though not disrespectfully. For example: the rectal search. Comic books have delved into the multiverse, the Negative Zone, the Phantom Zone and the microverse, but until now they’ve never gone inside the pooper of a Godzilla type. The necessity of such an exam is pretty clear: a kaiju could have a whole armory smuggled up the wazoo. This is another example of Cannon following his premise to its logical extremes, logistically or psychologically.

That balance — which Cannon describes as “half silly, half tragic,” is what makes the series work. Cannon originally intended to stay more on the silly side of things, but admitted, “I’m not able to do that. I think of myself as being a pretty sunshine-y person, but all my stories tend to get a bit melancholy.” That melancholy elevates this series to the level of heartrending drama. Cannon strikes a balance between out-sized insanity and psychological depth by focusing on character and the fallout of “what being unwanted, being shunned, does to an individual.” Cannon said he’s mostly interested in portraying the psychological fallout of issues such as racism and police brutality: the depression, drug addiction and PTSD. Cannon’s commitment to the psychological reality of his unreal world makes this series hit hard, and the cartoony visuals make it go down smooth.

“Kaijumax” could have been an enjoyable guilty pleasure — like other creator-owned titles with insane premises such as “Grizzly Shark” or “Shirtless Bear-Fighter” — but those series can’t be compared to “Oz” and “The Wire.” Kaijumax can. Cannon’s unreal world of lizzas (monsters) and squishers (humans) is a carnival mirror reflecting our world. This comic is a unique and humane triumph.

Mayweather’s win was only a win for Mayweather

Floyd Mayweather Jr. fights Conor McGregor in a super welterweight boxing match. (Credit: AP/Isaac Brekken)

Of course the 12-1 boxing favorite Floyd Mayweather defeated UFC star Conor McGregor Saturday night. In my opinion they both won, thanks to that $400 million payout, with Mayweather taking the lion’s share — about $300 million.

The buildup of the fight was interesting, though, especially the framing of the bout as a black vs. white thing. While McGregor’s pre-fight racist jokes, cast by his fans as mere “hype,” caused no small amount of controversy, McGregor himself hasn’t overtly branded himself as a champion of whiteness. But more tellingly, I’ve never heard Mayweather say anything meaningful in regards to black people. He actually told The Boxing Voice, “I’m here to say all lives matter. A lot of times we get stuck, and we are followers. You hear one person say, ‘Black lives matter’ or ‘blue lives matter’ . . . all lives matter . . .”

His statement clearly shows that he has no understanding of the current police culture or political movements, let alone what’s going on in the streets, so how did an out-of-touch “All Lives Matter” guy become the voice for all of us?  Are we that pressed for a win?

Mayweather wasn’t fighting for the people, nor should we have expected him to be. He was fighting for that $300 million. Memes popped up on social media after his victory, though, like the one depicting him as an African king and McGregor a defeated Klansmen.

Who comes up with this stuff?

They need to stop. Poor representation like this is only going to make social relations in this country worse. Mayweather doesn’t speak for me and McGregor isn’t an abusive cop, but these silly factless memes can influence how people think.

Think about some white guy who gets really upset at the outcome of the fight — probably more upset than he should be, since these celebs aren’t thinking about us — and then maybe does something really stupid.

Let’s call him Chip.

Chip is overwhelmed with anger and hate — so much hate that he creates a Facebook group to connect with other people who feel the same. They all feel equally let down by McGregor’s loss. In a twisted act of resistance, Chip and the boys put on khaki pants, tuck in their white polo shirts, grab their Make America Great Again hats and hit every Home Depot to buy all of the Tiki torches so that they can organize a rally around how much they hate black Americans or Jewish people or the LGBTQ community or women, or all of those groups combined. (I think the demographic to which they direct the most hate changes depending on what day of the week it is.)

Then they’ll march a pointless march while chanting pointless chants, and of course we all lose: Their rally will be a total waste of time because minorities aren’t going anywhere, and I won’t be able to create an island vibe at my end-of-summer cookout because all of the Tiki torches will be sold out for the season.

So please, people of the internet, I beg of you­­: stop with the false prophets and fake heroes.

Hurricane Harvey: How to help those affected

People evacuate a neighborhood inundated by floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey on Monday, Aug. 28, 2017, in Houston, Texas (Credit: AP/Charlie Riedel)

For those who aren’t physically in southeast Texas, the sum total of the damage from Hurricane Harvey is hard to fathom — but media reports, including pictures of the water level heights, or of people wading through their flooded houses, gives an impression of the utter devastation.

Texas Monthly, which has been on-the-ground covering the hurricane, published a list of ways how individuals from far and wide can help provide relief to those who have been devastated by Harvey. It is sorted by subject, and includes:

The Texas Diaper Bank and the The Driscoll Children’s Hospital (which is also accepting blood donations
The Houston Press issued a list of the many food banks accepting donations.
The Texas SPCA is providing shelter for some of the many displaced pets
Austin Pets Alive! is doing the same work, and also takes in-kind donations
Portlight, which provides for medical technology needs in the area, takes donations via PayPal
Direct Relief USA is providing medical supplies, too, including prescriptions
The Houston Coalition for the Homeless is helping provide for the homeless in the region.

A link to the full article from Texas Monthly on ways to help can be found here.

Libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel funds “unethical” offshore human test of herpes vaccine, skirting FDA rules

Entrepreneur Peter Thiel speaks during the final day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Thursday, July 21, 2016. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) (Credit: AP)

WASHINGTON — Defying U.S. safety protections for human trials, an American university and a group of wealthy libertarians, including a prominent Donald Trump supporter, are backing the offshore testing of an experimental herpes vaccine.

The American businessmen, including Trump adviser Peter Thiel, invested $7 million in the ongoing vaccine research, according to the U.S. company behind it. Southern Illinois University also trumpeted the research and the study’s lead researcher, even though he did not rely on traditional U.S. safety oversight in the first trial, held on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts.

Neither the Food and Drug Administration nor a safety panel known as an institutional review board, or an “IRB,” monitored the testing of a vaccine its creators say prevents herpes outbreaks. Most of the 20 participants were Americans with herpes who were flown to the island several times to be vaccinated, according to Rational Vaccines, the company that oversaw the trial.

“What they’re doing is patently unethical,” said Jonathan Zenilman, chief of Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center’s Infectious Diseases Division. “There’s a reason why researchers rely on these protections. People can die.”

The risks are real. Experimental trials with live viruses could lead to infection if not handled properly or produce side effects in those already infected. Genital herpes is caused by two viruses that can trigger outbreaks of painful sores. Many patients have no symptoms, though a small number suffer greatly. The virus is primarily spread through sexual contact, but also can be released through skin.

The push behind the vaccine is as much political as medical. President Trump has vowed to speed up the FDA’s approval of some medicines. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who had deep financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry, slammed the FDA before his confirmation for over-prioritizing consumer protection to the detriment of medical innovations.

“This is a test case,” said Bartley Madden, a retired Credit Suisse banker and policy adviser to the conservative Heartland Institute, who is another investor in the vaccine. “The FDA is standing in the way, and Americans are going to hear about this and demand action.”

American researchers are increasingly going offshore to developing countries to conduct clinical trials, citing rising domestic costs. But in order to approve the drug for the U.S. market, the FDA requires that clinical trials involving human participants be reviewed and approved by an IRB or an international equivalent. The IRB can reject research based on safety concerns.

Robert Califf, who served as FDA commissioner in the Obama administration until January, said he couldn’t think of a prior instance in which American researchers did not set up an IRB abroad.

“There’s a tradition of having oversight of human experimentation, and it exists for good reasons,” he said. “It may be legal to be doing it without oversight, but it’s wrong.”

However, Rational Vaccines downplayed safety concerns, asserting there was little risk the participants would be harmed because they had herpes already. Agustín Fernández III co-founded­ Rational Vaccines with tenured SIU professor William Halford. He said Halford, the lead investigator, took the necessary precautions during the trial conducted from April to August in 2016. Halford died of cancer in June.

The university backed its professor’s work by posting a glowing article on its website about the vaccine. SIU is one of the patent holders of the vaccine and set up a business account to collect donations for the work.

Nonetheless, Southern Illinois University officials said they had no legal responsibility to ensure safety measures were in place because the university has an arms-length relationship with Rational Vaccines. Fernández said the company licensed two patents related to the vaccine from the university.

“SIU School of Medicine did not have any involvement in Rational Vaccines’ clinical trial,” said Karen Carlson, the university’s spokeswoman. “But we are confident that as the chief scientific officer of Rational Vaccines, Dr. Halford followed safety protocols appropriate to the clinical trial.”

But other researchers said they were appalled by what they described as the university’s complicity in ignoring more than 70 years of safety protocols. Scientists called for more rigorous clinical trial oversight in the wake of Nazi atrocities involving human experiments in the 1940s.

“You can’t just ignore human-subject protections that have evolved since the end of the Second World War,” said Zenilman, who served as a technical consultant to the presidential commission on bioethical issues during the Obama administration.

Zenilman, an expert on sexually transmitted diseases, cited U.S. government research in the late 1940s that deliberately infected study participants in Guatemala with sexually transmitted diseases without their consent.

In 1974, Congress passed sweeping regulations aimed at protecting human subjects, requiring IRBs in government-funded research. Later, an advisory committee to the U.S. government wrote of the need for safety review committees to ensure that “basic ethical principles” were in place to protect human subjects from harm. The 1979 Belmont Report also urged researchers to balance the risk to the human subject against the benefit of any breakthrough in medicine.

While the FDA declined to comment on the herpes vaccine trial, spokeswoman Lauren Smith Dyer said “the FDA believes that the oversight of clinical investigations, including review by an IRB, is critically important and is a regulatory requirement for clinical investigations subject to FDA regulations.”

Despite Gottlieb’s stance on the need for FDA streamlining, many researchers are skeptical that he would approve a vaccine based on trials that did not follow American regulations or traditional safety rules for its experiments.

Even so, Fernández, a former Hollywood filmmaker, said he and his investors plan to submit the trial data to the FDA in hopes of getting the vaccine approved for treatment. If the FDA does not respond favorably, he said, the company will continue its trials in Mexico and Australia. Fernández said he hopes to set up an IRB for these next trials. No matter what, he plans to manufacture the vaccine offshore. However, without U.S. approval, the challenges to market such a vaccine in the United States remain significant.

