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There are many analogies Sandy Gale uses to describe her affliction: It's as if she is separated from others by an invisible barrier, as though her "self " doesn't completely fill out her skin, or that she is like a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox. But none of them, she says, really captures how she feels. "Nobody really gets it," she says, sighing. "Nobody."
Gale is sitting in the lobby of the Washington Hilton on Connecticut Avenue, where a convention of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is under way. Attendees include doctors, health care administrators, and concerned relatives, but Gale is, as NAMI euphemistically puts it, a consumer; i.e., a mental patient—"a science experiment," she says. Although back home in Ypsilanti, Michigan, she considers it a success if she can make it from her apartment to her local Panera's for coffee and a Danish, Gale left her comfort zone to fly to DC because she needs to do some reconnaissance for a workshop she's planning for next year's NAMI convention. Unfortunately, the syndrome she's desperate to publicize makes normal functioning a challenge. "If I feel in the middle of this interview that I have to go back to my room, I will," she says, somewhat bashfully. "I gave myself a ton of time to get ready to meet you this morning," she continues, and the casualness of her clothes—khaki clam diggers and a pink hoodie—suggests that it wasn't her outfit that took so long to put together.
A typical day for Gale: She rises around 9:30 a.m., never terribly eager to get out of bed. "I won't go out without taking a shower, because I don't want to smell or have greasy hair, but taking a shower makes you very conscious of your body"—or in her case, the fact that she feels detached from her body—"so it takes me about half an hour just to convince myself to get in there." By 11 a.m., she retrieves aforementioned breakfast, and then, if she'sfeeling up to it, she'll do an errand before heading back home for a long afternoon nap. "Everyone says, `Get outside!' But outside everything is infinite, and it gets you thinking about who you are and what's beyond. Then that preoccupation starts to hang over you. I feel better between four walls."
Despite having a master's degree in film that once got her a production job at 20th Century Fox, Gale, now 48, hasn't worked in more than 10 years. Most of her energy goes toward managing her feelings of alienation and avoiding anything that might trigger an all-out attack, where she feels so disconnected from her flesh and bone that she can barely move. "The woman who lived beneath me invited me over, but I'd been avoiding it because I didn't want to sit and talk. Finally, I went down and our apartments' layouts were identical, and whap, the disorientation of the duplicate apartment triggered an episode. I had to figure out how to fake my way through drinking a cup of tea when I couldn't feel a thing."
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Gale might just sound like she is depressed, prone to anxiety attacks, and tends to dwell on the existential more than is good for her. While all this may be true, her inability to maintain a solid sense of herself—a perversion of the Buddhist's egolessness, perhaps—has been given a name by the mental health profession: depersonalization disorder. It first appeared in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1968 under the name depersonalization neurosis, where it was described as "a feeling of unreality and of estrangement from the self, body, or surroundings." Until recently, hardly anyone had ever heard of it, but to the extent that mental illnesses come in and out of fashion—ADD, anyone?—it has of late been attracting much more attention. Depersonalization websites and support groups are proliferating on the Internet, and two research units dedicated to the study of the condition have opened in the past decade—one in New York, the other in London. There's even a movie about it called Numb, starring Matthew Perry as a screenwriter suffering from the disorder, written by, you guessed it, a screenwriter suffering from the disorder. "My hope is that the movie will blow depersonalization wide open, and people will come out of the woodwork and say, `I've got this thing,'" says Harris Goldberg, whose movie premieres this month at the Tribeca Film Festival. "It taps into what so many people are going through now, people in their thirties and forties who are feeling anxious."
Jeff Abugel, the founder of depersonalization.info and coauthor with clinical researcher Daphne Simeon, MD, of Feeling Unreal: Depersonalization Disorder and the Loss of Self, elaborates: "There is something very depersonalizing about society today. You can go on the Internet and be whoever you want to be." Some observers speculate that our endless choices of entertainment outlets eats away at the grounded self. "There are people walking around with MP3 players or cell phones, being absorbed in the vivid fantasy world of television and video games in a way that causes someone's immediate surroundings to drop away, and disappear," says Steven N. Gold, PhD, a professor at Nova Southeastern University Center for Psychological Studies in Fort Lauderdale. "Also, modern society exposes us to so many situations that demand different ways of presenting ourselves—we act one way with family, another with friends, another at work—that it makes it hard to figure out who we really are."
Cultural explanations like this can sound pat, as if with a few tweaks they could be blamed for just about any mental disturbance. But we all know what it feels like to be blurred at the edges every once in a while, when severely jet-lagged, for example. We can even induce the state—staring at oneself long enough in the mirror usually does the trick. The experience is analogous to the perceptual shift of déjà vu, although those with the full-blown disorder never completely return to normal. "It may very well be that there's a huge population of people suffering from depersonalization disorder out there," says William Narrow, associate director of research at the American Psychiatric Association. "It's a matter of getting more research to show how prevalent it is and its burden to society. Those things get the attention of policy makers and drug companies." Complicating matters, depersonalization also crops up frequently as a symptom of common mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. "When you have a symptom that's really widespread, our task is to decide, Where does it become its own disorder?" Narrow says. It might seem like semantic quibbling, but the debate matters. Insurers only pay to treat defined disorders—provided, of course, doctors are able to actually recognize them.
Enter Daphne Simeon, who is depersonalization's most prolific researcher and enthusiastic promoter. "A couple of decades ago, obsessive-compulsive disorder and body dysmorphic disorder were considered these rare things," says Simeon, petite 48-year-old with wavy brown hair and a vaguely European accent that turns out to be Greek. "They'd always been around, but people weren't widely aware of them, because very few experts were studying them."
In the current DSM, the mental health profession's bible of illnesses, depersonalization is grouped with dissociative disorders, an eclectic category that's still trying to recover from the multiple-personality-disorder scandal of the late 1980s and early 1990s (wherein a rash of cases were found to be iatrogenic, meaning they were induced by doctors who, intentionally or not, pressured vulnerable patients into manufacturing "alters" and recovering false memories of childhood sex abuse). Lately, the study of dissociation has been reinvigorated by the huge growth of post-traumatic stress disorder, which, although it's an anxiety disorder, has made it acceptable to look at dissociative experiences again—so much so that the International Society for the Study of Dissociation, whose annual meeting Simeon is attending in Los Angeles when I catch up with her, has decided to add "trauma" to its name. "The hope is that we'll draw more people and get a larger audience," says Gregg Robinson, the executive director of the newly named group, ISSTD.
The association tapped Simeon to co-chair a task force to raise the profile of all the dissociative disorders in the next edition of the DSM, due in 2011. And the depersonalization PowerPoint presentation she gives to the committee is a big hit—her main thrust being that the disorder will go nowhere unless the DSM definition expands so doctors can diagnose it accurately—but elsewhere, it hasn't been easy to nurture her pet subject out of obscurity.
After completing medical school at Columbia University in 1987, Simeon stumbled upon disassociation as a research fellow studying severe character disorders. Many "cutters" injured themselves because they felt depersonalized, she realized; inflicting pain was their way of feeling more real. The state was fascinating, she says, and as a bonus: "It turned out to be a wonderful area to explore and really build a niche for myself."
She began by trolling for sufferers via newspaper ads: "Do you frequently feel UNREAL or DETACHED from yourself/ your body/the world, or as if in a dream/fog?" Subjects began to trickle in. "It is as if the real me is taken out and put on a shelf or stored somewhere inside of me," said one, a 43-year-old clerical office worker. "[It is] like I am a spectator of my own movements," said a 36-year-old actor. Simeon ran her subjects through a battery of tests, asking questions such as, "Have you ever felt as if you were standing next to yourself or watched yourself like looking at someone else or a movie?" She tossed out the people who didn't meet her criteria, which she cobbled together from various sources, and those who remained formed her core impression of depersonalization. "There was a lot of consistency, and that confirmed that this really was a distinct disorder," Simeon recalls.
By analyzing her growing database, which now contains several hundred patients, Simeon noted some commonalities among sufferers. They tended to get sick in young adulthood; had an emotionally abusive or mentally ill parent; and often suffered from other mental illnesses, such as anxiety and depression. Simeon interprets the disorder as a defense mechanism against stress, a way of separating from painful or conflicting impulses and feelings. "It can be sudden stress, prolonged stress, the stress of another mental illness, traditional life stress, and it can be early childhood stress or abuse," Simeon says. In other words, just about any kind of stress can do it.