A Thiel representative said the billionaire was not available to answer questions by email or in an interview. Thiel, who rose to prominence as co-founder of PayPal, reportedly advised Trump on possible FDA nominees after donating $1.25 million to his presidential campaign. Thiel has been a vocal critic of the FDA, claiming in an interview that its approval process was so unwieldy “you would not be able to invent the polio vaccine today.”

Fernández said he hoped the trials would put political pressure on the FDA to give the vaccine a closer look. He said his vaccine would be initially aimed at helping patients who experience the “worst of the worst” symptoms. He believed the vaccine eventually would be shown to be effective in preventing the spread of the disease. According to the CDC, about 1 in 6 people ages 14 to 49 have genital herpes.

“I will not stop,” said Fernández, who described the trials as his personal mission. “Too many people are suffering.” Before the trial, Halford tested the vaccine on himself and Fernández. After he failed to secure federal funding and an IRB, Halford moved ahead with the trial offshore.

Other researchers said they feared that desperate herpes patients would seek to be test participants or get the vaccine without being informed properly of the risk.

Researchers at several universities and private clinical research centers are working on two different herpes vaccines under FDA and IRB oversight. One is expected to undergo final trials by 2018 before being submitted to the FDA for final approval. In addition, the National Institutes of Health has conducted a first trial of a third potential vaccine.

Califf said drugs and vaccines are often costly to bring to market simply because they initially don’t work or are shown to be unsafe.

“The FDA is not the problem,” Califf said. “The issue is that there are so many failures.”

The vaccine’s researchers told KHN the St. Kitts trial showed the vaccine is safe and highly effective in preventing outbreaks in herpes patients.

The results have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal and Halford’s previous attempt to publish was rejected. Reviewers of the paper said they were concerned by the lack of safety and said they were skeptical about his scientific approach.

Yet some herpes patients, who are part of a tight-knit online community, have followed the project with hope and enthusiasm.

One American participant said he decided to go public with his experience despite the condition’s stigma. Richard Mancuso said he was recruited for the trial on Facebook and grew to be friends with Halford, whom he described as a “hero.”

Mancuso said the vaccine has stopped his severe outbreaks. “This has saved my life,” he said.

Fernández of Rational Vaccines said another SIU professor, Edward Gershburg, an associate professor in the university’s Department of Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Cell Biology, has agreed to become the company’s chief technical officer.

But Kayte Spector-Bagdady, who leads the University of Michigan Medical School’s Research Ethics Service, said the St. Kitts trial could be seen as a violation of SIU’s commitment to the Department of Health and Human Services.

SIU voluntarily agreed to follow U.S. safety requirements and set up an IRB for all research involving human subjects, according to records. Many universities make such a commitment to HHS, even if the experiments are abroad and don’t rely on federal grants.

Rational Vaccines was established in February 2015 and the company entered into its patent agreement with the university later that year, Fernández said.

But when asked about its commitment to HHS, Carlson, the university spokeswoman, said the university first learned about the trial in October 2016 — after it had ended. Carlson said Halford didn’t need to bring the trial to SIU’s IRB because the trial wasn’t overseen by the university.

However, after a reporter raised questions about the lack of an IRB, Carlson added that the university would “take this opportunity to review our internal processes to assure we are following best practices.”

KHN’s coverage of prescription drug development, costs and pricing is supported in part by theLaura and John Arnold Foundation.

Thousands of advertisers have blacklisted Breitbart. Can Sinclair really partner with the site?

Steve Bannon (Credit: Getty/Win McNamee)

After newly reinstated Breitbart.com chief Stephen Bannon was fired from his role as a senior adviser in the Trump administration on Friday, he returned to the website he aimed to establish as a “platform for the ‘alt-right.’” Rumors have it that Bannon will now seek to expand Breitbart’s reach — a goal that would be complicated by a number of factors, including a massive, ongoing advertiser boycott that makes the Breitbart brand toxic for potential collaborators. In recent months, more than 2,500 advertisers have reportedly bailed on the site.

Almost immediately after Bannon’s departure from the White House and return to Breitbart.com, reports of his rumored plans for a Breitbart.com expansion emerged. In Vanity Fair, media reporter Gabriel Sherman reported that Bannon “has media ambitions to compete with Fox News from the right,” potentially by forging a partnership with right-wing local news giant Sinclair Broadcast Group.

Sinclair is the largest U.S. provider of local TV news, and it often delivers embarrassingly pro-Trump commentary segments without proper disclosure to unwitting audiences across the country. Breitbart functions as the extreme online id of disaffected young white men venting their child-like frustrations by trolling everyone they disagree with (especially when they’re women or people of color). A collaboration between the two would certainly be dangerous. Good thing that probably won’t happen.

Politico’s Alex Weprin laid out several issues a Breitbart.com expansion to television would face, including difficulties with attracting the type of cable news audience (read: ages 60+) that would normally tune into Fox News. Another factor that could stop Bannon in his tracks: Breitbart.com has become completely untouchable for hundreds of advertisers.

Since November, activist group Sleeping Giants has been waging a successful social media campaign asking advertisers to disassociate themselves from Breitbart’s extremism. In June, Breitbart.com ads had reportedly shrank by “nearly 90 percent” in just three months. Reports from earlier today revealed that “nearly 2,600 advertisers have pulled advertising from the far-right website.”

Breitbart’s “bleeding ad revenue” is yet another in a list of numerous strategic and financial reasons (not to mention the ideological, and, above all, moral reasons) Sinclair ought to avoid the infamously toxic, hate-filled troll cesspool at all costs.

Anti-vaccination beliefs don’t follow the usual political polarization

FILE - In this Jan. 29, 2015 file photo, a pediatrician uses a syringe to vaccinate a 1-year-old with the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine in Northridge, Calif. (Credit: AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)

When health officials learned that the 2015 measles outbreak was caused by clusters of unvaccinated children, Americans once more wanted to understand why some parents do not vaccinate their children. In our highly polarized culture, media commentators and even academics began to connect opposition to vaccination to either the left or right of politics.

So a question arises: Who is more likely to be opposed to vaccination, liberals or conservatives? As a sociologist who studies infectious disease, I took a look at this. The answer seems to depend on what question you ask.

Because the outbreak started in the wealthy, liberal enclave of Marin County, California, and because some of the best-known “anti-vaxxers” are Hollywood actors, some right-leaning media outlets connected opposition to vaccination to liberals and related it to other “anti-science” beliefs like fear of GMOs, use of alternative medicine, and even astrology. Other writers have opposed such a caricature and have argued that opposition to vaccination is actually either bipartisan or a specifically conservative problem. Academic research on the topic is also conflicted.

While historians have shown that there is a long history of opposition to vaccination in America, the contemporary anti-vaccination movement got its major boost in 1998 when Andrew Wakefield published faulty research in The Lancet that falsely claimed that the mumps, measles and rubella (MMR) vaccine was related to autism.

As to whether liberals or conservatives are now more likely to be opposed to vaccination, some researchers have suggested that, while anti-vaccination beliefs have spread to libertarians on the right, the anti-vaccination movement originates and finds its strongest support in the political left. A later article by the same researchers similarly argues that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) evidence shows that states that voted for Obama in 2012 have higher rates of nonmedical vaccination exemptions.

Yet, other research suggests that it is in fact conservatives who are more likely to believe that vaccines cause autism, that it is liberals who are more likely to endorse pro-vaccination statements and that the more strongly someone identifies with the Republican Party, the more likely he or she is to have a negative opinion of vaccination.

Some new evidence

The Pew Research Center has conducted two surveys that asked about vaccination. One survey in early 2015 asked respondents about whether they thought vaccines were safe, and another survey in late 2014 asked respondents about U.S. vaccination policy and whether vaccination for children should be required or a parent’s choice.

When relating the answers to these questions in the Pew surveys to people’s political views, I find an interesting divergence. The more conservative and also the more liberal someone is, the more likely he or she is to believe that vaccination is unsafe.

Yet only those who are very conservative are more likely to believe that vaccination should be a parent’s choice. This suggests the social dynamics that shape Americans’ personal beliefs about vaccine safety are not the same as the social dynamics that shape their views about whether parents can decide not to vaccinate their children.

To examine this issue, I used a statistical technique called logistic regression that allows you to examine how the probability of a certain outcome will change depending on the characteristics of a survey respondent. I used it to examine whether someone is more or less likely to think that (a) vaccines are unsafe and (b) that vaccination should be a parent’s choice depending on what political beliefs they hold.

I did this while controlling for respondents’ level of education, income, race/ethnicity, age, gender, and parental status. I used the category of “moderates” (what statisticians call a “reference category”) to compare liberals and conservatives with. Let’s first look at people’s personal beliefs about vaccine safety.

What I found is that the more political someone is, the more likely he or she is to believe that vaccines are unsafe. Those who are “very conservative” are one-and-a-half times more likely to believe this than moderates.

Yet, the same is true for those on the left: compared to moderates, those who are very liberal are also one-and-a-half times more likely to believe vaccines are unsafe. It seems that it does not matter what your politics are, the more partisan, the more likely you believe vaccines are harmful.

When we look at whether people think that vaccination should be mandatory or a parent’s choice, a different story emerges.

Now it is only the very conservative who are more likely to think that it should not be mandatory: they are twice as likely as moderates to think that it should be a parent’s choice. Liberals are now more likely to think vaccination should be required: Compared to moderates, liberals are 43.5 percent less likely to think it should be a parent’s choice and those who are very liberal are 14.2 percent less likely.

What explains this divergence? First we have to realize that there is a difference in the overall number of Americans who believe that vaccinations are unsafe versus the number who believe it should be a parent’s choice. The Pew surveys indicate that 8 percent of the U.S. population think that vaccines are unsafe, while 28.2 percent think it should be a parent’s choice.

This suggests that there are a number of people who believe that vaccines are safe but also believe that vaccinations should be a parent’s choice. Why would someone believe that? It may have more to do with their views of the government than their beliefs about vaccines.

Maybe it’s not about vaccines, but about who’s in power

Since President Obama was elected in 2008, those on the right have had a much more negative opinion about the federal government. The 2014 Pew survey shows that those who were dissatisfied with the direction of the country in 2014 were 10 percent more likely to believe vaccination should be a parent’s choice than those who were satisfied (33.3 percent compared to 22.7 percent). Who were the most dissatisfied with the direction of the country in 2014? The very conservative (89.1 percent) and the conservative (81.5 percent).