As Simeon published her findings, she started getting invited to hospitals to educate other practitioners. In her book, she suggests that depersonalization disorder may affect as much as one percent to 2 percent of the population. With her reputation now staked on depersonalization, it's not surprising that Simeon sees a hidden epidemic of it in our midst, but even some of her supporters don't share her belief that the disorder is widespread. "It's rare," says James Chu, MD, chief of hospital clinical services at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, who asked Simeon to speak at the famous psychiatric facility last year. "Even a specialist like me will see only a couple of cases a year, max."
Chu's colleague at McLean, psychiatry professor Harrison G. Pope, MD, is more skeptical still, but for the opposite reason: "If I was betting, I'd say it's likely a nonspecific symptom, rather than a disorder unto itself. I'm saying that because in the course of my clinical practice I see it every day."
Simeon's estimate is based on studies that she admits, in person, are inadequate. "We've been wanting to do a big epidemiological study, but it's a big deal to put one together."
Among those who do believe that depersonalization rises to the level of a full-fledged disorder, there is more disagreement—about the diagnostic family to which it belongs. "There are valid arguments in favor of seeing it as an anxiety disorder," says Mauricio Sierra-Siegert, a clinical researcher at the Depersonalization Research Unit at the Institute of Psychiatry in London. "Ninety percent of the patients I see are anxious individuals." And yet another interpretation: "I think depersonalization disorder is a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, except instead of the focus being on cleanliness or hoarding, it's on the self," says Evan Torch, an Atlanta psychiatrist. "Once the patient notices depersonalization, they get obsessed and keep looking for it; it's like, once they notice that they don't feel whole, it's very hard for them to feel whole again." Gale, for one, says that by thinking about her symptoms, she can bring them on. "It's an overconsciousness of the self that will kick it off."
Simeon regularly returns to the increasing number of people suffering the same constellation of symptoms as proof that depersonalization is a discrete entity, but this kind of reasoning has its limits. In Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and ModernMedia, cultural critic and former Princeton professor Elaine Showalter argues, for example, that advertising for patients, as Simeon did, attracts a suggestible population that is looking for an organic explanation for their personal problems. In Showalter's view, recent trendy disorders such as chronic fatigue syndrome and Gulf War syndrome gained traction because they tapped into deep-seated human narratives of victimization, which the media both reflects and propagates in an endless feedback loop.
But even if depersonalization has become faddish, that doesn't mean it's not real, says prominent psychiatrist Peter D. Kramer, author of Listening to Prozac. "Though I don't fully believe them, studies show depression to be on the rise, by perhaps 5 percent in 10 years, independent of changes in ascertainment. So why not depersonalization? For many diseases, we don't know why they wax and wane. Changes in diagnosis rates are common and do not in themselves indicate that a category is suspect."
Perhaps the biggest hindrance to Simeon's quest is that she has not been able to pinpoint a cure—and not for lack of trying. Various SSRIs, naltrexone, and the anticonvulsant Lamictal have to date been unsuccessful in treatment trials, though along with psychotherapy, they may help in some individual cases. "We need a drug," says Simeon bluntly, ever aware that deep-pocketed pharmaceutical companies have more to do with promulgating new disorders these days than almost anything else.
"I've tried everything. I'd drink turpentine if I thought it would help me," Gale says. For as reassuring as it's been to discover others like herself on the Internet, without relief of her symptoms, that comfort seems to be wearing off. Equally fragile is the sense of purpose she'd initially found in identifying and embracing her disorder. When I first met Gale at the NAMI conference, she was enthusiastic about being a depersonalization poster child, willing to trot herself out for journalists and explain, over and over again, what the disorder is like and delve into her traumatic childhood with her narcissistic mother and absentee father. Several months later, I checked in with her and she e-mailed me, "I'll be honest, I'm ready to give up on the NAMI thing. I'm tired of being ill. Really am." It reminded me of something that she had said in the lobby of the Hilton in a brief moment of despondency: "One day, I hope I forget all about this and don't care anymore."


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Correction Appended July 22, 2008
It was not an object lesson in Buddhist dispassion. On Thursday afternoon, following a teaching by the Dalai Lama at New York City's Radio City Music Hall, a group of 500 or more audience members screamed at and spat at a mixed group of about 100 people, both Tibetan and Western, who had been peacefully protesting the high lama. Police felt it prudent to move in fast, with horses, and herded the smaller group into buses for their own protection. The pro-Dalai Lama crowd had also flung money at their foes, an insult indicating that they had been bought (presumably by the high lama's enemies in Beijing). Said one of the antiDalai Lama protesters, Kelsan Pema, who is British, has a Tibetan name and is the spokeswoman for the Western Shugden Society, "If this is what the Dalai Lama's people do to us in America, can you imagine what they would have done somewhere else?" The combination of adrenaline, relief and the prospect of coverage left her sounding almost elated.
What had prompted the unnerving Buddhist-on-Buddhist confrontation was an intra- Tibetan problem that seems poised to go international. The protesters, devotees of a fierce "protector deity" called Dorje Shugden, claim that the spiritual leader of Tibet has curtailed their civil rights as part of a religious vendetta. For now, the allegations of the Shugdenpas (as they are known) are hard to prove or disprove. But even a brief investigation provides a vivid look into what experts call "the shadow side" of Tibetan Buddhism, contrasting the tolerance and rationalism that the Dalai Lama represents globally and the theological hardball over mystical principles that he seems to play on his home turf.
Dorje Shugden is one one of hundreds of "protector deities" that distinguish Tibetan Buddhism from more purely philosophical varieties. Historically, the god is associated with maintaining, sometimes violently, the purity of Dalai Lama's own lineage of teachers and gurus, called the Gelugpa. Indeed the high Lama himself prayed to Shugden for years; but the sect's purist and exclusionary emphases contradicted his own outreach to other Tibetan lineages, and in 1996 he began demanding that monastic abbots renounce the deity.
Those who did not suffered consequences, although how dire is yet unclear. Shugdenpas have long claimed to have been shunned and harassed. A 1998 Amnesty International report, however, said Shugdenpa complaints fell outside its purview of "grave violations of fundamental human rights," adding that "while recognizing that a spiritual debate can be contentious, [we] cannot become inolved in debate on spiritual issues." The sect suffered a public relations setback in 1997, when Indian police were quoted in the press saying that practitioners were suspects in the ritual slaughter of one of the Dalai Lama's close associates. (The suspects have never been tracked down or tried, however, and the Shugdenpas claim they were never proven to be devotees.)
Shugden practitioners deny that they are fundamentalist, purist or violent, and have renewed their complaints in light of an intensifying crackdown by the Dalai Lama. He or people acting in his perceived interests has expanded the loyalty demand from abbots to monks and even laypeople as far afield as France. In a nod to the Tibetan Government in Exile's self-definition as a democracy, each monastery has been taking a referendum on Shugden. When the "anti" faction inevitably wins, the monks pledge to renounce Shugden and deny spiritual or material aid to those who hold out. In transcripts that Shugdenpas allege record the Dalai Lama's comments, he sounds atypically (to the Western ear) authoritarian. "Shugden devotees are growing in your monastery," he is quoted as snapping at one abbot. "If you are this inept, you had better resign."
What pushes the current allegations into a potential human rights matter is the contention that those who won't take the oaths are denied monastery I.D. cards that the Tibetan Government in Exile allegedly requires to process visa requests through to the Indian government. (Most of the Tibetan diaspora lives in India.) "Families are being torn apart," reads Shugden literature.
Tashi Wangdi, the Dalai Lama's American representative, denied the allegations. "I have heard about the [I.D.s]," he said. "But as far as official policy goes, there's no discrimination." Regarding the oath to give no assistance, he said, "I am sure that no Tibetan government administration office has asked anyone to sign this document." However, he notes, "It is within the rights of individual organizations to have conditions that they stipulate for members."
The problem is that in Tibet most people shun those whom they think the Dalai Lama wants them to shun. The protesters display photos of signs they say have gone up recently in Tibet urging shopkeepers not to do business with tainted monks. They could be written by anybody, but most people assume they know the ultimate author of the signs.
Experts seem to think that there is something to the Shugden allegations. "There is considerable anecdotal evidence to support what they say," Stephen Batchelor, co-founder of the Sharpham College for Buddhist Studies and Contemporary Enquiry, wrote in an email to TIME, although, he adds, "I have yet to see any hard evidence." Wrote Donald Lopez of the University of Michigan, "Buddhist monks who apply for an Identity Certificates must also submit a letter form their abbot. I was told that there may have been cases in which, contrary to the policy of the Government-in-Exile, monks who worship Shugden have not been provided with such a letter."