Essentially, it doesn’t matter if you are conservative or liberal; the more political someone is, the more likely he or she is to think that vaccines are unsafe. Yet it is only the very conservative that are more likely to believe that vaccination should be a parent’s choice.

When it comes to political affiliation, it appears that the social forces that shape Americans’ personal beliefs about vaccination safety are not the same as the social forces that shape their views of U.S. vaccination policy.

Beliefs about U.S. vaccination policy and the role of parents’ choice may have more to do with what Americans believe about the proper role of the government and which political party is in power than what they think about vaccines.

Charles McCoy, Assistant Professor of Sociology, SUNY Plattsburgh

Why Trump’s new strategy for Afghanistan is the disaster you’d expect it to be

Afghan security forces investigate the aftermath of Wednesday's suicide attack and shooting in district police headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, March 2, 2017. Near-simultaneous Taliban suicide bombings and an hours-long shootout with Afghan security forces left at least more than a dozen people dead and over 100 wounded in Kabul on Wednesday, a stark reminder of the militants' ability to stage large-scale and complex attacks in the country's capital. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul) (Credit: AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

On August 21, President Donald Trump announced that he plans to send more thousands of U.S. troops to Afghanistan to extend the American war that began in 2001. The speech Trump gave has no details, only a tweetable line: ‘We are not nation-building again. We are killing terrorists.’

Three days later, Trump’s senior general in Afghanistan, John Nicholson, said that the United States military would crush ISIS in Afghanistan. The Taliban, General Nicholson said, should come to the negotiation table, while the U.S. would expand its attack on ISIS and al-Qaeda. It is therefore reasonable to assume that when Trump said he wants the U.S. military to kill terrorists, he meant ISIS and al-Qaeda, not the Taliban.

The U.S. currently has as many as 12,000 troops in Afghanistan, most of whom provide various kinds of support to the Afghan National Army. The Afghan Army suffers from poor morale as a consequence of erratic pay, poor logistics and an unclear mandate. Its war against the Taliban has been fruitless, as the Taliban’s legions have control now over about half of Afghanistan’s districts. The Taliban is so confident of its strength that in May it released a report showing that it fully controls 34 districts and 16 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.

In late July, the Taliban pushed the Afghan National Army out of Faryab, Ghor and Paktia. These areas are in Afghanistan’s northwest, center and southeast, proving that the Taliban is able to dominate areas far outside what had been assumed to be its base in the southern half of the country. A few days ago, Taliban fighters seized Sari Pul province’s Sayad district and more of Faryab province. The Afghan National Army will soon be the Kabul Army if this rate of expansion by the Taliban continues.

Terrorists

Rumors that the Taliban has collaborated with ISIS in some parts of the country have been denied by Taliban commanders. They would like to maintain some distance between themselves and ISIS, which has now become a central target for the U.S. forces.

Weakly positioned in Afghanistan, ISIS is restricted largely to Nangarhar province, where the U.S. had previously dropped the “Mother of All Bombs.” A key report from the United Nations on August 7 showed that ISIS in Afghanistan is not a viable threat. ‘Despite its recruitment efforts over the past three years,’ the U.N. Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team noted, ‘the group has not yet established a viable fighting force there.’

Money for ISIS in Afghanistan, the U.N. team notes, comes from Iraq and Syria. ‘Sometimes the financial flows are robust and other times they run dry.’ It is this money from Iraq and Syria that pushes ISIS to conduct such operations as the suicide attack on the Iraqi Embassy in Kabul in late July. ISIS in Afghanistan is less a threat to the United State or to Afghanistan itself than it is being used by its Iraqi and Syrian branch to put pressure on their adversaries (such as the Iraqi government) in Afghanistan.

It is now well-known that the Taliban has been able to absorb the best of al-Qaeda’s fighting force from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. ‘Many al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area,’ the U.N. report notes, ‘have integrated into the Taliban, leading to a marked increase in the military capabilities of the movement.’ There are now estimated to be 7,000 al-Qaeda fighters, most of them from outside Afghanistan, in the Taliban ranks.

Al-Qaeda has been under pressure from the Pakistani military in the borderlands, which is why its fighters have moved into southern Afghanistan and to the Idlib province in Syria — both seen by the al-Qaeda leadership as key places for its expansion. Two important al-Qaeda leaders who came from Egypt to Afghanistan — Abu al-Khayr al-Masri and Rifai Ahmed Taha—died in Idlib (Syria) in February and April. They had been sent by al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri to strengthen the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. Al-Qaeda leaders Qari Yasin was killed in Paktia (Afghanistan), where he had been sent by al-Zawahiri to unite the al-Qaeda and Taliban forces.

Nation-building

The upsurge of the Taliban has nothing to do with the presence of ISIS in Afghanistan. It does, however, have a great deal to do with the entry of al-Qaeda fighters of various stripes from Pakistan into its ranks. But even al-Qaeda is not central to the Taliban’s surge.

That surge can only be explained by the slow desiccation of the Afghan government in Kabul. Despite billions of dollars of aid, Afghanistan has one of the lowest literacy rates in the world (31%) and half of Afghanistan’s children are stunted with a third of the population suffering from food insecurity.