Pema, the Shugden spokesperson, observes correctly that even if the Dalai Lama is not behind the current Shugden woes, "if he wanted it to stop, all he'd have to do would be to snap his fingers." Yet no one expects that. Most scholars e-mailed for this story were hesitant to line up behind the Shugdenpas, partly because of insufficient data, partly, perhaps, because of a feeling that this was a Tibetan issue ("these are monk wars," said one), partly because many are themselves deeply invested in the Dalai Lama, and partly because of the whiff of fundamentalism and recklessness that clings to the sect. Shugden "is about vengeance," says Robert Barnett of Columbia University. "I think that any talk of [its devotion to] compassion is misleading." Barnett believes that the movement's true goals must be "brought out into the open" especially to innocent Westerners before "the real social concerns that must exist" in Tibet can be addressed.
"People see hope in the Dalai Lama," says Shelley Turner, another protester spokesperson, with some empathy. "Seeing these protests against him must make them feel hopeless." She means, when they finally hear the harsh truth about him. Others surely believe the truth is on his side.
The original version of the story had the name of the Western Shugden Society spokesperson as Kelsan Norden. Her name is Kelsan Pema. The original version also misinterpreted the 1998 Amnesty International report, saying that the humans right group believed the claims of the Shugdenpa were exaggerated. Amnesty International's more nuanced view is now quoted in the story.

subset: commoncrawl


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Aboard the derelict sub, the girls find a clean boat, chocolate…and a kind of patchwork history of everybody and everything that came before them, thanks to the camera auto-syncing with the monitors on the bridge. In addition to all the pictures they took, and those Hanakawa took before them, the camera is a veritable cornucopia of visual (and audiovisual) information.
The content ranges from simple images of life and death, to the reports of a school robotic research club, to news reports of a worsening geopolitical situation that leads to large-scale war and genocide. On the whole, though, Chito and Yuuri feel less lonely, now that they were able to watch how others lived.
Suddenly processing more information than they ever had before proves exhausting for the girls, who fall asleep under the consoles and dream of their escape from their town.
When Chito wakes, she's too late to do anything about Yuuri getting swallowed up by a giant version of Cut. Chito suspects Cut might've been some kind of lure used by the bigger ones, but Cut's body language suggests that's not the case.
Chito runs through the submarine, desperate to find her one and only companion, and eventually emerges from the conning tower to find the Big Cut isn't interested in eating living humans, and spits Yuuri out. It then transforms to reveal it's a kind of semi-sentient mushroom.
The mushroom has a mix of good and bad news…though I guess it's mostly bad for humanity. They are systematically ridding the earth of toxins leftover from the human population after it destroyed itself with war. Yuuri and Chito are the last two humans left, by the mushrooms' reckoning.
All machinery will shut down around them, and after they've passed away, the world will enter a period of rest and inactivity, as the mushrooms hibernate. With that all said, mushrooms emerge from the nuclear missile tubes of the sub and they all ascend into the sky, likely to start "cleaning" the higher levels.
There's not much for Chito and Yuuri to do but continue on their tour, with the goal of reaching the highest level. Even with their companion/pet Cut gone off with its brethren, Chito and Yuuri aren't lonely, nor do they care if the world ends, because they have one another.
As with so much relating to this show, it's simultaneously a deeply bittersweet ending, conveying the lesson to not be troubled by things life you can't control (like the ending of the world) and take comfort in those you can—like who you choose to spend your days with.


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The cause of abdominal problems can be hard to pinpoint. Sometimes minor and serious abdominal problems start with the same symptoms. Fortunately, most abdominal problems are minor, and home treatment is all that is needed.
Many times the exact cause of abdominal pain is hard to find. The severity of your pain, its location, and other symptoms you have may help determine what is causing the pain.
Occasionally, severe pain that comes on suddenly may be a symptom of a rupture of the stomach or intestines (perforation), torsion of the testicle or ovary, a kidney stone, gallbladder disease, or blood vessel problems, such as an aortic aneurysm. The pain caused by appendicitis or gallbladder disease may increase when you move or cough. Pain that increases with movement or coughing and does not appear to be caused by strained muscles is more likely to be a symptom of a serious problem. A visit to a doctor is usually needed when severe abdominal pain comes on suddenly, or when new and different mild pain slowly becomes more severe over several hours or days.
After a minor abdominal injury, pain, nausea, or vomiting may occur but often gets better in a few minutes. Pain and other symptoms that continue, increase, or develop following an injury may mean an abdominal organ has been damaged.
Many medicines can cause abdominal pain. Some medicines also cause side effects, such as constipation, that can make abdominal pain worse.
Abdominal symptoms can also occur from an infection passed on by animals or while travelling to a foreign country.
Specific abdominal symptoms have been linked to ovarian cancer. These symptoms include abdominal or pelvic pain, increased abdominal size or bloating, and trouble eating or feeling full quickly. If you have one or more of these symptoms, and it occurs almost daily for more than 2 or 3 weeks, talk with your doctor.
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Author: Healthwise StaffMedical Review: William H. Blahd Jr. MD, FACEP - Emergency MedicineAnne C. Poinier MD - Internal MedicineAdam Husney MD - Family MedicineKathleen Romito MD - Family MedicineDavid Messenger MD
Current as of: March 9, 2022
Author: Healthwise Staff
Medical Review:William H. Blahd Jr. MD, FACEP - Emergency Medicine & Anne C. Poinier MD - Internal Medicine & Adam Husney MD - Family Medicine & Kathleen Romito MD - Family Medicine & David Messenger MD
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Obama Is Ahead, but Is He Winning?
The polls put the incumbent in the lead, but there are plenty of reasons for Republicans to be optimistic -- and Democrats to be jittery.
Three months remain until election day, and President Obama narrowly leads in nearly every national poll. Gallup's most recent tracking has him up 47-45 over Mitt Romney, for example, and just about every reputable poll for the last two months has shown a similar result. Nate Silver's weighted polling model puts Obama's current share of the popular vote at 50.2 percent to Romney's 48.4 percent, a figure that has scarcely changed since early June.
By the numbers, then, Obama is winning, if barely. (When you factor in the way the election is actually decided, by electoral votes, the president does slightly better.) Yet Republicans seem bullish on their chances. Take Karl Rove: His column in Thursday's Wall Street Journal was headlined "For Romney, Even Means Ahead." Romney, Rove argues, remains standing after weeks of pummeling from the other side. He's gotten tougher and more disciplined, and his fortunes will only improve as voters take a closer look at him with his choice of running mate and convention speech.
Rove isn't being contrarian here -- this is a widely shared sentiment on both sides, for a number of reasons. Here's why many Republicans think they're in good shape -- and many Democrats agree:
1. The GOP's enthusiasm advantage: The evidence that Republicans are more excited about this election than Democrats continues to mount. A memo released Thursday by the Republican polling and advocacy shop Resurgent Republic found that 62 percent of Republicans were "extremely enthusiastic" about voting in November, versus just 49 percent of Democrats. Gallup's recent polling found Democrats less excited about voting than anytime since 2004. Intuitively, this makes sense: Many of Obama's supporters seem weary and disillusioned, while Republicans, though they may not be thrilled with Romney, seem thoroughly fired up to get rid of the president. The Resurgent Republic poll found enthusiasm particularly lagging among young voters and Hispanics, two major parts of Obama's 2008 coalition. But it's worth taking these numbers with a grain of salt: According to Gallup, Democrats were far more enthusiastic than Republicans in 2004. It wasn't exactly a ticket to victory.
2. The economic drumbeat: Every month, a new jobs report comes out, and every month, the news is the same: tepid positive growth and barely a quaver of the unemployment rate. This has been the trend for most of the past year, and unless something dramatic happens, it's likely to continue, exacerbating with each repetition voters' impression of an economy stuck in neutral. There are three more jobs reports before the election, including one scheduled for release on Nov. 2, just four days before the vote. Each one brings an opportunity for Romney to sell his promise for change and economic turnaround, while Obama is stuck repeating two difficult-to-sell arguments: That things could be even worse, and that he has a plan -- it's just not one Congress has any interest in acting on. As Derek Thompson has noted, based on the economic fundamentals, Obama ought to be doing much worse than he is.
3. Money: Democrats are convinced they're about to get slammed with a barrage of GOP-aligned spending, and not without reason. Romney has been outraising Obama for the last three months; in July, the GOP candidate and his party took in $101 million to Obama and the DNC's $75 million. Obama also has been spending his campaign cash faster than it's coming in, investing up front in staff, field offices, and the early ad blitz they hope will define Romney. That means the Republicans also now have more cash on hand to spend down the stretch, $170 million to the Democrats' $144 million as of the end of June. And then there's all the pro-Romney super PACs, which are expected to far outgun their Democratic counterparts, possibly spending as much as $1 billion. As Obama himself complained at a campaign stop in Colorado Thursday: "Over the next three months, you will see more negative ads, more money spent than you've ever seen in your life. I mean, these super PACs, these guys are writing $10 million checks and giving them to Mr. Romney's supporters."
4. Voter suppression: Thirty-three states have now passed laws requiring voters to show identification, with others, such as Florida and Colorado, looking to "purge" the voter rolls of those they deem ineligible. Republicans have largely led the charge for voter ID and related measures, which the left views as a concerted attempt to suppress the vote of minorities and other Democratic-leaning constituencies; Obama campaign manager Jim Messina described them to me as the second biggest challenge the president faces, after the super PACs. Some the laws are now tied up in court, such as Pennsylvania's voter ID law, which one Republican state legislator boasted would "allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania" and which voting-rights groups such as the ACLU call unconstitutional. Another lawsuit brought by the Obama campaign challenges Ohio's attempt to shorten early voting. The Obama campaign has since the spring been aggressively working to inform supporters of new voting requirements, but many Democrats are downright fatalistic about the potential for problems at the polls.


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American Dream
The founding ethos of Longbox Graveyard is to examine the Bronze Age comics of my youth, and my feelings upon looking back at them thirty-odd years after the fact. But this blog project has reawakened an interest in comics as a whole, and even as I sort through my Accumulation, I've been casting a cautious eye toward a few more modern series. One book, in particular, is so well-crafted and been such a part of recent events in my life that it deserves a column all it's own.
A couple weeks ago I did a list of top Captain America graphic novels, and had to admit that the best take on my favorite character was — gasp! — a comic collection published in 2007. Captain America Omnibus Volume 1 collects the first twenty-five issues of Ed Brubaker's run on Volume 5 of Captain America. That we've gotten to five volumes on this series is a kind of mute indictment of how much Marvel and this character have lost their way in recent years, as each one of those new volumes represents a "this time we're getting it RIGHT!" reboot.
But this time they did get it right.
I backed into this book, having given up reading comics regularly decades before. I checked in every now and then — I recall reading a couple issues of Ultimate Avengers, where Cap was a crusty, old-school badass, and I think I read some Mark Waid books doing an ill-advised mid-nineties reboot — but Cap was entirely off my radar when I discovered this big omnibus in 2007. It was out of character for me to buy it, full price, off the rack at a Virgin store in Arizona, but I was on vacation with my family, and enjoying a peak year thanks to the sale of High Moon Studios to Vivendi, so I tumbled.
Plus as I noted in that column a couple weeks ago, I loved Cap even if I hated his comics. And the tremendous cover didn't hurt.
My expectations were low. I had a generally poor opinion of post-Bronze Age comics, especially comics I'd read in the 1990s, which struck me as "brand withdrawals" at the expense of the earnest if inconsistent brilliance of the original work from the 1960s. To me, modern books were all reboots, grim heroes, crappy costumes, and issue re-numbering gimmicks pandering to a dwindling audience of greying fanboys.
No, thanks.
This modern superhero book, though … it was a different breed. Far from being a brand withdrawal, it reinvigorated the seventy-year-old character of Captain America with what I've come to regard as the finest stories ever told about my favorite superhero.
It also helped get me back into comics, though it would take years for me to realize it.
I read the book, loved it, and wanted more, but discovered there were no additional collected volumes yet available, and my only option was to transition over to the regular comic book. That meant reading the story in monthly chunks (when the book could manage to stay on schedule), and being even more at the whim of Marvel's marketing-driven editorial cross-over events, like the Civil War and House of M stories that intruded on the conclusion of the Omnibus. I'd have to trek to a comic shop to buy books in an inferior "floppy" form … and as much as I cherish Southern California Comics, I'm not interested in visiting there more than two or three times a year. I loved this new take on Cap from Brubaker and Steve Epting, but I had zero desire to become a monthly comic reader again, and so set this volume on the shelf and promptly forgot about it.
Flash forward to the summer of 2011, and my son Jack's innocent question about whether I had any Thor comics for him to read (and my own realization that I couldn't find those books for him) has given birth to this blog. Originally intended just to keep me on track while sorting my old books, Longbox Graveyard was beginning to take on a little life of its own. It was Chris Ulm — ever my editor — who said I should do a column on Cap graphic novels to tie in with release of the movie, and that sounded like a good idea, both to get me back in touch with my favorite comics character, and as a means of getting new readers for the blog.
I re-read about half of the Brubaker Omnibus, to confirm that it was as good as I remembered and deserved to be #1 on my list (and it was), but then got distracted by a more recent arrival on my shelf.
As I've written before, Cap's best years were over well before I started collecting his book in 1974, and the events of Cap's run in Tales of Suspense — with it's Cosmic Cube, Sleepers, A.I.M., and the Red Skull — formed the rich and mysterious back-story to the inferior era of the books I had actually read. This new Captain America Omnibus Vol. 1 HC collected all the Silver Age stuff that I'd missed, and with this blog project making me all nostalgic for the good old days, this seemed a good time to go back to the era where men wore hats, Steve Rogers smoked a pipe, and Jack Kirby never drew Cap with his feet less than four feet apart from each other.
I read those issues the way I read pulp fiction like John Carter of Mars, Doc Savage, or the Shadow — for the concepts, the characters, and the ideas — but with diminished expectations for execution, plot, and dialogue. Cap's Silver Age run still has a lot to offer. There's Kirby, of course, who delivers the goods from month to month, and Stan Lee's scripting is decent (if overwrought), but the series is second rate, really a collection of crazy ideas that fall apart under close inspection. I mean, the Sleepers are … well, a headless robot that stomps around, that joins up with a flying wing, that is completed by a big flying steel skull, that all connects together to fly to the North Pole to destroy the world.
It's horrible.
yes, that's really the Third Sleeper … sorry to disappoint
But the concept of Nazi terror weapons lying dormant in the earth until "Der Tag" is awesome, as are so many other elements in this run, and I heartily recommend it to comics fans that know what they're getting into. I came away from it with my head dizzy from all the crazy details and events, glad to have read it, gladder still to have enjoyed the art, and feeling that I'd filled in holes in my goofy comic book knowledge.
I was especially thankful that I didn't have to hold all those details in my head or try to address them in a modern series.
Then I realized that's exactly what Ed Brubaker had done.
Something I will look at in this blog, time and again, is reinvention of characters and core concepts. Comics are possibly unique in that the characters and books continue, while creative teams come and go, and the ideas of the books get worn out and need to be periodically reinvented to remain fresh. Some of my favorite creators — Alan Moore and Jim Starlin, for example — made a specialty out of this kind of reinvention. While I think there's something admirable about a solid run on a book that doesn't turn everything inside out in the process (like Doug Moench's run on Batman and Detective in the 1980s, which I will get around to reviewing someday), there's no doubt that when it works, a comic book reinvention is about the most spectacular and exciting thing that can happen in this form.
(And when it doesn't work, you have Heroes Reborn).
In my shorthand appraisal of comics reinvention, I've got Alan Moore on one side, who reinvented characters by probing deep into their psyches and revealing things we never new about them … and along the way, as I once read it summarized, made it seem like every book he wrote was the last comic book ever written. Moore took no prisoners and left no room for any creator to follow him. Really, who wanted to read Swamp Thing after Moore was done with that series?
Jim Starlin exemplifies a different approach to reinvention, redefining universes around his characters, going outward to find a piece of turf he could call his own. Starlin's work lacked Moore's impact because changes to a universe feel more ephemeral than changes to a character, but for awhile, at least, Starlin's work on books like Warlock and Captain Marvel was a breath of fresh cosmic air. (I will review both these series in coming weeks.)
With Brubaker's work on Cap, I see a third means of character reinvention. It might be the most difficult means of all — reinvention by embracing the past. The really wonderful thing about Brubaker's work, and the reason it is such a high wire act in a wind storm, is that he doesn't run from anything in Cap's past. All that Tales of Suspense stuff is in this series — Agent 13, Bucky, Red Skull, the Cosmic Cube, the Sleepers, Cap in the war — and Brubaker makes it all work.
(He gets extra points for degree of difficulty by making his obligatory cross-over issues of Civil War not suck, too. That man can write.)
Civil War … Lord save me from editorial cross-overs!