The collapse of humane aspirations for the Afghan people certainly fuels the insurgency and the violence, making it harder to build state and social institutions to tackle these key problems, which once more fuels the war. This cycle of chaos could only be ended if regional powers agreed to freeze their interventions in Afghanistan and if the Afghan state would be able to robustly build up the infrastructure to feed and educate its citizens.

Trump’s comment that he is against ‘nation-building’ shows how little he understands war, for the only antidote to this endless American war in Afghanistan is for the people to reconcile around a believable mandate for human development rather than violence and corruption. No such agenda is on the table.

Negotiations

Late in July, before Trump made his recent announcement, one of Afghanistan’s most hardened leaders, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, held a press conference in his home in Kabul. Hekmatyar, who was a key CIA and Pakistani ally in the 1970s and ’80s, said that ‘neither the Afghan government nor foreign troops can win the war. This war has no winner.’ This is remarkable coming from Hekmatyar, who was known as the ‘Butcher of Kabul’ for his role in the siege of that city after the Soviet troops left Afghanistan (more Afghans died in that civil war than in the mujahideen’s war against the communist government and their Soviet ally). He has called for negotiations between the Kabul government and the Taliban.

U.S. General Nicholson painted the Taliban as ‘a criminal organization, more interested in profits from drugs, kidnapping, murder for hire,’ but nonetheless called upon them to join a peace process. It is clear that whatever the U.S. thinks of the Taliban, they have positioned themselves to be a major political force in Afghanistan in the near future. This is why Nicholson and Trump have begun to distinguish between the Taliban (which should be in a peace process) and ISIS/al-Qaeda (which have to be destroyed). That al-Qaeda is now a key ally of the Taliban should sully this simplistic thinking. But it has not.

Negotiations seem far off in Afghanistan. The Taliban is well positioned to increase its bargaining power as its legions expand across the country. Surrendered Taliban leader Zangal Pacha (Amir Khan) recently left the fight in Nangarhar province with six fighters. He said that a foreign intelligence service — most likely that of Pakistan — has been egging the Taliban onwards to take more territory. Attacks on tribal elders and public welfare projects are being urged, largely to squeeze Kabul’s hold on the provinces and to strengthen the Taliban’s claim to being the natural rulers of Afghanistan. Pakistan has long wanted a friendly government in Kabul and it has seen the Taliban as its instrument. Whether the U.S. will once more turn a blind eye to al-Qaeda’s role in the Taliban is to be seen. History does repeat itself, particularly when it comes to geopolitical hypocrisy.

Meanwhile, violence continues to rattle Kabul. On August 24, a magnetic bomb in a land cruiser exploded in Sarai Shamail, wounding one person. Other stories interrupt this constant theme of Afghanistan and war. In Paktia’s Mirzakai district, tribal leaders have for years signed agreements to prevent the Taliban from entering their area. On the same day as the bomb blast, the leaders pledged to fine those who collaborate with the Taliban one million Afghanis ($15,000) and to ‘oust them from the district,’ said Khan Mangal.

Trump needs to attend to the tribal leaders of Mirzakai — people such as Khan Mangal, Haji Halim and Enzir Gul as well as women leaders such as Halima Ehsas, Halima Khazan, Dr. Nazdana Paktiawal and Feroza. But he does not know that they exist. For Trump, Afghanistan is not a place. It is merely a battlefield for an endless American war.

For a primer on how to make fun of Nazis, look to Charlie Chaplin

Spectators watch the movie "The Great Dictator" with actor Charlie Chaplin in the cinema during the inauguration and the opening of the museum "Chaplin's World by Grevin" at the Manoir de Ban, in Corsier-Sur- Vevey, Switzerland, Saturday, April 16, 2016. (Credit: Laurent Gillieron/Keystone via AP)

White nationalists and neo-Nazis are having their moment. Former Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard David Duke is back, yet again, in the media spotlight, while newer figures such as white supremacist Richard Spencer and Christopher Cantwell are broadcasting their views via social media feeds and niche internet channels.

Many Americans are wondering if this resurgent movement should be ignored, feared or fought. What, exactly, is the best antidote for neo-Nazism?

What about laughter?

While the August 12 violence in Charlottesville, Virginia was no joke, the images of armor-clad, tiki-torch-wielding white nationalists did give fodder to late-night talk show hosts and editorial cartoonists.

In a different age, another ascendant white supremacist — Adolf Hitler — used a combination of garbled ideas, stagy phrasing and arch gestures to bewitch much of his nation, even as the rest of the world looked on in disbelief and terror.

While many anti-fascists offered serious and potent arguments against Hitler, comedians like Charlie Chaplin responded to the mortal threat that the Nazis posed in a different way: They used humor to highlight the absurdity and hypocrisy of both the message and its notorious messenger.

Chaplin homes in on his target

In late 1940, producer-director-star Charlie Chaplin released “The Great Dictator.” Often considered Chaplin’s last great film, “The Great Dictator” is the tale of a little Jewish barber in the mythical (but obviously German) nation of Tomania. The barber is mistaken for a dictator modeled after Adolf Hitler named Adenoid Hynkel, and the barber is forced to carry out his impersonation of the German warlord to save his own life.

The idea of a film satirizing Hitler was one Chaplin had been working on for years. Chaplin was a dedicated antifascist, and was alarmed at Hitler’s ability to captivate the German people. He warned members of the Hollywood community not to underestimate Hitler merely because they found him comical, an effect magnified by Hitler’s unfathomable decision to apparently borrow the most famous mustache in the world — Chaplin’s little black toothbrush — as his own trademark.