Like Walt Simonson's run on Thor, Brubaker embraces the best part of what works about a classic character, then makes the rest his own. He's so convincing as a writer that you just nod and go, well, sure, of COURSE it was the Red Skull's plan all along to use the Cosmic Cube to cause his own death but to also take over the soul of a Russian industrialist so that he can manipulate Cap's old girlfriend into killing him by poisoning her mind through the cat's paw of Dr. Faustus (Dr. Faustus?!?). It's as ridiculous as anything out of Tales of Suspense, but Brubaker makes it feel plausible, modern, and completely, authentically "Cap" because of the way he has deeply embraces the past of the character without being enslaved by the ridiculous minutia and continuity of the older books.
Finally, an even more personal connection between me and this work.
My oldest son, Miles — who hates to read and wouldn't pull his head out of Grand Theft Auto if the house was burning down — has gotten hooked on this series. So thanks to the efforts of Mr. Brubaker, Mr. Epting, and the other artists on this run, I can talk with Miles about Captain America and the Red Skull and Bucky, and the comics I read as a kid. We've connected as father and son because these ageless archetypes, so frequently abused by past creators, have been brought brilliantly to life by a creative team that just gets it.
easier to find a photo of Bigfoot on a unicycle than one of Miles reading something
(I know Mr. Brubaker is out there on the internet, and maybe he'll read this sometime … so thanks, pal, I owe you one.)
Completing my re-read of Brubaker's first volume with such enthusiasm, I now need to decide if I will push my luck and read the additional collections that are now available, covering (I gather) the death and rebirth of Captain America. They're on my shelf, still in their shrinkwrap. I don't want to see a great series go into decline, but seeing as I've waited all this time for Cap to get good — waited, in effect, since I bought my first Captain America comic in 1974 — I guess I'll be tearing the shrinkwrap off those volumes sometime soon. Given enough time, even a cranky guy like me eventually comes around.
- Title: Captain America
- Published By: Marvel Comics, 1968-present
- Issues Rescued From The Longbox Graveyard: Volume 5 #1-25, January 2005 – April 2007
- Your quasi-amnesic cinematic soundtrack for this time-jumping cinematic series: Inception [Soundtrack] – Hans Zimmer
- LBG Letter Grade For This Run: A+
- Read The Reprint: Longbox Graveyard Store
NEXT WEEK: #8 Ellis Island
Posted on August 3, 2011, in Reviews and tagged Captain America, Ed Brubaker, Jack Kirby, Marvel Comics, Red Skull, Stan Lee, Steve Epting. Bookmark the permalink. 32 Comments.
Wow, what a great read! Brubaker is the reason I read comics. Criminal got me hooked and I had to read more of his work. So I found Captain America. And I've read everything he's written since.
Paul, reading how Brubaker and Epting has connected you and Miles was pretty powerful. Thanks for sharing.
Have you read the Winter Soldier stuff? Wondering what your thoughts were on it as a comics story, and as a possible (at least in name) inspriation for the Cap 2 movie.
My review of the Ultimate Hardcover is here: http://eyesandearsblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/book-55.html
Mr. O' Connor, I recently stumbled upon your blog whilst searching something along the lines of " Bronze Age Conan , Buscema , Belit " and have been consuming as many posts as my schedule and kids will allow, you write with passion and humor , about subjects you clearly love, and The Lingbox graveyard has instantly become my favorite comics site/blog , so mad props to you keep up the excellent work
I couldn't agree more with your Cap assessment in this post and the previous blog, as a almost-45-year-old I came up in the Bronze Age, born in '71, and hold all from that era dear ( deserving or not ) and, I too, agree that's Cap's book always kinda sucked, except for the Stern/Byrne run and alittle of the Milgrom/Mike Zeck follow up run, I gave up on comics at the beginning of the " Unspoken Decade" and didn't read again until '00 and that was Wildstorm, specifically The Authority, Darkhorse, Hellboy, Sin City and The Preacher and random Vertigo titles , I didn't touch Marvel again until Quesada took over, and only read sporadic trades
With the media hype surrounding " The Death of Captain America " I decided to read, in trade, what lead up to it, and stumbled upon Brubakers run
Holy sh!t ! I was blown away, everything about it, you hit on all of it in your post, but I also love Michael Larks "flashback " scenes , I consider it the definitive Cap run
Curious on your take on Bendis/Brubakers Daredevil, guess I'll keep checking back!
Thanx for the stellar work I've enjoyed every single thing about your site/blog really well done
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text:
Thursday, December 16, 1982
Pix #1 - An early view of West Center Street near Wood. A Mann Bros. funeral procession, consisting of 13 horsedrawn carriages, is the main attraction. In the background are three of the four buildings that occupied the north side the the street to the alley.
Pix #2 - An up-to-date photo of that same area of West Center and Wood Streets, showing in extreme left the YMCA building that was completed in 1914 and adjoining it the more recent addition. Roy Kissing had the two onw-story buildings in the right constructed in 1960.
Pix #3 - J.W. Carter, optometrist, in his office when it was located at 138 West Center St.
Pix #4 - Before the YMCA was built, that area was a vacant lot. In 1912, a city wide revival was held in the temporary buildin shown in this photo.
Pix #5 - Arthur (Art) Klugsberg when he had a jewerly shop at 134 W. Center Street.
Pix #6 - House shown in this photo was once located next to the mid-block alley, where the two one-story buildings are now.
On the north side of West Center Stret, opposite the Lutheran Church and Luther Center there have been many changes too in the last 50 to 70 years.
The accompanying photos, both old and new, help to tell the story of the history of that portion of the street from the north-south mid-block area to the corner of Wood Street.
Today's installment starts at Center and Wood. Prior to 1912, the corner where the Y is now was a vacant lot. In 1912, eight of Fostoria's churches and the Salvation Army, which was active here, joined in an effort to have a city-wide revival service. The cooperating churches were Methodist, Presbyterian, Church of Christ, First Reformed, Church of God, Baptist, United Brethren and Evangelical.
There was no place to hold such a citywide event, so a temporary structure was built, as is shown by one of the accompanying photos. The photo shows a few of the willing workers who pitched in to make the building a safe, warm place for the large crowds that were expected to hear Dr. Henry W. Stough, a nationally-known evangelist. A companion photo from Ray Dell's collection (not shown) shows the building under construction with approximately 25 men putting on the roof.
The revival services continuted for several weeks with all of the schools and factories cooperating and participating in some way. Torchlights parades with bands were held. A scrapbook, kept by Nina Keiser, now a resident at Good Shepherd Nursing Home, includes much information about the revival.
The scrapbook reveals that there were more than 1,200 converts during the revival, 60 of them on one night. Prominent business and industrial leaders and professional people also cooperated to make the religious event a success. This brief description of the event is presented to reveal what can be accomplished when churches and people join hands and hearts.
In the background of the photo showing the temporary structure for the revival, can be seen the three-story building that once stood at North and Wood streets and was once used by Anderson's Underwear Factory, Allen Motor Car Co., A.C. Hoyt Seed Co., to name only the most prominent ones though there were others.
The next photo for reference is a current one, which shows the original Y building in the extreme left. The Y building was started in 1912 and completed in 1914.
The new addition, shown in the current photo, was completed in 1967. Plans are to demolish the original structure and replace it with an addition to the 1967 structure in the future.
The Fostoria Y came about when a group of influential citizens felt the need of such a facility for the male youth of our town, to improve an enviroment for improving "spirit, mind & body"...the YMCA slogan. It was not until many many years later that the YMCA's facility was made available for the girls and women in town, when one day a week was set aside as Ladies Day.
For the records is listed those influential Fostorians who initiated the meetings that ultimately led to the plans and raising of funds to construct the building, which served the community so well for many years: J.L. Cruikshank, E.C. Allen, H.J. Adams, Charles Ash, W.O. Allen, D.F. McCarthy, W.E. Ashercorft, Judd Asire, Alonzo Emerine Sr., Dwight L. Rogers, and W.C. Becckwith.
When the Y was completed and functioning, scores of businesses, professional and industrial leaders donated memberships to boys who coud not afford the cost and I was one of them. I can say, without reservation, that the Y and my church played a great part in my early life.
If space permitted, the complete history of the Fostoria YMCA researched and written by Fostorian Dr. John Slosser would be appropriate and provide interesting reading.
Another photo reference with today's article shows a Mann Bros. funeral procession lined up on West Center Street, in the exact area we are considering today. It seems strange that Mann Bros. should be a part of photos for this article, just as last week, nevertheless the author is thankful for the coincidence. The lead horsedrawn vehicle in the procession was positioned in front of the Y.