Chaplin regarded Hitler as one of the finest actors he had ever seen. (Hitler carefully monitored his public persona, studying photographs and film of his speeches, and taking lessons in public presentation.) Nonetheless, Chaplin, whose international success was based on little people challenging and defeating powerful institutions and individuals, recognized that comedy could be used against Hitler.

“It is paradoxical that tragedy stimulates the spirit of ridicule,” he wrote in his autobiography. “Ridicule, I suppose, is an attitude of defiance.”

Chaplin was warned in 1939 that the film might be refused release in England and face censorship in the United States. Political factions in both nations were anxious to placate the unpredictable, angry Hitler, and “The Great Dictator” could be calculated to enrage the Nazis, who reviled Chaplin as a “Jewish acrobat.”

But Chaplin was a partner in the distribution company United Artists; simply put, he was his own producer, and answerable primarily to himself when it came to risky investments. Due to Chaplin’s perfectionism, all of his films were expensive. “The Great Dictator” was no different: It cost US$2 million to produce, an enormous sum at the time. That perfectionism delayed the film’s distribution until the height of the English Blitz, by which time audiences in the U.S. and England were ready for Chaplin’s humor of defiance. In 1940, the year of its release, “The Great Dictator” was the third highest-grossing film in the U.S.

Exposing a fraud

Much of the comedy of “The Great Dictator” comes from a merciless indictment of those who would follow such a patently idiotic character. The satire mocks Hitler’s absurdity, solipsism and overweening vanity, while also highlighting Germany’s psychological captivity to a political fraud.

All the techniques of the tyrant are on view: the arbitrary demonizing of identity groups, the insistence on mindless loyalty from his followers, the unpredictable behavior toward foreign leaders that ranges from mere abuse to deceit, even the hostility toward science in favor of dogma. (A series of inventors die while demonstrating the patently impossible military technology Hynkel demands, like a bulletproof suit and a parachute hat.) Hynkel is also a casual sexual harasser and grossly overestimates attendance at official functions.

Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Fake German’ speech from ‘The Great Dictator.’

Hynkel bloviates mindlessly and unintelligibly. U.S. and English audiences were already quite familiar with Hitler’s untranslated radio speeches, and Chaplin took advantage of this, making Hynkel’s speeches an amalgamation of gibberish, non sequiturs and vaudeville German dialect humor, as when he shouts, “Der Wienerschnitzel mit da lagerbieren, und das Sauerkraut!” (“The wienerschnitzel with the beer and the sauerkraut!”)

Would Hitler laugh at himself?

The success of “The Great Dictator” spawned a cottage industry of Hitler satire. Some of this work was relentlessly lowbrow, such as the Three Stooges’ short “You Nazty Spy!” (1940), Hal Roach Studios’ short feature “That Nazty Nuisance” (1943), and the Warner Bros.‘ animated shorts “The Duckators” (1942), “Der Fuehrer’s Face” (1942) and “Daffy — The Commando” (1943).

The artistic peak of this cinematic effort was the mordant Ernst Lubitsch comedy “To Be or Not to Be” (1942), in which Hitler is explicitly compared to a ham actor-manager who embarks upon a vanity production of — what else? — “Hamlet.”

Hitler was a huge movie fan, and after the war, novelist and screenwriter Budd Schulberg found proof that Hitler had actually seen “The Great Dictator.” More intriguingly, Hitler ordered the film to be screened for him a second time. (Of course, ordinary Germans weren’t allowed to watch it.)

Interviewed for a 2001 documentary, Reinhard Spitzy, an intimate of Hitler, said he could easily imagine Hitler laughing privately at Chaplin’s burlesque of him.

The image of Hitler watching “The Great Dictator” a second time — admiring the work of the only public figure whose sheer charisma before the cameras could rival his own — is a compelling one.

Chaplin later said that had he known the extent of the Nazis’ barbarity, he would not have burlesqued them; their crimes were simply too immense for comedy, however trenchant. But perhaps “The Great Dictator” still reminds us of political comedy’s golden mean: The more political movements strive to be taken seriously, the more ripe a subject for satire they become.

Kevin Hagopian, Senior Lecturer of Media Studies (Cinema Studies), Pennsylvania State University

5 tech tools for kids in crisis

(Credit: hikrcn/Shutterstock)

Many parents wonder how they would fare as a teenager in a world filled with social media drama, texting troubles, and cyberbullying. Whether they’re the cause or symptomatic of deeper issues, the same tools kids use to connect can also trigger anxiety, depression, and even thoughts of suicide. For today’s struggling kids, there’s some hope. Popular apps, sites, and services offer guidance and help when, where, and how kids need it. Let kids know where they can find support:

Facebook and Messenger

Facebook acknowledges that users experiencing rough patches often share about it online. Now, when someone posts a potentially suicidal message, a friend can report it. Facebook then displays information and resources that the poster must click through before he or she can use Facebook or Messenger again. Though the process isn’t perfect, people are reporting and accessing help, which could mean lives saved.

Kik Messenger

Though Kik has been linked to cyberbullying, it provides a variety of resources for its users and their parents in its Help Center. Specifically, it has a page dedicated to answering the question, “Someone just sent me a suicidal message on Kik. What can I do?” and provides a link to prevention hotlines.