Many businesses occupied the two-story frame building shown in the extreme left of the old photo. when the photo was taken, the sign on the building shows only the name of Rowles, and it does not indicate the type of business. L.O. Sprout had a bicycle and Fixit Shop there for many years. Others in that building were: E.C. Lonsway, printing. Charles Droll, cream station; Joseph Rigdon, shoe repair; Marietta's Beauty Salon; Dr. D.W. Geohegan; Dr. Harold Fruth; and Dr. James A. Murray.
The second floor of that building (142 1/2) served as living quarters for many people, including: Samuel Beaver, Cora A. Compton, Herbert A. Reynolds, Earl Carson, Don C. Good, Robert Harrison, Floyd Amaugher, Floyd Davis, Mrs. P.S. Foltz, R.B. Spaun, Hazel M. Luzader and perhaps others.
The second property in the old photo was occupied by George H. Sparks for many years, dating back to 1915 and perhaps earlier. In later years, that property was owned by J.L. Carter and Mrs. Carter continued to live there after his death. J.W. (Jim) Carter, OD, their son, had offices in part of the first floor.
Jim maintained offices at that location until Octover 1961 when he built a new office building at 519-521 Summit St., and practiced there until August 1975 when he retired.
The story of Jim Carter's professional career would not be complete without going back to his boyhood when his father was an optometrist at 110 E. Center St. next to The Fostoria Daily Review. Your author can tell this story because he worked at the Review then.
Jim couldn't have been more than seven or eight when his father started to teach him the business. Jim recalls that in addition to being the janitor and errand boy, his father also taught him to grind the glass lenses for customer's new glasses. Jim learned the business from the ground up as the expression goes.
J.L. Carter's slogan was "See Carter and See Better" and some readers will recall that the Carter offices for glasses was located at various places in the uptown area.
Many readers will recall that Jim was a member of Jac Wainwright's band and made the trip to Chicago where they won the national championships in 1923.
Others to occupy No. 138 at various times were Walter E. Smith and David F. Stuck.
The building at No. 134 was a one-story frame building next to the Carter property, but does not show up in the old photo.
In the early part of the century (1903-04), it was occupied by N.H. Swanson, plumbing. In later years, other plumbing shops there were: William F. Iord, Lord & Shirk, Cramer Plumbing & Heating. Still others used that building were Faultless Appliance Store, Hartman's Radio Service, Marietta's Beauty Shop, Frankhard Shoe Repair, Arthur's Jewelers, Art Klugsberg, proprietor. The accompanying photo of Art was found in an advertisement for his business in a special edition of The Review Times, published in 1954.
The last old photo reference was discovered awery recently by Roy Kissling. It is the house that Kissling purchased from the Lucian Kinn estate and where he had built the two one-story structures shown in the accompanying up- to-date photo of that area. In the one on the right, he conducted his shoe repair shop until his retirement on Sept. 29, 1979.
In the other building, The Beneficial Finance Co. conducted its business for a number of years.
Today, Bill Heinsman Agency occupies that building. The other one is occupied by Shawnee Television Sales & Rental.
The house that occupied that site served as a residence for many years and those residing there included Mrs. M.A. Krabill, Fred A. Saliers, Mrs. Pearl Emmons, Harvey Blessing.
Businesses conducted in that property were: Yellow Cab Co.; H.J. Coffman, barber; Fostoria Bus Station; Dr. J.L. Murphy; and LaNier, insurance.
With a magnifying glass, readers will be able to see the taxi sign in the old house photo.


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Would you brave an electric fence to step between an enraged bull and the woman he's mauling? Would you go back once, twice, three times into a burning, sure-to-explode car to save its unconscious passengers? Would you jump into the track bed of a subway station as a train was rumbling in to save the life of an unconscious man on the tracks?
These people did. That's why they were honored as heroes. Would you have done the same?
Click on the audio player below to listen to this inspiring fifteen-minute Radiolab segment.
Radiolab is a radio program broadcast on public radio stations. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, each hour-long show focuses on a topic of a scientific and philosophical nature, through stories, interview, and thought experiements.
To subscribe to Radiolab podcasts for free, click here to jump to the Radiolab website, then click on "Podcast" just to the right of the RADIOLAB logo.
Click here to see all my posts featuring Radiolab broadcasts.
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Readers everywhere are discovering that when you challenge yourself to look through God's eyes, the world around you changes, and so do you.
Who will benefit from reading Through God's Eyes?
Anyone who is on a spiritual path, or wants to be.
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For an inscribed copy, click here to e-mail Phil for information.
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text:
Tagged: Sean Rodriguez
Sean Rodriguez Waits on Deck in Tampa Bay
By Tommy Rancel //
About a year ago, Sean Rodriguez was introduced to Rays fans. Acquired by Tampa Bay in the Scott Kazmir trade – a move some saw as a white flag on the 2009 season and a salary dump – Rodriguez is helping the Bay area forget about their one-time ace.
Coming into this year's camp, Rodriguez remained a relative unknown around Tampa Bay. However, the 25-year-old put on a power display in the spring, announcing his arrival. In addition to the pop, Rodriguez showed defensive versatility – a key to the Rays' roster construction.
After that powerful spring that saw him rank among the Grapefruit League leaders in home runs and other categories, Rodriguez struggled early on. Through the end of May he was hitting just .224. The power we saw in spring did not translate, as he posted a .329 slugging percentage through the first two months. Not only was he lacking authority in his swing, Rodriguez was also hacking at every chance. In his first 219 at-bats, he struck out 64 times, while taking just six walks.
He's made a charge since then, bumping his line up to he is hitting .257/.312/.411 in 351 PA. That's while playing seven different positions for the Rays – making him one of just 36 players in MLB history to play seven positions and surpass 300 plate appearances in the same season.
Because of his positional flexibility and his smooth defensive abilities, the Rays may have granted Rodriguez more time than a player with less versatility. Their patience is paying off.
Since August 1, Rodriguez is hitting .250/.348/.425. After struggling with plate discipline early on, he walked 11 times in his last 91 plate appearances. His .227 Isolated Power (slugging percentage minus batting average), over the last 30 days ranks behind only the Pirates' Neil Walker among second basemen.
Looking forward to 2011, the Rays are likely to have a few holes in their lineup. Without the ability to break the bank on the open market, the team will look to fill most of their vacancies from within. A full-time gig for Rodriguez could mean upwards of 20 home runs with multi-position eligibility, and some speed to boot. If you take that potential and add in his late-season surge, it would be a wise decision to start snatching up Sean Rodriguez in your keeper leagues right now.
For more on Sean Rodriguez and possible 2011 keepers in 2010, check out Bloomberg Sports' Fantasy Kits


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Comment from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education on the "Declaration on Freedom of Expression and Inquiry at Tufts University"
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is pleased that Tufts University has decided to renew its commitment to freedom of expression. Unfortunately, the draft "Declaration on Freedom of Expression and Inquiry at Tufts University" fails to adequately protect freedom of expression at Tufts and will, in all likelihood, invite more censorship and uncertainty while discouraging robust debate, candor, and dissent. The policy's most fundamental flaws are, first, that it fails to inspire students and faculty to value freedom of expression, and second, that its support for freedom of expression is far too equivocal.
The draft Declaration on Freedom of Expression and Inquiry at Tufts University fails to inspire students and faculty members to value freedom of expression on campus. While the first two paragraphs discuss the importance of free inquiry at Tufts, the remainder of the document is dedicated to exceptions to free expression and the university's role in regulating speech on its campus in order to protect values such as "dignity," "respect," "tolerance," and "civil dialogue." Taken as a whole, the draft Declaration sends the message that while Tufts would like to have free expression and inquiry on its campus, anyone wanting to engage in such activities will be subject to a number of vague and confusing regulations.
Rather than being a broad statement about the value of free inquiry on campus, the draft Declaration appears squeamish about First Amendment principles. The draft Declaration would subject Tufts community members to much more stringent regulations on expression than would ever be permissible on public campuses. It sends the message that the university is no longer prepared to cope with the challenges that come with unfettered expression, and it raises the question of why Tufts believes that it cannot succeed in its mission while meeting the same standards for freedom of expression by which public universities must abide.
Several specific provisions of the draft Declaration are responsible for the weakness of the document as a whole. First, the draft Declaration's statement that education "requires an environment of respect, tolerance, and civil dialogue," as well as its "obligation" to protect the "dignity" of others, undermine any serious commitment to freedom of speech in the document. Certainly, a college may say that it values "respect, tolerance, and civil dialogue" and, consistent with freedom of expression, Tufts may promote expression that "respect[s] the dignity of others." However, stating that Tufts, and indeed education itself, requires respect, tolerance, and civility creates an exception that swallows the rule of free speech, for any enforcement mechanism for these rules would require eternally impartial and infallible arbiters of what is respectful, dignified, civil, and so on. As countless philosophers, thinkers, and scholars have pointed out, no person or institution is qualified to perform such a task.