Tumblr

As a blogging site and app, Tumblr encourages sharing — and sometimes it gets pretty deep. On a page directly addressing struggling users, it offers supportive international links and phone numbers. Tumblr users also feature content dedicated to helping others.

Crisis Text Line

Reaching out while you’re depressed can feel impossible, and the fear of talking to a stranger on the phone might prevent some from calling a hotline at all. The Crisis Text Line offers a service that allows you to text with a trained volunteer. Kids often prefer texting and messaging to talking on the phone, so this resource fills that need, and gets kids anonymous access to help.

It Gets Better and the Trevor Project

LGBTQ kids are more than twice as likely to attempt suicide. Some organizations are dedicated to addressing this issue. It Gets Better started with one YouTube video and led to a website and an MTV special in the attempt to give kids hope and a place to go when they need help. The Trevor Project was inspired by a short film and offers texting and online chat in addition to a more traditional crisis line.

When “man’s best friend” feels more hate than love for an owner

In this undated photo provided by the American Kennel Club, a pumi is shown. The high-energy Hungarian herding dog is the latest new breed headed to the Westminster Kennel Club and many other U.S. dog shows. (Credit: Thomas Pitera/The American Kennel Club via AP)

Everyone thinks that dogs worship their owners — viewing them as gods of some sort. While that may be true in the majority of cases, it isn’t always so. As a veterinarian who has focused on animal behavior and the human/canine bond for 30 years, I can confirm that sometimes, no matter what, a dog and his person just aren’t going to get along.

Take Ruckus, an adopted Wheaton terrier with an attitude. He pretty much hated his new owner, Rick, and was none too warm and fuzzy with Rick’s wife, Cindy. Although Rick was a terrific guy by human standards, Ruckus gave him hell — much the same as he had done with his previous male owner. It started slowly with some space guarding and territoriality. It eventually got so bad that Rick had to call on his way home to tell Cindy to confine Ruckus for fear of being attacked.

To Ruckus, Rick was persona non grata in his own home. It all ended very badly one day when Ruckus was tied up outside while Rick was mowing the lawn. Ruckus’s constant lunging eventually dislodged the tethering post and he flew at Rick, teeth bared and intent on committing grievous bodily harm. A wrestling match ensued; the police and animal control were called while Rick hung on with Ruckus in a choke hold. You really don’t want to know how this story ended: not well for Ruckus, I’m afraid.

Rick adored Ruckus, but it was one-way love. Ruckus truly hated him and engaged in what I called unidirectional aggression. I later found out that unidirectional aggression is a recognized entity in people as well as other animal species.

While there are dogs like Ruckus who frankly dislike their owner, there are others who get no pleasure out of living under the same roof as them. They merely tolerate certain people because they have no other choice. After adoption, these hapless hounds just find themselves having to endure uninteresting or punitive owners. Some withdraw and remain in a permanent funk. Others simply accept this shoddy treatment as the norm and carry on as best they can.

In some cases, the dog may have good reason to be nonplussed with his owner: mistreatment will weaken and even seriously damage the human-animal bond. For example, a Brittany intended for hunting was constantly being trained by his owner using an electric shock collar. One day, the dog hid from him and lay quaking under the bed. When the man tried to drag him out, the dog bit him. You could say the man got his just desserts. The behavior the dog showed was fear aggression — directed toward the owner.

Curiously, this direct association between harsh treatment by an owner would not explain Ruckus’ situation because Rick never mistreated him. It seems most likely that Ruckus had been seriously abused by a man in the critical period of his development — certainly the within the first three to four months of life — and he never forgot it (almost like PTSD).

A German shepherd I wrote about in my book “The Dog Who Loved Too Much” was fearful of, but not aggressive to, his male owner. In this case, similar to the Ruckus situation, it was not what the male owner had done to the dog but what other men had done to the dog previously that carried over as a dislike of all men.

But this dog’s reaction was not proactive and aggressive like Ruckus’. Rather, it manifest as pure fear with no aggression — probably because of the dog’s naturally retiring temperament. When the man came home, the dog ran and hid and never appeared again until he left. The dog did not interact with him at all — except under one discrete circumstance.

When the man’s wife, a diabetic, became hypoglycemic at night (a very dangerous situation), the dog would run to the husband’s side of the bed and tug at the bedclothes until he woke up and realized the problem. The dog’s love for the wife caused him to overcome his fear and summon help when it was really needed. Bravery is not about having no fear but having the grit to fight through it. By this standard, the dog was as brave as they come — although he still would have preferred that the male owner did not exist at all.

So when you hear about dogs being “man’s best friend” and supplying “unconditional love” — that’s true only if the person adopts a compatible pet and invests time and attention, showing the dog it’s understood and appreciated. Long walks, plenty of fun, regular meals, clear communication, good leadership and affection should create the dog of everyone’s dreams.

It’s another instance where “the love you take is equal to the love you make,” to quote the Beatles. Mean-spirited owners, or those who have been duped into using punitive training methods, do not enjoy the wonderful bond that can exist — and their dogs do not appreciate them either.

Nicholas Dodman, Professor Emeritus of Behavioral Pharmacology and Animal Behavior, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, Tufts University