Second, the statement's assertion that the law prevents speech that may "provoke another person to violence" dangerously invokes the discredited "fighting words" doctrine which has been used by colleges for decades as a justification for censorship. True incitement is not protected by the law, but language that simply disturbs others enough that they threaten to cause a campus disturbance may not, consistent with freedom of expression, be proscribed or punished. To permit the possible reactions of others to guide policy amounts to granting a "heckler's veto" to the most disruptive persons on campus, enabling the most violent persons on campus to decide what expression will be permitted.
Finally, while a university may ban "harassment" and "intimidation," the university should be very wary of these terms, for they have been consistently abused over the past several decades by campuses to ban or punish speech that would be clearly protected by the First Amendment. Indeed, this problem is not merely theoretical at Tufts; last year, a student committee found a student publication guilty of "racial harassment" for speech that could not be considered harassing by any legal definition. The draft Declaration makes no effort to remind policymakers at Tufts that there is a key difference between, on the one hand, objectively offensive speech that is severe and pervasive enough to interfere with someone's education and, on the other hand, the kind of vigorous debate (including harsh parody and satire) that may well hurt feelings and even cause the kind of sadness and shame that leads one to introspection and the free changing of one's mind.
Given these fatal flaws, flaws which transform a policy intended to promote freedom of speech at Tufts into a policy that may endanger it, Tufts should carefully review and redraft the Declaration. FIRE strongly encourages Tufts to use Yale's 1974 Woodward Report as a guide to future drafts.
FIRE's primary concern with the draft Declaration on Freedom of Expression and Inquiry at Tufts University is that it fails to inspire students and faculty members to value freedom of expression on campus. This is a crucial flaw in any effective statement about freedom of speech. While the draft Declaration opens with two paragraphs that send a convincing message about the importance of free inquiry at Tufts, the remainder of the document is largely given over to the exceptions to free expression and the university's role in regulating speech on its campus in order to protect values such as "dignity," "respect," "tolerance," and "civil dialogue." Reading the draft Declaration all the way to the end sends the message to the reader that while Tufts would like to have free expression and inquiry on its campus, anyone wanting to engage in such activities will be subject to a number of vague and confusing regulations.
Overall, the effect is to turn a statement that seems intended to be a great university's declaration in support of its students' and faculty's most fundamental rights into something much more equivocal-a balancing policy that reveals Tufts University's squeamishness about First Amendment principles and the marketplace of ideas. In its current form, the draft Declaration would subject Tufts community members to much more stringent regulations on expression than would ever be permissible to apply against students at Massachusetts' nearby public universities and community colleges. It sends the message that, after 150 years in which Tufts has managed to succeed and thrive with less-regulated speech, the university is no longer prepared to cope with the challenges that come with unfettered expression. Since many public and private universities prosper despite their choices not to regulate speech in this manner, the draft Declaration raises the question of why Tufts believes that it cannot succeed in its mission while meeting the same standards for freedom of expression.
It has long been recognized that the university "is peculiarly the 'marketplace of ideas,'" as the Supreme Court argued in Healy v. James, 408 U.S. 169, 180 (1972). In recognition of this principle, the best model for Tufts to follow is Yale University's 1974 Woodward Report (later titled the Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression at Yale), which states, "the university must do everything possible to ensure within it the fullest degree of intellectual freedom. The history of intellectual growth and discovery clearly demonstrates the need for unfettered freedom, the right to think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and challenge the unchallengeable."
The Woodward Report acknowledges that such freedom may at times make life uncomfortable in a small society such as a college. But it concludes that free expression must nevertheless be protected, for "the results of free expression are to the general benefit in the long run, however unpleasant they may appear at the time." As the Woodward Report so eloquently states, to fulfill a university's primary purpose of "discover[ing] and disseminat[ing] knowledge by means of research and teaching," the "free interchange of ideas is necessary not only within its walls but with the world beyond as well."
In FIRE's experience, universities tend to restrict freedom of expression when they fail to publicly acknowledge that offense, confusion, embarrassment in learning that one's views have been wrong, discomfort in hearing one's views and values vigorously challenged, and other seemingly negative feelings and experiences are a natural part of a fully engaged educational experience. Moreover, such experiences and feelings are also a natural part of the vigorous discussion among free persons-a discussion that all Tufts students experience both on and off campus. Rather than being the results of a distortion in the process of education, such feelings and experiences are the natural results of engaging in the special marketplaces of ideas embodied in liberal arts colleges and research universities. As the Supreme Court stated with enduring eloquence in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943):
[F]reedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.
The more unsettling the challenge to one's most deeply held beliefs and values, the more such a challenge bears on what one believes is constitutive of one's very being, the more educational it might be. If the draft Declaration fails to inspire students about the importance of free speech and the opportunity for personal and intellectual growth inherent in living with free speech, while also failing to prepare students for the sometimes abrasive process of meaningful debate and discussion, it will become a burden rather than a help to Tufts University.
Specific Objections to the Draft Declaration
1. Enforceable requirements of "respect," "tolerance," "civil dialogue," and protecting others' "dignity" threaten free expression
The draft Declaration concludes with the statement that "The achievement of our educational mission requires an environment of respect, tolerance, and civil dialogue." This language might be intended merely to be hortatory. If so, the unique nature of the issue of freedom of expression makes it inappropriate to put such a statement at a university in the form of a requirement. The philosopher John Stuart Mill observed long ago in his treatise entitled On Liberty that those who seek to ban "intemperate discussion...invective, sarcasm, personality, and the like" cannot be relied upon to use their censorship powers equally or equitably. Rather, they choose to punish speech that cuts against "the prevailing opinion," while rude or uncivil speech lodged against those who differ from the majority is permitted. The truth of Mill's assertion has been borne out time and time again in regimes, as large as a nation and as small as a university, that practice censorship.
Civility, tolerance, and civil dialogue are worthy values, but they are not always realistic or necessary. Made into rules, these principles will almost certainly be used to crush dissenting or unpopular views. As the Woodward Report argues:
Without sacrificing its central purpose, [a university] cannot make its primary and dominant value the fostering of friendship, solidarity, harmony, civility, or mutual respect...[I]t will never let these values, important as they are, override its central purpose. We value freedom of expression precisely because it provides a forum for the new, the provocative, the disturbing, and the unorthodox.
Even if the authorities at Tufts could eternally be trusted never to make mistakes or commit abuses with their powers of speech censorship, it is unlikely that a requirement of uniform "respect, tolerance, and civil dialogue" is truly the desire of members of the Tufts community. Indeed, community members might immediately understand the pitfalls of such a statement when they realize that such a statement would require them to respect and be civil to people who they believe are racists; for example, they would have to respect people who openly argue that affirmative action is wrong and that Islam promotes radicalism-as the student publication The Primary Source has done. Whether or not the outrage against The Primary Source has been justified, it is clear that many in the Tufts community are not prepared to respect those views, and they should not be forced to do so. The academic community benefits from enriched discourse when people who do not respect one another's views confront each other openly and peacefully in the free marketplace of ideas. To ask people to hide their disgust for views they find abhorrent is to deny freedom of expression and, in many cases, the academic freedom that leads to exposure of flawed ideas and their correction.
The draft Declaration also threatens freedom of expression when it establishes an "ethical" obligation "[t]o exercise freedom of expression and inquiry in ways that respect the dignity of others." If this "ethical obligation" is in any way translated into a requirement or a policy that may be enforced through the student code of conduct, it has the potential to eviscerate all of the support the statement might otherwise provide for the protection of free expression on campus. Virtually any truly dissenting speech on any important topic or issue can be considered disrespectful of the dignity of others. The preservation of dignity is a completely subjective consideration, leaving members of the community in the dark regarding how to engage in campus discourse without violating their putative ethical obligation. Campus authorities empowered to protect a general idea of student dignity will have unfettered power to punish opinions they dislike. Any enforceable dignity requirement will chill expression and impoverish campus discourse just as effectively as would an enforceable requirement of "respect, tolerance, and civil dialogue."
2. The assertion that the law prohibits speech that might "provoke another person to violence" appears to be based on a largely discredited legal doctrine
The draft Declaration's statement that the law does not permit a person "to provoke another person to violence" seems to invoke the largely discredited "fighting words" doctrine. Although many colleges have used this doctrine as a justification for censorship, the use of the "fighting words" doctrine in support of university speech regulations was explicitly defeated in court in UWM Post, Inc. v. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin, 774 F. Supp. 1163 (E.D. Wisc. 1991), where the federal district court rejected the university's argument that the doctrine allowed it to prohibit a wide range of racist speech. Moreover, ever since the doctrine was introduced in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942), this doctrine has steadily been eroded by the courts. Many scholars, including Nadine Strossen, the former president of the American Civil Liberties Union, believe that we have now reached the point where the doctrine is essentially dead ("Regulating Racist Speech on Campus: A Modest Proposal?" 1990 Duke Law Journal 484, 510 (1990)). Indeed, the Supreme Court has not upheld a single "fighting words" decision since Chaplinsky in 1942, meaning that the doctrine is now alive, if at all, far more in theory than in actual practice.
While it may sound correct to say that the law bans people from "provoking others to violence," this principle really makes sense only in terms of the legal doctrine of "incitement." The incitement doctrine does not cover speech that merely aggravates, annoys, or even enrages the listener; rather, it covers advocacy of force "where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action." Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969).
Banning expression that would "provoke another person to violence" is a bad idea because it would establish a "heckler's veto" over speech at Tufts, creating a perverse incentive to threaten violence in response to speech with the knowledge that the threat itself will inspire university authorities to eliminate the expression of a certain point of view from campus. Permitting any sort of "heckler's veto" endangers the core of freedom at an institution of higher learning and the very rule of civilized law itself. The law expects Americans to exercise the level of restraint necessary to avoid responding to mere speech or expression with physical violence. Furthermore, the draft Declaration's apparent reliance on the "fighting words" principle under the rubric of "provocation" seems to presume that Tufts students will respond violently to the wrong words. This shares with the "fighting words" doctrine a dim view of humanity and is insulting to Tufts' students' ethics and autonomy.
3. Concerns about intimidation and harassment are not placed in the unique context of higher education
Another basic "dimension" of respect for one another, as promulgated by the draft Declaration, argues that community members should be "free from various forms of harassment and intimidation which may interfere with their ability to study, grow, and attain their full potential," but this formulation fails to put harassment and intimidation into the unique context of higher education. This issue is critical because the most common origins of assaults on free speech in higher education are collegiate efforts to rein in intimidation, racial harassment, and sexual harassment. The sad truth is that university after university has abused policies that ostensibly prohibit harassment and intimidation to censor much innocuous and even mundane speech. Abuses of these policies can soar to absurd levels; for instance, last fall, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis found a student guilty of racial harassment merely for reading a scholarly book to which his co-worker objected. Tufts itself is no stranger to the misapplication of harassment rationales, as demonstrated by its harassment finding in 2007 against The Primary Source for publishing political satire that would unquestionably be protected by the Constitution if published off campus, and for commentary focusing on race-based admissions and on the school's "Islamic Awareness Week." The same publication suffered a similarly unjustified sexual harassment charge in 2001 over a satirical cartoon and other written remarks.
If Tufts intends to take harassment seriously, it must ensure that it does not conflate harassment with mere annoyance-even severe annoyance. Behavior constituting harassment, as legally defined, is a serious crime, while annoying or offensive speech is, rightfully, not a crime at all. Under the Supreme Court's formulation, harassment in the educational sphere should be defined as conduct which is "so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive, and that so undermines and detracts from the victims' educational experience, that the victim-students are effectively denied equal access to an institution's resources and opportunities." Davis v. Monroe County, 526 U.S. 629, 651 (1999).
Likewise, intimidation, properly defined, does not simply mean anything that someone might find "intimidating" in the colloquial sense of the word. Legally proscribable intimidation is a subset of the "true threats" doctrine, which covers "statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals." Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343, 359 (2003). Within this formulation, intimidation is "a type of true threat, where a speaker directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death." Id. at 360. If Tufts wishes to address and prevent true harassment and intimidation through its policies, it should ensure that the language in those policies tracks these legal definitions. Responsible guidance from the Task Force on Freedom of Expression should provide these definitions.
Private Universities May Openly Declare Values That Trump Freedom of Expression, But Should They?
A private college or university may, if it chooses, adopt policies that reject the freedom of speech that students at public institutions enjoy. Private universities are free to make it known that students will not have the same speech rights as those they would enjoy at, for instance, a Massachusetts community college. Tufts would not be doing its students a service, however, by adopting the draft Declaration's ambiguous language that makes it unclear whether expression at Tufts is truly as free as it is at a public college or university.
As a nonprofit institution of higher learning with a long history, Tufts has a trust to maintain with its alumni and donors, as well as its current faculty and students, all of whom came to Tufts expecting the university to continue its tradition of free expression. Indeed, Tufts has presented itself as a non-sectarian center for freedom of inquiry and expression since its founding. Enacting speech restrictions would reverse over 150 years of tradition if Tufts decides that it will no longer uphold its noble promises of academic freedom and free speech.
Tufts has a 1.5-billion-dollar endowment, 8,500 current students, and more than 80,000 alumni, as well as 19,200 donors in the last year alone. If Tufts is willing to consider promulgating a moral and ethical obligation among its students to prize civility, respect, and tolerance above freedom of expression, should not Tufts also consider its own moral obligation to those who gave so generously to Tufts for the last century and half? Making the significant change of course and values that is represented by the draft Declaration would seem to require specific notification of (if not also discussion among) Tufts' thousands of alumni, donors, and students. Tufts may want to distinguish itself as a place (like many sectarian colleges) where certain values are more important than freedom of expression. If so, Tufts would then have a moral obligation to notify future students that this is the environment they are joining. Those future students, however, may not understand why a liberal arts college would so restrict discourse on campus in the name of specific values.
In addition, a significant policy change that restricts student expression would be a breach of trust with current students, who have joined the Tufts community under the promise of truly free expression. Likewise, faculty under contract who are subject to new restrictions may well decide that they no longer want to work under the new restrictions and the potential for arbitrary, viewpoint-based punishment. They might even find that their contracts do not bind them to such new limitations or that, as a matter of ethics, Tufts ought not to bind them to such new limitations.
In crafting an inspiring document that touts Tufts' commitment to freedom of speech, it would seem wisest that the Task Force on Freedom of Expression not overemphasize the exceptions to freedom of expression. Unless the document helps students and faculty understand the sublime and sometimes painful power of speech to spark meaningful debate and discussion, it will likely fail in its overall mission, with the exceptions henceforth treated as more important than the general rule.
The Woodward Report, a wealth of Supreme Court and other cases, and a variety of political writings over the past few centuries provide stirring language about freedom of expression and academic freedom that the Task Force on Freedom of Expression would do well to consider and quote. A final Declaration on Freedom of Expression, if it is to guide policy and to endure at a liberal arts university, should ennoble the campus and embolden all parties to make their voices heard on campus so that their expression may be tested in the Tufts community. Indeed, the Task Force's invocation of "ethical obligations that members of this community owe to one another" would seem to include, at modern liberal universities, an obligation dating at least to Socrates to challenge, to refute, and to vigorously denounce expression and ideas with which one vehemently disagrees.
Tufts is, of course, free to promote and teach the values it believes are most worth having. As a free institution in its own right, Tufts may also subject those who do not express the approved values, or who express alternative values, to public disapproval and shame. Whether such a practice is sound educational policy is a question for the Tufts community. But Tufts may not, consistent with a real commitment to freedom of expression, enact official punishment against anyone on campus for speech that would be constitutionally protected in any public forum in the United States.
In enacting the First Amendment, the Framers of the Bill of Rights realized that they were "tying their own hands" when it came to censorship of unpopular expression. Even though the authors and enactors of the First Amendment were among those who had their hands on the levers of power at the time, they realized that stripping governmental authority of that power might cause discomfort in the short run but would benefit the nation in the long run-and they were right. While reserving the power to censor might seem ideal for those in authority, it actually brings with it not only a severe moral hazard but also a practical one: when authority has the power to censor, it will constantly be called upon to use it.
Tufts itself has had this experience multiple times in its dealings with The Primary Source; because the university has been willing to interfere with freedom of expression, it has faced a great deal of pressure to do so. Once in the business of viewpoint-based censorship, Tufts has found it hard to get out of it. Unfortunately, the draft Declaration as written will put Tufts in the controversial business of censorship indefinitely. History is filled with examples of those who censored or suppressed the speech or beliefs of those under their authority. Such leaders are seldom remembered favorably, and they are never remembered favorably for silencing those who dissented. Tufts would be well advised to consider this as well as FIRE's arguments above, and redraft the Declaration on Freedom of Expression and Inquiry in a fashion that is consonant with our nation's finest, bravest, and wisest traditions of free speech and open inquiry.
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